Introductory material (continued 3)

“What would you tell her?”

“I’d tell her that I suspected you of making love to her. Eh? That you admitted it, and that I gave you this chance of satisfaction out of consideration, instead of thrashing you. So any way I’ve the whip hand, Maggy. She’d never look at you again, and you can’t live without her. Can you?”

“Anything else?”

“Just this. You’ll never see her again if—if anything happens at Accomac. Through the Governor, you know. We should go home together. And the shock, eh? Loving husband hanged, eh? So take it from one who loves little Maggy, that you aren’t going to fight me, and that for all your gush you’ll help me in Accomac in case there’s trouble. And Olivia shall let you kiss her hand, shall she. Or no, you shall have a shoe of hers to slobber over, or a glove. Now go on deck, Maggy, and cool your angry little brow. A little of you goes a long way, Maggy. That’s what Olivia told me one night.”

He stopped speaking; for Margaret had left the cabin. “I wonder where he’s gone,” Stukeley muttered, smiling. Through the half-shut door he could see Margaret entering the cabin which he shared with Perrin. “What a rotter he is,” he thought. “I suppose now he’ll have a good cry. Or tell it all to that dead frog, Perrin.” For a moment, he thought that he would go on deck to walk with Perrin, not because he wanted to see the man, but because, by going on deck, he would keep both Perrin and the captain from talking to Olivia, who was mat-making on the poop, amid a litter of coloured silks. He thought with some disgust of Olivia. So that he might not be reminded of her, he drew the sun-screen across the skylight, shutting out the day. “Oh Lord,” he said, yawning, “I wish I was back in the inn with that girl, Jessie. She was some fun. Olivia gets on my nerves. Why the devil doesn’t she get some blood in her? These pious women are only good to ravish. Why the devil don’t they enter nunneries? I wish that one of these three sprightly lads would have a try at Olivia. One never knows, though. Even Olivia might take it as a compliment.” For a moment he wondered if there were any chance of trouble at Accomac. Very little, he concluded. He laughed to think of the strength of his position. It was a pleasure to him to think that three men hated him, perhaps longed to kill him, and that one refrained because of Olivia, while the other two refrained because of the first. “Lord, Lord,” he murmured, with a smile. “And they’ll all three die to save me. I’d go to Accomac if there were a dozen governors. I wonder if the Indian girls are any fun.” He was hardly built for marriage, he thought. Those old days had been sweet in the mouth. There was that sleepy-looking girl—Dick Sadler’s wife. She was some fun. How wild she used to get when she—— He wished that Perrin would come below as a butt for some of his ill-temper.

It was only four bells; there were at least two hours to wait till dinner-time. He was sick of sleeping; he was sick of most of his shipmates; he could not dice “one hand against the other.” Reading bored him, writing worried him, sketch he could not. He stretched himself down on the locker-top, and lit his pipe. Tobacco was forbidden in the cabin for Olivia’s sake; but he argued that he was the real commander of the ship, the practical owner, since he ruled her material destiny by ruling Olivia. As he smoked, it occurred to him that perhaps he had done wrong to anger Captain Margaret. That Maggy was a sullen devil. He might turn sullen, and give him up in spite of Olivia. He smoked quietly for a little time, till a scheme came to him, a scheme which gave him pleasure, so good it seemed.

He lay lazily on the locker-top, looking out over the sea, through the stern-windows. The sun was shining, making the track of the ship gleam. Just below Stukeley, sometimes almost within a sword’s thrust, when the counter squattered down, slapping the sea, were the rudder eddies, the little twirling threads, the twisted water which spun in the pale clear green, shot through with bubbles. They rose and whirled continually, creaming up and bursting, streaking aft in whiteness. Over them wavered some mewing sea-birds, dipping down with greedy plunges, anon rising, hovering, swaying up. Stukeley watched them with the vacant stare of one bored. For a few minutes he amused himself by spitting at those which came within range; then, proving a poor marksman, he rummaged for a biscuit, thinking that he would fish for them. He found a hank of white-line, and tied a bit of biscuit to the end. He was about to make his first cast when Mrs. Inigo entered, bearing a buck-basket containing her week’s washing, now ready to be dried.

When the Broken Heart left Falmouth, Captain Margaret made certain orders to ensure Olivia’s comfort. He had tried to put himself in her place, to see with her eyes, to feel with her nerves, knowing that her position on board, without another lady to bear her company, would not be a pleasant one. The whole of the ship abaft the forward cabin bulkhead had been given up to her. The three members of the afterguard took their meals in the cabin, but seldom entered it at other times, unless they wished to use the table for chess, cards, or chart-work. The negro steward, who had once ruled in the cabin, was now little more than a cabin-cook. Mrs. Inigo did much of his work. She cleaned the cabin, laid the breakfast, served Olivia’s early chocolate, letting the negro cook wash up. Cammock and Perrin agreed with Captain Margaret that the after part of the ship should be left as much as possible to the two Stukeleys, so that Olivia might feel that she was living in a private house. After the cabin supper, at the end of the first dog-watch, no man of the three entered the cabin unless Olivia invited him. Margaret felt that Olivia was touched by this thought for her. She was very gracious to him during her first evening party. It was sweet to hear her thanks, sweet to see her, flushed and laughing, radiant from the sea air, sitting there at the table, as Cammock dealt the cards for Pope Joan. That evening had been very dear to him, even though, across the cabin, on the heaped green cushions, lay Stukeley, greedy for his wife’s beauty, whetting his swine’s tusk as the colour came upon her cheek. It would all be for him, he thought, and the thought, now and then, was almost joyful, that she should be happy. It was not in his nature to be jealous. The greatest bitterness for him was to see the desired prize neglected, unappreciated, never really known; and to apprehend, in a gesture, in a few words, the thought implied, which the accepted lover failed to catch, or else ignored. He had tested Stukeley’s imaginative sympathy by the framing of another rule. In a small ship like the Broken Heart there is little privacy. To prevent a possible shock to her, he arranged that on washing-days the clothes of the women should be hung to dry from the cabin windows (from lines rigged up below the port-sills, where they were out of view of the crew). Olivia was pleased by this arrangement, without quite knowing why. Stukeley saw no sense in it. On this particular morning the arrangement bore peculiar fruit, very grateful to Stukeley, who had long hungered for a change.

Mrs. Inigo entered with the buck-basket, closing the door behind her. She dropped the basket on the deck below the window-seat, seized the clothes-line, and began to stop the linen to it, in the sea-fashion, with rope-yarns. She was a little flushed with the exertion of washing, and she was a comely woman at all times.

“I’m going to help you,” said Stukeley.

She smiled, and looked down, as he helped her to tie some clothes to the line. She blushed and smiled; he took her hand.

“Let go my hand,” she whispered.

He pressed the hand, and though she drew back, a little frightened, he managed to catch the other. He kissed the hands. They were rough but warm.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t, Mr. Stukeley.”

“Ah, Bess,” he said, taking her into his arms and kissing her, “why didn’t you give me a chance before?”

Half an hour later Bessy Inigo went forward to peel potatoes for dinner, while Stukeley slept upon the locker-top till the steward roused him at one bell.

He went on deck, when he was called, to get a breath of air before dinner. He found Olivia at work with her little balls of silk, while Perrin, on the lee side of the skylight, was drawing for her a ship upon canvas. Perrin was talking to Olivia, asking her questions about her work. At the break of the poop Captain Cammock stood, waiting with his quadrant to take the height of the sun.

Olivia looked up with a smile as Stukeley stepped on deck. She was still in that rapturous first stage of marriage in which all men, save the husband, are regarded as hardly living, as being, at best, but necessary cumberers of the earth, mere lifeless interruptions. In the early days of the voyage she had learned, from one of Captain Cammock’s stories, that people shut up in ships together cannot always bear the strain, but become irritable, quarrelsome, apt to suspect and slander. She had determined that her married love should not decay thus, and so, for some weeks past, she had contrived to avoid her husband for several hours each day, greatly to the delight of Perrin. On this particular day she felt that Providence had rewarded her but meanly for her loving self-sacrifice. All men, save Tom, were nothing to her, but Perrin, in the morning, in one of his dull moods, when unrelieved by Margaret, was less than nothing. She had always been a little shy of Perrin, perhaps because Perrin’s shyness was a bar to equal intercourse. Her own nature was full of shy refinements. She could give nothing of herself to one who could not win upon her by some grace or gallantry. Perrin meant well; he was even her devoted slave; but he was heavy in the hand with ladies, until their sympathy had raised his spirit. Olivia was not in the mood to give him even that simulated sympathy by which women extract their knowledge of men. Her own fine instincts told her, or rather suggested to her, all that could be known of Perrin. In a vague way she had the idea of Perrin in her mind, the true idea; but vague, without detail, an instinctive comprehension. He was a blunted soul to her, broken somehow. She felt that he had been through something, some vice perhaps, or sickness, with the result that he was blunted. He was quite harmless, she thought, even sometimes pleasant, always well-meaning, and yet dwarfed, made blunt, like his shapeless hands. She never could bring herself to treat him as a human being. Yet he interested her; he had the fascination of all mysterious persons; she could never accept her husband’s contemptuous estimate. Possibly she felt the need for the society of another lady, and hesitated to condemn Perrin, as being the nearest thing to a lady in the ship. Thus Robinson Crusoe on his island unduly valued a parrot.

About half an hour before her husband came on deck, Olivia had seen Perrin coming down from aloft, where he had been engaged with a seaman in fitting new spunyarn gaskets to all the yards on the mainmast, so that the furls might look neat when they made Virginia. He enjoyed his work aloft until he grew hot, when he soon found a pretext for leaving it. On reaching the deck, he went aft to Olivia (who smiled her recognition), and sat down at her side, content to stay still, to cool. The sight of Olivia’s beauty so near to him filled him with a kind of awe. Like a schoolboy impressed by some beautiful woman who is gracious to him, perhaps merely from that love of youth which all women have, so did Perrin imagine heroisms, rescuing that dear head, now bent with a shy sweetness over her mat.

“Olivia,” he said at length, about a minute after the proper time for the request, “will you show me what you have done?”

She looked up from her work with a smile that was half amusement at his serious tone.

“I’ve not done very much,” she said, showing her canvas, with its roses, surrounded by a garland of verbena leaves, still little more than outlined. “Did you ever try to make mats?” she added.

