VIII.

IN PORT

“Yet still he stands prefract and insolent.” _Charles, Duke of Byron._

After breakfast the next morning the two Stukeleys sat in their stateroom talking. They had had a week of comparative isolation, of comparative privacy, very sweet to Olivia, who had learned, during the voyage, to regret the days at Salcombe, when one had but to close a door, to shut the world of love from that other world, full of thorns and thistles, where ordinary mortals walked, not having the key of the burning imagination. With Margaret and Cammock away, and Perrin seldom present at meals, owing to his fear of the badgering of Stukeley, the cabin of the _Broken Heart_ had come to be something of a home to her. She could feel again that nothing else really existed, that no one else really lived, that all the world, all the meaning and glory and life of the world, centred in the two burning mouths, in the two hearts which divined each other, apprehending all things in themselves. During that week of privacy she had even learned to think tenderly again of the three men who had shared the cabin with her. She found that she no longer resented Cammock’s want of breeding; his want of culture; his past as explained by Tom; his social position as compared with her aunt Pile’s coachman. During the voyage she had grown to dislike Margaret and Perrin, much as one dislikes the guests who have overstayed their welcome. She had been too much in the rapture of love to see things clearly, to judge character clearly; she had taken her judgments ready-made from Tom, who disliked the two men. She had liked them both as old friends; had liked them much, in the old days, before she knew life. But, under the strain of the voyage, ever prompted by Stukeley’s bitterness, while looking on them as her friends, she had come to resent their continual presence, to be cross at their conversation, which (as she felt instinctively) was restrained by their dislike of Tom, through their want of imaginative sympathy with his point of view. Now that they were no longer ever present, like spices added to each dish till every dish disgusts, she thought of them both with pity; feeling that they were growing old in their ways, narrowed in their sympathies, never knowing the meaning of life, which is love. Thus thought she, in the confidence of exulting health, in the rapture of being possessed, with the merciless pity of a newly married woman. This that she had waited for, this love which crowned and made her, it cleared the eyes, she thought, it exalted, it ennobled, it glorified. She would that those two pathetic figures, Margaret so serious and proud, with his clumsy walk, and halting, almost affected picked precision of phrase, and Perrin, the forlorn parasite who looked as though he had been frozen, were married; she would so gladly see them happy, tasting something of the joy which made earth heaven to her. Margaret would be a beautiful lover, very thoughtful and tender, but cold; he was cold-hearted, she thought, and rather frightening. Perrin would be attracted by some little merry woman who would laugh at him and twist him round her finger. Perrin, she confessed to Tom, attracted her more than the other, because he looked so wretched. Being so happy herself, she wished others to be happy. Her education, like most women’s education, had been aimed to make her fear the world, to make her shrink from those characters who judged the world and sought to direct it. Her own world, beautiful as it was, existed only by the exclusion of such characters; her nature could not accept Margaret wholly; she could only respect and vaguely fear him, as one respects and fears all things which one is not wise enough to understand. Perrin looked wretched, and having a tenderness for wretched folk, she thought that she understood him. All the time, unknown to her, the three men summed her up with pity and reverence and tender devotion; but mostly with pity, and with a mournful, tender curiosity. It was perhaps partly that curiosity which had made their absence pleasant to her. Their absence had been a relief to her, it had also relieved her husband. And since their arrival at Virginia her husband had made her anxious; he had behaved very queerly at times, ever since the first day. She felt that he was keeping something from her, perhaps some ailment which tortured him and made him irritable. She had been very thankful to have her dear love so much to herself during an entire week.

But at breakfast that morning the presence of the three men (and the prospect of their future presence) had shown her how much she longed for the quiet retirement of a home, where life could be culled, chosen, made up as one makes a nosegay, by beautiful friends, art, music, all the essences of life, all doubly precious to her now that life had become so precious.

“Tom,” she said, “Tom, dear, I want to talk to you about our life here. I don’t think it can go on, dear.”

