XII

XIIHUGH AND THE TWINS

In the captain's chair, between the derricks and the bell, far above and behind which the chimneys' vast double plume of smoke and sparks trailed down the steamer's wake, sat Hugh Courteney, quite uncompanioned.So his father had just left him, leaving with him the thought, though without hint of it in word or tone, that some night, on some boat as deeply freighted with cares as this one, he must sit thus, her master. The wonder of it, with the wonder of the boat herself and all she carried, sounded a continuous stern alarum through his spirit like a long roll sounding through a camp: "Be a man! Make haste! See even those Hayle twins, with all their faults, and up! Make haste! Rise up and be a man!" Had the wonder-loving Ramsey been there she must have laughed again; looking into his round, heavy visage was so much like looking into the back of a watch—one saw such ceaseless movement of mind yet learned so little from it. Amid his wonderings he wondered of her; not only where at that moment she might be, but what a child she still was, and yet in how few years—as few as two or three—she would be a woman, might be a bride.But soon a bride or never, the boat was full of matters only less remarkable and he gently let the girl out of his thought by looking behind him. The windows of the captain's room—between the chimneys—front room of the texas—gave shining evidence that somewhere the captain was yet astir. From the rayless pilot-house above it faint notes of speech showed that some one was up there with the pilot, but at the same time a near-by tread drew Hugh to his feet with quick pleasure and again his father stood before him, looking at the lights of theAntelope, a few hundred yards ahead."She'll soon be astern," said Hugh."We can't keep her so," replied the captain, accepting his chair. "We must land too often. Where's your crony?""The commodore? He's turned in." After a pause—"Father, you've shipped a lot of trouble.""Yes," was the light response, "counting Hayle's twins.""I wish you'd give me full charge of them.""Do you?" laughed the father. "Take it. You hear them, don't you?"They were easy to hear, down on the forward freight deck, dancing round a bottle of liquor, and——"Singing 'Gideon's Band,'" said Hugh listening."Yes," said the amused captain, "after pledging me on their honor to go straight to bed." Hugh started away so abruptly that his father asked: "Where are you bound?""I'm going to send them to bed.""Both of them?" smilingly asked the captain."Yes, both.""Not both at once?""Yes, both at once. Do you know where their sister is?""Why, abed and asleep long ago, is she not?""I don't know," said Hugh, going; "I doubt it."On his way he glanced about for her. Taking charge of the twins seemed logically to involve a care of her. Where the mother was he knew. Down in the after parts of the lower deck, between the ceaseless torrents of the wheels, most of the people from overseas had spread their beds wherever they might, while in one small place apart some five or six lay smitten with the deadly contagion, two or three in agony, one or two in painless collapse, under the unskilled, heartbroken care of a few terrified kindred. There, by stealth at first and by the captain's helpless leave when he found her there, attended by a colored man and maid from the cabin service, was Madame Hayle, ministering, now with medicine, now with the crucifix, amid the hammer's unflagging din. To this Hugh was reconciled; but it would never, never do, he felt, to let the daughter share such an experience. Better to find her, even at that hour, on the boiler deck.But on the boiler deck he found only its wide semicircle of chairs quite empty and no one moving among the high piles of trunks and light freight under the hanging bunches of pineapples and bananas. He looked into the saloon. It was bright though with half its lamps cold, but the barber's shop and the clerk's office were shut, and double curtains of silk and wool cloistered off the ladies' cabin. The fragrant bar stood open, and at two or three card-tables sat heavy-betting, hard-chewing quartets, but no one else was to be seen; even the third Hayle brother had gone to bed. Halfway down the double front stairs to the lower deck, on a landing where the two flights merged into one, Hugh paused. All about beneath him forward of the wheels, clear out to the capstan and jack-staff, slept the deckhands, except a few on watch, a few more who with eager crouchings, snapping fingers, and soft cries gambled at dice in the red glare of the furnaces, and one who had become an amused onlooker of the Hayle twins—the negro who, six hours before, by merely putting out a hand had saved their sister's life.And there, close before Hugh, at the stairs' foot, under the open sky, were the twins. In their hunger for notice, their equal disdain of the captain and the deputation of seven, and their belief that the gayest defiance of the plague was its best preventive, they had set their bottle on the deck and in opposite directions were daintily pacing round it in a long ellipse and chanting to a camp-meeting tune their song of Gideon:"O, Noah, he did build de ahk,O, Noah, he did build de ahk,O, Noah, he did build de ahk,An' shingle it wid cinnamon bahk.Do you belong to Gideon's band?Here's my heart an' here's my hand!Do you belong to Gideon's band?Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"[1]A glance at Hugh gave them new life. Singing on, they halted at opposite ends of the beat, patted thighs, called figures, leaped high, crossed shins, cracked heels, cut double-shuffles, balanced, swung round the bottle, lifted it, drank, replaced it, and resumed their elliptical march to another stanza:"He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,He los' de crap, but he save' de seed!Do you belong to Gideon's band?. . . . . . . .Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"Hugh moved on down. "Both at once," he had said, but on every account—their mother's, her daughter's, his father's—it must be both at once without a high word from him. On the bottom step he was about to speak, when a tall, flaxen-haired German in big boots and green cap and coat, meek of brow and barely a year or two his senior, came out from behind the stair and stepped between the dancers, silent but with a hand lifted to one and then to the other."No," said Hugh to him. The alien's meekness vanished. He motioned toward the sick. His blue eyes flashed. But in the same instant he was jolted half off his feet by the lunging shoulder of one of the Hayles marching to the refrain:"Doyoubelong to Gideon's band?"His answer was a blow so swift that Hugh barely saw it. The singer fell as if he had slipped on ice. Yet promptly he was up again, and from right and left the brothers leaped at their foe. But while men rushed in and hustled the immigrant aft the negro who had saved Ramsey caught one twin as lightly as he had caught her, and Hugh, jerking the other to his knees, snatched up the bottle and whirled it overboard. A moment later he found himself backing up-stairs, followed closely by the pair. These were being pushed up from below by others, and, in lofty phrases hot with oaths, were accusing all Courteneys of a studied plan to insult, misguide, imperil, assault, and humiliate every Hayle within reach and of a cowardly use of deckhands and Dutchmen for the purpose.His replies were in undertone: "Come up! Hush your noise, your mother'll hear you! Come on! Come up!"On the boiler deck they halted. The crowd filled the stair beneath and he marvelled once more as he gazed on the two young Hectors, who, true to their ideals and loathing the obliquities of a moral world that left them off deputations, blazed with self-approval in a plight whose shame burned through him, Hugh Courteney, by sheer radiation."And as sure," said Julian, "as sure ashell, sir, your life's blood or that of your kin shall one day pay for this! To-night we are helpless. What is your wish?""My father's wish is that you go to your stateroom and berths and keep your word of honor given to him.""That, sir, is what we were doing when a hired ruffian——""Never mind the hired ruffian. Charge that to me.""Oh, sir, it is charged!" said the two. "And the charge will be collected!" They went their way.[Footnote 1:[Music]][Listen to a midi file of this music]

So his father had just left him, leaving with him the thought, though without hint of it in word or tone, that some night, on some boat as deeply freighted with cares as this one, he must sit thus, her master. The wonder of it, with the wonder of the boat herself and all she carried, sounded a continuous stern alarum through his spirit like a long roll sounding through a camp: "Be a man! Make haste! See even those Hayle twins, with all their faults, and up! Make haste! Rise up and be a man!" Had the wonder-loving Ramsey been there she must have laughed again; looking into his round, heavy visage was so much like looking into the back of a watch—one saw such ceaseless movement of mind yet learned so little from it. Amid his wonderings he wondered of her; not only where at that moment she might be, but what a child she still was, and yet in how few years—as few as two or three—she would be a woman, might be a bride.

But soon a bride or never, the boat was full of matters only less remarkable and he gently let the girl out of his thought by looking behind him. The windows of the captain's room—between the chimneys—front room of the texas—gave shining evidence that somewhere the captain was yet astir. From the rayless pilot-house above it faint notes of speech showed that some one was up there with the pilot, but at the same time a near-by tread drew Hugh to his feet with quick pleasure and again his father stood before him, looking at the lights of theAntelope, a few hundred yards ahead.

"She'll soon be astern," said Hugh.

"We can't keep her so," replied the captain, accepting his chair. "We must land too often. Where's your crony?"

"The commodore? He's turned in." After a pause—"Father, you've shipped a lot of trouble."

"Yes," was the light response, "counting Hayle's twins."

"I wish you'd give me full charge of them."

"Do you?" laughed the father. "Take it. You hear them, don't you?"

They were easy to hear, down on the forward freight deck, dancing round a bottle of liquor, and——

"Singing 'Gideon's Band,'" said Hugh listening.

"Yes," said the amused captain, "after pledging me on their honor to go straight to bed." Hugh started away so abruptly that his father asked: "Where are you bound?"

"I'm going to send them to bed."

"Both of them?" smilingly asked the captain.

"Yes, both."

"Not both at once?"

"Yes, both at once. Do you know where their sister is?"

"Why, abed and asleep long ago, is she not?"

"I don't know," said Hugh, going; "I doubt it."