“I can make daisy-mats with wool, on a frame with pins,” he answered. “Can you make those? You cut them, and they show like a lot of daisies.”

“I used to make them,” she said, “when I went to stay with my aunt Pile, at Eltons. You were at Eltons, too, were you not? I think you stayed there?”

“Yes. I stayed there. What a beautiful old place it is. Have you been there lately?”

“No. Not for two or three years now. I was very gay the last time I was there. I think I went to a dance every night. My poor brothers were alive then. We used to drive off together. I’ve never been there since.”

“Ah,” said Perrin. He paused for a moment, so that his brain might make the picture of the woman before him sitting in the gloom of the carriage, with all her delicate beauty warmly wrapped by the two young men now dead. “Furs,” he muttered to himself. “Furs, and the lamps shining on the snow.” Then he looked at Olivia, noting the grey and black dress, the one gold bracelet round her wrist, and the old pearl ear-rings against the mass of hair.

“What jolly clothes women wear,” he said, meaning (like most men who use such phrases) “How beautiful you look there.”

“This?” she asked. “This is my oldest frock.”

“Is it? I didn’t remember it. How do you get your clothes?”

“I tell my dressmaker.”

“I wish you’d let me design you a dress.”

“I should be very pleased. What sort of dress would you design for me?”

“I would have you in a sort of white satin bodice, all embroidered with tiny scarlet roses. And then a little black velvet coat over it, with very full sleeves, slashed, to show an inner sleeve of dark blue silk. And the lining of the velvet would be dark green; so you would have green, blue, white, and red all contrasted against the black of the velvet.”

“That would be costly. And what skirt? A black skirt, I suppose?”

“A very full black skirt. What do you think about a belt? Would you wear that belt of yours? The one with the Venetian silver-work?”

“I don’t know about a belt. I thought you were going to design everything?”

“Not a belt, then. And black shoes, with small, oval, cut-steel buckles.”

“I should think that would be very pretty.” Her thoughts were wandering in England, down a lane of beech trees within sound of the sea, to a hillock of short grass, cropped by the sheep, where sea-pinks and sea-holly sprouted.

“What are the sailors like?” she asked. “I saw you working up aloft with them. What are they like to talk to?”

“Oh. They’re all right.”

“I think they’re dreadful people.”

“Why?” said Perrin. “What makes you think they’re dreadful?”

“No nice man would take such a life. Oh. It must be dreadful. I shudder when I see them. What do they talk of, among themselves?”

“They’re not very refined, of course. That man up on the yard there was once a slave in Virginia. You see he was transported for theft. He says he used to cry, sometimes, half through the night. He was so homesick.”

“Oh, that’s terrible. But what home had he to be sick for?”

“The ash-heap near a glass-house furnace. Somewhere in Chelsea, I think he said.”

“And are the others all thieves, do you suppose?”

“That ugly-looking dark fellow with the crooked eyes was once in a pirate’s crew, so the man on the yard said.”

“Was he really? I don’t think that man is quite sane. He seems to glare so. Oh, ships are dreadful, dreadful.”

“They’re beautiful, though. All—— Yes. Don’t you think all beautiful things seem to gather vileness about them?”

“No, I don’t think so. Vileness? In what way, vileness?”

“I think they do. You see ships with sailors, and pictures with picture-dealers, and tragedies—— Well. Tragedies with all sorts of people.” He ran on glibly, though with some confusion. The thought had occurred to him first in a moment of jealous anger that Olivia, so beautiful and sweet, should be a prey to the vile Stukeley. He blushed and stopped, thinking that she would read his thought.

“Oh. But I don’t think that at all,” she said. “You ought to say that vileness gathers about beautiful things. A beautiful thing is a vigorous form of life, and all forms of life have parasites. The parasites don’t attach themselves to the things you speak of because the things are beautiful.”

“No. I suppose not. Of course not,” he answered, rather puzzled, still thinking of Stukeley.

“And you wouldn’t say that the really beautiful things, such as love is, say, to a woman like myself. No vileness gathers about that?”

“N-no,” he answered, with some hesitation, wishing that he had never started his mild little rabbit of an epigram. He looked away, at the sky-line, for a moment. Then, with sudden desperation, he charged her to change the subject, his face still red from his former rout.

“Olivia,” he said. “If I drew you a ship, would you embroider it, or make a mat of it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Draw the Broken Heart. I could work it for Tom’s birthday. I should be very glad of it, after I’ve finished this.”

Perrin helped her to cut a square of canvas from a little roll she had obtained from the sailmaker. He settled himself down to draw. Olivia stitched with her silks.

“It is so curious,” she said at last, “that you should have known my husband—that you knew him years ago, when we stayed at Eltons together. Before I knew him.”

“Yes. I’ve thought that, too. And now we’re all here together. And Eltons is still going on, behind us there. Rooks in the elms. And your aunt Pile in her chair.”

She seemed to reflect for a moment, as though thinking of the beautiful house, where life moved so nobly, like a strain of music. Perrin knew that she was thinking of Stukeley. “Oh, you women,” he said to himself. “You give everything for a pennyweight of love, and even that is never paid to you.” He would have given much, poor moth, to be back at Eltons, young and handsome, with the shy, gauche girl who had since become Olivia. “I didn’t know then,” he said to himself, “and you couldn’t guess. And now we’re driving to it. Shipwreck. Shipwreck. And I should have been so happy with you.”

“What was Tom like then?” said Olivia.

“Who? Oh, your husband. You see I didn’t know him well,” said Perrin in confusion. “He was—I think he was a lot thinner than he is now.”

“How did he look in his uniform?”

“His uniform?” said Perrin. “You see. I didn’t see him in his uniform. You see it was after he’d been kicked—— After he’d—— You know what. What is the word? After he’d been——”

Stammering and blushing, he managed to get out of his difficulty. Olivia thought that he had been afflicted by that impediment in his speech, or partial aphasia, which sometimes checked his conversation. She pitied him, while feeling that his companionship was painful. He himself turned very red, and bit his tongue. He thought that the six weeks at sea should have taught him the guard for all such sudden thrusts.

“After he’d left the army?” she said kindly.

“Yes. Yes. It was,” he answered. He turned again to draw the image of the Broken Heart, as he had seen her from without, some seven long weeks before. Olivia gave him a moment’s grace to recover his natural colour. Captain Cammock caught her eye, and saluted as he took his stand with his quadrant. She was smiling back at him when her husband’s head appeared on the poop ladder. Perrin looked up quickly.

“I’d better hide this, Olivia,” he said. “If it’s for your husband’s birthday. Shall I hide it?”

As she nodded a swift answer her husband stepped on to the poop.

Stukeley advanced rapidly and kissed his wife, with some show of fervour, for policy’s sake. Then with a quick snatch he caught Perrin’s drawing, lying half hidden upon the skylight seat under one of Olivia’s wraps.

“Look at little Pilly’s cow,” he said. “Look, Olivia. Did you draw this, little Pilly?”

“He was drawing it for me,” said Olivia.

“Were you going to teach him to embroider it? Little Pilly, was he going to have his little needle, then? And his red and blue silk. Eh? You know, Olivia, I saw little Pilly here, down in the cabin one hit me, playing with some red and blue silk spools. Ah, little Pilly; it’s a shame to tease him. He must have his little dollies, then?”

“You put down that drawing,” said Perrin, snatching at it.

Stukeley held him aside with one hand, dangling the drawing from the other.

“No, no, little Pilly,” he said. “Manners, little boy. Manners before ladies.”

“Don’t, Tom dear,” said Olivia. “Don’t spoil the drawing.”

“That would be a shame,” he answered. “Little Pilly draws so beautifully. Which is the tail, Pilly?” he asked. “Which of these prongy things is the tail?”

Perrin did not answer; but again attempted to snatch the canvas.

“Why don’t you take it, little Pilly?” said Stukeley.

“Damn you, give it,” said Perrin, white with passion. He snatched the canvas from him, smote him a sharp slash across the eyes with it, and flung it overboard.

Stukeley made a rush at him, but became involved with one of Olivia’s wraps. Cammock stepped between the disputants with his quadrant at his eye.

“Woa, blood,” he said. “Don’t knock my ship overboard. Make eight bells there, will you, Mr. Perrin? Mr. Stukeley, will you please step and tell the steward to set the clock right?”

“Do your own dirty work,” said Stukeley.

The helmsman sniggered audibly. Cammock raised his hat about an inch from his head.

“Quite right, sir,” he said, as Perrin made eight bells. “Quite right to remind me, sir. I forgot you was only a passenger.”

“Steward,” shouted Perrin. “Oh. Mrs. Inigo. Just tell the steward to set the clock right.”

“De clock am set, seh,” said the steward, coming to the break of the poop to ring the bell for dinner.

“Tom dear,” said Olivia, conscious that the man she loved had made but a poor show. “Tom dear. You weren’t very kind. I mean. I think you hurt Captain Cammock. And you made Edward angry. He can’t bear to be teased. He’s not easy-tempered like you, dear. I think sometimes you forget that, don’t you, Tom? You won’t be cross, Tom?”

“Oh, nonsense, Polly,” he said, as he took her arm to lead her below. “Nonsense, you old pretty-eyes. I can’t resist teasing Pilly; he’s such an old hen. As for Cammock, he’s only an old pirate. I’m not going to be ordered about by a man like that. He’s no right to be at liberty.”

Olivia was pleased by the reference to her eyes, so she said no more. She wondered, during dinner, why Captain Margaret ate so little and so silently, and why Perrin never spoke until addressed. Cammock was affable and polite. His attention to Stukeley’s needs was almost oily.

VI. A SUPPER PARTY

“But here comes Glorius, that will plague them both.”

John Donne.

“I’ll make ’em dance,

And caper, too, before they get their liberty.

Unmannerly rude puppies.”

Wit Without Money.

