THEY GO A-SAILING
Five o'clock in the afternoon, and a mild blue sea flashing under the
ever-deepening orange of the falling sun. Golden castles and gray
castles and castles of shadowed-white billowed in the east; turrets
rose and subsided and spires of cloud-cities formed and re-formed. The
yacht _Laura_, sleek and swan-white, her ensign and colors folding and
unfolding, lifting and sinking, as the shore breeze stirred them, was
making ready for sea; and many of the villagers had come down to the
water front to see her off. Very few sea-going vessels, outside of
freighters, ever stopped in this harbor; and naturally the departures
of the yacht were events equalled only by her arrivals. The railroad
station was close to the wharves, and the old sailors hated the sight
of the bright rails; for the locomotive had robbed them of the
excitement of the semi-weekly packets that used to coast up and down
between New York and Philadelphia.
"Wonder what poor devil of a pirate is going to have his bones turned
over this trip?" said the station-agent to Mr. Donovan, who, among
others on the station platform, watched the drab anchor as it clanked
jerkily upward to the bows, leaving a swivel and a boil on the waters
which had released it so grudgingly.
"I guess it ain't goin' t' be any ol' pirate this time," replied Mr.
Donovan, with a pleasurable squeeze of the pocket-book over his heart.
"Well, I hope he finds what he's going after," generously. "He is the
mainstay of this old one-horse town. Say, she's a beauty, isn't she?
Why, man, that anchor alone is worth more than we make in four months.
And think of the good things to eat and drink. If I had a million, no
pirates or butterflies for mine. I'd hie me to Monte Carlo and bat the
tiger all over the place."
Mr. Donovan knew nothing definite about Monte Carlo, but he would have
liked to back up against some of those New York contractors on their
own grounds.
"Hi! There she goes. Good luck!" cried the station-agent, swinging
his hat with gusto.
The yacht swam out gracefully. There was a freshening blow from the
southwest, but it would take the yacht half an hour to reach the
deep-sea swells outside. Her whistle blew cheerily and was answered by
the single tug-boat moored to the railroad wharf. And after that the
villagers straggled back to their various daily concerns. Even the
landlord of Swan's Hotel sighed as he balanced up his books. Business
would be slack for some days to come.
The voyagers were gathered about the stern-rail and a handkerchief or
two fluttered in the wind. For an hour they tarried there, keeping in
view the green-wooded hills and the white cottages nestling at their
base. And turn by turn there were glimpses of the noble old house at
the top of the hill. And some looked upon it for the last time.
"I've had a jolly time up there," said Fitzgerald. The gulls swooped,
as they crossed and recrossed the milky wake. "Better time than I
deserved."
"Are you still worried about that adventure?" Laura demanded. "Dismiss
it from your mind and let it be as if we had known each other for many
years."
"Do you really mean that?"
"To be sure I do," promptly. "I have stepped to the time of convention
so much that a lapse once in a while is a positive luxury. But Mrs.
Coldfield had given me a guaranty before I addressed you, so the
adventure was only a make-believe one after all."
There never was a girl quite like this one. He purloined a sidelong
glance at her which embraced her wholly, from the chic gray cap on the
top of her shapely head to the sensible little boots on her feet. She
wore a heavy, plaid coat, with deep pockets into which her hands were
snugly buried; and she stood braced against the swell and the wind
which was turning out strong and cold. The rich pigment in the blood
mantled her cheeks and in her eyes there was still a bit of captive
sunshine. He knew now that what had been only a possibility was an
assured fact. Never before had he cursed his father's friends, but he
did so now, silently and earnestly; for their pilfering fingers and
their plausible lies had robbed his father's son of a fine inheritance.
Money. Never had he desired it so keenly. A few weeks ago it had
meant the wherewithal to pay his club-dues and to support a decent
table when he traveled. Now it was everything; for without it he never
could dare lift his eyes seriously to this lovely picture so close to
him, let alone dream of winning her. He recalled Cathewe's light
warning about the bones of ducal hopes. What earthly chance had he?
