down, and she has torn her pretty dress on some projecting branch, yet
He thinks she never looked more beautiful, as he answers the mute appeal
of those tearful eyes, and takes her in his arms. Deep silence reigns.
Then, from the depths of a penitent heart, she sobs out loving,
passionate words: "Forgive me--my husband!"
[Illustration: "'FORGIVE ME--MY HUSBAND!'"]
RUM PUNCH AT PODBURY'S.
BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY RONALD GRAY.
[Illustration]
Some West Indian insects have an almost human strength of purpose. For
three consecutive nights I suffered from a sort of vampire cockroach,
who crept under my pyjamas whilst I slept, and nibbled my chest. When I
awoke, I could feel him hurrying off by way of my arm or leg. The moment
worn-out nature reasserted itself in me, and I dozed again, that ghoul
of a cockroach came back and proceeded with its fell banquet. At length,
weakened no doubt by loss of blood and frantic with the thought that a
mere piece of determined vermin should thus habitually sup off me, I
rose in the dead of a moonless night, turned on the electric light,
selected a handy shoe, and then started to have it out, once for all,
with that man-eating cockroach. He broke cover from under some
curiosities, and went away at a killing pace. But I had stopped his
"earths" all round the cabin, and after a ten minutes' burst in the
open, he settled down, evidently feeling that I meant business. Though
not his equal in pace, I hoped to find myself a better stayer. He caught
my eye once, when he was jumping over my sponge with a view to getting
into some very difficult country under my bunk. The expression in it
evidently alarmed him, and he redoubled his efforts. Twice I had made
play with the shoe. Once I nearly landed him upon the side of his head;
the other time I broke a rather valuable curiosity. Finally, the
cockroach began to fly; then, for a while, he had matters his own way. I
struck out to the right and left with a view to winging him, but he
certainly showed great ability in the air, and dodged under the shoe and
over it, and then hit me in the face, and was out again before I could
get a blow back. Now, from being a sort of fox-hunt, the affair had
degenerated into a prize-fight; and it seemed utterly impossible to say
who would win. On the one side were ranged weight and science and a
shoe; on the other, wings and astounding agility and utter
unscrupulosity. After the first round, I heard people in adjacent cabins
waking up and murmuring unkind things--not about the cockroach, but
concerning me. Then I called "Time," and walked out to the centre of the
room. The cockroach did not come. I looked round and saw him sitting in
my open port, twirling his moustache and gazing out upon the sea. I said
"Time" again, but he paid no attention; so I stole upon him, with the
stealth of a wild Indian, and smote him behind. This action was
unsportsmanlike, but conclusive. He shot out into the ocean, where
probably some not over-particular tropic fish attempted to digest him
and failed.
[Illustration: "SMOTE HIM BEHIND."]
As the "Rhine" approached Dominica, the Fourth Officer, according to his
pleasant custom, approached me, armed with facts. On this occasion,
however, I had taken measures to be before him. I had read up the island
rather carefully, and, knowing that Columbus was always a safe card, had
acquired some information on the subject of that great navigator also.
So I waited with quiet confidence for the Fourth Officer to start. He
said:
"Here we are at Dominica--an interesting and beautiful spot."
"True," I replied, "Christopher Columbus discovered the place in 1493."
The Fourth Officer looked startled and uneasy, but I pushed on:
"The French and hurricanes between them have done much to wreck this
island's chances. Matters, however, are more hopeful now. Dominica
abounds in sulphur springs, and vast sulphurous accumulations occur
inland. Even the bed of the River Roseau is not free from these volcanic
outbursts. Formerly the place produced very famous and high-class
coffee, but this cultivation was ruined by an insect pest. Now, you
shall find that sugar-cane, cocoa, and limejuice are the principal
products. The manioc root, of which cassava bread is made, also grows
abundantly here, and basket work is rather an important industry too. In
the year 1881, there were still a hundred and seventy-three pure
aboriginal Caribs left in Dominica, but they have not been counted
lately. I don't fancy they like it. The port of the isle is Roseau,
named after the river. We shall presently anchor off this town. I don't
know that there is anything more to say."
