“I accept the omen, Mrs. Williams!” I cried. “That’s it! When all
is well! And all must be well in a very short time, with you and your
husband’s help, which shall not fail me, I know. I feel as if the worst
of our troubles were over already....”
But at that moment I saw Seraphina coming out on deck. She emerged from
the companion, bare-headed, and looked about at her new surroundings
with that air of imperious and childlike beauty which made her charm.
The wind stirred slightly her delicate hair, and I looked at her; I
looked at her stilled, as one watches the dawn or listens to a sweet
strain of music caught from afar. Suddenly dropping Mrs. Williams’ hand,
I ran to her....
When I turned round, Williams had joined his wife, and she had slipped
her arm under his. Her hand, thin and white, looked like the hand of an
invalid on the brawny forearm of that man bursting with health and good
condition. By the side of his lustiness, she was almost ethereal--and
yet I seemed to see in them something they had in common--something
subtle, like the expression of eyes. It _was_ the expression of their
eyes. They looked at us with commiseration; one of them sweetly, the
other with his owlish fixity. As we two, Seraphina and I, approached
them together, I heard Williams’ thick, sleepy voice asking, “And so
he says he won’t?” To which his wife, raising her tone with a shade of
indignation, answered, “Of course not.” No, I was not mistaken. In their
dissimilar persons, eyes, faces, there was expressed a common trouble,
doubt, and commiseration. This expression seemed to go out to meet us
sadly, like a bearer of ill-news. And, as if at the sight of a
downcast messenger, I experienced the clear presentiment of some fatal
intelligence.
It was conveyed to me late in the afternoon of that ‘same day out of
Williams’ own thick lips, that seemed as heavy and inert as his voice.
“As far as we can see,” he said, “you can’t stay in the ship, Kemp. It
would do no one any good--not the slightest good. Ask Sebright here.”
It was a sort of council of war, to which we had been summoned in the
saloon. Mrs. Williams had some sewing in her lap. She listened, her
hands motionless, her eyes full of desolation. Seraphina’s attitude,
leaning her cheek on her hand, reminded me of the time when I had seen
her absorbed in watching the green-and-gold lizard in the back room of
Ramon’s store, with her hair falling about her face like a veil. Castro
was not called in till later on. But Sebright was there, leaning his
back negligently against the bulkhead behind Williams, and looking down
on us seated on both sides of the long table. And there was present,
too, in all our minds, the image of the Rio Medio schooner, hull down on
our quarter. In all the trials of sailing, we had not been able to shake
her off that day.
“I don’t want to hide from you, Mr. Kemp,” Sebright began, “that it was
I who pointed out to the captain that you would be only getting the ship
in trouble for nothing. She’s an old trader and favourite with shippers;
and if we once get to loggerheads with the powers, there’s an end of her
trading. As to missing Havana this trip, even if you, Mr. Kemp, could
give a pot of money, the captain could never show his nose in there
again after breaking his charter-party to help steal a young lady. And
it isn’t as if she were nobody. She’s the richest heiress in the island.
The biggest people in Spain would have their say in this matter. I
suppose they could put the captain in prison or something. Anyway,
good-by to the Havana business for good. Why, old Perkins would have
a fit. He got over one runaway match.... All right, Mrs. Williams, not
another word.... What I meant to say is that this is nothing else but
a love story, and to knock on the head a valuable old-established
connection for it..Don’t bite your lip, Mr. Kemp. I mean no disrespect
to your feelings. Perkins would start up to break things--let alone his
heart. I am sure the captain and Mrs. Williams think so, too.”
The festive and subdued captain of the _Lion_ was staring straight
before him, as if stuffed. Mrs. Williams moved her fingers, compressed
her lips, and looked helplessly at all of us in turn. “Besides altering
his will,” Sebright breathed confidentially at the back of my head. I
perceived that this old Perkins, whom I had never seen, and was never
to see in the body, whose body no one was ever to see any more (he died
suddenly on the echoing staircase, with a flat candlestick in his hand;
was already dead at the time, so that Mrs. Williams was actually sitting
in the cabin of her very own ship)--I perceived that old Perkins
was present at this discussion with all the power of a malignant,
bad-tempered spirit. Those two were afraid of him. They had defied him
once, it is true--but even that had been done out of fear, as it were.
Dismayed, I spoke quickly to Seraphina. With her head resting on her
hand, and her eyes following the aimless tracings of her finger on the
table, she said:
“It shall be as God wills it, Juan.”
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t!” said Sebright, coughing behind me. He
understood Spanish fairly well. “What I’ve said is perfectly true.
Nevertheless the captain was ready to risk it.”
“Yes,” ejaculated Williams profoundly, out of almost still lips, and
otherwise so motionless all over that the deep sound seemed to have been
produced by some person under the table. Mrs. Williams’ fingers were
clasped on her lap, and her eyes seemed to beg for belief all round our
faces.
