A QUAKER SKIPPER.
I looked in upon Teach again. The sight was piteous. The handcuffs gave
a wild pathos to that picture of death. The sight was not to be borne. I
removed the handcuffs, and then took a steady view of his face, and felt
the man’s wrist to make sure that he was dead. He was stone dead; and I
went on deck.
Miss Aurora leaned upon her elbows on the rail, looking at the Island of
Amsterdam, that was fading into a dark blue cloud. I said:
“Teach is dead.”
She started, and shrunk back and stared at me, and instantly reflected
the expression she saw in my face. Her features then relaxed, and,
slightly shrugging her shoulders, she exclaimed:
“He was not a good man. Yet good men are dying every day. Teach’s time
had come. Did we kill him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That pleases me. I would have killed him for my honor or for my
liberty. It is God’s doing, and it must be good.”
I found that Jimmy kept the brig to her course fairly well, and roamed
about the deck for awhile by myself, considering how I should act if we
did not presently, and, indeed, speedily, fall in with a ship to help us
with the loan of two or three men. I then asked Miss Aurora to hold the
wheel, and took Jimmy below with me to help clap the bilboes on to
Travers, that I might relieve the poor devil of his handcuffs. While I
put the bilboes on, Travers asked me why I refused to give him a chance
to turn to.
“You’ve had a chance of proving yourself an honest man for weeks past.
I’ll not trust you now.”
“Mr. Fielding, we meant to act square by you.”
“Yes, by knocking me over the head when I’d served your turn.”
I sent Jimmy in a hurry for provisions and water to place in this
prisoner’s berth. The beast couldn’t read, or I should have tossed him a
book or two. I was eager to regain the deck, for her ladyship was on no
account to be left alone at the wheel. Travers asked for his pipe and
tobacco. I told him he should have them; and then, threatening to shoot
him through the head if he made any noise, attempted to break out, or
acted in any way to imperil the safety of the ship, I locked him up.
I put a loaded pistol into Jimmy’s hand, keeping a brace in my pocket;
and, finding that the brig made a straight wake to the set of the helm,
as surrendered by me to Miss Aurora, with the request that she would
hold the spokes steady, I went forward with the lad, lifted the hatch,
and sung out.
Both men came under the hatch and looked up. I let them see that the boy
and I were armed, and said:
“Call, I am here to give you a chance. If you’ll come on deck and help
me to carry on the work of the brig, good and well.”
“I asked to turn to afore,” said he, putting his hand on the coaming as
though to come up.
“I’m willing to turn to,” said Meehan.
“I’ll abide by Call’s behavior,” said I.
“It’s cussed hot and black down here,” exclaimed Meehan. “Aint ye going
to let us have a light?”
“You shall have a light,” said I; “but mind your fire. We have the
boats, and I shan’t lift the hatch.”
“What made ye clip me o’er the head?” he growled. “I’d ha’ stepped back
had ye arsted me.”
“Come up, Call.”
The man rose instantly, and stood blinking to the splendor of the
morning.
“Go aft and take the wheel,” said I. “The course is as you find it.”
I was about to put on the hatch cover.
“Aint I to be let up?” said Meehan.
“No.”
“Aint I to have anything to eat and drink?”
“Yes.”
“Hell seize the blooming lot of ye!” said he, and disappeared in a
single stride.
I closed the hatch cover, but opened it shortly after to hand down a
breaker of water, a quantity of provisions, and oil for the forecastle
lamp. I say to “hand down”; but the ruffian was so sulky that he refused
to answer to my call, and I had to tell him what I had brought, and to
threaten him with thirst and starvation, before he would come under the
hatch to receive the things. The belch of heat and of foul atmosphere
was so disgusting when I first lifted the cover, that I guessed the
fellow would suffocate if I did not give him some fresh air. The cover
opened on strong hinges. I procured a bit of chain; then inserted a
wedge to keep the cover open to about half the length of your thumb. I
now passed the chain through the staple and the eye of the bar, securing
the links at a place out of reach of our friend’s knife. This done, I
went aft with Jimmy, and could scarcely forbear laughing to observe the
lady Aurora in the posture of haranguing Call. She stood up before him,
and menaced him with her forefinger; and she was saying as I approached:
“If you do not behave well it is death; I am a Spanish lady and know not
fear. I will kill any man for my liberty or for my honor, and my liberty
I must have, but I have it not while I am in this little ship. I desire
to be at Madrid. Be honest and help Mr. Fielding, and your reward will
be great I tell this, I--I--the Señorita de la Cueva--she tells you this
on her honor as a Spanish lady.” She touched her bosom with her
forefinger, then looked round and saw me close by.
