THE SKIPPER AGAIN ENACTS THE ROLE OF CHAPLAIN.
I am writing the exact truth when I state it here as a fact that had the
entire cave with its occupants slid down the hill and out into the
waters of the bay, it would not have caused me more surprise or
consternation. As for Cynthia, she burst into tears. I turned and ran,
but not too soon to hear the words:
"So--so--mor--ti--tified. Doesn't--ca--care--fo--for--me--at--atall.
Don't ca--care--for--hi--hi--him." I flew through the passage, up over
the hill, and down the eastern slope. There I found the Minion, still
lying stupid and heavy. I bathed his hot head and moved him farther into
the shade, whereupon he snarled at me, and asked me, as far as his
limited vocabulary permitted, to attend to my own affairs. Finding
myself unwelcome, I looked about for occupation, loitered miserably up
the beach, feeling that Belleville was the place for me, after all. As I
walked thus, gloomily thinking, I raised my eyes, and looking along the
shore, I saw something white underneath a tree not a hundred feet away.
I quickened my pace, and there, at the foot of an immense ironwood, I
discovered a necktie. I at once recognised it as the Bo's'n's. So this
was the tree that he had climbed when he asked me not to look. There
above me was desposited a part or the whole of our splendid treasure. I
scanned the tree with curiosity. I saw some scratches upon the bark, and
was pleased with myself to feel what a keen insight I possessed into the
ways of man from the traces which I could procure in this way. I had
heard of the Bow Street detectives, and I felt all at once that I might
rank with the most clever among them. There were several large deserted
nests in the tree, and I at once decided that these contained our hidden
fortune. Well, it was a very good place, for no one would ever dream
that jewels were hidden up there in the ironwood. I was puzzled as to
how the Bo's'n had managed to get himself up the tree, but that he was a
good climber I knew, going up any kind of rigging at all hours of the
day or night and in any weather, and I felt that what would be a matter
of much difficulty to most men would be merely child's play for the
cat-like Bo's'n. I stuffed the necktie into my pocket, with a good mind
to give the Bo's'n a few words of advice when we met. He had been
careless beyond words, and if he must climb to hide the treasure, and if
he must remove his neckerchief, why not put it into his own pocket,
instead of forcing me to put it into mine? There was small need for the
Bo's'n to array himself in a neckerchief. In the first place, it was hot
weather, and then a man with both shirt sleeves gone has no need of
beautifying. I felt very cross toward the Bo's'n for his carelessness as
I wandered, not knowing where to go. I glanced toward the westward, and
saw that the little boat was still there. She had been washed sideways
against the beach. The heavy rock attached to the painter had held her
there. I scanned the ocean; there was nothing to be seen but a small
portion of the deck of the Yankee Blade standing up out of the water.
This, of course, we could not see while the smoke hung round the wreck,
and lately there had been so much to claim our attention that we had not
thought of looking seaward.
I crossed the stream on the great tree and ran down the beach toward the
place where the boat lay. I was glad to see her again. I walked into the
water and pushed and pulled and twisted her round, until finally I got
her afloat. I climbed over the gun'l and paddled idly about, hardly
knowing what to do with myself. I did not like to return to the cave.
From Cynthia's last words, I felt that she wanted never to see me again.
I was very wretched and extremely mortified. I landed the boat in the
cove and went slowly up the hill, and sat myself down under a tree in a
most dejected frame of mind. I had been there but a few minutes when I
heard a tramping through the underbrush, and the puffing of some animal,
brute or human. I pulled out my pistol and looked to the priming, but in
a moment I heard a snort which I knew, and saw the Skipper making toward
me as fast as his short legs could carry him.
"Don't shoot!" said the Skipper; adding, with neither breath nor
grammar, "It's me," Another gasp to get his breath, and then the words,
"She's consented."
"Whose consented to what?" roared I.
"Why, Cynthy. She's consented to be married to you."