Unconsciously he shrugged.
"You are shrugging!" she cried, noting the expression; for, if he was
secretly observing her, she was surreptitiously contemplating his own
advantages.
"Did I shrug?"
"You certainly did."
"Well," candidly, "it was the thought of money that made me do it."
"I detest it, too."
"Good heavens, I didn't say I detested it! What I shrugged about was
my own dreary lack of it."
"Bachelors do not require much."
"That's true; but I no longer desire to remain a bachelor." The very
thing that saved him was the added laughter, forced, miserably forced.
Fool! The words had slipped without his thinking.
"Gracious! That sounds horribly like a proposal." She beamed upon him
merrily.
And his heart sank, for he had been earnest enough, for all his
blunder. Manlike, he did not grasp the fact that under the
circumstance merriment was all she could offer him, if she would save
him from his own stupidity.
"But I do hate money," she reaffirmed.
"I shouldn't. Think of what it brings."
"I do; begging letters, impostures, battle-scarred titles, humbugging
shop-keepers, and perhaps one honest friend in a thousand. And if I
married a title, what equivalent would I get for my money, to put it
brutally? A chateau, which I should have to patch up, and tolerance
from my husband's noble friends. Not an engaging prospect."
She threw a handful of biscuit to the gulls, and there was fighting and
screaming almost in touch of the hands. Then of a sudden the red rim
of the sun vanished behind the settling landscape, and all the grim
loneliness of the sea rose up to greet them.
"It is lonely; let us go and prepare for dinner. Look!" pointing to a
bright star far down the east. "And Corsica lies that way."
"And also madness!" was his thought.
"Oh, it seems not quite true that we are all going a-venturing as they
do in the story-books. The others think we are just going to Funchal.
Remember, you must not tell. Think of it; a real treasure, every franc
of which must tell a story of its own; love, heroism and devotion."
"Beautiful! But there must be a rescuing of princesses and fighting
and all that. I choose the part of remaining by the princess."
"It is yours." She tilted back her head and breathed and breathed.
She knew the love of living.
"Lucky we are all good sailors," he said. "There will be a fair sea on
all night. But how well she rides!"
"I love every beam and bolt of her."
Shoulder to shoulder they bore forward to the companionway, and
immediately the door banged after them.
Breitmann came out from behind the funnel and walked the deck for a
time. He had studied the two from his shelter. What were they saying?
Oh, Fitzgerald was clever and strong and good to look at, but . . . !
Breitmann straightened his arms before him, opened and shut his hands
violently. Like that he would break him if he interfered with any of
his desires. It would be fully twenty days before they made Ajaccio.
Many things might happen before that time.
Two or three of the crew were lashing on the rail-canvas, and the snap
and flap of it jarred on Breitmann's nerves. For a week or more his
nerves had been very close to the surface, so close that it had
required all his will to keep his voice and hands from shaking. As he
passed, one of the sailors doffed his cap and bowed with great respect.
"That's not the admiral, Alphonse," whispered another of the crew,
chuckling. "It's only his privit secretary."
"Ah, I haf meestake!"
But Alphonse had made no mistake. He knew who it was. His mates did
not see the smile of irony, of sly ridicule, which stirred his lips as
he bowed to the passer. Immediately his rather handsome effeminate
face resumed a stolid vacuity.
His name was not Alphonse; it was a captious offering by the crew,
which, on this yacht, never went further than to tolerate the addition
of a foreigner to their mess. He had signed a day or two before
sailing; he had even begged for the honor to ship with Captain
Flanagan; and he gave his name as Pierre Picard, to which he had no
more right than to Alphonse. As Captain Flanagan was too good a sailor
himself to draw distinctions, he was always glad to add a foreign
tongue to his crew. You never could tell when its use might come in
handy. That is why Pierre Picard was allowed to drink his soup in the
forecastle mess.
