WHEREIN THE "ANDROMEDA" BEGINS HER VOYAGE
The second officer of the _Andromeda_ was pacing the bridge with the
slow alertness of responsibility. He would walk from port to
starboard, glance forrard and aft, peer at the wide crescent of the
starlit sea, stroll back to port, and again scan ship and horizon.
Sometimes he halted in front of the binnacle lamp to make certain that
the man at the wheel was keeping the course, South 15 West, set by
Captain Coke shortly before midnight. His ears listened mechanically
to the steady pulse-beats of the propeller; his eyes swept the vague
plain of the ocean for the sparkling white diamond that would betoken a
mast-head light; he was watchful and prepared for any unforeseen
emergency that might beset the vessel intrusted to his care. But his
mind dwelt on something far removed from his duties, though, to be
sure, every poet who ever scribbled four lines of verse has found rhyme
and reason in comparing women with stars, and ships, and the sea.
If Philip Hozier was no poet, he was a sailor, and sailors are
notoriously susceptible to the charms of the softer sex. But the only
woman he loved was his mother, the only bride he could look for during
many a year was a mermaid, though these sprites of the deep waters seem
to be frequenting undiscovered haunts since mariners ceased to woo the
wind. For all that, if perforce he was heart-whole, there was no just
cause or impediment why he should not admire a pretty girl when he saw
one, and an exceedingly pretty girl had honored him with her company
during a brief minute of the previous day.
He was superintending the safe disposal of the last batch of cotton
goods in the forward hold--and had just found it necessary to explain
the correct principles of stowage with sailor-like fluency--when a
young lady, accompanied by a dock laborer carrying a leather
portmanteau, spoke to him from the quay.
"Is Captain Coke on board?" said she.
"No, madam," said he, lifting his cap with one hand, and restraining
the clanking of a steam windlass with the other.
"I am Mr. Verity's niece, and I wish to send this parcel to Monte
Video--may I put it in some place where it will be safe?" said she.
Hoping that the rattling winch had drowned his earlier remarks--which
were couched in an _lingua franca_ of the high seas--he began to tell
her that it would give him the utmost pleasure to take charge of it on
her account, but she nodded, bade the porter follow, ran along a
somewhat precarious gangway, and was on deck before he could offer any
assistance.
"You are Mr. Hozier, I suppose?" said Iris, gazing with frank brown
eyes into his frank blue ones. She, of course, was severely
self-possessed; he, as is the way of mere man, grew more confused each
instant.
"Well, I will just pop the bag into Captain Coke's stateroom, and leave
this note with it. I have explained everything fully. I wrote a line
in case he might be absent."
All of which was so strictly accurate that it served its purpose
admirably, though the said purpose, it is regrettable to state, was the
misleading and utter bamboozling of Philip Hozier. Miss Iris Yorke
knew quite well that Captain Coke was then closeted with David Verity
in Exchange Buildings; she knew, because she had watched him pass
through the big swing doors of her uncle's office. She also knew,
having made it her business to find out, that in fifteen minutes, or
less, the crew would muster in the fo'c'sle for their mid-day meal.
Not having heard a word of Hozier's free speech to the gentlemen of
various nationalities at the bottom of the hold, she wondered why he
was blushing.
"Shall I show you the way?" asked Philip, finding his tongue.
"No, thank you. I have been on board the _Andromeda_ many times. Ah,
Peter, I see you. What is it to-day, scouse or lobscouse?"
"Scouse, miss," said the ship's cook, grinning widely at her
recollection of the line drawn by both his patrons and himself between
ship's biscuit stewed with fresh meat and the same article flavored
with salt junk.
Peter's recognition placed Iris's identity beyond doubt. She said
nothing more to Hozier, but tripped up the companionway. Soon he saw
her paying the man who had carried the portmanteau. She herself seemed
to be in no hurry. She walked to the rails beneath the bridge, and
found interest in watching the loading operations, which were resumed
as soon as the second officer saw that his services were not wanted.
