THE SKIPPER MAKES A PRAYER.
The girl's strange behaviour did not surprise me. In the short time that
she had been among us I had become quite used to her vagaries. I have
spoken of her as a savage, but only as one would call any human being a
savage, either black or white, who had attacked another as viciously as
this girl had attacked Cynthia. The girl was not a savage in the common
acceptation of the term. She was of mixed blood, a French octoroon,
probably from the country districts; at least so the simple chemisette
and short skirt which comprised her costume would imply. Her hair was
black and wavy, her lips red, her teeth white and small. She was plump
and prettily formed, and looked in reality like a girl of eighteen,
though we afterward learned that she was just then in her fourteenth
year.
A large tree, which had fallen across the stream up near the cliff,
formed a bridge over the deep little river. To this the Haitienne flew,
and, springing upon its trunk, she crossed to the other side as if she
had been a rope-walker. I watched her as she fled down the beach. I did
not care when she returned to us, or, indeed, whether she came back at
all, but the pangs of hunger were beginning to tell upon me, and the
Bo's'n was the only one who could assuage them. So I turned from
contemplating the flying figure of the girl and gazed in the opposite
direction. The Bo's'n, too, was still running, as if pursued by some
horrid nightmare. I watched until I saw that he had abandoned his pace,
then ran slowly, then settled down into a walk, looking furtively over
his shoulder the while, and finally stopped. I beckoned to him, but he
shook his head. I started up the beach to meet him, but he began to run
to the westward again. I returned to Cynthia.
"Give that fellow up as a bad job," said I. "Did you ever cook anything,
Miss Archer?"
"I can make calves'-foot jelly," said Cynthia, "and oley-koeks. I always
made those for Christmas dinner at home."
I looked around the shore scrutinizingly.
"I don't see any little calf sticking up his feet to be chopped
off--except the Minion," I added, after a moment's survey of the sloping
sand, where the cabin boy was disporting himself upon his back with his
feet in the air. "I suppose oily what-you-call-'ems need butter and
eggs----"
"As I haven't the necessary materials, suppose I cook some pork," said
Cynthia. "I suppose"--looking quietly at me--"it isn't so very
difficult. You will have to build a fire, you know, and wash the
frying-pan and cut the pork."
"And lay it in the spider and let it cook itself," said I. "I am sorry
to put you to so much trouble."
"Don't mention it," said Cynthia good-naturedly. "Now, you know, by
rights a piece of the old Yankee should come floating ashore with a
dozen fowls, a pail of milk, and a keg of butter planted safely on the
upper side and----"
"A barrel of flour," added I. "Well, stranger things have happened----"
"Not much," said Cynthia.
This silly badinage served to while away the time while I cut the pork,
made the fire, and started the breakfast on its way. I brought the water
and hard bread, and then told Cynthia that if she would watch the
breakfast I would go and take a bath. I had something on my mind which
depressed me greatly. When I took the parrot's cage ashore on the
previous evening, I had hung it on the limb of a ceiba too high for
Cynthia to reach. That was very well for the night, but this was the
next morning, and, like many another next morning, its light ushered in
a day of reckoning. I had told Cynthia, I am ashamed to say, that I
would give Solomon his food and water, and I am also humiliated to
confess that I did actually fill the bird's cup and take it with a bit
of hard bread to the secluded place which I had chosen for the scene of
my base deception. Let me state here, with the entire reliability of all
explorers, that it was not entirely the fear of what Cynthia would think
of me for the part which I had played in what was to me a comedy, and
which might prove to her a tragedy, but that I really could not bear the
thought of seeing her sorrow when she first heard the dreadful news that
Solomon had escaped. I had often longed to wring the neck of the
feathered brute, for he had repaid me, as many kindnesses are repaid in
this world, by biting my finger to the bone when I had tried to tempt
him with some dainty. However, Cynthia loved him, and, notwithstanding
his viciousness, I had tried to make friends with him for her sake. Kick
a man's dog, and he is done with you. Ill treat a woman's parrot, and if
that woman is the woman you adore, you had better be dead. I had left
the cover drawn tightly over the cage, telling Cynthia that it would
protect the bird from the night dews, _Facilis descensus Averno_. Little
Adoniah says that means tell one lie and you will have to tell a
hundred. I had stuck to the letter of the truth, but I really cared very
little whether the dews of evening or the deluges of the tropics
descended in floods upon that wretched bird. When I left Cynthia I
walked directly up the bank of the stream, and was soon lost to sight
behind the low foliage which fringed its western slope. So soon as
Cynthia could no longer see me, I struck to the right, and, circling
round, I was again in the vicinity of the camp. I could see that her
back was turned toward me as she stooped over the frying-pan, scorching
her hands and face doubtless in doing this menial work. I went to the
tree where the cage hung, reached up and pulled down the limb, seized
upon the cage, loosened the catches, and quietly released the floor.
