XXX
Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours with himself and as hungry as usual.
As he ate he enlarged on his finds, and when he had finished his supper he piled the fire with light sticks to make a blaze, and spread them out for Miss Drummond's inspection.
He had evidently lighted on the personal baggage of some person of quality. There were rings and brooches and pins and bracelets, of gold and silver, set with coloured stones, a couple of small watches beautifully chased and studded with gems, a small silver-mounted mirror all blackened with sea-water, two gold snuff-boxes with enamelled miniatures on the lids—quite a rich haul and very satisfactory to the craving of his spirit.
The Girl examined them all carefully, and Wulfrey, watching her quietly through the smoke of his pipe, thought she handled them somewhat gingerly and distastefully, and understood her feeling in the matter. And now and again he caught also a glimpse in the mate's black eyes, as they rested on her, of that which she herself had felt and resented.
It might be only the unconscious continuation of the gloating proprietorial look with which he regarded his treasures, which still gleamed in his eyes when they rested on her as though she herself were but one more of them. But whatever it was it was not a pleasant look, and Wulfrey was not surprised at her discomfort under it. He was as devoutly glad that he was there as she could be. Alone with this wild riever, in whom the cross-strain of his wilder forebears was running to licence in its sudden emancipation from all life's ordinary shackles.... It would not bear thinking of. Yes, he was truly glad he was there. And then he remembered, with another grateful throb, that if he had not been there, neither would she have been. For the mate most assuredly would never have brought her back to life.
"Some of these are of value," she was saying. "But they are rather pitiful to me.... Some dead woman has treasured them and she is gone. Perhaps you came upon her skeleton out there.... But they are not all real stones——"
"And how can ye tell that now?" asked Macro gruffly.
"I can tell at once by the feel of them. That now"—pointing to a heavily-gemmed bracelet—"the emeralds are real, the rubies are real, but they are all small. The white stones are not diamonds, but very good imitations. They look almost as well, but they are not diamonds. If they were that bracelet alone would be worth some hundreds of pounds."
"Deil take 'em! And you can tell that by feeling at 'em?"
"I can tell in a moment. You see I have handled many jewels—some of the finest in the world, and I have seen very many imitations of them."
"The deil ye have! How that?"
"I have lived among those to whom they belonged, and I am very fond of precious stones."
He went away to his own cabin and came back presently with a good-sized bundle done up in blue velvet, and opened it before her. Wulfrey was surprised at the extent of his treasure-trove. For these were only his most precious possessions. He knew that he had in addition considerable store of silver articles which he had been allowed to examine from time to time.
If Macro's idea had been to dazzle her with his riches he must have been disappointed. For she greeted the display with a depreciatory "T't—t't!"—and said presently, as she picked out a piece here and there for examination, "It looks like a peddler's pack.... And it makes me sad to think of those to whom they belonged...."
"They've no further use for them. And there's no telling who they belonged to. They're for any man's getting now," said Macro defensively.
"I suppose so. All the same ... For me—no!" with a most decided shake of the head.
"Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?"
"Many are good," she said, passing them rapidly and somewhat distastefully under her delicate fingers, "but not by any means all.... You have laboured hard to accumulate so much."
"Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine."
"But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it to some good use?"
"We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe."
"You are like a miser then, ever accumulating and loth to spend."
"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,—nor many others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet or a brooch?"
"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you. They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor things!"
"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare joke," which made her shiver with discomfort and draw her blanket closer round her neck at the back.
"Well, well!" said he, with a hoarse laugh, as he made up his bundle again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me——"
"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly.
"Ay—and the Doctor there——"
"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I appreciate it, I assure you."
Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable.
This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding over things and at times he grew disputatious.
Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said, "These things do not interest you?"
"As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for jewelry!"
"It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who outvied even the women in their display."
"We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust."
"Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong," growled Macro, as the result of his cogitations. "I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor, he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?"
"It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter of precaution," said Miss Drummond quietly. "Those who have valuable jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is commonly done."
"An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?"
"These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them."
"An', for me, I do. An' more I can get, better I'm pleased."
"Each to his taste, and you are very welcome to them all. Now, if you please, we will forget all about them, and speak of pleasanter things," and she turned to Wulfrey and began questioning him as to his knowledge of London, which was not nearly so extensive as her own.
