“Captain Chilver’s gone to sea.Ay, boys, O, boys.Captain Chilver’s gone to seaIn the brave‘Benjamin.’ ”Captain Chilver.
“Captain Chilver’s gone to sea.
Ay, boys, O, boys.
Captain Chilver’s gone to sea
In the brave‘Benjamin.’ ”
Captain Chilver.
Thewind had gone down gradually all through the day. The morning’s rain had kept down the sea. When theBroken Heart“took her departure” that evening, from the distant Lizard, Captain Cammock crossed his main royal, out of lightness of heart. He had a fair wind and clear weather. He was thankful to have escaped arrest at Falmouth. “He was within smell of Virginia,” he said; so now he would crack on and drive her, sending her lee-ports under. The three days of storm had been of use to him. They had shaken the hands into shape, and had bettered the ship’s trim. Now, he flattered himself, he knew what his ship would do, and what his men could do. He was ready for the Western Ocean. The guns were housed, their breeches down on the carriage-beds, their tompioned muzzles lashed to the upper port sills. The light brass quarter-deck guns were covered with tarpaulin. Life-lines were stretched fore and aft across the waist. Windsails were set. There were handy-billies hooked along the hammock nettings ready for use. Forward, on the fo’c’s’le-head, the hands had gathered to dry the clothes soaked in the storm. Some of the hands, lying to windward, against the forward guns, began to sing one of their sea ballads, a dreary old ballad with a chorus, about the bonny coasts of Barbary. Old Mr. Cottrill had the dogwatch. The other mate, Mr. Iles, a little “hard case” from the James River, was playing his fiddle on the booby-hatch, just abaft the main-bitts. He sang a plaintive ditty to the music; and though he did not sing well he had listeners who thought his singing beautiful. Several of the hands, as he knew very well, were skulking as far aft as they dared, to catch his linked sweetness as it fell from him. Cocking one leg over the other, he began another song with a happy ending, no particular meaning, and a certain blitheness:—
I put it up with a country word.Tradoodle.
I put it up with a country word.
Tradoodle.
“There,” he said. “There, steward. Gee. Hey? I can sing all right, all right. What’s that song youse was singing? You know. That one about the girl with the wig?”
“Oh, seh,” said the old negro, Mr. Iles’s chief listener. “Oh, seh. I can’t sing with music. I haven’t had the occasionals to do that, seh.”
“By gee, steward,” said Mr. Iles, turning to go below to his cabin in the ’tween-decks, “if you can’t sing to music, b’ gee I don’t think you can sing much.”
Mr. Cottrill turned to Captain Cammock.
“A smart young sailor, sir,” he said. “Mr. Iles keeps ’em going, sir.”
“Yes,” said Cammock. “He knows a lot for his age. A smart young man, Mr. Iles, as you say, mister. He fiddles pretty, too.”
“I don’t hold with fiddling in a man,” said Mr. Cottrill. “It’s not natural. But it keeps the mind employed, they say.”
“Yes,” said Cammock, “and so does making up tunes. Did you never make up tunes, when you was a boy, mister, walking the poop?”
“I come in like a head sea,” said Mr. Cottrill. “The only times I walked the poop was to relieve the helm, or to take in the mizen.”
“Well. And ain’t you glad?” said Cammock. “It’s the only way to learn.”
“It is that, sir,” said Cottrill. “I guess, sir,” he added, “if this wind holds, we’ll be out of sight of land by dawn.”
The boy reported eight bells.
“Make it,” said Cottrill.
The boy struck the bell eight times.
“You boy,” said Cammock, “when you walk the lee poop at night, you’ll not go clump, clump, the way you done last night. There’s a lady in the cabin. Let me see what boots you’re wearing. I thought so. They’re the kind of boots would wear a hole in a wall. Hold up them soles, and give us the end of the main-brace there. There, my son. I give you the end this time. You wear them boots after dark again, and you’ll get the bight, higher up.”
The watch was mustered and set. Captain Cammock went below, pleased to think that he had saved Olivia from the trouble of complaining about the boy.
He went direct to the great cabin; for he knew that there was to be a council of war. There was much to be discussed; there was much for him to tell them. He hoped very much that his sea-sick friend Tom Stukeley would be put in a watch. “And then,” he said to himself, “you shall toe the line.” In the cabin he found Perrin and Margaret playing some simple card-game with Olivia, for counters. Stukeley lay at half-length upon the window-seat, sipping brandy. He was evidently cured of his sickness; though very weak from it.
He looked up as Cammock entered, took a good pull at his drink, and called to Margaret.
“You were going to have some sort of parish meeting here. Here’s the beadle. Suppose you begin, and get it over.”
He took another pull at the brandy. “Take a seat, beadle,” he said insolently.
Perrin and Margaret bit their lips, and slowly, almost fearfully, lifted their eyes to Cammock’s face. The old pirate had turned purple beneath his copper; but Olivia’s presence bridled him. He looked at Stukeley for a moment, then spun round on one heel, in the way he had learned in some ship’s forecastle, and walked out of the cabin.
