AURORA ENTERTAINS US.
I’ll not swear I did not feel the loss of the dog more than I felt the
death of Greaves. Should I be ashamed to own it? The captain’s death I
had long expected; it came without suddenness, it brought no
astonishment. But the loss of Galloon happened in a breath. He was here,
and then he was gone. He had gathered a human significance from my long
association with him, my spoken reveries to which he seemed to listen,
loving of eye and patient. For days and nights I was haunted by the
thoughts of him, swimming round and round in that dark sea. He swam
well, and I say that it was long an agony to think of him struggling out
in that foaming water.
The lad Jimmy was broken hearted. So crushed was he that I had no heart
to deal with him for indirectly causing the dog’s death. For days he’d
snatch minutes at a time to stand at the rail just where the plank had
rested, just where Galloon had sprung overboard, and there he’d gaze
astern with his face working and his eyes bubbling. The men let this
maudlin behavior pass without jeering. They reckoned him half an idiot.
Yet the chap’s grief went deep. He was alone in the world, and had
nothing to love. Greaves had been kind to him, but he could not love the
captain as he loved the captain’s dog. Galloon had been his friend.
Often used the lad to talk to him as a negro talks to a monkey or a pig.
They’d lie together on deck, and had slept together, and now the dog was
gone the boy’s heart ached. He looked around him: there was no friend;
he sent his fancies ashore and found himself alone there.
On the morning following Greaves’ funeral I took possession of his
cabin. I spent a couple of hours in overhauling his papers, for I could
not bring myself to believe that he had been without a relative in the
world, Tulp excepted. I could not realize such a thing as a man without
a relation in the whole blessed wide world. Yet I found nothing to tell
me that Greaves had not been alone. I carefully stowed his papers away
with his clothes and other effects. To whom belonged his little
property--his clothes, his books, his nautical instruments, and the
like, together with a bag of thirty odd guineas and a quantity of
English silver? To whom, I say? To Tulp?
I found nothing to connect Greaves with a home, with relatives, with
friends--no miniature, no lock of hair, no memorial of ribbon or bauble.
Never once had he hinted at any love passage. He’d speak of woman with
coldness, though with respect, as the child of a woman. Had you walked
him through King Solomon’s seraglio he’d have seen nothing worth
choosing. Well, the yeast that had hissed to the plunge of his shape was
his tombstone. He was bred a sailor, he had lived the life of a sailor,
and was now gone the way of a sailor; yea, and true even in death was he
unto the traditions of the sailor--for he had received the last toss,
the sea had swallowed him up, and no man could swear that his name was
as he had styled himself, nor affirm with conviction whose son he was.
When I had made an end with the captain’s papers and effects I put on my
cap, buttoned up my pea-coat, and went on deck. It was blowing a strong,
fair wind. The brig still wore the canvas she had carried throughout the
night. The sea ran high, it was much freckled with foam, and its
frothing brows shone out like a hard light against the cold dark-green
vapor to windward.
Bol paced the deck, thickly clothed. He wore great boots, had a heavy
fur cap on, and a fathom of shawl was coiled round his immensely thick
throat. He fitted the picture of that pitching and storming brig as the
brig fitted the picture of that swollen and foaming sea. There was no
sun. The dark clouds rushed rapidly across the sky; they were of the
soft blackness of the snow cloud; the bands of topsails, the square of
the topgallant sail, of a light sick as the gleam of misty moonshine,
fled from side to side athwart the flying sky of shadow. The sea stood
up in walls of ivory to every plunge of the bows--I never before saw
foam look so solid. Where the bubble and foam-bell of it were too remote
for the eye, _there_ every ridge was like a cliff of marble.
Bol appeared surprised to see me. He supposed I was turned in.
“This is a wind to clap Staten Island in our wake.”
“Potsblitz! as der Shermons say, dere vhas veight in dese seas too.”
“Do you mean to live aft?”
