“Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Learned to pipe when he was young,
And all the tunes that he could play
Was over the hills and far away.
There’s many like handsome Jim. I’ve knowed a many go that way. The
Main’s a hard place, the same as the sea is, if you come to that.”
“Ah,” said Perrin. “How ghastly.”
Captain Margaret said nothing; for in his lively fancy he saw a
half-naked man, lying on the deck, surrounded by pirates, who watched
him with a sort of hard pity. The sun shone strongly upon the picture,
so that the brass cannon gleamed. Out of the wrecked man’s body came a
snatch of a nursery rhyme, with a pathetic tune. He felt the horror of
it; he saw how the pirates shifted on their feet and looked at each
other. He was tempted to ask, “Had one of your men a hare-lip?” for in
the picture which his fancy formed a hare-lipped pirate stood out
strangely, seemingly stirred by that horror on the deck. “Fancy,” he
thought. “Pure fancy.”
“Let me fill your glass, Cammock,” he said. He poured another dose
into the glass.
“Salue,” said the pirate.
A red log, burned through, fell with a crash inside the stove.
“Sparks,” said the pirate. “Sparks. We give the Dagoes sparks for that
lot.” He paused a moment. “Yes, Captain Margaret,” he went on. “And
that’s the way you’d best.”
“What way is that?” asked the captain.
“Well. It’s like this,” said the captain. “Your trading lay--I’m
speaking as a sailor, you understand--is all Barney’s bull. It’s got
more bugs than brains, as you might say. But you don’t want to go
trading. What d’yer want to go trading for? You’d only get et by
sand-flies, even if you did make a profit. What you want to do. You
got a big ship. You’d easy get hands enough. Well, what I say is, why
not go for one of the towns? Morgan done it. Sharp done it. Old John
Coxon done it, for I was with him. And the French and Dutch done it,
too; don’t I know it. If you come on ’em with a sort of a hawky pounce
you get ’em every time. Profit, too. There’s twenty or thirty pound a
man in it. Besides ransoms. There’s no work in it, like in trading. If
you’re trading, you got to watch your stores, you got to watch the
Indians, you got to kowtow to the chiefs. Pah. It’s a poor job, trade
is. It’s not a seaman’s job. But you come down on the towns. Why. Half
your life. I wish I’d been wise when I was a young man. That’s what I
ought to a done, ’stead of logwood cutting.”
“What towns would you advise?” said Captain Margaret, smiling.
“Well. Here’s a map.” Cammock opened his book to show a map of the
Terra Firme from La Vera Cruz to Trinidad. “It’s rough,” he explained.
“But it’ll just show you. All them red dots is towns. And what I say
is, take them. That’s the only way you’ll help the Indians, as you
call it. Help them? You won’t help them much when you get among them,
I’ll tell you that much. The Main alters people.”
“Oh,” said Margaret quietly. “So that’s what you think. Why do you
think that? What reason can you give?”
“Well, take it on military grounds, sir,” said Cammock. “You’ll have
to admit it on military grounds.”
Stukeley pretended to choke with laughter; it was an offensive act.
“Stukeley’s turning sick again,” said Perrin dryly.
“Well. On military grounds then,” said Margaret. “I want to hear your
reason.”
“Look, sir. Look at my two fists. This right fist, here, is
Carta-Yaina. This left fist is Portobel or La Vera Cruz. Now these
here counters. You’ll excuse my taking your counters, Mrs. Stukeley.
These here counters are the Samballoes islands in between. Now. On
military grounds. Suppose I knock my fists together. The counters get
a nasty jounce.”
“I see,” said Margaret. “We should be the nut between two crackers.”
“Yes, sir. You would. And take it as a matter of business. You’d be on
the trade route, or jolly near it, between the crackers; besides being
able to flank the overland route from Panama to Portobel. They’d never
set still to let you establish yourself among them. Why, you’d as well
ask them to cut their own throats. You’d have to destroy their towns
first. Portobel’s nothing very much. It’s been took twice within the
last few years; but you can never really settle Portobel till you
settle Panama; and to do that you’d want a fleet in the South Sea to
settle Lima. To make yourself secure. Quite secure. Secure enough for
the King of England to back you up. You know what that means. The
enemy beat, and the spoils your own, that’s what makes King James your
friend. God save him, I say, and bring him glory. To put yourself in
that position, you’d have to take the two big naval ports on the North
Sea, both of them. Carta-Yaina and La Vera Cruz. For jabbing an
enemy’s no use at all. A prick here and there’s nothing. Nothing at
all. Smash the naval ports first, and then the place is your own. Go
for the main stem and you’ll get the whole tree. Upset Carta-Yaina
alone, and La Vera Cruz wouldn’t bother you very bad; but till
Carta-Yaina’s yours---- Well, honestly, Captain Margaret, you’ll never
be let settle down, not on the Isthmus. But. I don’t know so much. It
might. I’ll think it over.”
During Cammock’s speech, Stukeley had made occasional offensive
interruptions; but he said nothing when Cammock ended. Olivia, being
ignorant of the exact nature of the question discussed, through her
ignorance of geography, waited for her husband to speak. Perrin, who
had gone into the matter thus far with Margaret, to his own boredom,
now waited, half asleep, for his friend to say something more. He
hoped that no one would ask him for an opinion that evening. He knew
nothing much about it, one way or the other, and cared little;
believing only that his friend, who could do no wrong, would be the
man to uphold against all comers. As the active part of him, never
very violent now, was idle to-night, he gave himself up to torpor,
keeping his mind a blank, paying little attention to the words of any
one. To Cammock, whom he liked, he was polite. Indeed, Cammock’s glass
was seldom less than half-full all through the evening. Now and then
he wished that the meeting would end, so that he could turn in. He lay
back in his chair, looking at the faces of the company, wishing that
he had his friend’s charm, and Cammock’s bodily strength, and
Stukeley’s insolent carriage. It must be good, he thought, to be
indifferent, like that, to people’s feelings. And if he had all three
gifts, what would he do with it? He looked at Olivia, as she sat
there, upright in her chair, listening carefully to all that he said.
“Yes,” he thought, “you’re taking it all in, all that you understand,
and thinking what you’ll make your husband do. And you’re beautiful,”
he added to himself. “In that black silk, with the green about your
hair, you’re---- Yes, Charles was right. I never saw it before. You’re
beautiful.”
“Olivia,” he said aloud, “will you let me get you a little wine and
some fruit? This must be so awfully dull for you.”
“Oh, I like it,” she answered quickly. “I like it.”
“Do you, really?” said Margaret. “Well. We’ll go on. Let me see your
map, Captain Cammock.”
He took the dirty piece of vellum from Captain Cammock, and examined
the coast-line. There were manuscript notes written here and there
across the Isthmus. Captain Margaret read: “Don Andrea’s Cuntrey.” “K
Golden Cap went with Capt S from here.” “The Indians washes for Gold
on this Side.” Mountains and forests had been added to the map in
water-colours. A ship or two, under all plain sail, showed upon the
seas. In among the islands a hand had added soundings and anchorages
in red ink. He looked among the network of islands, remembering the
many stories he had read of them, fascinated by the thought that here,
before him, was one who could make that marked piece of vellum
significant.
“Tell me,” he said. “These keys here. La Sound’s Key and Springer’s
Key. Are they well known to your people?”
“Yes,” said the pirate.
“Do the Spaniards ever search among these islands? Do they send
guarda-costas?”
“Not them. Not to hurt. They’ve no really organized force on the Main.
Nor’ve they got any charts to go by. They aren’t hard any longer. Only
soft, the Spaniards. Why, there’s often a matter of a dozen sail of
privateers come to them keys, at the one time.”
“Why do they come there?”
“Water, sir. Then the Indians bring gold dust. Sometimes they land and
go for a cruise ashore. Lots of ’em make money that way, where the
Spaniards don’t expect them.”
“Have they buildings there?”
“No. When they careen their ships, the Indians build huts for them.
Very nice, too, the huts are. Palmeto and that.”
“Then the Indians are friendly?”
“Yes. Sometimes there’s a row, of course.”
“Why don’t the privateers combine, to found a kingdom there? They
could so easily.”
“They never agree among ’emselves,” said the pirate. “Quarrelsome
ducks. That’s what they are.”
“And if a strong man got hold of them and made them agree?”
“Then. Yes. Perhaps. They might be a thundering great nation. But then
there’s the Main. It changes people. It’s hard to say. It’s different
from talking by the fire.”
“Well,” said Captain Margaret. “I shall try it. I believe it could be
done. And it’s worth trying.”
“I believe you’d do it, if any one. Morgan’d ’ave done it perhaps. But
Sir Henry was weak you know. Rum. Well, sir. If you can do it. You’ll
be in the story-books.”
“What is this place here? This Boca del Toro? Away to the west here?
You sometimes meet here, don’t you, in order to plan a raid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is it a good anchorage? It doesn’t seem to be much of a harbour.”
“No, sir; Toro’s just an anchorage, out of the way, like. We goes to
Toro for turtle. Very good turtle on Toro. Them Mosquito boys gets ’em
with spears. You see ’em paddle out, Mrs. Stukeley, two of these red
Indians in a boat, and they just paddle soft, paddle soft, as still as
still, and they come up to the turtles as they lie asleep in the sea,
and then. Whang. They dart their fizgigs. They never miss.”
Olivia looked at Cammock with quickened interest; but she did not
speak. She was now leaning forward, over the table, resting her chin
upon her hands, probably with some vague belief that her throat was
beautiful and that these stupid men would never notice it. She may
have been conscious of her power. Yet perhaps she was not. She may
have given too much of herself to Stukeley; she may have tuned too
many of her emotional strings to that one note, to feel how other men
regarded her.
“Look, Olivia,” said Margaret. He placed the map before her.
Perrin and Cammock put out each a hand, to hold the curling vellum
flat for her. She looked at the map as a sibyl would have looked at
the golden scroll; she looked rapt; her great eyes shone so. She put
out one hand to flatten the vellum, and to Margaret, watching her, it
seemed that her whole nature was expressed in that one act, and that
her nature was beautiful, too beautiful for this world. Her finger-tip
touched Perrin’s finger-tip, for one instant, as she smoothed the
map’s edge; and to Perrin it seemed that his life would be well passed
in the service of this lady. She was, oh, wonderfully beautiful, he
thought; but not like other women. She was so strange, so mysterious,
and her voice thrilled so. In dreams, in those dreams of beauty which
move us for days together, he had seen that beauty before; she had
come to him, she had saved him; her healing hands had raised him,
bringing him peace. “She says nothing,” he said to himself; “but life
is often like that. I have talked with people sometimes whose bodies
seemed to be corpses. And all the time they were wonderful, possessed
of devils and angels.”
As for Cammock, her beauty moved him, too; her voice moved him. In his
thoughts he called her “my handsome.” He was moved by her as an old
gardener is touched by the beauty of his master’s child. His emotion
was partly awe, partly pity. Pity for himself, partly; because he
could never now be worthy of moving in her company, although he felt
that he would be a better mate for her than the brandy-sipper on the
locker-top. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; she was
like a spirit; like a holy thing. Looking at her, as she studied the
map, he thought of an image in the cathedral of Panama. He had been
with Morgan in the awful march from Chagres. He had fought in the
morning, outside Panama, till his face, all bloody and powder-burnt,
was black like a devil’s. Then, he remembered, they had stormed old
Panama, fighting in the streets, across barricades, over tables, over
broken chairs, while the women fired from the roofs. Then they had
rushed the Plaza, to see the flames licking at all the glorious city.
They had stormed a last barricade to reach the Plaza. There had been
twenty starving pirates with him, all blind with drink and rage. They
had made a last rush, clubbing and spearing and shooting, killing man,
woman, and child. They swore and shrieked as they stamped them under.
And then he, with two mates, had opened a postern in the cathedral,
and had passed in, from all those shrieks, from all that fire and
blood, to an altar, where an image knelt, full of peace, beautiful
beyond words, in the quiet of the holy place. He remembered the faint
smell of incense, the memory of a scent, which hung about that holy
place. The vague scent which Olivia used reminded him of it. “_She_ is
like that,” he thought, “and I am _that_. That still.”
Margaret glanced at Stukeley, who seemed to be asleep. “I suppose,
captain,” he said, “I suppose, then, that you would recommend one of
these keys in the Samballoes, as you call them?”