"Oh, she has, has she? Well, then, Captain Schuyler, you can go and tell
your niece that it usually takes two to make a bargain."
"That's polite," returned the Skipper. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself
after all the fuss I've had to get her to come round?"
"Ashamed!" returned I. "I should think you would be ashamed of yourself
to propose such a thing;" and then, my feelings being too strong for me,
I subsided with the brilliant exclamation, "The idea!"
The Skipper looked sheepish.
"Yes, it's all my idea," he began eagerly, but I cut him short.
"Are you really insane," said I, "or are you only feigning lunacy?"
"I'm as sane as you are," said he, "and a great deal saner. Imagine
it"--he addressed a supposititious audience--"here's a man asked to
marry a lovely young girl, plain but amiable----"
"That's where you're wrong," said I. "She hasn't a plain hair in her
head, and she's damned unamiable. Go on and tell some more lies."
"Now think of his gettin' so mad as that--at an old man who only wants
to do him a favour."
"You've made me ridiculous, that's what you've done; you've made me a
laughing stock, and I won't stand it, Captain Schuyler, I----"
"Oh, come, come, now, Jones! I want to tell you my idea. I know just how
much you love that girl, and I know just as well that she don't care two
straws for you."
"The devil you do!" said I sulkily.
"But something's got to be done! That girl has only me, her old Uncle,
to look after her. I'm an old man, Jones. Perhaps I shan't be able to
stand all that you young people may have to. If anything happens to me,
I want to feel that Cynthy has a protector."
"I should always do my best to take care of your niece, Captain
Schuyler," said I; "but how do you know she doesn't care two straws for
me?"
"Why she says she doesn't, and any one can see it with half an eye. I
reelly believe," said the Skipper, pointing his remark with a very horny
forefinger, "that she would like the Bo's'n, or even the Minion,
better."
"And yet you insult us both by asking us to marry each other."
"No, I ain't. I'm asking _her_ to marry _you_. Lord, Jones, I ain't
thinking of you. Now, you see, it's this way, Jones. You're more in her
station of life. To be sure, you haven't the proud lineage of William
Brown--his mother's great aunt is a Schuyler--but you're nearer to it
than the Bo's'n, besides which your position aboard the Yankee Blade was
enough. And then, you know, it isn't a reel marriage. You can give each
other up at any time. She expects firmly to marry William when she gets
home. He'll be waitin' for her on the dock. I presume she's told you?"
"Yes, she has told me," said I.
"You see, if you were married to Cynthy, and anything should happen, and
she needed a protector----Oh, darn it all, Jones, can't you see what I
mean?"
"What did you mean by saying that she has consented?"
"Why, she has, she reelly has. I put it to her in such a way that she
says she sees my point, and she will go through the form of
marriage----"
"A hollow mockery!" I broke in. "I won't consent."
"What, after all the trouble I've taken? You must, Jones. You can't
refuse a la----"
"We have no clergyman," argued I. My heart thumped at the bare idea of
standing up and holding Cynthia's hand before witnesses.
"I'm one," said the Skipper, drawing himself up proudly, so that I began
to think that his recently developed fad for playing chaplain was at the
root of his desire for this marriage. "A captain is always a clergyman
on the high seas."
"On the high seas!" returned I, looking sarcastically round at the mossy
hillside.
"Don't be a fool, Jones! See there!" He parted the low-sweeping
branches. I looked out to sea, where a little bit of the wreck showed
over the white-capped surface of the water.
He pointed with his short finger.
"You see that deck there? That represents power, Jones, one man power.
I'm absolute monarch there, Jones. I'm clergyman on those bits of
planks, Jones. There I'm prophet, Jones. There I'm priest, Jones, and
there I'm king."
"You are not," said I, my orthodox blood boiling in my veins. "You're
an old blasphemer, Captain Schuyler!"
"Well, you'll see whether I am or not. I'm goin' to marry you to Cynthy
on that deck, just as sure as I sit here."
