Introductory material (continued 2)

“They ought not to salute with shot,” explained Captain Margaret. “They always do. And that bit of lignum vitæ—feel it; isn’t it beautifully smooth and hard—would have given you a nasty bruise. Hold on,” he called, catching her arm, “she’s rolling. We’re going over the bar. It’s all very well wishing a ship a pleasant voyage,” he continued. “But I wonder they don’t kill people.” His thought was, “Can she be such a fool? Surely she must know.” But at that time he knew very little of Stukeley.

Olivia answered him. The shot and the rattle of the falling gear had filled her mood. “Yes,” she said. “But I must be prepared for that. I must be with Tom, by his side, when we fight the Spaniards. I do think it’s fine of him to want to help the Indians.”

“Yes,” said Captain Margaret. “But won’t you go below? A braceblock on the head is a very bad preparation for helping any one.” He glanced anxiously astern at the man-of-war; he was surprised to see that she was not in sight. The Broken Heart was clear of the harbour, feeling the heave outside, hidden from Salcombe by Lambury Point. The pursuing cutter was sailing back to the sixth-rate. It was a shock to him, for a moment of time, to think that now he had burned his boats, and that he was pledged to a very doubtful venture. “There’ll be no more firing,” he added. “Doesn’t Bolt Head look fine from here? Look at the breakers on the rocks there. Olivia, you must put on a warm coat or wrap. The sea-wind is cold.”

“I’d rather be as I am,” she answered. “Tell me, Charles,” she added, “are you sure that you would like us to come with you? Quite sure? We could easily go ashore at Plymouth. But my husband is so bent on coming, and he’ll be so useful to you. You will let us come, won’t you? You know, all my life has been so empty. And now. Now I’m so happy, I want every one else to be happy. Oh, I’d love to help the Indians.”

“You shall come, certainly,” said the captain. “But are you sure you’re fitted for the voyage? Our venture is not exactly. Ladies are out of place. You may have to suffer a great deal of very great hardship. And then you might—— I want you to think, Olivia. You might—we all might—be captured by the Spaniards.”

“Oh,” she answered, “I went into that with Tom, after you’d gone, about half an hour after, when I told him of your visit. Directly I told him of it, he was eager to come with you. The first thing he said was, ‘Olivia, do you think your friends would take us?’ ”

“It must have been rather a shock to you. To decide in such a hurry.”

“Oh; but it is so nice to do that. Besides, if we hadn’t decided, we should have gone to Venice, or somewhere not half so nice.”

“Well. How will you like being at least six months from home? Have you reckoned on that?”

“Oh, but the only home one has is just one’s self. The only real home.”

“Now, Olivia. I love to have you with me. You know that of course. But you don’t realize how disagreeable the life may be.” A thought struck him. “Yes,” he muttered excitedly. “Nor how dangerous,” he added, “how frightfully dangerous.”

“One can always be one’s self,” she replied. “And I shan’t be afraid of danger, with Tom by me.”

“And the danger will threaten him, remember.”

“I shall take care of him.”

Something in her voice, in her manner, made Captain Margaret think that Olivia’s willingness to come with them was merely a willingness to please her husband. It seemed to him that her first sight of England from the sea had come upon her with a shock. He felt that she only kept from tears by an effort, now that the excitement of the race had passed. He saw her look at the men who hauled the braces; following her train of thought, that these were to be her companions for months to come. He felt instinctively that her mind began to dwell upon the possible disagreeable closeness of companionship, shut up in a small ship’s cabin, with three or four men. He wondered whether Stukeley had bullied her into the venture. He thought not. He had ever believed a rogue to be plausible, rather than masterful. He promised himself some little amusement in cross-examining Stukeley, to learn the history of that day’s work. He remembered then that he was their host. He called Stukeley. “Won’t you both come below,” he said, “to see what sort of house you’ve chosen?” He led them down the poop-ladder to the alley-way door. As he passed the door of Perrin’s cabin he heard a shaking voice uttering fierce curses. Perrin was stamping up and down, wholly given over to rage.

Up on deck, Captain Cammock walked the weather-poop, glad at heart that the wind was freshening. The Broken Heart was lying over a little, with the wind on her starboard beam. She was under all sail, going through it at about five knots. “I shall drive you, my duck,” he said. “You shall groan to-night.” He longed for a whole gale, a roaring Western Ocean gale, that the passengers might learn their folly. He eyed the sails, stiff and trembling, with shaking shadows at their clues. The carpenter was screwing battens behind the gun-trocks; the boatswain and half the watch were forward, singing out on a rope. Captain Cammock watched them whenever he turned forward. When he walked aft, he turned, glanced at the compass, looked aloft at the maintopgallant sail, and noted the feathers on the wind-vane. He was reviewing the situation. “It was a good thing for us,” he thought, “that that duchess lady was aboard that frigate. Otherwise we’d a-been chased and took. Now how was it her boat gave chase? The duchess lady arrives from the south; after six days at sea, say. She sends in for letters and stores, and the boat waits at the pier. Now this Stukeley fellow came alongside us in a shore boat, from Salcombe. I saw the word Salcombe on her backboard. Now if I was that Stukeley duck—— How could it have been, I wonder. He couldn’t have come from the pier, because the man-of-war boat lay there. If he wanted to get away, what would he have done? He’d have left word for his gear to be brought down to the water; and then gone off for a walk or drive. Then he’d have sent a boat for his gear, and got her to pick him up and row him about, up towards Kingsbridge, say, as soon as ever he decided to come aboard of us. He knew he was wanted, that duck did. Yes. That was it. For sure. And them who was laying for him hears of that, and sends up a boat to look for him; but he gives her the slip. As soon as the ebb begins, he runs down. And away he comes full tilt for us. Now some one who was laying for him must have been on the jetty, waiting for him to land. Soon as ever he come past, they nip into the cutter in the name of the King and pull after him. A little too far after. One boat pulls to the frigate, and so we get three nine-pounder shots sent at us, before the duchess lady tells ’em to stop that horrid firing. I wonder what that Stukeley duck has done, now.”

He turned over this outline of the Stukeley escape, just as, years before, he had pieced out evidence, and scouts’ reports, when he was cruising on the Spanish Main. He had always wished to have a command on the Main; for he had more than courage to recommend him. He had a keen intuitive shrewdness and a power of deduction. “They never give me a chance on the Main,” he thought. “But I was right about them roasting spuds.” He sighed. That error of his captain had lost them a pound of gold apiece. “Now,” he thought, “if them two birds is coming the cruise we shan’t have a very happy ship.”

Bell after bell passed by; the day wore; the sun set. As he had foretold, the wind drew more to the west; freshening as it shifted. The Broken Heart was beginning to feel the strain. She was lying down a little, and whitening a path in the sea. She was full of odd noises. The breechings on her guns were new, they cracked and creaked at each roll; her decks groaned as the trocks ground. At two bells, when the hands came aft to muster, in the summer twilight, having catted the anchor, she was seven miles from land, driving on in the dusk, making the seas gleam. Her poop-light, like a burning rose abaft all, reddened her wake with bloody splashes. She stooped to it and staggered. Over her bows came the sprays, making the look-outs cower down in their tarred coats. The water whitened aft in a washing rush, gleaming and creaming. By the break of the poop the watch lay. A score of men huddled together in the shade, marshalled by the boatswain in his old blue cloak, scurfed with salt at the seams. Voices murmured among them; one lit a pipe, one hummed. The wind in the shrouds hummed; already the blocks were clacking. Now and then, as they rushed on, in the gathering darkness, the boy above struck the bell; and from forward came the answering bell, with the call of the look-outs, “Weather cathead,” “Lee cathead,” showing that they were alert. The steward came from the alleyway, snuffing up the strong salt air; he climbed the lee ladder to the poop. Battling up to windward against the gale, he halted and uncovered before the captain.

“Well, steward,” said Cammock.

“Captain Margaret sends his compliments to you, seh,” said the old negro, with the soft “boneless” speech of his kind, “and will you step below, seh, to speak with him in the cabin.”

“Tell him I’ll be down in a minute,” said Cammock. He glanced at the compass-card again, and spoke a word with old Mr. Cottrill, the mate, whose watch it was, according to old sea custom. “Call me if it freshens,” he said; “but don’t take any sail off.”

Mr. Cottrill murmured that he understood, and bent under his coat to get a light for his pipe. His thought was, “I’ve shipped with pirates. With pirates.” The memory of that afternoon gave him bitter thoughts till midnight, as the ship rushed on, under the stars, carrying her freight of passion, her freight of souls.

Down below in the cabin the lamp had been lighted. The curtains had been drawn across the windows, and now swayed a little with the roll, making a faint click of rings. They were dark green curtains; but on each of them was worked a blood-red tulip, which glowed out finely in the lamplight. The windows were open behind the curtains. At times, when the ship pitched, the cloth sucked in or out, sending the lamp-flame dancing. At the table were the two Stukeleys and Captain Margaret. Perrin sat upon the locker by the window, biting his poor raw thumbs. When Captain Cammock entered, he noticed that Olivia had been drinking a bowl of soup, and that Stukeley was staring hard in front of him, clutching his glass of spirits.

“You’re turning sick,” said Cammock to himself. “Wait till we haul our wind, my duck. Oh, mommer.” A single hard glance at Olivia convinced him that she felt wretched. “More than you bargained for, ain’t it?” he thought cheerfully. “You wait till we haul our wind.”

He had the common man’s hatred of strangeness and of strangers. He loved not to have more folk aboard to interrupt his chats with his owners, and to sit in the sacred cabin, ordering his steward.

“Captain Cammock,” said Margaret, “let me introduce you to Mrs. Stukeley. Mr. Stukeley.”

The captain bowed.

“Captain Cammock is our commander, Olivia.”

Olivia smiled at the captain, much as a Christian martyr may have smiled.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said the captain, bowing.

He felt a queer gush of pity for her, remembering how he had felt, years before, on his first night at sea.