The mate smoked and drank and glowered across at them. More than once Wulfrey caught his glance resting balefully on The Girl. More than ever was he thankful that he was there to look after her.
XXXI
"No," said The Girl to Wulfrey, as she sat busily sewing at her new dress on deck next morning, "I do not like your mate as much even as I thought. Do you know what I would do if you were not here?"
"What would you do?"
"I would go and live on that other ship, or else among the sandhills."
"Either would be very uncomfortable. I am glad I am here."
"He looks at me as though I were another piece of his treasure-trove, especially when he is getting drunk. If he had tried to wrap me up with the rest in that blue bundle of his I should not have been very much surprised."
"He brought you ashore, you see."
"Well? What use would that have been if you hadn't brought me back to life?"
"Not much, I'm bound to say. But I imagine he considers it gives him first claim on you."
"First claim?—for what?" she asked quickly.
"Oh, on your regard, your gratitude,——"
"My gratitude, if you like. My regard—that goes only where I can respect and esteem. And for him—neither. If he were never to come back again from over there I would not in the least regret it."
It was as inevitable that these two should instinctively draw closer to one another, as that their doing so should create something of a breach between them and the mate, and that he should feel and resent it.
Except the untoward circumstances of their lot there was practically nothing in common between him and them. His outlook and aims were as different from theirs as were his habits and upbringing. Yet it did seem preposterous to them that three persons, situated as they were, should not be able to live together in peace and good-fellowship.
To the ancients, without doubt, the gods would have been apparent behind the slow-drifting white-piled clouds, and behind the storm-wrack and the mists, laughing at the perverse little ways of men, and watching with interest the inevitable tangle produced among them by the advent of a woman.
Since the year one, two have found themselves good company and the coming of a third has led to mischief. And yet even that depends on the spirit that is in them. More than once, since he landed on the island, Wulfrey had found himself wishing Providence had sent him honest Jock Steele for company, and that it was the mate's bones that were whitening out there in place of the carpenter's.
Whether he himself would have fared so well, if he had not stuck out his leg at risk of his life and helped the mate on to his raft, and so had come ashore alone, he was not sure. And again, whether, if he had been alone, he would ever have sighted The Girl on her mast, was doubtful. If they had much to put up with in Macro, they had also much to thank him for. And so—to bear with him as well as they might and give no occasion for offence if that were possible.
But it was no easy matter. They were having a spell of fine weather which enabled him to go out to the wreckage every day. And every night he came home ravenous, and ate and drank and afterwards sat smoking with scarce a word.
If they enquired how he had fared he growled the curtest of answers, and showed plainly that their polite interest in his doings was not desired by him. He showed them none of his finds, but sat smoking doggedly, and occasionally gazing through his smoke at The Girl in a way that distressed and discomforted her.
But there was nothing in it that Wulfrey could openly take exception to. Even a cat may look at a queen. The look in the mate's black eyes was akin to that with which the cat favours the canary, when he licks his lips below its cage;—if he only dared!
Still, they were free of him during the day, and the discomfort of him at other times but drew them closer together. But Wulfrey, watching the man cautiously, saw in him signs and symptoms that he did not like, which bade him be prepared for a possible change for the worse in their relationship.
For one thing, he was drinking more heavily than he had ever done since they landed, and the drink and the brooding of his black thoughts might well hatch out unexpected evil to one or other of them. As he lay there of a night, smoking and drinking, with a face of gloom and smouldering fires in his eyes, he was more than ever like a sleeping volcano which might burst forth in flame and fury at any moment.
But for the lurking possibilities of trouble, the cool way in which he devoted himself to his own private concerns, and left them to attend to all the irksome little details of the common life, would have had in it something of the humorous.
Miss Drummond was indignant and was for leaving him supperless when he came home of a night.
But Wulfrey rigorously repressed his strong fellow-feeling therewith, and determined that no provocation should come from their side. So they continued to make ample provision for all, and the mate helped himself as if by right. If, however, good-feeling on the part of the maker has anything to do with the compounding of cakes, as The Girl averred, those she made for the mate must surely have lacked flavour, for her views on the matter were most uncompromisingly expressed, both by hands and tongue, as she made them.
