MR. DYKES RECEIVES HIS LESSON
For three days the _Hawk_ continued to follow in the gunboat's trail,
and everybody was asking everybody else in hushed whispers what the
Captain's plans were. The consensus of opinion now was that he intended
the German to play the part of the cat in the fable and pull the
chestnuts out of the fire: in other words, to wait till the enemy had
got all the plunder he could carry and then swoop down upon him. The
question was, when would the swooping start?
During all this time, Calamity had not spoken a single word to Miss
Fletcher, or, indeed, betrayed any sign that he was aware of her
existence. He had never even mentioned her or asked how she was
accommodated, and, for all he knew to the contrary, she might have been
sleeping on deck under a steam-winch. Mr. Dykes had not told him that he
had given up his own cabin to the girl and was sharing the
second-mate's. He feared, not without reason, that, had he done so,
Calamity would have ordered him back to his own quarters. As to the
ex-bos'n Skelt, he had become a very unobtrusive member of the crew, and
nothing further had been heard from him concerning his right to be
treated as a passenger. It is true that he once let out a dark hint to
the effect that he was "biding his time," but no one paid the slightest
attention to him.
Meanwhile, a change had come over the lives and habits of the two mates
and the chief engineer. The refining influence of feminine society--as
McPhulach poetically termed it--was already beginning to tell on them.
The mate, for instance, now used up two clean shirts a week and quite a
number of white pocket-handkerchiefs; the second followed the good
example by having his shoes cleaned every day, and substituting,
whenever he happened to think of it, "blooming," for the sanguinary
adjective he had hitherto favoured, and the engineer not only washed his
face every night when coming off watch, but, on his own confession,
changed his socks rather more frequently than he had done in the past.
Whether the lady on whose behalf these sacrifices were made was aware of
them, and duly appreciative, the three dandies had no means of
determining. McPhulach, who was a practical man and saw no merit in
hiding his light under a bushel, did once suggest that Miss Fletcher
should be tactfully made aware of the astonishing changes she had
wrought. The suggestion, however, was promptly sat upon by the mates,
who wanted to convey the impression that their present exemplary mode of
life was in nowise abnormal despite the strain it entailed.
"I've had twa pairs o' socks washed sin' we started, and that's no' a
month ago," grumbled the engineer, when his publicity proposition was
opposed.
"You've got to remember you're a--bloomin' gentleman nah," answered
Smith.
"It's awfu' expenseeve," murmured McPhulach plaintively.
Although Miss Fletcher was the last person to encourage familiarity, she
was capable of a certain _camaraderie_ through having lived so much
among men. She had, it seemed, lost her mother at an early age, and
since then had accompanied her father on nearly all his voyages.
Therefore she exhibited neither the coy timidity nor coquettish lure
which might have been expected from a girl of her age under
circumstances like the present. Her manner towards the three men who
had, as it were, appointed themselves her hosts was disarmingly frank;
as a woman she kept them at arm's length, as a companion she was as free
and easy as a man. Smith, when discussing her one day with the mate,
remarked that she only remembered she was a woman when something was
said which any decent man would resent. Mr. Dykes alone occasionally
assumed a patronisingly masculine attitude, towards which, so far, the
girl had shown no resentment. This, he sometimes tried to believe, was a
tacit admission that she regarded him with special favour, if not with
some degree of awe, though at other times common sense prevailed and he
realised that it was due to sheer indifference.
But Mr. Dykes was becoming very dissatisfied with things as they were.
For no particular reason, unless it was that he had given up his cabin
to her, the mate somehow felt that he had a prior claim to Miss
Fletcher's respect and esteem. He was, therefore, secretly aggrieved to
think that Smith and McPhulach, whose sacrifices on her behalf had not
exceeded a little extra personal cleanliness, were as much in favour as
himself. In short, Mr. Dykes was in danger of falling a victim to the
tender passion--if, indeed he had not already done so--hence the jealous
feelings that were beginning to ferment in his bosom. He suffered most,
however, when it happened that he was taking the second dog-watch, and,
from his post on the bridge, could see Miss Fletcher, Smith, and
McPhulach, laughing and chatting on the after-hatch as though he,
Ephraim Dykes, had never existed.
It was during one of these "free and easys," as Smith called them, that
the girl suddenly began to discuss the Captain of the _Hawk_. Hitherto
she had ignored him as completely as he had ignored her, though a keen
observer might have noticed that she frequently cast a curious glance
towards the bridge when he happened to be on it.
"Bless you, he's a bloomin' bag of mystery, he is; a reg'lar
perambulatin' paradox," replied the second-mate in answer to a question
which the girl had put regarding the skipper. "There ain't no gettin'
the latitude nor longitude of him."
"He's a michty quare mon," corroborated the engineer.
"But is his name really Calamity?" asked the girl.
"Meybe it is and meybe it isna," answered McPhulach cautiously. "Some
say he's a mon o' guid family, and others declare the revairse is the
truth; but which is right I dinna ken."
"Well, I've never sailed with him before," put in Smith, "but from the
little I've see'd of his gentle habits I should say he'd die of throat
trouble all of a sudden."
"Throat trouble?" queried the girl.
"Yes; the throat trouble that comes of wearin' a rope collar too tight.