"How did she happen to consent?" asked I, beginning to weaken at this
delicious prospect.
"All on my account," said the Skipper. "Now stop askin' questions and
come along."
I wondered why Cynthia had consented. I could not understand it. As for
me, my brain was on fire at the thought, and I made up my mind then and
there that when the words were spoken that made Cynthia mine William
Brown might stand on the dock and whistle for his bride until the
millennium. I felt in my waistcoat pocket for the little ring. Yes,
there it was, quite safe. It would come into use more quickly than I had
imagined. My thoughts were such happy ones that I arose with beaming
face and started toward the cave.
"Oh, you needn't be in a hurry; she don't want you. Besides, she's got
her dress to wash. Lazy's going to help her."
"You told me to come," said I appealingly.
"Yes, because she told me to take you away out of her sight. Promised
her we'd take the boat and pull along the beach aways, and leave her
free. The dress won't take long to dry in the sun and wind."
So it was to be a mock marriage, after all!
"I hope you've got some money, Jones," said the Skipper. "Not that I am
anxious for a rich husband for my niece, but it's always well----"
I smiled consciously, feeling that the Skipper would be perfectly
satisfied with my share of the fortune hidden by the Bo's'n for our
mutual benefit.
"I don't own the Belleville copper mines, it is true," said I, "but what
I own is rather more negotiable than their products. I will tell you a
secret, Captain, if you will promise me never to tell a soul, not even
your niece."
"Honest Ingun!" said the Skipper.
I leaned over and whispered in his ear in exultant tones:
"I shall never need to go to sea after this trip, Captain." I was just
on the point of telling him more, but my promise to the Bo's'n suddenly
came to mind, and I shut my lips over my teeth as if they were screwed
together.
"The reason I ask you is this," said the Skipper. "I shan't have
anything to leave my niece, and my sister Mary 'Zekel is no better off
than I am. You see," said Captain Schuyler, "there's usually a rich
branch in a family and a poor one. I belong to the poor branch. We
couldn't all be educated--money wouldn't hold out. I've got a brother
who's fit to be a professor. Nothin' he don't know. Just as pleasant to
me as if I was the most learned man in the world. That's the nice thing
about the Schuylers. None of 'em ashamed of their relations. My mother
was a cousin of the general's. I suppose you think I've got no right to
the name of Schuyler, but I'd like to know who is nearer to a man than
his own mother? Suppose my father's name wasn't Schuyler. I claim that I
have just as much right to the hawk as if I was one of the rich ones,
and my name is Schuyler as well as my mother's. Same blood runs in my
veins. Maybe a poor quality of blood, but it's got Schuyler into it, and
you can't get it out."
The day passed with a combination of haste and speed that I have never
known equalled. It dragged when I thought that the setting sun would see
Cynthia my wife. It flew when I thought how she would scorn me, flout
me, and hate the very idea of being bound to me.
"Remember, Jones, it's only a 'sort-of' bond, not actual marriage," said
the Skipper for the twentieth time as we pulled slowly along the shore,
looking for a fresh supply of oysters.
When we returned, late in the afternoon, Cynthia was sitting on the
shore clothed, but hardly in her right mind. I could not help pitying
her, my poor dear! though she began to, as I had expected, flout me at
once, not waiting, as most wives do, until after marriage. The blue
dungaree had been washed, but it was streaked and wrinkled in places,
and still damp in spots. A wave of pity welled up in my heart for this
poor girl, who must consent to marry me, willy nilly. It seemed so
brutal to force her into this thing. And yet I reflected that it was my
portrait, of which I had caught a glimpse, hanging to her chain.
"She says you may call her Cynthy," whispered the Skipper in my ear. I
left him and walked up from the boat. "I'd start right in on it if I was
you."
Cynthia sat on the shelving bank of the little stream, throwing pebbles
into the sea.
I started in bluntly, waiting for no preliminaries.