This I laid upon the ground half upon edge, as if it had fallen so. I
then returned to the stream and took my bath, which much refreshed me,
and appeared in camp with my guilty heart thumping and my pulses ringing
in my ears. The Skipper was narrating a wonderful tale to Cynthia, to
which she was listening, as if she wished some confirmatory evidence
before quite believing him.
"Oysters growing on trees!" Cynthia exclaimed as I joined them. "Uncle
Tony, you should not try to practice upon my credulity in that way, and
you a member of the church in good and regular standing! But then you
don't carry the deacons to sea with you, or----"
The Skipper asserted his discovery in loud and positive tones, which
drowned Cynthia's softer ones.
"Don't be a fool, girl! Shows you never travelled. Here's one now! See
it? Shell and all! Here's where I broke it off the branch!"
"Well! It beats Robinson Crusoe," said Cynthia. She turned to me. "Do
you believe it, Mr. Jones?"
"It is nothing new," said I. "I will take a pail, if you like, and get
some for breakfast."
"I will go with you," said Cynthia. "I know there's some catch about it.
I never saw oysters growing on trees."
"That's strange!" said the Skipper with ill-concealed scorn; "since you
have seen everything else in the whole blessed world----"
"Where are they, Captain?" I inquired, interrupting the controversy.
"Along there, where that girl's standing. You go and get 'em, and I'll
fry some more pork."
I took the pail which the Bo's'n had left near the fire and we started
across the tree and along the beach in the direction which the Haitien
girl had taken. When she saw Cynthia approaching, she began to run with
the fleetness of a deer.
"I guess she's gone for good," I said.
Long before we reached the low mangrove growth we heard a curious
snapping, like quick, sharp taps with a hammer. "Click!" "click!"
"click!" it sounded, until, as we drew close, the noise was confusing,
and we had to raise our voices somewhat in speaking. We came to a little
inlet, a sort of marshy place, where thousands of the low mangrove trees
grew and pushed their roots and hooplike ends into the salt water.
"Now where are your trees?" asked Cynthia.
"Why, there they are, those mangrove trees."
"Oh, you call those trees, do you? Explosion of story number one."
"Story?"
"I didn't like to call it by its real name," said Cynthia, "as Uncle
Tony told it. Don't you think, Mr. Jones, that going to sea is very bad
for the mor----"
The conversation was taking too personal a turn. I pushed in among the
hooplike roots.
"See here!" I said, "and here! and here!" as I pulled the oysters from
their holding places and threw them into the pail. All about us the
shells were opening and shutting, as if they longed for the return of
the tide, which was about two feet below them.
"Now that's exactly like so many of the stories one hears. I expected to
stand under a very high tree and see you climb it as you would a hickory
at home. I meant to stand under the branches and hold my dress and
catch--Oh, pshaw! Why do I talk to you?"
"You have too much imagination," said I. "Just taste one before you
begin to abuse us all so."
"I am not abusing any one, Mr. Jones; I only said----"
"Halloo! Halloo!"
It was the Skipper's voice. Fearing that something of an unpleasant
nature had occurred, we started quickly back again.