“Yes, sir,” said Cammock. “I’ll tell you why. You’re handy for the
Indians, that’s one great point. You’re hidden from to seaward, in
case the Spanish fleet should come near, going to Portobello fair.
You’re within a week’s march of all the big gold mines. You’ve good
wood and water handy. And you could careen a treat, if your ship got
foul. Beside being nice and central.”
“Which of these two keys do you recommend?”
“La Sound’s Key is the most frequented,” answered Cammock. “You often
have a dozen sloops in at La Sound’s. They careen there a lot. You see
there’s mud to lay your ship ashore on. And very good brushwood if you
wish to give her a breaming.”
“I see. And the Indians come there, you say?”
“Oh yes, sir. There’s an Indian village on the Main just opposite.
Full of Indians always. La Sound’s is an exchange, as you might say.”
“If I went there, in this big ship, should I be likely to get into
touch with the privateer captains? I mean, to make friends with them.”
“You’d meet them all there, from time to time, sir--Coxon, Tristian,
Yanky Dutch, Mackett; oh, all of them.”
“All friends of yours?”
“No, sir. Some of them is French and Dutch. They come from Tortuga and
away east by Curaçoa. That’s a point I can tell you about. Don’t you
make too free with the French and Dutch, sir. You stick by your own
countrymen. I’ll tell you why, sir. If you let them ducks in to share,
the first you’ll know is they’ve put in a claim for their own country.
They’ll say that the settlement is theirs; that we’re intruding on
them. Oh, they will. I know ’em. And they’ll trick you, too. They’ll
get their own men-of-war to come and kick you out, like they done at
St. Kitts, and at Tortuga.”
“That would hardly suit. But is La Sound’s more of a French and Dutch
resort than Springer’s?”
“Yes, sir. Since Captain Sharp’s raid. Ever since that, we’ve been as
it were more separated. And then there was trouble at the isle of Ash;
they done us out of a sloop; so we done them in return. Springer’s is
the place the Englishmen goes to, now. Oh, and Golden Island, this
easterly island here. But Springer’s Key is the best of them. Though
we goes to La Sound’s Key, mind you, whenever we’re planning a raid.”
“Then---- By the way. Who is Springer?”
“He was a privateer, sir. He got lost on the Main one time. He was in
Alleston’s ship at that time. He got lost, out hunting for warree. He
wandered around in the woods there, living on sapadilloes, till one
day he come to a river, and floated down it on a log. He’d sense
enough for that. Generally men go mad in the woods at the end of the
first day.”
“Mad,” said Olivia. “But why do they do that?”
“It’s the loneliness, Mrs. Stukeley. You seem shut in, in those woods.
Shut in. A great green wall. It seems to laugh at you. And you get
afraid, and then you get thirsty. Oh, I’ve felt it. You go mad. Lucky
for you, you do, Mrs. Stukeley.”
“How horrible. Isn’t that awful, Charles?”
“Yes. Awful. But Springer kept his head, you say?”
“No, sir. I’m inclined to think Springer got a turn. The sun’ll give
it you. Or that green wall laughing; or just thirst. When I talked
with Springer, he told me as he come to a little stone city on a hill,
all grown over with green. An old ruined city. About a hundred houses.
Quite small. And what d’you think was in it, Mrs. Stukeley?”
“I don’t know at all. Nothing very horrible, I hope. No. Not if it’s
going to be horrible.”
“Well. It was horrible. But there was gold on every one of them. Gold
plates. Gold masks. And gold all over the rooms. Now if that’s true,
it’s mighty queer. But I think he’d got a turn, ma’am. I don’t think
things was right with Springer. Living all alone in the woods, and
then living all alone on the key. It very likely put him off. I was to
have gone with him, searching for it, one time; but I never did.”
Stukeley seemed to wake up suddenly.
“You must have been a fool,” he said.
“Why? Acos I thought of going?” said Cammock.
“No. Because you didn’t go. I suppose you know which river he came
down. And whereabouts he got on the log?”
“Oh yes,” said Cammock; “better than I know you, Mr. Stukeley.”
“What d’you mean?” said Stukeley.
“Nothing,” said Cammock. “The very last time I saw Ed Springer, we
talked it all out. And he told me all he remembered, and we worked it
out together, whereabouts he must have got to. You see, Mrs. Stukeley,
Springer went a long way. He was lost---- And we were going to look
for it together.”
“Why didn’t you?” said Stukeley. “Were you afraid?”
“Yes,” replied Cammock curtly; “I was.”
Thinking that there would be an open quarrel, Captain Margaret
interrupted. “And you think Springer’s Key would be the best for us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here is Springer’s Key on the map. Come here, Stukeley, and just cast
your eye over it.”
Stukeley advanced, and put his hand on Olivia’s shoulder, drawing her
against him, as he leaned over to see the map. She stroked the
caressing hand, only conscious of the pleasure of her husband’s
caress. She had no thought of what the sight meant to Margaret.
Perrin felt for his friend. “Put it to the vote, Charles,” he said
hastily.
“Very well then,” said Margaret. “Shall we decide then? To go to
Springer’s Key?”
“Is it a pleasant place?” said Olivia. “Don’t, Tom.” She gave the hand
a little slap.
“Very pleasant, Mrs. Stukeley. A island with huge big cedars on
it--aromatic cedars--as red as blood; and all green parrots. Wells.
Good drinking wells. Wonderful flowers. If you’re fond of flowers,
ma’am.”
“What sorts are they?”
“Arnotto roses, and yellow violet trees. Oh, lots of them.”
“Oh, then, Springer’s Key, certainly.”
“Springer’s Key,” said Stukeley and Perrin.
“The ayes have it.”
“Very well, then,” said Margaret. “We’ll decide for Springer’s Key.”
“One other thing, sir,” said Cammock. “There’s the difficulty about
men. We’ve forty-five men in the ship here, mustering boys and idlers.
And that’s not enough. It’s not enough to attract allies. Of course,
I quite see, if you’d shipped more in London, in a ship of this size,
it would have looked odd. It might have attracted notice. The
Spaniards watch the Pool a sight more’n you think. But you want more.
And you want choice weapons for them.” He paused for a second to watch
Captain Margaret’s face, then, seeing no change upon it, continued, “I
know you got twenty long brass eighteens among the ballast.”
“How did you know that?” said Margaret.
“Well, you have, sir,” said Cammock, grinning, “and small-arms in
proportion. You can fortify Springer’s with a third of that lot. Now
you want another forty or fifty men, at least, and then you’ll be boss
dog. Every privateer captain will come saying, ‘Oh, Massa’ to you.”
“Yes,” said Perrin. “It seems to me that there’ll be a difficulty in
getting men. You see we want really a drill force.”
“No difficulty about men in Virginia, sir. Lots of good men, regular
old standards, tough as hickory, at Accomac, and along the James
River.”
“What do they do there?” said Perrin.
“Lots of ’em come there,” said Cammock evasively. “They tobacco
plants, and they trap them things with fur on, and some on ’em fishes.
Lots of ’em come there.”
“Where from?” asked Captain Margaret pointedly.
“Most everywhere,” said Cammock, looking on the deck.
“Campeachy?” said the captain.
“Most everywhere, sir,” repeated Cammock.
“Writs hard to serve there?”
“Every one has his misfortunes,” said Cammock hotly. “But they’re a
better lot there than you’d get anywhere in the islands, let me tell
you that. I’ve known a power of men among them, fine men. They might
be a bit rough and that; but they do stand by a fellow.”
“Yes,” said Captain Margaret, “I dare say. But I don’t want them to
stand by a fellow. I want them to stand by an idea.”
“They’ll stand by anything so long as you’ve a commission,” said
Captain Cammock.
“And obey orders?”
“Now, sir. In England, everybody knuckles down to squires and lords.
But among the privateers there aren’t any squires and lords. Nor in
Virginia, where the old privateers tobacco plants. A man stands by
what he is in himself. If you can persuade the privateers that you’re
a better man than their captains; and some of them are clever
generals, mind. They’ve been fighting Spaniards all their lives. Well.
You persuade ’em that you’re a better man. You show ’em that. And
they’ll be your partners. As for hands in the ship here, and ship’s
discipline. They aren’t particularly good at being ordered about.
They’re accustomed to being free, and having their share in the
councils. But you give them some little success on the Main, and
you’ll find they’ll follow you anywhere. You give out that you’re
going against Tolu, say. You take Tolu, say, and give ’em ten pound a
man.”
“Then they’ll want to go ashore to spend it.”
“Not if you give ’em a dice-box or two. You won’t be able to wage
them, like you wage hands, at sixteen shillen a month.”
Olivia, who seemed disconcerted at the thought of sitting down at a
council with a crowd of ragged sailors, now asked if it would not be
possible to wage them, if they explained the circumstances.
“You say they are tobacco-planting in Virginia. Why should they not
plant on the Main and supply all the ships which come to us, besides
fighting the Spaniards when the crops are growing?”
“That’s what you must do,” said Cammock. “Get the steadiest men you
can. Plant your crops, when you’ve cleared a patch of ground. Hit the
Spaniards hard at the first try. That’ll bring all the privateers to
you. Hit ’em again hard at a bigger port; and I do believe, sir,
you’ll have two or three thousand skilled troops flocking to you. Old
Mansvelt, the old Dutchman. You know who I mean. He tried to do what
you are trying. That was at Santa Katalina. But he died, and Morgan
had to do it all over again. Then Morgan had his chance. He’d fifteen
hundred men and a lot of ships. He’d taken Chagres and Porto Bello. He
had the whole thing in his hands. With all the spoil of Panama to back
him up. The Isthmus was ours, sir. The whole of Spanish America was in
that man’s hands. But no. Come-day-go-day. He went off and got drunk
in Port Royal; got a chill the first week; got laid up for a time;
then, when he did get better, he entered Jamaica politics. The new
governor kept him squared. The new governor was afraid of him. But
what he done you can do. You have a little success, and make a name
for yourself, and you’ll have a thousand men in no time. That’s enough
to drive the Spaniards off the North Sea. When you’ve driven ’em all
off, the King’ll step in. The King of England, I mean. He’ll knight
you, and give you a bottle-washing job alongside his kitchen sink.
Your settlement’ll be given to one of these Sirs in Jamaica. There,
sir. I wish you luck.”
The meeting was now broken up. Perrin brought from his cabin a box of
West Indian conserves and a packet of the famous Peruvian sweetmeats.
He offered them to Olivia, then to all the company. The steward
brought round wine and strong waters. Mrs. Inigo, passing through the
cabin with a curtsey, left hot water in Olivia’s state-room. She wore
a black gown and white cap. She looked very handsome. She walked with
the grace of the Cornish women. She reminded Captain Cammock of the
Peruvian ladies whom he had captured before Arica battle. They, too,
had worn black, and had walked like queens. He remembered how
frightened they had been, when they were first brought aboard from the
prize. Olivia followed Mrs. Inigo into the state-room. “I must just
see if she’s got everything she wants,” she murmured. She remained in
the state-room for a few minutes talking with Mrs. Inigo. Perrin
noticed that Stukeley looked very hard at Mrs. Inigo as she passed
through with the jug. He decided that Stukeley would need watching.
“Where are you putting her?” said Stukeley.
“Who? Mrs. Inigo?” said Margaret. “Along the alleyway, to the
starboard, in the big cabin which was once the sail-room.”
“I see,” said Stukeley.
“By the way, Stukeley,” said Margaret. “Now that you’ve got over your
sickness, would you like to be one of us? And will you stand a watch?
I’m going to stand two watches a day with the mate’s watch, and Edward
here will do the same with the starboard watch.”
“I’ll think it over,” said Stukeley, evidently not much pleased. “I’ll
think it over. I think I’ve listened to enough jaw for one night. I’m
going to turn in.”
Margaret, quick to save Olivia from something which he thought might
annoy her, made a neat parry. “Oh, don’t say that, Stukeley. Come on
deck for a blow; then we’ll have a glass of punch apiece.”
“Come on,” said Perrin, attempting, with an ill grace, the manner of a
jovial schoolboy. “Come on, my son. Catch hold of his other arm,
Charles.”
As he seized Stukeley’s arm to give him a heave, Stukeley poked him in
the wind, and tripped him as he stepped backward. “What’re you sitting
down for?” he said, with a rough laugh.