“Why, little Olive, what’s up? What ruffles your serenity?”

“Tom, dear, I cannot bear this ship life. And those three men. At every meal I feel that one of them is watching me. Oh, and no woman to talk to. I think of our lovely times at Salcombe, Tom. We could shut the door; and it would be just our two selves.”

“Jolly times at Salcombe, hadn’t we? But what’s the matter, eh?”

“This ship life, Tom. It’s that. The men are so rude, and so rude to you, Tom. I can’t go on with it. I want to go back to England.”

“But I’ve promised to go to Darien, Olive.”

“I know, dear. I know. Don’t think me very foolish, Tom. But I don’t think I’m strong enough. Tom, darling, could not we leave this life? Think how rude Mr. Cottrill was to you only the other day. I do so long for our old happy life together. Away from the sea.”

“Look here, Livy. I understand. You’re lonely. Suppose we go and stay ashore for a while. You would meet ladies ashore. You’ve met them already.”

“Tom, I can’t meet those ladies. They’re not nice.”

“What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with Mrs. Montague?”

“I feel that she isn’t a nice woman. That she isn’t---- You know I went to see her the day before yesterday. She was hung about with silver just like a savage, and all the young officers were there, playing cards. And Captain Montague had gone to Charlestown, and she was alone there, with all those men. So I sat down for a moment to rest after the walk and then came away. That was no place for me.”

“Well, we could stop with the Governor. Maggy knows him. What’s wrong with old Mrs. Prinsep?”

“I don’t like her, Tom. She’s a bitter woman. Oh, Tom, let’s go home.”

“But I’ve promised, Livy.”

“Yes, dear. I know. But we can’t always keep our promises. We can’t go to Darien. We can’t.”

“But what else can we do? We must, my dear. I can’t pay our passage home. I came away in such a rush. I’ve not got five pounds with me.”

“Oh, Tom, Tom. But that doesn’t matter, dear. We could borrow. Charles or Edward would lend to us.”

“No, thanks, Livy. There are some things I draw the line at. I can’t take a man’s hospitality and then borrow money from him.”

“But---- I know them better than you do, Tom. I could ask them.”

“Do you suppose, Livy, that I could let you borrow money from any man?”

“Then we could ask for a passage home in the convoy to the summer fleet. They would take us.”

Stukeley smiled uneasily, knowing only too well how likely he was to get a passage home with that convoy in any case.

“Olive,” he said, “do you remember a tale Captain Cammock told us about a little ruined city full of gold?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“D’you know, Olive, I’ve been half planning with Cammock to go to look for that ruined city. You see, Livy, we shall only be here probably till the summer fleet arrives. Ten days, or so. Do you think you could stand it for another month or two? If we found that city, I could buy my little Olive that summer cottage we set our hearts on.”

“Oh, take me home, Tom. Never mind the cottage. And I couldn’t have you going into the forest. I couldn’t be alone in the ship.”

“But then, Olive. Since I married my little Olive here, I’ve been wanting to do something for others. Living as a bachelor, one gets selfish. I want very much to help those Indians, Olive. To do something in return for you, dear.”

“I know, dear. It’s so like you. It’s noble of you. But you could do something for the people at home: for the poor. You could teach them. We could teach them together. But oh, don’t let’s go to Darien, Tom. We shall be separated. Tom, I couldn’t bear to be alone in the ship. And there may be fighting.”

“Come, come, Livy,” said Stukeley. He was nettled at what he judged to be her damned female pigheadedness, yet anxious to make his indignation appear moral. That is the common custom of the wicked, to the world’s misfortune. “Come, come,” he said, “you mustn’t talk in that way. We’re going to liberate the Indians. Eh? To show them what British Freedom means. Eh? We mustn’t think of ourselves, and our little aches and pains. We must think of the world.” He himself was ever ready to think of the world, or the flesh, or the devil, or all three. “We must think of the world, Livy. And if we should succeed. I think you would be proud of me, Livy.”