"Breakfast's ready," said the Skipper, with his mouth full of pork.
As I approached the camp I saw a signal in the distance. I discovered
after a moment's scrutiny that it was a signal from the Bo's'n. I
beckoned him to come to me, but he only shook his head, and waved more
wildly than before, pointing with sharp, quick jerks of his thumb over
his shoulder to the westward.
"Are you going to see what that fool wants?" asked the Skipper.
"No," returned I. "I am tired of playing tag with the Bo's'n and the
Haitien girl. Besides, I am famished."
We sat down on the rocks and ate our salt pork from a plate made of hard
bread. We washed it down with water from the spring at the base of the
rocks, and I heard no remarks upon the coarse fare.
Cynthia said only that she had never known how good salt pork and ship's
biscuits were, and that she should get Aunt Mary 'Zekel to have them
three times a week when she got home.
"Where's that Minion?" asked the Skipper, with his mouth full.
As nothing was to be seen of the boy, we left his breakfast with the
Bo's'n's share and that reserved for the Haitien girl, and I started to
go to the rescue of the Bo's'n, who was still waving violently. I had
taken but a few steps when I heard a call from Cynthia.
"Mr. Jones," she called, "bring me a biscuit before you go." My heart
sank down like lead. In the pleasure of gathering the oysters and the
walk which I had had with her alone I had forgotten that the day of
reckoning was near at hand. I took a piece of bread from the cask and
ran to meet her.
"Hungry again?" I asked, outwardly smiling. There was a singing in my
ears. I could hardly see.
"Oh, no," said she in answer; "but 'a merciful man,' you know, and my
poor beast must be starving."
"Yes, I think he is," said I. I forgot the Bo's'n's signal; I forgot
everything.
I seated myself miserably on a stone and waited for the deluge. It came.
I heard:
"Oh! Oh! Uncle! Mr. Jones, do come here; Solomon's gone!"
"We ought to sing the doxology," said the Skipper to me in an undertone.
He called to her in a well-simulated tone of regret:
"Oh, no, Cynthy, it can't be possible!"
So there were two cowards of us.
"How can she tell? She can't reach the cage," said I.
"How can you tell he's gone?" called the Skipper, in tones whose joy was
but poorly concealed. "You can't reach the cage."
"I'm standing right under the cage, Uncle; I can see right into it. O
Solomon, Solomon! my dear, darling, beautiful bird!"
"Never knew she could look through a piece of tin. Guess I'll go and
see."
I put my fingers in my ears and ran toward the Bo's'n, who was still
waving. The Minion trotted along by my side. The strange thing about the
Minion was that, unlike most boys, he seldom spoke; I should have
thought that he was dumb had it not been that occasionally, when hard
pressed, he did open his childish lips and pour forth words of wisdom.
There is an old saying that actions speak louder than words. The Minion
seemed to prefer to communicate his thoughts in this way. He pointed to
the beach, where I still saw the Bo's'n making his gestures. I turned
and looked back to the camp. I put my hands to my mouth and hallooed to
the Skipper, who had emerged from the shadow of the trees.
"It's a flag of truce, I think," said I.
I saw the Skipper shake his head and look despondently on the ground.
What he said was: "O Lord! those wretched sailors again."
I wondered if he was correct in his surmise as I ran along toward where
the Bo's'n stood. When he saw that I was really coming, he dropped the
flag of truce and put it on, for it was his shirt which he had fastened
to a branch to use for this purpose.
"How silly you are, Bo's'n!" I said. "I can't be following you all over
the island. You had better come back to the camp and behave like a
Christian."
A look of horror overspread his face as I spoke of his return to the
camp, but he shook his head and said:
"I should not have called you, sir, Mr. Jones, sir, but I have
discovered something. I thought you would like to know it." He turned
and walked briskly away.
"Hold on!" I said. "I am tired of this tomfoolery. Do you know what a
hot morning it is?"
"Yessir, I know, sir," said the Bo's'n. "Come here, sir."