On his way he glanced about for her. Taking charge of the twins seemed logically to involve a care of her. Where the mother was he knew. Down in the after parts of the lower deck, between the ceaseless torrents of the wheels, most of the people from overseas had spread their beds wherever they might, while in one small place apart some five or six lay smitten with the deadly contagion, two or three in agony, one or two in painless collapse, under the unskilled, heartbroken care of a few terrified kindred. There, by stealth at first and by the captain's helpless leave when he found her there, attended by a colored man and maid from the cabin service, was Madame Hayle, ministering, now with medicine, now with the crucifix, amid the hammer's unflagging din. To this Hugh was reconciled; but it would never, never do, he felt, to let the daughter share such an experience. Better to find her, even at that hour, on the boiler deck.

But on the boiler deck he found only its wide semicircle of chairs quite empty and no one moving among the high piles of trunks and light freight under the hanging bunches of pineapples and bananas. He looked into the saloon. It was bright though with half its lamps cold, but the barber's shop and the clerk's office were shut, and double curtains of silk and wool cloistered off the ladies' cabin. The fragrant bar stood open, and at two or three card-tables sat heavy-betting, hard-chewing quartets, but no one else was to be seen; even the third Hayle brother had gone to bed. Halfway down the double front stairs to the lower deck, on a landing where the two flights merged into one, Hugh paused. All about beneath him forward of the wheels, clear out to the capstan and jack-staff, slept the deckhands, except a few on watch, a few more who with eager crouchings, snapping fingers, and soft cries gambled at dice in the red glare of the furnaces, and one who had become an amused onlooker of the Hayle twins—the negro who, six hours before, by merely putting out a hand had saved their sister's life.

And there, close before Hugh, at the stairs' foot, under the open sky, were the twins. In their hunger for notice, their equal disdain of the captain and the deputation of seven, and their belief that the gayest defiance of the plague was its best preventive, they had set their bottle on the deck and in opposite directions were daintily pacing round it in a long ellipse and chanting to a camp-meeting tune their song of Gideon:

"O, Noah, he did build de ahk,O, Noah, he did build de ahk,O, Noah, he did build de ahk,An' shingle it wid cinnamon bahk.Do you belong to Gideon's band?Here's my heart an' here's my hand!Do you belong to Gideon's band?Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"[1]

"O, Noah, he did build de ahk,O, Noah, he did build de ahk,O, Noah, he did build de ahk,An' shingle it wid cinnamon bahk.Do you belong to Gideon's band?

"O, Noah, he did build de ahk,

O, Noah, he did build de ahk,

An' shingle it wid cinnamon bahk.

Do you belong to Gideon's band?

Here's my heart an' here's my hand!Do you belong to Gideon's band?Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"[1]

Here's my heart an' here's my hand!

Do you belong to Gideon's band?

Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"[1]

A glance at Hugh gave them new life. Singing on, they halted at opposite ends of the beat, patted thighs, called figures, leaped high, crossed shins, cracked heels, cut double-shuffles, balanced, swung round the bottle, lifted it, drank, replaced it, and resumed their elliptical march to another stanza:

"He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,He los' de crap, but he save' de seed!Do you belong to Gideon's band?. . . . . . . .Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"

"He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,

He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed,

He los' de crap, but he save' de seed!

Do you belong to Gideon's band?

. . . . . . . .

Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"

Hugh moved on down. "Both at once," he had said, but on every account—their mother's, her daughter's, his father's—it must be both at once without a high word from him. On the bottom step he was about to speak, when a tall, flaxen-haired German in big boots and green cap and coat, meek of brow and barely a year or two his senior, came out from behind the stair and stepped between the dancers, silent but with a hand lifted to one and then to the other.

"No," said Hugh to him. The alien's meekness vanished. He motioned toward the sick. His blue eyes flashed. But in the same instant he was jolted half off his feet by the lunging shoulder of one of the Hayles marching to the refrain:

"Doyoubelong to Gideon's band?"

His answer was a blow so swift that Hugh barely saw it. The singer fell as if he had slipped on ice. Yet promptly he was up again, and from right and left the brothers leaped at their foe. But while men rushed in and hustled the immigrant aft the negro who had saved Ramsey caught one twin as lightly as he had caught her, and Hugh, jerking the other to his knees, snatched up the bottle and whirled it overboard. A moment later he found himself backing up-stairs, followed closely by the pair. These were being pushed up from below by others, and, in lofty phrases hot with oaths, were accusing all Courteneys of a studied plan to insult, misguide, imperil, assault, and humiliate every Hayle within reach and of a cowardly use of deckhands and Dutchmen for the purpose.

His replies were in undertone: "Come up! Hush your noise, your mother'll hear you! Come on! Come up!"

On the boiler deck they halted. The crowd filled the stair beneath and he marvelled once more as he gazed on the two young Hectors, who, true to their ideals and loathing the obliquities of a moral world that left them off deputations, blazed with self-approval in a plight whose shame burned through him, Hugh Courteney, by sheer radiation.

"And as sure," said Julian, "as sure ashell, sir, your life's blood or that of your kin shall one day pay for this! To-night we are helpless. What is your wish?"

"My father's wish is that you go to your stateroom and berths and keep your word of honor given to him."

"That, sir, is what we were doing when a hired ruffian——"

"Never mind the hired ruffian. Charge that to me."

"Oh, sir, it is charged!" said the two. "And the charge will be collected!" They went their way.

[Footnote 1:[Music]]

[Listen to a midi file of this music]

XIIITHE SUPERABOUNDING RAMSEY

In his hurricane-deck chair, with eyes out ahead on the water, John Courteney gently took his son's hand as the latter, returning to his side, stood without a word."Tucked in, are they, both of them?"No reply."Hugh, I hear certain gentlemen are coming to ask me to put our deck passengers ashore.""You can't do it, sir.""Would you like to tell them so?""I'd like nothing better.""Now that you've tasted blood, eh?"No reply."It wouldn't be a mere putting of bad boys to bed, my son. It would be David and Goliath, with Goliath in the plural.""Can't I pass them on to you if I find I must?""Of course you can. Hugh, I'm tempted to try you.""I wish you would, sir.""With no coaching? No 'Polonius to the players'?""I wish you would."The father looked into the sky. "Superb night," he said.Again no reply."Were you not deep in the spell of it when I found you here awhile ago?""Yes, I was.""My son, I covet your better acquaintance.""You mean I—say so little?""You reveal yourself so little. Even your mother felt that, Hugh.""I know it, father. And yet, as for you——""Yes—as for me——?""I've never seen you without wanting to tell out all that's in me." The pair smiled to each other."And you say that at last, now, you can do it?""Did I say that, sir?""Not in words. But you seem all at once to be seeing things—taking hold of things—in a new way.""The things themselves are new, sir. They're small, but—somehow—they've helped me on.""Couldn't I guess one of them?""I hardly think so, sir; they're really such trifles.""Well, for a first attempt, Ramsey.""Yes. How did you guess that?""She's such a persuasive example of perfect openness.""Her mother's a much lovelier one.""No, Hugh; allowing for years, Miss Ramsey's even a better. But—another small thing—shall I mention it?""Yes, please.""All these Hayles, to-night, bring up the past—ours.""Yes!" said Hugh, and said no more, as if the remark had partly unlocked something and then stuck fast.The questioner tried a smaller key. "What were you thinking," he asked, "when I joined you here to-night?""When you—? Oh, nothing we're thinking of now.""At the same time, what was it?""Why—something rather too fanciful to put into words.""All the same, let's have it.""Well, for one thing, seeing and feeling this boat, with all its light and life, speeding, twinkling on and on through the night like a swarm of stars, the thought came—and I was wishing I could share it with you——"The elder hand pressed the younger."The thought that since infinite space—" The thought seemed to stall, take breath, and start again—"since infinite space is lighted only by the stars, the rush and roll of this universe through space is forever and ever—in the large—a night scene—an eternal starlight. Is that absurd—to you?"The father smiled: "Why, no. I merely—doubt it. All starlight is sunlight—near enough by.""Yes. But between stars there is no near-by, is there?""That depends on who's looking, I think. We mustn't impute human eyes to God—or angels—or saints. You remember the word: 'Darkness and light are both alike to thee'?""Yes," pensively said Hugh, rejoicing in this converse yet wondering why it made him feel so childish to speak his best while Hayle's twins showed up in so manly a fashion when they spoke their worst. "Yes, I thought of that, too. Yet I was glad to believe there will always be plenty of starlight for those who love it——""Wow!" yelled Ramsey in his ear.With a gulp he whirled and faced her where, limp with laughter, she hung and swung on the captain's chair. Its occupant quietly rose. The old nurse wrung her hands, and Ramsey, in an agony of mirth and dismay, cringed back on her. Suddenly the maiden stood at her best height and with elaborate graciousness said:"IhopeI haven't interrupted!"The father's hand appeasingly touched the son's while playfully he said: "You have a hopeful nature, Miss Ramsey." And then, as her disconcerted eyes widened, he asked: "Where did you come from just now?"He saw that if she spoke she must weep. Instead she jauntily waved a whole arm backward and upward to the pilot-house. Then, her self-command returning, she remarked, for Hugh in particular: "It's nice up there. They don't snub you." She twitched a shoulder at him, made eyes to his father, and once more tinkled her laugh, interiorly, as though it were a door-bell.The captain was amused, yet he gravely began to ask: "Does your mother——?""Know I'm out? She doth. First time I've been out o' bed this late in all my long and checkered career.""If she does, Miss Ramsey, will you go up to the pilot once more and tell him to land the boat at the wood-yard just this side of Bonnabel plantation?"Her mouth fell open: "Who, me? Tell the—?" She swept the strategist with a quick, hurt glance, but beamed again beneath his kind eyes. "I get your idea," she said, snatched the nurse's arm, and hurried off with her, humming and tripping the song she had quoted.The captain looked again into "infinite space." The wide scene was shifting. High beyond theVotaress'sbow the stars of the west swung as if they shifted southward. The moon crossed her silvering wake from larboard quarter to starboard. TheAntelopeshone close ahead. "To me, Hugh," he lightly resumed, "this boat, full of all sorts of people, isn't so much like your swarm of stars as it is like just one little whole world.""Yes," said the son, facing him sidewise so that no Ramsey might again surprise them: "I see it that way too. Father"—the father had stirred as if to leave him—"I want to tell you some things about our past. But I can't tell them piecemeal. I must find some time when you're off watch.""And when Miss Ramsey's asleep?""Yes.""Why have you never told me before?""I've tried for years. The power wasn't in me. I've had to grow up to it. But, as you say, 'now, at last,' I can do it."The captain turned away and looked up to the dim pilot-house. Out of it came the tranquil voice of the pilot who earlier had talked with the twins: "Caving bank above has planted snags at that wood-yard, sir. Whippoorwill Ferry's a better landing, on t'other side, head o' the crossing.""Well, Mr. Watson, land there."The boat was sweeping close by the west-shore village of Bayagoula, that lay asleep where the stream for a brief space widened to a mile. Her veering jack-staff hid the north star a moment, then crept to right of it and pointed up a five-mile reach of dim waters and dimmer shores, hard on the heels of the pantingAntelope.But the captain's eye lingered behind and above him. Between him and the pilot-house, softly veiled by its moonlight shadow, stood in unconscious statuesqueness on the front overhang of the texas roof, between the towering chimneys, Ramsey.Her rippling curls and slim shoulders stood above the shade that enveloped the rest of her form and showed dark against the feeble light of the moon at her back. As he looked she uttered a droll sound—fair counterfeit of the harsh note a mocking-bird speaks to himself before his nightly outburst—and then broke forth in a voice as untrained, but as fresh and joyous and as reckless of reproof or praise, as the bird's:"'O, the lone, starry hours give me, love,When still is the beautiful night——'"At sight of a second and third figure he moved that way, while below the singer's feet sounded a mother's moan: "Ramsey! mon Dieu! my chile! come down from yondeh!"The girl's eyes stayed in the sky, but one mutinous foot so keenly smote the roof that her nurse, approaching behind, stopped short, and from Hugh came a laugh, a thin, involuntary treble, which caused Ramsey visibly to flinch."Ramsey!" entreated her mother again, but——"Just this one moment, beloved mom-a! Listen, oh, listen, everybody! to my midnight thought!" The rhapsodist struck a stiffer pose and began with all her voice, "Since infinite space is lighted only by the stars! their rush and roll—te rum te riddle, te rum te ree——""Ramsey!""—Is an eternal starlight!" The girl hugged and kissed her black nurse: "Oh, mammy Joy! is that absurd to you?""Ram-zee!" cried the mother. But a toll of the great bell silenced her. Another solemnly followed, and when a third completed the signal to land, the staggering footsteps of the vanished girl dragging old Joy with her in full retreat were a relief to every ear. As madame turned to say good night a last bleat came out of the darkness:"Please don't, anybody, tell about theQuakeressto-night!"

