The warehouse of Rufus Stevens' Sons stood on the waterfront, huge,
square, and with many windows. There was no rutted road here, with
its scum of foul, black mud; stones were set in smoothly and solidly.
The row of brick arches opening into the warehouse were high enough
to admit a laden dray. Anthony stood in the mouth of one and looked
in. The place was like a dim vast cavern packed with riches and filled
with aromatic smells; porters, draymen, and clerks moved about in the
half-light like gnomes; never before had Anthony been so impressed by
the complete meaning of order, routine, spaciousness, wealth.
The wharves of the firm were heaped with cargo; three square-riggers
were tied there; windlasses turned; seamen chanted as they threw
their weight against the bars and swung the merchandise up from the
holds. Anthony looked from the ships, with their abundance and ordered
labor, to the warehouse and its repletion and thought of that day one
half-year before--the day the _Rufus Stevens_, under her makeshift mast
and ill-fitting sail, rounded the bend in the river, amazing all who
beheld her.
And that wonderful cargo! That shipful of riches! What Charles had
dreamed of it came true; for there was the house of Rufus Stevens' Sons
once more set squarely upon its foundations; there it stood, fixed,
settled, strong, with no man to speak a word against it.
For that part of its past, foul with villainy, was canceled. And its
future was bright and long. And there was peace, and there was honor,
and there was prosperity.
* * * * *
Anthony went to see Charles at his house on Ninth Street on a snowy
Sunday evening. And he found him wrapped comfortably in a rug before
the library fire, reading a play-book. Charles smiled and shook the
young man's hand.
"It is pleasant to sit here," he said, "and read and look at the fire
and think how safe things are in your hands."
"How are you?" Anthony asked.
"I am better. Oh, I am a deal better. You need not be afraid," and he
smiled and patted the young, strong arm. "I am back from the darkness
for good and all. But here I'll sit, Anthony, in the company of my
books, while the house of Stevens moves under your hand. Here I'll sit
quietly and with nothing to disturb me. I'll lead a rich life in this
room, by this fire; a rich, full life, with companions like this to
amuse me," and he riffled the leaves of the play-book.
"Your books," said Anthony, gratefully and wistfully, "thank God for
them!"
Charles smiled, and again he patted the young man's arm.
"Your grandfather never concerned himself with books; and you are a
deal like him. But they would store your mind and make it rich," he
said. "You would do well to encourage them. Those rakehells of the
Restoration, now, would amuse you, if your taste runs to their kind.
You'll find them there on the second shelf, next to the fireplace. Or,
if you'd rather take a step back, the Elizabethans are just below, and
they are a crew that'll shake your soul or your ribs, just as you'd
have them. And those Italian tale-tellers were shrewd workmen--there,
in the pigskin, right under your hand. But, if you think you'd care for
romance nearer to this present day, there is Defoe's narrative of the
shipwrecked sailor, and also Fielding's amusing chronicle of life as
he's seen it in his own England."
There was an array of pudgy little books with stout leather backs upon
a shelf quite low in the case. Anthony stooped and took one out and
opened it. The eyes of Charles sparkled.
"Voyages!" said he. "That one, I'll wager, is Bartholomew Diaz. How
often I've sailed with him, as a boy, to the mouth of the Great Fish
River! And there is fine old Vasco da Gama! Many a summer afternoon,
and I at school, he and I have doubled the cape, put the complaining
pilots in irons, and thrown their quadrants into the sea. And Columbus,
and Cabot, and the Merchant Adventurers' Company! There's a rank and
file for you, if you want actual deeds and fine accomplishment: Hawkins
and Drake, Davis and Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and that never-beaten
Yorkshireman, Martin Frobisher.
"Yes, here I'll sit in this excellent company," said Charles, and he
smiled and patted Anthony's arm. "I'll have nothing to disturb me. I'll
lead a rich, full life in this room, Anthony, God bless you; rich and
full, and with not a regret in all the world to throw either myself or
my friends out of humor."
* * * * *
Christopher Dent sat in his back room, his spectacles on his nose, and
a big book in Latin text upon his knee. A cheery fire crackled in the
stove; two candles burned upon the table; and a number of other books,
each as big as the one Christopher held, lay beside them. Outside the
yellow flare lurked the retorts, the rows of bottles, and jars full of
pent-up possibilities. Tom Horn sat upon a bench near the stove; he
rubbed his knees in the warmth as the little apothecary looked at him
over the edge of his spectacles.
"In none of the elder tongues," said Christopher, "is there much to do
with the sea. As you say, the ancients were wise; they had a knowledge
of many strange things, but they seldom ventured far from land, and the
sea, as we know it, was a darkened thing to them. So, knowing nothing
of its secrets, they could scarcely agree with what you say. Bear in
mind," said Christopher earnestly, "I am not denying; I only announce a
lack of authority in the ancients."
