THE MORNING’S NEWS.
It was a lively voyage! Oh, yes! For those who like that kind of
liveliness.
Everything went wrong, just in the old sweet way. Rudd had to sleep
with his engines. As sure as he turned his back on them for five
consecutive minutes something happened. I began to wonder if we
shouldn’t have got on faster if we had had sweeps aboard. You don’t
often see hands starting to row a steamer along. But anything was
better than standing still; or being blown back--which was worse. It
was no use rigging a sail against the winds we had, or we might have
tried that. But the wind was against us, like everything else.
The weather seemed to have cleared on purpose to give us a chance of
getting the Great Joss aboard. It broke again directly afterwards.
More than once, and more than twice, I wished it hadn’t. Then perhaps
we shouldn’t have been favoured with the company of Mr. Batters. In
shipping him we’d shipped a Tartar. I became inclined to the belief
that we owed half of our bad luck to him. The crew was dead sure that
at his door could be laid the lot of it. They swore he was the devil
himself, or his brother.
I wasn’t sure they were far out. Either what he had gone through had
affected his brain, or he was possessed by the spirit of mischief, or
there was something uncanny about him. I never knew anything like the
tricks he was up to. Weather had no effect on him. As for decent
hours, he scorned them. It’s my belief that what sleep he had was in
the day. I know he was awake pretty well all night.
Once I was dragged out of my berth in the middle of the night because
he was frightening the watch out of their senses. When I got on deck I
found a heavy sea. Everything sopping. The seas breaking over the
scuppers. Pitch darkness. And Mr. Batters up in the tops. The crew
were of opinion that he was holding communion with his friends in
hell. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He looked as if he was at
something of the kind.
How he kept his place was a wonder. Although he had no legs he seemed
to have a knack of gluing himself to whatever he pleased. Up there he
had an illumination all on his own. It must have been visible for
miles across the sea. He had smeared himself and everything about him
with something shiny, phosphorus or something. He always was playing
tricks with stuffs of the kind. It made him look as if he was covered
with flames. He was waving his arms and going through an acrobatic
performance. Snakes were twining themselves about the illuminated
rigging. The old villain had smuggled a heap of them in his palanquin.
He lived with them as if they were members of his family. They seemed
to regard him as akin. Talk about snake charming! I believe that at a
word from him they would have flown at anyone just as certainly as a
dog would have done.
No wonder the watch didn’t altogether relish his proceedings. I sang
out:
“Come down out of that, Mr. Batters, before there’s trouble.”
I did put a bullet into one of his precious snakes. It was this way.
I had a revolver in my hand. The boat gave a lurch. The trigger must
have caught my coat sleeve. It snapped. There was a flash. A report.
One of his snakes straightened itself out against the blackness like a
streaming ribbon. You could see it gleam for a moment. Then it
vanished. I suppose it dropped into the sea. A good thing too. The
idea was that it had been hit by that unintentional shot. I can only
say that if that was the case it was the victim of something very like
a miracle.
Old Batters understood what had happened long before I did. He came
down that rigging like ten mad monkeys. And he went for me like
twenty. If the watch hadn’t been there he’d have sent me after that
snake. It took the lot of us to get the best of him. If the men had
had their way they’d have dropped him overboard.
I wished I had let them before I finished.
A more artful old dodger never breathed. I drew up the agreement of
the spoils; but it was days before I could get him to set his hand to
it. At first he pretended he couldn’t write. As it happened I had seen
him write. It seemed to me he was always writing. When at last I had
induced him to sign, in the presence of Luke, Rudd, and Holley, he
eluded me on the subject of the inventory. I could not get one. His
stock of excuses was inexhaustible. And they were all so plausible. It
is true that I made notes of a good many things without his knowledge.
But a formal inventory I never had. As to my suggestion that at least
the more valuable things should be removed to my cabin for safe
custody, when I renewed it he expressed his willingness on conditions
that he went with them, and his snakes. I declined. On those terms I
preferred that he should remain custodian.
Then there was his intimacy with Luke. That continued, in spite of my
attempts to stop it. Though they grew slacker when I began to suspect
that after all Mr. Luke might not be on such good terms with his
boyhood’s friend as he perhaps desired.