“I am willing to prove a true man,” said Call, “this here mucking job
was never my relish. _I_ was never for casting this here brig away. But
how’s one voice to sound when a whole blooming squadron of throats is
a-hollering?”
“Jump aloft and stow that topgallant sail along with Jimmy,” said I.
With the help of this man Call I snugged the brig down to topsails and
forecourse as a provision against change of weather. I kept him on deck
all day, and he ate on deck under my eye; he behaved well, yet I dared
not trust him; while I slept he might liberate the other two, and then
truly should I be a dead man; for of course Meehan and Travers secretly
raged against me, and would take all the risks of washing about without
a navigator and of being hanged if they were boarded and the truth
discovered; all risks would they accept, I say, to be revenged upon me.
I took Call below into the cabin and made him help me drag Teach’s body
out of the berth it lay in; I then put his legs in irons to keep him
quiet through the night. He protested violently, and his remonstrance
often rose into coarse, injurious language.
“I’ll trust you presently, but not now,” said I, and so I locked the
door and came away. I heard him swearing, and then he began to sing as I
went on deck.
It was some time between eight and nine o’clock. All the stars were out,
the sky was cloudless, and the evening as beautiful as the morning had
been splendid. The wind had shifted into the east, and was a small soft
wind; it held our little show of canvas steady, and the brig rippled
quietly onward over the wide dark sea. I stationed my lady Aurora at the
wheel and entered the cabin with Jimmy; there we made fast a cannon ball
to the feet of the dead man Teach, and picking him up we carried him to
the gangway, which we opened that his plunge might be from a little
height only. I was a sailor; for many months Teach had been a shipmate
of mine; I had hated him--but he was dead and his last toss at a
sailor’s hand must be decorous and reverent. So we dropped him gently
feet foremost and he went down instantly, leaving behind him a little
cloud of fire that was sparkling even when it had slided into the
vessel’s wake.
Four days passed. I will not stop to explain how we managed; shall I
tell you why? Because, when I look into the mirror of my memory for the
vision of what happened in those four days I find the presentment dim,
vague, foggy. These things I recollect; that I did not trust Call, that
I freed him from time to time that he might take a trick at the wheel,
threatening to stop his food and water if he refused, and that every
night at eight bells or thereabouts I put him away with the bilboes on.
That I kept the other two men imprisoned, supplying them every morning
with provisions for twenty-four hours. That I held the brig’s head for
the Cape of Good Hope, praying daily for the sight of a ship and
beholding nothing. That for two days after our losing sight of Amsterdam
Island, the weather continued very glorious, then darkened with a wind
that breezed up out of the southward and blew fresh, but happily never
too hard for our whole topsails.
These things I remember.
I was awakened on the night of the fourth or, let me say, in the dark
hours of the morning of the fifth day by the boy Jimmy calling my name.
I had wrapped myself up in Greaves’ cloak, sat me down near the wheel,
at which I had been standing for two hours, and had fallen into a deep
sleep without intending to sleep. The lad had taken the helm from me;
when he called I sprang to my feet.
“What is it?”
“See that light, master?”
I looked and saw what I supposed was a ship on fire. A ruddy glare was
coloring the sky at the extremity of the sea about three points on the
lee bow. I thought to myself, if she is a ship on fire and beyond
control, her people will help me to navigate the brig home. The fancy,
the hope, elated me; I was wide awake on a sudden, though I had sat down
dog tired.
A long swell was rolling out of the south, and a five-knot breeze was
blowing off our larboard quarter. I put the helm up for the light, and
when I had it fair ahead I gave the spokes to Jimmy, and fetched the
telescope out of the cabin where, on a locker, lay the lady Aurora
sleeping. The telescope resolved the red light into several tongues of
flame which waxed and waned; I had then no doubt whatever that the fire
was a burning ship, and forthwith fell to walking first to one then to
the other side of the brig, for long spells at a time overhanging the
bulwark rail, straining my sight into the darkness, and hearkening with
all my ears.
By and by, recollecting that an empty tar barrel stood upon the
forecastle, I resolved to make a flare. I rolled the barrel aft, kindled
it, and Jimmy and I flung the barrel overboard.
It burnt finely, and lighted up a great space of the sea. If the people
of the burning ship were in the neighborhood they’d know by the fire
upon the water that help was at hand, and rest on their oars till
daybreak, which was hard by.