“In der landt of spoons?” said he, with a smile wrinkling his face till
he was scarcely the same man.
“Yaw. There is a cabin and bunk for your mattress. You are mate--first
mate, entitled to live aft.”
“I shtops vhere I vhas, Mr. Fielding. I vhas no mate.”
“As much mate as I was.”
“Vell, dot might be,” said he; then added, “No, you vhas mate in your
last ship. I am bos’en. I belongs forwardt.”
“I want a second mate. Send the men aft, will you.”
He went into the waist and put his pipe to his lips. His roar was like
the voice of a giant singing the tune of the wind in the rigging. The
men knocked off the several jobs they were on and came aft.
The fellows had a homely, comfortable appearance. The slop-chest had
supplied the vacancies in their own bags, and they were clad as men who
were starting on, not returning from, a long voyage. Their health was
good. Some were fat, all hearty. I scanned them swiftly but with
attention, and saw nothing to occasion uneasiness; and I believe I could
not be mistaken, for of all living beings the sailor is the most
transparent in his moods and meanings. A few I have known who were dark
and subtle; they were not Englishmen, neither were they Dutchmen. The
English sailor gets a face at sea that prohibits the concealment of
feelings and passions, and, on board the merchant ship, he will look the
thing that is in him.
“Am I captain? Is it understood?”
“Ay, captain, of course,” exclaimed Teach after a pause, as though the
men had waited for one of them to act as spokesman. “If not you, who?
and if it’s who, vhere do ’ee sling his hammock? Not forrads. All the
larnin’s been washed aft out o’ that.”
“Mr. Yan Bol is your chief mate.”
“Ay, Mr. Yan Bol is chief mate. Who but him?” said Teach.
“Now choose a second mate, lads.”
“Is he to live aft?” said Friend.
“That’s as he chooses.”
“There’ll be no man wants to live aft,” exclaimed Street.
“I will live aft,” said Antonio.
“Yaw, towed in der vake, you beastly man,” thundered Bol. “Dot was aft
for der likes of you.”
“I will live aft, señor,” said Antonio.
“Curse your impudence, I’ll aft ye. Now, look. There are four Dutchmen
and seven Englishmen, not reckoning two Spaniards.”
“Don’t count them Johnnies, sir,” said Travers.
“It vhas oudt dey go mit dem soon, I allow,” said Hals, the cook.
Paying no attention to these interruptions, I continued:
“A Dutchman is already mate. If I choose another Dutchman you Englishmen
mayn’t like it. Now then.”
“Choose, sir,” exclaimed Call.
“I choose Galen,” said I.
There was a general grin, and Friend called out:
“We’re satisfied.”
“Then Galen it is,” said I. “Galen, you now act second. Will you live
aft, Galen?”
“May I pe dommed if I lifs aft!” exclaimed he, with a wide grin and a
slow wag of his head.
“All right; that’ll do. You can go forward;” and I went below, very
well satisfied with the Dutchmen’s refusal to live aft. Not for my own
sake; indeed, there was a laugh here and there to be got out of the
ignorance and talk and strange English of Bol and of Galen. I thought of
my lady Aurora. How would _she_ enjoy the company of those Dutchmen at
table, the society of those heavy, lumpish forecastle hands, half-boors,
half-savages? I suppose that never before in the history of marine
disaster was a girl situated as was this señorita. Are you who read this
a girl? Figure yourself, madam, on board a little ship; you are scarcely
able to speak the tongue of the crew; your only associate is a rough
seaman, your sitting room is a small, old-fashioned cabin, your bedroom
a bit of a hole up in a corner, lighted by an eye called a scuttle, that
winks at the leaping sea, your meals the pork and beef of the ocean,
your diversions the fancies that come out of the running hills of water
of the gale, out of the silent, swimming surface of the calm. Can you
imagine the ceaseless heaving of the deck, the long days of the crying
of the wind, the creaking and straining of a tumbling timber-built
craft, the sullen roar of smitten and parted waters, the indescribable
odors of the hold?