In his hurricane-deck chair, with eyes out ahead on the water, John Courteney gently took his son's hand as the latter, returning to his side, stood without a word.

"Tucked in, are they, both of them?"

No reply.

"Hugh, I hear certain gentlemen are coming to ask me to put our deck passengers ashore."

"You can't do it, sir."

"Would you like to tell them so?"

"I'd like nothing better."

"Now that you've tasted blood, eh?"

No reply.

"It wouldn't be a mere putting of bad boys to bed, my son. It would be David and Goliath, with Goliath in the plural."

"Can't I pass them on to you if I find I must?"

"Of course you can. Hugh, I'm tempted to try you."

"I wish you would, sir."

"With no coaching? No 'Polonius to the players'?"

"I wish you would."

The father looked into the sky. "Superb night," he said.

Again no reply.

"Were you not deep in the spell of it when I found you here awhile ago?"

"Yes, I was."

"My son, I covet your better acquaintance."

"You mean I—say so little?"

"You reveal yourself so little. Even your mother felt that, Hugh."

"I know it, father. And yet, as for you——"

"Yes—as for me——?"

"I've never seen you without wanting to tell out all that's in me." The pair smiled to each other.

"And you say that at last, now, you can do it?"

"Did I say that, sir?"

"Not in words. But you seem all at once to be seeing things—taking hold of things—in a new way."

"The things themselves are new, sir. They're small, but—somehow—they've helped me on."

"Couldn't I guess one of them?"

"I hardly think so, sir; they're really such trifles."

"Well, for a first attempt, Ramsey."

"Yes. How did you guess that?"

"She's such a persuasive example of perfect openness."

"Her mother's a much lovelier one."

"No, Hugh; allowing for years, Miss Ramsey's even a better. But—another small thing—shall I mention it?"

"Yes, please."

"All these Hayles, to-night, bring up the past—ours."

"Yes!" said Hugh, and said no more, as if the remark had partly unlocked something and then stuck fast.

The questioner tried a smaller key. "What were you thinking," he asked, "when I joined you here to-night?"

"When you—? Oh, nothing we're thinking of now."

"At the same time, what was it?"

"Why—something rather too fanciful to put into words."

"All the same, let's have it."

"Well, for one thing, seeing and feeling this boat, with all its light and life, speeding, twinkling on and on through the night like a swarm of stars, the thought came—and I was wishing I could share it with you——"

The elder hand pressed the younger.

"The thought that since infinite space—" The thought seemed to stall, take breath, and start again—"since infinite space is lighted only by the stars, the rush and roll of this universe through space is forever and ever—in the large—a night scene—an eternal starlight. Is that absurd—to you?"

The father smiled: "Why, no. I merely—doubt it. All starlight is sunlight—near enough by."

"Yes. But between stars there is no near-by, is there?"

"That depends on who's looking, I think. We mustn't impute human eyes to God—or angels—or saints. You remember the word: 'Darkness and light are both alike to thee'?"

"Yes," pensively said Hugh, rejoicing in this converse yet wondering why it made him feel so childish to speak his best while Hayle's twins showed up in so manly a fashion when they spoke their worst. "Yes, I thought of that, too. Yet I was glad to believe there will always be plenty of starlight for those who love it——"

"Wow!" yelled Ramsey in his ear.

With a gulp he whirled and faced her where, limp with laughter, she hung and swung on the captain's chair. Its occupant quietly rose. The old nurse wrung her hands, and Ramsey, in an agony of mirth and dismay, cringed back on her. Suddenly the maiden stood at her best height and with elaborate graciousness said:

"IhopeI haven't interrupted!"

The father's hand appeasingly touched the son's while playfully he said: "You have a hopeful nature, Miss Ramsey." And then, as her disconcerted eyes widened, he asked: "Where did you come from just now?"

He saw that if she spoke she must weep. Instead she jauntily waved a whole arm backward and upward to the pilot-house. Then, her self-command returning, she remarked, for Hugh in particular: "It's nice up there. They don't snub you." She twitched a shoulder at him, made eyes to his father, and once more tinkled her laugh, interiorly, as though it were a door-bell.

The captain was amused, yet he gravely began to ask: "Does your mother——?"

"Know I'm out? She doth. First time I've been out o' bed this late in all my long and checkered career."

"If she does, Miss Ramsey, will you go up to the pilot once more and tell him to land the boat at the wood-yard just this side of Bonnabel plantation?"

Her mouth fell open: "Who, me? Tell the—?" She swept the strategist with a quick, hurt glance, but beamed again beneath his kind eyes. "I get your idea," she said, snatched the nurse's arm, and hurried off with her, humming and tripping the song she had quoted.

The captain looked again into "infinite space." The wide scene was shifting. High beyond theVotaress'sbow the stars of the west swung as if they shifted southward. The moon crossed her silvering wake from larboard quarter to starboard. TheAntelopeshone close ahead. "To me, Hugh," he lightly resumed, "this boat, full of all sorts of people, isn't so much like your swarm of stars as it is like just one little whole world."

"Yes," said the son, facing him sidewise so that no Ramsey might again surprise them: "I see it that way too. Father"—the father had stirred as if to leave him—"I want to tell you some things about our past. But I can't tell them piecemeal. I must find some time when you're off watch."

"And when Miss Ramsey's asleep?"

"Yes."

"Why have you never told me before?"

"I've tried for years. The power wasn't in me. I've had to grow up to it. But, as you say, 'now, at last,' I can do it."

