Five o'clock rolled down from the sun and plumped soundlessly into
the sea. The golden collar widened into a glittering island; and
a faint breeze that had been playing with the edges of the
awning and swaying one of the dangling blue slippers became
suddenly freighted with song. It was a chorus of men in close
harmony and in perfect rhythm to an accompanying sound of oars
dealing the blue writers. Ardita lifted her head and listened.
"Carrots and peas,
Beans on their knees,
Pigs in the seas,
Lucky fellows!
Blow us a breeze,
Blow us a breeze,
Blow us a breeze,
With your bellows."
Ardita's brow wrinkled in astonishment. Sitting very still she
listened eagerly as the chorus took up a second verse.
"Onions and beans,
Marshalls and Deans,
Goldbergs and Greens
And Costellos.
Blow us a breeze,
Blow us a breeze,
Blow us a breeze,
With your bellows."
With an exclamation she tossed her book to the desk, where it
sprawled at a straddle, and hurried to the rail. Fifty feet away
a large rowboat was approaching containing seven men, six of them
rowing and one standing up in the stern keeping time to their
song with an orchestra leader's baton.
"Oysters and rocks,
Sawdust and socks,
Who could make clocks
Out of cellos?---"
The leader's eyes suddenly rested on Ardita, who was leaning over
the rail spellbound with curiosity. He made a quick movement
with his baton and the singing instantly ceased. She saw that he
was the only white man in the boat--the six rowers were negroes.
"Narcissus ahoy!" he called politely.
"What's the idea of all the discord?" demanded Ardita cheerfully.
"Is this the varsity crew from the county nut farm?"
By this time the boat was scraping the side of the yacht and a
great bulking negro in the bow turned round and grasped the
ladder. Thereupon the leader left his position in the stern and
before Ardita had realized his intention he ran up the ladder and
stood breathless before her on the deck.
"The women and children will be spared!" he said briskly. "All
crying babies will be immediately drowned and all males put in
double irons!" Digging her hands excitedly down into the pockets
of her dress Ardita stared at him, speechless with astonishment.
He was a young man with a scornful mouth and the bright blue eyes
of a healthy baby set in a dark sensitive face. His hair was
pitch black, damp and curly--the hair of a Grecian statue gone
brunette. He was trimly built, trimly dressed, and graceful as an
agile quarter-back.
"Well, I'll be a son of a gun!" she said dazedly.
They eyed each other coolly.
"Do you surrender the ship?"
"Is this an outburst of wit?" demanded Ardita. "Are you an
idiot--or just being initiated to some fraternity?"
"I asked you if you surrendered the ship."
"I thought the country was dry," said Ardita disdainfully. "Have
you been drinking finger-nail enamel? You better get off this
yacht!"
"What?" the young man's voice expressed incredulity.
"Get off the yacht! You heard me!"
He looked at her for a moment as if considering what she had
said.
"No," said his scornful mouth slowly; "No, I won't get off the
yacht. You can get off if you wish."
Going to the rail he gave a curt command and immediately the crew
of the rowboat scrambled up the ladder and ranged themselves in
line before him, a coal-black and burly darky at one end and a
miniature mulatto of four feet nine at to other. They seemed to
be uniformly dressed in some sort of blue costume ornamented with
dust, mud, and tatters; over the shoulder of each was slung a
small, heavy-looking white sack, and under their arms they
carried large black cases apparently containing musical
instruments.
"'Ten-SHUN!" commanded the young man, snapping his own heels
together crisply. "Right DRISS! Front! Step out here, Babe!"
The smallest Negro took a quick step forward and saluted.
"Yas-suh!"
"Take command, go down below, catch the crew and tie 'em up--all
except the engineer. Bring him up to me. Oh, and pile those bags
by the rail there."
"Yas-suh!"
Babe saluted again and wheeling about motioned for the five others
to gather about him. Then after a short whispered consultation
they all filed noiselessly down the companionway.
"Now," said the young man cheerfully to Ardita, who had witnessed
this last scene in withering silence, "if you will swear on your
honor as a flapper--which probably isn't worth much--that you'll
keep that spoiled little mouth of yours tight shut for
forty-eight hours, you can row yourself ashore in our
rowboat."
"Otherwise what?"
"Otherwise you're going to sea in a ship."
With a little sigh as for a crisis well passed, the young man
sank into the settee Ardita had lately vacated and stretched his
arms lazily. The corners of his mouth relaxed appreciatively as
he looked round at the rich striped awning, the polished brass,
and the luxurious fittings of the deck. His eye felt on the book,
and then on the exhausted lemon.
"Hm," he said, "Stonewall Jackson claimed that lemon-juice
cleared his head. Your head feel pretty clear?"
Ardita disdained to answer.
"Because inside of five minutes you'll have to make a clear
decision whether it's go or stay."
He picked up the book and opened it curiously.
"The Revolt of the Angels. Sounds pretty good. French, eh?" He
stared at her with new interest. "You French?"
"No."
"What's your name?"
"Farnam."
"Farnam what?"
"Ardita Farnam."
"Well Ardita, no use standing up there and chewing out the
insides of your mouth. You ought to break those nervous habits
while you're young. Come over here and sit down."
Ardita took a carved jade case from her pocket, extracted a
cigarette and lit it with a conscious coolness, though she knew
her hand was trembling a little; then she crossed over with her
supple, swinging walk, and sitting down in the other settee blew
a mouthful of smoke at the awning.
"You can't get me off this yacht," she said steadily; "and you
haven't got very much sense if you think you'll get far with it.
My uncle'll have wirelesses zigzagging all over this ocean by
half past six."
"Hm."
She looked quickly at his face, caught anxiety stamped there
plainly in the faintest depression of the mouth's corners.
"It's all the same to me," she said, shrugging her shoulders.
"'Tisn't my yacht. I don't mind going for a coupla hours' cruise.
I'll even lend you that book so you'll have something to read on
the revenue boat that takes you up to Sing-Sing."
He laughed scornfully.
"If that's advice you needn't bother. This is part of a plan
arranged before I ever knew this yacht existed. If it hadn't been
this one it'd have been the next one we passed anchored along
the coast."
"Who are you?" demanded Ardita suddenly. "And what are you?"
"You've decided not to go ashore?"
"I never even faintly considered it."
"We're generally known," he said "all seven of us, as Curtis
Carlyle and his Six Black Buddies late of the Winter Garden and
the Midnight Frolic."
"You're singers?"
"We were until to-day. At present, due to those white bags you
see there we're fugitives from justice and if the reward offered
for our capture hasn't by this time reached twenty thousand
dollars I miss my guess."
"What's in the bags?" asked Ardita curiously.
"Well," he said "for the present we'll call it--mud--Florida
mud."