We have left the Virgin Islands now and at dawn we neared St. Kitts,
of the Leeward group, anchoring a half-mile away from the landing and
putting passengers ashore in the small boats that ranged themselves
near the steamer. There was a very bedlam of chatter, argument, and
recrimination among the black boatmen, mounting at times to furious
invective in a patois we failed wholly to understand, for though the
majority of the natives speak English on all the islands, whether
Dutch, French, or British, they use a language of their own vintage on
these undress occasions. I could see Dolly's bright head and laughing
eyes peeping through her porthole, nodding good-morning to me as I
viewed the scene from my own little stateroom opposite hers.
The St. Kitts boatmaster was a superb personage in white linen uniform
and cap. He stood at the top of the steps lowered from our steamer to
the ocean, and from that serene height of power commanded his
clamorous and refractory legions.
It was his voice that called me irresistibly from my berth and kept my
ears, as well as my eyes, glued to the porthole of my cabin. It was a
deep, rich barytone, as full of color as his own native skies and sea.
The white cap set off his dark skin, and a pair of eyes that shot
lightnings of authority gleamed from under his vizor. He ought to have
been singing the "Pagliacci" prologue at the Metropolitan Opera House,
but instead he was calling resonantly (his private megaphone seemed to
be located in his own throat): "_Don't crowd, Edward.... Push in,
Victoria.... Get away, George.... Come nearer, come nearer, Mary....
Show your number, Albert, or meet me in court to-morrow at eleven!_"
As a matter of fact, these were the names painted on the boats
crowding and jamming their way to the most favorable places for
securing passengers or freight; but the quality of his voice made it
seem as if, in calling Victoria, Edward, George, Mary, and Albert, he
were summoning a corporeal bevy of kings and queens to do his instant
bidding. The excitement reached its climax when an aged bishop
descended the stairway, which was under some circumstances as perilous
as a ladder. The bishop's quaint hat and gown and hood of various
colors made him seem like a benign figure in comic opera; and perhaps
because of his dignity or his multiplicity of luggage, all the boats
ardently desired him as a passenger. Two green boxes, carrying much
information painted in white on the sides, gave us all details of his
rank, ancestry, and place of residence. These were projected down the
stairway and then followed an imposing procession of servitors bearing
potted plants, packages done up in linen cloth, baskets of eggs,
limes, lemons, grapefruit, a canary in a cage, some white mice, and a
Persian cat; the last three, it is needless to say, being in separate
crates.
Majestic being, that St. Kitts boatmaster; never more impressive than
when he successfully landed a bishop of the isles! Dolly and I
recalled the "Admirable Crichton" in Barrie's whimsical play, who, as
butler in a titled English family, was wrecked with the entire
household on a desert island. It needed only the emergencies of
twenty-four hours to establish him as the dominant intellectual force
and the practical governor of the sadly inefficient earls, countesses,
ladies, and honorables; and before long he assumed the authority
properly belonging to him. That the earl's daughter finally fell in
love with him seemed not so much dramatic license as a tribute to his
obvious superiority. In London the lady would have been criticized as
marrying beneath her; on the desert island it actually appeared as if
she were doing particularly well for herself; indeed, Dolly confessed
that though she would prefer marrying Marmaduke Hogg she would rather
be wrecked in the company of the St. Kitts boatmaster.
* * * * *