When the dawn broke the ship was about a mile distant. Smoke was rising
from her decks. I sought in vain in all directions for a boat. I saw no
fire now on board the ship, and when I pointed the telescope I perceived
that she was hove to, and that the smoke was local as though it rose
from chimneys. Between us and the ship was a vast lump of red stuff that
lifted and fell; it was scored and flaked with white, and its redness
was that of blood. The sun came up and touched it, and now I
perceived--by this time we had neared it--that the loathsome bulk was a
part of a great whale, freshly “cut in,” as it is termed. A number of
birds were on it, and they tore the horrid mass with their beaks, and
many birds hovered over it.
I looked very hard at the ship. I seemed to know her. Her numerous
davits and crowd of boats bespoke her a whaler, and I knew by the sight
of that vast heap of whale which had gone adrift that she was “trying
out”--that is, boiling down the blubber that came from the whale. In
fact, my nose told me of what was going on when I was half a mile away.
The flash of the sun on the skylight awakened Miss Aurora; she came on
deck, and cried out on beholding the whaler.
“This is a very wonderful thing,” said I. “Do you know that ship?”
She stared hard and shook her head.
“She is the _Virginia Creeper_, whaler, of Whitby,” said I, “we spoke
her t’other side the Horn.”
“She is on fire,” cried the girl, “and--_Ave Maria_! What is that?” she
exclaimed, pointing to the bloody mass of whale that was on our beam.
We floated slowly down to the ship; the wind had blackened at sunrise,
and our canvas was small. The sky was dark in the south whence the swell
was running, and a bright blue all about the north and east. We
approached the ship, and I saw many men on board of her watching us.
Some of the faces showed in the telescope of a copper color, and I
guessed they were natives of the South Sea Islands.
Miss Aurora teased me with questions, with sounding exclamations in
Spanish and English. I begged her to hold her tongue. I wanted to think.
Should I give the whole plain story of our voyage to the captain of that
ship? Should I tell him that I had twelve tons of silver on board, and
three prisoners of a crew who had possessed themselves of three tons,
but who had meant to plunder the whole and bury it, and then wreck the
brig? I hastily paced the deck, staring at the whaler and thinking with
all my might. But a moment arrived when I could think no longer. I put
the helm over, gave the wheel to Miss Aurora to hold, and with the help
of Jimmy got the main topsail aback.
The two vessels then lay abreast within a cable’s length. A man stood in
the mizzen rigging of the whaler; he was the same person that had
hailed us in the Pacific. I jumped upon a gun and sung out, “Ho, the
_Virginia Creeper_, ahoy!”
“Hallo!” answered the man near the mizzen rigging.
“We are but three, as you see,” I shouted, “Will you send a boat and
come aboard? Our distress is great.”
The man responded with a quiet motion of his hand, lingered a moment or
two as though to take a further survey of us, then called out an order,
and a few moments later he had entered a boat and was being pulled
across to us.
I received him in the gangway, and giving him my hand said, “We have met
before.”
“Indeed, friend,” said he, “where might that have been?”
On my recalling the circumstance, he said in a sober voice, and without
any air of surprise, “I remember.” Then looking leisurely at Miss Aurora
he said, “Is that thy wife, friend?”
“No,” I answered; “she is a shipwrecked lady.”
“And what art thou and what’s thy name?”
I made answer, observing him narrowly. He was a Quaker, as you will
suppose; a fellow of a very serious, composed appearance, close shaved,
with coal black eyes, wary and stealing in their manner of gazing, a
large expressionless mouth, and a pale skin that had suffered nothing
from the weather. He wore a soft cone-shaped hat, the brim very wide,
and was skewered to his throat in a coat with a double row of large
metal buttons. His legs were encased in jack boots. The garb was
somewhat of a change from the glazed hat and pea jacket of his South
Pacific costume.
“This is the _Black Watch_,” said he, looking slowly along the decks and
then slowly up aloft.
“Yes,” said I.
“When we spoke thee thy captain was sick.”
“He is dead.”
“Is that thy distress?”
“No, sir. If you will step into the cabin I’ll tell you a very strange
story, but as this brig must be watched--yonder lad at the wheel being
merely our cabin boy--will you hail one of your mates and request him to
take charge while we converse?”
He walked gravely and quietly to the side, and looking over, bade his
men in the whale boat fetch Mr. Pack. Presently Mr. Pack arrived. He was
the mate of the whaler. The captain told him to watch the brig, and
followed me into the cabin, the lady Aurora going before us.
I put a bottle of spirits upon the table. The captain shook his head at
the bottle and looked around him, presently fixing his eyes on Madam
Aurora, at whom he continued to stare after I had begun to talk to him.