[Illustration: "THE FOURTH OFFICER LOOKED STARTLED AND UNEASY."]
Then I looked at the Fourth Officer inquiringly. He was evidently hurt.
He said:
"No, I don't fancy that there is anything more to say." Then he shook
his head rather reproachfully, and walked off to the other end of the
ship. In fact, he went as far away from me as he possibly could without
getting into the sea. I felt sorry, and followed him, and begged him to
tell me about his younger days, when he was an apprentice, and first
sailed the ocean. This cheered him up, and he recounted a mad freak off
Cape Horn by night. It happened that another sailing ship was following
his vessel, so he and a friend began hanging out signal lamps to her,
and waving green and blue and yellow and crimson lights over the stern
of their ship. The approaching barque stood this display for some time,
and then, probably under the impression she was running into a chemist's
shop, grew frightened, and changed her course, and was no more seen. Our
Fourth Officer, I should think rightly, regards this as one of his
happiest efforts.
The Doctor has already arranged a programme for Roseau. One Podbury
dwells there, and this Podbury brews the best rum punch in the West
Indies. The Doctor knows and esteems him. My brother is also familiar
with the Bishop of Dominica, and says that he is a genial, lovable
Irishman of admirable parts, and the best company in the world. It is
agreed, therefore, that we first call upon the Bishop, then see the
town, and finally cheer our exhausted systems with Podbury's rum punch.
Neither the Bishop nor Podbury has invited us, or knows we are here at
all; but that is a sort of detail which counts for nothing in foreign
parts.
Dominica is very beautiful, with the same beauty as many other islands
already mentioned. Great wooded hills rise, peak upon peak, to the
clouds, and between them lie deep gorges and fertile ravines. The
margins of the sea are fringed with palms; Roseau itself lies glimmering
upon the shore, with white walls and red and grey roofs. Inland, winding
out under low cliffs behind the town, flows forth the river over a rocky
bed to the sea. This stream produces some very noble scenery towards the
interior, and is rather a large volume of water for such a small island.
As a result Dominica is extremely damp at seasons of much rain, and
grows, among other things, frogs of majestic size.
By kind permission of the Captain, I was allowed to avail myself of the
mail-boat at all ports; and now, tumbling into this vessel, the Doctor
and I soon reached dry land.
[Illustration: "THE DOCTOR WAS FUSSING ABOUT."]
"Let us bolt straight off to the Cathedral," he said; "ten to one the
Bishop's there; if not, we can go on to his house."
Roseau appeared to be rather a languishing little town. The stony
streets were all overgrown with grass; the place generally lacked any
air of enterprise; the negro children, who swarmed everywhere, were more
than usually destitute of attire.
Upon reaching the Bishop's place of business, we found to our dismay
that a funeral was going on. The Cathedral doors were wide open, a crowd
was gathered within, and over a flower-laden bier stood the Bishop,
singing away, and as fully occupied as a man could be.
I noticed that the Doctor was fussing about, trying to catch his
friend's eye. I therefore said:
"Don't; it isn't decent. You can't expect even a bishop to be genial and
effusive at a time like this. Consider the survivors."
"He sees me!" whispered my brother.
"Sees you; yes, not being blind he couldn't help it. Everybody in the
Cathedral sees you; and they very naturally resent the sight. Come away;
you're making the Bishop nervous."
It really was most annoying. There he stood, so close that we could
almost touch him, and yet separated from us by a gulf only to be bridged
by the end of his burial service.
The Doctor became illogical and childish about it. When I had dragged
him away from these last sad rites, he gave it as his opinion that any
other bishop would have stopped, just for a moment at least, and been
friendly and enthusiastic, if only in an undertone.
"He may get thousands of opportunities to bury people, but he will never
have a chance of seeing you again," said my brother. Then he added, as
an afterthought, "And very probably you will never get another
opportunity of talking to an Irish bishop."
[Illustration: "WE MET PODBURY."]
After that he sneered at the local medical practitioner, and said that
likely enough the deceased would not have died at all in proper hands.
