In the cabin Lieutenant Stromberg was still playing solitaire; at
the opposite side of the table his sister sat, with Drew beside her,
reading aloud, as she took a lesson in English.
"Da sea grows sto'-mee, da lit' ones mo-own,
But, ah-h, she gafe me nef-fair a lo-o-ok,
Faw her eyes weh seal'd tow da holy bo-o-ok!
Loud prays da pries'; shot stahnds da do'.
Coam avay, chillen, call no mo'!
Coam avay, coam da-own, call no mo'!"
"Yo' pro-nouns doze _d_ in 'chillen'?" Her concerned eyes flashed an
anxious look up at Drew.
"Yes," he answered--"'children.'"
"Chil-d'en. Iss das mo' betteh?"
He bowed gravely, but said:
"You must pronounce the _r_, too."
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
"Ah t'ink doze _ahs_ ve'y dif_fi_cult tow pro-nouns. Alone, no; but wiz
doze ot'er let's doze bec-ome los'." She laughed again.
"Coam avay, chil-_dahn_, call no mo'!
Coam avay, coam da-own, call no mo'!"
She turned a bright look upon Hetty.
"Meesteh Drew all tam rid doze po_et_ry; so Ah say tow tich me doze
lang-widge mo' betteh," she explained. "Ah was tich tow rid doze
Anglish by ma home tow Denmahk, but Ah leahn tow spik eet off ma black
maid tow St. Croix. She spik ve'y nize, but so sho'tly, Ah unnehstahnd
heh not alwis."
"Shortly?" repeated Hetty, in doubt.
"Fastly, ra_pid_ly," explained Lieutenant Stromberg, looking up from
his cards. "Ma sisteh's Anglish iss only a second coosin off das
real Anglish--second coosin twice remove'--t'r-rough Denmar-r-k and
Afr-r-rica." Lieutenant Stromberg knew his _r's_.
"I think she speaks beautifully, with such opportunities," Hetty
replied, with spirit.
Miss Stromberg beamed her thanks.
"Ah t'ank yo' exceedin'," she said. She looked at her book, sighed,
looked up again, and continued: "But doze po_et_ry mek me tow haf
doze sadness--me." She sighed again and shook her head. "Yo' lak doze
po_et_ry?"
"Not always," Hetty answered frankly.
The questioner laid the book hesitatingly on the table, and her hands
drifted together in her lap.
"Ah t'ink das iss mos' coh'ect," she agreed. "Eet iss not alwis
poss_i_ble tow lak eet when yo' s'all t'ink off ot'er t'ings--doze
noise' and stohms," she explained.
"Yet yo' s'all desire to heah doze noise' ofer once mo' when yo' rich
St. Croix," said the lieutenant, without looking up from his game.
"'Ah, doze beau-tiful noise'!' yo' s'all say--'so poe_tic_al!'" He
laughed mischievously.
"We shall miss many things when we reach St. Croix," said Drew, looking
at them and smiling.
Hetty glanced at him, then she leaned forward and put her hand on the
Danish girl's arm.
"We shall miss you," she said softly.
"Ah, no!" Brother and sister spoke together. He turned and bowed to his
sister smilingly.
"Ah, no!" she repeated; "yo' s'all coam at our house alwis; da do'
s'all stahnd wide faw yo' fawefer." Her eyes included them all in the
invitation.
"Ah wass going tow spik doze sem lak ma sisteh," said the brother, with
a magnificent bow.
"I shall bring the book," said Drew, touching it. "It may go better
there."
"Shuah-lee!" laughed the Danish girl. "And yo' s'all rid eet in doze
gahden, among doze floweh' mos' beautiful, wiz doze o'ange-tree' and
t'ibet-tree' meking doze cool shadow, and doze sea-watah fah _be_-low
shining in da sun. And noise--yo' s'all heah on-lee doze sea-watah
mu'_mu_'ing soft-lee, and doze fountains whispehing, and poss_i_bly a
lil' song ofehhead, and maybe some dahkies pahssing _be_-hin' doze high
wall, calling tow sell yo' some t'ings ve'y nize--and nut'in' mo'."