When I left the deck that day, after calling the men aft and choosing
Galen to act as second mate, on stepping below, I found the lady Aurora
leaning against the door of the cabin, with her arms folded upon her
breast and her eyes fixed upon the deck. She did not immediately see me.
I stood viewing her. She was attired in a white drill, or duck dress of
her own making. It would have been cold wear but for certain hidden
clothing she had contrived for herself. She looked a fine figure of a
woman. She lifted up her eyes, released her breast from the embrace of
her arms, and extended her hand. I brought her to a seat--it was what
she wanted--and sat beside her.
We sat together for near an hour, because we both had something to say,
and it took us long to communicate our minds, though, to be sure, these
passages of laborious intercourse were never teasing or fatiguing to me,
however _she_ may have found them; for there was a pleasure not hard to
understand in the mere watching her face when she talked or signed to
me. Her expressions were rich and manifold; her eyes darkened, softened,
brightened, shone with fire, dimmed as with tears, like the figure of a
star in the sea over which the scattered mists of the calm night are
floating.
But here will I put into plain English the words and signs we exchanged
while we sat together at this time. It may well come to it, for I
understood her and I know what myself said. Thus, then, ran this
conversation:
“Señor Fielding, have the men rebelled?”
“No, why do you ask?”
“I stepped up yonder stairs just now and saw you talking to the men.”
“It is true. I am captain, Bol is mate, someone must be chosen to take
Bol’s place.”
But, oh, the time and difficulty to make her understand this!
“I am very sad to-day, Señor Fielding. The death of the captain makes me
think of my mother. Most blessed and very purest Maria, does she live?
Shall we meet again? Ay me, ay me,” and here the tears stood in her eye.
“Señorita, this is what I wish to say to you. I have not the fears of
the captain who is dead. If we meet a ship of your nation, if we meet a
ship of any country sailing to Spain, or proceeding to a port in South
America, east or west, I will put you on board her if she will take
you.”
“_Gracias._ I am content to stop.”
“You are alone.”
“It is true, señor.” (Sigh.)
“There are few comforts for you in this ship.”
“True, true, ’tis true. Yet could I be content if I knew my mother was
alive.”
“If you are content I am glad. I do not wish to speak a ship, yet I’ll
do so.”
“No--I will go home in the _Black Watch_.”
“I admire your spirit. You have borne up very bravely.”
“To you belongs my gratitude, Señor Fielding. Throughout you have been
amiable and tender. The poor captain liked me not. Why was that?” and
here she bent her eyes upon me; their expression was a mixture of
archness and temper.
“He was in pain, was a little crazy, and would not always be sure of the
reasons of his moods.”
“I am not used not to be liked.” I bowed a very full acquiescence. “He
was not as you are. But he is dead.” Her hand flashed as she swept it
before her face, dismissing the subject with a gesture. “Now that you
are captain you will have plenty of leisure.”
“I shall have time to spare.”
“_Vaya!_ Time to spare--and yet command! I shall want you to give me
much of your time.”
I looked at her eyes and laughed when I gathered her meaning, and
answered: “All the spare time I have shall be yours, señorita. But how
much of that spare time will it take to make you weary of my face and
voice?”
“_Qué disparate!_ [What nonsense!] You shall teach me English, and I
will teach you Spanish.”
“_Bueno!_ Yet what is the reason of your desire to speak English?”
To this she made no answer. She cast her eyes down, and her face took a
demure look.
“It is a rough language.”
“It is a noble language, señor,” said she, answering with her eyes cast
down. Suddenly she looked up: the leap of her glance was like the light
of a flash of fire upon her face, so swift and cunning was she in the
management of her eyelids. “Do you love music?”
“Yes.”
“I will sing to you when it is calm, and when you can hear my voice.”
I thanked her for this promise.
