DUSK, AND SO ON
Dusk on the tropic seas is a ceremony performed with reverence, as
if the rising moon were a priestess come among her silver vessels.
Shadows like phantom sails dip through the dark and lie idle where
unseen crafts with unexplained cargoes weigh anchor in mid-air. One
almost hears the water cunningly lap upon their invisible sides.
To Little Cawthorne, lying luxuriously in a hammock on the deck of
_The Aloha_, fancies like these crowded pleasantly, and slipped away
or were merged in snatches of remembered songs. His hands were
clasped behind his head, one foot was tapping the deck to keep the
hammock in motion while strange compounds of tune and time broke
aimlessly from his lips.
"Meet me by moonlight alone,
And then I will tell you a tale.
Must be told in the moonlight alone
In the grove at the end of the vale"
he caroled contentedly.
Amory, the light of his pipe cheerfully glowing, lay at full length
in a steamer chair. _The Aloha_ was bounding briskly forward, a
solitary speck on the bosom of darkening purple, and the men sitting
in the companionship of silence, which all the world praises and
seldom attains, had been engaging in that most entertaining of
pastimes, the comparison of present comfort with past toil. Little
Cawthorne's satisfaction flowered in speech.
"Two weeks ago to-night," he said, running his hands through his
grey curls, "I took the night desk when Ellis was knocked out. And
two weeks ago to-morrow morning we were the only paper to be beaten
on the Fownes will story. Hi--you."
"Happy, Cawthorne?" Amory removed his pipe to inquire with idle
indulgence.
"Am I happy?" affirmed Little Cawthorne ecstatically in four tones,
and went on with his song:
"The daylight may do for the gay,
The thoughtless, the heartless, the free,
But there's something about the moon's ray
That is sweeter to you and to me."
"Did you make that up?" inquired Amory with polite interest.
"I did if I want to," responded Little Cawthorne. "Everything's true
out here--go on, tell everything you like. I'll believe you."
St. George came out of the dark and leaned on the rail without
speaking. Sometimes he wondered if he were he at all, and he liked
the doubt. He felt pleasantly as if he had been cut loose from all
old conditions and were sailing between skies to some unknown
planet. This was not only because of the strange waters rushing
underfoot but because of the flowering and singing of something
within him that made the world into which he was sailing an alien
place, heavenly desirable. A week ago that day _The Aloha_ had
weighed anchor, and these seven days, in fairly fortunate weather,
her white nose had been cleaving seas to traverse which had so long
been her owner's dream; and yet her owner, in pleasant apostasy, had
turned his back upon the whole matter of what he had been used to
dream, and now ungratefully spent his time in trying to count the
hours to his journey's end.
Somewhere out yonder, he reflected, as he leaned on the rail, this
southern moonlight was flooding whatever scene _she_ looked on; the
lapping of the same sea was in her ears; and his future and hers
might be dependent upon those two perplexed tan-coloured greyhounds
below. By which one would have said that matters had been going
briskly forward with St. George since the morning that he had
breakfasted with Olivia Holland.
Exactly when the end of the journey would be was not evident either
to him or to the two strange creatures who proposed to be his
guides. Or rather to Jarvo, who was still the spokesman; lean
little Akko, although his intelligence was unrivaled, being content
with monosyllables for stepping-stones while the stream of Jarvo's
soft speech flowed about him. Barnay, the captain, frankly
distrusted them both, and confided to St. George that "them two
little jool-eyed scuts was limbs av the old gint himself, and they
reminded him, Barnay, of a pair of haythen naygurs," than which he
could say no more. But then, Barnay's wholesale skepticism was his
only recreation, save talking about his pretty daughter "of school
age," and he liked to stand tucking his beard inside his collar and
indulging in both. In truth, Barnay, who knew the waters of the
Atlantic fairly well, was sorely tried to take orders from the two
little brown strangers who, he averred, consulted a "haythen
apparaytus" which they would cheerfully let him see but of which he
could "make no more than av the spach av a fish," and then directed
him to take courses which lay far outside the beaten tracks of the
high seas.
St. George, who had had several talks with them, was puzzled and
doubtful, and more than once confided to himself that the lives of
the passenger list of _The Aloha_ might be worth no more than coral
headstones at the bottom of the South Atlantic. But he always
consoled himself with the cheering reflection that he had had to
come--there was no other way half so good. So _The Aloha_ continued
to plow her way as serenely as if she were heading toward the white
cliffs of Dover and trim villas and a custom-house. And the sea lay
a blue, uninhabited glory save as land that Barnay knew about marked
low blades of smoke on the horizon and slipped back into blue
sheaths.
This was the evening of the seventh day, and that noon Jarvo had
looked despondent, and Barnay had sworn strange oaths, and St.