"Hot arepa! hot arepa dem! Ya da hot arepa!" In a high, slurring
singsong Lieutenant Stromberg gave the cry of the negro women
street-venders.
"Yas; das iss eet," said his sister. "Yo' t'ink das iss nize?"
"Ah, it would be _living_ poetry!" Drew answered.
She smiled, looked up, caught his gaze; her own dropped to her hands
clasped in her lap.
"Das iss mo' nizeh dan heah?" she asked demurely.
"I shall never want to go away," he told her.
"And when doze hurricane coam," began her brother, "how--"
"Sh-h!" she exclaimed, while her eyes bubbled with laughter. "Why spik
off doze when we go-ing _in_-vite peop' at ouah house? Pos_si_bly doze
coam not aany mo'--doze huh'icane."
"Pos_si_bly not," agreed her brother.
"Aanyway," she continued triumphantly, "doze huh'icane nefer hu't us."
For a moment Mrs. March had forgotten the rolling vessel and the
threatening sea. "The little tyke!" she said to herself, smilingly; but
her daughter spoke aloud.
"Why do you make such a beautiful picture of it?" she asked. "Don't you
know that I must go back to the cold and the snow?"
Miss Stromberg laughed, and shook her head.
"Yo' s'all cah not," she answered. "Yo' s'all say, 'Oh, doze
huh'icane!' Wheah da heaht iss, da iss da beautiful pictu'. So womens
ah med," she added wisely.
"And is your heart there--in that garden?" Drew asked. He smiled.
She laughed again.
"'Tiss joost heah--and unfast," she replied, and placed her hand on her
breast. "Eet hass no feexed 'abitation."
On deck they heard the tramp of feet going aft, and then, as the
starboard side lifted, the cry of the crew hauling in the main sheet,
and the hoarse croak of the blocks. Before the tramp was heard again,
going forward, Captain March came from his room and hurried up to the
deck.
Medbury walked over to his side.
"The wind's hauled around a little, sir. We couldn't keep the course."
Captain March looked aloft, then glanced at the compass.
He gave no sign of having heard. Suddenly he stopped short and gazed
forward.
"What's that contraption you got there, Mr. Medbury?" he asked.
"One of the flanges of the pump gave 'way, sir," answered the mate,
"and we couldn't use but one bar; so I rigged up that whiz-jig. It's
better than one bar, and, besides, we can work it from the poop. If
things should get much worse, the men would drown on the main-deck."
"Does the water gain on you?" the captain asked.
"About the same--inch by inch. But she's getting a little logy, it
seems to me; and if the wind should go down or haul ahead--" He paused
in gloomy silence.
"It won't," said the captain.
He walked to the rail and took down the marking of the log-line,
and then went below to lay out his position on the chart. For two
days he had had no sun to take an observation, and could trust only
to dead-reckoning. Carefully he laid out his course and marked the
distance traveled, then tried to calculate how far the heave of the sea
and the set of the current had modified his right position. At last he
pricked out the spot with all the appearance of certainty, made a light
ring about the dot, and was rolling up his chart as his daughter came
to his side.
"Where are we now, father?" she asked.
He looked at her and smiled.
"Just about here or hereabout," he told her.
She took the chart from his hand and unrolled it.
"Where are we?" she demanded.
His stubby finger pointed to the dot.
"It's a long way to go yet," she sighed. "I hoped we were nearer."
As she spoke, the stern of the brig seemed to sink to a great depth,
swing wide, then settle again, and there came a crash of falling seas
upon the deck, and a wave went hissing across the house, falling in
sloppy cascades before the window facing forward, which had not been
battened. An instant later the captain was on deck.
The canvas screen about the taffrail was flapping loose from one of the
poles; Medbury, with dripping oilskins, was at the wheel with one of
the helmsmen, but the other was under the lee rail with his head down
in his hands.
"That was a heavy one, sir," called Medbury as he bent to the spokes.
He straightened up, panting, and nodded to the man who was down. "Don't
think he's much hurt," he shouted.
Captain March walked over to the sailor, and, leaning over him, took
him by the shoulder.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
The man rose slowly to his feet, shaking himself.