I got my first hint in this direction when, one afternoon, someone was
heard bellowing in Mr. Batters’ cabin like a bull. I made for it. I
found Mr. Luke upon the floor; his friend upon his chest; his friend’s
hands about his throat. He was not bellowing just then. Mr. Batters
had squeezed the grip right out of him. He was purple. In about
another minute he would have known what death by strangulation meant.
We got his dear friend off him. The dear friend said unkind things
about Mr. Luke.
By the time we had brought the first mate round he was about as limp a
man as you might wish to see. He made one remark, which was
unprintable. He turned round in his bunk, where we had laid him, and
for all I know he went to sleep.
Since, before that, I had taken care to see that he was berthed apart
from Mr. Batters, there was nothing to disturb his slumber.
After that I did not feel it necessary to keep quite so sharp an eye
on the attentions which he paid our passenger. They did not seem to be
so friendly as they had been before.
As if I hadn’t enough to plague me, there was the girl. When I begin
to write of her my language becomes mixed. As were my feelings at the
time. And there were moments when she got me into such a state that I
didn’t know if I was standing on my head or heels.
She was her father’s own child, though it seemed like sacrilege to
connect the two. Insubordination wasn’t in it along with her. She
twisted me round her finger. Except when I stiffened my back, and felt
like stowing her in the long-boat, and cutting it adrift, with a bag
of biscuit and a can of water. And then five minutes afterwards I’d
feel like suicide for ever having thought of such a thing.
She wore me to a shadow.
The sea agreed with her far better than I had expected, or she either,
especially considering the weather we had. She was all over the boat.
All questions, like a child. There was nothing you could tell her
enough about. It was extraordinary how the taste for imparting
information grew on one. If you didn’t explain everything that could
be explained, and a good deal that couldn’t, it wasn’t for want of
trying. She had got together a mixed up lot of facts before she had
been upon that vessel long. Because when you begin to look into things
you find that there are a good many you think you know all about till
a sharp-witted young woman starts you on to telling her all you do
know. Then, before you’ve time to wriggle, you are stuck. There are
men who sooner than get that will say anything.
It is bad enough to feel you are making a fool of yourself when the
subject is why steamers don’t sink when they’re floating, or why
engines shove them along, or that kind of thing. But when the
question’s what love is, and you feel but can’t tell, it’s worse.
“Why do you say you love me?”
I had mentioned to her casually that I did, being driven clean off my
balance before I knew it, though I meant every word I had said. And
about two hundred thousand more. In spite of my having had more
trouble with her old villain of a father that very afternoon. And
being full of hope that when it came to hanging him I should be there
to see.
“Because I do.”
“But what is love?”
“Love? Why, love!”
It was evening. The wind had been falling away all day. Now it was
dead calm, the first we had had since shipping Batters. We were
something over twelve hundred miles from Aden. There’s the exact spot
marked on my chart. But I should never forget it if it wasn’t. That
mark means adjectives. I had had it all out with Batters about our
route. The short cut was what he wanted. It was what I wanted too. But
what I did not want was to pay the Canal dues. In fact I couldn’t.
There was not enough money belonging to the ship on board. I hadn’t
told Batters as much as that, but I had made it clear to him that he’d
have to pay. So the arrangement stood that we were to come home by
Suez; and he was to hand me over the coin to take us through. We
should have to coal at Aden. How we had managed so far was beyond my
understanding. Rudd was a marvel. He would make a skip of coal go as
far as some men would a ton. Stores we had taken in here a little, and
there a little, living from hand to mouth. But we had bought no coal.
I had said to Rudd:
“Shall we run into Colombo and have some put into our bunkers there?”
He pondered--it was his way to ponder--then shook his head.
“I’m thinking we’ll last to Aden. I’m thinking it. And I don’t seem to
fancy a stop at Colombo with Mr. Batters aboard.”
I looked to see from his face if his words had any hidden meaning.
There seemed to be something behind everything he said, till you grew
tired of trying to find out what it was. He was always dropping hints,
was Rudd. There appeared to be nothing unusual about his
wooden-looking countenance. So I concluded to give his words their
dictionary meaning.
“If you think we can last to Aden, we will. It will save time. And
coal’s cheaper there.”
