The Project Gutenberg eBook of Captain Margaret, by John Masefield

BY
JOHN MASEFIELD
Author of “The Everlasting Mercy,” “The Widow
in the Bye Street,” etc.

[DEDICATION]

CAPTAIN MARGARET

I.
THE “BROKEN HEART”

The short summer night was over; the stars were paling; there was a faint light above the hills. The flame in the ship’s lantern felt the day beginning. A cock in the hen-coop crowed, flapping his wings. The hour was full of mystery. Though it was still, it was full of the suggestion of noise. There was a rustle, a murmur, a sense of preparation. Already, in the farms ashore, the pails went clanking to the byres. Very faintly, from time to time, one heard the lowing of a cow, or the song of some fisherman, as he put out, in the twilight, to his lobster-pots, sculling with one oar.

Dew had fallen during the night. The decks of the Broken Heart, lying at anchor there, with the lantern burning at her peak, were wet with dew. Dew dripped from her running rigging; the gleam of wetness was upon her guns, upon her rails, upon the bell in the poop belfry. She seemed august, lying there in the twilight. Her sailors, asleep on her deck, in the shadow, below the break of the quarter-deck, were unlike earthly sleepers. The old boatswain, in the blue boat-cloak, standing at the gangway watching the dawn, was august, sphinx-like, symbolic. The two men who stood above him on the quarter-deck spoke quietly, in hushed voices, as though the hour awed them. Even the boy by the lantern, far aft, stood silently, moved by the beauty of the time. Over the water, by Salcombe, the fishers’ boats got under way for the sea. The noise of the halliards creaked, voices called in the dusk, blocks piped, coils of rope rattled on the planks. The flower of the day was slowly opening in the east, the rose of the day was bursting. It was the dim time, the holy time, the moment of beauty, which would soon pass, was even now passing, as the sea gleamed, brightening, lighting up into colour.

Slowly the light grew: it came in rosy colour upon the ship; it burned like a flame upon the spire-top. The fishers in their boats, moving over the talking water, watched the fabric as they passed. She loomed large in the growing light; she caught the light and gleamed; the tide went by her with a gurgle. The dim light made her larger than she was, it gave her the beauty of all half-seen things. The dim light was like the veil upon a woman’s face. She was a small ship (only five hundred tons), built of aromatic cedar, and like all wooden ships she would have looked ungainly, had not her great beam, and the height of her after-works, given her a majesty, something of the royal look which all ships have in some proportion. The virtue of man had been busy about her. An artist’s heart, hungry for beauty, had seen the idea of her in dream; she had her counterpart in the kingdom of vision. There was a spirit in her, as there is in all things fashioned by the soul of man; not a spirit of beauty, not a spirit of strength, but the spirit of her builder, a Peruvian Spaniard. She had the impress of her builder in her, a mournful state, a kind of battered grandeur, a likeness to a type of manhood. There was in her a beauty not quite achieved, as though, in the husk of the man, the butterfly’s wings were not quite free. There was in her a strength that was clumsy; almost the strength of one vehement from fear. She came from a man’s soul, stamped with his defects. Standing on her deck, one could see the man laid bare—melancholy, noble, and wanting—till one felt pity for the ship which carried his image about the world. Seamen had lived in her, seamen had died in her; she had housed many wandering spirits. She was, in herself, the house of her maker’s spirit, as all made things are, and wherever her sad beauty voyaged, his image, his living memory voyaged, infinitely mournful, because imperfect, unapprehended. Some of those who had sailed in her had noticed that the caryatides of the rails, the caryatides of the quarter-gallery, and the figurehead which watched over the sea, were all carven portraits of the one woman. But of those who noticed, none knew that they touched the bloody heart of a man, that before them was the builder’s secret, the key to his soul. The men who sailed in the Broken Heart were not given to thoughts about her builder. When they lay in port, among all the ships of the world, among the flags and clamour, they took no thought of beauty. They would have laughed had a man told them that all that array of ships, so proud, so beautiful, came from the brain of man because a woman’s lips were red. It is a proud thing to be a man, and to feel the stir of beauty; but it is more wonderful to be a woman, and to have, or to be, the touch calling beauty into life.