Time was pressing, and a good deal yet remained to be done.
Mr. Watts, the chief officer, who was called ashore by urgent business
five minutes after the "old man" left the vessel, chose this awkward
moment to appear from behind a bonded warehouse. He was walking with
unnatural steadiness, so Hozier made some excuse to meet him and
whisper that the owner's niece was on board.
"Sun's zhot," remarked Mr. Watts cheerfully.
"Go and lie down for a spell," suggested Hozier, and Mr. Watts thought
it was a "shpiffin' idee." When Hozier was free to glance a second
time at the cross rail, Iris had vanished. He was annoyed. Evidently
she did not wish to encounter any more of the ship's officers that
morning.
The hatches were on, and everything was orderly before Coke's squat
figure climbed the gangway. Hozier reported the young lady's visit,
and the skipper was obviously surprised. As he hoisted himself up the
steep ladder to the hurricane deck, the younger man heard him
condemning someone under his breath as "a leery old beggar." The
phrase was hardly applicable to Iris, but Coke came out of his cabin
with an open letter in his hand, and bade a steward stow the
portmeanteau in some other more hallowed and less inconvenient place.
And there the incident ended. The _Andromeda_ hauled down the Blue
Peter for her long run of over 6,000 miles to Monte Video, and Hozier
had routine work in plenty to occupy his mind during the first
twenty-four hours at sea without perplexing it with memories of a
pretty face. Soon after Holyhead was passed, it is true, a sailor
reported to the second officer that he had seen a ghost between decks,
in the region of the lazarette. It was then near midnight, a quiet
hour on board ship, and Hozier told the man sharply to go to his bunk
and endeavor to sleep off the effects of the bad beer imbibed earlier
in the day.
Now, on this second night of the voyage, while the ship was plodding
steadily southward with that fifteen point inclination to the west that
would bring her far into the Atlantic soon after daybreak, Philip
remembered Mr. Verity's niece, and felt sorry that when she paid those
former visits to the _Andromeda_, fate had decreed that he should be
serving his time on another vessel. For there was an expression in her
eyes that haunted him. Though she addressed him with that absence of
restraint which is a heaven-sent attribute of every young woman when
circumstances compel her to speak to a strange young man--though her
tone to the more favored cook was kindly, and even sprightly--though
Philip himself was red and inclined to stammer--despite all these
hindrances to clear judgment, he felt that she was troubled in spirit.
His acquaintance with women was of the slightest, since a youth who is
taught his business on the _Conway_, and means to attach himself to one
of the great Trans-Atlantic shipping lines, has no time to spare for
dalliance in boudoirs. But it gave him a thrill when he heard that
this charming girl knew his name, and it seemed to him, for an instant,
that she was looking into his very soul, analyzing him, searching for
some sign that he was not as others, which meant that there were some
whom she had bitter cause to distrust. Of course, that was mere
day-dreaming, a nebulous fantasy brought by her gracious presence into
a medley of hurrying windlasses, strenuous orders, and sulky, panting
men.
At any rate, she had left a memento of her too brief appearance on
board in the shape of the bag. He would contrive to take on his own
shoulders its mission in Monte Video; then, on returning to Liverpool,
he would have an excuse for calling on her. He did not know her name
yet. Possibly, Captain Coke would mention that interesting fact when
his temper lost its raw edge. As a last resource, the cook might
enlighten him.
It was strange that he should be thinking of Iris--far stranger than he
could guess--but his thoughts were sub-conscious, and he was in no wise
neglecting the safety of the ship. The night was clear but dark, the
stars blinked with the subdued radiance that betokens fine weather, and
ever and anon their reflection glimmered from the long slope of a wave
like the glint of spangles on a dress. But it was a garment of
far-flung amplitude, woven on the shadowy loom of night and the sea,
and from such mysterious warp and weft is often produced the sable robe
of tragedy and death. It was so now, within an ace. At one instance,
the restless plain of the ocean seemed to bear no other argosy than the
_Andromeda_; in the next, Hozier's quick-moving glance had caught the
pallid sheen of some small craft's starboard light. No need to tell
him what might happen. A sailing vessel, probably a fishing smack, was
crossing the steamer's course. He sprang to the telegraph, and
signaled "Slow" to the engine-room. Simultaneously he shouted to the
steersman to starboard the helm, and the siren trumpeted a single
raucous blast into the silence. With the rattle of the chains and
steering-rods in the gear-boxes came a yell from the lookout forward:
"Light on the port bow!"