“But the point is that it would have been no earthly good for you
two,” continued Sebright. “That’s the point I made. If O’Brien knows
anything, he knows you are on board this ship. He reckons on it as a
dead certainty. Now, it is very evident that we could refuse to give
_you_ up, Mr. Kemp, and that the admiral (if the flagship’s off Havana,
as I think she must be by now) would have to back us up. How you would
get on afterwards with old Groggy Rowley, I don’t know. It isn’t likely
he has forgotten you tried to wipe the floor with him, if I am to take
the captain’s yarn as correct.”
“A regular hero,” Williams testified suddenly, in his concealed,
from-under-the-table tone. “He’s not afraid of any of them;
not he. Ha! ha! Old Topnambo must have....” He glanced at his
wife, and bit his tongue--perhaps at the recollection of his
unsafe conjugal position--ending in disjointed words, “In his
chaise--warrant--separationist--rebel,” and all this without moving a
limb or a muscle of his face, till, with a low, throaty chuckle, he
fluttered a stony sort of wink to my address.
Sebright had paused only long enough for this ebullition to be over.
The cool logic of his surmise appalled me. He didn’t see why O’Brien or
anybody in Havana should want to interfere with me personally. But if
I wanted to keep my young lady, it was obvious she must not arrive in
Havana on board a ship where they would be sure to look for her the very
first thing. It was even worse than it looked, he declared. His firm
conviction was that if the _Lion_ did not turn up in Havana pretty soon,
there would be a Spanish man-of-war sent out to look for her--or else
Mr. O’Brien was not the man we took him for. There was lying in harbour
a corvette called the _Tornado_, a very likely looking craft. I didn’t
expect them to fight a corvette. No doubt there would be a fuss made
about stopping a British ship on the high seas; but that would be a cold
comfort after the lady had been taken away from me. She was a person of
so much importance that even our own admiral could be induced--say, by
the Captain-General’s remonstrances--to sanction such an action. There
was no saying what Rowley would do if they only promised to present him
with half a dozen pirates to take home for a hanging. Why! that was the
very identical thing the flagship was kept dodging off Havana for! And
O’Brien knew where to lay his hands on a gross of such birds, for that
matter.
“No,” concluded Sebright, overwhelming me from behind, as I sat
looking, not at the uncertainties of the future, but at the paralyzing
hopelessness of the bare to-morrow. “The _Lion_ is no place for you,
whether she goes into Havana or not. Moreover, into Havana she must go
now. There’s no help for it. It’s the deuce of a situation.”
“Very well,” I gasped. I tried to be resolute. I felt, suddenly, as
if all the air in the cabin had gone up the open skylight. I couldn’t
remain below another moment; and, muttering something about coming back
directly, I jumped up and ran out without looking at any one lest I
should give myself away. I ran out on deck for air, but the great blue
emptiness of the open staggered me like a blow over the heart. I walked
slowly to the side, and, planting both my elbows on the rail, stared
abroad defiantly and without a single clear thought in my head. I had a
vague feeling that the descent of the sun towards the waters, going on
before my eyes with changes of light and cloud, was like some gorgeous
and empty ceremonial of immersion belonging to a vast barren faith
remote from consolation and hope. And I noticed, also, small things
without importance--the hirsute aspect of a sailor; the end of a rope
trailing overboard; and Castro, so different from everybody else on
board that his appearance seemed to create a profound solitude round
him, lounging before the cabin door as if engaged in a deep conspiracy
all by himself. I heard voices talking loudly behind me, too.
I noted them distinctly, but with perfect indifference. A long time
after, with the same indifference, I looked over my shoulder. Castro had
vanished from the quarter-deck. And I turned my face to the sea again as
a man, feeling himself beaten in a fight with death, might turn his face
to the wall.
I had fought a harder battle with a more cruel foe than death, with
the doubt of myself; an endless contest, in which there is no peace of
victory or of defeat. The open sea was like a blank and unscalable wall
imprisoning the eternal question of conduct. Right or wrong? Generosity
or folly? Conscience or only weak fear before remorse? The magnificent
ritual of sunset went on palpitating with an inaudible rhythm, with slow
and unerring observance, went on to the end, leaving its funeral fires
on the sky and a great shadow upon the sea. Twice I had honourably
stayed my hand. Twice... to this end.
In a moment, I went through all the agonies of suicide, which left me
alive, alas, to burn with the shame of the treasonable thought, and
terrified by the revolt of my soul refusing to leave the world in which
a young girl lived! The vast twilight seemed to take the impress of her
image like wax. What did Seraphina think of me? I knew nothing of her
but her features, and it was enough. Strange, this power of a woman’s
face upon a man’s heart--this mastery, potent as witchcraft and
mysterious like a miracle. I should have to go and tell her. I did
not suppose she could have understood all of Sebright’s argumentation.