After dinner, Captain Cammock took tobacco on the poop alone. He liked to be alone after dinner; because his mind was then very peaceful, so that he could “shift his tides,” as he said, walking up and down, remembering old days at sea. He had had an adventurous life, had Captain Cammock. Like most men who had lived hard, he lived very much in his past, thinking that such a thing, done long ago, was fine, and that such a man, shot long since, outside some Spanish breastwork, was a great man, better than the men of these days, braver, kindlier. So he walked the deck, sucking his clay, blowing out blue smoke in little quick whiffs, thinking of old times. One thing he was always proud of: he had sailed with Morgan. He had memories of Morgan on the green savannah, riding on a little Spanish horse, slunk forward in his saddle somehow, “a bit swag-bellied, Sir Henry,” with his cigar-end burning his moustache. And all of those men crowded round him, surging in on him, plastered with mud, gory with their raw-meat meal; they were scattered pretty well; they would never come in on the one field again. On the Keys, it had been fine, too; all of that blue water had been fine. A sea like blue flame, and islands everywhere, and the sun over all, making bright, and boles of cedar among the jungle like the blood-streaks in porphyry. And graceful, modest Indian women, glistening with oil, crowned with dwarf-roses. And then one or two nights by the camp-fires, with old Delander standing sentry, and Eddie Collier singing; it was none of it like this; this was responsible work; this turned the hair grey. He felt this the more strongly, because the Broken Heart was not a happy ship; she was wearing him down. Stukeley made him grit his teeth. He had to sit at table with him, conscious of the man’s mean malice at every moment. There would be some slight sound, an intake of the breath, some muttered exclamation, a request to repeat the offending phrase, when he, a rough seaman, made some mispronunciation, or slip in grammar. And to stand that, till one’s veins nearly burst, knowing that the man was a cast criminal, flying for his life. And to have to pretend that he was a guest, an honoured guest, a fit mate for the woman there. And to have to defend him, if need be, in Virginia. It made him check his walk sometimes to shake a belaying-pin in the fife-rail, till the passion passed. It was lucky for Stukeley that he was a man with a pretty tight hold on himself. A lesser man, a man not trained in the wars, would have laid Stukeley dead, or taken it out of the hands. He was too just a man to work it off on his hands. At this point he checked himself, sharply, putting all evil thoughts aside, remembering how a shipmate, Balsam Dick, the Scholerd, who ladled out soft-polly of a Sunday, old Balsam Dick it was, had told him that was the thing to do. “Let it go or make it go,” that was how to work a passion. There was no sense, only misery, in keeping it by one, poisoning oneself. Besides, he was glad he’d come this cruise. He had been for six weeks shut up in a ship with Olivia. He would never be thankful enough for that. She was so beautiful, so pure, so gentle and kind, so delicate a lovely thing, he could hardly bear to think of her. When he thought of Olivia, he would lean over the taffrail, somewhere above her cabin, wondering at the powers which had made him what he was, a resolute, rough seaman, beaten into clumsy toughness. And yet those powers had shaped her, too, making her very beautiful, very wonderful. And now the powers had shoved her into a ship with him; and he would never be quite the same towards women, whatever happened. But, then, there was Stukeley, that intolerable, mean bully, worrying all of them in the same ways, day after day, with a maddening monotony of insult. Perrin, who was half Welsh, had once hit off Stukeley in an epigram upon the English. “Dull,” he had said, goaded by some school-bully boorishness, repeated for the hundredth time. “The English dull? Of course they are dull. They’re so dull that they can’t be inventive even in their cruelty.” Cammock would repeat this phrase, reading “Stukeley” for “English” so many times daily that “he tokened his pasture.”

While Cammock walked the deck, thinking and smoking, Olivia sat in her state-room writing letters, feeling sure that she would be able to send them home from Virginia in one of the tobacco-ships, and anxious to be ready in case they should speak one at sea. Margaret and Perrin sat in Captain Cammock’s cabin together, working out the sights, and talking in a low voice of Stukeley. The cabin door was open, so that they could look across the alleyway to the closed door of Mrs. Inigo’s state-room, once the sail-locker. They noticed that Mrs. Inigo came to her door every now and then, to glance down the alleyway, with an anxious face. They supposed that she was waiting for Olivia to call her. Once, indeed, she asked them if Mrs. Stukeley had called.

“Well, Charles,” said Perrin. “I told you how it would be. You see now what you’ve done.”

“Yes,” said Margaret. “I admit I was wrong. I made a great mistake.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Perrin. “But what are you going to do when we land?”

“Call him out.”

“No, sir. I’m going to call him out.”

“Aren’t we both talking nonsense? How can either of us call him out, with Olivia on board? And then they’re my guests.”

“Well. I think we ought to get rid of them.”

“We can’t, with Olivia.”

“There may be letters ordering us to give him up.”

“Then we shall have to cut and run for it.”

“Now why go in for these heroics?”

“Because—I don’t know. When I was a young man I framed a certain scheme of life, I suppose. There it is.”

“We’re only putting off the evil day.”

“Why? What makes you think that?”

“Supposing we do cut and run for it. What are you going to do? How about your merchandise? Where are you going to take them? Olivia must know some day. They can’t go back to England. It’s only merciful to tell her.”

“Who is to tell her? Who is to go to her and say, ‘Olivia, your husband’s a forger.’ It’s impossible, Edward.”

“Well, I think we ought to tell her.”

“Very well then. Go in and tell her. You can’t.”

“I will.”

“No. Sit down. Look here. I used to know Howard, the present Governor, years ago. Suppose this. Suppose I could get him to waive the arrest. That is, if we find an arrest has been ordered. And we could persuade. I want to spare that poor girl. He might get them to settle, give him an appointment—anything. Make him his secretary.”

“And what sort of life would Olivia have?”

“A better one than on the Main, surely.”

“It’s a difficult row to hoe.”

“It is.”

“Let’s make a sangaree. Will you have some if I make some?”

“No. Let’s go into this with clear heads. It might be better to tell Olivia. But it’ll break her heart.”

“She’s got to suffer some day. And her heart won’t break.”

“My God, though, Edward, do think what she is, think of her life. Think what. To have her husband driven in a cart and hanged.”

“Yes. But it’s surely a worse tragedy for him not to be hanged, and to go on living with her.”

“I know. It is. But she loves him.”

“Comic devils, women. Aren’t they?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Well. Look here. I suppose he would be hanged?”

“I shouldn’t think there’s a doubt of it.”

“And the question is, how to get rid of Stukeley and spare Olivia?”

“No. How to spare Olivia. Settle them in Virginia, I say.”

“In the first place, the Governor might not allow it. And in the second place, my dear man, you simply can’t leave Olivia in a land where—— Well. A savage land.”

“What do you know of the land?”

“I don’t know anything of the land.”

“What makes you think it to be savage?”

“It’s common talk. The sailors.”

“What do the sailors say about it?”

“They say it’s ‘the hell of a place.’ ‘The last place God made, and He forgot to finish it.’ ”

“What do they know of Virginia?”

“They’ve been there.”

“Yes. But what do sailors know of any country?”

“They go ashore.”

“What for?”

“To load and unload their cargoes.”

“To roll casks in the sun?”

“Well. Yes.”

“Do they like that?”

“No.”

“What else do they do when they go ashore?”

“They go exploring.”

“What? The brothels?”

“Yes. And the country, too.”

“Are there any roads?”

“Well, anyway, they’ve been there, and that’s what they say. And some of them. That Bill Adams fellow in my watch. He was there for five years, and he said it was hell.”

“What was he doing?”

“Working in the tobacco fields.”

“As a slave?”

“No. A redemptioner.”

“Kidnapped?”

“No. Transported.”

“I think we’d better wait till we see Virginia for ourselves. This is my plan, Edward. We had better do this, I think. I’ll explain things to Howard, and get him to give Stukeley a place.”

“And compromise himself?”

“Not necessarily. Then they had better stay in Virginia. And perhaps I’ll give up the Darien scheme and go home, find out what sort of a mess he is in, and see if I can make some sort of a composition with his prosecutors.”

“You can’t. You’re wanted in England yourself. We’re all outlaws, Charles. We’re flying with ropes round our necks.”

“Yes. I suppose we are. Well. Shall we all stay in Virginia?”

“Till we’re taken and sent home?”

“Till my committee of merchants procure our pardons.”

“We shall get no pardons till our Darien scheme is a big success.”

“That’s true, too.”

“Old Cammock was saying that Carolina is a good place. They call Charleston Puerto Franco; everybody’s safe there, he says.”

“God deliver Olivia from a place so lawless that every one is safe there.”

“Yes. My word, yes.”

“Suppose, now. Suppose there is an arrest. Suppose Howard should be firm. It seems hard. My God, I know I meant well; but I’ve got her into a cruel fix. If we let them go. Go back to England, for him to be tried. D’you know, Edward, I think it would be best.”

“I’m quite sure it would be.”

“But you would have to go with her, Perrin. You would have to go. I’d go, too. I’d take my chance.”

“No you wouldn’t. You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve enough trouble as it stands.”

“Oh, I’d have to go. I couldn’t stay here and eat my heart out for her.”

“Yes, you will, Charles. Be sensible. I’ll see her safe home, if it comes to that.”

“And the instant you land, Edward, you’ll go to Flaxley, to her uncle, and then to her aunt Pile. Get them to come to her. My God, love blinds a man. I ought to have seen all this. But I could only see what was pleasant to myself.”

“Ah. Don’t say that, Charles. It’s not true. You didn’t know Stukeley.”

“No. Stukeley then was the man Olivia loved.”

“And now?”

“Now? Now? We won’t talk about that, Edward. Get your Donne and read to me.”

“I read so badly.”

“You read excellently. You’re a little slow sometimes.”

“I can’t vary my voice. I could, before it broke. Now I read so monotonously.”

“Verse ought to be read in a monotone, but there is a passionate monotone. Read me the Second Anniversary, and we’ll forget our worries. That sounded rather like a step in the alleyway.”

Perrin leaned out of the door and looked aft.

“It’s no one,” he said. “A beam creaked. Stukeley’s asleep on the cabin lockers.”

“It sounded like a step.”

“I’ll just make sure. No. It can’t have been anybody.” He tiptoed lightly to the cabin door, and looked through. Stukeley was asleep on the locker-tops, his face buried in the cushions. Perrin closed the door quietly, and took his book from his shelf. “It was no one,” he said. “No one at all. Only a beam.”

“Begin, then,” said his friend.

Perrin shut the door, sat down, and began to read that glorious elegy, making a sad business of the changing accents.