Perrin was up in a second. He seized a heavy decanter, and hove it
into Stukeley’s face. Stukeley in guarding the blow received a sharp
crack upon the elbow. Margaret and Cammock pulled Perrin aside, under
a heavy fire of curses.
“What d’ye mean by losing your temper? Hey?” said Stukeley.
Margaret drew Perrin out of the cabin. “Good night, Stukeley,” he said
as he passed the door.
He left Cammock standing by his chair, looking into Stukeley’s face.
There was a pause for a moment.
Then Stukeley began with, “That damned old woman nearly broke my
elbow. If he’s a friend of yours----”
“He is,” said Cammock.
“Oh, so you’re another of them. Well. Lord. You make a queer crew. Do
you know that?”
Cammock did not answer, but remained standing, like a figure of
bronze, staring into Stukeley’s face. For fully a minute he stood
there silently. Then he spun round swiftly, in his usual way, giving a
little whistle. He paused at the door to stare at Stukeley again.
“I’m glad you admire my beauty,” said Stukeley. “You’re not much used
to seeing gentlemen, are you?”
Still Cammock did not answer. At last he spat through the half-opened
gun-port. “My God,” he said. Then he walked out on deck, leaving
Stukeley rubbing his elbow; but softly chuckling, thinking he had won
the field.
V.
STUKELEY
“Thus can my love excuse the slow offence.”
_Sonnet li._
“I can endure
All this. Good Gods a blow I can endure.
But stay not, lest thou draw a timeless death
Upon thyself.”
_The Maid’s Tragedy._
One morning, about six weeks later, when the _Broken Heart_ was near
her port of call, Captain Margaret sat at the cabin table, with a book
of logarithms beside him, a chart before him, and a form for a ship’s
day’s work neatly ruled, lying upon the chart. He made a faint
pencil-line upon the chart, to show the ship’s position by
dead-reckoning. Then, with a pair of compasses, he made a rough
measurement of the distance still to run. Stukeley, lying at length
upon the locker-top, watched him with contempt.
The _Broken Heart_ had had a fair summer passage, with no severe
weather. She had spoken with no ships since leaving Falmouth. Her
little company of souls had been thrown upon themselves, and the six
weeks of close association had tried their nerves. There were tense
nerves among the afterguard, on that sunny morning, just off
Soundings.
“Where are we?” Stukeley asked.
“Just off Soundings,” said Margaret.
“Where the blazes is that?”
“About four hundred miles to the east of Accomac.”
“How soon shall we get to Accomac?”
“A week, perhaps. It depends on the wind.”
“And then we’ll get ashore?”
“Yes. If you think it safe.”
“What the devil d’you mean?”
Captain Margaret sat back in his chair and looked at Stukeley as an
artist looks at his model. Many small, inconsidered, personal acts are
revelations of the entire character; the walk, the smile, the sudden
lifting of the head or hand, are enough, to the imaginative person.
So, now, was Captain Margaret’s look a revelation. One had but to see
him, to know the truth of Perrin’s epigram. Perrin had called him “a
Quixote turned critic.” He looked at Stukeley as though he were above
human anger; his look was almost wistful, but intense. He summed up
the man’s character to himself, weighing each point with a shrewd,
bitter clearness. His thought was of himself as a boy, pinning the
newly killed moth upon the setting-board.
“Look here,” said Stukeley.
“Do you think it safe?”
Stukeley rose from the locker and advanced across the cabin.
“So little Maggy’s going to preach, is he?” he said lightly. “Let me
recommend little Maggy to keep on his own side of the fence.”
Margaret shrugged his shoulders. It seemed to him to be the most
offensive thing he could do, in the circumstances.
“Supposing that it’s not safe?”
Stukeley laughed, and returned to the locker. He pulled out a pipe and
began to fill it.
“Maggy,” he said, “why don’t you get married?”
“My destiny.”
“Marriage goes by destiny. Eh?”
“Marriage. And hanging, Stukeley.”
That brought him from the locker again. “What the hell d’you mean by
that?”
“Oh,” said Margaret. “It’s safe in Accomac, I should think.”
“What is?”
“The evil-doer, Stukeley. The cheat, the ravisher, the---- But I don’t
think you ever committed a murder. Not what is called murder by a
jury.”
“Ah. You cast that at me,” said Stukeley. “Recollect now, Maggy.
That’s enough. I’d be sorry to hit you.”
“Would you?” said Margaret. “Well. Perhaps. But if it’s not safe,
Stukeley, what are you going to do?”
“Stay here, little Maggy. Oh, ducky, you are so charming. I shall stay
on board with my own little Maggy.”
“You’d better remember my name when you speak again, Stukeley. I take
no liberties from a forger.”
“Have you been reading my papers? In my cabin?”
“It _was_ forgery, wasn’t it?”
“Is it any business of yours?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because, Stukeley, I may have to see the Governor about you. I may be
asked about you when you land. I may even have to hand you over
to--well, disgrace.”
“Rot. How the hell will the Governor know? Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Then it _was_ forgery?”
“Certainly no damn maggot like you’ll call it anything. No man alive.”
“But supposing they try you, my friend. Eh? Suppose, when we land,
when we anchor, you are taken and sent home. What would a jury call
it?”
“We’re not in Falmouth harbour now. Nor in Salcombe.”
Just at this moment Captain Cammock entered, whistling a tune through
his teeth. He glanced at both men, with some suspicion of their
occupation. “Come for the deep-sea lead-line,” he explained. “We’ll be
in soundings by to-night. Getting on nice, ain’t we?” He opened one of
the lockers and took out the lead-line. “You’d ought to come on deck,
sir, to-night, to see how this is done. It’s a queer sight,” he said.
“I’m off to the cook now, to get a bit of tallow for the arming.”
“Stop just a moment, captain,” said Margaret. “I want to ask you
something. How often do letters go to Virginia, from London?”
“I suppose about twice a week, now there’s no war. Almost every day,
in the summer, you might say. Yes. They’re always going.”
“Have we made a good passage?”
“Nothing extra. It’s been done in five weeks by the baccalao
schooners. Less.”
“The baccalao schooners. They’re the cod-boats? Are they very fast?”
“Oh, beauties. But ain’t they wet.”
“Then we might find letters waiting when we arrive?”
“Very likely, sir. I was going to speak to you about that.” He looked
with meaning at Stukeley.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” said Stukeley.
“You might have letters waiting, too,” said Cammock. “Society
invitations and that.” He glanced up at the skylight as he spoke, and
then watched Stukeley’s face to note the effect of his words. Stukeley
turned pale.
“Stukeley,” said Margaret, “don’t you think you ought to tell your
wife?”
“Will you please mind your own business, Maggy. She’s my wife, not
yours.”
“Then I shall tell her. Shall I?”
“Tell her what?”
“I’m going on deck,” said Cammock. “You come on deck, sir, too.” He
passed out of the cabin, carrying his heavy lead. He paused at the
door for a moment to ask his friend again. “Come and see how it’s
done, sir,” he said. He got no instant answer, so he passed out,
wondering how it would end. “It’s none of my job,” he said sadly. “But
I’d give a deal just to hit him once. Once. He’d have a thick ear to
show.”
“Tell her what?” repeated Stukeley, as the door closed.
“That you may be arrested as soon as we arrive. That the case may go
against you.”
“You would tell her, would you?”
“She ought to know. Surely you can see that. Shall I tell her?”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve go---- You lowsy. You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”
“I should very much like to, Stukeley.”
“I don’t doubt. And you’re the one---- That’s like you poets. You’re a
mangy lot, Maggy. I see you so plainly, Maggy, telling my wife. Like a
cat making love. In the twilight. Oh, I’ve seen you.”
“Go on, Stukeley.”
“You come crawling round my wife. I’ve seen you look at her. I’ve seen
you shake hands with her. I’ve seen your eyes. Doesn’t she make your
mouth water? Wouldn’t you like that hair all over your face? Eh? Eh?
And her arms round you. Eh?”
“Stukeley,” said Margaret, “I’d advise you to stop. Stop now.”
“Wouldn’t you like to----?”
“Stop.”
“I know you would. Poems, eh? I’ve read a lot of your poems to her,
Maggy.”
“Were you looking for my purse?”
“No, Maggy. But I thought you needed watching. I don’t want any mangy
poet crawling round my wife. So I just watched you, Maggy.”
“Yes?”
“Oh yes. I don’t think you’ve succeeded yet, Maggy. Even in spite of
your poems.”
“Stukeley,” said Margaret, rising from his chair, “when we get to
Accomac you will come ashore with me. I’ll do my best, when we’re
ashore, to put my sword”--he advanced to Stukeley, bent swiftly over
him, and touched him sharply on the Adam’s apple--“just there,
Stukeley. Right through. To save the hangman the trouble.”
Stukeley watched him with amused contempt; he laughed. “Maggy’s in a
paddy,” he said. “No, Maggy. I’m a married man, now, ducky. What would
my wife do if she woke up one fine morning and found me gone? Eh?”
“Are you afraid to fight?”
“Afraid of a little crawling maggot who comes whining out some measly
poems?”
Margaret took a quick step forward, and shot out a hand to seize
Stukeley by the throat. Stukeley caught him by the wrist.
“Look here, Maggy,” he said.
“Drop my wrist. Drop it.”
“Take your dirty wrist.”
“Take back what you said.”
“You do amuse me, Maggy.”
“Take it back.”
“You ought to have been a woman. Then you could have married that
damned fool Perrin. And you could have----”
“You----”
“Ah no, ah no. No blows, Maggy.”
“Take back what you said.”
“That I was afraid?”
“You’d better, Stukeley.”
“Did I say that I was afraid? I’m not, you know. It’s you who are
afraid.”
“You’ll see.”
“I shall see. You are afraid. You’re in love with Olivia, ducky. D’ye
think you’re going to fight me? Not Maggy. You’d like me away,
wouldn’t you, Maggy. Then perhaps she’d. She’s an awful fool when you
come to know her, Maggy. To know her as I know her. She might be fool
enough to. And then. Oh. Bliss, eh? Bliss. Morning, noon, and night.
Eh?”
“Stukeley, I’ve stood a good deal----”
“Yes, ducky. But don’t be so excited. You won’t fight me. You’ll be
afraid. You’ll lick my boots, like you’ve done all the time, so as to
get a sweet smile from her. Doesn’t she smile sweetly, my little
Maggy? You’ll lick my boots, Maggy. And hers. Lick, lick, lick, like a
little crawling cat. Wouldn’t you like to lick her hand, Maggy? Her
fingers? Don’t go, Maggy. I’m just beginning to love you.”
“We’ll go on with this at Accomac, Stukeley.”
“We shan’t fight, Maggy. If you killed me, she’d never marry you.
Besides, it would kill her, Maggy. She loves me. She wants a man, not
a little licking cat. You’re content to spend your days licking. My
God; you’d die, I believe, if you couldn’t come crawling round her,
sighing, and longing to kiss her. That’s your life. Well. Kill me.
You’ll never see her again. Then what would the little crawler do? Go
and put his arms round Perrin? But d’you know what I should tell
Olivia before going out with you?”
“What would you tell her?”
“I’d tell her that I suspected you of making love to her. Eh? That you
admitted it, and that I gave you this chance of satisfaction out of
consideration, instead of thrashing you. So any way I’ve the whip
hand, Maggy. She’d never look at you again, and you can’t live without
her. Can you?”
“Anything else?”
“Just this. You’ll never see her again if--if anything happens at
Accomac. Through the Governor, you know. We should go home together.
And the shock, eh? Loving husband hanged, eh? So take it from one who
loves little Maggy, that you aren’t going to fight me, and that for
all your gush you’ll help me in Accomac in case there’s trouble. And
Olivia shall let you kiss her hand, shall she. Or no, you shall have
a shoe of hers to slobber over, or a glove. Now go on deck, Maggy, and
cool your angry little brow. A little of you goes a long way, Maggy.
That’s what Olivia told me one night.”
He stopped speaking; for Margaret had left the cabin. “I wonder where
he’s gone,” Stukeley muttered, smiling. Through the half-shut door he
could see Margaret entering the cabin which he shared with Perrin.