Hozier repeated the hail, but promised the blear-eyed sentinels in the
bows of the ship a lively five minutes when the watch was relieved.
Slowly the _Andromeda_ swung to the west. Even more slowly, or so it
appeared to the anxious man on the bridge, a red eye peeped into being
alongside the green one. A blacker smear showed up on the black sea,
and a hoarse voice, presumably situated beneath the smear, expressed a
desire for information.
"Arr ye all aslape on board that crimson collier?" it asked in a
Waterford brogue.
"Got the hooker's wheel tied, I suppose?" retorted Hozier, for the now
visible schooner had not attempted to change her course by half a
point. She was now bowling along with every stitch set before a
five-knot breeze from the east; the tilt of her sails was such that she
practically presented only the outline of her spars when first sighted
from the steamer; and her side lights probably had tallow candles in
them.
"Bedad, it's aisier in moind we'd be if you were tied to it," shouted
the voice, and Hozier felt, like many another Saxon, that an Irishman's
last word is often the best one.
The engines resumed their cadence, and the _Andromeda_ crept round
again to South 15 West. She was back on her proper line when a heavy
step sounded on the iron rungs of the bridge ladder.
"Wot's up?" demanded Coke, who was fully dressed, though Hozier thought
he had retired two hours earlier. "Oh, the beer is frothin' up to
their eyes, is it?" went on the skipper, after listening to a brief
summary of events. "I thought, mebbe, the wheel had jammed. But those
lazy swabs want talkin' to. I'll just give 'em a bit of me mind," and
he went forward.
Hozier heard him reading the Riot Act to the shell-backs who were
supposed to keep a sharp lookout ahead. But the captain did not
monopolize the conversation. His deep notes rumbled only at intervals.
The men had something to say. He returned to the bridge.
"One of them scallywags sez 'e 'as seen a ghost," he announced, with
the calm air of a man who states that the moon will rise during the
next hour.
"I wish he could see less remarkable things, such as schooners, sir,"
said Hozier.
"But 'e swears 'e sawr it twiced."
"Oh, is he the man who reported a ghost outside the lazarette last
night?"
"I s'pose so. Did 'e tell you about it? That's where she walks."
"She!"
"That's his yarn--a female ghost, a black 'un, black clo'es anyhow.
He's a dashed fool, but he's no boozer, though his mate's tongue is a
bit thick yet. I'll take the forenoon watch, an' you might overhaul
the ship for stowaways after breakfast. Never heard of one on this
journey--I've routed out as many as twenty at a time w'en I was runnin'
between Wellington an' Sydney--but you never can tell, so 'ave a squint
round."
"Yes, sir," said Hozier, and that is how it fell to his lot to discover
Iris Yorke, looking very white and miserable, when the hatch of the
lazarette was broken open at half-past eight o'clock on Thursday
morning!
A tramp steamer is not a complex organism. She is made up of holds,
bunkers, boilers and engines, with scanty accommodation for officers
and crew grouped round the funnel or stuck in the bows. When the boats
were stripped of their tarpaulins, and a few lockers and store-rooms
examined, the only available hiding-places were the shaft tunnel, the
holds, and the lazarette, a small space between decks, situated
directly above the propeller, where a reserve supply of provisions is
generally carried.
But the door of the lazarette was locked, and the key missing, though
it ought to be hanging with others, all duly labeled, on a hook in the
steward's cabin. A duplicate set of keys in the captain's possession
was far from complete. As the steward was certain he had fastened the
lazarette himself early on Tuesday morning, there was nothing for it
but to force the lock.