“I hope you won’t make my little ship giddy, ma’am,” he said kindly. “You must wear veils. All ladies has to, when they come on deck. You know, ma’am——” He sat down at the foot of the table. “I seen a ship quite lose her head one time. And the girl who done it wasn’t to be compared, not to you.”

“You see, Olivia,” said Margaret, “a sailor loses no time.”

“You must come on deck and see the moon by and by, ma’am,” said Cammock kindly. “And bring your husband. It’s nice and fresh up on the deck. It’ll do you good before turning in, I dare say,” he went on. “I dare say you’ve never seen the sea at night. Not all round you. No? Well, you come up.”

Olivia thanked him for his invitation.

“I’ve lived by the sea all my life,” she said; “but I was never on it in a ship before, except when I went to France.”

The words were very hard to speak; for as she spoke, with a rush, with a flash, burningly, as tears come, came the memory of her sheltered life at home, with her old servants, and her garden full of flowers, over which now, at this moment, the moon was rising, lighting the moths to their honey. She was homesick; she longed for that old life. Life had gone very smoothly there; and now she was at sea in a ship, among rough men, amid noise and bawling and the roaring of wind. She kept a brave face upon it, but her heart was wretched; she wondered why her husband did not understand. She longed for the peace of her quiet room at home, full of the scent of flowers, and of that vague scent, pleasant, and yet morbid, which hangs about all houses where there has been a fine tradition of life. Old things, old beautiful things, seem to give out this scent, the scent of the dead sweet pea-blossom. Wherever that vague perfume lingers, something of the old world lives, something beautiful, stately, full of sweet care. Olivia was made for that life of lovely order. Her life had been passed in the gathering of flowers, in the playing of music, in dances, in the reading of poems. All sweet and lovely and gracious things had wrought her; but they had not fitted her for this. Something was wrong with the justice of the world; for surely such as she should have been spared. She was not for the world; not at least for the world of men. She was the idea of woman; she should have been spared the lot of women. Her beautiful grace, her beautiful refinement, surely they were beautiful enough for her to be spared. Now this violence had happened; this brutal rearrangement of her life, needing further violence to remedy. At the time she understood nothing of what had happened. She was stunned and surprised, as a flower dug up and transplanted must be surprised and stunned. She drooped and pined; this alien soil made her shrink. As she sat there, ignorant of the world, highly ignorant, even, of the nature of sea-sickness, she wondered why her husband made no effort to cheer her, to comfort her, to be about her, like a strong wall, shutting out the world. In her home by the sea, by lamplight, over her music, she had often dreamed of the lover who would fill her life. She had thought of him as of one who would live her life by imaginative sympathy, thinking her thoughts, feeling with her own fineness of tact, following each shy, unspoken thought in the passing of shadow or smile, in the change of the voice, in the gesture, or even without such help, by an extreme unselfish sensitiveness. She found comfort in the thought that her husband must be debating the wisdom of this cruise, which, only a few hours ago, had seemed so wise, so noble, so right in every way.

Captain Margaret broke the silence which had followed her last words.

“Captain Cammock,” he said, “we’re making a new arrangement in the cabins. Mr. and Mrs. Stukeley will have my double cabin to starboard here. I shall have the spare bunk in Mr. Perrin’s cabin. I shall want you to beat up to Falmouth, captain.”

“You’ll run some risk of gaol, Charles,” said the petulant friend on the locker-tops. “You’ll probably be wanted by this time to-morrow all over the west of England.”

“You were always a pessimist,” said Margaret.

“Is the lady to go ashore, then?” said Cammock, looking towards Olivia.

“I hope not,” said Margaret. “But if she stays she must have a maid. We shall put her—let me see.”

“Where will you put her?” asked Perrin. “There’s no room. You surely won’t put her in the ’tween-decks?”

“No,” replied his friend. “We must make up a room in the sail-room. Captain Cammock must shift his sails into the ’tween-decks.”

“She’ll have the biggest room in the ship,” said Cammock. “She’ll be able to give a ball to the hands.”

“Charles,” said Olivia, “I don’t think I can possibly come with you. I’m giving you too much trouble.”

She was hurt, now, that it was Charles, not her husband, who had thought of her comfort, and shown that he considered her position.

“Nonsense,” said Margaret. “You’re being very nice. You just make all the difference. Now, you’re both tired out. Your cabin’s quite ready for you. Suppose we all go on deck to take the air for a while before we say good-night.”

As they filed on deck, Cammock drew Stukeley aside.

“See here,” he said. “You’re giving way to it. You’ll be as sick as a dog if you give way to it. What you want to do is to get some nice fat pork, or a bit of greasy bacon, now. Or lard. The steward ’d lend you a ball of lard. Or get one of the hands to puff tobacker at yer. Or take a suck at a little melted butter, or some of that salad oil as they call it. It’ll fetch you up all standing.”

He turned to his owner as Olivia left the poop.

“And you wish me to beat for Falmouth, sir?”

“If you please,” answered Captain Margaret.

“Very good, sir. I’ll go about at once. I can tack with the watch. Mr. Cottrill,” he shouted, “Ready oh.”

His advice to Stukeley had the usual results. Olivia’s first night at sea was passed in the marriage-bed of the state-room by the side of a sea-sick boor, who groaned and damned and was violently sick all through the night. He complained of cold before the dawn broke, so she gave him her share of blankets, tenderly tucking him in. Up on deck the men passed quietly to relieve the wheel. The main race-block grunted and rattled; the mizen topsail sheets flogged on the woolding of the mast, making a noise like drums. Up and down, above her head, in a soft, never-ending shuffle, went the ship’s boy, keeping the lee poop. At each bell she heard the hails of the lookouts: “Weather cathead,” “Lee cathead,” “Gangway,” “Lee poop,” coming in the gusts of the storm. Often, too, she heard a noise which she had never heard before, a terrifying noise, the noise of water breaking aboard, the lash of spray against her scuttle. The wind freshened through the night, till it blew a fresh gale. The Broken Heart took on strange antics, which seemed very dreadful to Olivia. Far aft, as she was, the pitching was violent and broken. Each little sea seemed deep as the valley of the shadow. The roaring in the shrouds increased. At 4 a.m., all hands reefed topsails. Creeping out of bed to the great cabin, she managed to peep to leeward through the skylight, in a heavy lee-roll, which made her clutch the table. She saw a wild sky, notched by the sea; great billows foaming, spray flying down wind, angry gleams in blown cloud. From just above her head came the bull-roar of Captain Cammock, who was damning the mizen-top men. “Lay in to the top, you,” he was shouting. “Lay down a few of you and clue it up.” Then from just above her head came the thunder of the slatting sail as the topsail yard came down. “Away. Away. Lee-ay,” came the startling shouts of the men on the clue-lines. The sail thundered and jangled. The men roared at the ropes. Captain Cammock, with his head tilted back, yelled to them to lay out, and hand the leech in. One phrase struck upon her sharply. He bade them make it fast, letting the bunt go to a place she had never heard of. “Pass your gaskets. Pass them yard-arm gaskets. Get on the yard, you. Stamp that damned bunt down.” The excited angry tone, the noise, the wild sky, all helped her fears. She crept back to Stukeley’s side sure that the end was coming, that the gale was increasing to a hurricane, and that, in a little while, they would all sink together in some wild whirlpool screamed over by the seagulls.

On the third day of storm, they managed to beat into Falmouth, where they anchored off Trefusis Point. It was a wild, wet morning when they anchored. The wooded combe of Trefusis was hidden in cloud, which continually whirled off in streamers, as new cloud drove along, to catch in the tree tops. The Broken Heart was the only ship in the anchorage; though over against Flushing there were a few fishing-boats, rocking in the tideway. Captain Margaret went into Falmouth, with Perrin and Olivia, to engage a maid. Stukeley was too weak from his sickness to leave the ship. To Margaret it was a sign that his crime was exceedingly foul.

“You have been badly scared, my friend,” he said to himself, as he sat down beside Olivia in the boat. “If you persist in leaving England, after being sick like that.”

Olivia had found comfort in what she took to be her husband’s nobleness. She was proud that her husband had not abandoned his ideas because of his bodily distress. By this time, too, she had seen the potency of sea-sickness. She had seen its effect upon a strong man. She had got over her first homesick terror of the sea. The storm had exhilarated her. Up on deck, hanging to the mizen rigging, behind the weather-cloth, she had felt the rapture of the sea. She had gone below with her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining, cheered and delighted. She had been touched, too, by the kindness of the three men of the afterguard. Cammock had given up his cabin to the sick man, so that she might have the great cabin to herself, in peace and quiet. She had been very busy in getting her cabin into order, even in the tumble of the storm. Now that she had made the state-room a home she had less terror of the sea.

It was not an easy matter to engage a maid for such a voyage. They tried at many mean houses, using tempting promises; but without success. At last they called at the poor-house, where they had their choice of several. An idiot girl, aged twenty, four old women who remembered King James, and the widow Inigo, a black but comely woman, in the prime of life, who had gone under after a succession of disasters beginning with the death of her husband. They struck a hard bargain with the widow Inigo, and then bore her down the hill to buy her an outfit for the voyage. At the mercer’s shop, where Olivia and the widow made their purchases, Captain Margaret, following his invariable custom, began a conversation with one of the shopmen, a youth just out of his apprenticeship.

“How long do you have to stay here every day?”

“About twelve hours, sir. From six till six.”

“That’s a very long day’s work, isn’t it? Do you have those hours all the year round, or only in the summer?”

“All the year round, sir.”

“And what holidays do you have?”

“Holidays, sir? Easter, and Christmas, and Whitsuntide. Of course I’ve my Sundays.”

“And how do you pass your spare time?”

“I go out with fellows, sir.”

“And what do you do?”

“Sometimes we dub at something.”

“And what is dub?”

“We put up a bottle somewhere, and then we dub at it.”

“Is that all you do?”

“On Thursdays our club meets. Then we have singing.”

“And do you read at all?”

“No, sir, I can’t say as I ever do, sir. I don’t want much reading after the shutters are up.”

“I should have thought that you’d have been a great reader. Don’t you find your work very interesting?”

“Oh. It’s all right, sir. Like any other work.”