“I should be, Tom, dear. Very, very proud. But oh, Tom, do let us go home. We should be so happy there again. Here, we can’t get away from strangers. I can’t live among these people. They’re dreadful. And Darien, Tom. It’s a lawless place, full of the most terrible men.”

“Oh, they’re all right,” he answered. “They’re all right. And I shall be with you, my dear child. We must go to Darien, Livy. My honour’s pledged. I can’t draw back in honour. They would call me a coward. They’d say I was afraid. Besides, I can’t very well pay our way home. And I can’t borrow. You do realize my position, Livy? We must go on.”

“Oh, Tom,” said Olivia, crying now, in spite of brave efforts. “I didn’t think--I thought you’d take me when I begged you. We might be home in three weeks. Oh, Tom, do.” She clung to him, looking up at him, smiling appeal in spite of tears. Stukeley bit his lips from annoyance, longing to box her ears, to give her, as he phrased it, something to cry for. She thought that he was on the rack between his pledged honour and his love for her.

“No, Livy,” he said, parodying Captain Margaret’s manner towards an inferior. “No, Livy, dear. Don’t make it hard for me. We must never draw back from a noble cause, dear.” He thought that this would bring more tears, and force him to be brutal; he was not going to stand there while she snivelled on his shoulder. “A snivelling woman,” he always maintained, “is not a thing to be encouraged.” But to his surprise his answer checked her tears; she had never loved him more than when he placed his honour even above his love for her.

“There, Tom,” she said. “Forgive me. I won’t cry any more, dear. My nerves are upset. I won’t ask again, Tom. Of course, we’ll go to Darien. But I wasn’t thoughtless of your honour, Tom. You don’t think that? I wasn’t. I was only fidgety and frightened. Women are so silly. You don’t know how silly.”

“There, there,” he said. “There, there. What pretty ears you’ve got, Livy. Why in the world d’you wear earrings with ears like yours?”

“They’re only clip earrings, you old goose.”

“I shall bite them.”

“No, Tom. Not my ears now. My dear Tom. Do forgive me. You know I love you.”

“You’ve got the reddest lips I ever saw in a woman, Livy.”

“Oh. Do you notice women’s lips?”

“I notice yours. Almost the first thing I noticed of you was how red your lips were. What do you put on them?”

“Nothing. You put something on them sometimes.”

“What? A gag?”

“No. Your old silly mouth that asks so many questions.”

“I’ll get you some hot water for your eyes. You must bathe them.”

“How good and tender you are to me, Tom.”

As he walked to get a jugful of hot water he muttered to himself about her. “Bread and butter,” he repeated. “Bread and butter. A life of bread and butter. Forty years of it, good luck. Forty years of it to come. Batter pudding.” He met with Cammock in the alleyway; it occurred to him to be civil. “Captain Cammock,” he said, “will you join me in my smoking-room after dinner to-day? I’ve some Verinas tobacco. I’d like your opinion of it.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Cammock, wondering what had caused such sudden friendliness. “But which do you call your smoking-room?”

“That little tiny cabin just forward of the bath-room. It’s only big enough for a few chairs and a bookshelf.”

“Oh, the after-hospital,” said Cammock. “I’ll be very pleased, sir. But where did you speak with Verinas tobacco, Mr. Stukeley?”

“I spoke with it ashore,” said Stukeley, “of a Mr. Davis, whom I think you know.”

“Ah,” said Cammock. “Indeed? Well. After dinner, sir.”