The captain turned away and looked up to the dim pilot-house. Out of it came the tranquil voice of the pilot who earlier had talked with the twins: "Caving bank above has planted snags at that wood-yard, sir. Whippoorwill Ferry's a better landing, on t'other side, head o' the crossing."

"Well, Mr. Watson, land there."

The boat was sweeping close by the west-shore village of Bayagoula, that lay asleep where the stream for a brief space widened to a mile. Her veering jack-staff hid the north star a moment, then crept to right of it and pointed up a five-mile reach of dim waters and dimmer shores, hard on the heels of the pantingAntelope.But the captain's eye lingered behind and above him. Between him and the pilot-house, softly veiled by its moonlight shadow, stood in unconscious statuesqueness on the front overhang of the texas roof, between the towering chimneys, Ramsey.

Her rippling curls and slim shoulders stood above the shade that enveloped the rest of her form and showed dark against the feeble light of the moon at her back. As he looked she uttered a droll sound—fair counterfeit of the harsh note a mocking-bird speaks to himself before his nightly outburst—and then broke forth in a voice as untrained, but as fresh and joyous and as reckless of reproof or praise, as the bird's:

"'O, the lone, starry hours give me, love,When still is the beautiful night——'"

"'O, the lone, starry hours give me, love,

When still is the beautiful night——'"

At sight of a second and third figure he moved that way, while below the singer's feet sounded a mother's moan: "Ramsey! mon Dieu! my chile! come down from yondeh!"

The girl's eyes stayed in the sky, but one mutinous foot so keenly smote the roof that her nurse, approaching behind, stopped short, and from Hugh came a laugh, a thin, involuntary treble, which caused Ramsey visibly to flinch.

"Ramsey!" entreated her mother again, but——

"Just this one moment, beloved mom-a! Listen, oh, listen, everybody! to my midnight thought!" The rhapsodist struck a stiffer pose and began with all her voice, "Since infinite space is lighted only by the stars! their rush and roll—te rum te riddle, te rum te ree——"

"Ramsey!"

"—Is an eternal starlight!" The girl hugged and kissed her black nurse: "Oh, mammy Joy! is that absurd to you?"

"Ram-zee!" cried the mother. But a toll of the great bell silenced her. Another solemnly followed, and when a third completed the signal to land, the staggering footsteps of the vanished girl dragging old Joy with her in full retreat were a relief to every ear. As madame turned to say good night a last bleat came out of the darkness:

"Please don't, anybody, tell about theQuakeressto-night!"

XIVTHE COMMITTEE OF SEVEN

"Hitherto," said the senator, in his stateroom, to the bishop and the judge, "there really has been no need to take any assertive step."He was explaining his slowness as head of the deputation and was glad, he said, to have a word apart with these two. The room could not seat seven and for the moment the other four were at the bar, where standing was so much easier than elsewhere.Their business, the seven's, he added, was with the captain, and officially the captain had gone off duty at eight o'clock and was on again only now, at midnight, in the "middle watch." Even yet there need be no hurry; what they wanted done could not be done before early morning, at Prophet's Island.The bishop approved. "Don't cross the bridge till you get to it," he quoted.The judge—whose elderly maiden sister was aboard and abed but awake and alarmed and amazed and astounded that he should be so helpless—assented, too, but thought there was now no call for further delay; Prophet's Island was nearer every moment and the sooner "those people" were well ashore the safer—and easier—for everybody."I was giving our numbers time to grow," remarked the senator."And the cholera time to spread?" queried the judge."We're but a small minority yet," persisted the senator."A minority always rules," smilingly said the bishop.The senator smiled back. "There are two or three hundred of those deck passengers alone," he responded."Senator," said the judge, "what of that? We've taken upon ourselves to speak for all the cabin passengers on this boat, whether as yet they agree with us or not. They are as numerous as those foreigners, sir, and, my God! sir,theyare our own people. Self-preservation is the first law!""Oh, surely you know," protested the senator, "I'm with you, heart and soul! We must extricate these people of our own from a situation whose desperateness most of them do not recognize. We'll go to the captain now, as soon as—as we must. But let us agree right here that whatever we require him to do we also require him to do of his own free will. He must shift no responsibility upon us. You have, of your sort, bishop, a constituency quite as sensitive as the judge's or mine, and we don't want to give any one a chance to start a false story which we might find it difficult to run down. And so we can hardly be too careful——"The absent four had returned while he spoke. "Sir," interrupted the general, whose th's were getting thick, "ththat is what we have been—too careful!"The hearts of the four were on fire. A chance word of the barkeeper, they said, had sent them to the stateroom of Hayle's twins, who, with tears of wrath, had confessed themselves prisoners; prisoners of their own word of honor—"after being knocked down——""What?" cried senator, judge, and bishop."Yes, sirs, one of them literally knocked down by the acknowledged minion of one Courteney, for having ventured to differ politically with another and for daring to mention the pestilence to a third."The seven poured out to the guards and started for the roof. The bell up there tolled for the landing at Whippoorwill Ferry. About to ascend a stair, they uncovered and stood aside while Madame Hayle and a cabin maid passed down on their way back to the immigrants' deck. By the time the roof was reached the boat was close inshore. The captain had begun to direct her landing. The engine bells were jingling. Tall torch baskets were blazing on the lower-deck guards, and another burial awaited only the running out of the big stage. Now it hurried ashore, a weirdly solemn pageant. The seven, looking down upon it, regained a more becoming composure. When the swift task was done, the torches quenched, and the boat again under way and her movements in control of the pilot, they once more looked for the captain. His chair was empty, but his room was bright and its door ajar. Within, however, was only the wholly uninspiring figure of Hugh, at a table, where he was just beginning to write. He rose and seemed sedately to count his visitors."We are looking for the captain," said the senator."He's down on the after lower deck, sir.""Oh!" The bushy brows of the inquirer lifted. "Will you send for him? We can't very well go down there.""That's true, sir," said Hugh, feeling the irony, "unless you wish to help." He looked from one to another, but none of the seven wished to help."Do you mean to say," broke in the general, "ththat we can't sssee ththe captain of ththis boat unless we nurse the cholera?""No, sir, I don't mean that, though he's very much occupied. If you will state your business to me I will send for him unless I can attend to it myself.""Why, my young friend," said the senator, "does that strike you as due courtesy to a delegation like this?""No, sir, ordinarily it would not be, sir. But my father—I am the captain's son—knowing you were coming and what you were coming for, waited for you as long as he could. Just now he is extremely busy, sir, doing what he can—short-handed—for the sick and dying." The captain's son, in spite of himself, began to warm up. "Those hundreds of people down yonder, sir, are homeless, friendless, dumb—you may say—and in his personal care. He has left me here to see that your every proper wish has every attention. Gentlemen, will you please be seated?" He resumed his own chair and at top speed began again to write.It was a performance not pleasant for any one. He felt himself culpably too full of the resentful conviction that this ferment, whose ultimate extent nobody could predict, was purely of those Hayle twins' brewing, and he knew he was speaking too much as though to them and them alone. He was the only Courteney who could do this thing so badly, yet it must be done. Still writing, he glanced up. Not a visitor had stooped to sit. He dipped his pen but rose up again. "What can I do for you, sirs?""We have told you," said the senator. "Send for the captain!""Will you please say what you want him for?""No, sir! We will tell him that when he comes!""He'll not come, sir. I shan't send."The senator glared steadily into the youth's face, and the youth, forgetting their disparity of years, glared as steadily back. The bishop blandly spoke:"Senator, will you allow me, for an instant—? Mr. Courteney, you will admit that this steamboat is not your property?""She's as much mine as anybody's, sir. I am one third owner of her."The bishop's pause was lengthy. Then—"Oh, you are! Well, however that may be, sir, your father ought to realize—and so ought you, sir—that we cannot consent to conduct an affair like this in a second-handed way.""It really isn't second-handed, sir; but if you think it is and if you're willing to put your request in writing and will dictate it to me, here and now——"The senator exploded: "Damn the writing!" He whirled upon the bishop: "Your pardon, sir!""Some one had to say it," jovially answered the bishop. Everybody laughed. Hugh dipped his pen once more."Shall I put that down, also?" he asked, looking to the bishop and the senator by turns."Put what?—down where?" they asked. "What are you writing there, anyhow?""Our conversation."The senator stiffened high: "For what, sir?"And the bishop asked, "A verbatim report to the captain?""Yes, sir, and the newspapers.""Insolence!" exclaimed the general, but was hushed by the squire, though the squire's own brow lowered."Who will vouch for your accuracy?" loftily asked the senator."I'll send now for witnesses." The youth reached toward a bell-cord. But the senator lifted a hand between:"Stop, sir. There will be nothing to witness. Nevertheless you know, of course, that this is not the end.""I see that, sir.""When your passengers awake in the morning, your real, your cabin passengers, they will, theyshallawake to the deadly hazard of their situation. Gentlemen, there will be available landings beyond Prophet's Island. We shall reach Turnbull's Island by noon and Natchez Island before sundown. Meantime, sir, this mortal peril to hundreds of our best people is wholly chargeable to your captain.""Captain and owners," said Hugh."Captain and owners! Good night, sir.""Good night, gentlemen."For half an hour theVotaressheaded west. Then the north star crept forward from starboard beam to bow and then back from bow to larboard beam. Plaquemine town, bayou, and bend swept past, and as she laid her course east for Manchac bayou, bend, and point a tranquil voice came up to the pilot-house from the darkness forward of the bell: "Where is Hugh, Mr. Watson?""He's just turned in, sir."