While he read, Stukeley sat up and smiled, making rude remarks under his breath. He had retired to his locker-top after dinner, intending to visit Mrs. Inigo as soon as the coast was clear. After half an hour of yawning, he had crept down the alleyway on tiptoe, hoping to find the door ajar, and the handsome woman waiting for him. He noticed that Cammock’s door was open, so that it would be dangerous to attempt the rendezvous; but hearing a murmur of voices he had stolen close to listen. He had expected nothing interesting to himself. He had expected some talk of the situation, possibly some invective, such as he had overheard at other times; but for once he heard something new; something which (as he foresaw) would test the wonderful new scheme which he had made that morning. He half doubted if the scheme would stand the strain; but a little thought convinced him that he ran no risk. So pleasant was the conversation to him that he lingered rather too long, mistaking the intentions of the speakers, so that, when he retreated backwards, he went too swiftly, and made some noise at the door, enough to give Margaret the impression of a step. He had just time to bury his head in the cushions, before Perrin entered. “Fancy old Maggy having the guts,” he said. “We must deal with the little Pill, too. The little dear gets poisonous.” He thought that he would go on deck to pass the rest of the afternoon. Mrs. Inigo would have to be abandoned till the morning.

He rubbed his cheeks vigorously to flush them. With a twist of his fingers he ruffled his long black hair, as though he had slept. Then he went yawning down the alleyway, pulling at the skirts of his waistcoat. He looked in at the door of Cammock’s cabin, pretending to be but half awakened. “Did one of you come into the cabin just now?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” said Perrin. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” he said, gaping. “Only I wondered who it was.”

Mrs. Inigo’s door was shut, so he passed out to the deck. He wished to avoid Captain Cammock, who walked the poop above him. Mr. Cottrill, who had the deck at the moment, was forward with the boatswain, setting up the fore-backstays with the watch. The only person with whom he could converse was Mr. Iles, the second mate, that smart young seaman, who now sat on an inverted wash-deck tub, in the lee scuppers, mending a pair of trousers which he had taken off for the occasion. Puffs of wind sometimes lifted his shirt skirts, displaying his little wiry legs. The sailmaker, who sat on the booby-hatch, putting a new clue into a royal, was telling him, at each puff, to mind the girls didn’t see.

“By gee,” said Mr. Iles, by no means a bashful man, “I wouldn’t mind if der girls did see.”

“They don’t come around so much when a man gets married,” said the sailmaker. “They get shot in the beam with a wet rag.”

“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles, “I don’t know, Sails. B’gee, I seen some married men as didn’t do much shootin’.”

“It’s the missus does the shooting,” said Sails. “I know there’s not many girls come whistling after me since I got married. But you young fellers,” said Sails, “you think of nothing else, I do believe, except the gells outside Paddy’s.”

“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles. “Dere was one of them girls outside Paddy’s. She was a bute, all right, all right. She’d got a fine skin on her. Gee. Hey. Like old sail.”

“They don’t last at it,” said Sails. “Five years, they say. Then they get froze, down Lavender Pond way. That washes the poor creatures’ rooge off. But there’s not many thinks that when they come ashore, Mr. Iles. Nor you don’t think it.”

“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles, as he stretched his leg out into the sunlight. “That’s a leg all right, all right,” he said. “B’gee, Sails, I don’t t’ink you could show a leg, like what that leg is.”

“I got a leg as I’d show alongside of any man’s,” said Sails.

“Let’s see your leg,” said Mr. Iles. “B’gee, Sails, you’re one of dese consumptive fellers. You ain’t got no legs.”

“I got a better leg’n you got,” said Sails, very touchy, like all sailors, on the subject of his physical strength. “You look here,” he said.

“Mr. Stukeley,” cried Mr. Iles, standing up excitedly. “B’gee, sir, I want to show legs with Sails here. Will you be the judge between us?”

Stukeley had seen similar contests in his visits to the head to be pumped on; but he had hardly expected to see an officer’s vanity put to the touch upon the quarter-deck. “It’ll annoy old Brandyface,” he thought. “Yes,” he answered, “I’ll be the judge. But don’t shock old Brandyface on the poop there.” He said this in the hearing of Captain Cammock, who paused at the poop-rail, looked down on their preparations with an unmoved face, and then turned to walk aft.

“B’gee,” said Mr. Iles. “It’s a pity our girls ain’t here. Dere’s some girls’d die laughing to see us. Come on, Sails.”

Sails extended a bared leg beside him, balancing, like a flamingo, on one foot. The boatswain, coming aft for a sack of paunch-mats, called on his maker to come aft and watch.

“B’gee, Sails,” said Mr. Iles, looking critically at the contesting leg. “You got a pretty good calf all right, all right.”

“You’ve been woolded pretty well, too,” said Sails. “You could keep them going, for a little feller.”

“Them little fellers,” said the boatswain flatteringly. “They do their piece. I seen little fellers keep them going when the rest is gone dormy.” He glanced at Stukeley, to see how Paris would decide.

“Boatswain strip, too,” suggested Stukeley. “Now, bose. Cock up your leg with the others.”

The boatswain shook his head with a laugh, and went back to his work.

“B’gee, sir,” said Mr. Iles, “the old bose is jealous. I’m getting cold, b’gee.” He danced a little step dance, slapping his feet.

“You’ve both got decent legs,” said Stukeley, taking the hint. “Damn good legs. But you want a connoisseur to decide. I’ll get Mr. Perrin!”

“Make him measure us,” said Mr. Iles.

“I ain’t going to have no Mr. Perrin,” said Sails, retiring. “My legs speaks for theirselves. You got no legs, Mr. Iles. You only got muscles. What a leg wants is pathos in the joints, like what I got.”

“B’gee, Mr. Stukeley,” said Iles, “I think I got old Sails to the bad.”

“Your legs are like mine, Sails,” said Stukeley. “They show a bit old alongside a fresh young buck like Mr. Iles here.”

“Ah, go on, sir,” said Sails. “Them legs Mr. Iles got, I wouldn’t be seen dead with.”

Mr. Iles stuck his needle in his cap. He yawned, and spurned his tub into the scuppers. “I’m going below now,” he said. “I’ll have a bit of a fiddle before eight bells.” He glanced at Stukeley, who seemed willing to talk. “You’ve never been below in the ’tween-decks, have you, sir?” he said. “You come down and see the sights. I ain’t got much, but I can give you a chair and a look around. Come on down this way, sir.” He led the way down the booby-hatch, into the ’tween-decks, where the light from the boom-gratings and the open hatch-mouths made sunny places in the gloom. A lamp or two, hung under the quarter-deck, gave light to the after part, showing a few whitewashed, jalousied cabins on both sides of the ship. “That’s the round-house,” said Iles, nodding towards the port side. “The idlers live in the round-house. Anybody in?” he cried, shaking the door. “There’ll only be the cook in at this time. Rise and shine there, doctor.” But the doctor was down in the forepeak grubbing up dunnage for firewood. All that Stukeley saw of the round-house was the darkness of a vault, through which gleamed the oil-cloth on a table, and the paint upon a sea-chest. The clue of a hammock sloped down from the beams just above his head, like the crow’s-foot on a stay. The place smelt of oil; for the lamp had been allowed to burn itself out. “Fine dry little house,” said Mr. Iles. “Dry as a bone. They’ve good times in there, them idlers. This is where me and Mr. Cottrill bunks. Over here, sir, to starboard. Mind them bosun’s stores amidships.” He led the way to a couple of dingy boxes on the starboard side. They were more roomy than the cabins on the deck above; but they gave one no feeling of comfort. Mr. Iles’s home was littered with second-mate’s stores. It gave out the penetrating, homely stink of spunyarn. Spare log-lines and lead lines were heaped in a spare bunk. From the beams dangled a variety of lamps, and bunches of thin candles, like corpses’ fingers. His oilskins swung behind the door, and dripped upon an old swab laid below, as a sort of doormat. “I been oiling up my skins,” he explained. “Don’t it stink, hey? Stinks like hell, I call it. Good for consumptives, stink is, they say. I couldn’t ever see it myself.”

“Do you get your meals in here?” said Stukeley.

“Damn that boy,” replied Mr. Iles, evidently searching for something. “He hasn’t put my water-carafe back. He’s left it in the wardroom again. Come on into the wardroom, Mr. Stukeley.”

He led the way aft to the wardroom, which stretched across the breadth of the ship right aft. The big chase-ports were open, so that the room was light. One could see the grunting, kicking rudder-head, with its huge blocks for the relieving-tackles. The long chase-guns were trained athwartships, and securely housed. A tablecloth of old soft sail was thrown across one of them. A cleated table stretched athwartships just forward of it.

The table was rimmed with a batten to keep the plates from falling. “Here’s my water-carafe,” said Mr. Iles. “Sit down, Mr. Stukeley. I’ll fetch you the rum and a pannikin. We ain’t got much. But you may as well have what there is.” From the adjoining wardroom pantry he produced a bottle of rum, about half full, and a couple of tin pannikins. Mr. Iles held the bottle against the light to observe the level of the spirit. He also sniffed at the mouth after removing the cork. “I have to watch that boy,” he explained. “He likes his little dollop a bit too well. I don’t think he’s been at this though. Does it seem to you’s though it been watered?”

“No, sir,” said Stukeley, swallowing his allowance. “It’s very sound spirit. Wants another year in cask perhaps. How much of this do you get a day?”

“Half a pint’s the whack,” said Mr. Iles, “but I don’t touch my whack the first month, till the water slimes. Then I’ve a matter of three gallons saved, in case I get company come. Have another go, Mr. Stukeley?”

“Thank you,” said Stukeley, holding out his pannikin. “Here’s to old Brandyface, our bold commander.”

“Old Cap Hammock,” said Iles, twitching the left side of his upper lip in the smile peculiar to him.

“What do you think of old Brandyface?” said Stukeley. “Perhaps you’re used to pirates?”

“What’s pirates got to do with it?” said Mr. Iles. “Drink hearty, sir. I got a demijohn in the spare bunk there. What’s pirates got to do with it?”

“Well. There’s old Brandyface in the cabin, isn’t there?”

“Old Cap Hammock ain’t no pirate?”

“Wasn’t he? He was damned near hung for it. Not so long ago, either.”

“Is that so?” said Iles. “Is that so, now? Straight?”

“He’s only an old buccaneer. What d’you think of the old boy?”