“Are we not alone? We will be company one to the other. I have the
actress’s art, and can recite, and when you know some Spanish I will
speak many beautiful and majestic lines to you. Have you playing-cards?”
“I fear not.”
“_Eso me soprende mucho!_ Many tiresome hours could we have killed with
cards. Can you dance?”
“All sailors can dance.”
“I will make you an accomplished cavalier. I will teach you to tell
fortunes after the manner of the zingari, and you shall teach me
English, and give me your company until I tire, or until the ship calls
you from me.”
We broke off here that I might fetch my quadrant, for it was drawing on
to the hour of noon. Our conversation was not as I have set it down; it
took us a long while to work our way through the above; but what you
have read is the substance of what was meant and by our methods
conveyed.
I went on deck puzzled and tickled, amused and astonished by the
gay-spirited, fine woman below. Did she mean to make love to me? Did she
intend that I should make love to her? What would my teaching her
English and her teaching me Spanish, her singing to me, her recital of
swelling Spanish rhymes, her gypsy tricks, and the rest of it end
in--the rest of it, I say, backed by her impassioned eyes, the many arch
and moving and tender and fiery expressions of countenance she was
mistress of, her excellent person, and all that sort of sweet rhetoric
which is found, the poet tells you, in the laughter and tears, the
smiles and gesticulations, of a lady after the pattern of this Spanish
maiden?
I took my quadrant on deck; the sun did not show himself, and I got at
the situation of the brig by dead reckoning. The westerly gale blew
fresh and strong, and I needed to keep the vessel under the tall canvas
of the topgallant sail to run her free of the huge Horn surge, which
chased us as though to the hurl of an earthquake. It was impossible to
make too much of such a wind; at any moment might come a greasy Horn
calm with a swell like a land of hills; to be swept with horrible
suddenness by a black outfly right ahead. I saw no ice; the horizon lay
open, distant seven or eight miles from the head of a sea. We were
cutting the meridians spankingly, and three days of such sailing would
enable me to head the brig northward for England.
And very nearly three days of such sailing did we get, during which
nothing noteworthy happened, for the plain reason that so heavy and
violent were the motions of the brig, the most seasoned among us found
it difficult to come and go. Relieving tackles were hooked on; two hands
steered day and night, and a third was always near in readiness. I have
seen the gigantic feathering curl of the huge sea soar on either hand
alongside to half the height of the foremast and fall aboard in froth,
making it all sheer dazzle, like snow shone on, from the eyes to the
main rigging, till the tilt of the brig aft, courtesying with her bows
flat as a spoon upon the roaring smother of the on-rushing sea, sent the
water in a cataractal sweep over the head, where it blew up in white
smoke and drove away as though we were on fire.
This was a sort of weather to keep everything very quiet aboard. Hals
cooked with difficulty; he scalded himself, broke dishes, and filled the
caboose with Dutch oaths. The cold was bitter, and the chief work of the
crew lay in keeping themselves warm. Yet no ice formed; no hail or snow
ever drove in the sudden dark squalls which burst in guns of hurricane
power out of the gale over the stern; we sighted not a berg, and yet the
cold was frightful; the wind took the face like a saw, and you felt
half flayed when you turned your back to it. The cold of the spray made
its drops sting like lead, and it was as though you were shot through
the head to be struck by a showering of the brine.
Her ladyship kept below. She saw very little of me; in those three days
we made no progress in English and Spanish. The violent upheavals of the
brig frightened her; then did her eyes grow large, her face look wild;
if I was near her she’d grasp me and hold on to me and utter many
exclamations in Spanish. I’d catch myself smiling afterward when I
thought of those moments; how she used me as though we had grown up, boy
and girl, together, never timid in her tricks of touching me, as free
with me as a sister, and that’s about it.
We were in longitude 63° or 64° west when the westerly gale shifted into
the north, and the wind blew in a moderate breeze out of that quarter.