“What a rotter he is,” he thought. “I suppose now he’ll have a good
cry. Or tell it all to that dead frog, Perrin.” For a moment, he
thought that he would go on deck to walk with Perrin, not because he
wanted to see the man, but because, by going on deck, he would keep
both Perrin and the captain from talking to Olivia, who was mat-making
on the poop, amid a litter of coloured silks. He thought with some
disgust of Olivia. So that he might not be reminded of her, he drew
the sun-screen across the skylight, shutting out the day. “Oh Lord,”
he said, yawning, “I wish I was back in the inn with that girl,
Jessie. She was some fun. Olivia gets on my nerves. Why the devil
doesn’t she get some blood in her? These pious women are only good to
ravish. Why the devil don’t they enter nunneries? I wish that one of
these three sprightly lads would have a try at Olivia. One never
knows, though. Even Olivia might take it as a compliment.” For a
moment he wondered if there were any chance of trouble at Accomac.
Very little, he concluded. He laughed to think of the strength of his
position. It was a pleasure to him to think that three men hated him,
perhaps longed to kill him, and that one refrained because of Olivia,
while the other two refrained because of the first. “Lord, Lord,” he
murmured, with a smile. “And they’ll all three die to save me. I’d go
to Accomac if there were a dozen governors. I wonder if the Indian
girls are any fun.” He was hardly built for marriage, he thought.
Those old days had been sweet in the mouth. There was that
sleepy-looking girl--Dick Sadler’s wife. She was some fun. How wild
she used to get when she---- He wished that Perrin would come below as
a butt for some of his ill-temper.
It was only four bells; there were at least two hours to wait till
dinner-time. He was sick of sleeping; he was sick of most of his
shipmates; he could not dice “one hand against the other.” Reading
bored him, writing worried him, sketch he could not. He stretched
himself down on the locker-top, and lit his pipe. Tobacco was
forbidden in the cabin for Olivia’s sake; but he argued that he was
the real commander of the ship, the practical owner, since he ruled
her material destiny by ruling Olivia. As he smoked, it occurred to
him that perhaps he had done wrong to anger Captain Margaret. That
Maggy was a sullen devil. He might turn sullen, and give him up in
spite of Olivia. He smoked quietly for a little time, till a scheme
came to him, a scheme which gave him pleasure, so good it seemed.
He lay lazily on the locker-top, looking out over the sea, through the
stern-windows. The sun was shining, making the track of the ship
gleam. Just below Stukeley, sometimes almost within a sword’s thrust,
when the counter squattered down, slapping the sea, were the rudder
eddies, the little twirling threads, the twisted water which spun in
the pale clear green, shot through with bubbles. They rose and whirled
continually, creaming up and bursting, streaking aft in whiteness.
Over them wavered some mewing sea-birds, dipping down with greedy
plunges, anon rising, hovering, swaying up. Stukeley watched them with
the vacant stare of one bored. For a few minutes he amused himself by
spitting at those which came within range; then, proving a poor
marksman, he rummaged for a biscuit, thinking that he would fish for
them. He found a hank of white-line, and tied a bit of biscuit to the
end. He was about to make his first cast when Mrs. Inigo entered,
bearing a buck-basket containing her week’s washing, now ready to be
dried.
When the _Broken Heart_ left Falmouth, Captain Margaret made certain
orders to ensure Olivia’s comfort. He had tried to put himself in her
place, to see with her eyes, to feel with her nerves, knowing that her
position on board, without another lady to bear her company, would not
be a pleasant one. The whole of the ship abaft the forward cabin
bulkhead had been given up to her. The three members of the afterguard
took their meals in the cabin, but seldom entered it at other times,
unless they wished to use the table for chess, cards, or chart-work.
The negro steward, who had once ruled in the cabin, was now little
more than a cabin-cook. Mrs. Inigo did much of his work. She cleaned
the cabin, laid the breakfast, served Olivia’s early chocolate,
letting the negro cook wash up. Cammock and Perrin agreed with Captain
Margaret that the after part of the ship should be left as much as
possible to the two Stukeleys, so that Olivia might feel that she was
living in a private house. After the cabin supper, at the end of the
first dog-watch, no man of the three entered the cabin unless Olivia
invited him. Margaret felt that Olivia was touched by this thought for
her. She was very gracious to him during her first evening party. It
was sweet to hear her thanks, sweet to see her, flushed and laughing,
radiant from the sea air, sitting there at the table, as Cammock dealt
the cards for Pope Joan. That evening had been very dear to him, even
though, across the cabin, on the heaped green cushions, lay Stukeley,
greedy for his wife’s beauty, whetting his swine’s tusk as the colour
came upon her cheek. It would all be for him, he thought, and the
thought, now and then, was almost joyful, that she should be happy. It
was not in his nature to be jealous. The greatest bitterness for him
was to see the desired prize neglected, unappreciated, never really
known; and to apprehend, in a gesture, in a few words, the thought
implied, which the accepted lover failed to catch, or else ignored. He
had tested Stukeley’s imaginative sympathy by the framing of another
rule. In a small ship like the _Broken Heart_ there is little privacy.
To prevent a possible shock to her, he arranged that on washing-days
the clothes of the women should be hung to dry from the cabin windows
(from lines rigged up below the port-sills, where they were out of
view of the crew). Olivia was pleased by this arrangement, without
quite knowing why. Stukeley saw no sense in it. On this particular
morning the arrangement bore peculiar fruit, very grateful to
Stukeley, who had long hungered for a change.
Mrs. Inigo entered with the buck-basket, closing the door behind her.
She dropped the basket on the deck below the window-seat, seized the
clothes-line, and began to stop the linen to it, in the sea-fashion,
with rope-yarns. She was a little flushed with the exertion of
washing, and she was a comely woman at all times.
“I’m going to help you,” said Stukeley.
She smiled, and looked down, as he helped her to tie some clothes to
the line. She blushed and smiled; he took her hand.
“Let go my hand,” she whispered.
He pressed the hand, and though she drew back, a little frightened, he
managed to catch the other. He kissed the hands. They were rough but
warm.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t, Mr. Stukeley.”
“Ah, Bess,” he said, taking her into his arms and kissing her, “why
didn’t you give me a chance before?”
Half an hour later Bessy Inigo went forward to peel potatoes for
dinner, while Stukeley slept upon the locker-top till the steward
roused him at one bell.
He went on deck, when he was called, to get a breath of air before
dinner. He found Olivia at work with her little balls of silk, while
Perrin, on the lee side of the skylight, was drawing for her a ship
upon canvas. Perrin was talking to Olivia, asking her questions about
her work. At the break of the poop Captain Cammock stood, waiting with
his quadrant to take the height of the sun.
Olivia looked up with a smile as Stukeley stepped on deck. She was
still in that rapturous first stage of marriage in which all men, save
the husband, are regarded as hardly living, as being, at best, but
necessary cumberers of the earth, mere lifeless interruptions. In the
early days of the voyage she had learned, from one of Captain
Cammock’s stories, that people shut up in ships together cannot always
bear the strain, but become irritable, quarrelsome, apt to suspect and
slander. She had determined that her married love should not decay
thus, and so, for some weeks past, she had contrived to avoid her
husband for several hours each day, greatly to the delight of Perrin.
On this particular day she felt that Providence had rewarded her but
meanly for her loving self-sacrifice. All men, save Tom, were nothing
to her, but Perrin, in the morning, in one of his dull moods, when
unrelieved by Margaret, was less than nothing. She had always been a
little shy of Perrin, perhaps because Perrin’s shyness was a bar to
equal intercourse. Her own nature was full of shy refinements. She
could give nothing of herself to one who could not win upon her by
some grace or gallantry. Perrin meant well; he was even her devoted
slave; but he was heavy in the hand with ladies, until their sympathy
had raised his spirit. Olivia was not in the mood to give him even
that simulated sympathy by which women extract their knowledge of men.
Her own fine instincts told her, or rather suggested to her, all that
could be known of Perrin. In a vague way she had the idea of Perrin in
her mind, the true idea; but vague, without detail, an instinctive
comprehension. He was a blunted soul to her, broken somehow. She felt
that he had been through something, some vice perhaps, or sickness,
with the result that he was blunted. He was quite harmless, she
thought, even sometimes pleasant, always well-meaning, and yet
dwarfed, made blunt, like his shapeless hands. She never could bring
herself to treat him as a human being. Yet he interested her; he had
the fascination of all mysterious persons; she could never accept her
husband’s contemptuous estimate. Possibly she felt the need for the
society of another lady, and hesitated to condemn Perrin, as being the
nearest thing to a lady in the ship. Thus Robinson Crusoe on his
island unduly valued a parrot.
About half an hour before her husband came on deck, Olivia had seen
Perrin coming down from aloft, where he had been engaged with a seaman
in fitting new spunyarn gaskets to all the yards on the mainmast, so
that the furls might look neat when they made Virginia. He enjoyed his
work aloft until he grew hot, when he soon found a pretext for leaving
it. On reaching the deck, he went aft to Olivia (who smiled her
recognition), and sat down at her side, content to stay still, to
cool. The sight of Olivia’s beauty so near to him filled him with a
kind of awe. Like a schoolboy impressed by some beautiful woman who is
gracious to him, perhaps merely from that love of youth which all
women have, so did Perrin imagine heroisms, rescuing that dear head,
now bent with a shy sweetness over her mat.
“Olivia,” he said at length, about a minute after the proper time for
the request, “will you show me what you have done?”
She looked up from her work with a smile that was half amusement at
his serious tone.
“I’ve not done very much,” she said, showing her canvas, with its
roses, surrounded by a garland of verbena leaves, still little more
than outlined. “Did you ever try to make mats?” she added.
“I can make daisy-mats with wool, on a frame with pins,” he answered.
“Can you make those? You cut them, and they show like a lot of
daisies.”
“I used to make them,” she said, “when I went to stay with my aunt
Pile, at Eltons. You were at Eltons, too, were you not? I think you
stayed there?”
“Yes. I stayed there. What a beautiful old place it is. Have you been
there lately?”
“No. Not for two or three years now. I was very gay the last time I
was there. I think I went to a dance every night. My poor brothers
were alive then. We used to drive off together. I’ve never been there
since.”
“Ah,” said Perrin. He paused for a moment, so that his brain might
make the picture of the woman before him sitting in the gloom of the
carriage, with all her delicate beauty warmly wrapped by the two young
men now dead. “Furs,” he muttered to himself. “Furs, and the lamps
shining on the snow.” Then he looked at Olivia, noting the grey and
black dress, the one gold bracelet round her wrist, and the old pearl
ear-rings against the mass of hair.
“What jolly clothes women wear,” he said, meaning (like most men who
use such phrases) “How beautiful you look there.”
“This?” she asked. “This is my oldest frock.”
“Is it? I didn’t remember it. How do you get your clothes?”
“I tell my dressmaker.”
“I wish you’d let me design you a dress.”
“I should be very pleased. What sort of dress would you design for
me?”
“I would have you in a sort of white satin bodice, all embroidered
with tiny scarlet roses. And then a little black velvet coat over it,
with very full sleeves, slashed, to show an inner sleeve of dark blue
silk. And the lining of the velvet would be dark green; so you would
have green, blue, white, and red all contrasted against the black of
the velvet.”
“That would be costly. And what skirt? A black skirt, I suppose?”
“A very full black skirt. What do you think about a belt? Would you
wear that belt of yours? The one with the Venetian silver-work?”
“I don’t know about a belt. I thought you were going to design
everything?”
“Not a belt, then. And black shoes, with small, oval, cut-steel
buckles.”
“I should think that would be very pretty.” Her thoughts were
wandering in England, down a lane of beech trees within sound of the
sea, to a hillock of short grass, cropped by the sheep, where
sea-pinks and sea-holly sprouted.
“What are the sailors like?” she asked. “I saw you working up aloft
with them. What are they like to talk to?”
“Oh. They’re all right.”
“I think they’re dreadful people.”
“Why?” said Perrin. “What makes you think they’re dreadful?”
“No nice man would take such a life. Oh. It must be dreadful. I
shudder when I see them. What do they talk of, among themselves?”
“They’re not very refined, of course. That man up on the yard there
was once a slave in Virginia. You see he was transported for theft. He
says he used to cry, sometimes, half through the night. He was so
homesick.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. But what home had he to be sick for?”
“The ash-heap near a glass-house furnace. Somewhere in Chelsea, I
think he said.”
“And are the others all thieves, do you suppose?”
