|MY family at midnight lay asleep in their staterooms. The Indian moon
shone on the _Violetta_, which lay lifting slowly with the swell. The
watchman sat forward. Ram Nad, with his chief garment wrapped about
his head, was stretched on a rug on the lee side and just above the
portholes of the stateroom occupied by Susannah.
I was awakened by Mrs. Ulswater's suddenly pulling my arm. It was near
three o'clock in the morning.
“Listen!” she whispered. “Now, wait!” To my bewildered sense became now
audible the sound of soft, regular steps in the outer cabin and on the
cabin stairs leading to the deck. I arose softly.
I saw Susannah in her long night garment, of Mrs. Ulswater's making,
stiffly mounting the stairs with a military step! and beyond her, on
the moonlit deck, whom but Ram Nad, white-bearded, blue-turbaned,
white-garmented, beckoning, retreating! I was about to advance, when
at that moment Mrs. Ulswater shrieked loudly in my ear, and Ram Nad,
running forward, sharply shut and bolted the cabin door. An instant's
silence followed, then shouts and swift feet running aft. I rushed
to the port-hole. Past it and past my face went a swiftly falling and
fluttering body, which splashed in the sea. Was it Ram Nad? Was it
Susannah? Mrs. Ulswater was beating the door with her hands and crying:
“Catch that man, Captain Jansen! Catch that man!” Distressing moment!
Norah came from her room and mingled her voice in the tumult. But there
we were, locked in.
The cabin door was opened. Captain Jansen's comfortable bearded face
appeared, “Yes, 'm. But he yump for das boat. He gone ofer.”
“Then catch the boat. Quick!”
“Yes'm. But I got das boat mit un grapple.”
We all emerged on the warm night, on the moonlit deck. The women had
donned their shawls. This was the situation.
Ram Nad's misshaped and kilted canoe was held fast, and one end lifted
from the water by a grappling-iron, at which a sailor was tugging with
a rope over the rail. The two black heads of his rowers were just
above the water at some distance, moving hastily shoreward, their wakes
shining in the moonlight. Ram Nad was nowhere in sight. Susannah stood
on deck, the watchman forward sat stiff and motionless--both of them
rigid, frozen, mesmerised, wrapped up in his or her inner consciousness
like a ball of yarn.
“There!” said Mrs. Ulswater. “He didn't get Susannah. Doctor, we must go
away from this place. I don't like it.”
“We can weigh anchor,” I said, “surely, now as well as any time. But, my
dear, as to these ossified unfortunates, I don't quite see. I'm no Ph.
D. Mahatma, nor yet a brindle cat, hell-broth witch. It's mortifying,
but that's my limit. I'm not on to Ram Nad's spoon motion, nor yet his
lullaby. Hadn't we better wait and find another magician that knows how
to untwist the charm? Because Ram Nad appears to be drowned, and these
two, according to my notion, are, as you might say, tied up particularly
tight.”
Mrs. Ulswater tried to wake Susannah, but could not. She was indignant.
She thought that I treated the subject too lightly, in language I ought
to be ashamed of, that there was nothing funny about it. Maybe not. I
gave it up. I thought the situation was not without a certain sepulchral
but natural gayety.
“Ashamed” I take to be a vertebrate condition. I never could fetch it.
It's left out of me. I've got no centre of personality, no angles to my
circumference on which to hitch a conviction of sin, never could seem
to get hold of that kind of embarrassment. Calling myself a series of
conventionally derogatory and ineffective names is the nearest I can
come to remorse. But speaking impersonally, no doubt Mrs. Ulswater was
right.
At this point Captain Jansen called: “He's yump in! Yes, 'm. He's yump!”
We ran to the rail. There Ram Nad sat in his kilted canoe, wringing the
water from his garments.
Mrs. Ulswater said, “You come up here right away!”
He seemed unwilling, but Captain Jansen dropped a rope ladder, and
the sailor jerked on the grapnel, rendering his position untenable. He
yielded and came, wearing an expression of injured meekness. He yielded
to Mrs. Ulswater's command. He spooned and crooned Susannah and the
watchman into normal condition, and retired hastily to some distance,
holding on to his head cloth, avoiding Susannah.
Mrs. Ulswater now reduced matters to order. The indignant Susannah was
persuaded to bed. Ram Nad was put under guard. Mrs. Ulswater and Norah
retired.
The anchor was raised. The _Violetta_ got under steam. We glided away
into the Indian Ocean. I remained on deck reflecting, inhaling the
soft breath of the dawn, gazing at the fair palace of the
night,--how marvellously roofed and lit, how floored with sparkling
mosaic,--considering two things which equally excited my admiration,
namely, the constitution of this world and Mrs. Ulswater.
I conversed with Ram Nad.
As far as I could gather from Ram Nad, he had first gotten into
conversation with the watch, and mesmerised that: Norwegian, after which
he had hung himself down from the rail and mesmerised Susannah through
the port-hole. A subtle performance! He did not dare enter the cabin,
having a nervous fear of Mrs. Ulswater. Mrs. Ulswater's emphatic cry had
roused the crew. He had plunged over, and, rising, clutched the edge of
the boat; which being grappled and the coolies fled, he had submitted,
first to concealment, then to capture. Now,--he continued,--were his
excellent intentions frustrated, his purposes to instruct the damsel,
who had intelligence and temperament suitable,--excepting that she was a
female of a tiger and not respectful of elderly men,--to instruct her
in wisdom, according to the Precept, to the end that people might behold
him performing wonders, and his riches increase. But how then? The
righteous man endeavours. But if frustrated, let him be content. Yet
he could but wonder for what reason he was now being carried away,
recklessly, from his native land.
I didn't see, either, why we were carrying off Ram Nad, but it seemed
to have points of interest. I didn't see any real objection to it. I
suggested:
“You don't think that you ought to be skinned or drowned? Why not? It
depends on Mrs. Ulswater's opinion. But see here, Ram Nad, if you ever
try to mesmerise Susannah again, or anybody aboard, I'll see to the
skinning privately. I'll insert Mrs. Ulswater's knitting needles into
your digestion, Susannah shall stuff your mouth full of jackstraws and
head cloth, and Mrs. Uls-water shall make a Presbyterian of your mangled
remains. You hear me!”
Ram Nad took oath he would not.