"You're not going back to the ship?"
"But I must--I must."
"No, you're not--and you must not. Here." She had taken the bewaxed and
beribboned package from her little handbag. It was addressed to "Guy
Villard, Esq., Villard Manor, Chatham County, Ga."
"But who is he?"
"Who is he? Who are you?"
"Guy Blaise."
"No, you're not. Open it and read. Or wait, let me read it."
And it is true that not till then did I suspect. I thought that I might
have been his son, or the son of some wild friend, born of a marriage
on the West Coast or other foreign parts. But of this thing I never had
a suspicion.
I was the baby boy picked up in the wreckage of the burning ship. There
were the marriage certificates of my father and mother, and the title
deeds to the Villard estate. It had been a great temptation--he the next
of kin, my father's cousin, and no one knowing. And he, too, feared the
strange blood. But watching my growth, he had come to love me, and
wanted me to love him, and feared my contempt if I should learn. All
this was explained in a letter in a small envelope, written recently and
hastily. Together, Shiela and I, we finished the reading of it:
Though I'm not so sure now that you shouldn't thank me for
withholding your inheritance until the quality of your manhood was
assured. It is true that I imperilled your mortal body a score of
times, but through fifty-score weeks I nurtured your immortal soul,
Guy.
And now I am going back to that sea wherein I expect to find rest
at the last, and let my friends make no mourning over it, Guy. 'Tis
a beautiful clean grave, no mould nor crawling worms there. But if
it be that the sea will have none of me, and the metalled war-dogs
drive me, and spar-shattered and hull-battered I make a run of it
to harbor in my old age, I shall come in full confidence of a
mooring under your roof, Guy. And who knows that I won't be worth
my salt there?
You have won her, Guy. I knew you would from that night in Momba
when you sat in the stern sheets and laughed. 'Twas in your laugh
that night, though you did not suspect it. But I know. The tides
of youth were surging in you. Beauty, wit, and courage--with these
in any man I will measure sword; but the tides of youth are of
eternal power.
I should like to dance your children on my knee, Guy, and lull the
songs of the sea into their little ears. I've a fine collection by
now, Guy--you've no idea--ringing chanties to get a ship under way,
and roaring staves of the High Barbaree, ballads of the gale, and
lullabies of west winds and summer nights. And your children, Guy,
will grow up none the less brave gentlemen and fine ladies for the
strengthening salt of the sea in their blood and the clearing whiff
of the gale in their brains. So a fair, fair Trade to you and
Shiela--the fair warm Trades which kiss even as they bear us
on--and do not forget the tides of youth are flooding for you. Take
them and let them bear you on to happiness and wisdom.
I felt weak and dizzy, but I rose to my feet and started down the hill.
Shiela caught me and held me. "Look!" She was pointing out to sea.
[Illustration: There she was, the _Dancing Bess_, holding a taut bowline
to the eastward. And there were the two frigates, but they might as well
have been chasing a star]
There she was, the _Dancing Bess_, holding a taut bowline to the
eastward. And there were the two frigates, but they might as well have
been chasing a star.
"Look!" She handed me the glasses. I looked and saw her ensign dipping.
I took off my hat and waved it, hoping that with his long glass he could
see. He must have seen, for the ensign dipped three times again, and
from the long-tom in her waist shot out a puff of smoke. We waited for
the sound of it. It came.
Farewell that meant. I watched her till her great foresail was no
larger than a toy ship's. Then I sat down and cried, and had no care
that the negro slave and servant, Ubbo, saw me.
Mr. Cunningham came and sat beside me. "Guy," he said, "don't worry
about him. He'll come through all right. He has great qualities in him."
"He's good, too--too good to me."
"Great and good," exclaimed Shiela. "He could love and was lovable. And
what's all your greatness to that?"
It may be that she who knew him least understood him best. She was
crying too.
When her great square foresails were no more than a gull's wing on the
hazy horizon we waved her a last salute. Then we made our way to the
creek and sailed up Back River, past Savannah, and on to Villard
Landing. And hand in hand Shiela and I walked up between the row of
moss-hung cypress trees to the manor-house and--Home.