Later in the morning, Stukeley tried his tobacco alone, on the cabin cushions, looking through the windows at the town. He added up the chances for and against himself, smiling with satisfaction at the kindly aspect of the planets. His chief fear had been an arrest on arrival. That fear had been proved to be groundless. Then there was the chance of arrest after the arrival of the summer fleet with the mails. That chance, though possibly dangerous, was not to be dreaded. Old Howard, the Governor, was a friend of Maggy’s, and Maggy had bribed him to obtain illegal rights of trade. He could put the Governor into some trouble, should he press for an arrest on the arrival of orders from the Board. But he wasn’t likely to press for an arrest. He would give a quiet hint for them to go. But even if the arrest were ordered, he had allies in the _Broken Heart_. He knew that Margaret and the others would do anything to shield and spare Olivia. They thought that she was going to have a child. Good Lord, they were a comical trio. They thought that an arrest would probably kill her. And Maggy, that stiff, shambling, stuck-up, conceited prig, Maggy who had been going to fight a duel with him. Swords and pistols, damme; swords and pistols, damme. Well. What had it all come to? Why, Maggy would stop him in the alleyway, taking him gently by the arm, as one takes the doctor by the arm, when he comes out of the sick-room. “How is Olivia, Stukeley? How is she this morning?” Bated breath, good Lord. Best doctor’s manner. And Perrin running ashore for fruit and fresh fish and eggs. And Cammock. Well, Cammock was a bit of a dark horse; so he would make much of Cammock for some days. Besides, that little ruined city, full of gold, might turn out to be worth looking for. As for Olivia, she would have to come to Darien, whether she cried or not. He rather liked living at free quarters, as cock of the walk. He wasn’t going to go ashore in Virginia to settle among the colonists. Besides, in Darien, there would be a bit of sport, by all accounts. There would be shooting; perhaps a little shooting at Spaniards; plunder to be made; good living generally. The only bitter sediment in this cup of pleasure was Mrs. Inigo. He had been very nearly caught with Mrs. Inigo. He knew that he had raised suspicions, that he would have to walk warily for some little time. He wished that he was married to Mrs. Inigo. All this talk of love, such talk as Olivia loved, this talk of trust and sacrament and the rest of it. He was sick of it. He thought that men were naturally polygamous. A few fools and perverts. What right had they to dictate to him? Mrs. Inigo would be just the sort of wife for him. She would understand. And she wouldn’t make him sick with talk about Beauty. She hadn’t mixed with the gang of twisters Olivia had known. Maggy was the boy for Beauty. There was where Olivia learned her beauty talk. Twisters. That was all that Maggy’s gang were. He would like to twist their necks. As for the colonials, the Virginian women didn’t please him. The garrison ladies were like all the garrison ladies known to him, silly little empty fools, without enough imagination to be vicious. They could just chatter, play cards, kiss their beastly lap-dogs, and wear their English clothes to church, so as to show off before the colonials. The colonial girls were not like women at all. They were like young horses, like young men. They would dance and romp, like colts in a hay-lot. But their idea of an evening’s amusement was to roll a man in a corn-crib, and smother him with pillows or flour. The colonial men bored him; he had always thought ill of farmers. Their talk was all of the tobacco crop, the duty, the burning of half the leaf, and the destruction of those plantations which were too productive. They had no wines. Their only drinks were rum and new cider. They did not play cards. Their chief amusement seemed to be riding to prayer-meetings. They would often ride forty miles to a prayer-meeting in the woods. He rather liked them for that. He would have ridden a hundred miles to avoid a Church service there, under a Virginian parson. “They pay their parsons in tobacco,” he said to himself. “They get the very sweepings of the Church. What souls they must have, when you can save five thousand of them for forty pounds a year.”

Thus his thoughts ran inside his skull, under his curly black hair, behind that red face so long the adoration of shop-girls. But after dinner, in the little room known as the after-hospital, when, stretched at ease in the bunk, he could see Cammock sitting upright in the chair, through the wavering tobacco-smoke, his thoughts ran upon other matters. He thought of the coming cruise to Darien.

“Good tobacco, captain?”

“Yes, sir. But it’s not Verinas. It’s too strong. Too red. This is some of that Mexican tobacco. It leaves that tang, like a metal. That’s how you can tell, sir. Just puff out, sir, and roll your tongue round. You taste what I mean?”