"I struck my head against the bitts," he said slowly. "I guess it
stunned me for a minute."
"Where?" asked the captain.
The man, with fingers that trembled, slowly unbuttoned his sou'wester,
took it off, and fumbled about his head. The captain watched him.
"Well, you better look out next time," he called with mild severity,
which stopped short of positive reproof. "I guess you were watching
over your shoulder more'n you were your course. Well, now you go
forward and send Charlie aft."
He walked toward the wheel, but Medbury said:
"I'll hold on here a spell, sir."
"No," said the captain; "I'll take a hold. Just get that canvas lashed
up again, will you?" Then he took the wheel, which he was not to leave
again, except for one brief moment, until the end.
When Medbury had lashed the screen fast, Captain March nodded to him to
come near, that he might speak.
"Better start your topsail-sheets a bit," he shouted. "They'll lift a
little and ease her. Give 'em about two feet--no more'n that."
As the afternoon wore on, the wind increased in force and the sea grew
heavier. Now and then a sharp shower swept past, and ceased suddenly;
but the clouds did not lift, and the rack flew overhead, low down, like
steam from a huge exhaust-pipe. At seven bells a topgallantsail-sheet
parted, and by the time the sail was housed and the yard lowered it was
dusk.
As Medbury prepared to go aft again, he paused by the fore-rigging and
looked up. The canvas was thundering like a drum corps; the lee rigging
swung slack, but that to windward was as stiff as iron, and shrilled
like a score of fifes or roared like organ-pipes.
"Oh, shut up!" he said aloud, and then grinned shamefacedly at his
irritability.
As he came to the steps leading up to the poop-deck, he paused and
looked about him. It seemed to him that the wind had suddenly ceased,
and he could hear it far away, roaring back a defiance through the
murky twilight. The next moment he heard the captain shouting to call
all hands and shorten sail.
With the crew increased by the men from the lost Danish bark, they
had all things made snug and fast in an incredibly short time, and
under maintopmast-staysail with the bonnet out, lower topsail, and
foretopmast-staysail, they were rolling down the long seas in leisurely
fashion by the time night was fairly upon them.
Still panting with his heavy exertion, Medbury was standing by the
taffrail, looking down at the foam that now seemed only to creep by
them, and thinking gloomily of the water rising in the hold, when
suddenly he became aware of an increase in the weight of the wind
upon his face. He looked up, but, seeing nothing, glanced down again;
but in that brief moment the foam had disappeared, and he was gazing
into blackness. He turned quickly, only to see that the same darkness
had swallowed up the men at the wheel and every part of the vessel.
The binnacle-light was burning, but the dim glow stopped short at
the slide: beyond that it seemed to have no power to go. With an
indescribable sensation of being absolutely cut off from every living
thing, he stepped quickly toward the wheel, and, putting out his hand,
touched his captain. It gave him a curious feeling of intense relief.
Then he heard Captain March speaking in a calm voice that quieted him
instantly.
"Is that you, Mr. Medbury?" he said. "What's wanted?"
"It's getting black, sir," he said--"black as a nigger's pocket."
"I noticed it," said the captain.
"It came on all of a sudden," the mate went on. He wanted to hear
his voice and the voice of the captain: in some curious way even the
trivial words seemed to mitigate the awful darkness.
"Maybe you'd better get out some lines for the men at the pumps, and
make 'em fast across deck," continued the captain. "We can't afford
to lose anybody overboard. And bring us some, too. When you've done
that, just go down to your room, as if you'd gone to fetch something.
Maybe it'll help the women-folks a little to see somebody from the deck
before it begins," he went on in a matter-of-fact voice. "But don't
stay. I may want you any minute."
In haste, and with hands that fumbled a little, Medbury rigged stout
life-lines across the deck for the men at the pumps; and, leaving
straps for the captain and his companion at the wheel, descended into
the cabin. He struck a match in his room, and looked about him vaguely,
smiling to himself at his purposeless errand at a time when moments
were fraught with life or death. He was not, like his captain, a man of
imagination: his mere passage through the cabin seemed only a bit of
fanciful foolishness of which he was a trifle ashamed.