He had lifted a hat and disclosed a flat, almost bald head. Without
further delay I entered upon my narrative, and coaxed his gaze from the
lady to me. He heard me through without a syllable of comment, without a
grunt of surprise. His composure was perfectly wooden. I observed no
further sign, indeed, of his heeding me than an occasional grave nod of
the head, such as he might bestow on a minister whose discourse from the
pulpit pleased him.
I ceased. The dark Spanish eyes of the lady Aurora burned, with
impassioned anxiety, upon the composed countenance of the Quaker
skipper.
“Wilt thou be pleased to repeat the sum?” said the captain slowly and
deliberately, without the faintest color of wonder in his tone.
“Five hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Of which thy men took three tons?”
“Yes,” said I.
His lips slightly stirred to a sudden pressure of rapid calculation.
“And what dost thou think the men will do with those three tons of
dollars?”
“Bury ’em,” said I. “They will leave the island in the boat--not for
awhile, I dare say--but they will not carry their dollars with them.
They’ll not risk putting to sea with three tons of dead weight in
addition to the provisions they’ll want. Or put it that they would not
take the chance of falling in with a ship, of transferring the money to
her, and of standing to the lies they’d have to tell to account for
their possession of the silver.”
“Thou art right,” said the captain, with a sober nod.
“They will bury the money,” said I, “swear one another to secrecy, and
then return for the silver when they can.”
“Thou art right,” repeated the captain, with another sober nod.
“Now,” said I--“but let me ask your name?”
“Jonas Horsley,” he answered.
“Captain Horsley, this is my proposal: I want help; I want three or four
men to enable me to carry this brig home. I also want to hand my
prisoners over to you--the three of them, able-bodied fellows, as good
as the best of your own hands, I daresay. Further, I want as much fresh
water as you can spare. In return I’ll give you the clew to the
burial-place in Amsterdam Island. If you sail promptly you’ll arrive
before the fellows depart. They’re bound to wait awhile for a ship
before taking their chance, six of them, in an open boat, every man
ignorant which way to head for land, even if they had a compass.
Furthermore, that you may make sure of my gratitude, you shall take a
case of the dollars in the lazarette.”
The señorita’s eyes sparkled. She vehemently nodded approval. Captain
Horsley viewed me steadily, with an expressionless countenance.
“Friend,” said he, after a short pause, “might the chests in thy
lazarette be all of a size?”
“They slightly vary.”
“And the biggest might contain----?”
“About four thousand dollars,” said I.
He continued to regard me expressionlessly; his composure raised my
anxiety into torment. My lady’s face worked with half a dozen emotions
at every heart-beat.
“Hast thou breakfasted?” said Captain Horsley.
“No,” I answered.
“Thou hast the means, I trust, of providing a meal?”
“We have plenty of provisions.”
“Thou may’st consider all things settled,” said he, slowly turning his
head to gaze at the lady Aurora. “I will break my fast with thee and the
lady. It is a pleasure to converse with you both. When we have eaten and
drunken I will ask thee to show me thy lazarette, and I will choose a
chest, and we will then exchange the men.”
“Give me your hand on it,” I cried, and my heart was swollen with
delight; but the taking and lifting of that man’s hand and arm was like
pumping out a ship.
We went on deck, and brought up a sailor out of the whale-boat to stand
at the helm while Jimmy prepared breakfast. Before breakfast was served
I took Captain Horsley into the lazarette and showed him the cases of
silver.
“Do all those chests contain dollars?” he asked.
“All.”
He made no further remark until, after considering awhile, during which
time his eyes roamed shrewdly over the chests, he pointed to one of the
biggest, and said:
“That will do for me.”
“It is yours,” I answered.
“Friend,” said he, after a short pause, due to reflection, by no means
to embarrassment, “I should be glad to know that I am receiving dollars.
Suppose we lift the lid.”
I fetched a hammer and other tools, and nails, and when the chest was
opened he brought the lantern close to the money, and after staring and
running his hand over the milled edges, he said:
“These be good dollars.”
I then hammered down the lid and we went up into the cabin, where we
found breakfast ready.
I much enjoyed this strange man’s conversation. He was cold and grave,
very slow, and a trifle nasal of speech, and his trick of “theeing” and
“thouing,” and the meeting-house turn of his phrases in general seemed
to ill fit the character of a hearty English sailor. Yet he had plenty
to talk about, had followed the sea for many years, had been long in the
whaling business, was a considerable man at Whitby, and even had news to
give me, for I was at sea in the _Royal Brunswicker_ when he sailed on
this cruise. A British sea Quaker was something of a rarity in my time;
I presume he is extinct in these days. Many American whalers were
commanded by Quakers, but the broad-brims of our island loved less the
pursuit of the game than the safer business of tallying the blubber
cargo over the side into their warehouses.