"Hitherto," said the senator, in his stateroom, to the bishop and the judge, "there really has been no need to take any assertive step."

He was explaining his slowness as head of the deputation and was glad, he said, to have a word apart with these two. The room could not seat seven and for the moment the other four were at the bar, where standing was so much easier than elsewhere.

Their business, the seven's, he added, was with the captain, and officially the captain had gone off duty at eight o'clock and was on again only now, at midnight, in the "middle watch." Even yet there need be no hurry; what they wanted done could not be done before early morning, at Prophet's Island.

The bishop approved. "Don't cross the bridge till you get to it," he quoted.

The judge—whose elderly maiden sister was aboard and abed but awake and alarmed and amazed and astounded that he should be so helpless—assented, too, but thought there was now no call for further delay; Prophet's Island was nearer every moment and the sooner "those people" were well ashore the safer—and easier—for everybody.

"I was giving our numbers time to grow," remarked the senator.

"And the cholera time to spread?" queried the judge.

"We're but a small minority yet," persisted the senator.

"A minority always rules," smilingly said the bishop.

The senator smiled back. "There are two or three hundred of those deck passengers alone," he responded.

"Senator," said the judge, "what of that? We've taken upon ourselves to speak for all the cabin passengers on this boat, whether as yet they agree with us or not. They are as numerous as those foreigners, sir, and, my God! sir,theyare our own people. Self-preservation is the first law!"

"Oh, surely you know," protested the senator, "I'm with you, heart and soul! We must extricate these people of our own from a situation whose desperateness most of them do not recognize. We'll go to the captain now, as soon as—as we must. But let us agree right here that whatever we require him to do we also require him to do of his own free will. He must shift no responsibility upon us. You have, of your sort, bishop, a constituency quite as sensitive as the judge's or mine, and we don't want to give any one a chance to start a false story which we might find it difficult to run down. And so we can hardly be too careful——"

The absent four had returned while he spoke. "Sir," interrupted the general, whose th's were getting thick, "ththat is what we have been—too careful!"

The hearts of the four were on fire. A chance word of the barkeeper, they said, had sent them to the stateroom of Hayle's twins, who, with tears of wrath, had confessed themselves prisoners; prisoners of their own word of honor—"after being knocked down——"

"What?" cried senator, judge, and bishop.

"Yes, sirs, one of them literally knocked down by the acknowledged minion of one Courteney, for having ventured to differ politically with another and for daring to mention the pestilence to a third."

The seven poured out to the guards and started for the roof. The bell up there tolled for the landing at Whippoorwill Ferry. About to ascend a stair, they uncovered and stood aside while Madame Hayle and a cabin maid passed down on their way back to the immigrants' deck. By the time the roof was reached the boat was close inshore. The captain had begun to direct her landing. The engine bells were jingling. Tall torch baskets were blazing on the lower-deck guards, and another burial awaited only the running out of the big stage. Now it hurried ashore, a weirdly solemn pageant. The seven, looking down upon it, regained a more becoming composure. When the swift task was done, the torches quenched, and the boat again under way and her movements in control of the pilot, they once more looked for the captain. His chair was empty, but his room was bright and its door ajar. Within, however, was only the wholly uninspiring figure of Hugh, at a table, where he was just beginning to write. He rose and seemed sedately to count his visitors.

"We are looking for the captain," said the senator.

"He's down on the after lower deck, sir."

"Oh!" The bushy brows of the inquirer lifted. "Will you send for him? We can't very well go down there."

"That's true, sir," said Hugh, feeling the irony, "unless you wish to help." He looked from one to another, but none of the seven wished to help.

"Do you mean to say," broke in the general, "ththat we can't sssee ththe captain of ththis boat unless we nurse the cholera?"

"No, sir, I don't mean that, though he's very much occupied. If you will state your business to me I will send for him unless I can attend to it myself."

"Why, my young friend," said the senator, "does that strike you as due courtesy to a delegation like this?"

"No, sir, ordinarily it would not be, sir. But my father—I am the captain's son—knowing you were coming and what you were coming for, waited for you as long as he could. Just now he is extremely busy, sir, doing what he can—short-handed—for the sick and dying." The captain's son, in spite of himself, began to warm up. "Those hundreds of people down yonder, sir, are homeless, friendless, dumb—you may say—and in his personal care. He has left me here to see that your every proper wish has every attention. Gentlemen, will you please be seated?" He resumed his own chair and at top speed began again to write.

It was a performance not pleasant for any one. He felt himself culpably too full of the resentful conviction that this ferment, whose ultimate extent nobody could predict, was purely of those Hayle twins' brewing, and he knew he was speaking too much as though to them and them alone. He was the only Courteney who could do this thing so badly, yet it must be done. Still writing, he glanced up. Not a visitor had stooped to sit. He dipped his pen but rose up again. "What can I do for you, sirs?"

"We have told you," said the senator. "Send for the captain!"

"Will you please say what you want him for?"

"No, sir! We will tell him that when he comes!"

"He'll not come, sir. I shan't send."

The senator glared steadily into the youth's face, and the youth, forgetting their disparity of years, glared as steadily back. The bishop blandly spoke:

"Senator, will you allow me, for an instant—? Mr. Courteney, you will admit that this steamboat is not your property?"

"She's as much mine as anybody's, sir. I am one third owner of her."

The bishop's pause was lengthy. Then—"Oh, you are! Well, however that may be, sir, your father ought to realize—and so ought you, sir—that we cannot consent to conduct an affair like this in a second-handed way."

"It really isn't second-handed, sir; but if you think it is and if you're willing to put your request in writing and will dictate it to me, here and now——"

The senator exploded: "Damn the writing!" He whirled upon the bishop: "Your pardon, sir!"

"Some one had to say it," jovially answered the bishop. Everybody laughed. Hugh dipped his pen once more.

"Shall I put that down, also?" he asked, looking to the bishop and the senator by turns.

"Put what?—down where?" they asked. "What are you writing there, anyhow?"

"Our conversation."

The senator stiffened high: "For what, sir?"

And the bishop asked, "A verbatim report to the captain?"

"Yes, sir, and the newspapers."

"Insolence!" exclaimed the general, but was hushed by the squire, though the squire's own brow lowered.

"Who will vouch for your accuracy?" loftily asked the senator.

"I'll send now for witnesses." The youth reached toward a bell-cord. But the senator lifted a hand between:

"Stop, sir. There will be nothing to witness. Nevertheless you know, of course, that this is not the end."

"I see that, sir."

"When your passengers awake in the morning, your real, your cabin passengers, they will, theyshallawake to the deadly hazard of their situation. Gentlemen, there will be available landings beyond Prophet's Island. We shall reach Turnbull's Island by noon and Natchez Island before sundown. Meantime, sir, this mortal peril to hundreds of our best people is wholly chargeable to your captain."

"Captain and owners," said Hugh.

"Captain and owners! Good night, sir."

"Good night, gentlemen."

For half an hour theVotaressheaded west. Then the north star crept forward from starboard beam to bow and then back from bow to larboard beam. Plaquemine town, bayou, and bend swept past, and as she laid her course east for Manchac bayou, bend, and point a tranquil voice came up to the pilot-house from the darkness forward of the bell: "Where is Hugh, Mr. Watson?"

"He's just turned in, sir."