“That ugly-looking dark fellow with the crooked eyes was once in a
pirate’s crew, so the man on the yard said.”
“Was he really? I don’t think that man is quite sane. He seems to
glare so. Oh, ships are dreadful, dreadful.”
“They’re beautiful, though. All---- Yes. Don’t you think all beautiful
things seem to gather vileness about them?”
“No, I don’t think so. Vileness? In what way, vileness?”
“I think they do. You see ships with sailors, and pictures with
picture-dealers, and tragedies---- Well. Tragedies with all sorts of
people.” He ran on glibly, though with some confusion. The thought had
occurred to him first in a moment of jealous anger that Olivia, so
beautiful and sweet, should be a prey to the vile Stukeley. He blushed
and stopped, thinking that she would read his thought.
“Oh. But I don’t think that at all,” she said. “You ought to say that
vileness gathers about beautiful things. A beautiful thing is a
vigorous form of life, and all forms of life have parasites. The
parasites don’t attach themselves to the things you speak of because
the things are beautiful.”
“No. I suppose not. Of course not,” he answered, rather puzzled, still
thinking of Stukeley.
“And you wouldn’t say that the really beautiful things, such as love
is, say, to a woman like myself. No vileness gathers about that?”
“N-no,” he answered, with some hesitation, wishing that he had never
started his mild little rabbit of an epigram. He looked away, at the
sky-line, for a moment. Then, with sudden desperation, he charged her
to change the subject, his face still red from his former rout.
“Olivia,” he said. “If I drew you a ship, would you embroider it, or
make a mat of it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Draw the _Broken Heart_. I could work it for Tom’s
birthday. I should be very glad of it, after I’ve finished this.”
Perrin helped her to cut a square of canvas from a little roll she had
obtained from the sailmaker. He settled himself down to draw. Olivia
stitched with her silks.
“It is so curious,” she said at last, “that you should have known my
husband--that you knew him years ago, when we stayed at Eltons
together. Before I knew him.”
“Yes. I’ve thought that, too. And now we’re all here together. And
Eltons is still going on, behind us there. Rooks in the elms. And your
aunt Pile in her chair.”
She seemed to reflect for a moment, as though thinking of the
beautiful house, where life moved so nobly, like a strain of music.
Perrin knew that she was thinking of Stukeley. “Oh, you women,” he
said to himself. “You give everything for a pennyweight of love, and
even that is never paid to you.” He would have given much, poor moth,
to be back at Eltons, young and handsome, with the shy, gauche girl
who had since become Olivia. “I didn’t know then,” he said to himself,
“and you couldn’t guess. And now we’re driving to it. Shipwreck.
Shipwreck. And I should have been so happy with you.”
“What was Tom like then?” said Olivia.
“Who? Oh, your husband. You see I didn’t know him well,” said Perrin
in confusion. “He was--I think he was a lot thinner than he is now.”
“How did he look in his uniform?”
“His uniform?” said Perrin. “You see. I didn’t see him in his uniform.
You see it was after he’d been kicked---- After he’d---- You know
what. What is the word? After he’d been----”
Stammering and blushing, he managed to get out of his difficulty.
Olivia thought that he had been afflicted by that impediment in his
speech, or partial aphasia, which sometimes checked his conversation.
She pitied him, while feeling that his companionship was painful. He
himself turned very red, and bit his tongue. He thought that the six
weeks at sea should have taught him the guard for all such sudden
thrusts.
“After he’d left the army?” she said kindly.
“Yes. Yes. It was,” he answered. He turned again to draw the image of
the _Broken Heart_, as he had seen her from without, some seven long
weeks before. Olivia gave him a moment’s grace to recover his natural
colour. Captain Cammock caught her eye, and saluted as he took his
stand with his quadrant. She was smiling back at him when her
husband’s head appeared on the poop ladder. Perrin looked up quickly.
“I’d better hide this, Olivia,” he said. “If it’s for your husband’s
birthday. Shall I hide it?”
As she nodded a swift answer her husband stepped on to the poop.
Stukeley advanced rapidly and kissed his wife, with some show of
fervour, for policy’s sake. Then with a quick snatch he caught
Perrin’s drawing, lying half hidden upon the skylight seat under one
of Olivia’s wraps.
“Look at little Pilly’s cow,” he said. “Look, Olivia. Did you draw
this, little Pilly?”
“He was drawing it for me,” said Olivia.
“Were you going to teach him to embroider it? Little Pilly, was he
going to have his little needle, then? And his red and blue silk. Eh?
You know, Olivia, I saw little Pilly here, down in the cabin one hit
me, playing with some red and blue silk spools. Ah, little Pilly; it’s
a shame to tease him. He must have his little dollies, then?”
“You put down that drawing,” said Perrin, snatching at it.
Stukeley held him aside with one hand, dangling the drawing from the
other.
“No, no, little Pilly,” he said. “Manners, little boy. Manners before
ladies.”
“Don’t, Tom dear,” said Olivia. “Don’t spoil the drawing.”
“That would be a shame,” he answered. “Little Pilly draws so
beautifully. Which is the tail, Pilly?” he asked. “Which of these
prongy things is the tail?”
Perrin did not answer; but again attempted to snatch the canvas.
“Why don’t you take it, little Pilly?” said Stukeley.
“Damn you, give it,” said Perrin, white with passion. He snatched the
canvas from him, smote him a sharp slash across the eyes with it, and
flung it overboard.
Stukeley made a rush at him, but became involved with one of Olivia’s
wraps. Cammock stepped between the disputants with his quadrant at his
eye.
“Woa, blood,” he said. “Don’t knock my ship overboard. Make eight
bells there, will you, Mr. Perrin? Mr. Stukeley, will you please step
and tell the steward to set the clock right?”
“Do your own dirty work,” said Stukeley.
The helmsman sniggered audibly. Cammock raised his hat about an inch
from his head.
“Quite right, sir,” he said, as Perrin made eight bells. “Quite right
to remind me, sir. I forgot you was only a passenger.”
“Steward,” shouted Perrin. “Oh. Mrs. Inigo. Just tell the steward to
set the clock right.”
“De clock am set, seh,” said the steward, coming to the break of the
poop to ring the bell for dinner.
“Tom dear,” said Olivia, conscious that the man she loved had made but
a poor show. “Tom dear. You weren’t very kind. I mean. I think you
hurt Captain Cammock. And you made Edward angry. He can’t bear to be
teased. He’s not easy-tempered like you, dear. I think sometimes you
forget that, don’t you, Tom? You won’t be cross, Tom?”
“Oh, nonsense, Polly,” he said, as he took her arm to lead her below.
“Nonsense, you old pretty-eyes. I can’t resist teasing Pilly; he’s
such an old hen. As for Cammock, he’s only an old pirate. I’m not
going to be ordered about by a man like that. He’s no right to be at
liberty.”
Olivia was pleased by the reference to her eyes, so she said no more.
She wondered, during dinner, why Captain Margaret ate so little and so
silently, and why Perrin never spoke until addressed. Cammock was
affable and polite. His attention to Stukeley’s needs was almost oily.
VI.
A SUPPER PARTY
“But here comes Glorius, that will plague them both.”
John Donne.
“I’ll make ’em dance,
And caper, too, before they get their liberty.
Unmannerly rude puppies.”
_Wit Without Money._
After dinner, Captain Cammock took tobacco on the poop alone. He
liked to be alone after dinner; because his mind was then very
peaceful, so that he could “shift his tides,” as he said, walking up
and down, remembering old days at sea. He had had an adventurous life,
had Captain Cammock. Like most men who had lived hard, he lived very
much in his past, thinking that such a thing, done long ago, was fine,
and that such a man, shot long since, outside some Spanish breastwork,
was a great man, better than the men of these days, braver, kindlier.
So he walked the deck, sucking his clay, blowing out blue smoke in
little quick whiffs, thinking of old times. One thing he was always
proud of: he had sailed with Morgan. He had memories of Morgan on the
green savannah, riding on a little Spanish horse, slunk forward in his
saddle somehow, “a bit swag-bellied, Sir Henry,” with his cigar-end
burning his moustache. And all of those men crowded round him, surging
in on him, plastered with mud, gory with their raw-meat meal; they
were scattered pretty well; they would never come in on the one field
again. On the Keys, it had been fine, too; all of that blue water had
been fine. A sea like blue flame, and islands everywhere, and the sun
over all, making bright, and boles of cedar among the jungle like the
blood-streaks in porphyry. And graceful, modest Indian women,
glistening with oil, crowned with dwarf-roses. And then one or two
nights by the camp-fires, with old Delander standing sentry, and Eddie
Collier singing; it was none of it like this; this was responsible
work; this turned the hair grey. He felt this the more strongly,
because the _Broken Heart_ was not a happy ship; she was wearing him
down. Stukeley made him grit his teeth. He had to sit at table with
him, conscious of the man’s mean malice at every moment. There would
be some slight sound, an intake of the breath, some muttered
exclamation, a request to repeat the offending phrase, when he, a
rough seaman, made some mispronunciation, or slip in grammar. And to
stand that, till one’s veins nearly burst, knowing that the man was a
cast criminal, flying for his life. And to have to pretend that he was
a guest, an honoured guest, a fit mate for the woman there. And to
have to defend him, if need be, in Virginia. It made him check his
walk sometimes to shake a belaying-pin in the fife-rail, till the
passion passed. It was lucky for Stukeley that he was a man with a
pretty tight hold on himself. A lesser man, a man not trained in the
wars, would have laid Stukeley dead, or taken it out of the hands. He
was too just a man to work it off on his hands. At this point he
checked himself, sharply, putting all evil thoughts aside, remembering
how a shipmate, Balsam Dick, the Scholerd, who ladled out soft-polly
of a Sunday, old Balsam Dick it was, had told him that was the thing
to do. “Let it go or make it go,” that was how to work a passion.
There was no sense, only misery, in keeping it by one, poisoning
oneself. Besides, he was glad he’d come this cruise. He had been for
six weeks shut up in a ship with Olivia. He would never be thankful
enough for that. She was so beautiful, so pure, so gentle and kind, so
delicate a lovely thing, he could hardly bear to think of her. When he
thought of Olivia, he would lean over the taffrail, somewhere above
her cabin, wondering at the powers which had made him what he was, a
resolute, rough seaman, beaten into clumsy toughness. And yet those
powers had shaped her, too, making her very beautiful, very wonderful.
And now the powers had shoved her into a ship with him; and he would
never be quite the same towards women, whatever happened. But, then,
there was Stukeley, that intolerable, mean bully, worrying all of them
in the same ways, day after day, with a maddening monotony of insult.
Perrin, who was half Welsh, had once hit off Stukeley in an epigram
upon the English. “Dull,” he had said, goaded by some school-bully
boorishness, repeated for the hundredth time. “The English dull? Of
course they are dull. They’re so dull that they can’t be inventive
even in their cruelty.” Cammock would repeat this phrase, reading
“Stukeley” for “English” so many times daily that “he tokened his
pasture.”
While Cammock walked the deck, thinking and smoking, Olivia sat in her
state-room writing letters, feeling sure that she would be able to
send them home from Virginia in one of the tobacco-ships, and anxious
to be ready in case they should speak one at sea. Margaret and Perrin
sat in Captain Cammock’s cabin together, working out the sights, and
talking in a low voice of Stukeley. The cabin door was open, so that
they could look across the alleyway to the closed door of Mrs. Inigo’s
state-room, once the sail-locker. They noticed that Mrs. Inigo came to
her door every now and then, to glance down the alleyway, with an
anxious face. They supposed that she was waiting for Olivia to call
her. Once, indeed, she asked them if Mrs. Stukeley had called.
“Well, Charles,” said Perrin. “I told you how it would be. You see now
what you’ve done.”
“Yes,” said Margaret. “I admit I was wrong. I made a great mistake.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Perrin. “But what are you going to do when
we land?”
“Call him out.”
“No, sir. I’m going to call him out.”
“Aren’t we both talking nonsense? How can either of us call him out,
with Olivia on board? And then they’re my guests.”
“Well. I think we ought to get rid of them.”
“We can’t, with Olivia.”
“There may be letters ordering us to give him up.”
“Then we shall have to cut and run for it.”
“Now why go in for these heroics?”
“Because--I don’t know. When I was a young man I framed a certain
scheme of life, I suppose. There it is.”
“We’re only putting off the evil day.”