The cold lessened with the shift. The sailors moved with some trifle of
alacrity, as though they were thawing. The decks dried, we shook out
reefs, made sail, coiled down anew fore-and-aft; the smoke blew cheerily
from the chimney of the caboose, and with taut running gear and white
clothes robing her to the topgallant mastheads the brig renewed her
comfortable, homely look.
This brought us to the afternoon of what I will call the third day of
the gale. I had eaten some supper, talked awhile with my lady, visited
my cabin, and returned on deck after an examination of the chart,
resolved on a bit more of easting before changing the course.
When I passed through the companion way I heard Bol’s voice. He and
Galen stood at the bulwarks abreast of the hatch, their faces to the
sea, and they conversed in Dutch, keeping their voices down and talking
very earnestly. The large swell rolled quietly under the brig; the wind
silenced the sails, and after the uproar of the preceding days the
repose along the decks and up aloft was almost as the hush of a tropic
calm upon the vessel.
I stepped to the binnacle. Teach, who was at the wheel, cleared his
throat noisily and spat over the taffrail. The Dutchmen looked, and
Galen, saying something sharp and quick in Dutch, walked forward. Bol
glanced aloft with the air of a man in search of work for his watch; I
walked a few paces his way, and he approached me.
“How vhas der vetter to be, sir?”
“The sky is high and hard, and the sun strikes clear fire into the
west. Look at the edge of the sea; it sweeps clean as the rim of a new
dollar. There is fine weather about.”
“Vell, so much der better, Mr. Fielding. I have slept in more
comfortable fok’sles dan vhas dis of der _Black Vatch_ vhen she pitches
heavy--more comfortable, but I doan say drier. No; der toyfell shall not
pe more plack dan she vhas bainted. Dis vhas a dry brick, und dere vhas
no schmarter sailor out of Amsterdam.”
“I believe you.”
He looked about him to let me see he did not heed the brig the less for
talking. I was willing he should talk. I saw matter in his huge full
face, and guessed, if he chattered, he might let me come presently at
what had passed ’twixt him and Galen.
“Mr. Fielding, how far might she be from der Horn to der Channel?”
“A long stride. Would you have it as the crow flies? How many hundreds
of miles will the zigzags of a ship tag on to a straight-line
measurement?”
“Yaw, dot’s how it vhas. No man at sea can say how far she vhas from
home. Der Cape of Goodt Hope, Mr. Fielding--dot, now, vhas a vast great
roon from here?”
“Yaw; the whole width of the South Atlantic.”
“She vhas vide.”
“I’ll teach you how to measure distances on a chart, if you like.”
“Vell, I likes to know; but I doan believe dot I recollects to-morrow
vhat you teaches him to-day. Mr. Fielding, vhere vhas Amsderdam Island?”
“Amsderdam Island?”
“Yaw. Der Doytch fell in mit her--vell, call it a hoondred year ago.”
“There is an Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean.”
“Dot vhas her.”
“What of it?”
“Nothing, sir. Galen vhas saying how der Doytch vhas everywhere mit der
names. New Holland, Amsderdam Island--look how dey roon.”
“True,” said I.
“Mind your luff, my ladt!” he called in thunder to Teach. “How vhas her
headt?”
“East by north,” answered Teach.
“East she vhas, und noting off.”
He upturned his face to the canvas with an expression which let me see
that certain whale-like thoughts were coming up to blow from the dark
and oozy deep of his mind.
“Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding--mit regard to der dollars. You promised a
leedle vhile ago to talk mit me about der landing of dot silver vhen ve
arrives.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Vell, Mr. Fielding, it vhas like dis. All handts vould like to know how
dey vhas to be baid dere shares. If der money vhas schmuggled on shore,
who bays me und der men? Dis vhas your peesiness like as ours, for you
too shall ask who vhas to bay you herself?”