“Yes. But. Take these woollen things, for instance. Don’t you think of all the hands it has passed through? Don’t you think of the sheep up on the hills, and the shepherds piping to them, and the great lonely downs, eh, with nothing but sheep-bells and the wind?”

“No, sir. Not in that light exactly.”

“And then, don’t you think of the brooks where they wash and shear? And then the great combs and looms, with so many people combing and weaving and spinning, all helping to make this?” He picked up the warm woollen shirt, and handled it. “And don’t you think of the people who will wear these things?”

“No, sir. You see, I’m only a shopman. Mr. Treloar, the owner, he thinks of all these things.”

“And will not you be a shop-owner, sometime, if you save and work hard?”

“No, sir. Oh no, sir. I’m only a shopman.”

“Yes; but could you not become a shop-owner? Would you not like to be one?”

“No, sir. I can’t say as I should, sir.”

“What would you like to be?”

“Of all things, sir?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know, sir. That’s rather a big order, sir.”

“Think.”

“I think, sir, I’d like to be. Don’t let Mr. Burls hear, sir. He’s listening. I’d like to be one of these buccaneers, sir. Fellows what goes about fighting the Spaniards. They live an open-air life. Not like here, sir. Oh, I’d like to lie by a camp-fire, sir, with a lot of big bronzed men. And to have a gun, sir. And then to attack a city full of treasure.”

“But I should think that was very dangerous. Isn’t it?”

“No, sir. Not by all accounts, sir. A poor lot, sir, the Spaniards. They’re not like us, you know, sir. Our fellows are a bull-dog lot, sir. The bull-dog breed, sir.”

“Really!”

“Oh yes, sir. Why, sir, only a day or two ago there come the news-letter from Plymouth. I dare say you saw it, sir. And there was a Virginia ship at Salcombe, it says. Did you see that bit, sir? And a forger was escaping from the constables, and he got on board this ship and bribes the captain, and he carries the man off safe, with the men-of-war all firing broadsides on him. Oh, it must be fine to hear the cannon-balls coming whizz.”

“Indeed! A forger, you say?”

“A forger, sir; but he’d done other things as well, sir, of course. And he’d a lady with him, too, sir.”

“But you wouldn’t like to be that sort of man?”

“No, sir.”

“What would you do to the forger, if you caught him?”

“I should give him up to the constables, sir.”

“And the ship-captain?”

“I don’t know, sir. I haven’t thought about it much, sir.”

“You would support the laws, I hope?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Even if he were a buccaneer.”

“Oh, now you’re too hard on me, sir.”

“But he was defying the law. And saving a ruffian from it.”

“Yes, sir. Of course I suppose I should support the laws, as you say.”

“It would be rather nice to be a buccaneer, and to obey only those laws which one is strong enough to make for oneself.”

“Yes, sir?”

“To defend the weak and to make money by it. Isn’t that our maxim?”

The shopman giggled nervously. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m a buccaneer,” said Margaret. “Come with me. Won’t you? You shall be what you really long to be.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t leave the shop, sir. Mr. Treloar would never——”

“Well, think it over,” said Margaret, rising. “I hope you’ll send all these things down to the landing-stage within an hour. And send this woman’s box down with them.”

“Oh, I will, sir. You shall find them there, sir.”

Captain Margaret paid the cost, nodded to the shopman, walked out with Olivia. Mrs. Inigo resigned her box and followed them. They went to several other shops, made more purchases, trifled away half an hour at a pastrycook’s, and then set slowly shorewards, talking little; but looking at the shops with interest. They would see no more shops for many days. At the mercer’s shop they paused a moment, for Captain Margaret had just decided to take several rolls of holland linen, in order that his hands might make summer shirts for themselves. He left Olivia at the door for a moment, with Mrs. Inigo, while he hurried within. His friend the shopman hurried up to him.

“Well, what is it?” said Margaret.

“The goods are gone on board, sir,” said the shopman.

“Yes? Well? What is it?”

“I beg pardon, sir. Don’t wish to offend, sir. But are you the gentleman, the gentleman, the, er, sea-captain. From Salcombe, sir?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Please, sir, I took the liberty. There was Mr. Russell, the magistrate, and a gentleman from the fort, sir. They came in about you just after you’d gone. They were going to inquire about, about the Salcombe matter, sir.”

“Yes. What did you tell them?”

“I said you’d gone to Penryn, sir, about some beer, sir, for your sailors.”

“That wasn’t strictly truthful, was it?”

“No, sir. I suppose not, sir. So they went off to Penryn, sir. And I told your boatmen to take the things aboard, and then wait for you at the docks.”

“Where are the docks?”

“Nearly a mile down the harbour, sir. Further on along the road here. I beg your pardon, sir, but the landing-stage has soldiers on it.”

“Thank you. Have they sent to seize the ship?”

“No, sir. Oh no indeed, sir. I think——”

“Why haven’t they? Did you hear?”

“I think I heard them say, sir, that they had only a warrant for—if I may say so, as they call it, for you, sir.”

“How far is it to Penryn? I suppose they’ll be back soon?”

“Yes, sir. They might be back at any moment.”

“Thanks. Well. Show me where the docks are. Away to the left here?”

“Yes, sir. You can’t miss them. If I might come with you, sir.”

“To the Spanish Main?”

“No, sir. I’m afraid I can’t. But to the docks, sir.”

“Can you leave this?”

“It’s my dinner-time, sir.”

“Come on, then. I shall be very much obliged to you. Isn’t this more exciting than selling woollen shirts?”

“Yes, sir. Indeed. But shirts are useful things, sir.”

“I deny that. They are pernicious things. They are always getting dirty, and then some poor wretch with an immortal soul must scrub them in hot water. They are always losing their buttons, and then other poor wretches have to make new ones and sew them on again. They are always wearing out, and then other poor wretches have to begin the silly game again by penning up a few sheep and cutting their wool away.”

By this time they were outside the door.

“Come, Olivia,” he said carelessly. “We must walk to the docks. You will be tired to death before you get there.”

“Oh no I shan’t,” she answered. “I love walking.”

“Give me that package,” he replied.

“Now,” he continued to the shopman, “walk as though we were seeing the sights. Oh. Here’s a butcher’s shop. Now my captain would never forgive me if I came aboard without a leg of mutton.”

He bought a leg of mutton, handed it to the shopman to carry, and sauntered on.

“You must have your jest, I see, sir,” said the shopman.

“Oh yes, if I swing for it,” replied the captain, quoting from a popular broadside, which had contained the biography of a pirate.

“Hadn’t we better walk a little faster, sir?” said the shopman. He had no desire to be caught; he was not used to excitements.

“Olivia,” said Captain Margaret, paying no attention to his new acquaintance, but continuing to saunter leisurely, “when we get on board I expect you’ll find your husband up and about.”

“Yes,” she answered. “I ought not to have left him for so long. I’ve hardly seen him for days.”

He had spoken so that the shopman might make no allusions to the Salcombe affair, casting out a reference to Stukeley’s crime. She had answered with some little, half-acknowledged wish to pique him.

“To-night,” said Margaret, “in the cabin, we’ll all hold a council of war to decide our doings on the Main.”

“Yes,” she answered. “And when we get there we shall remember the council. Things will look very different there.”

“Here. You’ve been talking to Cammock.”

“He’s so amusing,” she answered.

Sauntering in this way, talking nonsense and trifling, they arrived at the boat-builder’s creek which then did duty for a dock. Their boat lay off at a little distance; the hands were lying on their oars. Captain Margaret hailed her; she put in. He handed Olivia into the sternsheets. Mrs. Inigo, well used to boats from her childhood, stepped into the bows. The stroke oar arranged the parcels and placed the leg of mutton behind the backboard. Captain Margaret turned to the shopman, and walked a few steps with him out of ear-shot of the boat. He glanced up the anchorage to see if any armed boat was putting off.

“Don’t wait, sir,” said the shopman. “Lord, sir, think of the risk. Why don’t you go, sir? It’s frightfully dangerous, sir.”

“You exaggerate the risk,” he answered calmly. “Well, you’ve done me a good turn. Why did you do me a good turn?”

“Oh sir, I’m sure.”

“I shall often think of you,” said Captain Margaret. “Are you sure you won’t come with me?”

“Oh no, sir. I couldn’t really be persuaded, sir.”

“Well, think of us.”

“I shall think of you always, sir. You are a real buccaneer, sir?”

“Oh yes. Real. In my ship yonder, there’s a man who knew Morgan.”

“I’ve never had anything happen to me, sir, before.”

“Does it make any difference, do you find?”

“Oh, sir.”

“Will you wear this charm of mine to remember me by?” He detached a small gold jewel, set with symbolical stones. “It is said to bring success in love. I don’t believe it.”

The man took the symbol as though it were an eggshell.

“Thank you, sir,” he said with fervour. “Thank you very much, sir.” Then he started violently. “Oh, sir,” he cried, remembering the risk, “do go, sir. It’s frightfully dangerous, sir.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, “I mustn’t keep the lady waiting. I hope you run no risk yourself; for warning me?”

“Oh no, sir. I just showed a customer to the docks.”

“And I’m very much obliged. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, sir. Oh, sir, I’m much honoured indeed, sir. I hope we shall meet again, sir.”

“Well, if we don’t, we shall think of each other, shan’t we?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“And I shall be on the Main, and you’ll be here. Here on this spot.”

“Often, sir, I suppose I shall be.”

“Good-bye. There is your soldier friend, I think.”

He nodded carelessly towards the bend of the road; then made a half-bow to the shopman, and stepped into the boat.

“Shove off,” he said. “Back a stroke, port oars. Down starboard and shove her off.” As he placed the boat-rug over his knees, he heard the hoofs of horses trotting on the road. “Give way together,” he said coldly, as the boat swung round. He glanced over his shoulder at the shopman, half expecting to see the officers beside him. Then he turned to his boat’s crew. “Come. Shake her up. Shake her up,” he said. “Rally her out. Give way, now. Put your backs into it. Come on, now. Toss her up.”