Breitmann continued on, oblivious to all things save his cogitations.
He swung round the bridge. He believed that he and Cathewe could
henceforth proceed on parallel lines, and there was much to be grateful
for. Cathewe was quiet but deep; and he, Breitmann, had knocked about
among that sort and knew that they were to be respected. In all, he
had made only one serious blunder. He should never have permitted the
vision of a face to deter him. He should have taken the things from
the safe and vanished. It had not been, a matter of compunction. And
yet . . . Ah, he was human, whatever his dream might be; and he loved
this American girl with all his heart and mind. It was not lawless
love, but it was ruthless. When the time was ripe he would speak.
Only a little while now to wait. The course had smoothed out, the
sailing was easy. The man in the chimney no longer bothered him.
Whoever and whatever he was, he had not shot his bolt soon enough.
Hildegarde von Mitter. He stopped against the rail. The yacht was
burying her nose now, and the white drift from her cut-water seemed
strangely luminous as it swirled obliquely away in the fading twilight.
Hildegarde von Mitter. Was she to be the flaw in the chain? No, no;
there should be no regret; he had steeled his heart against any such
weakness. She had been necessary, and he would be a fool to pause over
a bit of sentimentality. Her appearance had disorganized his nerves,
that was all. Peering into his watch he found that he had only half an
hour before dinner. And it may be added that he dressed with singular
care.
So did Fitzgerald, for that matter.
It took Cathewe just as long, but he did not make two or three
selections of this or that before finding what he wanted. He was
engrossed most of the time in the sober contemplation of the rubber
flooring or the running sea outside the port-hole.
And this night Hildegarde von Mitter was meditating on the last throw
for her hopes. She determined to cast once more the full sun of her
beauty into the face of the man she loved; and if she failed to win,
the fault would not be hers. Why could she not tear out this maddening
heart of hers and fling it to the sea? Why could she not turn it
toward the man who loved her? Why, why? Why should God make her so
unhappy? Why such injustice? Why this twisted interlacing of lives?
And yet, amid all these futile seekings, with subconscious deftness her
hands went on with their appointed work. Never again would the
splendor of her beauty burn as it did this night.
Laura, alone among them all, went serenely about her toilet. She was
young, and love had not yet spread its puzzle before her feet.
As for the others, they were on the far side of the hill, whence the
paths are smooth and gentle and the prospect is peacefulness and the
retrospect is dimly rosal. They dressed as they had done those twenty
odd years, plainly.
On the bridge the first officer was standing at the captain's side.
"Captain," he shouted, "where did you get that Frenchman?"
"Picked him up day before yestiddy. Speaks fair English an' a bit o'
Dago. They're allus handy on a pleasure-boat. He c'n keep off th'
riffraff boatmen. An' _you_ know what persistent cusses they be in the
Med'terranean. Why?"
"Oh, nothing, if he's a good sailor. Notice his hands?"
"Why, no!"
"Soft as a woman's."
"Y' don't say! Well, we'll see 'em tough enough before we sight
Funchal. Smells good up here; huh?"
"Yes; but I don't mind three months on land, full pay. Not me. But
this Frenchman?"
"Oh, he had good papers from a White Star liner; an' you can leave it
to me regardin' his lily-white hands. By th' way, George, will you
have them bring up my other leg? Th' salt takes th' color out o' this
here brass ferrule, an' rubber's safer."
"Yes, sir."
There was one vacant chair in the dining-salon. M. Ferraud was
indisposed. He could climb the highest peak, he could cross
ice-ridges, with a sheer mile on either side of him, with never an
attack of vertigo; but this heaving mystery under his feet always got
the better of him the first day out. He considered it the one flaw in
an otherwise perfect system. Thus, he misled the comedy and the
tragedy of the eyes at dinner, nor saw a woman throw her all and lose
it.