Even that would not have been necessary had the carpenter slackened his
efforts after the first assault. Iris cried loudly enough that she
would open the door, but the noise of the shaft and the flapping of the
screw drowned her voice, and she was compelled to stand clear when the
stout planking began to yield.
It was dark in there, and Hozier was undeniably startled by the
spectacle of a slim figure, wrapped in a long ulster, standing among
the cases and packages. "Now, out you come!" he cried, with a
gruffness that was intended only to cover his own amazement; but Iris,
despite the horrors of sea-sickness and confinement in the dark, was
not minded to suffer what she considered to be impertinence on the part
of a second officer.
"I am Miss Yorke," she said, coming forward into the half light of the
lower deck. "Any explanation of my presence here will be given to the
captain, and to no other person."
That innocent word "person" is capable of many meanings. Hozier felt
that its application to himself was distinctly unfavorable. And Iris
was quite dignified and self-possessed. She had given a few deft
touches to her hair. Her hat was set at the right angle. Her dark
gray coat and brown boots looked neat and serviceable.
"Of course I did not know to whom I was speaking," he managed to say,
for he now recognized the "ghost," and was more surprised than he had
ever been in his life before.
"That is matterless," said Iris frigidly. "Where is Captain Coke?"
"On the bridge," said Philip.
"I will go to him. Please don't come with me. I tried to tell you
that I would unlock the door, but you refused to listen. Will you let
me pass?"
He obeyed in silence.
"Well, s'help me!" muttered a sailor, "talk about suffrigettes! Wot
price _'er_?"
Iris hurried to the deck. The light seemed to dazzle her, and her
steps were so uncertain that Hozier sprang forward and caught her arm.
"Won't you sit down a moment, Miss Yorke?" he said. "If you searched
the whole ship, you could not have chosen a worse place to travel in
than the lazarette."
"I was driven out twice at night by the rats," she gasped, though she
strove desperately to regain control of her trembling limbs.
"Too bad!" he whispered. "But it was your own fault. Why did you do
it? At any rate, wait here a few minutes before you meet the captain."
"I am not afraid of meeting him. Why should I be? He knows me."
"I meant only that you are hardly able to walk, but I seem to say the
wrong thing every time. There is nothing really to worry about. We
are not far from Queenstown. We can put you ashore there by losing
half a day."
The girl had been ill, wracked in body and distraught in mind, with the
added horror of knowing that rats were scampering over the deck close
to her in the noisy darkness, but she summoned a half laugh at his
words.
"You are still saying the wrong thing, Mr. Hozier," she murmured. "The
_Andromeda_ will not put into Queenstown. From this hour I become a
passenger, not a stowaway. My uncle knows now that I am here. Thank
you, you need not hold me any longer. I have quite recovered. Captain
Coke is on the bridge, you said? I can find my way; this ship is no
stranger to me."
And away she went, justifying her statements by tripping rapidly
forward. The mere sight of her created boundless excitement among such
members of the crew as were on deck, but the shock administered to Mr.
Watts was of that intense variety often described as electric. In the
matter of disposing of large quantities of ardent spirits he was a
seasoned vessel, and, as a general rule, the first day at sea sufficed
to clear his brain from the fumes of the last orgy on shore. But, to
be effective, the cure must not be too drastic. This morning, after
leaving the bridge, he had fortified his system with a liberal
allowance of rum and milk. Breakfast ended, he took another dose of
the same mixture as a "steadier," and he was just leaving the messroom
when he set eyes on Iris. Of course, he refused to believe his eyes.
Had they not deceived him many times?
"Ha!" said he, "a bit liverish," and he pressed a rough hand firmly
downward from forehead to cheek-bones. When he looked again, the girl
was much nearer.
"Lord luv' a duck, this time I've got 'em for sure!" he groaned.