The stroke quickened, the boat gathered way; she shot out into the harbour, spreading a ripple. She was a hundred yards out, keeping a fine steady stroke, when Captain Margaret turned again. He saw the figure of the shopman pointing towards him, while a man on horseback stood at his side looking towards the boat. Another horseman was galloping fast back to town, evidently to get a boat at the landing-stage.

“They aren’t very clever, these soldiers,” he thought; “but I’ve had a little luck to-day. Or was it luck? Who knows? It may not have been luck, after all. It may have been anything but that.”

He drew from the stern-locker a little flag nailed to a batten. He tied a knot in the flag.

“What are you doing that for?” said Olivia, as he waved the “weft” in the air.

“It’s a signal to Cammock,” he said, “to get his anchor up, and to make sail. He’ll pick us up on his way out. There goes his gun. He’s seen us.”

“Rather hurried, isn’t it?” said Olivia.

“It makes the hands smart,” he answered evasively. “I wonder if the fort will salute us as the man-of-war did.”

“I hope not,” said Olivia.

“They very likely will,” he answered. “Come. Toss her up, boys.”

“That was a funny little man from the shop,” said Olivia.

“Yes,” he said. “But he told me some interesting things. Very interesting.”

They talked no more after that till the Broken Heart, under a cloud of canvas, came reeling down to them, to back her mainyard within hail, and hoist them all aboard.

“Good-bye, old England,” said Olivia.

“Yes,” said Margaret. “And thank the Lord it is.”

IV. A CABIN COUNCIL

“Captain Chilver’s gone to sea.

Ay, boys, O, boys.

Captain Chilver’s gone to sea

In the brave ‘Benjamin.’ ”

Captain Chilver.

The wind had gone down gradually all through the day. The morning’s rain had kept down the sea. When the Broken Heart “took her departure” that evening, from the distant Lizard, Captain Cammock crossed his main royal, out of lightness of heart. He had a fair wind and clear weather. He was thankful to have escaped arrest at Falmouth. “He was within smell of Virginia,” he said; so now he would crack on and drive her, sending her lee-ports under. The three days of storm had been of use to him. They had shaken the hands into shape, and had bettered the ship’s trim. Now, he flattered himself, he knew what his ship would do, and what his men could do. He was ready for the Western Ocean. The guns were housed, their breeches down on the carriage-beds, their tompioned muzzles lashed to the upper port sills. The light brass quarter-deck guns were covered with tarpaulin. Life-lines were stretched fore and aft across the waist. Windsails were set. There were handy-billies hooked along the hammock nettings ready for use. Forward, on the fo’c’s’le-head, the hands had gathered to dry the clothes soaked in the storm. Some of the hands, lying to windward, against the forward guns, began to sing one of their sea ballads, a dreary old ballad with a chorus, about the bonny coasts of Barbary. Old Mr. Cottrill had the dogwatch. The other mate, Mr. Iles, a little “hard case” from the James River, was playing his fiddle on the booby-hatch, just abaft the main-bitts. He sang a plaintive ditty to the music; and though he did not sing well he had listeners who thought his singing beautiful. Several of the hands, as he knew very well, were skulking as far aft as they dared, to catch his linked sweetness as it fell from him. Cocking one leg over the other, he began another song with a happy ending, no particular meaning, and a certain blitheness:—

I put it up with a country word.

Tradoodle.

“There,” he said. “There, steward. Gee. Hey? I can sing all right, all right. What’s that song youse was singing? You know. That one about the girl with the wig?”

“Oh, seh,” said the old negro, Mr. Iles’s chief listener. “Oh, seh. I can’t sing with music. I haven’t had the occasionals to do that, seh.”

“By gee, steward,” said Mr. Iles, turning to go below to his cabin in the ’tween-decks, “if you can’t sing to music, b’ gee I don’t think you can sing much.”

Mr. Cottrill turned to Captain Cammock.

“A smart young sailor, sir,” he said. “Mr. Iles keeps ’em going, sir.”

“Yes,” said Cammock. “He knows a lot for his age. A smart young man, Mr. Iles, as you say, mister. He fiddles pretty, too.”

“I don’t hold with fiddling in a man,” said Mr. Cottrill. “It’s not natural. But it keeps the mind employed, they say.”

“Yes,” said Cammock, “and so does making up tunes. Did you never make up tunes, when you was a boy, mister, walking the poop?”

“I come in like a head sea,” said Mr. Cottrill. “The only times I walked the poop was to relieve the helm, or to take in the mizen.”

“Well. And ain’t you glad?” said Cammock. “It’s the only way to learn.”

“It is that, sir,” said Cottrill. “I guess, sir,” he added, “if this wind holds, we’ll be out of sight of land by dawn.”

The boy reported eight bells.

“Make it,” said Cottrill.

The boy struck the bell eight times.

“You boy,” said Cammock, “when you walk the lee poop at night, you’ll not go clump, clump, the way you done last night. There’s a lady in the cabin. Let me see what boots you’re wearing. I thought so. They’re the kind of boots would wear a hole in a wall. Hold up them soles, and give us the end of the main-brace there. There, my son. I give you the end this time. You wear them boots after dark again, and you’ll get the bight, higher up.”

The watch was mustered and set. Captain Cammock went below, pleased to think that he had saved Olivia from the trouble of complaining about the boy.

He went direct to the great cabin; for he knew that there was to be a council of war. There was much to be discussed; there was much for him to tell them. He hoped very much that his sea-sick friend Tom Stukeley would be put in a watch. “And then,” he said to himself, “you shall toe the line.” In the cabin he found Perrin and Margaret playing some simple card-game with Olivia, for counters. Stukeley lay at half-length upon the window-seat, sipping brandy. He was evidently cured of his sickness; though very weak from it.

He looked up as Cammock entered, took a good pull at his drink, and called to Margaret.

“You were going to have some sort of parish meeting here. Here’s the beadle. Suppose you begin, and get it over.”

He took another pull at the brandy. “Take a seat, beadle,” he said insolently.

Perrin and Margaret bit their lips, and slowly, almost fearfully, lifted their eyes to Cammock’s face. The old pirate had turned purple beneath his copper; but Olivia’s presence bridled him. He looked at Stukeley for a moment, then spun round on one heel, in the way he had learned in some ship’s forecastle, and walked out of the cabin.

“I must get my charts,” he said thickly.

“Stukeley,” said Margaret lightly, “Captain Cammock is the captain of this ship.”

“Yes,” said Stukeley. “And I wish he knew his place as well as I know it.”

“I must ask you to remember that he commands here.”

“Of course,” said Olivia, rather nettled.

“I hope, Stukeley,” said Perrin, “I hope you won’t quarrel with him. We’re going a long voyage together.”

“Lord,” said Stukeley. “What a stew you two make. You might be two old women.”

“Tom dear,” said Olivia, “is that open window too much for you?”

In the diversion caused by the shutting of the window, Captain Cammock took his seat, laying a book of charts on the table before him. “Now, Captain Margaret, sir. Will you begin? I don’t rightly know what it is you want discussed.”

“Very well,” said Margaret. “I’ll begin.”

He leaned back in his chair, and looked first at Olivia, then at Stukeley, then at Cammock, who, he thought, looked very splendid, with his long black hair falling over his shoulders, and his grim beauty, like a bronze, thrusting from his scarlet scarf.

“I don’t think you know,” he said, “at any rate, not perfectly, what it is I intend doing. This ship is mine, as I think you all know. But her cargo—it’s a general cargo, worth a good deal of money where we are going to—is the property of several London merchants, who expect me to make a profit for them. I want you to get it out of your heads that I’m doing this for love, either of adventure, or of my fellow-men. I believe I shall get adventure, and help my fellow-men. But the venture is, primarily, a business venture. If the business part fails, the whole thing will come to nothing. As you know, a part of the cargo is consigned to Virginia, and we go to Virginia direct. But we shall only stay there long enough to buy up the pick of the tobacco crop with our goods, and take in fresh water. Our real destination is the Isthmus of Darien.”

“What part of the Isthmus, sir?” said Cammock.

“You’ll have to tell us that. Fill Captain Cammock’s glass, Perrin.”

“Thank you, Mr. Perrin,” said Cammock. He bowed to Olivia and drank. “Go on, sir.”

“You see,” continued Margaret. “Well I must apologize, captain. It was part of my arrangement with Captain Cammock that he should not be told about our destination, nor about our plans, till we had left England. I need hardly say, captain, that that was not, well, not my desire. The merchants who consigned the cargo insisted on it. To tell the truth, it was only on the pledge of secrecy that the Board of Trade and Plantations gave me my commission.”

“Then you’ve got a commission, sir?” said Cammock.

“Yes. A limited one. But still. Had our plans been bruited abroad, we should have had a lot of opposition.”

“Who’d have taken the sweat to lift a finger to stop you?” said Stukeley.

“The West Indian merchants,” replied Margaret. “And the Chartered Brazil Wood Company, and the Spanish ambassador, among others, would have given us a lot of opposition. In fact, had the Spaniards known of it, we might have spared ourselves the trouble of sailing.”

“Hear, hear, sir,” said Cammock quietly.

“Our friend the beadle knows his job,” said Stukeley.

“Fill Captain Cammock’s glass, Edward.”

“Fill mine, too, please, waiter,” said Stukeley.

“To continue,” said Margaret. “Had the Spaniards known, we should have found the place of our intended settlement in the hands of Spanish troops.”

“Settlement?” said Stukeley.

“Yes. A settlement. To be short, my plan is to land on the Isthmus, found an English colony, and open up a trade, a real trade, mind you, with the Indians of Darien. Now that is the rough outline of the scheme. Now, Captain Cammock. Now comes your part. I’m going to cross-examine you. You know the Isthmus thoroughly. Have you landed on the Main? I know you have, of course. But we must begin at the beginning.”

“I been there a many times, right along. Mostly looking for food,” said Cammock.

“Did you ever meet the Indians?”

“I’ve been up agin all kinds of Indians.”

“Are there many kinds?”

“There’s three kinds.”

“Three? What are the three?”