"Does he look upon us as his servants, then?"—with a contemptuous slap at the innocent dough.—"To do all his work without so much as a 'Thank you'?"—another vicious slap. "—And to be glowered at as if one were a rabbit that he wanted to devour!"—cakes pitched disdainfully into a corner till the time came to cook them.—"No!—for me, I wish he would stop out there among his skeletons and trouble us no more."
Her little tantrums at thought of Macro gave Wulfrey no little amusement. The vivacity of her manner as she delivered herself, blended as it was of Scottish frankness and French sparkle, made her altogether charming. He soothed her ruffled feelings, however, by his own eulogistic appreciation of the cakes she provided for their own use, and it was then that she explained to him how intimately the character of a cake is associated with the feelings of its maker.
Matters came to a head a few days later, when the commissariat department began to run low in certain essentials.
"We're almost out of flour and pork, Macro," Wulfrey said to him, as the mate was preparing to set off as usual one morning. "Will you bring some back with you?"
The black-faced one hesitated one moment, and then cast the die for trouble.
"Well, you know where to get 'em," he growled.
"Yes, I know where to get them," and Wulfrey braced himself for the tussle. "But——"
"Well, then—get 'em, and be —— to you!" and he leaped down on to his raft and set off for the shore.
XXXII
Wulfrey watched the mate's retreating figure for a minute or two and then turned quietly to The Girl.
"Are you prepared to trust me completely, Miss Drummond?" he asked.
"Absolutely. What is it you want me to do?"
"We cannot go on this way. He is becoming insufferable. Unless you have anything to say against it, we will take possession of the other ship—you and I, and leave him here to himself."
"Yes—let us go. When shall we go? Now?"
"We must make it habitable first. It is as empty as a drum, you know."
"All the better, since we are overcrowded here with that man. It is to get away from unpleasantness that we go."
"We shall need fire,—that means sand for a hearth; and wood—we have heaps here; and cooking things—we will take our fair share, and our blankets. Everything else I can get out yonder."
"Allons! Let us go at once and get them."
He looked carefully round the horizon. "The weather will hold for a day or two still, I think. Today we had better lay our foundations—sand, wood and so on. Then tomorrow we will go out to the pile and take our cargo straight to the other ship."
"What do we do first?" she asked, abrim with excitement.
"We will take a load of wood across at once and then go for sand. We will leave the cabin open to air it and light a fire."
She was as eager as a child going to a new house, and when presently he helped her up over the side of the other schooner, she tripped to and fro delightedly, and could hardly wait till he forced back the rusty bolts of the cabin hatch with a piece of wood, so impatient was she to inspect the new home.
"I like it better than the other," she said, as they stood in the little cabin.
"Why? It seems to me just about the same."
"The man of gloom is not here. It makes all the difference."
They got their wood on board, and he tumbled it down the fore-hatch, which was easier to handle than the main. Then they went ashore, filled a bucket with fresh water, got half a dozen rabbits and a supply of the pungent herbs.... "Why so many?" she asked, and he said quietly, "I don't want to hit him below the belt,"—at which she laughed—"We can afford to be generous. The breach will be wide enough as it is."
Then they loaded the raft with sand, and getting back to the ship, arranged their hearth, and with his flint and steel succeeded at last between them in lighting a thin chip, which he ceremoniously handed to her and begged her to start their fire.
And as she knelt and applied it, and coaxed and blew till the cheerful flames shot up with a crackling shower of sparks, and the thin blue smoke streamed up the companion-way, still kneeling she waved her hands above it and said, "Light and warmth and comfort and peace! God bless the fire!" and he endorsed it with a hearty "Amen!" and thought he had never seen a fairer sight.
When the mate got home that night, he was somewhat surprised to find a supply of food and no objections made to his helping himself. He chuckled grimly, and showed by his face and manner that he considered the matter settled on eminently satisfactory lines.
They made no enquiries as to his doings and he volunteered no information. Wulfrey and Miss Drummond talked together as if he were not there. He lay and smoked, and drank, and glowered at them.
In the morning he set off as usual, and when they had taken their blankets and their fair share of cooking-utensils across to the 'Martha,' and got them all stowed away, Wulfrey turned to The Girl and said, "Now I will go out to the store-house yonder and get all I can lay hands on."