His lower jaw dropped, he stared unblinkingly, and purple veins bulged
crookedly on his seamed forehead. He was bereft of the power of
movement. He stood stock-still, blocking the narrow gangway.
"Good morning, Mr. Watts. You remember me, don't you?" said Iris,
showing by her manner that she wished to pass him.
A slight roll of the ship assisted in the disintegration of Watts. He
collapsed sideways into the cook's galley, the door of which was
hospitably open. Somewhat frightened by the wildness of his looks,
Iris ran on, and dashed at the foot of the companion rather
breathlessly. The keen air was already tingeing her cheeks with color.
When she reached the bridge, where Captain Coke was propped against the
chart-house, with a thick, black cigar sticking in his mouth and
apparently trying to touch his nose, she had lost a good deal of the
pallor and woe-begone semblance that had demoralized Hozier.
Coke heard the rapid, light footsteps, and turned his head. At all
times slow of thought and slower of speech, he was galvanized into a
sudden rigidity that differed only in degree from the symptoms
displayed by his chief officer. Certainly he could not have been more
stupefied had he seen the ghost reported overnight.
"They told me I should find you here, Captain," said she. "I must
apologize for thrusting my company on you for a long voyage,
but--circumstances--were--too much for me--and----"
Face to face with the commander of the ship, and startled anew by his
expression of blank incredulity, the glib flow of words conned so often
during the steadfast but dreadful hours spent in the lazarette failed
her.
"You know me," she faltered. "I am Iris Yorke."
Not a syllable came from the irate and astonished man gazing at her
with such a bovine stolidity. His shoulders had not abated a fraction
of their stubborn thrust against the frame of the chart-house. His
hands were immovable in the pockets of his reefer coat. The cigar
still stuck out between his lips like a miniature jib-boom. Had he
wished to terrify her by a hostile reception, he could not have
succeeded more completely, though, to be just, he meant nothing of the
sort; his wits being jumbled into chaos by the apparition of the last
person then alive whom he expected or desired to see on board the
_Andromeda_.
But Iris could not interpret his mood, and she strove vainly to conquer
the fear welling up in her breast because of the grim anger that seemed
to blaze at her from every line of Coke's brick-red countenance. In
the struggle to pour forth the excuses and protestations that sounded
so plausible in her own ears, while secured from observation behind the
locked door of her retreat, she blundered unhappily on to the very
topic that she had resolved to keep secret.
"Why are you so unwilling to acknowledge me?" she cried, with a nervous
indignation that lent a tremor to her voice. "You have met me often
enough. You saw me on Sunday at my uncle's house?"
"Did I?" said Coke, speaking at last, but really as much at a loss for
something to say as the girl herself. He had recognized her instantly,
just as he would recognize the moon if the luminary fell from the sky,
and with as little comprehension of the cause of its falling.
Of course, she took the question as a forerunner of blank denial. This
was not to be borne. She fired into a direct attack.
"If your memory is hazy concerning the events of Sunday afternoon, it
may be helpful if I recall the conversation between my uncle and you in
the summer-house," she snapped.
Some of the glow fled from Coke's face. He straightened himself and
glanced at the sailor inside the wheel-house, whose attention was given
instantly to the fact that the vessel's head had fallen away a full
point or more from South 15 West owing to the easterly set of a strong
tide. Vessels' heads are apt to turn when steersmen do not attend to
their business.
"Wot's that you're sayin'?" demanded Coke, coming nearer, and looking
her straight in the eyes.
"I heard every word of that interesting talk," she continued valiantly,
though she was sensible of a numbness that seemed to envelop her in an
ice-cold mist. "I know what you arranged to do--so I have promised--to
marry Mr. Bulmer--when the _Andromeda_--comes back----"
A light broke on Coke's intelligence that irradiated his prominent
eyes. His heavy lips relaxed into a cunning grin, and he flicked the
ash off the end of the cigar with a confidential nod.