While we breakfasted I gave him a description of the proposed
burial-place as it had been sketched to me by Yan Bol. He composedly
entered the particulars in a pocket-book. I asked him to write down my
uncle’s address at Sandwich, that he might let me know whether he fell
in with or took off Yan Bol and the others and recovered the silver. He
gravely promised to write to me.
We then went to business; and Captain Jonas Horsley’s first step was to
accompany some men into the lazarette and superintend the transhipment
of his chest of dollars. This done, he asked me how many men I wanted. I
answered that I had spoken of three, but that I would be glad of as many
as he could spare. He answered that he would let me have five in
exchange for my prisoners. One of them was a Kanaka, or South Sea
Islander, who had long sailed in whalers, and was a very good cook. The
others, he said, would volunteer; but I might make my mind easy. All his
men were livelies of the first water. What pay would I give?
“I will give,” said I, “whatever will bring them to me.”
“They sail by the lay. Thou must take that into consideration,” said
Captain Horsley.
“Shall we say two hundred and fifty dollars a man for the run home?”
said I.
“I will let thee know,” said he. He got into his boat, and was rowed
across to his ship, whose tryworks were still smoking and filling the
air with a disgusting scent. There was no increase of darkness in the
south, and north and east the blue sky was splendid with the sparkling
of the morning; but a movement worked in the southerly swell that hinted
at a fresh wind presently. Captain Horsley, however, did not keep me
long waiting. First, he sent me one of his largest boats with a stock of
fresh water and hands to stow the casks. His men took back my empty
casks in return for their full ones; then two boats came off full of
men, in one of which the captain was seated. Parties were distributed to
bring up the prisoners. Meehan scowled when he saw the whaler, hung
back, and fought like a devil, saying that he was a sailor, and no
whaleman, and cursing me and the brig and the whaler--whatever his eye
rested on, in short--until they tumbled him into the boat alongside,
where I heard him roaring out to me to pay him his wages and to hand him
over his share of the dollars. Call and Travers walked quietly to the
gangway. Travers stopped before putting his foot over, and asked me if
he was not to be paid for the work he had done.
“Mynheer Tulp is your owner,” said I. “Call upon him when you return to
Amsterdam. He’ll pay you, I daresay.”
He then began to swear, upon which Captain Horsley motioned to his men,
and he and Call were forthwith bundled into the boat.
“These are thy men, friend,” said the captain, pointing to four seamen
and a Kanaka, who stood apart. “Four are Englishmen, and of my own town,
anxious to return home. They each ask three hundred and fifty dollars.”
I looked them over, as the phrase goes, put a few questions, and, being
satisfied that their quality was right, I said:
“You shall have three hundred and fifty dollars a man. Captain Horsley
knows I can pay you, and the agreement shall be signed when we have
filled upon the brig.”
The clothes and chests belonging to Meehan and the other two were then
got up and put into the boat. Captain Horsley gave me his pump-handle of
an arm to shake--or, rather, to work. I thanked him cordially for the
assistance he had rendered me. He listened till I had done, and said:
“Friend, thou hast made my kindness very much worth my while.”
He entered his boat, after bowing with the most grotesque contortion I
had ever beheld to the lady Aurora. The brig’s topsail was then swung;
we raised a loud cheer, which was lustily re-echoed aboard the whaler;
and, in a few minutes, the _Black Watch_ was heeling over from the
breeze, with her head for a course that was to carry us home, and one of
my new men trotting aloft to loose the main topgallant sail.
* * * * *
On this same day, in the afternoon, I, with two of my new men, very
carefully took stock of the fresh water aboard, and I discovered that we
had enough to carry us to the English Channel. This discovery was a
stroke of happiness. I had allowed for a long passage, knew that we were
already weedy at bottom, that every day would add to the growths, and
that before we were up with the equator we might be sliding very thickly
and sluggishly through the sea. Spite, however, of my computation of
long days, there was fresh water enough to yield us such an allowance as
no man could grumble at.