"The sea," said Tom Horn in his hushed voice, "has a meaning. It is
more than a mass of water, washing around in the hollows of the world."
"I grant you that," said Christopher readily. "I grant you that
much active principle is in the sea; it holds many vital elements
crystallized and in solution. Soda, for example, is the cinder of
sea-plants; and without this friendly alkali we'd many times be brought
to a stand. The ocean gives rare and agreeable substances to materia
medica, and in time, as we plumb its depth, it will give more."
But Tom Horn shook his head.
"I have watched the sea with the sun on it," he said, "and I've watched
it running through the night. Hurricanes blow over it and make it leap
and rave; but hurricanes die down, and the sea goes on. It is always
muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it, hour after hour; it's
always muttering over something it's hidden. But it never tells; it
keeps its secrets well." He looked at Christopher for a long time, and
then said, "Captain Weir was buried in the sea."
"Poor man," said the little apothecary. "Poor man, to rest away in the
silence of the ocean's depths!"
"The sea is always muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it hour
after hour; it's always muttering over something it's hidden. But it
never tells; it keeps its secrets well."
* * * * *
The graveyard was beside the quaint brick church; a low wall inclosed
it, and in June-time rose-vines climbed it and shook their wonders in
the wind. It was a well-kept churchyard, orderly and unfrequented;
in the cold months the snow covered the quiet graves gently; in
summer-time the grass was very green.
In a far corner of the wall was set the stone shaft to Captain Weir.
Though his body had been buried at sea, here sober thoughts of him
would be kept by his fellow-citizens. Cut deep into the base of the
monument were the words:
To the memory of Isaac Weir, once master in the Merchant Marine. He
was a Steady Friend, and a Faithful Servant, and Died at last in
Defense of Justice and the Law.
"A true word," said Anthony, as the last thing had been spoken,
dedicating the stone to future generations. "A true, fair word."
"As honest a man as day ever lit a path for," said Mr. Stroude, solemn
of face and beaver hat in hand. "He could ill be spared."
Mademoiselle said no word, but put a great bunch of blossoms at the
foot of the stone; and there were tears in her eyes.
"His was a strong hand," said Christopher Dent. "And a brave spirit. I
mind well how he insisted that I give him the facts that sent him away
to sea and to his death. A friend was in peril, and he must go to him.
A splendid, high resolve for any man."
Tom Horn stood silent and said nothing at all; and Mr. Sparhawk,
dapper, with more the look of a wise old bird than ever before, took
a careful pinch of snuff. And neither did he have any words in the
matter, but put the snuff-box into his waistcoat pocket and listened
considerately to the sayings of his neighbors.
* * * * *
There had never before been such a ship as the _Rufus Stevens_. The
Siddons yard, in that springtime, had hummed with her making; such a
hammering and sawing as there had been, such a chipping and shaving,
and boring and fitting, the clever old place never saw before. The
keel was of solid, seasoned, toughened oak, as surely fitted, as
strongly braced as old Rufus' spine had been. And to this grew the
ribs, powerful, graceful, bent cunningly, to waste the impact of the
sea, and to give space to her cargo. Then the beams went in to brace
the frame; mighty, weighty, strong beams of live-oak that was like
iron; beams that had been nursed and molded and cut to fit by shrewd
joiners. Live-oak had been Charles's highest demand; live-oak that had
been felled in proper time and seasoned in the sun and rain and wind.
The stem was made of it--a great cutting stem that would throw the
seas lightly apart; the stern-post was of it, and also the transoms,
aprons, knight-heads, hawse-timbers, and keelson; and it was all clean
and without defects. And, when she had been launched, how the workmen
swarmed in her; how her masts reared when set in place; how wide and
smooth and clean her deck was! What enormous yards and sails!
Anthony thought of all these things as he watched her, once more
headed south and east, with the Delaware capes on either side, and the
ocean under her foot. And madame stood by his side. Oh, no, no longer
mademoiselle. She was his wife now; and she stood by his side, tall,
beautiful, with fine brave eyes; and her hand was upon his arm; and
she, too, watched the ship.
"She sails like a hawk," said Anthony. "And Corkery is a master
that'll take advantage of it. With wind and weather, she'll dock in
Calcutta in ninety days."
And they watched her head away for the Far East, sail over sail, her
bow cutting the water and piling it white about her; and they were
still watching as she winged away into the depths beyond the ocean's
curve.
"God send her safe!" said madame softly. "And God send her back again."
And Anthony patted the hand that rested upon his arm; and there was the
deep friendship of one comrade for another in the look he gave her;
and there was in it, too, the love of a man for the dear woman he had
greatly desired.
"She will return," said Anthony. "She will return many, many times."
"Why are you so sure?" she said; and she smiled.
"When you are with me, my senses seem keyed to unusual things,"
he said. "I see joy and peace coming down the wind, and there's a
wonderful singing from far-off places."
And madame laughed and held tighter to his arm, and looked up at him,
and loved him.