The Bo's'n's air of mystery overcame my desire to sit down in the shade.
I followed where he led.
"It's the result of the battle, sir," he explained.
"What battle?" I asked, as I walked beside him.
"The fight between the sailors and the Haitiens, sir."
"You don't mean," I said, "that the sailors have come down here to----"
"No, only those are here who were left here." He parted the shoreward
bushes and revealed to me three men lying there. Two of them were white
men. They were our sailors Wilson and Tanby. The other was a Haitien.
He was lying by a partly dug grave. Indeed, so nearly ready was the
grave that I had some thought of confiscating it for the body of one of
our sailors. There were two other graves; at least, so I took them to
be. They were finished, and their occupants were at rest under that
wonderful leafy bower which only the tropics can afford. I thought that
I heard a rustling in the bushes, and told the Bo's'n my suspicions. The
Minion pointed to the thicket, and with a wild yell disappeared. One
never knew what the Minion would do. One always knew what he would say,
and that was nothing. There seemed to be an air of mystery about this
secluded spot. I watched the bushes, expecting the Minion's return, and,
as I watched, I felt that a pair of eyes was fixed on me. I pierced the
undergrowth right and left with my gaze, but only the mompoja leaves
moved languidly in the baby breeze which was now stirring, the precursor
of a later wind. I followed the Minion into the thicket, but saw no one.
Even the Minion had vanished. It was a great relief to me to be able to
act like a man with courage once more, instead of guarding my words for
fear that they would agitate the being the dearest in the world to me.
"Did you see any one as you came along the beach, Bo's'n?" said I.
"No, sir, Mr. Jones, sir; I was not looking or thinking of any one when
I stumbled right on them bodies. I was running to get away, sir."
Again the look of horror overspread his features, and he glanced
backward over his shoulders toward the camp.
I believe in always going to the root of a matter with the ignorant and
superstitious.
"Now, Bo's'n," I said, with an air of logical argument, "what should you
see in that simple, plain, iron trinket--" But he stopped me with a
gesture which was strangely authoritative from an inferior to a
superior, and in hushed, scared tones he said:
"Don't speak of it, Mr. Jones. Don't mention it, sir. Don't think of it.
Make the young lady throw it away."
"_Make!_"
"Yessir, Mr. Jones, make her throw it away, sir."
I laughed to reassure him, though I must acknowledge that I was
impressed by his manner. My laughter had the effect of reassuring myself
somewhat also.
"Shall I take the boat and row out and sink this dangerous bauble with
its snake's body"--a tremor seemed to seize my listener, and he shook as
if with a chill--"and its sheep's head?"
"Do not make fun of it, sir. You will be sor----"
"We will go and get it, Bo's'n, and you shall row me out while I----"
"Do not ask me to touch it, sir. There is doom in that sign." I noticed
that he did not call it a ring, as I had done; and then he came close to
me and looked into my eyes with impressive and beseeching earnestness,
and said in a whisper:
"You may take it out to sea, far, far out to sea, and drop it beneath
the waves, but the storms will come, the waves will roll, and the
breakers will dash it again on the shore. You may bury it in a pit so
deep that you can hardly get yourself out again from its grave, but an
earthquake will rumble beneath it and with its cracks will upheave it,
and it will be here again. You may take it to the top of yonder mountain
and lay it on the topmost peak, but the tempests will come and the
hurricane will blow and will toss it again at your feet. She has found
it, and it will follow her to the end--to the end."
The mysterious tone of the man, the ghostlike voice in which he spoke,
made me feel unpleasantly, although it was broad day and the sun was
shining brightly. He seemed to be lifted out of himself, and to speak
in a voice and tone not his own. I tried to laugh. I reasoned with
myself thus. How utterly absurd that a man of little education, of the
most ordinary ability, and, withal, a man holding that absurd position
Bo's'n of a merchant craft, should have an insight into mystical and
occult things which none of the rest of us possess! But as he still
stood staring at me, and directly into my eyes, as if he would read into
the very depths of my mind, I began to have what is commonly called a
creepy sensation. Little shivers ran up my backbone, and I longed for
other companionship. I cast a glance at the dead men, and felt that if I
were to retain the strength to go for aid to bury them, the sooner I
went the better for me. With difficulty I withdrew my gaze from the
man's eyes.