“Why? What makes you think that?”
“Supposing we do cut and run for it. What are you going to do? How
about your merchandise? Where are you going to take them? Olivia must
know some day. They can’t go back to England. It’s only merciful to
tell her.”
“Who is to tell her? Who is to go to her and say, ‘Olivia, your
husband’s a forger.’ It’s impossible, Edward.”
“Well, I think we ought to tell her.”
“Very well then. Go in and tell her. You can’t.”
“I will.”
“No. Sit down. Look here. I used to know Howard, the present Governor,
years ago. Suppose this. Suppose I could get him to waive the arrest.
That is, if we find an arrest has been ordered. And we could persuade.
I want to spare that poor girl. He might get them to settle, give him
an appointment--anything. Make him his secretary.”
“And what sort of life would Olivia have?”
“A better one than on the Main, surely.”
“It’s a difficult row to hoe.”
“It is.”
“Let’s make a sangaree. Will you have some if I make some?”
“No. Let’s go into this with clear heads. It might be better to tell
Olivia. But it’ll break her heart.”
“She’s got to suffer some day. And her heart won’t break.”
“My God, though, Edward, do think what she is, think of her life.
Think what. To have her husband driven in a cart and hanged.”
“Yes. But it’s surely a worse tragedy for him not to be hanged, and to
go on living with her.”
“I know. It is. But she loves him.”
“Comic devils, women. Aren’t they?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Well. Look here. I suppose he would be hanged?”
“I shouldn’t think there’s a doubt of it.”
“And the question is, how to get rid of Stukeley and spare Olivia?”
“No. How to spare Olivia. Settle them in Virginia, I say.”
“In the first place, the Governor might not allow it. And in the
second place, my dear man, you simply can’t leave Olivia in a land
where---- Well. A savage land.”
“What do you know of the land?”
“I don’t know anything of the land.”
“What makes you think it to be savage?”
“It’s common talk. The sailors.”
“What do the sailors say about it?”
“They say it’s ‘the hell of a place.’ ‘The last place God made, and He
forgot to finish it.’”
“What do they know of Virginia?”
“They’ve been there.”
“Yes. But what do sailors know of any country?”
“They go ashore.”
“What for?”
“To load and unload their cargoes.”
“To roll casks in the sun?”
“Well. Yes.”
“Do they like that?”
“No.”
“What else do they do when they go ashore?”
“They go exploring.”
“What? The brothels?”
“Yes. And the country, too.”
“Are there any roads?”
“Well, anyway, they’ve been there, and that’s what they say. And some
of them. That Bill Adams fellow in my watch. He was there for five
years, and he said it was hell.”
“What was he doing?”
“Working in the tobacco fields.”
“As a slave?”
“No. A redemptioner.”
“Kidnapped?”
“No. Transported.”
“I think we’d better wait till we see Virginia for ourselves. This is
my plan, Edward. We had better do this, I think. I’ll explain things
to Howard, and get him to give Stukeley a place.”
“And compromise himself?”
“Not necessarily. Then they had better stay in Virginia. And perhaps
I’ll give up the Darien scheme and go home, find out what sort of a
mess he is in, and see if I can make some sort of a composition with
his prosecutors.”
“You can’t. You’re wanted in England yourself. We’re all outlaws,
Charles. We’re flying with ropes round our necks.”
“Yes. I suppose we are. Well. Shall we all stay in Virginia?”
“Till we’re taken and sent home?”
“Till my committee of merchants procure our pardons.”
“We shall get no pardons till our Darien scheme is a big success.”
“That’s true, too.”
“Old Cammock was saying that Carolina is a good place. They call
Charleston Puerto Franco; everybody’s safe there, he says.”
“God deliver Olivia from a place so lawless that every one is safe
there.”
“Yes. My word, yes.”
“Suppose, now. Suppose there is an arrest. Suppose Howard should be
firm. It seems hard. My God, I know I meant well; but I’ve got her
into a cruel fix. If we let them go. Go back to England, for him to be
tried. D’you know, Edward, I think it would be best.”
“I’m quite sure it would be.”
“But you would have to go with her, Perrin. You would have to go. I’d
go, too. I’d take my chance.”
“No you wouldn’t. You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve enough trouble
as it stands.”
“Oh, I’d have to go. I couldn’t stay here and eat my heart out for
her.”
“Yes, you will, Charles. Be sensible. I’ll see her safe home, if it
comes to that.”
“And the instant you land, Edward, you’ll go to Flaxley, to her uncle,
and then to her aunt Pile. Get them to come to her. My God, love
blinds a man. I ought to have seen all this. But I could only see what
was pleasant to myself.”
“Ah. Don’t say that, Charles. It’s not true. You didn’t know
Stukeley.”
“No. Stukeley then was the man Olivia loved.”
“And now?”
“Now? Now? We won’t talk about that, Edward. Get your Donne and read
to me.”
“I read so badly.”
“You read excellently. You’re a little slow sometimes.”
“I can’t vary my voice. I could, before it broke. Now I read so
monotonously.”
“Verse ought to be read in a monotone, but there is a passionate
monotone. Read me the Second Anniversary, and we’ll forget our
worries. That sounded rather like a step in the alleyway.”
Perrin leaned out of the door and looked aft.
“It’s no one,” he said. “A beam creaked. Stukeley’s asleep on the
cabin lockers.”
“It sounded like a step.”
“I’ll just make sure. No. It can’t have been anybody.” He tiptoed
lightly to the cabin door, and looked through. Stukeley was asleep on
the locker-tops, his face buried in the cushions. Perrin closed the
door quietly, and took his book from his shelf. “It was no one,” he
said. “No one at all. Only a beam.”
“Begin, then,” said his friend.
Perrin shut the door, sat down, and began to read that glorious elegy,
making a sad business of the changing accents.
While he read, Stukeley sat up and smiled, making rude remarks under
his breath. He had retired to his locker-top after dinner, intending
to visit Mrs. Inigo as soon as the coast was clear. After half an hour
of yawning, he had crept down the alleyway on tiptoe, hoping to find
the door ajar, and the handsome woman waiting for him. He noticed that
Cammock’s door was open, so that it would be dangerous to attempt the
rendezvous; but hearing a murmur of voices he had stolen close to
listen. He had expected nothing interesting to himself. He had
expected some talk of the situation, possibly some invective, such as
he had overheard at other times; but for once he heard something new;
something which (as he foresaw) would test the wonderful new scheme
which he had made that morning. He half doubted if the scheme would
stand the strain; but a little thought convinced him that he ran no
risk. So pleasant was the conversation to him that he lingered rather
too long, mistaking the intentions of the speakers, so that, when he
retreated backwards, he went too swiftly, and made some noise at the
door, enough to give Margaret the impression of a step. He had just
time to bury his head in the cushions, before Perrin entered. “Fancy
old Maggy having the guts,” he said. “We must deal with the little
Pill, too. The little dear gets poisonous.” He thought that he would
go on deck to pass the rest of the afternoon. Mrs. Inigo would have to
be abandoned till the morning.
He rubbed his cheeks vigorously to flush them. With a twist of his
fingers he ruffled his long black hair, as though he had slept. Then
he went yawning down the alleyway, pulling at the skirts of his
waistcoat. He looked in at the door of Cammock’s cabin, pretending to
be but half awakened. “Did one of you come into the cabin just now?”
he asked.
“Yes, I did,” said Perrin. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” he said, gaping. “Only I wondered who it was.”
Mrs. Inigo’s door was shut, so he passed out to the deck. He wished to
avoid Captain Cammock, who walked the poop above him. Mr. Cottrill,
who had the deck at the moment, was forward with the boatswain,
setting up the fore-backstays with the watch. The only person with
whom he could converse was Mr. Iles, the second mate, that smart young
seaman, who now sat on an inverted wash-deck tub, in the lee scuppers,
mending a pair of trousers which he had taken off for the occasion.
Puffs of wind sometimes lifted his shirt skirts, displaying his little
wiry legs. The sailmaker, who sat on the booby-hatch, putting a new
clue into a royal, was telling him, at each puff, to mind the girls
didn’t see.
“By gee,” said Mr. Iles, by no means a bashful man, “I wouldn’t mind
if der girls did see.”
“They don’t come around so much when a man gets married,” said the
sailmaker. “They get shot in the beam with a wet rag.”
“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles, “I don’t know, Sails. B’gee, I seen some
married men as didn’t do much shootin’.”
“It’s the missus does the shooting,” said Sails. “I know there’s not
many girls come whistling after me since I got married. But you young
fellers,” said Sails, “you think of nothing else, I do believe, except
the gells outside Paddy’s.”
“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles. “Dere was one of them girls outside Paddy’s.
She was a bute, all right, all right. She’d got a fine skin on her.
Gee. Hey. Like old sail.”
“They don’t last at it,” said Sails. “Five years, they say. Then they
get froze, down Lavender Pond way. That washes the poor creatures’
rooge off. But there’s not many thinks that when they come ashore, Mr.
Iles. Nor you don’t think it.”
“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles, as he stretched his leg out into the sunlight.
“That’s a leg all right, all right,” he said. “B’gee, Sails, I don’t
t’ink you could show a leg, like what that leg is.”
“I got a leg as I’d show alongside of any man’s,” said Sails.
“Let’s see your leg,” said Mr. Iles. “B’gee, Sails, you’re one of dese
consumptive fellers. You ain’t got no legs.”
“I got a better leg’n you got,” said Sails, very touchy, like all
sailors, on the subject of his physical strength. “You look here,” he
said.
“Mr. Stukeley,” cried Mr. Iles, standing up excitedly. “B’gee, sir, I
want to show legs with Sails here. Will you be the judge between us?”
Stukeley had seen similar contests in his visits to the head to be
pumped on; but he had hardly expected to see an officer’s vanity put
to the touch upon the quarter-deck. “It’ll annoy old Brandyface,” he
thought. “Yes,” he answered, “I’ll be the judge. But don’t shock old
Brandyface on the poop there.” He said this in the hearing of Captain
Cammock, who paused at the poop-rail, looked down on their
preparations with an unmoved face, and then turned to walk aft.
“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles. “It’s a pity our girls ain’t here. Dere’s some
girls’d die laughing to see us. Come on, Sails.”
Sails extended a bared leg beside him, balancing, like a flamingo, on
one foot. The boatswain, coming aft for a sack of paunch-mats, called
on his maker to come aft and watch.
“B’gee, Sails,” said Mr. Iles, looking critically at the contesting
leg. “You got a pretty good calf all right, all right.”
“You’ve been woolded pretty well, too,” said Sails. “You could keep
them going, for a little feller.”
“Them little fellers,” said the boatswain flatteringly. “They do their
piece. I seen little fellers keep them going when the rest is gone
dormy.” He glanced at Stukeley, to see how Paris would decide.
“Boatswain strip, too,” suggested Stukeley. “Now, bose. Cock up your
leg with the others.”
The boatswain shook his head with a laugh, and went back to his work.
“B’gee, sir,” said Mr. Iles, “the old bose is jealous. I’m getting
cold, b’gee.” He danced a little step dance, slapping his feet.
“You’ve both got decent legs,” said Stukeley, taking the hint. “Damn
good legs. But you want a connoisseur to decide. I’ll get Mr. Perrin!”
“Make him measure us,” said Mr. Iles.
“I ain’t going to have no Mr. Perrin,” said Sails, retiring. “My legs
speaks for theirselves. You got no legs, Mr. Iles. You only got
muscles. What a leg wants is pathos in the joints, like what I got.”
“B’gee, Mr. Stukeley,” said Iles, “I think I got old Sails to the
bad.”
“Your legs are like mine, Sails,” said Stukeley. “They show a bit old
alongside a fresh young buck like Mr. Iles here.”
“Ah, go on, sir,” said Sails. “Them legs Mr. Iles got, I wouldn’t be
seen dead with.”
Mr. Iles stuck his needle in his cap. He yawned, and spurned his tub
into the scuppers. “I’m going below now,” he said. “I’ll have a bit of
a fiddle before eight bells.” He glanced at Stukeley, who seemed
willing to talk. “You’ve never been below in the ’tween-decks, have
you, sir?” he said. “You come down and see the sights. I ain’t got
much, but I can give you a chair and a look around. Come on down this
way, sir.” He led the way down the booby-hatch, into the ’tween-decks,
where the light from the boom-gratings and the open hatch-mouths made
sunny places in the gloom. A lamp or two, hung under the quarter-deck,
gave light to the after part, showing a few whitewashed, jalousied
cabins on both sides of the ship. “That’s the round-house,” said Iles,
nodding towards the port side. “The idlers live in the round-house.