"I will come too. Perhaps I can help. I am very strong, and I would rather go with you than wait here alone. But I do not wish to see any skeletons if you can manage it."
"We will try to keep clear of them,—if you are quite sure——"
"Have we got to swim, as that man said?"
"I may have to. You need not. I will go out to the pile and make a raft, and take you across on it. And all that will take time, so the sooner we're off the better."
They paddled across to the spit and hurried along to the point, as nondescript a pair as could well be imagined in disrespect of clothing, but in all else that mattered—in all the great essentials that make for vigorous life—in health, good looks, and high and cheerful spirit—pre-eminently good to look upon.
For work on the wreck-pile the less one wore the better; and so he was clad in one simple but sufficient garment, which consisted of a long strip of linen wound many times round his waist and falling to the knees like a South Sea Island kilt. And she wore one of the prehistoric woman's sarks which Macro had brought over from the pile, and a similar, but slightly longer, kilt which swung gracefully a foot or so above her ankles as she walked.
He carried an axe in his hand, and had a knife at his back, in a seaman's belt which he had unhooked from its owner's body out there on the pile one day; and his face was somewhat grave and intent, since he was considering the possibilities of Macro's violent rejection of the situation he had himself created, and the consequences that would then ensue. But her bright face was all alive with the spirit of adventure and the novelty of this new departure.
"We look like Adam and Eve turned out of Paradise, and setting out to conquer the world," she laughed excitedly. "What wouldyourfriends think if they saw you so?"
"What they thought wouldn't trouble me in the slightest. If they understood they would understand. If they didn't it would not matter. We are doing what has to be done in the only way to do it. See the birds out there!"
"Are those really all birds? I thought it was a cloud whirling about," and she stood and stared in amazement.
"Listen and you'll hear them,"—and every now and again the south-west breeze brought them the thin strident wailing of the hungry myriads as they swooped and fought for their living.
"They sound horrid," said The Girl, with a sudden shadow on her face. "It is like the wailing of lost souls, as he said. Do they never attack you?"
"We have had more than one fight with them. But you can always escape by slipping down into a crack or jumping into the sea. Where did you learn to swim?"
"We had a cottage in the Isle of Wight for a year, when first we came from France, and I grew very fond of the water."
"Do you see Macro over there?" as they came to the end of the point. "He's hard at work. We'll tackle a different part. If you will sit down here and rest, I will get across and be back as soon as I can."
"Could I not come with you?"
"I don't know how deep the channels may be. Sometimes we can wade across, sometimes we have to swim."
"I don't mind. It can't make me any wetter than if I have to jump in because of the birds. And I have been wetter still."
"Very well. It will save much time," and they waded out alongside one another,—The Girl catching her breath at times with spasmodic little jerks of laughter, as she stepped into unexpected depths or a wave came higher than usual;—and he, intent as he was on the business in hand, yet mightily cognisant of her proximity and the penetrating and intoxicating charm of it.
When, at one sudden plunge, she gasped and clutched wildly at his bare arm, her touch sent the blood whirling through his veins. He took her soft wet hand, which was all of a tremble with excitement, in his strong and steady one, and she gripped it tightly and drew new strength from it.
Out on the great pile of wreckage in front, but somewhat towards their right, they caught glimpses now and again of Macro—a wild dark figure silhouetted against the pale-blue sky behind—as he climbed to and fro, and stood at times, and swung up his arms and his club and smashed his way through to the desire of his heart.
Wulfrey worked round to the left, and so came upon a channel which they had to swim. He fastened his axe into his belt at the back and they struck out together. He watched her anxiously at first, but was satisfied. She swam well and knowingly; they soon touched ground again, and another wade and another short swim brought them to the pile.
The Girl had been regarding it with curious eyes and ejaculations of wonder.
"But it is amazing!" she jerked, when at last they clung to a ledge of the chaotic jumble of flotsam and jetsam. "I never saw anything like it in my life."
"That's just as well. Now we'll climb up here, and you will rest while I gather wood and rope and make a raft. Then we'll see what fortune sends us."
"Whatever are all those?" she asked, when they had worked their way to the top, and stood looking round.
"Those are the bones of the ships that have perished here. There are hundreds of them half-buried in the sand."