"I understand," said I, "perfectly, that you are yielding to your
Uncle's wishes in this thing. I promise to treat you just as I have
heretofore."
Had I not known for certain from the Skipper, as well as from herself,
that Cynthia could never care for me, and that William Brown had an
irrevocable hold upon her affections, I should have thought that she
looked a trifle disappointed.
"It is hard," returned Cynthia, "for a person to be forced upon a person
by another person, when that person can't make the person that's forcing
her on the other person understand that she don't care anything about
the other person, or that the other person don't care anything about the
person, but I don't see what we are to do about it."
"Whether I am forced upon you or not," said I, "I intend to tell you
right here very plainly that you are not forced upon me. I have not the
slightest intention of going through one of those ridiculous
misunderstandings that one reads of in novels when one word can clear it
up. What have I told you, Cynthia, ever since I saw----"
"Miss Archer, please."
"Your Uncle said I might----"
"Oh, very well, then, go on," said Cynthia wearily.
"What have I told you since I first met you on board the Yankee Blade,
Miss Cynthia, Miss Archer?"
"No matter about the 'Miss,'" she said. "You'll have the right to call
me whatever you choose by sunset."
"To call you wife," said I sentimentally.
Cynthia arose.
"If you say that now, I'll go away," her face the colour of that sunset
of which we had been speaking.
I resumed.
"I have told you ever since I first met----"
"Yes," said Cynthia, with spirit, "and you told it to me a little too
often, Mr. Jones. One of those girls at Martinique told me all about
you. She said that the handsome Captain of the Seamew had made love to
her and had given her his picture."
"Which one was that?" said I.
"Were there so many?"
"Lot's of 'em," said I.
Cynthia arose with dignity. "I'm going in," she said.
"Why?" asked I, with all innocence.
"And I shall tell Uncle that this ridiculous marriage shall not take
place."
"Just when you've washed your dress and all," said the Skipper, coming
up in time to hear this avowal.
"Sit down a moment, Miss Archer," I pleaded.
"I'm goin' to get the witnesses," called back the Skipper, as he walked
quickly toward the hill. "Tide's nearly down."
"I've given my picture to a dozen girls, Cynthia. Girls are always
asking for pictures, but as to loving any of those chocolate drops, I
never really loved any but----"
"Heloise Grandpre!" broke in Cynthia.
So _she_ was the one! My conscience did prick me a little when I
remembered certain veranda corners and vine-wreathed balconies, but, of
course, I knew now that that had not been the real thing. None of them
had ever been the real thing, and I had thought I would have died for
some of those girls.
It's just looking for a ship at sea. You go on deck and discover a
distant sail upon the horizon. The vessel is hull down, and without the
glass you can't be sure what she is. You watch her until she gets nearer
and nearer. She comes up over the curve after a while, and you say,
"Pshaw! that's nothing but a schooner." You watch again for your
full-rigged ship, and again you see a bit of sail down there against the
gray, or the red, or the blue, and you say to yourself: "There she is
this time for sure! Just wait until she heaves in sight." Up she comes
again, and she isn't the one you're looking for, after all. Again you go
on deck. You haven't any glass, and that new bit of white over there on
the edge of the world, against the golden glow, isn't any nearer than
the others. But there's no mistaking _her_. You know her at first sight,
and you don't need any glass, either, to tell you that it's your ship,
and that she's coming home from sea to you, thank God! with all her
priceless cargo in her hold, her sticks lofty and straight, and her
swelling canvas as full of God's breeze and blessing as they can carry.
So it was with me. I had been in love with forty different girls in
forty different countries of forty different colours and forty different
ages--there was a widow down at the Cape of Good Hope. Oh, good Lord!
how she did----
"I see that you have not forgotten her," said Cynthia. I started, and
returned suddenly from the Cape of Good Hope.
"No, and never shall, if she comes between us now."
"I am not so easily taken in, Mr. Jones."
