SMOOTH WATER
There was no wind except the draught the steamer made as she lurched
across the dazzling swell. Cuba floated like a high, blue cloud over the
port hand, cut off from the water by a blaze of reflected light, and the
broad Yucatan Channel, glimmering like silver, stretched ahead. The deck
had been holystoned and well sluiced before sunrise and was not quite
dry, and there was a slight coolness in the air where Evelyn Cliffe sat
under the awning.
Macallister leaned on the rail near by, wearing a white cap with a mail
company's badge, and a blue jacket over his greasy duck. He had given
his dress some thought since the passengers came on board. Miguel stood
at the wheel, barefooted, tall, and picturesque in spotless white, with
a red cap and a red sash round his waist. A few big logs of hardwood
that gave out an aromatic smell were made fast amidships.
"I suppose that lumber's valuable," Evelyn remarked.
"It depends upon whether ye want to buy or sell," Macallister replied.
"They telt us good logs were scarce in Cuba, but I doubt we'll find
demand is slack when we come to part wi' them."
"Then the trade can't be very profitable."
"It's just changing a shilling. Sometimes ye get a ha'penny over."
Evelyn laughed.
"Which one of you looks after business matters?"
"I'm thinking it will have to be Walthew. The lad shows a natural
ability."
"But he's younger than Mr. Grahame--and probably has not had as much
experience."
Macallister gave her a half-amused glance.
"The skipper's no' a fool, but when he makes a bargain he's frank and
quick. States the fair price and sticks to it. He will not spend time in
scheming how he can screw a few more dollars out o' the other man. Yon's
a gift ye must be born with."
"Do you mean Mr. Grahame rather despises money-making?"
"No' that exactly," Macallister replied in a confidential tone. "But, ye
see, he's a Grahame o' Calder Ha'."
"Oh! Is that a great distinction?"
"It depends on how ye look at things. His branch o' the family is maybe
no' o' much importance noo, but in the old wild days the lairds o'
Calder Ha' were chiefs on the Border. They guarded the moss roads, they
kept the fords, and the kings at Stirling and Westminster noo bought
their goodwill with presents and noo hanged a few o' the clan."
"And Calder Hall? Is it one of the rude stone towers you see pictures
of?"
Macallister smiled.
"Calder Ha's bonny. The old tower stands, with the coat o' arms above
the door, but a low, gray house with stone-ribbed windows runs back
where was once the bailly wall. Below's a bit ragged orchard, the bent
trees gray with fog, and then the lawn dropping to the waterside. Nae
soft Southern beauty yonder; but ye feel the charm o' the cold, rugged
North." He paused, and resumed with a reminiscent air: "I mind how I
went to Calder Ha' when I was a young and romantic laddie fired by Scott
and him who taught the wandering winds to sing; the tales o' the Ettrick
shepherd were thought good reading then. After a bit plain speaking to
the foreman o' a Clydeside engine shop, I was fitting spinning gear in a
new woolen mill, and I left the narrow Border town on a holiday dawn.
"There was mist along the alders and a smell o' wet dust where the white
road followed the waterside, but as the sun came ower the hills I took
to the moor. Red it was like crimson velvet with the light upon the
ling, rolling on to Cheviot-foot, with the brown grouse crying and the
clear sky above. At noon I came down a bit water that tumbled in a linn,
where rowans grew among the stones and the eddies were amber with the
seeping from the peat. The burn got wider, the bare hills closed in; and
then I came on Calder Ha' at a turning o' the glen. Black firs behind
it, standing stiff like sentinels; the house with the tower in the
middle on the breast o' the brae, and the lawn running doon to a pool.
Then I kent why the Grahames loved it and would never sell, though many
a rich man would have bought the place from them."
"Did you tell Mr. Grahame this?" Evelyn asked.
"Maybe it makes things easier that he thinks I dinna ken," said
Macallister.
Evelyn agreed, for she saw that his reticence was caused by tactful
sympathy. Afterward she was silent for a time. The Scot's admiration for
the old Border house appealed to her. He had shown a taste and a
half-poetical imagination that she had not suspected when they first
met; but it was not of Macallister she was thinking. After all, it must
be something to belong to a family with such traditions as clung about
Calder Hall; but she must not dwell too much on this.