"It is the most amazing sight I ever set eyes on," she said again, and sat and gazed at it all while he worked busily at the raft.
"Now," he said, climbing up to her again at last, "We will look for necessaries first and take anything else we come upon that may be useful. Those barrels are pork, but they are too heavy for us to handle——"
"Couldn't you break one open?"
"Then the birds would be on us like a shot. Some of them have got their eyes on us already," and he pointed to them swooping watchfully round. "We did that once and had to fight and run for it. Maybe we'll come across some smaller ones before we're done. Here's a small cask of rum. We'll make sure of that," and he rolled and carried it to their landing-place, and they scrambled on.
"These barrels are biscuits. Some of it may be good. We'll bring the raft round for it. Those small casks are flour. It's only good in the middle. We'll come round for one of them presently. We want some coffee. We're sure to come across some sooner or later."
"What is it like?"
"Small square cases about so big."
"Oh, I wonder what's in this great case."
"We'll soon see," and he smashed at it with his axe. "Hardware. We'll add to our stock since it's here."
"And this? Oh, I wish I had an axe too. I want to break open every box we come to," and he laughed out at her quick surrender to the riever spirit.
"Why do you laugh at me then? It would surely be helping you."
"I know just how you feel, and now you know just how Macro feels."
"I know just how he feels. It must grow upon one. I don't want any of the things, but still I would like to break open and find."
"We'd better stick to business. When we've got all we come across that will be of service I'll hand you the axe and you can smash away at anything you like, except your toes.... No doubt what's in that box anyway,"—for the ends of rolls of silk were sticking out of it. "I expect Macro has been over this ground already. Shall we take some?"
She picked out several rolls, saying, "They may come in useful, even if it's only to make our cabin as fine as his," and he stacked up the silk along with a raffle of rope, which was always to the good.
They scrambled to and fro, so busily smashing open cases and discussing their contents that they took no note of the birds gathering above them in ever-increasing numbers. Their ears had grown accustomed to their raucous clamour, and the fact that it had grown louder had not troubled them. But suddenly—they were delving into the side of a huge crate of blankets at the moment—the sky was darkened as by a cloud, and Wulfrey, glancing up in fear of a change in the weather, jerked out a sudden exclamation which made her jump. Then he crushed her roughly down into a narrow black chasm between the blanket-crate and another, and dropped in after her, just as the cloud, grown bold by its increase, came swooping down upon them.
Never in her life had she imagined such a nightmare experience. The bristling confusion of the wreckage, the shimmering blue sea beyond, the very light and peace of day itself, all were blotted out in an instant, and in their place was nothing but a prodigious whirling and swooping of vari-coloured feathered bodies, snaking necks, cold beady eyes, pitilessly craving them as food, cruel curved beaks keen to rend and tear, and a hideous clamour of wild wailings. The flutter and beat of myriad wings set the whole atmosphere throbbing, till the blood drummed furiously in The Girl's ears and her head felt like to burst.
She shrank down on something that crackled and subsided under her, feeling herself terribly bare to their assault. Wulfrey reached out an arm and groped for a loose blanket and dragged it over them and so hid the nightmare from her. His arm was bleeding when he drew it in.
"They will go presently when they find there is nothing to eat," he said into her ear.
"They looked as if they would tear one to pieces," and he could feel the shudder that shook her.
"They would try if they got the chance."
"They are awful.... Oh, listen!"—as the rest of the cloud, sure that such a clamour portended food, whirled round their shelter, brushed it with wings and feet, shrilled their needs and their disgust more loudly than ever, and swept away to seek more satisfying fare elsewhere.
The sound of them drifted away at last, occasional stragglers still swooped down to make quite sure there was not a scrap left, but presently these followed the rest and Wulfrey climbed up and looked about him.
"All right," he said, and reached down a hand to her. "I think they've gone after Macro," and he hauled her up into the light.
"Your arm!" she cried.
"Only scratches. No harm done.... What is it?" for she was staring with tragic face into the hole out of which she had just come.
And looking down into it he saw that he had flung her bodily on to what had been a skeleton, but was now only a confused heap of brittle bones.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but there was no time to pick and choose."
"It's a horrible place. Let us go home!"