"Come, come, Bo's'n!" I said, forcing a laugh, "you are overwrought and
nervous. Come back with me, and I will give you my word that you shall
not see the ring again while you remain with us."
He stood gazing irresolutely out to sea.
"It is no ring!" he muttered. "A circle, a sign, an emblem of horror--of
dread--of vengeance!"
"I am hungry, Bo's'n," I said, dropping from the height to which he had
raised me and endeavouring to drag him down with me. "You left your
post, and Miss Archer is doing your work. I shall return for my
breakfast, and then get the Captain to come back here with me and bury
our men. That will be only decent."
These matter-of-fact statements brought the Bo's'n down to earth again.
"I see crumbs on your shirt front," said he. He spoke now in his natural
voice. His eyes had lost their far-seeing look. I left him and ran back
to the camp, calling him to follow. I told the Skipper what he had
found, also his strange and unreasonable terror of the ring. Cynthia
looked sad and downcast, but entered into this new subject with
interest.
"If he's afraid of the ring, I can conceal it," said she, "but don't ask
me to throw it away. I wouldn't give it up now for the world."
"For some reason," said I, "the man is half dead with fright. Just hide
it, Miss Archer, and I will tell the Bo's'n that you have thrown it
away."
_Another!_
People will tell you that it is only wicked women who lead men astray.
Here was the best and sweetest woman that I had ever known, and I had
told three absolute falsehoods in less than an hour's time, and was
ready to tell another--many others, in fact--should circumstances demand
it.
"I think it very wrong to tell a falsehood," said Cynthia. "I never tell
one"--a short pause--"_unless it is absolutely necessary_."
Meanwhile she was feeling under her collar. When her fingers came to
view again, they held a little gold chain and locket. I looked at the
locket curiously.
"My lover's portrait," said Cynthia, looking up at me with a saucy
smile. She calmly and with patience prepared to pull apart the two
pieces of the slide or clasp that held the delicate chain together.
"This was my baby chain; I have worn it ever since I was a little
thing.--How old, Uncle Tony?"
The Skipper blew his nose.
"I remember my sister putting that chain on you before you could walk,
Cynthy," he said. "I remember she said it was big enough to grow in."
"I have never taken it off but twice," said Cynthia; "once to slip the
locket on empty, and once to slip it on after I put the picture in it."
"Let us have a look at William," said I, chagrined that I had not
destroyed the only likeness extant of that hated individual.
"You shall see it some time," returned Cynthia. "There!" She took the
ring from her pocket, slipped the chain through the circle made by the
serpent's body, and clasped it around her neck.
"Don't do it!" I remonstrated. "There may be something in the Bo's'n's
fears, after all."
"Nonsense!" laughed Cynthia, as she tucked the ring down below her
collar and rearranged her tie. Her dress was still neat and fresh, but
as I looked at her I wondered how long it would be before she would
appear like other shipwrecked women.
And now I beckoned to the Bo's'n. He started and came haltingly up the
beach. I cast my eyes on the loose pebbles at my feet for a moment and
discovered what I wanted. As children we had often played with what we
called lucky stones. A lucky stone was a little stone washed by the
motion of the water into an open circle. The lucky stone that I picked
up was a glittering piece of rock, and shone in the sun.
"We can not spare the Bo's'n's services," I said, "and he won't come
back to camp until the ring is thrown away, so here goes."
The Bo's'n was nearing us slowly on the left, and the Haitien girl as
reluctantly upon the right. When the Bo's'n was perhaps a hundred feet
away, I threw back my arm and hurled the pebble as far away as I could.
It glittered as it flew through the air, and entered the water with a
splash at about three hundred feet from the shore. I was considered a
good thrower in my time.