"Aren't we going slowly?" she asked.
"Coal's dear in the West Indies, and the slower ye go the less ye use.
But if ye are tiring o' the trip, I might drive her a bit faster."
Evelyn glanced across the long undulations that were deep-blue in the
hollows, and touched upon their summits with brilliant light. She liked
to feel the easy lift as the _Enchantress_ shouldered off the swell; the
drowsy murmur at the bows and the rhythmical throb of engines were
soothing. Then there was a pleasant serenity in the wide expanse. But
she was honest with herself, and she knew that the beauty of the calm
sea did not quite account for the absence of any wish to shorten the
voyage.
"Oh," she said, "please don't burn more coal than is necessary. I'm
quite content. I love the sunshine and the smooth water."
Macallister strolled away, but she saw his twinkling smile and wondered
whether he was satisfied with her excuse.
Evelyn lay back in her steamer-chair, looking out over the glistening
water and idly watching the white-caps far out at sea. She felt, rather
than saw, Grahame approach. When she turned to him, smiling, he was
close beside her, leaning against the rail. His pose was virile, and his
expression marked by the quiet alertness she had learned to know. It
suggested resolution, self-reliance, and power of command. These
qualities were not obtrusively indicated, but Evelyn recognized them and
wondered how much he owed to his being a Grahame of Calder Hall.
Hereditary influences must be reckoned on.
"This is the first chance I've had to see you alone," he said. "I want
to thank you for your help at the International."
"Was it useful?"
"Very useful. Your quickness and resourcefulness were surprising."
"That's a doubtful compliment," she laughed. "To me the affair was quite
exciting. To feel that you're engaged in a conspiracy gives you a
pleasant thrill."
"I wonder!" Grahame remarked rather grimly. "But may I ask----"
"Oh, I can't dissect the impulses that prompted me. No doubt, the hint
of intrigue was attractive--and perhaps friendship counted too."
"And you took the excellence of my intentions on trust?"
"Well, there really was no time to question you, and judge if they were
good. As a matter of fact, I'm no wiser now."
"No," he said. "On the whole, I think it's better that you shouldn't
know."
"It looks as if I'm more confiding than you."
Grahame, studying her face, suspected disappointed curiosity and a touch
of pique.
"Your confidence is yours, to give or withhold as you think best. Mine,
however, belongs to others."
"Then there are a number of people in the plot!"
Grahame laughed.
"If it's any comfort for you to know, when you came to our rescue that
night in Havana you helped a man who has made many sacrifices for a good
cause."
"As you're too modest to mean yourself, you must be speaking of the
gentleman with the pretty daughter."
"Yes, Dona Blanca is pretty; but I prefer the Anglo-Saxon type. There's
a charm in tropical languor, but one misses the bracing keenness of the
North." He quoted with a smile,
"Oh, dark and true and tender----"
"We may be true; one likes to think so. But I'm not sure that tenderness
is a characteristic of ours."
"It's not lightly given, but it goes deep and lasts," Grahame answered.
When he left her a few minutes afterward, Evelyn sat thinking languidly.
She found him elusive. He was frank, in a way, but avoided personal
topics. Then, remembering the scrap of verse he had quoted, she
reflected that he was certainly a Northerner in feeling; but was truth,
after all, an essential feature of the type? To be really true, one must
be loyal to one's inner self and follow one's heart. But this was risky.
It might mean sacrificing things one valued and renouncing advantages to
be gained. Prudence suggested taking the safe, conventional course that
would meet with the approval of one's friends; but Romance stood,
veiled and mysterious, beckoning her, and she thrilled with an
instinctive response. Now, however, she felt that she was getting on to
dangerous ground, and she joined Cliffe, who sat in the shade of the
deckhouse, talking to Walthew; but they did not help her to banish her
thoughts. Her father was a practical business man, and Walthew had
enjoyed a training very similar to hers. It was strange that he should
now seek adventures instead of riches, and stranger still that her
father should show some sympathy with him.