Anybody in?” he cried, shaking the door. “There’ll only be the cook in
at this time. Rise and shine there, doctor.” But the doctor was down
in the forepeak grubbing up dunnage for firewood. All that Stukeley
saw of the round-house was the darkness of a vault, through which
gleamed the oil-cloth on a table, and the paint upon a sea-chest. The
clue of a hammock sloped down from the beams just above his head, like
the crow’s-foot on a stay. The place smelt of oil; for the lamp had
been allowed to burn itself out. “Fine dry little house,” said Mr.
Iles. “Dry as a bone. They’ve good times in there, them idlers. This
is where me and Mr. Cottrill bunks. Over here, sir, to starboard. Mind
them bosun’s stores amidships.” He led the way to a couple of dingy
boxes on the starboard side. They were more roomy than the cabins on
the deck above; but they gave one no feeling of comfort. Mr. Iles’s
home was littered with second-mate’s stores. It gave out the
penetrating, homely stink of spunyarn. Spare log-lines and lead lines
were heaped in a spare bunk. From the beams dangled a variety of
lamps, and bunches of thin candles, like corpses’ fingers. His
oilskins swung behind the door, and dripped upon an old swab laid
below, as a sort of doormat. “I been oiling up my skins,” he
explained. “Don’t it stink, hey? Stinks like hell, I call it. Good for
consumptives, stink is, they say. I couldn’t ever see it myself.”
“Do you get your meals in here?” said Stukeley.
“Damn that boy,” replied Mr. Iles, evidently searching for something.
“He hasn’t put my water-carafe back. He’s left it in the wardroom
again. Come on into the wardroom, Mr. Stukeley.”
He led the way aft to the wardroom, which stretched across the breadth
of the ship right aft. The big chase-ports were open, so that the room
was light. One could see the grunting, kicking rudder-head, with its
huge blocks for the relieving-tackles. The long chase-guns were
trained athwartships, and securely housed. A tablecloth of old soft
sail was thrown across one of them. A cleated table stretched
athwartships just forward of it.
The table was rimmed with a batten to keep the plates from falling.
“Here’s my water-carafe,” said Mr. Iles. “Sit down, Mr. Stukeley. I’ll
fetch you the rum and a pannikin. We ain’t got much. But you may as
well have what there is.” From the adjoining wardroom pantry he
produced a bottle of rum, about half full, and a couple of tin
pannikins. Mr. Iles held the bottle against the light to observe the
level of the spirit. He also sniffed at the mouth after removing the
cork. “I have to watch that boy,” he explained. “He likes his little
dollop a bit too well. I don’t think he’s been at this though. Does it
seem to you’s though it been watered?”
“No, sir,” said Stukeley, swallowing his allowance. “It’s very sound
spirit. Wants another year in cask perhaps. How much of this do you
get a day?”
“Half a pint’s the whack,” said Mr. Iles, “but I don’t touch my whack
the first month, till the water slimes. Then I’ve a matter of three
gallons saved, in case I get company come. Have another go, Mr.
Stukeley?”
“Thank you,” said Stukeley, holding out his pannikin. “Here’s to old
Brandyface, our bold commander.”
“Old Cap Hammock,” said Iles, twitching the left side of his upper lip
in the smile peculiar to him.
“What do you think of old Brandyface?” said Stukeley. “Perhaps you’re
used to pirates?”
“What’s pirates got to do with it?” said Mr. Iles. “Drink hearty, sir.
I got a demijohn in the spare bunk there. What’s pirates got to do
with it?”
“Well. There’s old Brandyface in the cabin, isn’t there?”
“Old Cap Hammock ain’t no pirate?”
“Wasn’t he? He was damned near hung for it. Not so long ago, either.”
“Is that so?” said Iles. “Is that so, now? Straight?”
“He’s only an old buccaneer. What d’you think of the old boy?”
“I ain’t paid to think,” said Mr. Iles evasively. “Gee. I didn’t know
he was that sort. I wish I’d known.”
“Why?”
“Here. You ain’t doing your piece. You want to do better’n that. Lay
aft with your pannikin.”
“He was one of the gang which worked in the South Seas,” said
Stukeley. “You know the sort of thing they did. Ruffians. He was at it
all his life.”
“I wish I’d known. Gee. Hey?”
“Why?”
“Here, fill fair. Fill fair.”
“You’ll make me cocked.”
“Cock in your eye, sir. Lap the cream of it.”
“He’s a nice one to have command of a ship. Eh?”
“So he was nothing but an old pirate? Gee.”
“What sort of an old man is he to work with?”
“I wish I’d known. B’gee, sir, I’d have---- What sort is he? He don’t
know nothing. He’s only an old woman. He cain’t knot a rope-yarn. If
I’d known, I’d have----”
“What would you have?”
“He got fresh with me one time. He give me the slack of his old lip,
about leaving the harness-cask unlocked. I’d have called him down if
I’d known. I don’t let any old pirate get gay with me. See?”
“He’s a dirty old swine,” said Stukeley. “He and those damned old
women your owners.”
“That Perrin’s a bute, for fair, hey?”
“They make a nice trio to leave your wife alone with.”
“Your wife’s a peach, I guess. Hey?”
“If she is, she’s a green one. Give us the bottle there.”
“Is it true the Margaret fellow’s sweet on her?”
“Who? Oh, that little crawler. There’s a picture of a man.”
“I never had much truck with him. His look’s enough for me.”
“For me, too. Look here, Iles. I’m sick of the company in the cabin.
That old pirate, and those two twisters, and my wife sitting up like a
cold jelly. Ah. Good luck. Sick of it. You come up and have supper
with us to-night. And bring your fiddle.”
“I guess old Brandyface’d raise a stink.”
“If he does, we’ll call him down. He’s not going to dictate my guests
to me. I’ll have in any one I like.”
“Gee. That would be great. Hey?”
“I’m not going to let an old pirate say who’s to be my friends.”
“He’ll heave me quit of the cabin.”
“I’ll heave him if he does. Pretty quick.”
“Gee. I’d like to come. But he’ll be mad as hell.”
“All the better. And those two twisters, too.”
“That Perrin. Hey? He asked me one time what I did to make my hair
grow.”
“He’s about the damnedest fool I’ve met.”
“Have another ball. There’s one bell. It’ll be my watch in a quarter
of an hour.”
“You’ll come, then?”
“Oh, I’ll come. But gee, Mr. Stukeley, old Brandyco’ll fire me.”
“We’ll have a bit of sport if he does. Bring your fiddle. Oh. Let’s
have a song. Let’s sing ‘Tickle Toby.’”
“No. I don’t know it well enough. Let’s have this one about the
sailor’s wives. D’you know this one?”
Until eight bells were made, Mr. Iles sang to Mr. Stukeley, who joined
in the choruses, and sometimes offered a solo. The songs were all
vile. They were the product of dirty drinking-bars, and dirty young
men. Youth sometimes affects such songs, and such haunts, from that
greed for life which is youth’s great charm and peril. That men of
mature experience should sing them, enjoying them, after tasting of
life’s bounty, was hateful, and also pitiful, as though a dog should
eat a child. The couple went on deck together at eight bells, singing
their scrannel for the mustering crew to hear.
A few minutes before his watch was up, Mr. Iles gave the deck to the
boatswain, and went below to dress. It was not his day for a first
wash, but Mr. Cottrill gave him the first turn of the basin (it
contained about a pint) on promise of a plug of tobacco at the next
issue of slops. Mr. Iles washed himself carefully, in spite of Mr.
Cottrill’s complaint that water so soapy would hardly serve the second
comer, let alone the boy, who had the reversion of it after him. After
washing, he combed his hair, put on his best suit, gave his shoes a
rub of lamp-black, took his fiddle from its case, and went on deck to
muster his watch at four bells. A few moments after four bells, while
the dismissed starboard watch went whooping forward to supper, the
steward rang the cabin bell, and Stukeley met his guest at the
alleyway door.
“Come in,” said Stukeley. “Before old Brandynose comes aft.”
They passed aft into the cabin.
Margaret, Perrin, and Olivia were already seated when they entered.
Mrs. Inigo stood behind Captain Cammock’s empty chair, waiting to take
the covers. She was looking with contempt at the wife she had
supplanted, thinking her a confident, pale, thin-lipped thing, and
wondering what her husband could have seen in her. Captain Cammock had
been delayed for a moment, having cut his chin while shaving. When
Stukeley entered Perrin was talking to Olivia.
“For whom is the place there?” he was saying, nodding towards the
napkin opposite to him.
“Why, we’re laid for six,” she answered.
“Yes,” said Stukeley. “Olivia, let me introduce Mr. Iles. Mr. Iles has
come to give us a little music.”
Olivia, rather startled (for she had seen Mr. Iles about the decks,
dressed like a seaman, and doing seaman’s work, with much foul
language), glanced at the man and made a little cold bow, dropping her
eyes to her plate as Mr. Iles advanced, holding out his hand.
“This is Mr. Iles, Captain Margaret.” Stukeley grinned to see Captain
Margaret’s anger plainly show itself for a moment. But he had
misjudged his victim’s power of self-control. Margaret’s face
instantly became impassive. He stared rather hard at Mr. Iles,
inclined his head in a little cold bow, and wished him “Good evening,”
the only words which occurred to him, in a little cold voice.
“Hell,” said Stukeley to himself, “I ought to have introduced Perrin
first. Now Pilly’ll take his cue from Maggy.”
“Mr. Perrin I think you know,” he continued aloud. “You sit over here,
Mr. Iles, by me.”
Perrin looked at Mr. Iles and blushed, partly with anger at having to
meet the man, partly at the slight put upon them all, upon Olivia
even, by Stukeley’s invitation. Mr. Iles for the moment was dashed by
the chill of his reception, and awed by the circumstance of the cabin
dinner. His thought, for a few chaotic seconds, was what in blazes to
do with the napkin. Did it go round the neck, or how? Olivia felt that
the coldness of Margaret and Perrin was in some sort a reflection upon
her husband; it nettled her to defend Mr. Iles against her will. She
guessed that Mr. Iles must be a fine musician, that her husband had
discovered his talent, and had decided, it was just like her dear Tom,
that his talent made him a fit companion for her. She would talk to
Tom about it that night, however, as there might be unpleasantness to
them all if Mr. Iles were to be admitted to the cabin even
occasionally. Even Mrs. Inigo seemed to be sniffing with contempt. Had
she known it, the negro steward was at that instant spreading the news
in the round-house, where Sails proposed that the company should go on
deck to hear Captain Cammock at the moment of his introduction.
Olivia’s reflections lasted for a few seconds. She seemed to pass over
the whole situation in an instant of time. Mr. Iles had hardly sat
down, hiding his hands below the table, when Olivia, as though
divining his thoughts, came to his rescue, by bending forward
graciously, taking up her napkin (it was folded in the likeness of a
sea-boot), and spreading it, unfolded, upon her lap. Perrin, who was
watching her, guessed her intention. His natural kindness gave him a
sort of pity for Mr. Iles, whom he judged (from his confusion) to be
an unwilling agent. He leaned across towards him, and made some remark
likely to put him at his ease.
“D’you know whether we’re in soundings yet, Mr. Iles?”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Iles. “They won’t make no cast of der lead till
der middle watch.”
“What sort of a run has it been to-day?” asked Olivia.
“It’s been a good run, miss, all right, all right,” he answered,
growing confident. “We done seven knots ever since der forenoon.”
“Just step forward, Mrs. Inigo,” said Margaret, “and ask Captain
Cammock if we shall begin without him?”
“I’ll go,” said Perrin.
“No. I’ll go, sir,” said Mrs. Inigo.
“You look pale, Maggy,” said Stukeley. “Anything wrong?”
“Thanks. I’m particularly well. Are you well?”
“Very, thanks. You look annoyed about something. Doesn’t he, Iles?”
“You don’t look quite right to me, sir,” said Iles.
“Really.”
“Captain Cammock will be here in a minute, sir.”
“Let’s begin,” said Olivia. “I’m hungry.”
“Take the cover,” said Margaret.