“I ain’t paid to think,” said Mr. Iles evasively. “Gee. I didn’t know he was that sort. I wish I’d known.”

“Why?”

“Here. You ain’t doing your piece. You want to do better’n that. Lay aft with your pannikin.”

“He was one of the gang which worked in the South Seas,” said Stukeley. “You know the sort of thing they did. Ruffians. He was at it all his life.”

“I wish I’d known. Gee. Hey?”

“Why?”

“Here, fill fair. Fill fair.”

“You’ll make me cocked.”

“Cock in your eye, sir. Lap the cream of it.”

“He’s a nice one to have command of a ship. Eh?”

“So he was nothing but an old pirate? Gee.”

“What sort of an old man is he to work with?”

“I wish I’d known. B’gee, sir, I’d have—— What sort is he? He don’t know nothing. He’s only an old woman. He cain’t knot a rope-yarn. If I’d known, I’d have——”

“What would you have?”

“He got fresh with me one time. He give me the slack of his old lip, about leaving the harness-cask unlocked. I’d have called him down if I’d known. I don’t let any old pirate get gay with me. See?”

“He’s a dirty old swine,” said Stukeley. “He and those damned old women your owners.”

“That Perrin’s a bute, for fair, hey?”

“They make a nice trio to leave your wife alone with.”

“Your wife’s a peach, I guess. Hey?”

“If she is, she’s a green one. Give us the bottle there.”

“Is it true the Margaret fellow’s sweet on her?”

“Who? Oh, that little crawler. There’s a picture of a man.”

“I never had much truck with him. His look’s enough for me.”

“For me, too. Look here, Iles. I’m sick of the company in the cabin. That old pirate, and those two twisters, and my wife sitting up like a cold jelly. Ah. Good luck. Sick of it. You come up and have supper with us to-night. And bring your fiddle.”

“I guess old Brandyface’d raise a stink.”

“If he does, we’ll call him down. He’s not going to dictate my guests to me. I’ll have in any one I like.”

“Gee. That would be great. Hey?”

“I’m not going to let an old pirate say who’s to be my friends.”

“He’ll heave me quit of the cabin.”

“I’ll heave him if he does. Pretty quick.”

“Gee. I’d like to come. But he’ll be mad as hell.”

“All the better. And those two twisters, too.”

“That Perrin. Hey? He asked me one time what I did to make my hair grow.”

“He’s about the damnedest fool I’ve met.”

“Have another ball. There’s one bell. It’ll be my watch in a quarter of an hour.”

“You’ll come, then?”

“Oh, I’ll come. But gee, Mr. Stukeley, old Brandyco’ll fire me.”

“We’ll have a bit of sport if he does. Bring your fiddle. Oh. Let’s have a song. Let’s sing ‘Tickle Toby.’ ”

“No. I don’t know it well enough. Let’s have this one about the sailor’s wives. D’you know this one?”

Until eight bells were made, Mr. Iles sang to Mr. Stukeley, who joined in the choruses, and sometimes offered a solo. The songs were all vile. They were the product of dirty drinking-bars, and dirty young men. Youth sometimes affects such songs, and such haunts, from that greed for life which is youth’s great charm and peril. That men of mature experience should sing them, enjoying them, after tasting of life’s bounty, was hateful, and also pitiful, as though a dog should eat a child. The couple went on deck together at eight bells, singing their scrannel for the mustering crew to hear.

A few minutes before his watch was up, Mr. Iles gave the deck to the boatswain, and went below to dress. It was not his day for a first wash, but Mr. Cottrill gave him the first turn of the basin (it contained about a pint) on promise of a plug of tobacco at the next issue of slops. Mr. Iles washed himself carefully, in spite of Mr. Cottrill’s complaint that water so soapy would hardly serve the second comer, let alone the boy, who had the reversion of it after him. After washing, he combed his hair, put on his best suit, gave his shoes a rub of lamp-black, took his fiddle from its case, and went on deck to muster his watch at four bells. A few moments after four bells, while the dismissed starboard watch went whooping forward to supper, the steward rang the cabin bell, and Stukeley met his guest at the alleyway door.

“Come in,” said Stukeley. “Before old Brandynose comes aft.”

They passed aft into the cabin.

Margaret, Perrin, and Olivia were already seated when they entered. Mrs. Inigo stood behind Captain Cammock’s empty chair, waiting to take the covers. She was looking with contempt at the wife she had supplanted, thinking her a confident, pale, thin-lipped thing, and wondering what her husband could have seen in her. Captain Cammock had been delayed for a moment, having cut his chin while shaving. When Stukeley entered Perrin was talking to Olivia.

“For whom is the place there?” he was saying, nodding towards the napkin opposite to him.

“Why, we’re laid for six,” she answered.

“Yes,” said Stukeley. “Olivia, let me introduce Mr. Iles. Mr. Iles has come to give us a little music.”

Olivia, rather startled (for she had seen Mr. Iles about the decks, dressed like a seaman, and doing seaman’s work, with much foul language), glanced at the man and made a little cold bow, dropping her eyes to her plate as Mr. Iles advanced, holding out his hand.

“This is Mr. Iles, Captain Margaret.” Stukeley grinned to see Captain Margaret’s anger plainly show itself for a moment. But he had misjudged his victim’s power of self-control. Margaret’s face instantly became impassive. He stared rather hard at Mr. Iles, inclined his head in a little cold bow, and wished him “Good evening,” the only words which occurred to him, in a little cold voice.

“Hell,” said Stukeley to himself, “I ought to have introduced Perrin first. Now Pilly’ll take his cue from Maggy.”

“Mr. Perrin I think you know,” he continued aloud. “You sit over here, Mr. Iles, by me.”

Perrin looked at Mr. Iles and blushed, partly with anger at having to meet the man, partly at the slight put upon them all, upon Olivia even, by Stukeley’s invitation. Mr. Iles for the moment was dashed by the chill of his reception, and awed by the circumstance of the cabin dinner. His thought, for a few chaotic seconds, was what in blazes to do with the napkin. Did it go round the neck, or how? Olivia felt that the coldness of Margaret and Perrin was in some sort a reflection upon her husband; it nettled her to defend Mr. Iles against her will. She guessed that Mr. Iles must be a fine musician, that her husband had discovered his talent, and had decided, it was just like her dear Tom, that his talent made him a fit companion for her. She would talk to Tom about it that night, however, as there might be unpleasantness to them all if Mr. Iles were to be admitted to the cabin even occasionally. Even Mrs. Inigo seemed to be sniffing with contempt. Had she known it, the negro steward was at that instant spreading the news in the round-house, where Sails proposed that the company should go on deck to hear Captain Cammock at the moment of his introduction. Olivia’s reflections lasted for a few seconds. She seemed to pass over the whole situation in an instant of time. Mr. Iles had hardly sat down, hiding his hands below the table, when Olivia, as though divining his thoughts, came to his rescue, by bending forward graciously, taking up her napkin (it was folded in the likeness of a sea-boot), and spreading it, unfolded, upon her lap. Perrin, who was watching her, guessed her intention. His natural kindness gave him a sort of pity for Mr. Iles, whom he judged (from his confusion) to be an unwilling agent. He leaned across towards him, and made some remark likely to put him at his ease.

“D’you know whether we’re in soundings yet, Mr. Iles?”

“No, sir,” said Mr. Iles. “They won’t make no cast of der lead till der middle watch.”

“What sort of a run has it been to-day?” asked Olivia.

“It’s been a good run, miss, all right, all right,” he answered, growing confident. “We done seven knots ever since der forenoon.”

“Just step forward, Mrs. Inigo,” said Margaret, “and ask Captain Cammock if we shall begin without him?”

“I’ll go,” said Perrin.

“No. I’ll go, sir,” said Mrs. Inigo.

“You look pale, Maggy,” said Stukeley. “Anything wrong?”

“Thanks. I’m particularly well. Are you well?”

“Very, thanks. You look annoyed about something. Doesn’t he, Iles?”

“You don’t look quite right to me, sir,” said Iles.

“Really.”

“Captain Cammock will be here in a minute, sir.”

“Let’s begin,” said Olivia. “I’m hungry.”

“Take the cover,” said Margaret.

“B’gee, sir,” said Iles. “You don’t know sailors, or you wouldn’t do a ting like that.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” said Margaret, hoping to get some scrap of knowledge to atone for his irritation. “Tell me what I’ve done wrong, please?”

“Taken der cover off der soup,” said Mr. Iles.

“Is that a great crime at sea?” said Olivia.

“It’s the old man’s perk,” said Mr. Iles. “B’gee. I was in a turtler once, off of the Grand Cays there. I done that once. I didn’t do it a second time. No, sir.”

“What did they do to you?” said Olivia.

“He give me der lid for me supper, lady.”

“How old were you then?” said Perrin.

“A young one,” said Iles. “My old pop was the old man in that ship.”

“Your old——?”

“My pop. The old one. My father.”

“Tell us one of those stories you were spinning me this afternoon, Iles,” said Stukeley. “That one about the girl. You know. The girl. The girl who——”

“Which girl?” said Mr. Iles. “I don’t know which girl you mean.”

“The girl outside Paddy’s. Mr. Iles is a wonderful raconteur,” he explained. “He’s like an old sailor, you know. Excellent. He told me some this afternoon.”

“What sort of stories do you tell?” Olivia asked.

“Just amusing stories to pass the time, miss,” he answered.

“Do you make them up yourself?”

“Some of them I seen myself, miss,” he answered. “I don’t know who makes the others up. Some son of a—— Some gentleman’s son with nothing better to do. But b’gee, I don’t tink I could tell one of them kind here exactly.”

“Why not?” asked Captain Margaret, looking at him coldly. “Why couldn’t you?”

“I guess you know, all right, all right.”

“I don’t frequent pothouses. So perhaps I don’t know.”

“That’s where you sentimental prigs go wrong,” said Stukeley, flaring up. “It’d do you a sight of good if you did frequent pothouses. You meet better people in a pothouse than you do in one of your Chelsea twaddle-shops.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Margaret calmly. “What is a Chelsea twaddle-shop, Olivia? You’ve stayed at Chelsea. What is it? A book-shop?”

Olivia smiled. Captain Margaret was like her dead brother; he did not show temper even when people spoke to rouse him. She defined the offending shop.