“I don’t mind telling you, sir. There’s one kind comes and says, ‘O Sieur,’ and brings you these great bananas and spears fish for you. There’s some sense in them ones. Give ’em a handful of beads and they’ll fill you a pannikin of gold dust. They’re getting spoiled, of course, like everything else. But where they ain’t been got at they’re good still. That’s one kind.”

“And the others?”

“There’s another kind no one seen. They say they’re white, this second kind. They live in the woods; in stone houses, too, for the matter of that. And they wear gold masks. No one ever seen ’em, mind you. But you lay out in the woods near ’em, and the first night you’ll hear like singing all round you.”

“Singing?”

“Like little birds. I never like singing like what that is. You only get it the first night.”

“Oh. That’s very curious. What happens then?”

“The second night, if you lay out in the woods, you get your ’ed cut off. You find your corp in the morning, that’s what you find.”

“Why do they cut your head off?” said Perrin.

“Their idea of fun, I s’pose,” said Cammock, with a grin. “Come to that, a corp is a funny thing with no ’ed. They take the ’eds and pickle them after: I’ve seen ’em.”

“What do they do with the heads?” asked Perrin, “when they’ve pickled them?”

“They wear ’em round their necks, for ornament,” said Cammock. “If one of them ducks gets a reglar necklace, like a dozen ’eds, he thinks he’s old Sir Henry.”

“Sir Henry?”

“Like a Admiral,” explained the buccaneer.

“Ah. And what’s the third kind?”

“I don’t mind telling you. I was cruising one time. I was with an English crew, too. And four of our men went ashore there, near Cape Codera. They didn’t come back, so we went to look for them. We found ashes, where a fire’d been. And we found hands, lying in the ashes.”

“Hands?” said Perrin.

“With fingers on them, some of them,” said the pirate calmly. “Some of them was ate all off. And there was a skull lying. And bits of one man tied to a tree. I’ve never liked Indians from that day, not what you might call love them.”

“So that’s the third kind,” said Captain Margaret. “I take it that these two last kinds don’t suffer much from the Spaniards?”

“Not unless sometimes they get a tough one,” said the pirate, “they don’t.”

“And the other kind, the first kind?”

“They’re melancholy ducks. No use at all,” said Cammock. “Of course they suffer. It’s a wonder to me they don’t get it worse. They’d ought to. If it rained soup they’d be going out with forks. They ain’t got the sense we have, or something. ‘O Sieur,’ they say. The French taught ’em that. ‘O Sieur.’ ‘Come and kick us,’ that’s what it really amounts to.” He looked at Olivia, half fearing that she would be shocked.

“Could they do anything, under a capable man, do you think?” said Perrin.

“We’d one with us in the Trinity,” said Cammock. “William his name was. Yes, William, after my poor brother. Captain Sharp was capable, all right, in his limits; William was capable too, I guess; I don’t remember him gettin’ it. Yes. I think they’d do. Ah, but they ain’t got the sense. No, I don’t know as they’d ever do very much.”

“Was your brother with you in town?” asked Captain Margaret. “Why isn’t he here with you?”

“Who? Bill? No, sir. He died. Off of La Serena. Rum did him. He’d no sense to drink rum the way he drank it. I was sorry to lose Bill. I’d my fair share of trouble that passage.”

“Have some more drink, your glass is empty,” said Perrin.

“It’s thirsty work talking, as the parson said,” answered the pirate, holding out his glass. He looked at Perrin not unfavourably. Perrin mixed him another punch, and brought out a clean clay pipe from a little locker to the left of the fireplace.

“You’re a thoughtful young fellow to me,” said Captain Cammock, regarding him with favour. His thought was, “You’d make a steward, perhaps, boiled down a bit”; but this he kept to himself. “Was you ever at sea before, sir?” he asked politely.

“Only across the Channel,” said Perrin.

“Well, it’s a hard life,” said the pirate. “Salue. Salue.” He jerked his head towards his hosts, and gulped the liquor. “It’s a hard life. Ah. You don’t know how hard it is, sitting here by the fire.” He looked moodily into the little bogey stove, which had been lighted to air the cabin.

“What made you take to it, Captain Cammock?” said Perrin.

“Just a girl,” said the captain. “I thought I’d make money that way, so’s we could marry.”

“Are you married, might I ask?” said Captain Margaret.

“No,” he answered surlily. “No. A single man.”

He seemed upset by the question, for he became moody. He glared at the fire, and drummed with one foot against the leg of his chair.

“Tell me,” said Captain Margaret. “You don’t think that I could do much among the Indians, do you?”

“You mean, if you settled there?”

“Yes, if I landed, built a fort, and opened a trading station. And got the Indian chiefs to bring in gold, and cocoa, or whatever else there is.”

“You could only do that in among the Samballoes.”

“The islands along the Isthmus?”

“Yes. That’s your only place.”

“Would it be possible?”

“I dunno as it would. No, I reckon it wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You couldn’t. The Dagoes are too strong. They’d send from Porto Bello, or they’d send overland perhaps, from Panama. They’d get yer. Then you’d have ginger, working on the forts in Portobel. Lots of ’em end that way on the Main. Yes, sir, the Main’s a queer place.”

“Queer?”

“We lost a boat’s crew once, east there, by Tolu or that. A handsome fellow her bow oar was. Bigger’n you he was. Handsome Jim Sanders, that was him. He worked on the forts in Portobel. We rescued him a year later, quite by accident. There was red cuts all over him; and all he could do was sing.”

“Sing?”

“Just sing. This was what he sung. He sung all the time. No. He didn’t laugh. He just whined a little and sang.”

The pirate dropped his voice to a whimper and sang:—

“Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,

Learned to pipe when he was young,

And all the tunes that he could play

Was over the hills and far away.

There’s many like handsome Jim. I’ve knowed a many go that way. The Main’s a hard place, the same as the sea is, if you come to that.”

“Ah,” said Perrin. “How ghastly.”

Captain Margaret said nothing; for in his lively fancy he saw a half-naked man, lying on the deck, surrounded by pirates, who watched him with a sort of hard pity. The sun shone strongly upon the picture, so that the brass cannon gleamed. Out of the wrecked man’s body came a snatch of a nursery rhyme, with a pathetic tune. He felt the horror of it; he saw how the pirates shifted on their feet and looked at each other. He was tempted to ask, “Had one of your men a hare-lip?” for in the picture which his fancy formed a hare-lipped pirate stood out strangely, seemingly stirred by that horror on the deck. “Fancy,” he thought. “Pure fancy.”

“Let me fill your glass, Cammock,” he said. He poured another dose into the glass.

“Salue,” said the pirate.

A red log, burned through, fell with a crash inside the stove.

“Sparks,” said the pirate. “Sparks. We give the Dagoes sparks for that lot.” He paused a moment. “Yes, Captain Margaret,” he went on. “And that’s the way you’d best.”

“What way is that?” asked the captain.

“Well. It’s like this,” said the captain. “Your trading lay—I’m speaking as a sailor, you understand—is all Barney’s bull. It’s got more bugs than brains, as you might say. But you don’t want to go trading. What d’yer want to go trading for? You’d only get et by sand-flies, even if you did make a profit. What you want to do. You got a big ship. You’d easy get hands enough. Well, what I say is, why not go for one of the towns? Morgan done it. Sharp done it. Old John Coxon done it, for I was with him. And the French and Dutch done it, too; don’t I know it. If you come on ’em with a sort of a hawky pounce you get ’em every time. Profit, too. There’s twenty or thirty pound a man in it. Besides ransoms. There’s no work in it, like in trading. If you’re trading, you got to watch your stores, you got to watch the Indians, you got to kowtow to the chiefs. Pah. It’s a poor job, trade is. It’s not a seaman’s job. But you come down on the towns. Why. Half your life. I wish I’d been wise when I was a young man. That’s what I ought to a done, ’stead of logwood cutting.”

“What towns would you advise?” said Captain Margaret, smiling.

“Well. Here’s a map.” Cammock opened his book to show a map of the Terra Firme from La Vera Cruz to Trinidad. “It’s rough,” he explained. “But it’ll just show you. All them red dots is towns. And what I say is, take them. That’s the only way you’ll help the Indians, as you call it. Help them? You won’t help them much when you get among them, I’ll tell you that much. The Main alters people.”

“Oh,” said Margaret quietly. “So that’s what you think. Why do you think that? What reason can you give?”

“Well, take it on military grounds, sir,” said Cammock. “You’ll have to admit it on military grounds.”

Stukeley pretended to choke with laughter; it was an offensive act.

“Stukeley’s turning sick again,” said Perrin dryly.

“Well. On military grounds then,” said Margaret. “I want to hear your reason.”

“Look, sir. Look at my two fists. This right fist, here, is Carta-Yaina. This left fist is Portobel or La Vera Cruz. Now these here counters. You’ll excuse my taking your counters, Mrs. Stukeley. These here counters are the Samballoes islands in between. Now. On military grounds. Suppose I knock my fists together. The counters get a nasty jounce.”

“I see,” said Margaret. “We should be the nut between two crackers.”

“Yes, sir. You would. And take it as a matter of business. You’d be on the trade route, or jolly near it, between the crackers; besides being able to flank the overland route from Panama to Portobel. They’d never set still to let you establish yourself among them. Why, you’d as well ask them to cut their own throats. You’d have to destroy their towns first. Portobel’s nothing very much. It’s been took twice within the last few years; but you can never really settle Portobel till you settle Panama; and to do that you’d want a fleet in the South Sea to settle Lima. To make yourself secure. Quite secure. Secure enough for the King of England to back you up. You know what that means. The enemy beat, and the spoils your own, that’s what makes King James your friend. God save him, I say, and bring him glory. To put yourself in that position, you’d have to take the two big naval ports on the North Sea, both of them. Carta-Yaina and La Vera Cruz. For jabbing an enemy’s no use at all. A prick here and there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Smash the naval ports first, and then the place is your own. Go for the main stem and you’ll get the whole tree. Upset Carta-Yaina alone, and La Vera Cruz wouldn’t bother you very bad; but till Carta-Yaina’s yours—— Well, honestly, Captain Margaret, you’ll never be let settle down, not on the Isthmus. But. I don’t know so much. It might. I’ll think it over.”