"Neither am I. I had hoped yesterday that at least you had grown to care
for me a little. I saw a chain----"
Cynthia put her hand quickly to her neck.
"You saw my chain?"
"Yes, while your Uncle and I were carrying you."
"My Uncle and you! O Mr. Jones! carrying me?" in a tone as if to say,
"What shall I hear next?"
"Yes, we were. The locket flew open, Cynthia, and I saw----"
"You saw William Brown," said Cynthia in a very dignified tone.
"Not at all," said I. "O Cynthia! is it any wonder that I was
encouraged?"
Cynthia was fumbling with her chain. She pulled the locket from its
hiding place; a look of consternation overspread her face.
"I've lost my ring!" she said.
"What ring?" asked I. "Oh, that curious serpent ring! It is probably in
your sleeping chamber."
She slid her nail under the edge of the case of the locket and opened
it.
"There!" she said triumphantly, holding the locket as far from her neck
as the chain would allow. "Who is that?"
"Shall I really say?" I asked, hesitating on her account.
"Say? Of course! Who is that? Oh, I forgot! You never saw William
Brown."
"No, I never did," said I, "except in a sickly looking picture that's
giving some shark indigestion, I hope, by this time. But the picture
that you do me the honour to wear is myself."
"It isn't!" said Cynthia flatly.
"It is!" said I.
"Good Heavens, no!"
She snapped the slide of the chain apart, held the locket up before her
eyes, gave one glance at the face, and then, with a quick movement of
her hand, she tossed the locket into the stream.
"Why don't you throw it into the sea?" asked I.
She answered carelessly, "Oh, I think the stream will carry it down."
Cynthia sat in meditative pose for some moments. "Now where could that
have come from? Oh, yes! I believe I know now. Yes, that must be it. You
see Heloise and I were comparing lockets one day just before I left
Martinique. I remember now that William Brown's picture was always
loose. It fell out. Heloise had this one of you, and somehow, as we were
putting them back, they got exchanged. I remember Heloise admired
William Brown very much. She said she thought him the handsomest man she
had ever seen. I can send Heloise this, and she will send me William."
"Mine's in the stream," said I. "Did you know who the picture was meant
for?" I asked.
Cynthia cast down her eyes.
"I had seen you passing the hotel," she answered. "Uncle told me that
you were the new Mate."
I arose crestfallen. That perfidious Heloise!
"Then this absurd marriage is off?" said I.
"Well," said she, "you know what Uncle is. He's set his heart--I hate to
disapp----"
"Come and get your pork!" called the Skipper.
We went up to our early supper.
"Wonder what kind of weather we're goin' to have for the weddin'?" said
the Skipper.
"It may rain," said I. "You know there was a rainbow this----"
"Now! now! now! None of _that_!" The Skipper raised his hand as if in
protest. "I know what you're agoin' to say, Jones. Everything that
happens in the morning you must take warning about just because it
rhymes. And everything that happens at night must be a sailor's delight
because it rhymes. Why, one of the worst harricanes that I ever knew
happened to me off Hatteras when we had had a rainbow the night before.
Ricketts was Mate. He came up to me along about seven o'clock one
evening and he says, 'Cap'n Schuyler, we are mighty lucky this trip. Do
you see that rainbow, sir?' 'What of it?' said I. I didn't fancy that
fellow much. He wore a ring. Well, the next morning it began to blow,
and it blew so it nearly blew my teeth out. Did blow the Mate's hair
off. It was a wig. I was glad of it. He shouldn't have been so
presuming. Had to go all the way to Coenties Slip with a red waistcoat
buttoned round his head. Another time, I remember, I had a young
supercargo with me, taking a trip for his health. It wasn't a fair
division. I know he made _me_ sick enough before we got through. I came
on deck one morning, and he had the assurance to tell me that we would
have fine weather now right down through the Windward Passage.
"'How do you know?' said I. 'Ever been there before?'