“It’s a name Tom gives to houses in Chelsea, like my aunt Pile’s house. Where the people talk a good deal of poetry and painting. Where you meet intellectual people.”

“Don’t you like intellectual people, Stukeley?”

“I don’t like prigs, and I don’t like blue-stockings, and I don’t like——”

“People who care for beautiful things? Is that it?”

“A lot of mewing old women who ought to be in a rook-shop.”

“What’s a rook-shop?” said Olivia.

“A monastery, my dear. A monk or nun house. Somewhere where they could mew and caw their silly hearts out. Beauty. Eh? Beauty. I’ve heard ’em talk about beauty. What do they know about beauty?”

“There’s nothing in poetry and that,” said Mr. Iles, rallying to his patron. “What’s the good of it? It’s unpractical stuff. B’gee, der poets should come to sea. I’d show ’em what to write about.”

“What would you show them?” said Perrin.

“Show them?” said Mr. Iles. “I’d show them what a man is, for one thing.”

“And what is a man?” said Margaret.

“He ain’t an old woman, anyway,” said Mr. Iles.

“I don’t want to know what he isn’t. I want to know what he is. What is a man?”

“A felly what can do his piece, and stick it out. A man who won’t hang back, or lie up, or give you no lip.”

“You would like the world composed of such men?”

“B’gee I would. You’re right.”

“And you, Stukeley?”

“I’d like my dinner in peace, without a lot of cross-examination. Talk about beauty with Perrin there. He likes to hear you. I don’t.”

“No,” said Perrin. “No, Stukeley. I shouldn’t think you ever liked to hear of anything noble.”

“Noble. Good Lord. I hope I spend my time better. You two seem to think because you read a few half-tipped writers like yourselves, you’re free to judge everybody else.”

“Well,” said Margaret. “And don’t you judge everybody else? Better judge, I think, with some knowledge of the law.”

“Don’t lose your temper about it. You’re such a funny devil.”

“Mr. Iles,” said Olivia, in order to create a diversion. “Have you ever been in Virginia, in any of your voyages?”

“Yes, miss. I been there two or three times.”

“Tell us about it, Mr. Iles,” said Margaret. “Were you there at the time of the rebellion?”

“I was there just after.”

“What was the cause of the rebellion?” Olivia asked. “It was hushed up, in England. But a man I once met told me that it was a very terrible thing. You remember Charles Myngs, Charles? He was one of the rebels.”

“I know. He was very lucky to get away. The rebellion was caused by the action of a wise, far-seeing young man, who objected to paying taxes to, and being governed by, a body of wiseacres three thousand miles away, who gave nothing in return, except expensive impositions.”

“You talk like a rebel yourself,” said Stukeley. “I suppose you sympathize with them?”

“Most certainly I do.”

“But to go against the King,” said Olivia. “And to cause all that bloodshed.”

“The King,” said Iles, with contempt. “I don’t see what you English fellies want with a king. What good is a king to you, anyway? I seen him once. I wouldn’t own to a man like the one I seen. King James, hey?”

At this moment, Captain Cammock entered, stuffing a handkerchief between his white stock and his neck, to arrest the blood dripping from the gash. Stukeley grinned, and watched him, waiting for the explosion. He did not know that Cammock had guessed Stukeley’s plan on hearing Mr. Iles’s shrill voice when Mrs. Inigo opened the cabin door, so that she might carry off the soup. He was angry with Stukeley; but he was far more angry with his little second mate. His first impulse had been to enter, and fling Mr. Iles through the stern-window. Then he thought that that was what Stukeley and Iles had planned between them, and expected. The possibility of the fiddle occurred to him. It was just possible that Olivia had asked for a tune, not knowing, how could she know, of the captain’s pride of place in old sea-custom. She was a fine, delicate lady. He wouldn’t demean himself before her, by noticing any silly little slight, devised by a crawler and a cur. He smiled into his shaving-glass, as he dabbed away the blood, thinking that his old days as a man of war had taught him a little prudence. He referred most of his daily problems, such as they were, to their equivalents on the larger stage of war. Once or twice, he thought, the Spaniards had tempted them, to make them attack, but only the “mad, swearing, flashy fellows” were caught in that way. It was better to go by the difficult road; it proved the easier in the end. He would settle with Mr. Iles later on.

He went to his place at the head of the table, and made some apology to Olivia.

“I’m sorry to be so late, Mrs. Stukeley.”

“Have you hurt yourself? I hope you’ve not cut yourself badly.”

“No. No. It just bleeds. I upset the alum I had, last week. Good evening, sir. Good evening, mister. Good evening, Mr. Perrin. May I give you a bit more beef, Mr. Iles? I won’t have any soup, thank you, stewardess. Bring me the bread-barge. Well, Mrs. Stukeley. We’ll soon see Virginia at this rate. Very soon. We might sight the cruiser at any time.”

“What is the cruiser?” Olivia asked.

“She’s a man-of-war, Mrs. Stukeley. She cruises up and down between the two Capes.”

“B’gee, Captain Cammock,” said Mr. Iles. “I should a thought you’d a known better’n to expect to see her for another week.”

“Would you, mister?” he answered. “They make a wide sweep at this time of year.”

“How do you know?” put in Stukeley.

“They come away out to look for pirates. The pirates come round at this season, Mr. Stukeley, to look for the English merchantmen.”

“Well. Mr. Iles knows Virginia, and he says they don’t.”

“I can’t help that. Can I?”

“Is there any chance of the pirates attacking us?” Olivia asked.

“I should pity any pirate that tries.”

“Dog doesn’t eat dog,” said Stukeley. “Our captain here’s a pirate himself. He’ll give his old friends the wink.”

“Was you really a pirate, Captain Cammock?” said Mr. Iles.

Olivia stared at the captain curiously.

“Take away the beef, stewardess,” he said in a natural tone, ignoring the question. “Steward. Steward there. You may take away. Mrs. Stukeley, I hope you’ll give us a song afterwards. If you’ll give us a song, and Mr. Iles a tune on his fiddle, I’ll bring in another treat, and we’ll all be merry.”

“What treat have you for us, captain?” asked Margaret.

“I’ve got a box of raisin-candy, from Ilo, in Peru,” he answered. “It’s said to be a great dainty; but some people find it too sweet. But only if you sing, Mrs. Stukeley.”

“Oh, I’ll sing. I haven’t sung for a week now. I shall be delighted to sing.”

“And you’ll sing, too, Mr. Stukeley?”

“Oh, I vote we don’t sing. Let’s have cards. There’s no sense in caterwauling.”

“I got a fine song,” said Mr. Iles, taking a pull at his glass of spirits.

“What song is that?” said Perrin.

“The lament of the old buccaneer, it’s called. It’s about a pirate who was hanged. B’gee. He’d been captain in a merchant ship after. But they hung him.”

Captain Cammock asked the company if they would have any more duff. He himself had had more than enough.

“Look at him blushing,” said Stukeley, nudging Iles.

At this moment, there came loud cries from the deck, of “Watch there. Watch,” shouted by many voices cheerily. Then there were cries of “Haul in. Haul in. Haul in. Snatch it and run her up.” Then a silence, a sudden stamp of feet, and the voice of some one asking what was on the arming. “Sand and small shells,” came the answer of the boatswain. The diners at the cabin table seemed to see the man raising the heavy plummet to show the spoils stuck upon the grease.

“Land o-o-o-h,” he cried. “Land o-o-o-h. Hooray.” Then the seamen, gathered in the waist, with the redness of the sunset on them, cast loose a gun at Mr. Cottrill’s order. As the cook, coming from the galley with a red-hot poker, called to the men to stand clear of the breech, Captain Cammock bowed to Olivia, raising his glass.

“Mrs. Stukeley,” he said, “we’re in soundings. Your very good health. Soundings, gentlemen. You must all drink to soundings. Now then. There goes the gun. Three cheers.” There were no cheers in Stukeley, though he drank the toast.

Half an hour later, after hearing a few songs, and a jig upon the fiddle, Captain Cammock sat smoking in his cabin. He struck his gong to call the steward. “Ask Mr. Iles to come here, please?” In a few minutes Mr. Iles appeared, followed by Stukeley, who had expected the summons. “Mr. Stukeley,” said the captain, “I shall be pleased to see you later. I wish to talk with Mr. Iles a moment.”

“Thank you,” said Stukeley. “But I wish to hear what you’ve got to say to Mr. Iles.”

“It doesn’t concern you, Mr. Stukeley.” Mr. Iles tittered.

“Mr. Iles is my friend,” said Stukeley. “I’ll make it concern me.”

“Mr. Stukeley. I don’t wish to be rude. But I command here. There’s the door.”

“To hell with the door.”

“Go on deck, Mr. Iles, till I send for you.”

“Stay here, Iles. Look here, my old pirate——”

“Did you hear my order, Mr. Iles?”

“No.”

“No, he didn’t hear. He’s accustomed to being ordered by gentlemen. He’s not used to pirates.”

“I’ll repeat my order. Go on deck, Mr. Iles, and wait there till I send for you.”

“Don’t you do it, Iles. I’m damned if I’d take an order of that sort.”

“Do you hear me, Mr. Iles?”

“B’gee, cap, you’ll speak to me like you’d speak to any one else. I ain’t goin’ to be called down by any old pirate.”

Cammock rose, breathing rather hard, but speaking very quietly. “Go on deck,” he said.

“He’s my guest,” said Stukeley, “and it’s his watch below. I’m damned if he shall go on deck.”

“Are you going, Mr. Iles?”

“Ah, git ter hell.”

“Don’t you hit him,” said Stukeley, as Captain Cammock picked up his little gong-hammer.

“Hit me?” said Iles. “Hit me? B’gee, cap, you hit me and I’ll mark you for life all right, all right.”

“I’m not going to do any hitting, Mr. Stukeley,” said Cammock quietly. He went to the gong and struck it softly till the steward came.

“Send the boatswain to me,” said Cammock.

“I will, seh.”

“What are you going to do now?” said Stukeley. Captain Cammock relit his pipe at the lamp, stopping the red fragments with his thumb. The boatswain knocked at the door, cap in hand.

“Call all hands aft, boatswain.”