Then a thought struck me, the horror of which reduced my brother to
absolute despair. I said:
"Perhaps the Bishop is interring Podbury. In that case everybody you
know on this island will be busy, and we shan't get any hospitality, or
punch, or anything."
"Just my luck if he is," answered the Doctor gloomily. He then kept
absolute silence for half-an-hour, during which time we walked to the
Roseau River and beheld many black laundresses out in mid-stream washing
clothes. Turning from this spectacle, he spoke again and said:
"Our present state of suspense is destroying me. I've a terrible
presentiment that they _were_ burying Podbury. If so, we're done all
round. I'm going right away to Podbury's now. I shall see in a moment by
the blinds if the worst has happened."
We sought out Podbury's desolate home, and the Doctor asked bitterly why
Providence should have snatched away one whose skill in the matter of
rum punch was a household word. I said:
"Try and feel hopeful. We cannot yet be absolutely certain that he has
gone."
And then we met Podbury in the Market Place. He was thoroughly alive,
and apparently in good health.
"Ah, Doctor!" he exclaimed, "back again. Glad to see you. How are the
boys on the 'Rhine?' Who's your friend?"
I was made known to Podbury, and explained how the sight of him had
turned our mourning into joy, and how I had come out from England as
much to taste his celebrated rum punch as anything else. He appeared
gratified at this, and led the way to his house.
[Illustration: "'MAGNIFICENT!'"]
We asked him who the Bishop was burying, and he did not even know. He
said:
"A nigger, for certain. Can't be anybody of much account or I should
have heard tell of it."
Then we reached his home, and while he brewed cold punch, we talked to
his wife and daughters and some aunts that he had, on his father's side.
The Treasure dropped in too. He knew Podbury well, and Podbury regarded
him as an authority on punch. The liquid was presently placed before us.
Podbury showed pleasure when I said what I thought about it; but he did
not feel quite contented until he had expert's opinion.
"Magnificent!" the Treasure presently declared; "why it's equal to the
1890 brew--you remember."
Podbury's eye brightened at this allusion to one of his greatest past
triumphs. He tasted the punch himself, and admitted that it certainly
seemed "about right."
With a desire to be entertaining, I volunteered a fact or two concerning
punch generally. I said:
"Our word 'punch,' as you are doubtless aware, is derived from the
Hindustani '_panch_' or Sanskrit '_panchan_'; which mean simply 'five.'
Punch is a mixture of five ingredients, hence the name."
Everybody was rather impressed with this apposite remark, excepting
Podbury. He answered:
"Yes, that's so. I've known it years and years. You bet what I don't
know about punch isn't worth knowing."
This I took to be sheer conceit on the part of Podbury. His successes
with punch were making the man egotistical. I did not believe that he
had heard of these interesting points before, whatever he said to the
contrary. At any rate, they were quite new to his wife and daughters and
aunts. So I turned my attention to them, and told them several other
things worth knowing. They doubtless retailed my information to Podbury
after we had departed. Still the punch was good and cooling, and, with a
heart that rises above trifles, I here deliberately bless the man who
brewed it. To be thus publicly blessed in print ought to content even
Podbury.
[Illustration: "THE PUNCH WAS GOOD."]
When we returned to the "Rhine" night had shaken out her starry skirts,
and land and sea were very dark. But great electric eyes glared down
from either side of the ship, facilitating the business of loading, and
shining upon a struggling crowd of lighters, and a yelling, swearing
assembly of negroes. Steam cranes groaned and shrieked and rattled; new
passengers were coming aboard, driven to madness with luggage; and
sundry Dominica tradesmen bustled about, selling curiosities. These
people vended stuffed frogs, the skins of humming-birds, Brazilian
beetles, and gigantic Rhinoceros beetles also.
Five or six of them hemmed in the Doctor immediately he arrived, but,
finding that he had already laid in frogs and beetles, they turned upon
me with grim determination to do business, or perish in the attempt. My
knowledge of the "Rhine" enabled me to escape from all save one, but he
was as familiar with our vessel as I, and finally, penning me in a
corner, he produced a frog as big as a lap-dog, and declared that it was
his almost suicidal intention to practically give me the thing for
half-a-dollar. I said:
"No, John. I am perhaps as good a judge of a bull-frog as anybody
living, and I tell you without hesitation that your frog is worth ten
shillings. Don't dream of parting from it for less."