"Oh, is _that_ it?" he said. "Artful old dog, Verity! But why in--why
didn't 'e tell me you was comin' aboard this trip? We 'aven't the
right fixin's for a lady, so you must put up with the best we can do
for you, Miss Yorke. Nat'rally, we're tickled to death to 'ave your
company, an' if on'y that blessed uncle of your's 'ad told me wot to
expect, I'd 'ave made things ship-shape at Liverpool. But, my
god-father, wot sort of ijjit axed you to stow yourself away in the
lazareet? Steady now; you ain't a-goin' to faint, are you?"
Coke's amiability came too late. His squat figure and red face
suddenly loomed into a gigantic indistinctness in the girl's eyes. She
would have fallen to the deck had not the captain's strong hands
clutched her by the shoulders.
"Hi! Below there!" he yelled. "Tumble up, some of you!"
Hozier was the first to gain the bridge. He had followed the progress
of events with sufficient accuracy to realize that Miss Iris Yorke had
met with a distinct rebuff by the skipper, and, judging from his own
experience of her physical weakness when she emerged into daylight, he
was not surprised to hear that she had fainted.
"'Ere, take 'old," gurgled Coke, who had nearly swallowed the cigar in
his surprise at Iris's unforeseen collapse. "This kind of thing is
more in your line than mine, young feller. Just lay 'er out in the
saloon, an' ax Watts to 'elp. His missus goes orf regular w'en they
bring 'im 'ome paralytic."
Philip took the girl into his arms. To carry her safely down the steep
stairway he was compelled to place her head on his left shoulder and
clasp her tightly round the waist with his left arm. Some loosened
strands of her hair touched his face; he could feel the laboring of her
breast, the wild beating of her heart, and he was exceeding wroth with
that unknown man or woman who had driven this insensible girl to such
straits that she was ready to dare the discomforts and deprivations of
a voyage as a stowaway, rather than be persecuted further.
Iris was laid on a couch in the messroom, and the steward summoned Mr.
Watts. The chief officer came, looking sheepish. It was manifestly a
great relief when he found that the "ghost" was unconscious.
"Oh, that's nothing," he cried, in response to his junior's eager
demand for information as to the treatment best fitted for such
emergencies. "They all drop in a heap like that w'en they're worried.
Fust you takes orf their gloves an' boots, then you undoes their stays
an' rips open their dresses at the necks. One of you rubs their 'ands
an' another their feet, an' you dabs cold water on their foreheads, an'
burn brown paper under their noses. In between whiles you give 'em a
drink, stiff as you can make it. It's dead easy. Them stays are a bit
troublesome if they run to size, but she's thin enough as it is.
Anyhow, I can show you a fine trick for that. Just turn her over till
I cast a lashin' loose with my knife."
Watts was elbowed aside so unceremoniously that his temper gave way.
Hozier lifted Iris's head gently and unfastened the neck-hooks of her
blouse. He began to chafe her cold hands tenderly, and pressed back
the hair from her damp forehead. The "chief," not flattered by his own
reflections, thought fit to sneer at these half measures.
"She's on'y a woman like the rest of 'em," he growled, "even if she
_is_ the owner's niece, an' a good-lookin' gal at that. I s'pose now
you think----"
"I think she will want some fresh air soon, so you had better clear
out," said Philip.
His words were quiet, but he flashed a warning glance at the other man
that sufficed. Watts retired, muttering sarcasms under his breath.
Iris revived, to find Philip supporting her with a degree of skill that
was remarkable in one who had enjoyed so little experience in those
matters. She heard his voice, coming, as it seemed, rapidly nearer,
urging her to sip something very fiery and spirituous. Instantly she
protested.
"What are you giving me?" she sobbed. "What has happened?"
Then the whole of her world opened up before her. Her hands flew to
her throat, her hair. She flushed into vivid life as the marble
Galatea incardinated under Pygmalion's kiss.
"Did I faint?" she asked confusedly.
"Yes, but you are all right now. You did not fall. Captain Coke
caught you and handed you over to me. I wish you would drink the
remainder of this brandy, and rest for a little while."