The men shipped from the whaler proved very good seamen; all four
Englishmen were Whitby men; they were held together by that quality of
local patriotism which I think is peculiar to our country; they were all
anxious to get home, and owned that they had intended to run from the
_Virginia Creeper_ at the first opportunity. The prospect of taking up
three hundred and fifty dollars a man kept them very willing, alert, and
in good spirits. One of them, a man of about forty, with iron-gray hair,
who boasted that Captain Cook had once asked him the time--when and
where I forget--this man came to me on the Sunday after he and the
others had joined my brig, and asked me to lend him a Bible. I lent him
a Bible that had belonged to Captain Greaves, and Jimmy afterward told
me that of a dog-watch this man would sit and read out of the Bible to
his mates, the Kanaka listening very attentively and occasionally
interrupting by a question.
All this was as it should be; I had been living and moving for weeks in
intellectual irons, so to speak; as much in irons as the figure that had
fallen from the gibbet; I had gone in fear of my life--could never
imagine what was in store for me should I be forced to New Holland with
the brig; had for weeks and weeks despaired of my little fortune on
which I had counted in Greaves’ time, upon which I had built such
fancies of happiness as would visit the heart of a young sailor. _Now_ I
breathed freely, slept without anxiety, paced the deck and realized that
every fathom of white wake was diminishing the vast interval between
home and the situation of the little vessel. I had no other fears than
such as properly fell under the heads of sea risks. _These_ I must take
my chance of--fire, the lee-shore, the sudden hurricane, privateersmen,
the Yankee cruiser; but the direst of the items of the catalogue of
oceanic perils were as naught to my apprehension after what I had
suffered at the hands of Yan Bol and his men.
We rounded the Cape; we crept north; we hoisted the Dutch flag to
passing ships; the stars of the south sank; our shadows every day grew
shorter and yet shorter at noon, and all went well. Having but six men
of a crew I worked, on occasion, as hard as any of them; often sprang
aloft to a weather earring, helped to stow a course and stood a trick if
the fellows had been much fagged by the weather. Nevertheless, though I
was very often full of business and hurry, I found plenty of leisure for
the enjoyment of the society of the lady Aurora. This was peculiarly so
in the fine weather of the southeast trades, in the calms of the
equatorial zone, in the steady blowing of the northeast wind. She
persevered in her English, and many a lesson did I give her; she recited
to me, for I now understood the Spanish tongue fairly well. But though
she recited with great power she could not declaim as she sang. I always
thought her singing beautiful and enchanting. The fiddle to which the
original crew had been used to dance and sing, Jimmy found in a hammock;
he brought it aft, and to the twang of it the señorita would again and
again lift up her voice, her large, rich, thrilling voice, to please me.
One day we sat together in the cabin. We were a little northward of the
Island of Madeira. The weather was very mild and fine, the time of year
the beginning of August. I had been reading aloud to the girl out of
“The Castle of Otranto,” and she had followed me very closely,
interrupting seldom to inquire the meaning of a word. When I had done
she exclaimed:
“I will now give you a brave recital. You shall enjoy it. I have seen
you wear a red silk kerchief; lend it to me.”
I fetched the kerchief and she bound it round her head, then lifting a
locker she drew out a tablecloth, in which she wrapped her figure as in
a sheet, holding the folds with her left hand and leaving her right hand
free to gesticulate with. She then declaimed a set of verses, written in
the jargon of the Spanish gypsies by that famous poet of Spain, Quevedo.
It was a very fine performance. I understood but little of the queer
dialect, but I enjoyed the rich music of her voice, the swelling and
melting melodies her mere utterance gave to the verses; I gazed with
delight at her impassioned eyes, and at the wild, romantic figure she
made, draped as she was in a sailor’s kerchief and a cabin tablecloth.
Was it not Nelson’s Emma who, with a scarf only, contrived a dozen
different representations of characters, was fascinating in all, and so
pathetic in some that her audience wept?
“How do you like me as a Spanish gypsy?” said she, pulling off the
kerchief, dropping the tablecloth, and shaking her head till her long
earrings flashed again.
“So well that I want more,” I answered.
“No,” said she; “come on deck.”
She put on her hat, I carried a chair, and we seated ourselves in the
shade of the little awning under which we had often sat and
gesticulated, and endeavored to look our meanings in Greaves’ time. But
now she spoke English very well indeed, while I had enough Spanish to
enable me to converse with her in that tongue, though I never could
catch the sonorous note of it, nor give the true twist to some of the
words.
We sat together. The brig was sailing placidly over a wide surface of
blue sea; the horizon was a bright line of opal against the dim violet
of the distant sky, and abreast of us to larboard was a full-rigged
ship, her hull below the sea line, and her canvas showing like little
puffs of steam. The Kanaka was at the wheel; he was cook indeed, but
when he was done with the caboose I put him to the ship’s work. One of
the sailors who had charge walked in the waist; the other three were
variously engaged.