During Cammock’s speech, Stukeley had made occasional offensive interruptions; but he said nothing when Cammock ended. Olivia, being ignorant of the exact nature of the question discussed, through her ignorance of geography, waited for her husband to speak. Perrin, who had gone into the matter thus far with Margaret, to his own boredom, now waited, half asleep, for his friend to say something more. He hoped that no one would ask him for an opinion that evening. He knew nothing much about it, one way or the other, and cared little; believing only that his friend, who could do no wrong, would be the man to uphold against all comers. As the active part of him, never very violent now, was idle to-night, he gave himself up to torpor, keeping his mind a blank, paying little attention to the words of any one. To Cammock, whom he liked, he was polite. Indeed, Cammock’s glass was seldom less than half-full all through the evening. Now and then he wished that the meeting would end, so that he could turn in. He lay back in his chair, looking at the faces of the company, wishing that he had his friend’s charm, and Cammock’s bodily strength, and Stukeley’s insolent carriage. It must be good, he thought, to be indifferent, like that, to people’s feelings. And if he had all three gifts, what would he do with it? He looked at Olivia, as she sat there, upright in her chair, listening carefully to all that he said. “Yes,” he thought, “you’re taking it all in, all that you understand, and thinking what you’ll make your husband do. And you’re beautiful,” he added to himself. “In that black silk, with the green about your hair, you’re—— Yes, Charles was right. I never saw it before. You’re beautiful.”

“Olivia,” he said aloud, “will you let me get you a little wine and some fruit? This must be so awfully dull for you.”

“Oh, I like it,” she answered quickly. “I like it.”

“Do you, really?” said Margaret. “Well. We’ll go on. Let me see your map, Captain Cammock.”

He took the dirty piece of vellum from Captain Cammock, and examined the coast-line. There were manuscript notes written here and there across the Isthmus. Captain Margaret read: “Don Andrea’s Cuntrey.” “K Golden Cap went with Capt S from here.” “The Indians washes for Gold on this Side.” Mountains and forests had been added to the map in water-colours. A ship or two, under all plain sail, showed upon the seas. In among the islands a hand had added soundings and anchorages in red ink. He looked among the network of islands, remembering the many stories he had read of them, fascinated by the thought that here, before him, was one who could make that marked piece of vellum significant.

“Tell me,” he said. “These keys here. La Sound’s Key and Springer’s Key. Are they well known to your people?”

“Yes,” said the pirate.

“Do the Spaniards ever search among these islands? Do they send guarda-costas?”

“Not them. Not to hurt. They’ve no really organized force on the Main. Nor’ve they got any charts to go by. They aren’t hard any longer. Only soft, the Spaniards. Why, there’s often a matter of a dozen sail of privateers come to them keys, at the one time.”

“Why do they come there?”

“Water, sir. Then the Indians bring gold dust. Sometimes they land and go for a cruise ashore. Lots of ’em make money that way, where the Spaniards don’t expect them.”

“Have they buildings there?”

“No. When they careen their ships, the Indians build huts for them. Very nice, too, the huts are. Palmeto and that.”

“Then the Indians are friendly?”

“Yes. Sometimes there’s a row, of course.”

“Why don’t the privateers combine, to found a kingdom there? They could so easily.”

“They never agree among ’emselves,” said the pirate. “Quarrelsome ducks. That’s what they are.”

“And if a strong man got hold of them and made them agree?”

“Then. Yes. Perhaps. They might be a thundering great nation. But then there’s the Main. It changes people. It’s hard to say. It’s different from talking by the fire.”

“Well,” said Captain Margaret. “I shall try it. I believe it could be done. And it’s worth trying.”

“I believe you’d do it, if any one. Morgan’d ’ave done it perhaps. But Sir Henry was weak you know. Rum. Well, sir. If you can do it. You’ll be in the story-books.”

“What is this place here? This Boca del Toro? Away to the west here? You sometimes meet here, don’t you, in order to plan a raid?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it a good anchorage? It doesn’t seem to be much of a harbour.”

“No, sir; Toro’s just an anchorage, out of the way, like. We goes to Toro for turtle. Very good turtle on Toro. Them Mosquito boys gets ’em with spears. You see ’em paddle out, Mrs. Stukeley, two of these red Indians in a boat, and they just paddle soft, paddle soft, as still as still, and they come up to the turtles as they lie asleep in the sea, and then. Whang. They dart their fizgigs. They never miss.”

Olivia looked at Cammock with quickened interest; but she did not speak. She was now leaning forward, over the table, resting her chin upon her hands, probably with some vague belief that her throat was beautiful and that these stupid men would never notice it. She may have been conscious of her power. Yet perhaps she was not. She may have given too much of herself to Stukeley; she may have tuned too many of her emotional strings to that one note, to feel how other men regarded her.

“Look, Olivia,” said Margaret. He placed the map before her.

Perrin and Cammock put out each a hand, to hold the curling vellum flat for her. She looked at the map as a sibyl would have looked at the golden scroll; she looked rapt; her great eyes shone so. She put out one hand to flatten the vellum, and to Margaret, watching her, it seemed that her whole nature was expressed in that one act, and that her nature was beautiful, too beautiful for this world. Her finger-tip touched Perrin’s finger-tip, for one instant, as she smoothed the map’s edge; and to Perrin it seemed that his life would be well passed in the service of this lady. She was, oh, wonderfully beautiful, he thought; but not like other women. She was so strange, so mysterious, and her voice thrilled so. In dreams, in those dreams of beauty which move us for days together, he had seen that beauty before; she had come to him, she had saved him; her healing hands had raised him, bringing him peace. “She says nothing,” he said to himself; “but life is often like that. I have talked with people sometimes whose bodies seemed to be corpses. And all the time they were wonderful, possessed of devils and angels.”

As for Cammock, her beauty moved him, too; her voice moved him. In his thoughts he called her “my handsome.” He was moved by her as an old gardener is touched by the beauty of his master’s child. His emotion was partly awe, partly pity. Pity for himself, partly; because he could never now be worthy of moving in her company, although he felt that he would be a better mate for her than the brandy-sipper on the locker-top. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; she was like a spirit; like a holy thing. Looking at her, as she studied the map, he thought of an image in the cathedral of Panama. He had been with Morgan in the awful march from Chagres. He had fought in the morning, outside Panama, till his face, all bloody and powder-burnt, was black like a devil’s. Then, he remembered, they had stormed old Panama, fighting in the streets, across barricades, over tables, over broken chairs, while the women fired from the roofs. Then they had rushed the Plaza, to see the flames licking at all the glorious city. They had stormed a last barricade to reach the Plaza. There had been twenty starving pirates with him, all blind with drink and rage. They had made a last rush, clubbing and spearing and shooting, killing man, woman, and child. They swore and shrieked as they stamped them under. And then he, with two mates, had opened a postern in the cathedral, and had passed in, from all those shrieks, from all that fire and blood, to an altar, where an image knelt, full of peace, beautiful beyond words, in the quiet of the holy place. He remembered the faint smell of incense, the memory of a scent, which hung about that holy place. The vague scent which Olivia used reminded him of it. “She is like that,” he thought, “and I am that. That still.”

Margaret glanced at Stukeley, who seemed to be asleep. “I suppose, captain,” he said, “I suppose, then, that you would recommend one of these keys in the Samballoes, as you call them?”

“Yes, sir,” said Cammock. “I’ll tell you why. You’re handy for the Indians, that’s one great point. You’re hidden from to seaward, in case the Spanish fleet should come near, going to Portobello fair. You’re within a week’s march of all the big gold mines. You’ve good wood and water handy. And you could careen a treat, if your ship got foul. Beside being nice and central.”

“Which of these two keys do you recommend?”

“La Sound’s Key is the most frequented,” answered Cammock. “You often have a dozen sloops in at La Sound’s. They careen there a lot. You see there’s mud to lay your ship ashore on. And very good brushwood if you wish to give her a breaming.”

“I see. And the Indians come there, you say?”

“Oh yes, sir. There’s an Indian village on the Main just opposite. Full of Indians always. La Sound’s is an exchange, as you might say.”

“If I went there, in this big ship, should I be likely to get into touch with the privateer captains? I mean, to make friends with them.”

“You’d meet them all there, from time to time, sir—Coxon, Tristian, Yanky Dutch, Mackett; oh, all of them.”

“All friends of yours?”

“No, sir. Some of them is French and Dutch. They come from Tortuga and away east by Curaçoa. That’s a point I can tell you about. Don’t you make too free with the French and Dutch, sir. You stick by your own countrymen. I’ll tell you why, sir. If you let them ducks in to share, the first you’ll know is they’ve put in a claim for their own country. They’ll say that the settlement is theirs; that we’re intruding on them. Oh, they will. I know ’em. And they’ll trick you, too. They’ll get their own men-of-war to come and kick you out, like they done at St. Kitts, and at Tortuga.”

“That would hardly suit. But is La Sound’s more of a French and Dutch resort than Springer’s?”

“Yes, sir. Since Captain Sharp’s raid. Ever since that, we’ve been as it were more separated. And then there was trouble at the isle of Ash; they done us out of a sloop; so we done them in return. Springer’s is the place the Englishmen goes to, now. Oh, and Golden Island, this easterly island here. But Springer’s Key is the best of them. Though we goes to La Sound’s Key, mind you, whenever we’re planning a raid.”

“Then—— By the way. Who is Springer?”

“He was a privateer, sir. He got lost on the Main one time. He was in Alleston’s ship at that time. He got lost, out hunting for warree. He wandered around in the woods there, living on sapadilloes, till one day he come to a river, and floated down it on a log. He’d sense enough for that. Generally men go mad in the woods at the end of the first day.”

“Mad,” said Olivia. “But why do they do that?”

“It’s the loneliness, Mrs. Stukeley. You seem shut in, in those woods. Shut in. A great green wall. It seems to laugh at you. And you get afraid, and then you get thirsty. Oh, I’ve felt it. You go mad. Lucky for you, you do, Mrs. Stukeley.”