Why, we'd only been out a few days when he starts to half murder the
whole bloomin' crew. A roarin', ravin', rampin' lunatic he was," and
Smith proceeded to relate, in pungent, picturesque language, the manner
in which Calamity had quelled the mutiny single-handed.
"I wish I'd been here to see it," murmured the girl almost fervently,
while a light leapt to her grey eyes which made Smith think of firelight
seen through a closed window in winter time.
"Blimey! I don't admire your taste, Miss," he ejaculated. "The decks
were like a blood--yes, they were--like a bloody slaughter-house.
There's no other way of puttin' it."
"At any rate, he's a man," retorted Miss Fletcher with a queer note of
defiance in her voice, "and I admire him for it."
Smith gazed at her for a moment in utter perplexity. He had confidently
expected that, after the way in which the Captain had treated her, the
girl would be only too ready to accept anything that could be said to
his disadvantage. Yet she was actually expressing admiration for him and
his bloodthirsty methods! Her attitude not only amazed him, but struck
him as being shockingly unfeminine. As a woman she ought to have
expressed the strongest disgust at the skipper's brutality, and not
gloried in it.
"Lummy! You're a queer'n and no error," he murmured.
He rose to his feet, and, going to the taffrail, expectorated over the
side with unnecessary violence. Like most men whose lives have been
spent in rough places and whose knowledge of women is limited, he
cherished a pathetic belief in their legendary gentleness and timidity.
It was true that this particular young woman had not displayed these
qualities in any marked degree, but he had never doubted their existence
even so. He felt now that, in being a woman, she was living under false
pretences, so to speak. It was a very real grievance in his eyes, more
especially when he reflected on the noble restraint he had exercised
over his speech and manners out of regard for her sex.
He returned moodily to the hatch and sat down. The girl was still
discussing Calamity with McPhulach, her voice defiantly enthusiastic.
"If I were a man I'd ask for no better Captain to sail under," she was
saying.
"It's a pity you ain't, then," growled Smith, who had returned just in
time to overhear this remark.
"I've often thought so myself," she retorted. "Men are getting too soft
nowadays."
"Meybe so," put in the engineer soothingly. "But ye'll hae no cause to
complain o' the saftness aboord this packet, I'm thinkin'. And gin it's
devilry ye're so muckle fond of, ye've no need to fash yersel' aboot
missin' any here."
"Not half you needn't," added Smith with a grim chuckle. "When the old
man----" he broke off abruptly as the ship's bell struck. "Holy Moses!
eight bells already!" he ejaculated, and, rising to his feet, went off
to relieve Mr. Dykes.
As the latter descended the companion-ladder after handing over the
watch to the second-mate, he paused suddenly before reaching the deck.
He was not an imaginative man and had never made a study of beauty
except as represented by the female crimps and spongers who infested the
various ports he had visited. But for a moment the sight of the girl
sitting on the hatch, her beautiful hair softly radiant in the
moonlight, and her figure in its close-fitting jersey so strangely
alluring in the half-concealment of the shadows, held him spellbound.
The splendour of the night, with its star-powdered sky of deepest,
limpid blue; the brilliant moon whose beams made an ever-widening track
of molten silver with shimmering tints of bronze, across the blue-black
waters; the wake of foaming, sparkling iridescence in the steamer's
track,--all these things moved him not one jot for he had witnessed them
times without number. He saw nothing, in fact, but the girl, sitting
with her face resting on her hands, gazing pensively out to sea. Never
before had he realised that she was beautiful and intensely feminine
despite all her affected masculinity.
"Durned if she don't look like a picture postcard," he murmured
ecstatically.
He walked up to the hatch and sat down near her, but she did not turn
her head nor show any sign of being aware of his presence. He coughed to
attract her attention, but without result; she continued gazing with
sad, thoughtful eyes into the distant mingling of crystal blue and
glistening silver-grey which marked the junction of sea and sky.
"Say, ain't it a dandy night?" he observed, unable to keep silence any
longer.
The girl made no answer, but the remark aroused McPhulach from the
reverie into which he, also, had fallen. Rising to his feet, he knocked
the ashes out of his pipe and yawned.
"Gin I bide here any langer, I'll be consooming anither pipe o' bacca;
so I'll wish ye a verra guid nicht, Miss Fletcher," he said.
"Good-night, McPhulach," answered the girl, who rarely used the prefix
"Mr." when addressing her companions.
The engineer strolled off towards his cabin and the mate, to his great
satisfaction, was left alone with her. For some time he sat fidgeting,
anxious to speak, yet unable to think of anything to say. He watched
her furtively out of the corner of his eye, secretly gloating over the
outlines of her shapely figure, the delicate poise of her head, and the
fascinating profusion of her wonderful hair.
Suddenly the girl rose to her feet, and, seeing the mate, started.
"I didn't know you were there," she said.
The mate made as if to speak, but uttered no sound. He rose unsteadily,
and as the girl was about to move away, strode to her side.
"I want you," he said in a hoarse, quivering voice.
He made a movement as if to encircle her waist with his arm, but, before
he could do so, her left fist shot out and, catching him unexpectedly
squarely between the eyes, sent him reeling into the scuppers.
When he recovered himself and sat up he was a different man. All the
passionate ardour, all the irresistible desire had left him, and he was
conscious only of a singing in the head.
"No," he remarked thoughtfully, addressing himself to an iron stanchion,
"she ain't no dime novel heroine, she ain't."