XVMORNING WATCH

Twinkled quite away were the four hours of middle watch.All the gentler turnings of the journey's first hundred miles were finished and the many hundred miles of its wider contortions were well begun. One winding of thirty-five miles had earned but twelve of northward advance. But at any rate that was now far downstream. Baton Rouge, the small capital of the State, crowning the first high bank you reach, was some six miles astern. In the dark panorama of the shores, decipherable only to a pilot's trained sight, the unbroken procession of sugar estates was broken at last and the shiningVotaress, having rounded a point from north to west, was crossing close above it with Seven Lakes and the Devil's Swamp on her starboard bow. TheAntelopeglimmered a short mile behind.It was the first mate's watch. On the hurricanedeck he paced at ease across and across near the front rail, where at any instant his eye could drop to its truer domain, the forecastle. The westerly moon hung high over the larboard bow. Now the boat ran so close along the lowland that in smiting the water each bucket of her shoreward wheel drew a separate echo from the dense wood, as if a phantom boat ran beside her among the moss-draped cypresses. Ramsey! what thrills you were missing!She knew it. In her sleep she lay half consciously resenting the loss. Under the next point a close turn led into a long northeastward reach, and as theVotaressbore due north across it the morning star, at one flash, blazed out on the dark world and down the flood. Through her stateroom's high window its silvery beam found Ramsey in the upper berth and opened her eyelids with a touch. Staring on the serene splendor, she would soon have slept again, but just then the many lights of a large steamer glided out of the next bend above and Ramsey sprang to an elbow to watch its swift approach and await her own boat's passing call and the other's reply. Now theVotaresstolled a single stroke, as if to cry: "Hail, friend, we take the starboard."With bird-like speed the shining apparition came on, and after a few seconds—that seemed endless—its soft, slow note of assent floated over the waters. Crossing the star's slender path on a long oblique, the wonder came, came on, came close, glittered by, and was gone; now lowland and flood lay again in mystic shadows, and the heavenly beacon of dawn, shedding a yet more unearthly glory than before, swung nearer and nearer to theVotaress'scourse until it vanished forward of the great wheel-house as she headed northeast.The very pilot at the helm was not more awake than the reclining Ramsey as she pondered the hours, each one a year, that had passed since she came aboard. All their happenings, dark and bright; all their speeches; all their faces, male, female, aged, adolescent, juvenile, danced through her fancy with a variety and multiplicity of values which seven such little country-girl minds as hers, thought she, could hardly make room for. It seemed as though a shower of coined gold were overflowing her wee muslin apron of an intelligence and dropping through it. She could scarcely remain in the berth. Listen! Was her mother awake, in the lower one? The boat veered a trifle back northward and suddenly again, hovering over dim water and shore and blazing like a herald angel, was the morning star, a scant point or so to "stabboard." She chuckled, softly, at the word.Gently her name was called, beneath her: "Ramsey?"She let her face into the pillow and shook with the fun of it. If she should squeak half a note of reply she would be ordered to stay abed. Soon the mother rose and began stealthily to dress. No doubt it was to return to those poor Germans below. The thought was very sobering. Ramsey yearned to go with her, but knew she might as well ask leave to ride in the white yawl which, night and day, so incessantly, invitingly skimmed, zigzagged, foamed, and bounded after theVotaress, holding on to her fantail by its jerking painter.The yawl reminded her of the boy Hugh. He seemed to belong to the boat in much the same way as it. Hewasa boy, nothing else—humph!—pooh!—though he seemed to think himself the elephant of the show. A boy, and yet with what a mind! Not that she should ever want one like it—whoop! what would she ever do with it? No wonder she had laughed in his face. Without laughter she would have been his tossed and trampled victim. Laughter was her ladder; the ladder up which the circus girl runs to sit on the elephant's shoulder.The lock of the stateroom door whispered. Her mother was going! Now she was gone! The daughter rose enough to look out on the gliding flood. It was day. But, night or day, how it intensified existence, this perpetual, tremulous passing of heaven and earth over and round and by and beneath one! Every least incident, indoors or out, was large and vivid, and a mere look from a window became a picture in the memory, to hang there through life. Nay, a sound was enough, too much. The remote peck-peck of that carpenter's hammer smote into her mind the indelible image of the only thing he could be making at such an hour. Trying to be deaf, she thought of Joy—timely thought! At any moment the old dear might steal in. She dropped from her berth, and when the actual invasion came, when Joy appeared, Ramsey was at the wash-stand, splashing like a canary, while strewn about the cramped place lay a lot of fresh attire, her Sunday best, brightest, longest."Now, you needn't say one word!" she cried.The old woman bridled to say many, but before she could speak there was a fervent challenge to answer:"Do you realize all I've got to attend to to-day?"The nurse's mouth opened but another question was shot into it: "Has anybody told about theQuakeress?"There was a limit to forbearance. "Now, Miss Ramsey Hayle, ef dey is tell it, aw ef dey hain't—to yo' ma—dat's all right an' beseemly. But fo' you, dat ain't no fitt'n' story fo' you to heah!"Ramsey stared from her towel with lips apart. "Why, you—I'm going to hear it!—all!—this day!—or, anyhow, this trip!—from—from—" She fell upon the nurse's shoulder, convulsed."F'om who' is you gwine hear it? Stop, missie, stawp! Dat's madness, dat laughteh. De Bible say' so! F'm who'—? Lawd! yo' head's a-wett'n' my breas'-han'kercheh!"Ramsey drew up, her eyes dancing, but went into a new transport as she replied: "From the baby elephant!""No, you don't, Miss Ramsey Hayle! No, you don't! An' besides, befo' you heah de story o' deQuak'essyou want to heah de story o' Phyllis."

All the gentler turnings of the journey's first hundred miles were finished and the many hundred miles of its wider contortions were well begun. One winding of thirty-five miles had earned but twelve of northward advance. But at any rate that was now far downstream. Baton Rouge, the small capital of the State, crowning the first high bank you reach, was some six miles astern. In the dark panorama of the shores, decipherable only to a pilot's trained sight, the unbroken procession of sugar estates was broken at last and the shiningVotaress, having rounded a point from north to west, was crossing close above it with Seven Lakes and the Devil's Swamp on her starboard bow. TheAntelopeglimmered a short mile behind.

It was the first mate's watch. On the hurricanedeck he paced at ease across and across near the front rail, where at any instant his eye could drop to its truer domain, the forecastle. The westerly moon hung high over the larboard bow. Now the boat ran so close along the lowland that in smiting the water each bucket of her shoreward wheel drew a separate echo from the dense wood, as if a phantom boat ran beside her among the moss-draped cypresses. Ramsey! what thrills you were missing!

She knew it. In her sleep she lay half consciously resenting the loss. Under the next point a close turn led into a long northeastward reach, and as theVotaressbore due north across it the morning star, at one flash, blazed out on the dark world and down the flood. Through her stateroom's high window its silvery beam found Ramsey in the upper berth and opened her eyelids with a touch. Staring on the serene splendor, she would soon have slept again, but just then the many lights of a large steamer glided out of the next bend above and Ramsey sprang to an elbow to watch its swift approach and await her own boat's passing call and the other's reply. Now theVotaresstolled a single stroke, as if to cry: "Hail, friend, we take the starboard."

With bird-like speed the shining apparition came on, and after a few seconds—that seemed endless—its soft, slow note of assent floated over the waters. Crossing the star's slender path on a long oblique, the wonder came, came on, came close, glittered by, and was gone; now lowland and flood lay again in mystic shadows, and the heavenly beacon of dawn, shedding a yet more unearthly glory than before, swung nearer and nearer to theVotaress'scourse until it vanished forward of the great wheel-house as she headed northeast.

The very pilot at the helm was not more awake than the reclining Ramsey as she pondered the hours, each one a year, that had passed since she came aboard. All their happenings, dark and bright; all their speeches; all their faces, male, female, aged, adolescent, juvenile, danced through her fancy with a variety and multiplicity of values which seven such little country-girl minds as hers, thought she, could hardly make room for. It seemed as though a shower of coined gold were overflowing her wee muslin apron of an intelligence and dropping through it. She could scarcely remain in the berth. Listen! Was her mother awake, in the lower one? The boat veered a trifle back northward and suddenly again, hovering over dim water and shore and blazing like a herald angel, was the morning star, a scant point or so to "stabboard." She chuckled, softly, at the word.

Gently her name was called, beneath her: "Ramsey?"

She let her face into the pillow and shook with the fun of it. If she should squeak half a note of reply she would be ordered to stay abed. Soon the mother rose and began stealthily to dress. No doubt it was to return to those poor Germans below. The thought was very sobering. Ramsey yearned to go with her, but knew she might as well ask leave to ride in the white yawl which, night and day, so incessantly, invitingly skimmed, zigzagged, foamed, and bounded after theVotaress, holding on to her fantail by its jerking painter.

The yawl reminded her of the boy Hugh. He seemed to belong to the boat in much the same way as it. Hewasa boy, nothing else—humph!—pooh!—though he seemed to think himself the elephant of the show. A boy, and yet with what a mind! Not that she should ever want one like it—whoop! what would she ever do with it? No wonder she had laughed in his face. Without laughter she would have been his tossed and trampled victim. Laughter was her ladder; the ladder up which the circus girl runs to sit on the elephant's shoulder.

The lock of the stateroom door whispered. Her mother was going! Now she was gone! The daughter rose enough to look out on the gliding flood. It was day. But, night or day, how it intensified existence, this perpetual, tremulous passing of heaven and earth over and round and by and beneath one! Every least incident, indoors or out, was large and vivid, and a mere look from a window became a picture in the memory, to hang there through life. Nay, a sound was enough, too much. The remote peck-peck of that carpenter's hammer smote into her mind the indelible image of the only thing he could be making at such an hour. Trying to be deaf, she thought of Joy—timely thought! At any moment the old dear might steal in. She dropped from her berth, and when the actual invasion came, when Joy appeared, Ramsey was at the wash-stand, splashing like a canary, while strewn about the cramped place lay a lot of fresh attire, her Sunday best, brightest, longest.

"Now, you needn't say one word!" she cried.

The old woman bridled to say many, but before she could speak there was a fervent challenge to answer:

"Do you realize all I've got to attend to to-day?"

The nurse's mouth opened but another question was shot into it: "Has anybody told about theQuakeress?"

There was a limit to forbearance. "Now, Miss Ramsey Hayle, ef dey is tell it, aw ef dey hain't—to yo' ma—dat's all right an' beseemly. But fo' you, dat ain't no fitt'n' story fo' you to heah!"

Ramsey stared from her towel with lips apart. "Why, you—I'm going to hear it!—all!—this day!—or, anyhow, this trip!—from—from—" She fell upon the nurse's shoulder, convulsed.