Iris pushed away the glass and sat up.
"You carried me?" she said.
"Well, I couldn't do anything else."
"I suppose you don't realize what it means to a woman to feel that she
has been out of her senses under such conditions?"
"No, but in your case it only meant that you sighed deeply a few times
and tried to bite my fingers when I wished to open your mouth."
"What for? Why did you want to open my mouth?"
"To give you a drink--you needed a stimulant."
"Oh!"
By this time a few dexterous twists and turns had restrained those
wandering tresses within bounds. She held a hair-pin between her lips,
and a woman can always say exactly what she means when a hairpin
prevents discursiveness.
"I am all right now," she announced. "Will you please leave me, and
tell the steward to bring me a cup of tea? If there is a cabin at
liberty, he might put that portmanteau in it which I brought on board
at Liverpool."
Hozier fulfilled her requests, and rejoined Coke on the bridge.
"Miss Yorke is quite well again, sir," he reported. "She wants a
cabin--to change her clothes, I imagine. That bag you saw----"
"Pretty foxy, wasn't it?" broke in Coke, with a glee that was puzzling
to his hearer.
"The whole affair seems to have been carefully planned," agreed Philip.
"But, as I was saying, she asked for the use of a cabin, so I told the
steward to give her mine until we put into Queenstown."
Coke, who had lighted another black and stumpy cigar, removed it in
order to speak with due emphasis.
"Put into h--l!" he said.
"But surely you will not take this young lady to the River Plate?"
cried the astounded second officer.
"She knew where she was bound w'en she kem aboard the _Andromeda_,"
said the skipper, frowning now like a man who argues with himself.
"There's her portmanter to prove it, with a label, an' all, in her own
'and-writin'. It's some game played on me by 'er an' 'er uncle.
Any'ow, the fust time she sees land again it'll be the lovely 'arbor of
Pernambuco--an' that's straight. 'Ere she is, an' 'ere she'll stop,
an' the best thing you can do is spread the notion among the crew that
she's runnin' away to avoid marryin' a man she doesn't like. That
sounds reasonable, an' it 'appens to be true. Verity an' me talked it
over last Sunday, p.m."
"To avoid a marriage?" repeated Hozier, who discovered a bluff honesty,
not to say candor, in the statement, not perceptible hitherto in his
commander's utterances.
"Yes, that's it," said Coke, waving the cigar across an arc of the
horizon as he warmed to the subject. "But look 'ere, me boy, this gal
sails under my flag. I'm, wot d'ye call it, in locomotive parentibus,
or something of the sort, while she's on the ship's books. You keep
your mouth shut, an' wink the other eye, an' leave it to me to give you
the chanst of your life--eh, wot?"
Philip Hozier did not strive to extract the precise meaning of the
skipper's words. The process would have been difficult, since Coke
himself could not have supplied any reasonable analysis. Somehow, to
the commander's thinking, the presence of the girl seemed to make
easier the casting away of the ship--exactly how, or what bearing her
strangely-begun voyage might have on subsequent events, he was not yet
in a position to say. But when the second officer left him, and he was
steeped once more in the fresh breeze and the sunshine, with his
shoulders braced against the chart-house, he looked at a smoke trail on
the horizon far away to the west.
"Queenstown!" he chuckled. "Not this journey--not if my name's Jimmie
Coke, the man 'oo is stannin' on all that is left of 'is 'ard-earned
savin's. No, sir, I've got me orders an' I've got me letter, an' the
pore old _Andromeda_ gets ripped to pieces in the Recife, or I'll know
the reason why. Wot a card to play at the inquiry! Owner's niece on
board--bound to South America for the good of 'er health. 'Oo even
'eard of a man sendin' 'is pretty niece on a ship 'e meant to throw
away? It's Providential, that's wot it is, reel Providential! I do
believe ole Verity 'ad a 'and in it."
Which shows that Captain Coke confused Providence with David Verity,
and goes far to prove how ill-fitted he was to theorize on the ways of
Providence.