“Yes. But I bought it as Verinas. I paid four shillings the Spanish pound.”

“That gang of Davis’s saw you coming, sir.”

“Really? Well. It’s my turn to laugh next. You tell them that, captain.”

“They’re no friends of mine, sir,” said Cammock simply.

“Aren’t they? I thought they were particular friends of yours. You sailed with them?”

“I’ve sailed with a good many as I’m no friends with.”

“Really.”

“I say nothing against them,” said Cammock. “They’re very good seamen. Doing good as planters, too, sir. They’ve quite a lot of ground burnt off. I dare say you’ve seen it.”

“Yes. But I thought from what they said that they were particular friends of yours. Eh?”

“Indeed, sir. When did you see them?”

“I saw them yesterday, Captain Cammock.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“They said that you and Captain Margaret had just arranged to take about thirty of them, as a sort of company of soldiers. To have them aboard here. Eh? Men of war. Eh? Pretty nearly the whole village of them.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“You don’t like your little secrets to be known.”

“Ah? Oh. I forgot to ask, Mr. Stukeley. How is Mrs. Stukeley?”

“She’s very well, thanks. You didn’t think I’d learn your little secret about the men of war.”

“I didn’t think one way or the other. You’d have known some day sure enough. I needn’t disguise the fact. Yes. We’ve just got thirty of them, to join at an hour’s notice.”

“When we sail? When will that be?”

“We ought to a gone to-day. Only our foretopmast’s sprung. We have to wait for a new one. But you know yourself, sir. We may have to sail at an hour’s notice, spar or no spar.”

“Thank you for reminding me. You’re a person of great delicacy, Cammock. For one of your rank in life.”

“I believe I am, sir. Let it go at that.”

“Can we sail at an hour’s notice?”

“If the Governor, and that old frigate, the royal _Nonsuch_, don’t object. I suppose we could if we had to, even without a topmast. But if our topmast ain’t aboard, we couldn’t run very fast. I reckon we could, sir.”

“Leaving all that tobacco ashore?”

“Yes. All except about fifty ton, which we’ve got aboard. That tobacco’ll go home in the summer fleet, if the fleet don’t want to cross home light.”

“I hear you’ve got all the pick of the crop.”

“You hear a lot of things, sir. Well-informed man, Ed Davis.”

“He knows what’s going on,” said Stukeley. “When you’re shut up with a couple of old sheep, like your two owners, you need a change.”

“So I believe, sir.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean just what I said.”

“Ah, yes. A simple, rugged nature. Eh? But how can we put to sea with so much cargo out of her?”

“We’re not too light, Mr. Stukeley. It ain’t as though we’d emptied her. We’ve taken in a lot of fresh water. A lot of scantling, too. A lot of this Virginia cider. Then there’s the new cables we bought from them Hog Islers. Besides the fifty odd ton of tobacco. Still, I don’t say but what she’ll cut up a bit of a dance, if she gets any weather going south.”

“I thought all her cargo was consigned to Virginia.”

“Did you, sir?”

“Surely. What’s the good of fencing? Good luck, captain. I’m not an old sheep, like your owners.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“You’re getting funny, captain. A wit. You ought to have been at the University.”

“That’s where they make gentlemen, sir.”

“Oh, you know that?”

“We’d one of them come with us in the _Trinity_. I know all about the universities.”

“He taught you, eh? Private tuition in the forecastle?”

“Yes. As you might say. One of the things he taught was---- Well. You were at one yourself. I don’t think he could have learned you much.”

“Don’t you? Could he have learned me (as you call it) that the reason you’ve not discharged your cargo here is that you’re going to try to trade along the Main?”

“Ned Davis knows a lot, it seems.”

“Don’t be so confounded smart and hippy. See? I know all your plans. I know all you can do, and all you’re going to try to do. And I know exactly where you’ll go wrong.”

“Then we shan’t have the trouble of telling you.”

