"Bonteck seemed to be afraid of a general massacre, or something of
that sort, if we should put up a fight."
"I'm not satisfied," she returned promptly. "It is too absurd. Could a
thing like this have been planned without some hint of it getting to
Bonteck? And then there is Mr. Goff: you don't mean to tell me that
that crabbed, sour, shrimmy old piece of New England honesty and prying
curiosity could be kept from finding out."
"Bonteck hints that Goff may be heading the mutiny."
"That," said Conetta, with calm conviction, "is simply nonsense. I
wouldn't believe it, not if Mr. Goff told me so himself." And then:
"Shall we go back to the others now? The storm seems to have blown
itself out: and we mustn't forget--you and I--that we have agreed to
disagree."
Her use of Aunt Mehitable's phrase touched off that cursed temper of
mine again, and if I had made any reply at all it would have been one
that I should have repented of. So we walked back to the haphazard
landing place in sober silence.
When we joined the main body of castaways it seemed that Van Dyck had
contrived by some means to stem the storm of question and reproach
and to quiet it, for the time, at least. The women were sitting apart
on the boxes of canned things, and Grey and Grisdale, under Bonteck's
directions, and with his help, were setting up the three tents which
the mutineers' generosity, or chivalry, had included in our dunnage.
Somebody had kindled a small fire on the beach, but the night was so
warm that, apart from the cheer of it, the blaze served no purpose
other than to light up the somber faces turned toward it.
After the tent-pegging--in which I hastened to share a part when I
saw what was toward--we four made an attack upon the boxed stores.
There were provisions in plenty; meats in canvas and meats in tins,
vegetables fresh and vegetables in cans, ship's biscuit, and a variety
of the other more ornamental--and less filling--kind; tea, coffee,
sugar and evaporated cream; all of the calories to make a balanced
ration. Last, but not least, there was a beaker of fresh water, though
as to this, there were two good springs on the island, and a rill from
one of them was trickling into the lagoon a few yards from our landing
place.
Besides the necessary proteins, hydrocarbons and the like, there were
a few of the luxuries; a case of liquors, a box of candles, another of
cigars, cigarettes and tobacco, soap and towels, and even a couple of
mirrors ravished from the bulkheads of the _Andromeda_--these last, I
dare swear, a thought of the dancing-master Lequat's.
For beds there was a bale of canvas hammocks; and somebody's chivalric
promptings--Lequat's or another's--had gone the length of including the
baggage-hold-stored steamer trunks of the women, though we men had only
the clothes we stood in.
Before our amateur camp was fully pitched the dark cloud of dismay and
disheartenment began to show rifts here and there. After all was said,
we were all alive and well, with plenty to eat and drink, and with no
immediate prospect of hardship. Perhaps it was no matter for surprise
that Sanford, the absent-minded professor of mathematics, was the first
to rise to the philosophical demands of the occasion.
"I dare say there isn't a civilized human being in the world who
hasn't, at one time or another, wished to be situated just as we find
ourselves at the present moment," he began, after Grey and Billy
Grisdale and the Van Tromp girls had goaded him into his proper
class-room-lecturer's attitude. "For the time being--which we may very
properly hope will not be unduly extended beyond the pleasant and
profitable limit--we shall be able to live in a little world of our
own making. If we have any resources of our own to fall back upon--and
I trust none of us is wholly lacking in that respect--we may prove
and try them, and quite possibly we may discover that, after all,
environment, the conventions, the social machinery with which our
civilization has surrounded us, are by no means strictly necessary to
the sane, normal human being. Let us, therefore, eat and drink, and
be thankful that things are no worse with us than we are at present
finding them."
As if he had been an after-dinner speaker rising to express his
pleasure at being among us, the professor was heartily applauded, and,
following his suggestion, we had a bed-time snack of biscuits and
tea around the handful of camp-fire. And, such is the force of good
example, by the time the second pannikin of water was boiling, the
younger members were making a jest of the most serious adventure that
had ever befallen any of them. Jerry Dupuyster was pouring tea for
Beatrice Van Tromp; Conetta had deliberately left her aunt's side to
come and sit on the sand between Annette Grey and me; and Madeleine
Barclay, as fetchingly beautiful in her white yachting flannels as
she had ever appeared in her richest dinner gown, was listening
patiently--nay, sympathetically, I thought--to Bonteck's well-worn
explanation (which did not explain) of how it had all come about.
To offset these cheerful ameliorations there were a sufficient
number of death's heads at the feast, as a matter of course. Major
Terwilliger, contemplating a prospect which promised little in the way
of his cherished diversions, sat apart and grumbled peevishly because
the tea tasted smoky. Holly Barclay, robbed at one sheer stroke of all
the little refinements and luxuries which made the sum of his aimless
and worthless life, was still in the bickering stage; and Ingerson,
with the few restraints which he recognized stricken away, was a
plain brute, taking no pains to conceal his angry disgust, and making
snappish bids to be let alone when any one was charitable enough to
speak to him.
As for the women, the three who would be the first to feel the pinch
of any privations that might come upon us were behaving beautifully,
putting the major's gloom and Barclay's pettishness and Ingerson's
grumpy rage to shame. Mrs. Van Tromp--a most easy-going soul when
she could forget for the moment that she had three marriageable,
and as yet unmarried, daughters on her hands--had already forgotten
her reproachful complainings. Conetta's Aunt Mehitable was arguing
peacefully with the professor on the philosophical aspect of the
situation, though quite without prejudice, I fancied, to the sharp eye
she was keeping upon Conetta in her new juxtaposition between Annette
Grey and me. Mrs. Sanford, who, in spite of her motherliness, was a
frail little body physically, was apparently regarding the hammock beds
with some degree of trepidation; nevertheless, she went on sipping her
tea with evident relish, and she found time and the spirit to smile
understandingly across the circle at Billy Grisdale and Edie Van Tromp,
and to stoop and pat Billy's bull pup, when the dog, finding that his
master had no present use for him, wandered from one to another to
stick his extremely _retroussé_ nose into any hospitable palm that
offered.
"Shall we be able to keep this up, do you suppose?" Conetta whispered
to me, between the last two bites of her biscuit.
"I think the moonlight, what there is of it, is entrancingly beautiful,
don't you?" I laughed. "'Sufficient unto the day (or night)----' You
know the rest of it. I'm willing to let to-morrow take care of itself.
Are you?"
"Maybe I am." Then, with a return to the old-time dartings aside: "What
do you imagine Jerry is finding so alluring in Bee Van Tromp? He has
never read a book in his life."
"Beatrice isn't all book," I retorted. "On this voyage which has come
to such an abrupt halt I have been finding her a very charming young
woman. Her eyes, now."
"Shush! Any woman can make eyes at a man. If you'll look around at me,
I'll show you."
"Not any more," I said, and the saying was purely in self-defense.
"Wait," she teased. "The island is small--you said it was, didn't
you?--and you can't always look the other way." Then: "Can't we even
quarrel decently, Dickie Preble?"
Mrs. Van Tromp was rising stiffly and I was saved the necessity of
replying.
"Time to go to bed, my dears," said the mother of three with great
good-nature. And then to me: "Dick Preble, are you sure you fastened
my hammock securely? Because, if you didn't--well, you know--I'm
dreadfully heavy. There now! Wild horses wouldn't have dragged that
admission out of me at home. Conetta, you rogue, you're laughing at
me, but you're blushing, as well, and that's one of the conventions,
too. Never mind. I'm afraid every second step will be on a crab, or a
scorpion, or some other hideous thing. Good-night, all!"