The Bo's'n advanced now with more confidence, though he looked
continually out into the bay at the concentric rings in the water, which
were approaching the beach where we stood.
"Expect that fool is looking to see it bob up and swim ashore," laughed
the Skipper. The Haitien girl now returned also. She drew close to
Cynthia, and laid her cheek down on her skirt in a respectful way.
"_Li negue a peu_," she whispered. She looked at the place where the
stone had gone down and shuddered. She shook her head several times.
"_Ca, retou'! Ca retou'!_" she said.
"I understand her talk a little, sir," volunteered the Bo's'n. "I lived
with a Dominican, Mr. Jones, sir, for a year. I was with Toussaint's
army when he marched to Haiti." That seemed ancient history to me, and I
gazed on the Bo's'n with respect. "It was then I learned about----" He
broke off suddenly.
"What did Lacelle say, Bo's'n?" asked Miss Archer.
"She says the negro is afraid, miss. That's what she meant to say, miss.
The Haitiens don't speak what they call the fine French, miss. It's half
African and half French, miss."
"Captain," I said, "we are wasting a good deal of time over nothing,
seems to me. There is something that we should do as soon as possible."
I drew him aside and told him about the dead sailors.
"Come on," said the Skipper readily. "Bo's'n, you stay and watch the
camp, and if any danger threatens, signal us."
"What with, Cap'n, sir?"
"Why, as you did before."
The Bo's'n became very red, looked at Miss Archer sheepishly, and said,
"Yessir." The Minion had now appeared mysteriously from somewhere, and,
after ordering him to stay with the party and help the Bo's'n "clean
up," we started. We pushed the boat into the water. The Skipper took the
steering oar and I took the sculls, and we pulled westward. When we
arrived at our destination, I beached the boat and walked with the
Captain up the slope to where the dead sailors were lying.
"Dear! dear!" said the Captain. "Wilson and Tanby! How natural they
look! Poor fellows! You'll never tumble up again to the sound of the
Bo's'n's whistle, my lads."
"And he'll never pipe any more to your crew," said I, as I thought of
the sleeping forms we had left behind us the night before. I stood
looking about me. "Captain, there's something queer about this place.
It's uncanny, it seems to me. When I left the men here, a half hour ago,
there were three--our two men and the Haitien, and two graves. Now there
is no Haitien, and three graves instead of two."
"Lord! you don't say so! Well, I have seen queer things in my time, a
sight of queer things. Nothing ever surprises me. Let's give the poor
fellows a decent burial and get back to camp. I don't quite like leaving
Cynthy with that crazy Bo's'n----"
"We have no spades, Captain," said I.
He saw what I meant, for he turned and looked at the graves.
"How's that?" he asked, jerking his head over his shoulder toward the
water.
"The only way now," I answered.
We lifted the poor fellows and laid them gently in the bows side by
side, and then pulled for the open water.
The dinghy's painter was lying in the bottom of the boat, and as I rowed
the Skipper untwisted and split the rope. Of course, I had known quite
well why he lifted two heavy rocks from the beach and laid them under
the thwarts. When I had rowed for about ten minutes, the Skipper said,
"Way enough!" I trailed my oars, and together we prepared the men for
the last sad rites. With one end of a rope around the body of each, and
the other fastened securely around one of the rocks, we lowered them one
after another into that deep over which for so many years they had
sailed happy-go-lucky fellows. As they sank below the surface, the
Skipper shifted his squatting position into a kneeling one, raised his
eyes to the blue above him, clasped his weather-beaten hands, and said:
"Oh, Thou who holdest the oceans of the earth in the hollow of Thy
hands, hold these poor sailors, we pray Thee, within Thy tender keeping,
and when the sea gives up its dead, good Lord, and they are called aft
to Thy mast, where they must answer up, no shirking, remember the many
trials and temptations of poor Jack, dear Father, and judge them _as_
sailors, and _not as human beings_!"
"Amen!" said I.