Sunday came. The sun baptized the sea. O tireless, sleepless sun! It
burned and kissed things. It baked the ship into a loose, disjointed
state. Only the brave hoarse breezes at dusk prevented it from leaving
her so. It refused to keep things glued. It fried sores and baked
bunions, browned and blackened faces, reddened and blistered eyes. It
lured to the breast of the sea sleepy sharks ready to pounce upon prey.
Falling night buried the sun's wreckage. To the deckers below it
brought the Bishop of the West Indies, a wordy, free-jointed man. He
was a fat, bull-necked Scot with a tuft of red grizzly hair sticking up
on his head and the low heavy jowl of a bulldog. He wore a black shiny
robe which fell to the tips of his broad shiny black shoes. An obedient
man, he had deserted the salon on the upper deck--deserted red-faced
Britons in cork hats and crash on a jaunt to the iron mines of Peru--to
take the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ to the black deckers below.
He very piously resisted grime and filth. On one occasion to avoid
stepping on a woman's sleeping arm, he was obliged to duck under a
hammock. It swayed gently and the man in it was one of those rare
specimens--a close-mouthed, introspective Savanilla trader. As he
shot up from beneath it, the Bishop was just in time to have splashed
on the breast of his shining robe a mouthful of the trader's ill-timed
spit. For half a second he blinked, and heated words died on his lips.
But seeing the Colombian unaware of the impiety, he gruffly scrambled
onward, brushing his coat.
Edging between a carpenter's awl and a bag of peas and yams, something
ripped a hole in the Bishop's coat. He was sweating and crimson. His
collar was too high and too tight. Stepping over a basin of vomit, he
barely escaped mashing a baby. He was uncertain that he had not done
so, and he swiftly returned and without saying a word gave the sea-sick
mother half a florin.
He clapped a fatherly hand on Gerald's head, and the boy looked up at
him with wondering bright eyes. Sarah Bright was sitting on the trunk
skinning a tangerine.
"Your little boy?" smiled the Bishop, "smart-looking little chap, isn't
he?" It was a relief to come upon them.
"Tu'n roun' yo' face, sah," she said, "an' lemme brush de sugah awf
yo' mout'--" Assiduously she tidied him.
It was dark, and the ship was rolling unsettlingly. A kerosene torch
spun a star-glow on the Bishop's pale tense face. He was about to
address them. He was buried amongst a cargo of potatoes and the litter
of the deckers. His was a sober impulse. On all sides the Dutch of
Curaçao, the Latins of the Pass, the Africans of Jamaica, and the Irish
of Barbadoes--spat, rocked, dozed, crooned.
In a fetid mist odors rose. Sordid; tainted; poised like a sinister
vapor over the narrow expanse of deck. And with a passionate calm, the
Bishop, clasping the Book of Books, faced them.
"O Lord, our God," he trembled, "O everlasting Father, again it is our
privilege to come to Thee, asking Thy blessing and Thy mercy. Great
God and Father! Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest the hearts of
all men, and especially the hearts of these, Thy children! O Sacred
Jehovah! purify their wretched souls--give unto them the strength of
Thy wisdom and the glory of Thy power! Lead them, O Blessed Father,
unto the path-way of righteousness that they may shine in the glory
of Thy goodness! Help them, O! Divine Father! to see the light that
shineth in the hearts of all men--we ask Thee Thy blessings in Thy son,
Christ Jesus' name, Amen!"