"And then, if you'll reelly believe me, he projuced a book, with all
those rhymes printed in it, and he read 'em aloud for my benefit.
"'Here's one, Captain, that perhaps you've never seen.' And then he
puffed out his chest and got up on a hawse block and read:
"'Evening red and morning gray
Sets the _teraveller_ on his way.'
"'Get off that hawse block!' said I. I threw the book overboard and
kicked the supercargo down to leeward. 'You stay your own side the
deck,' I said, 'and don't come here with your saws.' For just that
moment there came along a squall which nearly took the sticks out of
her, and we had just been experiencing 'evenin' red and mornin' gray,'
'When they made you a supercargo, Mr. Whiting,' said I, 'they spoiled a
good loblolly boy.'
"'A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing, Captain Schuyler, as
perhaps you'll find out when you get home,' said he.
"'Don't answer back your betters, sir,' said I. 'I suppose you think
you're a very superior cargo, but, if the underwriters ask my opinion, I
shall tell 'em I consider you a blanked inferior one. Get down there to
leeward, where you belong!'"
"Was he handsome, Uncle, that young supercargo of yours?"
"Well, not so's you'd notice it after I'd finished with him. It's
astonishing how soon he lost his good looks.--I tell you, Jones, it's
all because of the rhyme. That's all poetry's written for. Facts are not
accounted of at all. Rainbow at night, sailor's delight; rainbow at
morning, take warning. Did you ever hear such stuff?"
"What became of the supercargo?" asked Cynthia, who had listened, much
interested. "I suppose you took off his head or something, Uncle. You
are so fierce." She laid her hand on the old man's back and patted his
shoulder gently.
"No, but his father took mine off. He was half owner, and I didn't sail
for him any more after that trip. There was another idiot with me along
in '9. If you wanted a proof that all the fools were not dead yet, there
you had it. It was along back in '9, as I said. I was going from
Australia to Singapore. We were running down our Easting, making very
fine weather. He comes to me one morning, and he says to me, 'Cap'n,
the cyclone is upon us!'
"'Oh, it is,' says I. 'I suppose you got that out of your poetry book.
Do you know that our Cook's half black, Mister Superior Cargo?'
"'No, sir, I haven't seen him yet. Is he, indeed?' says the fellow, with
great interest. 'I never heard of one like that. Where do they come
from?'
"'From the galley,' says I.
"Just then Cook brought me some of the men's mess to taste.
"'You said he was half black, sir,' said the supercargo, looking in the
man's coal-black face.
"'He isn't half white, is he?' says I.
"Tell you the truth, that fellow never understood me, and thought the
whole voyage out to Singapore that I had been lying to him."
After our frugal meal was finished, the Skipper led the way to the boat.
Cynthia was very pale during the trip, and I felt once or twice as if it
were my duty to forbid the banns. As bridegroom, I was not allowed to
pull, and the Skipper, who had made his toilet by washing his face and
running his fingers through his hair in preparation for his duties as
clergyman, was not allowed to soil his hands on the oars, so that we
were some time in getting out to the wreck. The Bo's'n had to row the
whole dead weight. I can see the boat now, the Skipper and Cynthia
seated in the stern, Lacelle on the seat athwart ships, close to them,
the Bo's'n pulling steadily at his oars, and I perched high up in the
bow, feeling like a little boy at a picnic.
It was quite a long row out to the wreck, and we were a very quiet
party. The Skipper seemed to be mumbling the marriage service over to
himself. The evening was calm and still. The oars dipped gently in the
water, and made blue and pink ripples, the only disturbing feature of
the scene except, perhaps, the marriage. Sweet odours came off from the
shore, wafted how, I know not, for there was no breeze stirring. The
moon was just rising, even before the sun had set, and her pale band ran
undulating over the tiny wavelets that we made, and formed oblongs of
silver and rose alternately.
Finally we arrived at the wreck. I saw the Skipper's mouth working as he
surveyed what had been his taut little vessel. No one spoke. It seemed
more like a funeral than a wedding. The Skipper was the first to step
upon the charred deck.