George had been disquieted. He stood up now, going vaguely down into
his coat pockets for his pipe, his erect figure thrown in relief
against the hurrying purple. St. George was good to look at, and
Amory, with the moonlight catching the glass of his pince-nez,
smoked and watched him, shrewdly pondering upon exactly how much
anxiety for the success of the enterprise was occupying the breast
of his friend and how much of an emotion a good bit stronger. Amory
himself was not in love, but there existed between him and all who
were a special kinship, like that between a lover of music and a
musician.
Little Cawthorne rose and shuffled his feet lazily across deck.
"Where is that island, anyway?" he wanted to know, gazing
meditatively out to sea.
St. George turned as if the interruption was grateful.
"The island. I don't see any island," complained Little Cawthorne.
"I tell you," he confided, "I guess it's just Chillingworth's little
way of fixing up a nice long vacation for us."
They smiled at memory of Chillingworth's grudging and snarling
assents to even an hour off duty.
From below came Bennietod, walking slowly. The seaman's life was not
for Bennietod, and he yearned to reach land as fervently as did St.
George, though with other anxiety. He sat down on the moon-lit deck
and his face was like that of a little old man with uncanny
shrewdness. His week among them had wrought changes in the head
office boy. For Bennietod was ambitious to be a gentleman. His
covert imitations had always amused St. George and Amory. Now in the
comparative freedom of _The Aloha_ his fancy had rein and he had
adopted all the habits and the phrases which he had long reserved
and liked best, mixing them with scraps of allusions to things which
Benfy had encouraged him to read, and presenting the whole in his
native lower East-side dialect. Bennietod was Bowery-born and
office-bred, and this sad metropolitanism almost made of him a good
philosopher.
"I'd like immensely to say something," observed St. George abruptly,
when his pipe was lighted.
"Oh, yes. All right," shrilled Little Cawthorne with resignation, "I
suppose you all feel I'm the Jonah and you thirst to scatter me to
the whales."
"I want to know," St. George went on slowly, "what you think. On my
life, I doubt if I thought at all when we set out. This all promised
good sport, and I took it at that. Lately, I've been wondering, now
and then, whether any of you wish yourselves well out of it."
For a moment no one spoke. To shrink from expression is a
characteristic in which the extremes of cultivation and mediocrity
meet; the reserve of delicacy in St. George and Amory would have
been a reserve of false shame in Bennietod, and of an exaggerated
sense of humour in Little Cawthorne. It was not remarkable that from
the moment the enterprise had been entered upon, its perils and its
doubtful outcome had not once been discussed. St. George vaguely
reckoned with this as he waited, while Amory smoked on and blew
meditative clouds and regarded the bowl of his pipe, and Little
Cawthorne ceased the motion of his hammock, and Bennietod hugged his
knees and looked shrewdly at the moon, as if he knew more about the
moon than he would care to tell. St. George felt his heart sink a
little. Then Little Cawthorne rose and squared valiantly up to him.
"What," inquired the little man indignantly, "are you trying to do?
Pick a fight?"
St. George looked at him in surprise.
"Because if you are," continued little Cawthorne without preamble,
"we're three to one. And three of us are going to Yaque. We'll put
you ashore if you say so."
St. George smiled at him gratefully.
"No--Bennietod?" inquired Little Cawthorne.
Bennietod, pale and manifestly weak, grinned cheerfully and fumbled
in sudden abashment at an amazing checked Ascot which he had derived
from unknown sources.
"Bes' t'ing t'ever I met up wid," he assented, "ef de deck'd lay
down levil. I'm de sonny of a sea-horse if it ain't."
"Amory?" demanded the little man.
Amory looked along his pipe and took it briefly from his lips and
shook his head.
"Don't say these things," he pleaded in his pleasant drawl, "or I'll
swear something horrid."
St. George merely held his pipe by the bowl and nodded a little, but
the hearts of all of them glowed.
After dinner they sat long on deck. Rollo, at his master's
invitation, joined them with a mandolin, which he had been
discovered to play considerably better than any one else on board.
Rollo sat bolt upright in a reclining chair to prove that he did not
forget his station and strummed softly, and acknowledged approval
with:
"Yes, sir. A little music adds an air to any occasion, _I_ always
think, sir."
The moon was not yet full, but its light in that warm world was
brilliant. The air was drowsy and scented with something that might
have been its own honey or that might have come from the strange
blooms, water-sealed below. Now and then St. George went aside for a
space and walked up and down the deck or sent below for Jarvo. Once,
as Jarvo left St. George's side, Little Cawthorne awoke and sat
upright and inquiring, in his hammock.
"What _is_ the matter with his feet?" he inquired peevishly. "I
shall certainly ask him directly."
"It's the seventh day out," Amory observed, "and still nobody
knows."