“I must get my charts,” he said thickly.
“Stukeley,” said Margaret lightly, “Captain Cammock is the captain of this ship.”
“Yes,” said Stukeley. “And I wish he knew his place as well as I know it.”
“I must ask you to remember that he commands here.”
“Of course,” said Olivia, rather nettled.
“I hope, Stukeley,” said Perrin, “I hope you won’t quarrel with him. We’re going a long voyage together.”
“Lord,” said Stukeley. “What a stew you two make. You might be two old women.”
“Tom dear,” said Olivia, “is that open window too much for you?”
In the diversion caused by the shutting of the window, Captain Cammock took his seat, laying a book of charts on the table before him. “Now, Captain Margaret, sir. Will you begin? I don’t rightly know what it is you want discussed.”
“Very well,” said Margaret. “I’ll begin.”
He leaned back in his chair, and looked first at Olivia, then at Stukeley, then at Cammock, who, he thought, looked very splendid, with his long black hair falling over his shoulders, and his grim beauty, like a bronze, thrusting from his scarlet scarf.
“I don’t think you know,” he said, “at any rate, not perfectly, what it is I intend doing. This ship is mine, as I think you all know. But her cargo—it’s a general cargo, worth a good deal of money where we are going to—is the property of several London merchants, who expect me to make a profit for them. I want you to get it out of your heads that I’m doing this for love, either of adventure, or of my fellow-men. I believe I shall get adventure, and help my fellow-men. But the venture is, primarily, a business venture. If the business part fails, the whole thing will come to nothing. As you know, a part of the cargo is consigned to Virginia, and we go to Virginia direct. But we shall only stay there long enough to buy up the pick of the tobacco crop with our goods, and take in fresh water. Our real destination is the Isthmus of Darien.”
“What part of the Isthmus, sir?” said Cammock.
“You’ll have to tell us that. Fill Captain Cammock’s glass, Perrin.”
“Thank you, Mr. Perrin,” said Cammock. He bowed to Olivia and drank. “Go on, sir.”
“You see,” continued Margaret. “Well I must apologize, captain. It was part of my arrangement with Captain Cammock that he should not be told about our destination, nor about our plans, till we had left England. I need hardly say, captain, that that was not, well, not my desire. The merchants who consigned the cargo insisted on it. To tell the truth, it was only on the pledge of secrecy that the Board of Trade and Plantations gave me my commission.”
“Then you’ve got a commission, sir?” said Cammock.
“Yes. A limited one. But still. Had our plans been bruited abroad, we should have had a lot of opposition.”
“Who’d have taken the sweat to lift a finger to stop you?” said Stukeley.
“The West Indian merchants,” replied Margaret. “And the Chartered Brazil Wood Company, and the Spanish ambassador, among others, would have given us a lot of opposition. In fact, had the Spaniards known of it, we might have spared ourselves the trouble of sailing.”
“Hear, hear, sir,” said Cammock quietly.
“Our friend the beadle knows his job,” said Stukeley.
“Fill Captain Cammock’s glass, Edward.”
“Fill mine, too, please, waiter,” said Stukeley.
“To continue,” said Margaret. “Had the Spaniards known, we should have found the place of our intended settlement in the hands of Spanish troops.”
“Settlement?” said Stukeley.
“Yes. A settlement. To be short, my plan is to land on the Isthmus, found an English colony, and open up a trade, a real trade, mind you, with the Indians of Darien. Now that is the rough outline of the scheme. Now, Captain Cammock. Now comes your part. I’m going to cross-examine you. You know the Isthmus thoroughly. Have you landed on the Main? I know you have, of course. But we must begin at the beginning.”
“I been there a many times, right along. Mostly looking for food,” said Cammock.
“Did you ever meet the Indians?”
“I’ve been up agin all kinds of Indians.”
“Are there many kinds?”
“There’s three kinds.”
“Three? What are the three?”
“I don’t mind telling you, sir. There’s one kind comes and says, ‘O Sieur,’ and brings you these great bananas and spears fish for you. There’s some sense in them ones. Give ’em a handful of beads and they’ll fill you a pannikin of gold dust. They’re getting spoiled, of course, like everything else. But where they ain’t been got at they’re good still. That’s one kind.”
“And the others?”
“There’s another kind no one seen. They say they’re white, this second kind. They live in the woods; in stone houses, too, for the matter of that. And they wear gold masks. No one ever seen ’em, mind you. But you lay out in the woods near ’em, and the first night you’ll hear like singing all round you.”
“Singing?”
“Like little birds. I never like singing like what that is. You only get it the first night.”
“Oh. That’s very curious. What happens then?”
“The second night, if you lay out in the woods, you get your ’ed cut off. You find your corp in the morning, that’s what you find.”
“Why do they cut your head off?” said Perrin.
“Their idea of fun, I s’pose,” said Cammock, with a grin. “Come to that, a corp is a funny thing with no ’ed. They take the ’eds and pickle them after: I’ve seen ’em.”
“What do they do with the heads?” asked Perrin, “when they’ve pickled them?”