“What der hell?” said Mr. Iles, as the call sounded. The men came hurrying aft, swearing at having their dog-watch spoiled. Some of them were half clad, just out of their hammocks; others were buttoning their clothes. In the last of the daylight, in the glow which gives a holy beauty to all things, they seemed a strange company. Just so will the assembling souls look, when the heavens crinkle into flame, as the triumphing clarion shrills, bringing together the awed, the sullen, the expectant.

“Muster your watch, Mr. Iles.”

“No. We’ll settle it here,” said Stukeley, thinking that the cabin was safer for his purpose than the deck. “We’ll settle it here, old Brandyco.”

Cammock brushed past him and went on to the poop, without replying. Iles, much puzzled, was about to follow.

“Don’t go,” said Stukeley. “I wouldn’t go. Don’t go. I’ll make it square for you.”

“B’gee. I’d better go,” said Iles. “I don’t know what game he’s up to, do I hell?”

He went on deck, to the starboard side, where he began to muster his watch. Mr. Cottrill’s voice, much more slow and grave than his, made a strange echo with him, each calling a name in turn, each drawing a response from a voice of different pitch. “Shepherd.” “Here, sir.” “Arnold.” “Here, sir.” “Richard Arnold.” “Here, sir.” “John Wise.” “Present, sir.” “Adams.” “At the wheel, sir.” Then the reports: “Port watch all present, sir, except the wheel and look-outs.” “Starboard watch all present, sir.” “Idlers and boys all present, sir”; followed by Captain Cammock’s “Very well,” as he paced to and fro across the forward end of the poop. Captain Margaret stood with Perrin by the poop-bell, with their hats off, out of deference to Captain Cammock. They stood still in their most splendid clothes, just as they had risen from the feast. They looked down on all the upturned faces a few feet beneath them, wondering at the beauty of the scene, lit now, by the dying sun, into a glow, that made each face glorious. Still Captain Cammock walked to and fro, casting a contemptuous glance as he turned; his face set and passionless; his eyes taking in each face of all the crowd. Stukeley, who had followed his friend on deck, asked Margaret if he was going to lead in prayer; but he got no answer; the men, impressed and puzzled, did not titter. Cammock stopped in his walk, and looked over the poop-rail at the crew.

“Thomas Iles,” he said.

“Sir,” said Iles, turning and looking up.

“I break you, for refusing duty.”

“What, sir?”

“Mr. Cottrill.”

“Sir.”

“Put the man Iles in your watch.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Iles, go below and get your chest. Take it forward to the fo’c’s’le. You belong to Mr. Cottrill’s watch.”

“What the hell”—began Stukeley.

“Silence, please.”

“I ain’t goin’ to take no break from you,” said Iles.

“Mr. Cottrill,” said Cammock, “log that man.”

“Go below and get your chest, Iles,” said Cottrill.

“Get ter hell,” said Iles.

Cottrill walked up to him and smote him in the eye. “Get your chest, pronto,” he said. “Give me any more of your lip and I’ll lay your spine bare. Give him a hand you, Wise.”

“You know the rules, men,” said Captain Cammock. “Choose your new second mate.”

The men shuffled and shifted. One of them, a leader in the fo’c’s’le, shoved the bosun forward. “What the hell, boys,” said the bosun under his breath. “We’d rather you chose, sir,” said old Sails, coming from among the crowd after a moment of busy whispering.

“I choose you, boatswain,” said Cammock. “Ay or no, you?”

“Ay, sir.”

“Mr. Ramage, you’re our second mate. Come to my cabin at eight bells and sign the articles. You, Griffin Harris, take Mr. Ramage’s call; I make you boatswain. Mr. Ramage, tell one of the hands to shift your gear into the second mate’s cabin. Harris, bring your chest aft to the round-house. Men, remember that Mr. Ramage is Mister Ramage. Take the call, Harris.”

Griffin Harris, a short, thick-set seaman, hanging his head but showing no trace of emotion, pulled his forelock and stepped up to Mr. Ramage.

“Beg pardon, Mr. Ramage,” he said, “might I have the call, sir.” Mr. Ramage slipped the chain from his neck and handed it to him.

“Pipe down, bosun.”

Harris took the pipe and blew the tremolo of the belay. The men turned to walk forward, just as Iles and Wise reappeared with the chest and bag. Captain Cammock’s sternness vanished the moment the pipe down had sounded.

“You’ll have to pipe better than that, bosun,” he said. “You pipe like Wally with the stiff neck.” The new bosun laughed. “I’ll pipe fine against we get there, sir.”

Stukeley walked up to Captain Cammock. “What the hell d’you mean by insulting my friend?” he said.

Cammock paid no attention to him, but walked up to Margaret to ask if he would stand the first watch with the new second mate.

“Certainly,” said Margaret.

“I asked you a question,” said Stukeley bitterly, in a loud voice, so that the men loitering in the waist could hear. “D’ye hear me, Captain Cammock? What the hell d’you mean by insulting my friend?”

“Stukeley,” said Margaret, “go below.”

“I’m not talking to you,” said Stukeley.

“No,” said Margaret; “but I’m giving you some sound advice. Go below.”

“You’re a funny devil, aren’t you? Now then, Brandyface, you’ll give me an answer.”

At this moment Iles came up, from his old haunts, in the ’tween-decks, carrying his demijohn of carefully saved spirits.

“What have you got there, Iles?” said the captain quickly.

“My whack of rum.”

“Take your cap off, or I’ll knock it off. What did you say?”

“My whack of rum, Captain Cammock, sir.”

“Yes. You’d better remember that. Put down that demijohn.”

“Please, sir. It’s mine, sir.”

He laid down the demijohn, fingering his cap.

“Steward, whack that rum out to all hands at eight bells. Allow it to the man Iles in the savings book.”

“I will, seh.”

“There,” said Cammock, turning to Margaret. “He’s not going to curry favour forward with a couple of gallons of rum. He’d have had half the watch blind if I’d not seen him that time.”

Stukeley put his hand on Cammock’s shoulder. “You damned old pirate,” he said. “Now you’ll settle with me. Your little go’s over. Now it’s mine.”

Cammock turned to Margaret. “Take his other arm, sir,” he said.

He caught Stukeley by the wrist with his left hand. Margaret tackled him swiftly on the other side. Together they marched him below to Cammock’s cabin, which they entered locking the door behind them.

“Now, Mr. Stukeley,” said Cammock, placing his prisoner on the settee. “I command this ship. Be quiet now. Not a word, sir, till I’m done. You give me any more trouble. You so much as try to come between me and my hands, and you’ll go in irons till I can put you ashore.”

“That’s entirely right, Captain Cammock,” said Margaret. “You’d do well to remember it, Stukeley.”

“I’ll remember it,” said Stukeley. “And I’ll make you two remember it.”

“Another thing,” said Cammock. “While you live aft, you’ll act aft. You’ll hold no conversation with any member of my crew, except through one of my officers. And I shall expect you to keep from the main deck and the ’tween-decks. I say nothing about your insults. Them’s only the bubbling in your mind, I guess. I’m sorry for you. But give me no more, sir. If you do, or if you break the rules I make, you’ll go in irons till we land.”

“Anything more?” said Stukeley.

“There’ll be more when I see you need it.”

“All right, Maggy. I’ll remember this. Is that all now?”

“Yes. That’s all,” said Margaret.

“Then I advise you to let me go.”

“There’s the door,” said Margaret, turning back the key. “Allow me to come with you.”

“Thank you. I choose my own company.”

“No, sir,” said Cammock. “We shall do that for you. You ain’t fit to choose your own company. I’m sorry to have to say it.”

“You wait, Mr. Cammock. You wait.”

“Will you come on deck, Stukeley?” said Margaret. “Or will you join your wife?”

“You may go to hell,” said Stukeley. With this repartee he walked aft to vent his spleen upon Olivia. Guessing his intention, Margaret stayed with him till the bell called the starboard watch on deck.

VII. THE TOBACCO MERCHANT

“This is all our world;

We shall know nothing here but one another.”

The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Six days after striking soundings, the Broken Heart sailed up the James River with the flood, to let go her anchor off Jamestown as the last gun of her salute was fired. Her colours were dipped to the colours on the Governor’s flagstaff. Her sails were all clued up together; the bunts of the furls were tight and shapely, crossed by the broad black bands of the bunt-gaskets.

Captain Cammock walked the poop with Margaret, pretending to watch the squaring of the yards. Both were puzzled and ill at ease. They were in that troublous state of waiting to be assured; their anxiety was such that a decisive blow, either for or against them, would have seemed better than the uncertainty which made them hope for one thing while fearing the other. On entering Chesapeake Bay, they had squared their yards, intending to run up past Stingray, to Hog Creek on the Accomac side, where some of Cammock’s friends were planting. But a man-of-war sloop, flying the ensign, and full of men, had crossed their bows, bidding them heave-to and send a boat. Cammock had gone aboard her to find out what she wanted; and had received orders to proceed direct to Jamestown, to discharge his cargo there. No explanation was given except that “Those were the orders.” The officer of the watch would tell him nothing more. He had returned on board after this, feeling sure that danger threatened them. He was inclined to think that word had come from England ordering their arrest on arrival. But he was not sure. The lieutenant had been surly after a drunken night. His remark of “You’ll find out about that when you get there” might have come from a momentary irritation at being questioned. Margaret had called up Stukeley, to tell him his fears, and Stukeley had counselled putting to sea. This was impossible; for the sloop was almost within hail; while without Point Comfort, under her whole topsails, her open port-lids flashing, was one of the two frigates on the station coming in from her cruise to take fresh water. They were in the trap; they could only hope for the best. Stukeley took the news badly. He stood by the mizen rigging, with a white face, licking his lips and making wild suggestions.

“Couldn’t you put me ashore?” he asked. “Send me in a boat. Until you leave?”

“How about Olivia? Have you told her yet, what you expect?”

“No, of course I’ve not told her. Can’t you talk sense?”

“Hadn’t you better tell her? I mean, as—in kindness to her.”

“No. I can’t.”

“Shall I tell her?”

“My God, no. Look here, Margaret. I tell you why I can’t tell her. I’m a blackguard, and all that. Look here. She’s going to have a child.”

“My God. Are you sure, Stukeley?”

“Sure? Damn it, man. It’s serious. For God’s sake talk sense.”

“Well. My God. She must be told, man. It’ll only be worse for her later.”