"We'll go at once as soon as we've found some coffee ... and I would like another knife or two.... Look in that chest. Macro has opened it for us.... And if you find any tobacco, I'll thank you," and he rooted rapidly through one broken-open seaman's box, while she did the same by another.
"Tobacco—I think," she announced presently, ... "and a knife and a tinder-box."
"Another knife" was his find. "And we'll take these two coats——"
"Whatever for?"
"Well—if any of those screaming deevils, as the mate calls them, should come after us as we go back, you feel them less through a coat than on your bare skin."
"I don't think I'll come again."
"Oh, it's quite easy to avoid them, you see. And they soon go if they find nothing eatable."
"Hideous things! ... Will those cases be coffee?"
"I think so.... We'll chance one anyway.... And those small casks are rice. We're doing famously. Is there anything else you would like?"
"Heaps of things—spoons, forks, plates, stockings——"
"Here are stockings——" and he delved into his chest again.
"Truly—but twenty sizes too large. These boxes all seem to have belonged to men. Let us get home before those awful birds come back."
So they returned to the raft and pushed it slowly along the pile, from place to place, where the various portions of their cargo stood awaiting them, and Wulfrey wrestled manfully with casks and barrels and boxes in a way that would have astonished himself mightily three months before. And The Girl, eager to help as far as she could—brushing shoulders with him as they hauled and lifted, their hands overlapping at times, their bare arms in closest contact as they struggled with the insensate obstinacy of dead weights,—was very conscious of the play of the corded muscles in his arms and back, and the energy and determination of the quiet resolute face. And she was at once grateful and exultant in the knowledge that all the powers this man possessed were at her service, and that, if occasion should arise, they would be expended for her to the uttermost and without hesitation.
She experienced sensations entirely new to her. She found them good. They quickened her blood and stimulated her mind. She had seen much of men, more perhaps than most for her years, but men of a very different type,—unmuscular, powdered and peruked and befrilled, with airs and graces and velvet coats which hid the lack of virility within, and did duty for it to the world at large; men of wealth and highest culture and too often of meanest heart, self-seeking, intent only on their personal satisfactions, self-forgetful only in the pursuit of ignoble ends.
In every particular so different from this man. She had met but very few men whom she felt she could trust implicitly. Some of the most apparently sincere had proved the least worthy. And they were the most dangerous. They drew your trust, and so disarmed and then most treacherously betrayed you. Oh, she had seen it, time and again, and so her mind had come to look on men in general as beasts of prey, to be dreaded, and avoided except in the most open and superficial fashion.
But this was a man of another world. She had met none like him. He roused her and soothed her as none of those others ever had done, as no man before had ever done.
She had seen men as good-looking, perhaps, but in a very different way. Would they have looked as well, stripped of their trappings? She doubted it. And never a man among them could or would, she was sure, have handled these obdurate barrels and boxes as this man did. Truly they seemed to object to removal from their lodging-places as though they were endowed with minds of their own.
And she had trusted him implicitly, from the first moment she had looked into his eyes, and recognised that it must be he who had drawn her back out of the closing hand of death.
"Better put that on," said Wulfrey, dropping one of the coats over her shoulders, when they had got everything aboard.
"Why? I am quite warm."
"We have done our work now till we get to the spit. No good chilling in the wind. We're going to sail home," and he slipped on the other jacket, and proceeded to rig up a sail and a steering plank as he had seen the mate do.
The Girl broke into a laugh at the change for the worse produced in their appearance by the jackets.
"You looked like a Greek or a Roman before," she said. "Now we both look like gipsy tinkers."
"Fine feathers—fine birds?" he smiled, as they hauled out past the end of the pile and began lumbering slowly homewards.
"Those awful birds!" and she glanced anxiously round for them, but they were busy a mile away and troubled them no more.
XXXIII
The Girl was glad enough of her old coat before they reached the spit, in spite of its demoralising effect on her appearance,—glad even to snuggle down among the blankets, for, after the hard work of loading, even the south-west wind began presently to feel cool.
Then came the discharging, and the transporting of their heavy weights to the smaller raft on the lake, which could not take more than half their cargo at a time. So he took her and a portion across to the 'Martha,' and she undertook to have supper ready by the time he got back with the rest.