“B’gee, sir,” said Iles. “You don’t know sailors, or you wouldn’t do a
ting like that.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” said Margaret, hoping to get some scrap of
knowledge to atone for his irritation. “Tell me what I’ve done wrong,
please?”
“Taken der cover off der soup,” said Mr. Iles.
“Is that a great crime at sea?” said Olivia.
“It’s the old man’s perk,” said Mr. Iles. “B’gee. I was in a turtler
once, off of the Grand Cays there. I done that once. I didn’t do it a
second time. No, sir.”
“What did they do to you?” said Olivia.
“He give me der lid for me supper, lady.”
“How old were you then?” said Perrin.
“A young one,” said Iles. “My old pop was the old man in that ship.”
“Your old----?”
“My pop. The old one. My father.”
“Tell us one of those stories you were spinning me this afternoon,
Iles,” said Stukeley. “That one about the girl. You know. The girl.
The girl who----”
“Which girl?” said Mr. Iles. “I don’t know which girl you mean.”
“The girl outside Paddy’s. Mr. Iles is a wonderful raconteur,” he
explained. “He’s like an old sailor, you know. Excellent. He told me
some this afternoon.”
“What sort of stories do you tell?” Olivia asked.
“Just amusing stories to pass the time, miss,” he answered.
“Do you make them up yourself?”
“Some of them I seen myself, miss,” he answered. “I don’t know who
makes the others up. Some son of a---- Some gentleman’s son with
nothing better to do. But b’gee, I don’t tink I could tell one of them
kind here exactly.”
“Why not?” asked Captain Margaret, looking at him coldly. “Why
couldn’t you?”
“I guess you know, all right, all right.”
“I don’t frequent pothouses. So perhaps I don’t know.”
“That’s where you sentimental prigs go wrong,” said Stukeley, flaring
up. “It’d do you a sight of good if you did frequent pothouses. You
meet better people in a pothouse than you do in one of your Chelsea
twaddle-shops.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Margaret calmly. “What is a Chelsea
twaddle-shop, Olivia? You’ve stayed at Chelsea. What is it? A
book-shop?”
Olivia smiled. Captain Margaret was like her dead brother; he did not
show temper even when people spoke to rouse him. She defined the
offending shop.
“It’s a name Tom gives to houses in Chelsea, like my aunt Pile’s
house. Where the people talk a good deal of poetry and painting. Where
you meet intellectual people.”
“Don’t you like intellectual people, Stukeley?”
“I don’t like prigs, and I don’t like blue-stockings, and I don’t
like----”
“People who care for beautiful things? Is that it?”
“A lot of mewing old women who ought to be in a rook-shop.”
“What’s a rook-shop?” said Olivia.
“A monastery, my dear. A monk or nun house. Somewhere where they could
mew and caw their silly hearts out. Beauty. Eh? Beauty. I’ve heard ’em
talk about beauty. What do they know about beauty?”
“There’s nothing in poetry and that,” said Mr. Iles, rallying to his
patron. “What’s the good of it? It’s unpractical stuff. B’gee, der
poets should come to sea. I’d show ’em what to write about.”
“What would you show them?” said Perrin.
“Show them?” said Mr. Iles. “I’d show them what a man is, for one
thing.”
“And what is a man?” said Margaret.
“He ain’t an old woman, anyway,” said Mr. Iles.
“I don’t want to know what he isn’t. I want to know what he is. What
is a man?”
“A felly what can do his piece, and stick it out. A man who won’t hang
back, or lie up, or give you no lip.”
“You would like the world composed of such men?”
“B’gee I would. You’re right.”
“And you, Stukeley?”
“I’d like my dinner in peace, without a lot of cross-examination. Talk
about beauty with Perrin there. He likes to hear you. I don’t.”
“No,” said Perrin. “No, Stukeley. I shouldn’t think you ever liked to
hear of anything noble.”
“Noble. Good Lord. I hope I spend my time better. You two seem to
think because you read a few half-tipped writers like yourselves,
you’re free to judge everybody else.”
“Well,” said Margaret. “And don’t you judge everybody else? Better
judge, I think, with some knowledge of the law.”
“Don’t lose your temper about it. You’re such a funny devil.”
“Mr. Iles,” said Olivia, in order to create a diversion. “Have you
ever been in Virginia, in any of your voyages?”
“Yes, miss. I been there two or three times.”
“Tell us about it, Mr. Iles,” said Margaret. “Were you there at the
time of the rebellion?”
“I was there just after.”
“What was the cause of the rebellion?” Olivia asked. “It was hushed
up, in England. But a man I once met told me that it was a very
terrible thing. You remember Charles Myngs, Charles? He was one of the
rebels.”
“I know. He was very lucky to get away. The rebellion was caused by
the action of a wise, far-seeing young man, who objected to paying
taxes to, and being governed by, a body of wiseacres three thousand
miles away, who gave nothing in return, except expensive impositions.”
“You talk like a rebel yourself,” said Stukeley. “I suppose you
sympathize with them?”
“Most certainly I do.”
“But to go against the King,” said Olivia. “And to cause all that
bloodshed.”
“The King,” said Iles, with contempt. “I don’t see what you English
fellies want with a king. What good is a king to you, anyway? I seen
him once. I wouldn’t own to a man like the one I seen. King James,
hey?”
At this moment, Captain Cammock entered, stuffing a handkerchief
between his white stock and his neck, to arrest the blood dripping
from the gash. Stukeley grinned, and watched him, waiting for the
explosion. He did not know that Cammock had guessed Stukeley’s plan on
hearing Mr. Iles’s shrill voice when Mrs. Inigo opened the cabin door,
so that she might carry off the soup. He was angry with Stukeley; but
he was far more angry with his little second mate. His first impulse
had been to enter, and fling Mr. Iles through the stern-window. Then
he thought that that was what Stukeley and Iles had planned between
them, and expected. The possibility of the fiddle occurred to him. It
was just possible that Olivia had asked for a tune, not knowing, how
could she know, of the captain’s pride of place in old sea-custom. She
was a fine, delicate lady. He wouldn’t demean himself before her, by
noticing any silly little slight, devised by a crawler and a cur. He
smiled into his shaving-glass, as he dabbed away the blood, thinking
that his old days as a man of war had taught him a little prudence. He
referred most of his daily problems, such as they were, to their
equivalents on the larger stage of war. Once or twice, he thought, the
Spaniards had tempted them, to make them attack, but only the “mad,
swearing, flashy fellows” were caught in that way. It was better to go
by the difficult road; it proved the easier in the end. He would
settle with Mr. Iles later on.
He went to his place at the head of the table, and made some apology
to Olivia.
“I’m sorry to be so late, Mrs. Stukeley.”
“Have you hurt yourself? I hope you’ve not cut yourself badly.”
“No. No. It just bleeds. I upset the alum I had, last week. Good
evening, sir. Good evening, mister. Good evening, Mr. Perrin. May I
give you a bit more beef, Mr. Iles? I won’t have any soup, thank you,
stewardess. Bring me the bread-barge. Well, Mrs. Stukeley. We’ll soon
see Virginia at this rate. Very soon. We might sight the cruiser at
any time.”
“What is the cruiser?” Olivia asked.
“She’s a man-of-war, Mrs. Stukeley. She cruises up and down between
the two Capes.”
“B’gee, Captain Cammock,” said Mr. Iles. “I should a thought you’d a
known better’n to expect to see her for another week.”
“Would you, mister?” he answered. “They make a wide sweep at this time
of year.”
“How do you know?” put in Stukeley.
“They come away out to look for pirates. The pirates come round at
this season, Mr. Stukeley, to look for the English merchantmen.”
“Well. Mr. Iles knows Virginia, and he says they don’t.”
“I can’t help that. Can I?”
“Is there any chance of the pirates attacking us?” Olivia asked.
“I should pity any pirate that tries.”
“Dog doesn’t eat dog,” said Stukeley. “Our captain here’s a pirate
himself. He’ll give his old friends the wink.”
“Was you really a pirate, Captain Cammock?” said Mr. Iles.
Olivia stared at the captain curiously.
“Take away the beef, stewardess,” he said in a natural tone, ignoring
the question. “Steward. Steward there. You may take away. Mrs.
Stukeley, I hope you’ll give us a song afterwards. If you’ll give us a
song, and Mr. Iles a tune on his fiddle, I’ll bring in another treat,
and we’ll all be merry.”
“What treat have you for us, captain?” asked Margaret.
“I’ve got a box of raisin-candy, from Ilo, in Peru,” he answered.
“It’s said to be a great dainty; but some people find it too sweet.
But only if you sing, Mrs. Stukeley.”
“Oh, I’ll sing. I haven’t sung for a week now. I shall be delighted to
sing.”
“And you’ll sing, too, Mr. Stukeley?”
“Oh, I vote we don’t sing. Let’s have cards. There’s no sense in
caterwauling.”
“I got a fine song,” said Mr. Iles, taking a pull at his glass of
spirits.
“What song is that?” said Perrin.
“The lament of the old buccaneer, it’s called. It’s about a pirate who
was hanged. B’gee. He’d been captain in a merchant ship after. But
they hung him.”
Captain Cammock asked the company if they would have any more duff. He
himself had had more than enough.
“Look at him blushing,” said Stukeley, nudging Iles.
At this moment, there came loud cries from the deck, of “Watch there.
Watch,” shouted by many voices cheerily. Then there were cries of
“Haul in. Haul in. Haul in. Snatch it and run her up.” Then a silence,
a sudden stamp of feet, and the voice of some one asking what was on
the arming. “Sand and small shells,” came the answer of the boatswain.
The diners at the cabin table seemed to see the man raising the heavy
plummet to show the spoils stuck upon the grease.
“Land o-o-o-h,” he cried. “Land o-o-o-h. Hooray.” Then the seamen,
gathered in the waist, with the redness of the sunset on them, cast
loose a gun at Mr. Cottrill’s order. As the cook, coming from the
galley with a red-hot poker, called to the men to stand clear of the
breech, Captain Cammock bowed to Olivia, raising his glass.
“Mrs. Stukeley,” he said, “we’re in soundings. Your very good health.
Soundings, gentlemen. You must all drink to soundings. Now then. There
goes the gun. Three cheers.” There were no cheers in Stukeley, though
he drank the toast.
Half an hour later, after hearing a few songs, and a jig upon the
fiddle, Captain Cammock sat smoking in his cabin. He struck his gong
to call the steward. “Ask Mr. Iles to come here, please?” In a few
minutes Mr. Iles appeared, followed by Stukeley, who had expected the
summons. “Mr. Stukeley,” said the captain, “I shall be pleased to see
you later. I wish to talk with Mr. Iles a moment.”
“Thank you,” said Stukeley. “But I wish to hear what you’ve got to say
to Mr. Iles.”
“It doesn’t concern you, Mr. Stukeley.” Mr. Iles tittered.
“Mr. Iles is my friend,” said Stukeley. “I’ll make it concern me.”
“Mr. Stukeley. I don’t wish to be rude. But I command here. There’s
the door.”
“To hell with the door.”
“Go on deck, Mr. Iles, till I send for you.”
“Stay here, Iles. Look here, my old pirate----”
“Did you hear my order, Mr. Iles?”
“No.”
“No, he didn’t hear. He’s accustomed to being ordered by gentlemen.
He’s not used to pirates.”
“I’ll repeat my order. Go on deck, Mr. Iles, and wait there till I
send for you.”
“Don’t you do it, Iles. I’m damned if I’d take an order of that sort.”
“Do you hear me, Mr. Iles?”
“B’gee, cap, you’ll speak to me like you’d speak to any one else. I
ain’t goin’ to be called down by any old pirate.”
Cammock rose, breathing rather hard, but speaking very quietly. “Go on
deck,” he said.
“He’s my guest,” said Stukeley, “and it’s his watch below. I’m damned
if he shall go on deck.”
“Are you going, Mr. Iles?”
“Ah, git ter hell.”
“Don’t you hit him,” said Stukeley, as Captain Cammock picked up his
little gong-hammer.
“Hit me?” said Iles. “Hit me? B’gee, cap, you hit me and I’ll mark you
for life all right, all right.”
“I’m not going to do any hitting, Mr. Stukeley,” said Cammock quietly.
He went to the gong and struck it softly till the steward came.
“Send the boatswain to me,” said Cammock.