"F'om who' is you gwine hear it? Stop, missie, stawp! Dat's madness, dat laughteh. De Bible say' so! F'm who'—? Lawd! yo' head's a-wett'n' my breas'-han'kercheh!"

Ramsey drew up, her eyes dancing, but went into a new transport as she replied: "From the baby elephant!"

"No, you don't, Miss Ramsey Hayle! No, you don't! An' besides, befo' you heah de story o' deQuak'essyou want to heah de story o' Phyllis."

XVIPHYLLIS

From earliest childhood the Hugh whom it gave Ramsey such rapture to nickname had unconsciously worn the dim frown that seemed to her so droll because at once so scrutinous yet so appealing.To others that faint shade had never meant more than an inborn mental painstaking; a mind as steadily at work as the pulse; seemingly sluggish, really active. But Ramsey, in her stateroom, letting Joy dress her for all the Sabbath could mean afloat or ashore, could not accept such a thought. A feminine eagerness to read the masculine brow had promptly imputed to Hugh's a depth of mystery for which her romantic young soul demanded a romantic interpretation. Hence, mainly, her hunger for the story of theQuakeress. She had perceived, she thought, a relation between it and the clouded brow, and was bent on finding for the brow's owner as amazing a part in the tale as could be contrived by any piecing together of its facts which did not absolutely mutilate them. And these facts already she had begun to collect when by the mention of this "Phyllis" she discovered that old Joy had at least a share of the facts and under due pressure would yield them up."Phyllis?" asked Ramsey, "who was Phyllis?""Humph! Neveh hear o' Phyllis? Well, dey wuz reason fo' dat, too. Phyllis wuz de likeliest yalleh gal I eveh see, not-in-standin' she wuz my full fus' cousin."Now, one could be as dark as a sloe and yet have a cousin as yellow as a marigold, but Ramsey did not see it so. "How can that be?" she laughed, "when you are so out and out black?" The bare idea seemed too comical for human endurance."I ain't no blackeh'n Gawd made me—oh, Lawd! missie, how I gwine button you up ef you shif' an' wriggle like dat? Phyllis wuz nuss to all de Co'teney chil'en. 'Caze dat same day when de newQuak'esscome down de riveh wid dis same Mahs' Hugh, new-bawn, dah wuz yo' pa on his new boat, deConjuror——""Ow! theConqueror!""Yass'm, dat's what I say. And dah wuz yo' ma, an' me, o' co'se, and dah wuz Phyllis, my full fus' cousin—now, ef you cayn't stop a-gigglin' an' wrigglin' long enough fo' me to finish dis——"Ramsey was too unnerved to heed. "How could—" she insisted—"how could a—a mulatto girl be your first cousin?""Now, you dess neveh min' how! Phyllis wa'n't no mullatteh, nohow. She wuz a quadroom! Heh mullatteh motheh wuz my own sisteh!""Oh, you mean half-sister!""I means whole sisteh! Miss Hayle, betteh you dess drap dat subjic' now, an' thaynk Gawd fo' yo' ign'ance!""All right! all right! whole sister! go on! were you twins?" The querist gave a wild start of surprise at herself and sank to the floor."Missie," sighed the old woman, "y'ain't neveh in yo' life stopped to think dat niggehs is got feelin's, is you?"The speech was hardly begun before the girl was up and about the protester's neck: "Hush! ple-ease hush! You've said it before, you've said it before, you've said it before, before!"The nurse's eyes filled: "Yass, an' what use it been? De wuss thing I know 'bout good white folks—an' when I says 'good' I means de best!—dat is, dat dey don'tbelieveniggehs is got feelin's!" It was hard to speak on, for Ramsey had pushed her into a chair and was in her lap."They do! they do, mammy Joy, they do!" She fell to kissing her, first slowly, then wildly as Joy insisted:"No, dey don't. Ef dey did, Phyllis 'ud neveh 'a' come to de pass she came to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes'believesdey believes, dat's all. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got—oh, Lawd!don'tspile my breas'-han'kercheh!—is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; but lots o' niggehs is gotlotsmo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an' betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh——""Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister must have had feelings. Tell about Phyllis—and the Courteneys—and theQuakeress.""Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'——""Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to askhimabout and you know I'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you to keep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as you can—listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! And we're passing to labboard. Come! Come on!"At their own door they espied the passing craft: a single boat, not six; a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly made out in the early dusk of the forested shore which it servilely hugged as if doing all it could to hide its grimy name and identity."TheFly-up-the-Creek!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, thatcan'tbe all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her—but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and thought of home.When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the theme was once more Phyllis."Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question."Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold one of his negroes!""Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a quadroom?""Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!""Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!—dat de likes o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kinmakea niggeh out'n a simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh like a niggeh; but——"Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!""Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but—I's seen it done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!""What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was good.""She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout deQuak'ess." The narrator shut her lips tight.The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but theVotaressbore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded shore on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was in sight.Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main river. She had heard with awe that bit of history—not this history,—the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of four hundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the white man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent presence of theFly-up-the-Creekaway over here on this morning side of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no right to be, coming down-stream."My!" cried the girl, "I wish—oh, my, my,my, I wish I could be five people at once!"For here the boat's watchman sauntered by—a boat's watchman must be a world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet mother playing angel—oh, my, my!—and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's greenwood walls and out over their tops—"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever listen to you, once we're in the chute!""I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow. She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh sisteh—aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o' Vicksbu'g, same likeusgot back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive' yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa—a shawt spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up.""Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do.""H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz.""But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!""An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'—well, I'll stop tell you quits de giggles.... Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah ayfteh y'uncle Dan—de bacheldeh—de pilot—quit de riveh a spell fo' to run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa, sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile.""Chi—you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!""Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul."Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?""'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat whole Vicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pass, when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan' Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his 'rights' like a sett'n' hen.""But what did mom-awantto borrow her for?""Well, I mowt say, fo' heh beauty; but ef I don't skip noth'n' I got to say she 'llow to p'otect heh."Ramsey stared again and suddenly fell into that soft, rippling laugh, keen, merry, self-oblivious, which forty excusing adjectives would not have excused to her nurse."Protect her from—from wha-at?" She rippled again."F'om herseff!—an' f'om him!—an' him f'om heh!—and de whole Hayle fambly an' de law o' Gawd f'om bofe! An' she done it, yo' ma!—up to de wery day he meet his awful en' in dat bu'nin' pilot-house, when——""Ah-h-h! what pilot-house? You never told me——""Anybody else eveh tol' you? No. Us Hayles-es ain't fon' o' dat story. What I ain't tell you ain't be'n ripe to tell. I don't tell noth'n' 'tell it's ripe to tell, me!""Oh, it's dead ripe now. Go on, go on!—Burning pilot-house—my uncle Dan—stop!... Hmm!... That's funny.... Why, mammy, how could he be my uncle if he—was burnt up—before I was born?""Dat's yo' lookout. He wa'n't bu'nt up tell you wuz goin' on five. Yo' mixin' his las' en' wid yo' grampa's.""Oh, I see-ee! He was lost on theQuakeress!""Well, thaynky, ma'am! Yo' perceivin' powehs is a-gitt'n' ahead o' de hounds. I wuz a-comin' to dat——"Ramsey interrupted. Her cry of ecstasy was not for the breakfast bell, which on the deck next below rang joyously up and down both guards and died away in the ladies' cabin. It was for a vision that rose before her and theVotaress; an illusion of the boat's whole speed being lost to the boat and given to the shore. Suddenly the fair craft seemed to stop and stand, foaming, panting, quivering like a wild mare, while the green, gray-bearded, dew-drenched forest—island and mainland—amid a singing of innumerable birds, glided down upon her, opening the chute to gulp her in without a twang of her guys or a stain upon her beauty."Go on!" cried Ramsey, her eyes enthralled by the scene, her ears by the story:—"Mom-a borrowed Phyllis—go on!""When yo' grampa gone," said Joy, "an' de will is read, yo' ma tell y'uncle Dan fo' to neveh mine his rights aw his lef's; he kin go on ownin' Phyllis and de chile, but, all de same, he cayn't have 'em. An' when he paw de groun' an' th'ow dus' on his back yo' pa dess—go an' see him. Wheneveh yo' pa dess go an' see anybody, you know——"Ramsey knew. She tinkled with delight."But den come wuss trouble. 'Caze 'bout dat time——"About that time Ramsey whisked round and stood so as to give Hugh Courteney, as he came on deck, a square view of her young back. He noticed her better length of skirt."Go on," she murmured. "Is he coming this way?""Co'se he ain't. He gwine up to de pilot-house.""Humph, howawfulbusy! That's just for grandeur. Go on." And while the leafy jaws of the chute drew them in and all the air was suddenly filled with the boat's sounds flung back from every rippling bough, tree top, and mass of draping vines, the nurse went on:"'Bout dat time yo' pa he git de hahdess ovehseeh he eveh did git, an' you can't 'spute de fact dat yo' pa he take' natchiully to hahd men, an' hahd men take natchiully to him. You kin say dat to his credits.""Yes," replied Ramsey, "yes," sighing, gesticulating, whimpering in ecstasies of sight as the walls of the watery lane cramped in to half its first width. They seemed to rush past of their own volition, while out beyond them on either hand the whole dense gray-green interwoven wilderness, with ceremonial stateliness, swung round on itself in slow time to the windy speed of theVotaress.