Therefore, it was for me to explain to what a pretty pass I had brought
our love.
I was so greatly disinclined to stir that I let Sebright’s voice go on
calling my name half a dozen times from the cabin door. At last I faced
about.
“Mr. Kemp! I say, Kemp! Aren’t you coming in yet?”
“To say good-by,” I said, approaching him.
It had fallen dark already.
“Good-by? No. The carpenter must have a day at least.”
Carpenter! What had a carpenter to do in this? However, nothing
mattered--as though I had managed to spoil the whole scheme of creation.
“You didn’t think of making a start to-night, did you?” Sebright
wondered. “Where would be the sense of it?”
“Sense,” I answered contemptuously. “There is no sense in anything.
There is necessity. Necessity.”
He remained silent for a time, peering at me.
“Necessity, to be sure,” he said slowly. “And I don’t see why you should
be angry at it.”
I was thinking that it was easy enough for him to keep cool--the
necessity being mine. He continued to philosophize with what seemed to
me a shocking freedom of mind.
“Must try to put some sense into it. That’s what we are here for, I
guess. Anyhow, there’s some room for sense in arranging the way a thing
is to be done, be it as hard as it may. And I don’t see any sense,
either, in exposing a woman to more hardship than is absolutely
necessary. We have talked it out now, and I can do no more. Do go inside
for a bit. Mrs. Williams is worrying the Señorita, rather, I’m afraid.”
I paused a moment to try and regain the command of my faculties. But it
was as if a bombshell had exploded inside my skull, scattering all
my wits to the four winds of heaven. Only the conviction of failure
remained, attended by a profound distress.
I fancy, though, I presented a fairly bold front. The lamp was lit, and
small changes had occurred during my absence. Williams had turned his
bulk sideways to the table. Mrs. Williams had risen from her place,
and was now sitting upright close to Seraphina, holding one little
hand inclosed caressingly between her frail palms, as if she had there
something alive that needed cherishing. And in that position she looked
up at me with a strange air of worn-out youth, cast by a rosy flush
over her forehead and face. Seraphina still leaned her head on her
other hand, and I noted, through the soft shadow of falling hair, the
heightened colour on her cheek and the augmented brilliance of her eye.
“‘How I wish she had been an English girl,” Mrs. Williams sighed
regretfully, and leaned forward to look into Seraphina’s half-averted
face.
“My dear, did you quite, quite understand what I have been saying to
you?”
She waited.
“_Si Señora_,” said Seraphina. None of us moved. Then, after a time,
turning to me with sudden animation, “This woman asked me if I believed
in your love,” she cried. “She is old. Oh, Juan, can the years change
the heart? your heart?” Her voice dropped. “How am I to know that?” she
went on piteously. “I am young--and we may not live so long. I believe
in mine....”
The corners of her delicate lips drooped; but she mastered her desire
to cry, and steadied her voice which, always rich and full of womanly
charm, took on, when she was deeply moved, an imposing gravity of
timbre.
“But I am a Spaniard, and I believe in my lover’s honour; in your--your
English honour, Juan.”
With the dignity of a supreme confidence she extended her hand. It was
one of the culminating moments of our love. For love is like a journey
in mountainous country, up through the clouds, and down into the shadows
to an unknown destination. It was a moment rapt and full of feeling, in
which we seemed to dwell together high up and alone--till she withdrew
her hand from my lips, and I found myself back in the cabin, as if
precipitated from a lofty place.
Nobody was looking at us. Mrs. Williams sat with downcast eyelids, with
her hands reposing on her lap: her husband gazed discreetly at a gold
moulding on the deck-beam; and the upward cast of his eyes invested
his red face with an air of singularly imbecile ecstasy. And there was
Castro, too, whom I had not seen till then, though I must have brushed
against him on entering. He had stood by the door a mute, and, as it
were, a voluntarily unmasked conspirator with the black round of the
hat lying in front of his feet. He, alone, looked at us. He looked from
Seraphina to me--from me to Seraphina. He looked unutterable things,
rolling his crow-footed eyes in pious horror and glowering in turns.
When Seraphina addressed him, he hastened to incline his head with his
usual deference for the daughter of the Riegos.
She said, “There are things that concern this _caballero_, and that you
can never understand. Your fidelity is proved. It has sunk deep here....
It shall give you a contented old age--on the word of Seraphina Riego.”
He looked down at his feet with gloomy submission.
“There is a proverb about an enamoured woman,” he muttered to himself,
loud enough for me to overhear. Then, stooping deliberately to pick up
his hat, he flourished it with a great sweep lower than his knees. His
dumpy black back flitted out of the cabin; and almost directly we heard
the sharp click of his flint and blade outside the door.