“On our arrival in the Downs,” said I, willing to give him the
information he desired, pleased, indeed, that he should seek it, since
the manner of his question gave a new turn to my fancies of him, “I
shall communicate with Mynheer Tulp and await his instructions.”
“Suppose she vhas deadt?”
“I will suppose nothing. Tulp is alive until we know he is dead; and
when we know that he is dead we will think of what’s next to be done.”
“Vell, dot’s straight-hitting. I like her.”
“You shall suppose Tulp alive. He will come on wings from the city of
Amsterdam; and, when he is on board, every man will take his share of
the dollars according to his paper of proportion. Tulp touches not one
dollar until he pays us our share. We will then hold him to carry out
whatever schemes he prearranged with Captain Greaves.”
“Vell, dot vhas all right; but, Mr. Fielding, der ship’s company likes
to know if dere vhas any reesk vhen you gets her home?”
“Who home?”
“Der money.”
“Risk? I don’t understand.”
“Vell, dey puts it as she might pe dis vay. Ve vhas in der Downs. A boat
cooms alongside, und somepody climbps on poardt und oxes, ‘Vhat vhas
your cargo?’ ‘Dot vhas my peesiness,’ you say. ‘Not at all,’ he answers.
‘I vhas a King’s officer. I belongs to der Revenue.’ How vhas it, den,
mit her, der ship’s company vould like to know, Mr. Fielding?”
“We should not be searched for cargo in the Downs--for men, perhaps; but
who would meddle with the cargo?”
“Ay; but how vhas you to know dot for certain, sir?”
“Let us arrive in the Downs. The rest will be easy. Our difficulty lies
in getting home. We are still fighting the Yankees, no doubt.”
“Ay; but he vhas a Doytchman, Mr. Fielding.”
“I hope whoever boards us will believe it,” said I, with a shrug of the
shoulders; and, catching sight at that instant of a dim, yellow spot
against the sky across the round, large heads of the swell, I fetched
the glass, and made out the object to be a ship bound westward. I
watched her until she died out in the red air.
Bol drew off and we talked no more. His questions and remarks had struck
me as honest, very natural, and to the point, seeing that the men
expected him to speak what was in their minds, and that their united
stake in the successful finish of this adventure, now that the money was
aboard, was considerable. I did not perhaps much relish the persistent
manner in which he had “Mr. Fielding’d” me. I could have wished him a
little blunter. When Yan Bol gave me my name very often, distrust arose.
On the other hand, there was nothing in his own suggestions nor in the
fears of the crew to render me uneasy as to the safe disposal of the
cargo of silver, should I be fortunate enough to reach the Downs. What
excuse could be invented for overhauling a ship’s cargo while she lay at
anchor in those waters? You look for the wolves of the Revenue as you
warp into dock; you look for them in the Pool; but I had never heard of
them in the Downs--that is, I had never heard of them boarding a ship
_there_ to seek contraband matter.
A quiet evening came down upon the brig; the stars were many and
glorious; there was a bright moon, and the temperature and the look of
the heavens might have persuaded me we were ten degrees further north
than where we were rolling. The brig was under all plain sail. The wind
was about north, a moderate breeze, and the vessel pushed her way softly
over the wide swell.
I brought the lady Aurora on deck for a walk, when the sun had been sunk
about half an hour. All hands were enjoying the moonlight and the quiet
weather. They paced in couples; they came together in groups and halted
for a yarn; the hum of their conversation was a deep and eager note; but
all the talk was subdued--I caught no sudden calls. Now and again a man
laughed, and there was a frequent lighting of pipes by the flames of
burning rope-yarns. The brig was made an ivory carving of by the moon.
Every plank might have been chiseled out of the tusk of the elephant.
Stars of silver glittered and swam in the glass of the skylight. The
swell came along like folds of ink, but as every shoulder of black water
swung into the glory of the moon’s wake it flashed into a shining hill,
and the splendor of those vast shapes was the more wonderful for the
blackness out of which they rolled and the blackness in which they
vanished.