“What d’you say to going up the river after Springer’s little city? Eh? There might be something in that.”

“I met a power of clever men in my time,” said Cammock. “I don’t say men of learning and that. I mean clever fellers. I been up rivers with ’em.”

“Looking for cities?”

“Cities sometimes. Sometimes it was gold mines. Then again it’d be Indians. Boys to spear fish and that. Or perhaps it was only a snatching-raid. The clever fellers was never any good at it. But, hear ’em talk. My.”

“I gather your intellect is trying to express the fact that you dislike me. I think I trace so much. I see your brain floundering towards it.”

“Huh,” said Cammock, snorting. “I think I see you floundering towards that little city. Man alive. Good heart alive. D’ye know what sort one of them rivers is, to go up? You’ve neither skill nor sense of it. You lie there bilged in your bunk like a barge at low tide, and you come the funny nigger, trying to get a raise. I’ll tell you what them rivers is like. See here, now. Listen to me. I’ll perhaps give you some idea of the land you’re bound for.”

“Really? I don’t know that I want to hear you.”

“No. But I want you to hear me, Mr. Stukeley. I’ll tell you where the golden city is.”

“Now you’re talking business.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Well. When you come in from the Samballoes, you’ll see the land ahead of you, like a wall of green. Just like a wall. Think. Dense. Then you come to two rivers, about thirty yards across. They’re the two mouths of the Conception River. You try to go up one of them in your boat. First thing you know is a thundering big bar. You’d be surprised how ugly them little bars get. Well. Suppose you get across. What’s next? D’ye know what a snag is?”

“A branch of alder or willow, fallen into the river.”

“Yes. Or a whole whacking big great oak, Mr. Stukeley, fallen right across, and rotting there. With its branches all jammed up with drift and drowned things. Hornets’ nests stuck in ’em. Great grey paper bags. So then you land, and take out your macheat, and cut a path around that tree, and drag your boat round. May take you an hour or more. Then into your boat again, after sliding down a mud-bank with eighteen inch of slime on top. Presently you come to a lot more trees. Out you get and cut another road. Perhaps you go back a half-mile to find a place where you can land. Oh. It’s death, going up one of them brooks. Then, there’s shallows where you wade. Rapids where you wade and haul, losing your footing and getting soused. By and by comes a cloud-burst somewhere in the hills above. Or perhaps a jam of logs bursts, a kind of a natural dam, a mile or two above you. Then. Woosh. You see a wall of water a yard high coming at you. If you’re slippy on your oars you get ashore from that. Maybe you hear it coming. It makes a roar like the tide. You drag your boat ashore.”

“Aren’t you rather laying it on for my benefit?”

“As for laying it on, Mr. Stukeley, I’ll make you judge for yourself as soon as we come on the coast. I tell you one thing. You’ll sing mighty small when you come to tackle such a country. That’s something you won’t have learned, where you learned your manners.”

Stukeley laughed. “Well. Go on with your yarn,” he said. “I like hearing of foreign parts.”

“No,” said Cammock. “I’m not going on. But there’s your city. It’s within twenty miles of the sea, and within five of the eastern Conception.”

“Will you come to look for it with me?”

“No, sir,” said Cammock. “I won’t. I don’t fancy your company.”

“I like you, captain.”

Cammock looked at him steadily for a moment, and then lit his pipe at the brazier.

“What are the women like in Darien?”

“You’re a married man, Mr. Stukeley.”

“Thank you. I know I’m a married man. I asked you what the women are like?”

“They’re mostly a rather duskish brown or copper colour.”

“So I think I know. Can a fellow have any fun with them?”

“They’re modest, merry creatures. Very kind, simple creatures. Another thing. They’re strong as colts. You see, they do most of the work. They’ll carry a man like you. I guess you’re one and a half hundred-weight. They’d carry you across a swamp. And they’re only very small, you know. As for fun, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Cammock, the chaste pirate.”