For Jarvo and Akko had another distinction besides their diminutive
stature and greyhound build. Their feet, clad in soft soleless
shoes, made of skins, were long and pointed and of almost uncanny
flexibility. It had become impossible for any one to look at either
of the little men without letting his eyes wander to their curiously
expressive feet, which, like "courtier speech," were expressive
without revealing anything.
"I t'ink," Bennietod gave out, "dat dey're lost Eyetalian
organ-grinder monkeys, wid huming intelligence, like Bertran's
Bimi."
"What a suspicious child it is," yawned Little Cawthorne, and went
to sleep again. Toward midnight he awoke, refreshed and happy, and
broke into instant song:
"The daylight may do for the gay,
The thoughtless, the heartless, the free,
But there's something about the moon's ray--"
he was chanting in perfect tonelessness, when St. George cried out.
The others sprang to their feet.
"Lights!" said St. George, and gave the glass to Amory, his hand
trembling, and very nearly snatched it back again.
Far to the southeast, faint as the lost Pleiad, a single golden
point pricked the haze, danced, glimmered, was lost, and reappeared
to their eager eyes. The impossibility of it all, the impossibility
of believing that they could have sighted the lights of an island
hanging there in the waste and hitherto known to nobody simply
because nobody knew the truth about the Fourth Dimension did not
assail them. So absorbed had St. George become in the undertaking,
so convincing had been the events that led up to it, and so ready
for anything in any dimension were his companions, that their
excitement was simply the ancient excitement of lights to the
mariner and nothing more; save indeed that to St. George they spoke
a certain language sweeter than the language of any island lying in
the heart of mere science or mere magic either.
When it became evident that the lights were no will-o'-the-wisps,
born of the moon and the void, but the veritable lights that shine
upon harbours, Bennietod tumbled below for Jarvo, who came on deck
and gazed and doubted and well-nigh wept for joy and poured forth
strange words and called aloud for Akko. Akko came and nodded and
showed white teeth.
"To-morrow," he said only.
Barnay came.
"Fwhat matther?" He put it cynically, scowling critically at Jarvo
and Akko. "All in the way av fair fight, that'll be about Mor-rocco,
if I've the full av my wits about me, an' music to my eyes, by the
same token."
Jarvo fixed him with his impenetrable look.
"It is the light of the king's palace on the summit of Mount
Khalak," he announced simply.
The light of the king's palace. St. George heard and thrilled with
thanksgiving. It would be then the light at her very threshold,
provided the impossible is possible, as scientists and devotees have
every reason to think. But was she there--was she there? If there
was an oracle for the answer, it was not St. George. The little
white stars danced and signaled faintly on the far horizon. Whatever
they had to reveal was for nearer eyes than his.
The glass passed from hand to hand, and in turn they all swept the
low sky where the faint points burned; but when some one had cried
that the lights were no longer visible, and the others had verified
the cry by looking blankly into a sudden waste of milky black--black
water, pale light--and turned baffled eyes to Jarvo, the little man
spoke smoothly, not even reaching a lean, brown hand for the glass.
"But have no fear, adôn," he reassured them, "the chart is not
exact--it is that which has delayed us. It will adjust itself. The
light may long disappear, but it will come again. The gods will
permit the possible."
They looked at one another doubtfully when the two little brown men
had gone below, where Barnay had immediately retired, tucking his
beard in his collar and muttering sedition. If the two strange
creatures were twin Robin Goodfellows perpetrating a monstrous
twentieth century prank, if they were gigantic evolutions of Puck
whose imagination never went far beyond threshing corn with shadowy
flails, at least this very modern caper demanded respect for so
perfectly catching the spirit of the times. At all events it was
immensely clever of them to have put their finger upon the public
pulse and to have realized that the public imagination is ready to
believe anything because it has seen so much proved. Still, "science
was faith once"; and besides, to St. George, charts and compasses of
all known and unknown systems of seamanship were suddenly become
but the dead letter of the law. The spirit of the whole matter was
that Olivia might be there, under the lights that his own eyes would
presently see again. "Who, remembering the first kind glance of her
whom he loves, can fail to believe in magic?" It is very likely that
having met Olivia at all seemed at that moment so wonderful to St.
George that any of the "frolic things" of science were to be
accepted with equanimity.
For an hour or more the moon, flooding the edge of the deck of _The
Aloha_, cast four shadows sharply upon the smooth boards. Lined up
at the rail stood the four adventurers, and the glass passed from
one to another like the eye of the three Grey Sisters. The far
beacon appeared and disappeared, but its actuality might not be
doubted. If Jarvo and Akko were to be trusted, there in the velvet
distance lay Yaque, and Med, the King's City, and the light upon the
very palace of its American sovereign.
St. George's pulses leaped and trembled. Amory lifted lazy lids and
watched him with growing understanding and finally, upon a pretext
of sleep, led the others below. And St. George, with a sense of
joyful companionship in the little light, paced the deck until dawn.