An hour later Grahame found Macallister leaning on the rail, contentedly
smoking his pipe.
"She's only making seven knots; you're letting steam down," he said.
"Weel," rejoined Macallister, "we're saving coal, and we'll be in
Kingston soon enough. Then, Miss Cliffe's no' in a hurry. She's enjoying
the smooth water; she telt me so."
Grahame looked hard at him.
"You have a dangerous love of meddling, Mack," he said.
"I'll no' deny it. For a' that, I've had thickheaded friends who've been
grateful to me noo and then. What ye have no' is the sense to ken an
opportunity."
"What do you mean by that?"
Macallister's manner grew confidential.
"She's thinking about ye and when a lassie goes so far----"
Grahame stopped him with a frown.
"I'd sooner you dropped this nonsense. It's a poor joke."
"Weel, if ye have no ambition! Selling guns to revolutionists is no' a
remarkably profitable business, particularly if ye're caught, and I was
thinking ye might do better. The girl's no' bad to look at; I've seen ye
watching her."
"Not bad to look at!" Grahame checked himself. "We'll talk about
something else."
"As ye like!"
Macallister took out a small, tapered piece of steel.
"This, ye ken, is a cotter, and the dago from the foundry put it in. He
was a good fitter, but the pin's a sixty-fourth too small for the slot.
Maybe it was carelessness; but there would have been trouble when the
cotter shook out if Walthew hadna' heard her knocking. Yon lad has the
makings o' an engineer."
Grahame looked thoughtful.
"Gomez was in Havana, and I dare say he has his agents and spies. Still,
if he suspected anything, it would have been a better stroke to have
watched and seized us when we had the arms on board. I'd expect him to
see it."
"Weel," said Macallister grimly, "if I meet yon dago another time, I'll
maybe find out something before I throw him off the mole. A good
engine's nearer life than anything man has made, and wrecking her is as
bad as murder."
"I don't think our opponents would stick at that," Grahame replied as he
turned away.
Toward evening the barometer fell, and it grew very hot. There was no
wind, the sky was cloudless, and the sea rolled back to the horizon
without a ripple. For all that, there was a curious tension in the
atmosphere, and Evelyn noticed that soon after Macallister came up for
a few minutes and looked carefully about, thick smoke rose from the
funnel. The girl's head felt heavy, and her skin prickly; and she saw
that Grahame's hawk look was more noticeable than usual. He was,
however, not fidgety, and after dinner he sat talking to her and Cliffe
under the awning. The air was oppressively still, and a half-moon hung
like a great lamp low above the sea.
About nine o'clock Cliffe went to his cabin to look for a cigar, and
Evelyn and Grahame sat silent for a while, wrapped in the mystery of the
night.
Evelyn was the first to speak.
"I suppose you don't expect this calm to last?" she asked in a hushed
voice.
"I'd like it to last while you're with us. But I can't promise that,"
Grahame answered. "If we do get a breeze it will probably soon blow
itself out."
Evelyn glanced at the sea.
"It doesn't look as if it could ever be ruffled," she said. "One likes
smooth water--but it's apt to get monotonous."
"That's a matter of temperament, or perhaps experience. When you've had
to battle with headwinds, you appreciate a calm."
"I don't know. So far, I've had only sunshine and fine weather, but then
I've always clung to the sheltered coast. It's nice to feel safe, but
one sometimes wonders what there is farther out."
"Breaking seas and icy gales that drive you off your course. Now and
then islands of mystic beauty, but more often surf-beaten reefs. On the
whole, it's wiser to keep in smooth water."
"Perhaps," Evelyn said skeptically. "Still, there's a fascination in
adventure, if it's only as a test of courage, and one feels tempted to
take a risk."
She rose with a laugh.
"I don't know why I talk like this! I'm really a very practical
girl--not a sentimentalist."
She moved away, and Grahame, calling one of the men to furl the awning,
went into the deckhouse and deliberately pored over a chart. There were
times when it was not safe to permit himself to think of Evelyn.