Miss Aurora walked by my side; presently the play of the deck obliged
her to take my arm. Galen had charge; he stepped to leeward out of the
road of our weather walk and lay against the rail abreast of the wheel.
The weariness of the sea was in that man’s figure. As he stood there or
leaned, the mere posture only of the clothes and the fat of him
expressed with extraordinary force the sickening monotony, the profound
dullness of the calling of the sea as that calling was in those years.
The iteration of the ocean line; the ceaseless groan and heave of the
timber fabric under one’s foot; the eye-wearying flight of the sails to
the masthead; the weeks and months of the same thing over and over
again, ocean and sky, darkness and light, the weeping of mist, roar of
wind, the cold of the dawn; the beef and the pork, the pork and the
beef--it was _all_ in that Dutchman’s figure.
After we had walked the deck for half an hour the señorita informed me
that she felt cold, and that the movements of the ship made her legs
ache, and she proposed that we should go below and that I should give
her a lesson in English. When we had entered the lighted cabin she saw
in my face that I was in no particular humor to teach her English just
then. She was quick in reading me: this had come about through much of
our talk having been carried on with our faces. In truth, while I had
walked with her on deck my thoughts had gone to Bol’s questions about
the disposal of the money, and my spirits had drooped a bit.
But her ladyship was not to be put off; she must coax me into an easy
mind, and then no doubt I would give her a lesson in English. She
removed the cap she had contrived out of the yield of the slop-chest,
and turned herself about that I might help to take off the heavy
pilot-cloth jacket which she had likewise cut and contrived for herself
as you have heard. When this was done she seated herself abreast of the
lamp, and laughing, and looking at me with sparkling eyes, she made me
understand that if I would give her my hand she would tell my fortune.
I did not much like to give her my hand; it was coarse and horny with
the toil of the sea. I extended the palms at a safe distance, and by
motions informed her that the lines of the hand had been worn
out--smoothed to the quality of the sole of an old boot by many years of
pulling and hauling, by grasping the spokes of wheels, by the fingering
of canvas, and the handling of capstan bars.
“No, no,” she cried, “give me your hand, Señor Fielding.”
So I went round the table and sat beside her. I winced when she took my
hand; the contrast between my square-ended fist and her delicate fingers
was a shock. She held my hand and pored upon it. The skylight was shut,
and Galen probably thought that I did not observe him looking down at
us. Holding my hand, her dark and shining eyes sometimes bent upon the
palm of it, sometimes lifted full of archness and quiet mirth to my
face, the lady Aurora told me my fortune. I comprehended but little of
what she said; she spoke much in Spanish, motioned with one arm--always
retaining my hand--viewed me with a face that was forever changing its
expression, and occasionally she let fall certain English words. I
guessed from what she said that I was to be rich, marry a handsome lady
without money, have six children, and live to be a very old man.
Jimmy came into the cabin while she held my hand, and gaped at us from
the bottom of the companion ladder. I bade him put wine, biscuits, and
the material for grog upon the table and then clear out. When the lady
was done with my hand she went to her berth and returned with a log
book--a new volume of blank leaves headed for entries--which I had given
to her out of several in Greaves’ cabin.
“Now, Señor Fielding,” said she in English, “you shall give me a
lesson;” and, sitting down, she examined the point of her pencil and
adjusted herself with the air of a lady who means business.
I glanced at the clock, poured out a glass of wine, and placed it on a
swing tray in front of her, mixed myself a tumbler of grog, and took a
seat over against her. The lesson consisted of dictation. I’d pronounce
a sentence deliberately; she’d take it down: hand me the book; then our
faces would meet across the table over the book, while I pointed out the
blunders in spelling, and explained the meaning of such words as she
did not know. She had filled several pages of the book on her own
account, and some pages on mine.