She had been a week in coming from the Pool to the Start. In the week her crew had settled down from their last drunkenness. The smuts had been washed from the fife-rails; the ropes upon the pins had lost the London grime from the lay of the strands. Now, as the sun rose behind the combes, flooding the land with light, smiting the water with gold, the boy, standing far aft, ran up her colours, and the boatswain, in his blue boat-cloak, bending forward slightly, blowing his smouldering match, fired the sunrise gun, raising his linstock in salute. The sleepers stirred among their blankets; one or two, fully wakened, raised themselves upon their elbows. A block creaked as the peak lantern was hauled down. Then with a shrill wail the pipe sounded the long double call, slowly heightening to piercing sharpness, which bids all hands arise.

The sunshine, now brilliant everywhere, showed that the Broken Heart was “by the head,” like most of the ships of her century. Her lines led downwards, in a sweep, from the lantern on the taffrail to the bowed, inclining figurehead. A wooden frame thrust outward over the sea; the cutwater swept up to meet it; at the outer end, under the bowsprit, the figurehead gleamed—the white body of a woman, the breasts bared, the eyes abased, the hands clasped, as in prayer, below the breasts. Beyond the cutwater, looking aft, were the bluff bows, swollen outwards, rising to the square wall of the forecastle, from which the catheads thrust. The chains of the fore-rigging, black with deadeyes and thickly tarred matting, stood out against the dingy yellow of the paint. Further aft was the gangway, with its nailed cleats; then the main-chains, and the rising of the cambered side for poop and quarterdeck. Far aft was the outward bulge of the coach, heavy with gold leaf, crowned by the three stern lanterns. The painters had been busy about her after-works. The blue paint among the gilding was bright wherever the twisted loves and leaves left space for it. Standing at the taffrail and looking forward, one could see all over her; one could command her length, the rows of guns upon her main deck, the masts standing up so stately, the forecastle bulkhead, the hammock nettings, the bitts and poop-rails with their carvings, each stanchion a caryatid, the square main-hatch with its shot rack, the scuttle-butt ringed with bright brass, the boats on the booms amidships, the booms themselves, the broken heart painted in scarlet on their heels.

The two men on the poop turned as the boatswain piped. They turned to walk aft, on the weather side, along the wet planks, so trimly parquetted. They walked quietly, the one from a natural timidity, the other from custom, following the old tradition of the sea, which bids all men respect the sleeper. The timid one, never a great talker, spoke little; but his wandering eyes were busy taking in the view, noting all things, even when his fellow thought him least alive. He was the friend of Captain Margaret, the ship’s owner. His name was Edward Perrin. He was not yet thirty-five, but wild living had aged him, and his hair was fast turning grey. He was wrinkled, and his drawn face and drooping carriage told of a sapped vitality, hardly worth the doctoring. It was only now and then, when the eyes lifted and the face flushed with animation, that the soul showed that it still lived within, driving the body (all broken as it was) as furiously as it had ever driven. He suffered much from ill-health, for he was ever careless; and when he was ill, his feeble brains were numbed, so that he talked with difficulty. When he was well he had brilliant but exhausting flashes, touches of genius, sallies of gaiety, of tenderness, which gave him singular charm, not abiding, but enough to win him the friends whom he irritated when ill-health returned. In his youth he had run through his little fortune in evil living. Now that he was too weak for further folly, he lived upon a small pittance which he had been unable to spend owing to the forethought of a bequeathing aunt. He had only two interests in life: Captain Margaret, whom he worshipped with touching loyalty; and the memories of his wild youth, so soon spoiled, so soon ended. Among those memories was the memory of a woman who had once refused his offer of marriage. He had not loved the woman, for he was incapable of love; he was only capable of affection; but the memory of this woman was sweet to him because she seemed to give some note of splendour, almost of honour, to his vicious courses.