His match flickered and went out; for a moment he stood staring before
him in the darkness, hearing the voices of those in the cabin as they
talked together. He heard Drew's deep tones, and Hetty replying to
them, and a sudden impotent rush of jealousy overwhelmed him as he
thought that he must battle on deck in what might be their last fight,
while this man, who had known her barely as many days as he had loved
her years, would be with her in these last hours. Blindly, without
looking to right or left, he walked through the cabin and ascended to
the deck.
Though he had been below only a moment, an amazing change had taken
place. As he seized the hasp of the door to open it, the pressure from
the outside was so great that for a moment he thought that some one
was leaning against it. He knocked on it loudly, then pushed again,
becoming immediately aware that the resisting force was wind. Then
throwing all his weight forward, he squeezed through, with the door
slamming to behind him.
It was only the beginning. The seas seemed to grow momentarily heavier,
and it became impossible to stand erect upon the deck. When Medbury
went forward to the pumps, as he did from time to time, he went with
bent body, keeping his hand upon the rail. His face was stiffened with
salt, which clung to his eyelashes and had to be wiped away constantly.
It became in time no longer possible to distinguish sounds: the bellow
of the wind, the roar of the sea, the thunder of the canvas, and the
groaning of spars and timber, became merged in an indescribable tumult,
the waves of which, like a great sea of sound, seemed to rise about
them and beat them down into insignificance. In this strange melting
away of all the known landmarks of his craft, Medbury stood at times
helpless and irresolute, and doggedly awaited the end.
To those shut up in the cabin there came, as the night wore on, a
sense of impending danger. Once, unable longer to bear the feeling of
isolation from those who were fighting on deck for their lives, Hetty
made her way with difficulty to the companionway, and, mounting to the
doors, tried them. Then she turned.
"They have locked us in!" she cried, staring down at her companions.
The lamp, swinging in its gimbals, cast only a faint light upon their
upturned, startled faces. Her lips trembled. "It makes me afraid," she
faltered.
Miss Stromberg burst into tears. Hetty hurried down to her, and,
sitting close together on the lounge, the two clasped each other's
hands, listening. The men sat with closed eyes for the most part. Mrs.
March had long before gone to her room.
Once there came three unusually heavy seas, and as the brig rolled down
it seemed to Hetty that they never would rise again, and, closing her
eyes, she prayed silently. Then there came the long "smooth," and she
opened her eyes and smiled upon her companion.
"That is better, isn't it?" she whispered.
"Ah do not lak eet," Miss Stromberg whispered back. "Ah ahm affred,
also--me."
Hetty patted her hands.
"It will be better soon," she said.
"Do yo' t'ink Ah s'all be los' once mo'?" asked the girl. "Ah ahm tow
lit' tow was'e all doze sto'ms on--me." She laughed hysterically.
"No, no!" cried Hetty. "You will be home to-morrow--in that garden."
"Oh, doze gahden! Eet sims a t'ousand woilds f'om heah."
"To-morrow," continued Hetty, "this will seem like a bad dream."
"Ah pray Ah may slip mo' sound-lee," she murmured laughingly. "But
yo'--yo' haf doze cou'age!" she added admiringly.
"I trust my father," replied Hetty. She was gaining courage by
imparting it.
"And das young of_fic_er?"
"Yes," said Hetty.
"Yo' lak him mooch?"
"I've known him all my life."
"Das iss ve'y nize." She turned suddenly to Drew. "Wass yo' t'ink off?"
she asked him.
He looked at her and smiled.
"I was thinking of your garden just then," he replied.
"Ah!" she murmured delightedly. "Yo' joost da sem lak us!"
"You were thinking of it, too?" he asked.
"Dees ve'y minute. Das iss ve'y nize--tow t'ink doze sem t'ings
altowgeddeh."
"Eet iss a ve'y nize gahden," said Lieutenant Stromberg, "but eet
iss not so nize as yo' s'all t'ink. Nut'in' iss," he explained. "Eet
s'all _bec_-ome dull--lak dees, lak efer't'ing. Me--Ah s'all play doze
cahds." He laughed, and, taking his cards from the glass rack, began
another game of solitaire.