The romance of it all! What more romantic as a detail of ocean life
would you have? Realize that little moonlighted brig rolling over the
black heaven of the sea, Cape Horn not far off, the Cross and the
Magellanic dust overhead, nothing in sight, the moon’s wake coiling in
hills of silver under her, and in the heart of that lonely speck of brig
two young people, again and again nearly rubbing cheeks together over a
blank log book: one of them a fine, handsome Spanish woman, with dark
eyes of fire and a smile that was like light with its swift disclosure
of white teeth, and a beautiful little pale yellow hand that shone with
jewels; and the other--and the other----
She looked at the clock, and started, with a Spanish exclamation, and
said, “I will sing. You have been good. I will sing to you.” All this
she said in English. Then, in dumb show, she played a phantom guitar,
gazing at me with one of those asking looks which I could interpret as
easily as I took sights. I shook my head to her signification of a
guitar, and played on an imaginary fiddle; on which she nodded, crying
with vivacity in Spanish, “It will do! It will do!”
I put my head into the hatch and called for Jimmy. Galen sent the name
forward in a roar, and the boy arrived.
“Borrow me a fiddle,” said I.
When he returned he held a fiddle and a fiddlestick; but this unusual
appeal of the cabin to the forecastle had roused curiosity, and a number
of the men followed Jimmy to the quarter-deck. I heard their softened
footfalls, and caught a glimpse of their figures as they stood round
about the skylight, scarce sensible that they were visible through the
black glass. The lady took the fiddle and the bow from the lad, who
withdrew. She put the fiddle to her neck, tuned it, and played a short,
merry air. I had not known that she played the fiddle. I guessed she had
asked for the instrument to twang an accompaniment upon. She played a
second sweet and merry air; the melody was full of beauty and humor.
Someone overhead tapped the deck in time to it. I took care not to look
up, willing that the fellows should listen, though they had no business
aft.
“How do you like that?” said the lady in Spanish.
“It is sweet and good. Give me more.”
She put down the bow, and, laying the fiddle across her knees, twanged
it. She kept her eyes fastened upon me, and, when she had tweaked the
fiddlestrings, she shrugged her shoulders and laughed; then, before the
laugh had fairly left her lips, she burst into song, singing with that
clear, full-throated richness of voice which poor Greaves had predicted
her the possessor of. She filled the cabin with her song. She would have
filled the biggest theater in Europe with it. Her voice was thrilling
with volume and power, and her eyes were full of a gay triumph as she
sang, as though she would say, “This is news to you, my friend.”
I thought her spirit the most remarkable part of the performance. Here
was a lady--a young and handsome woman, clearly a person of degree in
her own country--amusing a young, rough sailor with her songs, fiddling
to him, taking lessons in English from him, watching him with shining
eyes, as though her heart was as charged with light as her gaze. Her
voice, her face, the aroma of her manner, transformed the plain, grim
little cabin of the brig into a brilliant drawing room, full of ladies
and gentlemen, sweet with the scent of flowers, gay with the gleam of
silk and jewel and epaulet. Who, while she sang, would have supposed
that she had been shipwrecked not very long ago, living, with small
hopes of deliverance, upon a desert island, in company with a couple of
common, low seamen; ignorant whether her mother was alive or dead; still
many thousands of miles away from her home--if Madrid was to be her
home; with twenty hard fortunes before her, for all she knew?
She sang me three songs, and all hands, as I knew by the shuffling of
feet, listened above, some shouldering warily into the companion hatch
to hear well. I reckoned she knew she had a bigger audience than I, for
once she lifted her eyes in the pause of a song and smiled in a
conscious way.
“Now I am tired,” said she in English, and put the fiddle upon the table
with capricious quickness of movement. “Good-night, Señor Fielding:” and
she gave me a low, but somewhat haughty bow, and went to her cabin,
stepping the short length of the deck with the most translatable
carriage in life: “_I have amused you, I have condescended; but I am
always the Señorita Aurora de la Cueva. Vaya!_”