"I want my aunt," I explained.
"Your aunt?" he roared. "Why the devil should you think I've got
your aunt?"
"You have got her," I replied with firmness. "I don't see her, but
she's here somewhere."
The captain of the _Rufus Smith_ shook two large red fists above
his head.
"Another lunatic!" he shouted. "I'd as soon have a white horse and
a minister aboard as to go to sea in a floating bedlam!"
As the captain's angry thunder died away came the small anxious
voice of Aunt Jane.
"What's the matter? Oh, please tell me what's the matter!" she was
saying as she edged her way into the group. In her severely cut
khaki suit she looked like a plump little dumpling that had got
into a sausage wrapping by mistake. Her eyes, round, pale,
blinking a little in the tropical glare, roved over the circle
until they lit on me. Right where she stood Aunt Jane petrified.
She endeavored to shriek, but achieved instead only a strangled
wheeze. Her poor little chin dropped until it disappeared
altogether in the folds of her plump neck, and she remained
speechless, stricken, immobile as a wax figure in an exhibition.
"Aunt Jane," I said, "you must come right back to shore with me."
I spoke calmly, for unless you are perfectly calm with Aunt Jane
you fluster her.
She replied only by a slight gobbling in her throat, but the other
woman spoke in a loud voice, addressed not to me but to the
universe in general.
"The Young Person is mad!" It was an unmistakably British
intonation.
This then was Miss Violet Higglesby-Browne, I saw a grim, bony,
stocky shape, in a companion costume to my aunt's. Around the
edges of her cork helmet her short iron-gray hair visibly bristled.
She had a massive head, and a seamed and rugged countenance which
did its best to live down the humiliation of a ridiculous little
nose with no bridge. By what prophetic irony she had been named
Violet is the secret of those powers which seem to love a laugh at
mankind's expense.
But what riveted my eyes was the deadly glare with which hers were
turned on me. I saw that not only was she as certain of my
identity as though she had guided me from my first tottering steps,
but that in a flash she had grasped my motives, aims and purposes,
and meant once for all to face, out-general and defeat me with
great slaughter.
So she announced to the company with deliberation, "The Young
Person is mad!"
It nettled me extremely.
"Mad!" I flung back at her. "Because I wish to save my poor aunt
from such a situation as this? It would be charitable to infer
madness in those who have led her into it!" When I reviewed
this speech afterward I realized that it was not, under the
circumstances, the best calculated to win me friends.
"Jane!" said Miss Higglesby-Browne in deep and awful tones, "the
time has come to prove your strength!"
Aunt Jane proved it by uttering a shrill yelp, and clutching her
hair with a reckless disregard of its having originally been that
of a total stranger. So severe were her shrieks and struggles that
it was with difficulty that she was borne below in the arms of two
strong men.
I had seen Aunt Jane in hysterics before--she had them that time
about the convict. I was not frightened, but I hurried after
her--neck and neck with Miss Browne. It was fifteen minutes before
Aunt Jane came to, and then she would only moan. I bathed her
head, and held her hand, and did all the regulation things, under
the baleful eye of Miss Browne, who steadfastly refused to go away,
but sat glaring like a gorgon who sees her prey about to be
snatched from her.
In the midst of my ministrations I awoke suddenly to a rhythmic
heave and throb which pervaded the ship. Dropping Aunt Jane's hand
I rushed on deck. There lay the various pieces of my baggage, and
in the distance the boat with the two brown rowers was skipping
shoreward over the ripples.
As for the _Rufus Smith_, she was under weigh, and heading out of
the roadstead for the open sea.
I dashed aft to the captain, who stood issuing orders in the voice
of an aggrieved fog-horn.
"Captain!" I cried, "wait; turn around! You must put my aunt and
me ashore!"
He whirled on me, showing a crimson angry face. "Turn around, is
it, turn around ?" he shouted. "Do you suppose I can loaf about
the harbor here a-waitin' on your aunt's fits? You come aboard
without me askin'. Now you can go along with the rest. This here
ship has got her course set for Frisco, pickin' up Leeward Island
on the way, and anybody that ain't goin' in that direction is
welcome to jump overboard."
That is how I happened to go to Leeward Island.