So it was settled. And now we were heading straight for Aden. The
weather had cleared. I had told that girl I loved her. Every vein in
my body was on fire because of it. Luke was on the bridge. I felt that
in spite of the darkness, and it was pretty dark--as well I
remember!--his eye was on us as much as on the ship’s course. We had
been walking up and down for exercise. She was leaning over the
taffrail apparently preparing to enter on a kind of philosophical
discussion about what love was.
“Is it good to love?”
“That depends.”
My tone was grim.
“Do I love you?”
“I should like to hear you say so.”
“I love you.”
I thought that was what she said. But she was leaning so far over,
seeming to be watching the smudge of soapsuds we were leaving behind
us, that I couldn’t quite catch her words. Though I was all of a
quiver to.
“What do you say?”
“I say I love you.”
“Susie! Do you mean it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what love is. How should I? I’m only a
savage. You said so the other day. I want telling things.”
“You don’t want telling what love is.”
“Do you mean that you don’t want to tell me? You never will tell me
what I really want to know. I’ll ask one of the men. I’ll ask Luke. He
tells me things.”
“Susie! Luke’s too fond of interfering in matters which are no
business of his. He’ll get himself into trouble before he’s done.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you dare to ask Luke what love is!”
“Dare! I dare do anything. I’ll go and ask him now.”
She’d have been off if I hadn’t caught her arm.
“Susie! Don’t! For my sake!”
“Then tell me!--tell me yourself!”
Stamp went her foot. It was one of her favourite tricks. Directly she
lost patience down it went.
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll give me time.” I tried to find the words,
but couldn’t. I held out my arms instead. “It’s this.”
“What?”
“Don’t you understand?”
“What am I to understand?”
“Don’t you understand that I want you to be my wife?”
“Your wife! Your wife!” She spoke in a crescendo scale, as if I had
insulted her. “You said you were my friend!”
“Don’t you understand that I want to be something more than your
friend?”
“You want to beat me! to use me like a dog! to have me burned!”
“Susie!”
“My father said in England there were no wives.”
“No wives in England? He--he was making fun of you.”
“He was not making fun of me. He has told me all my life. When I asked
him why they burned my mother, he said because she was his wife. He is
an Englishman. In England they have no wives.”
I had a glimpse of the confusion which was in her mind. But at that
moment I was incapable of straightening out the evil.
“Your--your father’s was a peculiar case. There are wives in England.”
“Is that true?”
She thrust her face close to mine. She was terrifically in earnest.
“It is perfectly true. They abound.”
“Then I will not go to England.”
“But--Susie!--you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. In--in
England a wife’s the man’s superior.”
“It’s a lie. See how you stammer. You cannot lie like my father with
an even tongue. A wife is her husband’s slave. At his bidding she
fetches and she carries. He beats her as he beats his dog. When she
grows old he takes another. And she dies.”
“My--my dear Susie, I assure you that that description doesn’t apply
to England. There, unless she’s a wife, a woman isn’t happy.”
“Then in England women are more unhappy than in the country from which
I come. I will not go there. I will not go to any place where there
are wives.”
She strode past me as I stared at her, thunderstruck. I continued
thunderstruck when she had gone.
She had a deal to learn.
That night I slept badly. In the morning I was roused by someone
hammering at the door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, sir; Holley. The cutter’s gone.”
“What!”
“The cutter’s gone. And the watch is hocussed.”
I was standing at the door in my nightshirt.
“What the devil do you mean? Where’s Mr. Luke?”
“He had the morning watch. He’s gone too. It’s his chaps as is
hocussed. Leastways, they’re lying on the deck like logs. And Mr.
Batters, he’s gone. And his things. His cabin’s stripped clean. And
his daughter, she’s gone.”
“Holley!”
I was thrusting myself into a pair of trousers. All of a sudden the
ship stopped dead, with an unpleasant shock.
“What’s that? She can’t have struck!”
I rushed up. Rudd met me.
“I have to report to you, sir, that the engine’s ceased to work.”
“Very well. Patch it up and start it again as soon as you can. It’s
not the first time it’s stopped.”
“But I’m thinking it’ll be the last. Someone’s been playing tricks
with the machine. I’m fearing it’s Mr. Luke.”