He stood there and waved his hand comprehensively in a circle, which
included all that was left of the Yankee Blade.
"Here," said the Skipper, with a twitching of the lip, "lies the
sarco_pha_gus of all my hopes."
"It ain't a reel cheerful weddin', Mr. Jones, sir, now is it, sir?"
remarked the Bo's'n in a whisper. "Seein' as I ain't dressed, I think
I'll send my regrets. Somebody's got to be boatkeeper."
"Don't let your wardrobe trouble you," urged I. "I've got it in my
pocket," and I handed the Bo's'n his neckerchief.
A strange look overspread the features of the Bo's'n. If I had not been
certain that my action ought to have provoked him, I should have said
that he was pleased. But perhaps it was only at getting his neckerchief
back again. At all events, he washed his hands, put on his neckerchief,
took the painter in his fingers, and leaped on the deck.
"Now you go and stand right under all that's left of the Stars and
Stripes," said the Skipper to Cynthia.
"I can't see how she's to get there," said I. "The rail's almost under
water, and it's very slippery."
"Can't help it. That's where you've got to stand.--Here, Bo's'n, I'll
hold the painter, while you help Miss Archer over to the mast."
"I can row her over in the boat," said the Bo's'n, "and come back for
her husband, sir. There's hardly room for two, but if they stand close I
guess they'll manage it."
The Bo's'n's remarks were somewhat premature, but I held my peace and
did not look at Cynthia.
Accordingly, Cynthia was rowed over to that part of the taffrail which
showed a few inches of wet surface above the water line, and the Bo's'n,
having deposited her there, returned for me.
We had to stand close, indeed. We could hardly hear the Skipper as he
began the service. He seemed so far away, standing with Lacelle,
Cynthia's maid of honour, while my best man sat in the boat and kept her
stern close to the wreck by backing water.
I placed the little thread of gold on her finger at what I thought was
the right moment. I was like a lad with a new penny to spend. It burned
a hole in my pocket.
"Ahoy there!" shouted the Skipper, breaking into the service and hailing
me as if I were a foreign barkentine, "it ain't time yet."
"It's my time," said I.
"How's he to know, Captain Schuyler, sir?" called out the Mate as he
backed water. "He's never been married before."
"How do you know?" roared the Skipper back again. "A true sailor has a
wife in every port." Cynthia started and dropped my hand as if it had
been a live coal. I seized her hand again, and held it as if it were all
that I had to hold to in this world. She looked at me questioningly, as
if she distrusted me, and I almost felt that we should never be friends
again. Truly, a pleasant beginning to our married life!
[Illustration: The Skipper's marriage service.]
I could not hear much of our wedding service, but I remember that it
sounded extremely like that which the Skipper had repeated over the two
sailors whom he had buried not far from this very spot. I know that he
asked us if we would take each other for man and wife, and I remember
that he ended with, "And may God have mercy on your souls!" I have seen
this printed as a joke since then, but it was no joke to me, only sad,
dead earnest. Then he piped up in his old lee-gangway voice, and sang
the first verse of a missionary hymn, but because of this I felt none
the less the solemnity of the occasion.
I stood in silence, looking at the lovely girl whom I was taking for my
wedded wife. She allowed me to hold her hand, as in duty bound. Her
trembling little paw was cold, and she stood gazing, not at me, but far
out across the wide and desolate ocean. How long we should have remained
thus I know not had not the Skipper awakened us by bawling across the
intervening swash of water:
"You're married. Do you hear, Jones? You're married."
Cynthia spoke to me only once that evening. As we were left alone a few
moments while Lacelle and the Skipper were getting into the boat, she
turned to me and asked:
"Was that Heloise's ring?"
"No," said I; "it was found in the cave."
"Perhaps that handsome pirate dropped it," said Cynthia. "That makes it
so much more interesting."