I found myself gazing very earnestly at the lady Aurora, and thinking of
her and of nothing but her. I was still under the influence of the
witchery of her recitation, and then again I thought I had never seen
her look so handsome. Am I in love with you? I wondered. Thought is as
swift as dreams, and you may dream in your sleep through a thousand
years in the time of the fall of an ash from the grate to the hearth.
“Am I in love with you?” I said to myself, earnestly regarding her, her
eyes being then fixed upon the distant sail. “I have a very great mind
to offer you marriage. What will you say if I propose to you? Will your
eyes flash, and will you show your teeth, or will you put on one of your
tender, brooding looks? I have often thought that you would make as
fine, useful, accomplished a wife as any young fellow need wish to live
gayly and comfortably with. You sing deliciously. I don’t doubt you
dance perfectly well. You can be saucy and quarrelsome in such a manner
as to lend a new flavor to sentiment. You have a stately, handsome
person; you are extremely well-bred, I am sure. I must take my chance of
your relatives. Some of them may be grandees--let that be hoped for the
sake of my children, who, if they take after me, will wish to be
respectably connected. I’ll offer you marriage,” I thought to myself.
“Our troubles are nearly at an end,” said I.
“It is time,” she answered, keeping her eyes fastened upon the distant
ship.
“We have been very closely associated, señorita.”
She now regarded me, and for an instant there was a peculiar softness in
her gaze; she then seemed to find an expression in my face that alarmed
her; I saw the change; she grew nervous, and her effort to control
herself confused her.
“Yes, we have been much together, Mr. Fielding. I shall always regard
you as the savior of my life, and never shall I forget your gentle and
courteous treatment of me.”
“I trust you never will. My desire is to live forever in your memory.”
She looked troubled and frightened, and then sorry, as though she had
pained me.
“You have said you will give up the sea when you arrive in England?”
“Oh, yes; I shall have been three years continuously at sea when I reach
home. I’ll take a home and settle down ashore.”
“Is your fortune in the Spanish dollars all that you possess?”
“All. It is seven thousand pounds.” I pronounced these figures with
emphasis.
“It is not much,” she exclaimed.
“Indeed! I think it a very good fortune.”
“For a single man--_si_; but put it out at interest, and what you
receive shall not be handsome. Oh, it is a fortune for a bachelor--yes,
but in no country, not even in Germany would it be regarded as a
handsome fortune for one who would live in style. _Vaya!_ Have I not
advised you to buy a ship and trade with distant nations, and end your
days as rich as a prince of the blood royal of England?”
“I do not intend to take your advice,” said I. “I will not risk my money
in adventures. What I have I will keep. It is a considerable sum--it is
enough for two.”
She slightly shrugged her shoulders again, and turned her eyes away with
an expression of concern. Suddenly she looked fully at me; her face was
dark with a blush that glowed from the roots of her hair to the rim of
the collar of her dress; I could not express the meaning in her face at
that moment; I felt it without understanding it.
“When I am settled in Madrid, Mr. Fielding, you will come and see me, I
hope? Often, I trust, will you visit me? Who more welcome, of all the
friends of Aurora de la Cueva, than Señor William Fielding?”
I thanked her, with slight surprise. I had expected, from the looks of
her, something very different from this.
“Would it not please you to live in England?” said I.
“No,” she answered vehemently; softening, she added, “my establishment
will be in Madrid.”
I was conscious that I changed color. I looked at her hand--at that
pretty hand of beringed fingers, on which very often had I admiringly
fastened my gaze. When I lifted my eyes, she faintly smiled.
“Your establishment?” said I.
“Yes; my establishment.”
“Do you mean your mother’s establishment?”
“_Ave Maria!_ No. My poor mother! Where is she? _Ay, ay me!_” she cried,
looking up at the sky with a sorrowful, admirably managed roll of her
dark eyes. “My mother’s establishment was at Lima, as you have often
heard. She broke it up on the death of my father; and, if she be
alive--oh, may the Blessed Virgin grant it--she will live with me at
Madrid. It was her intention to dwell with us. She is growing in years
and has many infirmities, and is unequal to the fatigues and anxieties
of an establishment of her own. But of whom am I speaking? She may be
dead--she may be dead!”
“Pray,” said I, “have I been all this while enjoying the society of a
charming woman without guessing that she was married?” and here my eyes
sought the rings upon her left hand again.