“Now go easy, Mr. Stukeley. I can take a lot, but I don’t take pirate of any man.”

“The virgin martyr.”

“We had one of our men a martyr, Mr. Stukeley. He tried to have a bit of ‘fun,’ as you call it, with one of the Samballoes women. Lemuel Bath his name was. They caught him, as it happened. And they done to him what they do to each other, if they try any ‘fun’ and get caught. That was ashore on the Main at the back of Sasardi there. I was ashore the next day, filling water at the ’Seniqua. We seen Bath come crippling down the beach, with his head back, and his hands tearing his chest all bloody. Tearing his chest into strips with pain. Naked, too. He died that evening. No, sir. Don’t you try it.”

“Thanks. Niggers aren’t in my line. I leave them to pirates.”

“That’s you. It’s time I was on deck, Mr. Stukeley. Adios, señor. Divertiete. That’s what we used to say to the Spaniards when their ransoms were paid.” He nodded to the head which watched him from the bunk. Turning on his heel, he passed from the cabin, pressing his thumb upon his pipe to kill the ember in the bowl. “I wonder if there’s many like him,” he said to himself. “I wonder what it is makes him like that. I’d like him in a watch. Oh, mommer.” As he muttered thus, in passing to the deck, Stukeley turned in his bunk, drawing the curtain. “Hulking boor,” he said to himself. “Hulking old savage. This is the sort of company we keep when we come to sea. Crusty he gets, when you bait him.” He thought of the little golden city and of the little brown women, with resolve to try them both. “Good luck,” he said; “I hope we’ll soon get out of here, before Olivia’s nerves go off again.” As he settled himself down for his nap he was roused by a noise in the sample-room, where Mr. Harthop broke in a caskhead with a tomahawk. He went to the alleyway-door to call down the passage to Margaret’s cabin.

“Margaret,” he cried, “can’t you stop that beastly noise for a bit? Olivia’s lying down.”

“I am sorry,” said Margaret, coming from his cabin. “I ought to have---- Mr. Harthop, will you please unhead your casks on deck? The noise upsets Mrs. Stukeley. Apologize for me, Stukeley.”

The noise ceased, and Stukeley slept like an infant, showing his strong white teeth in a smile. Harthop muttered and swore, wishing that a ship with a woman in her might sail the rivers of hell; for that was all she was fit for. He reproved the man who was working with him for suggesting the tomahawk. The man sulked and loafed for the rest of the afternoon, and then told a sympathetic fo’c’s’le that you got your head bit off if that pale judy in the cabin heard you so much as “hem.” Harthop, nursing his wrath till knock-off time, took it out of the boy who kept his cabin clean.

“Can’t you find some other place to stow your brass-rags, without putting them under my mattress?”

“Please, sir, they’re not the brass-rags. They’re the rags you stuff in the leaky seam, sir. In wet weather, sir.”

“My bed’s no place for them, you dirty young hound. What have you done with the molasses that was left?”

“You’d ate all your molasses, sir; from last week.”

“There was some left in the tin. You’ve been at it again.”

“No, sir. I swear I haven’t, sir.”

“How many times have I told you I won’t have you swear? Eh? Give me my supplejack.”

“Oh, sir, I won’t do it again. I won’t do it again.”

“There, my boy. Perhaps that’ll teach you another time. Now go and lay my supper. If you don’t stop howling I’ll give you another six.”