From earliest childhood the Hugh whom it gave Ramsey such rapture to nickname had unconsciously worn the dim frown that seemed to her so droll because at once so scrutinous yet so appealing.

To others that faint shade had never meant more than an inborn mental painstaking; a mind as steadily at work as the pulse; seemingly sluggish, really active. But Ramsey, in her stateroom, letting Joy dress her for all the Sabbath could mean afloat or ashore, could not accept such a thought. A feminine eagerness to read the masculine brow had promptly imputed to Hugh's a depth of mystery for which her romantic young soul demanded a romantic interpretation. Hence, mainly, her hunger for the story of theQuakeress. She had perceived, she thought, a relation between it and the clouded brow, and was bent on finding for the brow's owner as amazing a part in the tale as could be contrived by any piecing together of its facts which did not absolutely mutilate them. And these facts already she had begun to collect when by the mention of this "Phyllis" she discovered that old Joy had at least a share of the facts and under due pressure would yield them up.

"Phyllis?" asked Ramsey, "who was Phyllis?"

"Humph! Neveh hear o' Phyllis? Well, dey wuz reason fo' dat, too. Phyllis wuz de likeliest yalleh gal I eveh see, not-in-standin' she wuz my full fus' cousin."

Now, one could be as dark as a sloe and yet have a cousin as yellow as a marigold, but Ramsey did not see it so. "How can that be?" she laughed, "when you are so out and out black?" The bare idea seemed too comical for human endurance.

"I ain't no blackeh'n Gawd made me—oh, Lawd! missie, how I gwine button you up ef you shif' an' wriggle like dat? Phyllis wuz nuss to all de Co'teney chil'en. 'Caze dat same day when de newQuak'esscome down de riveh wid dis same Mahs' Hugh, new-bawn, dah wuz yo' pa on his new boat, deConjuror——"

"Ow! theConqueror!"

"Yass'm, dat's what I say. And dah wuz yo' ma, an' me, o' co'se, and dah wuz Phyllis, my full fus' cousin—now, ef you cayn't stop a-gigglin' an' wrigglin' long enough fo' me to finish dis——"

Ramsey was too unnerved to heed. "How could—" she insisted—"how could a—a mulatto girl be your first cousin?"

"Now, you dess neveh min' how! Phyllis wa'n't no mullatteh, nohow. She wuz a quadroom! Heh mullatteh motheh wuz my own sisteh!"

"Oh, you mean half-sister!"

"I means whole sisteh! Miss Hayle, betteh you dess drap dat subjic' now, an' thaynk Gawd fo' yo' ign'ance!"

"All right! all right! whole sister! go on! were you twins?" The querist gave a wild start of surprise at herself and sank to the floor.

"Missie," sighed the old woman, "y'ain't neveh in yo' life stopped to think dat niggehs is got feelin's, is you?"

The speech was hardly begun before the girl was up and about the protester's neck: "Hush! ple-ease hush! You've said it before, you've said it before, you've said it before, before!"

The nurse's eyes filled: "Yass, an' what use it been? De wuss thing I know 'bout good white folks—an' when I says 'good' I means de best!—dat is, dat dey don'tbelieveniggehs is got feelin's!" It was hard to speak on, for Ramsey had pushed her into a chair and was in her lap.

"They do! they do, mammy Joy, they do!" She fell to kissing her, first slowly, then wildly as Joy insisted:

"No, dey don't. Ef dey did, Phyllis 'ud neveh 'a' come to de pass she came to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes'believesdey believes, dat's all. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got—oh, Lawd!don'tspile my breas'-han'kercheh!—is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; but lots o' niggehs is gotlotsmo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an' betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh——"

"Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister must have had feelings. Tell about Phyllis—and the Courteneys—and theQuakeress."

"Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'——"

"Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to askhimabout and you know I'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you to keep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as you can—listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! And we're passing to labboard. Come! Come on!"

At their own door they espied the passing craft: a single boat, not six; a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly made out in the early dusk of the forested shore which it servilely hugged as if doing all it could to hide its grimy name and identity.

"TheFly-up-the-Creek!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, thatcan'tbe all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her—but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and thought of home.

When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the theme was once more Phyllis.

"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question.

"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."

Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold one of his negroes!"

"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a quadroom?"

"Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"

"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!—dat de likes o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kinmakea niggeh out'n a simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh like a niggeh; but——"

Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"

"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but—I's seen it done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"

"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was good."

"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout deQuak'ess." The narrator shut her lips tight.

The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but theVotaressbore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded shore on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was in sight.

Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main river. She had heard with awe that bit of history—not this history,—the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of four hundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the white man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent presence of theFly-up-the-Creekaway over here on this morning side of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no right to be, coming down-stream.

"My!" cried the girl, "I wish—oh, my, my,my, I wish I could be five people at once!"

For here the boat's watchman sauntered by—a boat's watchman must be a world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet mother playing angel—oh, my, my!—and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's greenwood walls and out over their tops—"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever listen to you, once we're in the chute!"

"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow. She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh sisteh—aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o' Vicksbu'g, same likeusgot back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive' yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa—a shawt spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up."

"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do."

"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz."

"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"

"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'—well, I'll stop tell you quits de giggles.... Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah ayfteh y'uncle Dan—de bacheldeh—de pilot—quit de riveh a spell fo' to run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa, sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile."

"Chi—you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"

"Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul."

Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?"

"'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat whole Vicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pass, when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan' Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his 'rights' like a sett'n' hen."

"But what did mom-awantto borrow her for?"

"Well, I mowt say, fo' heh beauty; but ef I don't skip noth'n' I got to say she 'llow to p'otect heh."

Ramsey stared again and suddenly fell into that soft, rippling laugh, keen, merry, self-oblivious, which forty excusing adjectives would not have excused to her nurse.

"Protect her from—from wha-at?" She rippled again.

"F'om herseff!—an' f'om him!—an' him f'om heh!—and de whole Hayle fambly an' de law o' Gawd f'om bofe! An' she done it, yo' ma!—up to de wery day he meet his awful en' in dat bu'nin' pilot-house, when——"

"Ah-h-h! what pilot-house? You never told me——"

"Anybody else eveh tol' you? No. Us Hayles-es ain't fon' o' dat story. What I ain't tell you ain't be'n ripe to tell. I don't tell noth'n' 'tell it's ripe to tell, me!"

"Oh, it's dead ripe now. Go on, go on!—Burning pilot-house—my uncle Dan—stop!... Hmm!... That's funny.... Why, mammy, how could he be my uncle if he—was burnt up—before I was born?"

"Dat's yo' lookout. He wa'n't bu'nt up tell you wuz goin' on five. Yo' mixin' his las' en' wid yo' grampa's."

"Oh, I see-ee! He was lost on theQuakeress!"

"Well, thaynky, ma'am! Yo' perceivin' powehs is a-gitt'n' ahead o' de hounds. I wuz a-comin' to dat——"

Ramsey interrupted. Her cry of ecstasy was not for the breakfast bell, which on the deck next below rang joyously up and down both guards and died away in the ladies' cabin. It was for a vision that rose before her and theVotaress; an illusion of the boat's whole speed being lost to the boat and given to the shore. Suddenly the fair craft seemed to stop and stand, foaming, panting, quivering like a wild mare, while the green, gray-bearded, dew-drenched forest—island and mainland—amid a singing of innumerable birds, glided down upon her, opening the chute to gulp her in without a twang of her guys or a stain upon her beauty.

"Go on!" cried Ramsey, her eyes enthralled by the scene, her ears by the story:—"Mom-a borrowed Phyllis—go on!"

"When yo' grampa gone," said Joy, "an' de will is read, yo' ma tell y'uncle Dan fo' to neveh mine his rights aw his lef's; he kin go on ownin' Phyllis and de chile, but, all de same, he cayn't have 'em. An' when he paw de groun' an' th'ow dus' on his back yo' pa dess—go an' see him. Wheneveh yo' pa dess go an' see anybody, you know——"

Ramsey knew. She tinkled with delight.

"But den come wuss trouble. 'Caze 'bout dat time——"

About that time Ramsey whisked round and stood so as to give Hugh Courteney, as he came on deck, a square view of her young back. He noticed her better length of skirt.

"Go on," she murmured. "Is he coming this way?"

"Co'se he ain't. He gwine up to de pilot-house."

"Humph, howawfulbusy! That's just for grandeur. Go on." And while the leafy jaws of the chute drew them in and all the air was suddenly filled with the boat's sounds flung back from every rippling bough, tree top, and mass of draping vines, the nurse went on:

"'Bout dat time yo' pa he git de hahdess ovehseeh he eveh did git, an' you can't 'spute de fact dat yo' pa he take' natchiully to hahd men, an' hahd men take natchiully to him. You kin say dat to his credits."

"Yes," replied Ramsey, "yes," sighing, gesticulating, whimpering in ecstasies of sight as the walls of the watery lane cramped in to half its first width. They seemed to rush past of their own volition, while out beyond them on either hand the whole dense gray-green interwoven wilderness, with ceremonial stateliness, swung round on itself in slow time to the windy speed of theVotaress.

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