“They wear ’em round their necks, for ornament,” said Cammock. “If one of them ducks gets a reglar necklace, like a dozen ’eds, he thinks he’s old Sir Henry.”
“Sir Henry?”
“Like a Admiral,” explained the buccaneer.
“Ah. And what’s the third kind?”
“I don’t mind telling you. I was cruising one time. I was with an English crew, too. And four of our men went ashore there, near Cape Codera. They didn’t come back, so we went to look for them. We found ashes, where a fire’d been. And we found hands, lying in the ashes.”
“Hands?” said Perrin.
“With fingers on them, some of them,” said the pirate calmly. “Some of them was ate all off. And there was a skull lying. And bits of one man tied to a tree. I’ve never liked Indians from that day, not what you might call love them.”
“So that’s the third kind,” said Captain Margaret. “I take it that these two last kinds don’t suffer much from the Spaniards?”
“Not unless sometimes they get a tough one,” said the pirate, “they don’t.”
“And the other kind, the first kind?”
“They’re melancholy ducks. No use at all,” said Cammock. “Of course they suffer. It’s a wonder to me they don’t get it worse. They’d ought to. If it rained soup they’d be going out with forks. They ain’t got the sense we have, or something. ‘O Sieur,’ they say. The French taught ’em that. ‘O Sieur.’ ‘Come and kick us,’ that’s what it really amounts to.” He looked at Olivia, half fearing that she would be shocked.
“Could they do anything, under a capable man, do you think?” said Perrin.
“We’d one with us in theTrinity,” said Cammock. “William his name was. Yes, William, after my poor brother. Captain Sharp was capable, all right, in his limits; William was capable too, I guess; I don’t remember him gettin’ it. Yes. I think they’d do. Ah, but they ain’t got the sense. No, I don’t know as they’d ever do very much.”
“Was your brother with you in town?” asked Captain Margaret. “Why isn’t he here with you?”
“Who? Bill? No, sir. He died. Off of La Serena. Rum didhim. He’d no sense to drink rum the way he drank it. I was sorry to lose Bill. I’d my fair share of trouble that passage.”
“Have some more drink, your glass is empty,” said Perrin.
“It’s thirsty work talking, as the parson said,” answered the pirate, holding out his glass. He looked at Perrin not unfavourably. Perrin mixed him another punch, and brought out a clean clay pipe from a little locker to the left of the fireplace.
“You’re a thoughtful young fellow to me,” said Captain Cammock, regarding him with favour. His thought was, “You’d make a steward, perhaps, boiled down a bit”; but this he kept to himself. “Was you ever at sea before, sir?” he asked politely.
“Only across the Channel,” said Perrin.
“Well, it’s a hard life,” said the pirate. “Salue. Salue.” He jerked his head towards his hosts, and gulped the liquor. “It’s a hard life. Ah. You don’t know how hard it is, sitting here by the fire.” He looked moodily into the little bogey stove, which had been lighted to air the cabin.
“What made you take to it, Captain Cammock?” said Perrin.
“Just a girl,” said the captain. “I thought I’d make money that way, so’s we could marry.”
“Are you married, might I ask?” said Captain Margaret.
“No,” he answered surlily. “No. A single man.”
He seemed upset by the question, for he became moody. He glared at the fire, and drummed with one foot against the leg of his chair.
“Tell me,” said Captain Margaret. “You don’t think that I could do much among the Indians, do you?”
“You mean, if you settled there?”
“Yes, if I landed, built a fort, and opened a trading station. And got the Indian chiefs to bring in gold, and cocoa, or whatever else there is.”
“You could only do that in among the Samballoes.”
“The islands along the Isthmus?”
“Yes. That’s your only place.”
“Would it be possible?”
“I dunno as it would. No, I reckon it wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You couldn’t. The Dagoes are too strong. They’d send from Porto Bello, or they’d send overland perhaps, from Panama. They’d get yer. Then you’d have ginger, working on the forts in Portobel. Lots of ’em end that way on the Main. Yes, sir, the Main’s a queer place.”
“Queer?”
“We lost a boat’s crew once, east there, by Tolu or that. A handsome fellow her bow oar was. Bigger’n you he was. Handsome Jim Sanders, that was him.Heworked on the forts in Portobel. We rescued him a year later, quite by accident. There was red cuts all over him; and all he could do was sing.”
“Sing?”
“Just sing. This was what he sung. He sung all the time. No. He didn’t laugh. He just whined a little and sang.”
The pirate dropped his voice to a whimper and sang:—
“Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,Learned to pipe when he was young,And all the tunes that he could playWas over the hills and far away.
“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. “Sheis like that,” he thought, “and I amthat. 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.
“Thus can my love excuse the slow offence.”Sonnet li.“I can endureAll this. Good Gods a blow I can endure.But stay not, lest thou draw a timeless deathUpon thyself.”The Maid’s Tragedy.
“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.
Onemorning, about six weeks later, when theBroken Heartwas 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.
TheBroken Hearthad 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?”
“Itwasforgery, 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 itwasforgery?”
“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 theBroken Heartleft 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 theBroken Heartthere 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.