“No, it won’t be.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“Do? I tell you it’ll be death for her if she learns.”

“But you must think of her, Stukeley. Man. How. Supposing. She can’t come to Darien. It’s impossible.”

“It’s not impossible. It’d be all right.”

“Well, Stukeley, I give you up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Things must take their course. I can’t think what I can do.”

“Are you going to give me up?”

“You must see that you’ll be taken. If there’s a letter.”

“If. If. Oh. Good luck, you.”

“Yes. But think of Olivia. Man. She must go home. You must see that.”

“Yes. But she doesn’t. You know how queer women get at these times. She insists on coming with me.”

“I don’t know. Go and tell her. Go on and tell her, cost what it may.”

“I’ve got to consider her child.”

“Captain Cammock, you’ve got a clear head. What do you say?”

“You could head me up in a cask,” said Stukeley.

“Well,” said Cammock. “I say, go and eat a good big dinner. We shan’t be in till afternoon; till two or three, perhaps, if the wind drops. If there’s to be an arrest, you’ll know of it soon enough. It’ll settle itself. Don’t cross no river till you come to the water. Why? Cos you may get drowned anyway.”

“But about my wife?”

“Oh, she’ll be well looked after. We’ll look after her.”

“Damn you.”

“Captain Margaret,” said Cammock, “just come aft with me, while I take some bearings.”

When they had walked out of earshot of Stukeley, Cammock added that it would be a good thing to let the man suffer for a spell.

“But how about Mrs. Stukeley, captain? And her little one?”

“I wasn’t thinking of them, sir. I’m thinking of you and Mr. Perrin. And the ship, too. We may be a political matter, sir. The Lords who fitted us out; they’ve got enemies—political enemies. They may say, ‘Oh, you’ve sent out a gang of pirates, who rescue escaping felons.’ There may be the devil’s own row at home about us. Law is all right and fair. But there’s no law nor right in politics.”

“We shall know soon.”

“Yes. Very soon now.”

“It’s anxious work, waiting.”

“Why, yes. Worse than the event.”

“It’ll come hard on that poor girl.”

“She’s better quit of him, sir. Much better.”

“She won’t think that.”

“Not at first. But she will.”

“I wonder what it’s going to be. Pretty, that little cove there, with the little green boat coming out.”

“Very pretty sights at sea, sir. Nice bit of timber yonder. Good spars in them red pine. Don’t borrow trouble, sir. We’ll know soon enough.”

Thus they talked together as the ship came slowly to her anchorage. Perrin joined them, seemingly indifferent to the present trouble. “Whatever happens,” he said, “we shall be ourselves. It’s no use worrying.” He smoked more than usual after dinner, and then made outline draughts of the coast. He was not being brave; but having little imagination he was indifferent. It was hot, too; and hot weather always made him dull. The sight of the new land pleased him. There was forest; miles of forest; forest rising over hills, lapsing to hollows of marsh, coming down to the sea, fading in a blur of branches. Here and there were clearings. Here and there, in sandy bays, the cows came, lowing at the sea. Smoke, in blue spires, rose up at a planter’s slip where a sloop was building. At times, as they neared the land, before going about on another reach, they heard the voices of men, the chop of axes upon timber. A country sloop lay at a jetty. Her men were hoisting casks aboard, singing at the tackles. A saw was at work at hand. Men were carrying planks to the jetty end. One of the men, laying down his load, waved to the ship as Captain Cammock flung his colours out. Very proudly, with all the dignity of beauty, the Broken Heart marched to her rest. Her sailors cheered. They fired their guns, took up their berth and anchored. Jamestown lay before them; with some twenty of her citizens watching them from the battery. Already one or two men were putting out in boats towards them.

“That’s not the whole city,” said Perrin. “There’s only twenty or thirty houses, beside the fort and the church.”

“That’s Jamestown,” said Cammock. “Now, Captain Margaret. Now for it.”

“Not much longer to wait. We’ll go ashore together.”

“No, sir. I’ll go alone. If anything’s going to happen, I’ll send off word. Then you can look to the lady.”

“Ah, thank you, Captain.”

“Well. We’ll know soon. I’ll wave my hat from the pier if it’s all well, sir. Cheer up, sir. Mr. Cottrill, there.”

“Ay, ay, Captain Cammock.”

“My gig’s crew, mister. Are they in their whites?”

“Gig’s crew all dressed, sir.”

“Tell the bosun to pipe them away. No one to come aboard, Mr. Cottrill.”

“No one to come aboard, sir.”

“You better keep an eye on Mr. Stukeley, Captain Margaret. He may cut up rash.”

“I will. Good-bye, captain. Good luck.”

“We’ll know soon.”

“Got your papers?”

“All correct, sir. Now.” He passed over the side, and shoved off.

Margaret watched the boat pull past, glad of that small diversion. She was a six-oar gig, whale-built, painted dark-blue and white, steering, on state occasions, with a brass-yoked rudder, at other times with an oar. A boy in a white jacket steered her with the yoke-lines, sitting behind Cammock’s back-board.

“Look, Edward,” said Margaret. “How character shows in little things. Look at the style of the rowers. Look at the stroke, bowing his head as he comes aft, and the two midship oars watching their blades. What makes men watch their blades?”

“Weak will. Or vanity. I always do it. A sense of beauty, too. Desire of pleasure. The swirl and the bubbles are beautiful. What do you make of the bow?”

“He’s not got room to pull. The stern-sheets are too roomy.”

“He’s a coward,” said Perrin. “I should be like that. He shirks each stroke because he’s afraid of knocking the second bow’s back.”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“The weakest man is always put in the bow. He has to jump out with the painter.”

“The most intelligent man, probably.”

“No. I shouldn’t say the most intelligent. The most sensitive.”

“What do you make of Cammock’s back?”

“Cammock’s a fine fellow.”

“Isn’t it strange that he should be what he is?”

“After mixing—— Good Lord, what ruffians he’s mixed with.”

“I should like to know how he comes by it. I’m a great believer in heredity. I wonder what his people were. He’s got refinement, too, in a curious sort of way.”

“The poor are often very refined,” said Perrin. “The very poor. Especially in the country.”

“I suppose because they’ve nothing to make them false.”

“Yes.”

“You know, Edward, that Olivia’s going to have a child?”

“No. Good Lord. What in the world? Supposing there’s a letter?”

“That’s the question. There it is. And there goes Cammock up the stage.”

“But it knocks her coming to Darien?”

“Stukeley says not.”

“Good God, though. It must.”

“We probably shan’t leave here, Edward. And anyway he’s her husband.”

“You must refuse to take her.”

“Yes. But even if we get to Darien—I don’t think it likely—she’s as well with us as here, Edward.”

“That’s true, too. Well. I told you how it would be, Charles. Didn’t I?”

Cammock was a long time gone; but not such a long time as it seemed. Margaret, deserted by Perrin, who was called away by Cottrill, paced the poop moodily, losing, in dejection, the clumsy trick of carriage which marred his gait. His ordinary walk had a kind of jaunty spring, which seemed unnatural to the man, improper to his essential character. There was no jauntiness in him at this moment; for his trouble was heavy. For possible arrest he cared nothing; for possible hanging he cared nothing. “I shall still be myself,” he said, repeating what Perrin had repeated from another. “What does it matter if I am hanged?” Bells seemed to be ringing in his brain, heavy bells and dull, with merry impish bells. “Olivia’s going to have a child,” they said. “Olivia’s going to have a child. Going to have a child. A child. A child.” Like many lonely men, he desired children. They had played about him in his dreams of her. Girls mostly, with Olivia’s eyes, her throat, her voice. Now was come the end of everything. Her child would be a monster, a goat-footed boy, a Stukeley. He shuddered to think of the child’s hair, curling and black like the father’s hair, negro hair; his nerves were shaken. As for his love for Olivia, that would never be the same; it was changed now, wholly changed. No man’s love could bear that, could forgive that; though it glorified her, in a way, and made her very sacred.

He leaned over the taffrail, to watch for Cammock, who had vanished among the strangers, like a stone cast into water. Something stirred beside him, and there was Olivia, dressed in clothes which she had worn long ago at home, looking as she had looked then; but that her face was paler. He started to see her, thinking for a moment that she had come to tell him, hoping it with all his heart. It would make their friendship perfect, he thought, if this might be done together. She smiled to see him start; but her face instantly grew grave again.

“Charles,” she said, “is anything the matter with Tom?”

“Matter with him?” he repeated. “Is he ill? Has he hurt himself?” For just one wild second, he wondered, in an agony that was half hope, if the man had taken poison.

“I can’t get him to speak to me. And he’s so white, Charles, I can’t help thinking that he is sunstruck.”

“Shall I go down?”

“He won’t see anybody. He won’t—— Oh, Charles, I wish I’d been on deck with him. Was he in the sun? Are you sure he wasn’t?”

“He wasn’t in the sun, Olivia. He wasn’t on deck for more than a few minutes.”

“But where was he, then? He must have been forward, where you couldn’t see him.”

“I do hope he wasn’t,” said Margaret, hating himself for his deception. The words “Mrs. Inigo” rose to his lips; but he kept from uttering them. “I ought to have prevented all this. I might have. I ought to have kept them apart till—— She ought not to be fretting.” He bit his lips at the thought of his negligence.

“I’ll come down at once, Olivia,” he said. “Oh, Olivia,” he added, his voice growing tender and moving, “you look so white and worried. I’ll look after Stukeley. Won’t you lie down and rest? It’s much too hot for you in the sun here. And then the excitement.”

“Oh, never mind me,” she said hurriedly, almost gaily. “I’m not in the least ill. It’s Tom.” As women sometimes will, in moments of emotion, she acted impulsively, laying her hand on his arm, sending the blood to his temples.

“Come on down, then,” he said thickly. “We’ll see. We’ll see your husband.” He glanced over the side again, biting his lips, his face turned away, as she took his arm. In that glance he saw the slip below the battery, with its green piles, barnacled, clucked about by the tides, mounted with tarpaulined cannon. Cammock stood upon the slip end, his gig’s crew, their oars tossed, just below him. Townsmen were talking to him; but he stood unheeding, looking at the Broken Heart, waving his hat. Margaret waved his hat in answer, to show that he saw; then, breathing a deep sigh, he led Olivia below.