He grinned, and asked:
"Massa gib me ten shillin' for him?"
[Illustration: "'MASSA GIB ME TEN SHILLIN' FOR HIM?'"]
"Again, no, John. I do not need this Goliath of a frog. I am merely
valuing the reptile for your future guidance. Let me see those beetles."
He showed me a weird creature, which looked as if nature had begun an
insect and then changed her mind and finished it off like a crab. This
thing, with the ferocious claw-like nose and chin, was a female
Rhinoceros beetle, so the owner explained. The male beetle appeared to
be a harmless, mild concern of much smaller size, and with no warlike
appendages whatever. I never saw any insect of the sterner sex labour
under such crushing disadvantages. Personally, did I belong to this
order of coleoptera, I should sing extremely small, and remain a
bachelor, and creep or fly about quietly after dark, and not affect
ladies' society much. Probably, most gentlemen Rhinoceros beetles do so.
It must always be Leap Year with these concerns. If the males had to
propose, the race would long since have become extinct.
I bought a beetle or two, and then my merchant, with strange
pertinacity, returned to the bull-frog. Not far distant stood our Model
Man, working for his life. So I said:
"You see that gentleman there--the one ordering everybody about and
making so much noise? Take your frog to him, tell him it is a
ten-shilling frog, and he will probably buy it on the spot."
But this frog vendor knew the Model Man from experience. He evidently
had no inclination to attempt any business with him.
"Dat gem'man no buy nuffing, sar. He berry sharp wid me 'fore to-day."
Indeed, the near presence of the Model Man discouraged my friend to such
an extent that he presently withdrew. I told his enemy afterwards, and
the Model Man said:
"Offer his beastly frogs to ME! If he had dared to, I should have
pitched him into the sea, stock and all. I did once, when he began
bothering people to buy things they had no wish for."
"Ah," I said, "doubtless he alluded to that circumstance when he told me
you had been sharp with him before to-day."
Among the passengers who joined us at Dominica was an old friend, an
ample, full-bodied, admirable gentleman who travelled from England with
us, and found the ocean extremely monotonous and trying upon the voyage
out. The same trouble still dogged his footsteps. He came aboard quite
wild and haggard, and declared the universal and appalling lack of
variety was telling upon his health.
[Illustration: "A FULL-BODIED GENTLEMAN."]
"Just think of it," he said, "wherever you turn, nothing but negroes and
cocoanut palms, cocoanut palms and negroes. Every place is exactly like
the last; every palm tree exactly like every other; every negro
identical with the rest. I never saw such a monotonous set of islands in
my life."
"Look at their beauty," I said.
"I have, until I'm out of all heart with it," he replied. "A pinnacle or
two, with clouds round the top; a field of sugar-cane; hundreds of
palms, hundreds of blacks; mean houses and a paltry pier--that's a West
Indian island. I liked the first; I tolerated the second; I even bore
with the third; but the fourth wearied me; the fifth harrowed me; the
sixth sickened me; the seventh--that is this one--has absolutely
maddened me; and the eighth or ninth will probably kill me."
I said:
"You ought not to have come here. Why did you?"
"I took advice," he answered drearily. "So-called friends assured me
that what I wanted was constant change of scene, with variety and
novelty. They asserted that these things were to be found in the West
Indies, and I believed them. Look at the climate, too; even that never
changes. Look at the sky; English people cannot stand this eternal
surface of dead blue. They are not accustomed to it, and it frets their
optic nerves. In fact, the whole scheme of things here sets the nervous
system on edge from morning till night. There is a cannon somewhere in
this steamer, and it will fire in a moment; for no reason, that I can
see, except a nautical love of unnecessary noise. These ships cannot
come to a place or depart again without firing off their wretched brass
guns."
[Illustration: "'WITHOUT FIRING OFF THEIR WRETCHED BRASS GUNS.'"]
