Two years now since Mr. Villard had come home, and not a soul on the
plantation but believed that at last the new master had given up his
mysterious voyages and was home to stay. But one day I had business in
Savannah, and while there, hearing that the bark _Nereid_ was in from
the West African coast, I strolled down to the river front; and
presently I was approached and addressed by the master of the _Nereid_,
a seaman-like and rather shrewd-looking man who had a message for Mr.
Villard, he said--from the West Coast.
"I am charged to ask him to pass the word to Captain Blaise," said the
_Nereid's_ master, "that an old friend of his lies low of fever into
Momba. Captain Blaise would know who. We were putting out of Momba
lagoon and I was standing by the rail, when a nigger came paddling up
and whispered it. Like a breath of night air it was. 'Tell Master
Captain that Ubbo bring the word,' said the nigger, and like another
breath of wind he passed on. No more than that. A short, very stout, and
very black nigger. And I was to pass the word to Mr. Villard, a
gentleman of estate near Savannah, Georgia, and if you, sir, will attend
to that, my part's done."
After my dinner in town was through with, I rode hard; but it was late
night by the time I reached the manor-house. I found him sitting out
under the moon, smoking a cheroot as usual, and he continued to smoke
immovably for some minutes after I had delivered the message; but by and
by he stood up and took to pacing the veranda, and presently, after his
fashion, to speak his thoughts aloud.
"A hundred thousand acres and a thousand slaves, good, bad, and
indifferent--surely a man does owe a little something to his manorial
duties. At least, so all my highly respectable and well-established
neighbors tell me. What do you say, Guy?"
"I never gave much thought to the matter, sir."
"No? Well, doubtless you will--some day. But d'y' remember Kingston
Harbor, where the black boys dive through the green waters for the
silver sixpenny pieces, and Kingston port, where the white roads and the
white walls throw back the tropic sun so that it seems twice as hot as
it really is--Kingston, Guy--in Jamaica, where the sun sets like a
blood-orange salad in a purple dish? D'y' remember, Guy, and the day we
were lying into Kingston in the _Bess_ and the word came that my uncle
was dead? Aye, you do; but don't you remember how he used to rail
against me? To be sure--you were too young. And yet a good old uncle,
who gave me never a mild word in his life but left me his all at death."
"And why shouldn't he, sir?"
"Why not? Aye, that is so. Why not? And yet he could have left it to
anybody--to you, say."
"Why to me? Who am I?"
"What? Who are you?" He ceased his pacing. "That is so, Guy--who are
you? You with the strange, quick blood writ so plain in your countenance
that there--"
"Isn't it good blood, sir?"
"Aye, Guy, be sure it is good blood. But often have I thought how he
would have stormed if--" He gazed curiously at me.
"If--"
"Aye, if--but no matter." He resumed his nervous pacing back and forth,
back and forth, hands in pockets, head up, chin out, and face turned
always toward the river, past the moss-hung cypress trees to the yellow
Savannah flowing swiftly beyond. The salt tide-water made as far as
Villard Landing, and when it was in full flood, as now, it brought the
smell of the sea strongly with it.
"No matter that now, Guy. A good old soul, my uncle, d'y' see; but the
blood was everything to him. And he put it in the bond and I am bound by
it: that only the lawful issue, a son of the house, shall inherit. 'I'll
have no strange derelict child inherit my estate.' His own words. So
this fair estate, lacking lawful issue of my body or my old uncle's
son--and he is dead--it goes out of the family. Oh, a stormy,
intolerant, but well-meaning old uncle, who would have none of his
property left to--Oh, but not that, Guy--no, no, lad." He laid a
restraining hand on my shoulder. "No, no, lad, you must not take that to
yourself; for you are, no fear, honest born."
"I've waited long for you to tell me even that. Won't you tell me more,
sir?"
"Enough for now. But whatever my uncle thought or wished, here, Guy, is
an estate to your hand to enjoy. What d'y' say, eh, to the life of a
Southern gentleman on his plantation? A hundred thousand acres, a
thousand slaves, a stable of the horses you love so, upland and river
bottom to hunt, dancing, riding, balls, the city in winter. Is not that
something better than the hard, uncertain sea, Guy?"
He had paused for my answer, but I made none. He was standing
motionless, except for the backward toss of his head and the deep
inhalation, three or four times, of the briny air from the flooding
river. There was disappointment in his voice when he took up the talk
again.
"Oh, Guy, between us two what a difference! I was born ashore, you at
sea, and yet
"'It's you for the back of a charging barb,
And me for the deck of a heaving brig!'"
In a lower voice he repeated the couplet, and was plainly vastly pleased
with it. "Faith, and I wonder is that my own, or something I read
somewhere. Something of the lilt of a Scotch strathspey to 't, shouldn't
you say? You know more of such things. What d'y' say--shall I claim that
for my own, Guy?"
"You do, sir, and it's not Homer, nor Dante, nor Keats who will rise up
to accuse you of plagiarism."
"Bah! You would no more allow me the merit of a poetic vein than--"
"Poetry, sir?"
"Poetry--why not?" and suddenly bending sidewise and forward, he essayed
to obtain a fuller view of my face. And it is true that I was thinking
of anything but poetry.
His face darkened as he gazed. "A hundred estates and plantations were
nothing to me against--" he burst out passionately, but no further than
that. He checked himself and went inside, and with no good-night going.
In the morning he was gone. I waited--one, two, three days, and then I
went also--to Savannah, where I saw the _Bess_, but so altered that it
needed a lifetime's intimacy to hail her in the stream. Her spars had
been sent down and her name was now the _Triton_, and to her bow and
stern was clamped the false work which left her with no more outward
grace than any clumsy coaster; and by these signs I knew that Mr.
Villard of Villard Manor would once more disappear and that Captain
Blaise would soon again be sailing the _Dancing Bess_ overseas.
Captain Blaise had not yet come aboard; but whatever ship he sailed the
full run of that ship was mine, and I went into his cabin to wait for
him.
It was after dark when he came over the side. It was always after dark
when he boarded the _Bess_ in home ports. His words were colder than his
expression when he addressed me. "And where are you bound?"
"I don't know yet, sir."
"And why not?"
"You have not yet told me, sir, where you are going."
"Suppose it should be the West Coast and the old trade?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but even so I go."
"And leave all that good life you love so at the Manor?"
On his face was still the stern look. I could not stand it longer and I
stepped closer to him. "You have not turned against me, sir?"
He softened at once. "Guy, Guy, don't mind me. I meant well. I thought
you might prefer the shore to living on the sea."
"I do, sir, but when you are at sea it's at sea I'd rather be too, sir."
"Ah-h--" and when he looked at me like that it mattered not about his
law-breaking--he was the bravest, finest man that ever sailed the
trades. "Guy, my boy, if you'll have it so, why come along. And once
more we'll cruise together; but you won't judge your commander too
harshly, will you, Guy?"
We took the ebb down the river. Our papers read for a West India trading
voyage, but we lingered not among the West Indies. Four weeks later we
raised the Cape Verdes, and an islet rose like a castle from out of the
mists. Abreast of a pebbled beach we came to anchor and waited.