The boy went forward howling, to hide in the darkness of the hold, where he could cry by himself, choking with misery and shame, praying for death. If he had had a flint and steel he would have burnt the _Broken Heart_ at her anchor. As he had none, he sobbed himself to sleep, careless of Mr. Harthop’s supper, full of the bleeding, aching misery which none save the wronged child can ever taste to the full. When it was dark and all had gone to bed, he crept aft to the ward-room, where the bread-barge and the case of spirits stood, just as the two mates had left them. He helped himself to bread and rum; for misery had made him reckless. Besides, having defied Mr. Harthop he might as well defy the two mates. So he ate and drank, looking at the light on the landing-stage, which made a golden track to dance. It trembled in yellow flakes on the water, a path of gold, to the blackness of the rudder eddies below him. He was not very sure if he could swim so far; but he did not care. He was too wretched to mind drowning. It was very dark in the wardroom. It was dark above him in the cabin. Below him, the ship’s shadow was dark. He was sure that the watchmen would not see him. They never walked on the poop. After a moment of groping he found the falls of the relieving-tackle, and unrove the raw hide till he had an end ten feet long. He hitched the tackle so that the block should not creak, and paid out the end through the chase-port. Then, as even the most miserable of us will, he felt the misery of leaving. This ship of wretchedness had been a home to him. He remembered the singing in the dog-watch. It was awful to have to go like that. In his wretchedness, a tear or two rolled down his cheek, to splash on the port-sill. A light footstep moved up and down above him. One of the stern-windows of the cabin opened with a little rattle. He heard Stukeley’s voice coming from the state-room drowsily. Then Mrs. Stukeley spoke from overhead.

“It’s such a beautiful night, Tom. Do come and see the stars. They’re wonderful. Wonderful. Come and see them, Tom dear.”

“You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“Bow-wow-wow. What an old bear. I shan’t. I’ve got on my dressing-gown.”

“Thanks. I prefer my bed.”

The listener in the wardroom smiled in spite of his misery; then trembled lest the lady should stay long. For suppose a watchman crept below to see if the mates had left any rum behind them? Suppose anybody came--Mr. Harthop, Mr. Ramage? He peered into the ’tween-decks, where all was dark and still, save for the cat’s eyes gleaming green, watching for a mouse, and the snores of Mr. Ramage in his hammock. Then, up above him, moved by the beauty of the night, the woman began to sing, in a voice of drowsy sweetness, in a little low voice that made each word a pearl, a round, lustrous pearl, a tiny globe that glowed in the mind, it was so perfect, so ripe, so tender. She was singing that old song of Campion’s about the woman who had played with love in the hour of her beauty. She was a woman who had played, and been played with; till her beauty withered just as she had learned the worth of love, just as life had made her worthy of love, at her coming to wisdom:--

Where are all thy beauties now, all hearts enchaining? Whither are thy flatterers gone, with all their feigning? All fled, and thou, alone, still here remaining. . . . . . . . . . . . When thy story, long time hence, shall be perusèd, Let the blemish of thy rule be thus excusèd, “None ever lived more just, none more abusèd.”

The window closed amid murmured words; Stukeley, moved by the voice, had drawn his wife away. The boy sighed that it was over; then corked the rum-bottle and put it in his pocket. He would have taken some bread, had he been able to carry it dry. He thought of dashing to his chest in the half-deck for an extra shirt; but gave up the plan as being too risky. Very quietly and quickly he slid down the rope into the water, letting the tide take him, striking out now and again, towards the landing-stage. He was puzzled by the coming of the ripples; they hit him in the cheek before he judged that they were near. He got a mouthful once, and choked; but none heard. Very soon he was clambering up the landing, gulping rum with shudders. Then, after wringing out his jacket, he set out to run along the sandy track that was the street. The dogs barked as they heard his feet beat; but he kept on, for some three miles, till he dropped tired out among the wood. There he lay shivering in the scrub till the dawn, when, seeing a plantation near, he sought shelter of the planter, who hired him “for his keep,” glad of the chance. In the morning, when hue and cry was made for him, when boys and men called and crawled for him among the cargo of the ship, no one suspected that Stukeley was the indirect cause of his desertion. The mates swore when they found their rum gone. The other boys swore when they had to do the deserter’s work. Cammock swore at the watchmen for not barring in the chase-ports, while the watchmen swore that they had barred them. Mr. Harthop swore that if ever he caught that boy again he would give him cherriliccum pie. Thus the matter came to an end.