“How horrible. Isn’t that awful, Charles?”

“Yes. Awful. But Springer kept his head, you say?”

“No, sir. I’m inclined to think Springer got a turn. The sun’ll give it you. Or that green wall laughing; or just thirst. When I talked with Springer, he told me as he come to a little stone city on a hill, all grown over with green. An old ruined city. About a hundred houses. Quite small. And what d’you think was in it, Mrs. Stukeley?”

“I don’t know at all. Nothing very horrible, I hope. No. Not if it’s going to be horrible.”

“Well. It was horrible. But there was gold on every one of them. Gold plates. Gold masks. And gold all over the rooms. Now if that’s true, it’s mighty queer. But I think he’d got a turn, ma’am. I don’t think things was right with Springer. Living all alone in the woods, and then living all alone on the key. It very likely put him off. I was to have gone with him, searching for it, one time; but I never did.”

Stukeley seemed to wake up suddenly.

“You must have been a fool,” he said.

“Why? Acos I thought of going?” said Cammock.

“No. Because you didn’t go. I suppose you know which river he came down. And whereabouts he got on the log?”

“Oh yes,” said Cammock; “better than I know you, Mr. Stukeley.”

“What d’you mean?” said Stukeley.

“Nothing,” said Cammock. “The very last time I saw Ed Springer, we talked it all out. And he told me all he remembered, and we worked it out together, whereabouts he must have got to. You see, Mrs. Stukeley, Springer went a long way. He was lost—— And we were going to look for it together.”

“Why didn’t you?” said Stukeley. “Were you afraid?”

“Yes,” replied Cammock curtly; “I was.”

Thinking that there would be an open quarrel, Captain Margaret interrupted. “And you think Springer’s Key would be the best for us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here is Springer’s Key on the map. Come here, Stukeley, and just cast your eye over it.”

Stukeley advanced, and put his hand on Olivia’s shoulder, drawing her against him, as he leaned over to see the map. She stroked the caressing hand, only conscious of the pleasure of her husband’s caress. She had no thought of what the sight meant to Margaret.

Perrin felt for his friend. “Put it to the vote, Charles,” he said hastily.

“Very well then,” said Margaret. “Shall we decide then? To go to Springer’s Key?”

“Is it a pleasant place?” said Olivia. “Don’t, Tom.” She gave the hand a little slap.

“Very pleasant, Mrs. Stukeley. A island with huge big cedars on it—aromatic cedars—as red as blood; and all green parrots. Wells. Good drinking wells. Wonderful flowers. If you’re fond of flowers, ma’am.”

“What sorts are they?”

“Arnotto roses, and yellow violet trees. Oh, lots of them.”

“Oh, then, Springer’s Key, certainly.”

“Springer’s Key,” said Stukeley and Perrin.

“The ayes have it.”

“Very well, then,” said Margaret. “We’ll decide for Springer’s Key.”

“One other thing, sir,” said Cammock. “There’s the difficulty about men. We’ve forty-five men in the ship here, mustering boys and idlers. And that’s not enough. It’s not enough to attract allies. Of course, I quite see, if you’d shipped more in London, in a ship of this size, it would have looked odd. It might have attracted notice. The Spaniards watch the Pool a sight more’n you think. But you want more. And you want choice weapons for them.” He paused for a second to watch Captain Margaret’s face, then, seeing no change upon it, continued, “I know you got twenty long brass eighteens among the ballast.”

“How did you know that?” said Margaret.

“Well, you have, sir,” said Cammock, grinning, “and small-arms in proportion. You can fortify Springer’s with a third of that lot. Now you want another forty or fifty men, at least, and then you’ll be boss dog. Every privateer captain will come saying, ‘Oh, Massa’ to you.”

“Yes,” said Perrin. “It seems to me that there’ll be a difficulty in getting men. You see we want really a drill force.”

“No difficulty about men in Virginia, sir. Lots of good men, regular old standards, tough as hickory, at Accomac, and along the James River.”

“What do they do there?” said Perrin.

“Lots of ’em come there,” said Cammock evasively. “They tobacco plants, and they trap them things with fur on, and some on ’em fishes. Lots of ’em come there.”

“Where from?” asked Captain Margaret pointedly.

“Most everywhere,” said Cammock, looking on the deck.

“Campeachy?” said the captain.

“Most everywhere, sir,” repeated Cammock.

“Writs hard to serve there?”

“Every one has his misfortunes,” said Cammock hotly. “But they’re a better lot there than you’d get anywhere in the islands, let me tell you that. I’ve known a power of men among them, fine men. They might be a bit rough and that; but they do stand by a fellow.”

“Yes,” said Captain Margaret, “I dare say. But I don’t want them to stand by a fellow. I want them to stand by an idea.”

“They’ll stand by anything so long as you’ve a commission,” said Captain Cammock.

“And obey orders?”

“Now, sir. In England, everybody knuckles down to squires and lords. But among the privateers there aren’t any squires and lords. Nor in Virginia, where the old privateers tobacco plants. A man stands by what he is in himself. If you can persuade the privateers that you’re a better man than their captains; and some of them are clever generals, mind. They’ve been fighting Spaniards all their lives. Well. You persuade ’em that you’re a better man. You show ’em that. And they’ll be your partners. As for hands in the ship here, and ship’s discipline. They aren’t particularly good at being ordered about. They’re accustomed to being free, and having their share in the councils. But you give them some little success on the Main, and you’ll find they’ll follow you anywhere. You give out that you’re going against Tolu, say. You take Tolu, say, and give ’em ten pound a man.”

“Then they’ll want to go ashore to spend it.”

“Not if you give ’em a dice-box or two. You won’t be able to wage them, like you wage hands, at sixteen shillen a month.”

Olivia, who seemed disconcerted at the thought of sitting down at a council with a crowd of ragged sailors, now asked if it would not be possible to wage them, if they explained the circumstances.

“You say they are tobacco-planting in Virginia. Why should they not plant on the Main and supply all the ships which come to us, besides fighting the Spaniards when the crops are growing?”

“That’s what you must do,” said Cammock. “Get the steadiest men you can. Plant your crops, when you’ve cleared a patch of ground. Hit the Spaniards hard at the first try. That’ll bring all the privateers to you. Hit ’em again hard at a bigger port; and I do believe, sir, you’ll have two or three thousand skilled troops flocking to you. Old Mansvelt, the old Dutchman. You know who I mean. He tried to do what you are trying. That was at Santa Katalina. But he died, and Morgan had to do it all over again. Then Morgan had his chance. He’d fifteen hundred men and a lot of ships. He’d taken Chagres and Porto Bello. He had the whole thing in his hands. With all the spoil of Panama to back him up. The Isthmus was ours, sir. The whole of Spanish America was in that man’s hands. But no. Come-day-go-day. He went off and got drunk in Port Royal; got a chill the first week; got laid up for a time; then, when he did get better, he entered Jamaica politics. The new governor kept him squared. The new governor was afraid of him. But what he done you can do. You have a little success, and make a name for yourself, and you’ll have a thousand men in no time. That’s enough to drive the Spaniards off the North Sea. When you’ve driven ’em all off, the King’ll step in. The King of England, I mean. He’ll knight you, and give you a bottle-washing job alongside his kitchen sink. Your settlement’ll be given to one of these Sirs in Jamaica. There, sir. I wish you luck.”

The meeting was now broken up. Perrin brought from his cabin a box of West Indian conserves and a packet of the famous Peruvian sweetmeats. He offered them to Olivia, then to all the company. The steward brought round wine and strong waters. Mrs. Inigo, passing through the cabin with a curtsey, left hot water in Olivia’s state-room. She wore a black gown and white cap. She looked very handsome. She walked with the grace of the Cornish women. She reminded Captain Cammock of the Peruvian ladies whom he had captured before Arica battle. They, too, had worn black, and had walked like queens. He remembered how frightened they had been, when they were first brought aboard from the prize. Olivia followed Mrs. Inigo into the state-room. “I must just see if she’s got everything she wants,” she murmured. She remained in the state-room for a few minutes talking with Mrs. Inigo. Perrin noticed that Stukeley looked very hard at Mrs. Inigo as she passed through with the jug. He decided that Stukeley would need watching.

“Where are you putting her?” said Stukeley.

“Who? Mrs. Inigo?” said Margaret. “Along the alleyway, to the starboard, in the big cabin which was once the sail-room.”

“I see,” said Stukeley.

“By the way, Stukeley,” said Margaret. “Now that you’ve got over your sickness, would you like to be one of us? And will you stand a watch? I’m going to stand two watches a day with the mate’s watch, and Edward here will do the same with the starboard watch.”

“I’ll think it over,” said Stukeley, evidently not much pleased. “I’ll think it over. I think I’ve listened to enough jaw for one night. I’m going to turn in.”

Margaret, quick to save Olivia from something which he thought might annoy her, made a neat parry. “Oh, don’t say that, Stukeley. Come on deck for a blow; then we’ll have a glass of punch apiece.”

“Come on,” said Perrin, attempting, with an ill grace, the manner of a jovial schoolboy. “Come on, my son. Catch hold of his other arm, Charles.”

As he seized Stukeley’s arm to give him a heave, Stukeley poked him in the wind, and tripped him as he stepped backward. “What’re you sitting down for?” he said, with a rough laugh.

Perrin was up in a second. He seized a heavy decanter, and hove it into Stukeley’s face. Stukeley in guarding the blow received a sharp crack upon the elbow. Margaret and Cammock pulled Perrin aside, under a heavy fire of curses.

“What d’ye mean by losing your temper? Hey?” said Stukeley.

Margaret drew Perrin out of the cabin. “Good night, Stukeley,” he said as he passed the door.

He left Cammock standing by his chair, looking into Stukeley’s face. There was a pause for a moment.

Then Stukeley began with, “That damned old woman nearly broke my elbow. If he’s a friend of yours——”

“He is,” said Cammock.

“Oh, so you’re another of them. Well. Lord. You make a queer crew. Do you know that?”