“I am not married,” she answered.
“Maybe, then, you are engaged to be married?” said I.
She made me a low bow, and held her head down till a second deep blush
should have passed.
“I make you my compliments, señorita,” said I, turning in my chair to
look at the ship that, by heading on a more westerly course than
ourselves, was sinking her canvas.
“It will interest you to know,” said she, “that I am engaged to be
married to a countryman of yours. Do you wonder why I did not long ago
tell you this? I did not imagine that it would interest you. When I
embarked at Acapulco I was proceeding to Madrid to get married. I had
known Mr. Gerald Maxwell only three months--think! when we were
affianced. Do you ask if he is a Catolique?”
“I ask nothing,” I answered.
“Oh!” she cried, giving me a look made up of pity and reproach--a deuced
insufferable look, I thought it--“he is a true Catolique. All his family
for ages have ever been of de ortodox faith. His father established a
rich business at Lima, and his son came from his education in England to
be a partner. He went to Madrid last year to represent his house in
Spain. We should have been married, but my mother’s grief would not
allow us to rejoice; so he sailed for Europe, and it was agreed that,
when my mother had settled her affairs, she should follow with me.
_Santa Maria purissima!_ He will think I have perished.”
All this is, in effect, what she said; but her speech, of course, did
not flow so easily as you read it.
“Did your friend, Mr. Gerald Maxwell, during his three months’
courtship, teach you English?”
“No; he was too busy.”
“In those months he was too busy to teach you a word of English?”
“_Ave Maria!_ Do not speak angrily, nor lose your temper. Mr. Maxwell
was often absent for days. He had no opportunity to teach me English.”
“_That_, happily,” said I, bursting into a laugh, “was to be reserved
for me.”
“Oh, Señor Fielding, you have been so good,” she cried in Spanish; and
then she laughed loudly also.
“‘Tis what a famous poet of my country,” said I, “has termed a most lame
and impotent conclusion. I am pleased to have taught you English.”
“It has killed the time.”
“Mr. Maxwell will be surprised by your knowledge.”
“Señor Fielding, he shall thank you.”
I grinned, walked to the side with the telescope, and feigned to be
interested with the distant sail. Narrow, indeed, had been my escape! I
drew more than one deep breath as I humbugged with the glass. By her
deep blush might I suppose she had foreseen what was coming and arrested
it--just in time! I felt obliged to her. But, oh, the meanness of so
prolonged an act of secrecy! Oh, the treachery of it! I thought, when I
reflected on what had passed between us. What had been her motive for
not long ago telling me that she had a sweetheart, and was going to
Madrid to be married to him? To make me fall in love with her, and to
keep me in love with her, so as to assure herself of my constant
courtesy and attention, fearing that I would be neither courteous nor
attentive if she told me she was engaged to be married?
However, I found out that night when I paced the deck alone, pipe in
mouth, that I had mistaken--that, in short, I was _not_ in love with
her. This was proved to my satisfaction by my quarter-deck meditations
on the subject. First, she was a Catholic; would she have married me,
who was a Protestant? No. Would I have surrendered my faith for her
hand? Not if that hand had grasped and proffered me the title-deeds of
every gold mine in this world. She sung, it is true, in a very heavenly
style, but was she not a devil at heart? Did not she offer to stick Yan
Bol and the others in the back? Did not she secrete a very ugly,
murderous weapon about her fine person? Not for the first time did it
occur to me _now_ that she was a very likely lady to poniard her
husband. One little fit of jealousy, and the rest would briefly work out
as a funeral, a handsome young mourning widow, very regular indeed at
confession, visited once a week by a man in a cloak, who presently so
raises the price of secrecy that by and by she’ll have to do for _him_,
too.
Another reflection consoled me; in a few years a very great change must
happen in the lady Aurora’s appearance. The Spanish woman is like the
Jewess; she does not improve by keeping. The delicate olive complexion
turns into a disagreeable wrinkled yellow; the pretty shading of down on
the upper lip thickens into a mustache considerable enough to raise the
jealousy of a captain of dragoons; the lofty and elegant carriage decays
into a tipsy waddle; the light of the eye is speedily quenched; the
white teeth show like the keys of a pianoforte; the rich singing voice
may linger, but it will irritate the ear of the husband by its
association with noisy quarrels.
These, I say, were reflections which vastly supported my spirits and
taught me to understand myself; they proved that my love for the lady
went no deeper than an eyelash of hers measured, and before my pipe was
out I was heartily congratulating myself on Mr. Gerald Maxwell having
come first.