He went moaning away to his cabin, saying that he never knew one room
from another on board ship: they were all so exactly alike; and I
proceeded to scan further fresh arrivals.
One party consisted of a man and his wife. They had recently been turned
out of Venezuela, upon political grounds, and were now going up to St.
Thomas, to meet some friends there and arrange a Revolution. A very
pretty little French girl and her mother were also among the passengers.
The Treasure knew them well, and, when he heard they were coming, grew
excited, and hurried away to shave and change his clothes.
The Treasure's Enchantress was certainly very beautiful, with a slight,
trim figure, great wealth of raven hair and flashing eyes. Moreover, she
appeared to like him, and told me that he always gave her mother the
best cabin in the ship.
There was a scene that night, after we started, between the Treasure and
my brother. It happened thus:
The Enchantress proved to be but an indifferent sailor, and sent for the
Doctor. He was just starting to comfort her when the Treasure arrived.
[Illustration: "THE TREASURE'S ENCHANTRESS."]
"Ill?" he asked. "Ah, I knew she would be, poor girl; she always is.
Tell her to drink a pint of salt water. It's the only thing. If that
fails, tell her to drink another."
The Doctor immediately showed anger. He said:
"Thanks very much. It saves a medical man such a deal of bother when he
has got a chap like you always handy to do the prescriptions. Should you
think two pints of salt water would be enough? Hadn't we better say a
bucket of it?"
"You may be nasty, but it's none the less true that salt water is
right," answered our Treasure. "Just because the thing is a simple,
natural remedy, you doctors turn up your noses at it. I know this case
better than you do. The girl has often sailed with us. Sea-water is what
she wants to steady her. I told her so before dinner."
The Doctor departed, and when he had gone, I asked the Treasure all
about his Enchantress. I said:
"Of course it's no business of mine, but I'm very interested in your
welfare, and might be useful. Where does she live?"
He answered:
"She has two addresses: one in Martinique and one in Paris. I know them
both; but I hardly think I should be justified in divulging them."
"Certainly you would not," I said. "I should be the very last to suggest
it."
"It is a little romance in a small way--I mean her life and her
mother's. The father was a French Count, and died in a duel. That shows
some French duels are properly carried out. She is awfully rich, and not
engaged. At least, she doesn't wear a ring. She likes tall men. Of
course that's nothing, but I happen to be fond of small women."
"Merely a coincidence," I said, and he looked rather disappointed.
[Illustration: "'SHE LIKES TALL MEN.'"]
"We think curiously alike in a good many directions," he continued. "I
taught her to play deck quoits, and shot a few things for her with my
gun. And she gave me a photograph recently."
"Of herself?" I asked. "Well, no," he admitted, "not exactly that. She
takes pictures sometimes in a little pocket camera. She did one of an
old negro woman--ugly as sin; but it was not so much the subject as the
thought of giving it to me. It argued a friendly feeling--at any rate, a
kindly feeling. Don't it strike you so?"
"Undoubtedly it did. You're a lucky man. How far is she going with us?"
"To St. Thomas. She has a temporary address there, by-the-bye. I know
that too."
"Go in and win at St. Thomas. I believe it is a certainty for you; I do,
indeed."
The Treasure absolutely blushed. He was a very big man indeed, and
produced the largest extent of blush I ever saw.
Then my brother came back, looking extremely grave.
"How is she?" we asked simultaneously.
"Very ill," he answered shortly. "She was all right when we started, and
never better in her life; but, after dinner, she drank half a wineglass
of salt water, and the natural result has been disaster. I understand
some fool urged her to try this as a preventive of _mal-de-mer_. Her
mother thinks it must have been a coarse practical joke, and is going to
speak to the Captain about it. I wouldn't be the man who prescribed that
insane dose for a thousand pounds."
Then an expression of abject dismay stole over the Treasure's face as,
despite his great size, he appeared to shrivel and curl up into nothing.
[Illustration: "HE APPEARED TO SHRIVEL AND CURL UP."]
[Illustration: THE IDLERS CLUB
SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
"AWKWARD PREDICAMENTS."]
[Sidenote: The Rev. Dr. Parker pays a visit.]