And surely she wrought pleasanter thoughts even than usual into her cooking that day, for it seemed to him, when in due course he sat opposite to her on the other side of their fire, that he had never enjoyed a meal so much in his life, deficient as it was in many things that he had always regarded as needful.
"We have done a good day's work," he said, as he lit his pipe at her request.
"I wonder what he will say about it."
"We will not let it trouble us. He has only himself to blame."
"I wonder if you and he would have quarrelled if I had never come."
"We certainly would if he had taken the line he has done. As long as he did his fair share of the providing I did not mind. But the position he took up was an impossible one."
They fell into reminiscent talk of that great outer world which seemed so remote, and from which, for all they knew, they were now for ever cut off. She had many strange recollections of her earlier life in France, some very terrible ones of the times of the Red Deluge, very mixed ones of the later times in England.
It was amazing to him to sit in that bare cabin of a deserted ship, on an island shunned by all, listening to her familiar talk of men and women who had been but names to him, until her intimate knowledge of them made them into actual living personages.
Her outlook on life had been very much wider than his own. She had lived among the scenes and people of whom he had only read in the news-sheets. He was immensely interested, both in the things she talked about and the way she talked about them. His questionings towards a clearer understanding on points which were to her matters of simplest elementary knowledge amused her not a little. And he got many a self-revealing glimpse into that strange past life of hers, from which she was so contented to escape, but which was yet so full of colour and contrast and vivid actuality that, in spite of all its discrepancies and disillusionments, it had assumed for her a certain glamour which she averred it had never worn at the time.
"Wait a moment," he would say, breaking into her flow of reminiscence, "'Monsieur' is——?"
"The Comte de Provence, the late King's brother, my uncle. My father, the King's next brother, the Comte d'Artois, is 'Monseigneur.' He has become terribly devout since Mme de Polastron died. The abbè Latil is his heart and mind and conscience. In his way he was fond of me, I believe, but since I came to understand the wrong he did my mother, I have detested him. And I have no doubt he was not sorry when I broke away. I was a perpetual reminder, you see——"
"And there is another Countess d'Artois?"
"Oh, yes,—Marie Thérèse of Savoy, but she is too awful,—a quite impossible woman, one must say that much for him. If ever a man had good excuse for seeking his pleasures elsewhere, he had. She was terrible. She had no more moral feeling than a cat."
"And Madame Adélaide——? Let me see—who was she?"
"My great-aunt—poor old thing! Those atrocious Narbonnes lived on her and turned her round their fingers."
"And Madame Elizabeth? It is terribly confusing."
"Not at all. It is all as simple as can be. Madame Elizabeth was my aunt, my father's sister. She was very sweet. Poor dear! They cut off her head, though she never harmed a soul since the day she was born. She was very good to me. If she had lived I do not think I would be here. She was not like the rest. I could have lived happily with her."
And so she chattered away,—about the late King—her uncle also,—and of the Duc d'Orleans,—"always a self-seeker, and intriguer, with a very sharp eye on the way things might turn to his own benefit. Oh, I am glad they took his head off. It was righteous retribution."—And of the Queen—— "She did foolish things at times, but she meant no harm, and, mon Dieu, how she suffered!"—And of Lafayette, and Talleyrand, and many and many another.
And it was indeed passing strange to lie there listening to it all—she clad in her blankets, for the night air had a chill in it, and he in the sea-damaged coat and small clothes of a gentleman of the Duke of Kent's suite, while between them the thin blue reek of the drift-wood fire on its hearth of sand stole up through the half-closed companion-hatch to the lonely night outside.
XXXIV
"We shall have a visit from our next-door neighbour presently, I expect," said Wulfrey, when The Girl came out of her cabin next morning. "Will you mind stopping below while I dispose of him?"
"But why?"
"He puts things coarsely at times, and he will probably be in a very bad humour at having to get his own meals ready."
"I don't mind him."
"Nor do I, except on your account. But I shall feel happier if you are out of sight and hearing."
"Oh, very well. But nothing he could say would trouble me in the slightest."
So, after breakfast, she sat down on the cabin floor to her sewing, and he lit his pipe and went up on deck carrying his axe. He closed the companion-doors and hatch very quietly—but she heard him—and went forward into the bows, which, since the usual wind blew from the south-west, was the nearest point to the 'Jane and Mary.'