Cammock did not answer, but remained standing, like a figure of bronze, staring into Stukeley’s face. For fully a minute he stood there silently. Then he spun round swiftly, in his usual way, giving a little whistle. He paused at the door to stare at Stukeley again.

“I’m glad you admire my beauty,” said Stukeley. “You’re not much used to seeing gentlemen, are you?”

Still Cammock did not answer. At last he spat through the half-opened gun-port. “My God,” he said. Then he walked out on deck, leaving Stukeley rubbing his elbow; but softly chuckling, thinking he had won the field.

V. STUKELEY

“Thus can my love excuse the slow offence.”

Sonnet li.

“I can endure

All this. Good Gods a blow I can endure.

But stay not, lest thou draw a timeless death

Upon thyself.”

The Maid’s Tragedy.

One morning, about six weeks later, when the Broken Heart was near her port of call, Captain Margaret sat at the cabin table, with a book of logarithms beside him, a chart before him, and a form for a ship’s day’s work neatly ruled, lying upon the chart. He made a faint pencil-line upon the chart, to show the ship’s position by dead-reckoning. Then, with a pair of compasses, he made a rough measurement of the distance still to run. Stukeley, lying at length upon the locker-top, watched him with contempt.

The Broken Heart had had a fair summer passage, with no severe weather. She had spoken with no ships since leaving Falmouth. Her little company of souls had been thrown upon themselves, and the six weeks of close association had tried their nerves. There were tense nerves among the afterguard, on that sunny morning, just off Soundings.

“Where are we?” Stukeley asked.

“Just off Soundings,” said Margaret.

“Where the blazes is that?”

“About four hundred miles to the east of Accomac.”

“How soon shall we get to Accomac?”

“A week, perhaps. It depends on the wind.”

“And then we’ll get ashore?”

“Yes. If you think it safe.”

“What the devil d’you mean?”

Captain Margaret sat back in his chair and looked at Stukeley as an artist looks at his model. Many small, inconsidered, personal acts are revelations of the entire character; the walk, the smile, the sudden lifting of the head or hand, are enough, to the imaginative person. So, now, was Captain Margaret’s look a revelation. One had but to see him, to know the truth of Perrin’s epigram. Perrin had called him “a Quixote turned critic.” He looked at Stukeley as though he were above human anger; his look was almost wistful, but intense. He summed up the man’s character to himself, weighing each point with a shrewd, bitter clearness. His thought was of himself as a boy, pinning the newly killed moth upon the setting-board.

“Look here,” said Stukeley.

“Do you think it safe?”

Stukeley rose from the locker and advanced across the cabin.

“So little Maggy’s going to preach, is he?” he said lightly. “Let me recommend little Maggy to keep on his own side of the fence.”

Margaret shrugged his shoulders. It seemed to him to be the most offensive thing he could do, in the circumstances.

“Supposing that it’s not safe?”

Stukeley laughed, and returned to the locker. He pulled out a pipe and began to fill it.

“Maggy,” he said, “why don’t you get married?”

“My destiny.”

“Marriage goes by destiny. Eh?”

“Marriage. And hanging, Stukeley.”

That brought him from the locker again. “What the hell d’you mean by that?”

“Oh,” said Margaret. “It’s safe in Accomac, I should think.”

“What is?”

“The evil-doer, Stukeley. The cheat, the ravisher, the—— But I don’t think you ever committed a murder. Not what is called murder by a jury.”

“Ah. You cast that at me,” said Stukeley. “Recollect now, Maggy. That’s enough. I’d be sorry to hit you.”

“Would you?” said Margaret. “Well. Perhaps. But if it’s not safe, Stukeley, what are you going to do?”

“Stay here, little Maggy. Oh, ducky, you are so charming. I shall stay on board with my own little Maggy.”

“You’d better remember my name when you speak again, Stukeley. I take no liberties from a forger.”

“Have you been reading my papers? In my cabin?”

“It was forgery, wasn’t it?”

“Is it any business of yours?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because, Stukeley, I may have to see the Governor about you. I may be asked about you when you land. I may even have to hand you over to—well, disgrace.”

“Rot. How the hell will the Governor know? Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Then it was forgery?”

“Certainly no damn maggot like you’ll call it anything. No man alive.”

“But supposing they try you, my friend. Eh? Suppose, when we land, when we anchor, you are taken and sent home. What would a jury call it?”

“We’re not in Falmouth harbour now. Nor in Salcombe.”

Just at this moment Captain Cammock entered, whistling a tune through his teeth. He glanced at both men, with some suspicion of their occupation. “Come for the deep-sea lead-line,” he explained. “We’ll be in soundings by to-night. Getting on nice, ain’t we?” He opened one of the lockers and took out the lead-line. “You’d ought to come on deck, sir, to-night, to see how this is done. It’s a queer sight,” he said. “I’m off to the cook now, to get a bit of tallow for the arming.”

“Stop just a moment, captain,” said Margaret. “I want to ask you something. How often do letters go to Virginia, from London?”

“I suppose about twice a week, now there’s no war. Almost every day, in the summer, you might say. Yes. They’re always going.”

“Have we made a good passage?”

“Nothing extra. It’s been done in five weeks by the baccalao schooners. Less.”

“The baccalao schooners. They’re the cod-boats? Are they very fast?”

“Oh, beauties. But ain’t they wet.”

“Then we might find letters waiting when we arrive?”

“Very likely, sir. I was going to speak to you about that.” He looked with meaning at Stukeley.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” said Stukeley.

“You might have letters waiting, too,” said Cammock. “Society invitations and that.” He glanced up at the skylight as he spoke, and then watched Stukeley’s face to note the effect of his words. Stukeley turned pale.

“Stukeley,” said Margaret, “don’t you think you ought to tell your wife?”

“Will you please mind your own business, Maggy. She’s my wife, not yours.”

“Then I shall tell her. Shall I?”

“Tell her what?”

“I’m going on deck,” said Cammock. “You come on deck, sir, too.” He passed out of the cabin, carrying his heavy lead. He paused at the door for a moment to ask his friend again. “Come and see how it’s done, sir,” he said. He got no instant answer, so he passed out, wondering how it would end. “It’s none of my job,” he said sadly. “But I’d give a deal just to hit him once. Once. He’d have a thick ear to show.”

“Tell her what?” repeated Stukeley, as the door closed.

“That you may be arrested as soon as we arrive. That the case may go against you.”

“You would tell her, would you?”

“She ought to know. Surely you can see that. Shall I tell her?”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve go—— You lowsy. You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

“I should very much like to, Stukeley.”

“I don’t doubt. And you’re the one—— That’s like you poets. You’re a mangy lot, Maggy. I see you so plainly, Maggy, telling my wife. Like a cat making love. In the twilight. Oh, I’ve seen you.”

“Go on, Stukeley.”

“You come crawling round my wife. I’ve seen you look at her. I’ve seen you shake hands with her. I’ve seen your eyes. Doesn’t she make your mouth water? Wouldn’t you like that hair all over your face? Eh? Eh? And her arms round you. Eh?”

“Stukeley,” said Margaret, “I’d advise you to stop. Stop now.”

“Wouldn’t you like to——?”

“Stop.”

“I know you would. Poems, eh? I’ve read a lot of your poems to her, Maggy.”

“Were you looking for my purse?”

“No, Maggy. But I thought you needed watching. I don’t want any mangy poet crawling round my wife. So I just watched you, Maggy.”

“Yes?”

“Oh yes. I don’t think you’ve succeeded yet, Maggy. Even in spite of your poems.”

“Stukeley,” said Margaret, rising from his chair, “when we get to Accomac you will come ashore with me. I’ll do my best, when we’re ashore, to put my sword”—he advanced to Stukeley, bent swiftly over him, and touched him sharply on the Adam’s apple—“just there, Stukeley. Right through. To save the hangman the trouble.”

Stukeley watched him with amused contempt; he laughed. “Maggy’s in a paddy,” he said. “No, Maggy. I’m a married man, now, ducky. What would my wife do if she woke up one fine morning and found me gone? Eh?”

“Are you afraid to fight?”

“Afraid of a little crawling maggot who comes whining out some measly poems?”

Margaret took a quick step forward, and shot out a hand to seize Stukeley by the throat. Stukeley caught him by the wrist.

“Look here, Maggy,” he said.

“Drop my wrist. Drop it.”

“Take your dirty wrist.”

“Take back what you said.”

“You do amuse me, Maggy.”

“Take it back.”

“You ought to have been a woman. Then you could have married that damned fool Perrin. And you could have——”

“You——”

“Ah no, ah no. No blows, Maggy.”

“Take back what you said.”

“That I was afraid?”

“You’d better, Stukeley.”

“Did I say that I was afraid? I’m not, you know. It’s you who are afraid.”

“You’ll see.”

“I shall see. You are afraid. You’re in love with Olivia, ducky. D’ye think you’re going to fight me? Not Maggy. You’d like me away, wouldn’t you, Maggy. Then perhaps she’d. She’s an awful fool when you come to know her, Maggy. To know her as I know her. She might be fool enough to. And then. Oh. Bliss, eh? Bliss. Morning, noon, and night. Eh?”

“Stukeley, I’ve stood a good deal——”

“Yes, ducky. But don’t be so excited. You won’t fight me. You’ll be afraid. You’ll lick my boots, like you’ve done all the time, so as to get a sweet smile from her. Doesn’t she smile sweetly, my little Maggy? You’ll lick my boots, Maggy. And hers. Lick, lick, lick, like a little crawling cat. Wouldn’t you like to lick her hand, Maggy? Her fingers? Don’t go, Maggy. I’m just beginning to love you.”

“We’ll go on with this at Accomac, Stukeley.”

“We shan’t fight, Maggy. If you killed me, she’d never marry you. Besides, it would kill her, Maggy. She loves me. She wants a man, not a little licking cat. You’re content to spend your days licking. My God; you’d die, I believe, if you couldn’t come crawling round her, sighing, and longing to kiss her. That’s your life. Well. Kill me. You’ll never see her again. Then what would the little crawler do? Go and put his arms round Perrin? But d’you know what I should tell Olivia before going out with you?”