It was a long time before the mate showed any signs, beyond an extra rush of smoke when he made up his fire to cook his breakfast. But he came up at last, caught sight of Wulfrey, and stood scowling across at him for a time. Then he dropped down on to his raft and came wobbling, with quick angry strokes, across to the 'Martha.'
"So that's it, is it?" he growled, with a grim look on his dark face.
"That's it," said Wulfrey coolly.
"And you think you've got her all to yourself?—what you've been plotting for ever since I hauled her ashore."
"Are you speaking of Miss Drummond?"
"I'm speaking of that girl. 'Twas me hauled her ashore an' she's my right if she's anybody's."
"There it is, you see. She is nobody's right but her own. And neither she nor I are your servants, to prepare your food and see to your comfort while you dig treasure out of the wreckage. So we have decided to fend for ourselves and you can fend for yourself."
"Ah! You think so, do you? We'll see about that."
"We undertake not to go aboard your ship if you give your word not to come aboard ours."
"See you —— first!"
"Thank you! Then now we know how we stand, and will act accordingly."
"Ay, now you know."
"And will act accordingly," emphasised Wulfrey once more. "I must ask you to keep off," as the mate paddled alongside and reached up a rough hairy hand to the side. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but I won't have you on board."
"Won't, eh?" and as he reached up the other hand and prepared to mount, Wulfrey picked up his axe and held it threateningly above the clinging hands, which straightway loosed their hold amid a volley of curses.
"—— —— —— —— you! You'd maim me! —— —— —— —— me, if I don't pay you for this! The girl's mine. I found her. I'll get her over your dead body if needs be."
"Ah! And who found you? And where would you be if I hadn't helped you on to the raft yon first night? Tell me that, will you? By the same rule you're mine, and all you've got is mine."
"—— —— —— —— you for a —— —— —— sea-lawyer!" foamed the mate, his dark face and eyes all ablaze, his shaking fists hurling curses beyond the compass of his tongue.
Wulfrey, eyeing him professionally, said to himself, "Too much rum. He'll have D.T. if he doesn't slack off—or a fit if he does much of this kind of thing."
The mate thrashed back to his own ship with furious strokes and climbed aboard, and Wulfrey, having watched him safely up the side, went down to The Girl.
"He is very angry," he said quietly.
"He did not whisper. I couldn't help hearing him. What will he do next?"
"We can only wait and see. We shall have to be on our guard, but we won't let him trouble us. He is drinking too much."
They saw nothing more of him all that day, not even his head above the bulwarks. Wulfrey surmised that he was probably treating his wrath with rum, and plotting mischief, or maybe he was lying dead drunk in his cabin. They themselves were well provided in all respects, but he had good reason to know that stocks across there were running low, and that before long the man of wrath would have to go abroad to make up his deficiencies, and that would give them the opportunity of getting in fresh water and rabbit-meat.
He could only hope the mate would not postpone his journey too long, for the weather seemed like changing. There was no sun visible, not a speck of blue sky, but in their place a wan-white opaqueness which looked portentous and might mean anything.
Wulf spent most of the day on the alert, leaving the deck only for meals, and popping up even in the middle of them to make sure that all was right. But Macro made no sign.
There was no knowing, however, what a furious, rum-fuddled man might attempt. His crazy jealousy and anger might stick at nothing, and Wulfrey looked forward to a watchful night as a necessity.
And, as he paced the deck, he ruminated on the handicap imposed by virtue on an honest man when fighting roguery. Here was Macro at liberty to sleep without fear of assault, to go ashore for water and fresh meat, and to the wreckage for everything he wanted, assured in his own mind that no one would rifle his stores, or fire his ship, or play any other dastardly trick, in his absence. While they, if they left their stronghold unguarded for an hour, must be exposed to all these things, and constant watchfulness would be necessary to prevent them.
It was not a pleasant prospect and he did not see how it was going to end. At the same time he did not see what other course had been left to them, and he was determined to go through with this, cost what it might.
The thought of striking down this man with whom he had lived in fellowship, even in fair fight, was abhorrent to him. The thought of being struck down himself made his blood run cold on The Girl's account. Both possibilities must be avoided if possible. The latter at all hazards. If it came to the mate suffering or The Girl, the mate would have to go without compunction.