He felt, poor wastrel, poor burnt moth, that his life had touched romance, that it was a part of all high beauty, that some little tongue of flame had sealed him. He had loved unavailingly, he thought, but with all the lovely part of him. Now that he was broken by excess he felt like the king in the tale, who, wanting one thing, had given up all things, that the grass might be the sooner over him. Vice and poverty had given him a wide knowledge of life; but of life in its hardness and cynicism, stripped of its flowers. His one fond memory, his one hopeless passion, as he called it, the one time in his life when he had lived emotionally, had given him, strangely enough, an odd understanding of women, which made him sympathetic to them. His ill-health gave him a distaste for life, particularly for society. He avoided people, and sought for individuals; he hated men, and loved his master; he despised women, in spite of his memory of a woman; but he found individual women more attractive than they would have liked to think. Intellectually, he was nothing; for he had never grown up; he had never come to manhood. As a boy he had had the vices of a man; as a man he had, in consequence, the defects of a woman. He was a broken, emotional creature, attractive and pathetic, the stick of a rocket which had blazed across heaven. He was at once empty and full of tenderness, cruel and full of sympathy, capable of rising, on his feelings, to heroic self-sacrifice; but likely, perhaps on the same day, to sink to depths of baseness. He was tall and weedy-looking, very wretched and haggard. He delighted in brilliant clothes, and spent much of his little store in mercers’ shops. He wore a suit of dark blue silk, heavily laced at the throat and wrists. The sleeves of his coat were slashed, so as to show a bright green satin lining; for, like most vicious men, he loved the colour green, and delighted in green clothes. He drooped forward as he walked, with his head a little on one side. His clumsy, ineffectual hands hung limply from thin wrists in front of him. But always, as he walked, the tired brain, too tired to give out, took in unceasingly, behind the mask of the face. He had little memory for events, for words spoken to him, for the characters of those he met; but he had instead a memory for places which troubled his peace, it was so perfect. As he walked softly up and down the poop with Captain Cammock that lovely morning, he took into his brain a memory of Salcombe harbour, so quiet below its combes, which lasted till he died. Often afterwards, when he was in the strange places of the world, the memory of the ships came back to him, he heard the murmur of the tide, the noise of the gulls quarrelling, the crying out of sailors at work. A dog on one combe chased an old sheep to the hedge above the beach of the estuary.

“I am like that sheep,” thought Perrin, not unjustly, “and the hound of desire drives me where it will.” He did not mention his thought to Captain Cammock, for he had that fear of being laughed at which is only strong in those who know that they are objects of mirth to others.

“I’ll soon show you,” he cried aloud, continuing his thought to a rupture with an imaginary mocker.

“Nothing. Nothing,” said Perrin hastily. He blushed and turned to look at the town, so that the captain should not see his face.

Captain Cammock was a large, surly-looking man, with long black hair which fell over his shoulders. His face, ruddy originally, was of a deep copper colour; handsome enough, in spite of the surly look, which, at first glance, passed for sternness. There were crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, from long gazing through heat haze and to windward. He wore heavy gold ear-rings, of a strange pattern, in his ears; and they became him; though nothing angered him more than to be told so. “I wear them for my sight,” he would say. “I ain’t no town pimp, like you.” The rest of his gear was also strange and rich, down to the stockings and the buckled shoes, not because he was a town pimp like others, but because, in his last voyage, he had made free with the wardrobe of the Governor of Valdivia. A jewel of gold, acquired at the same time, clasped at his throat a piece of scarlet stuff, richly embroidered, which, covering his chest, might have been anything, from a shirt to a handkerchief. The Spanish lady who had once worn it as a petticoat would have said that it became him. His answer to the Spanish lady would have been, “Well, I ain’t one of your dressy ducks; but I have my points.” Those who had seen him in ragged linen drawers, pulling a canoa off the Main, between Tolu and the Headlands, with his chest, and bare arms, and naked knees, all smeared with fat, to keep away the mosquitoes, would have agreed with him.

“There’s one thing I wish you’d show me,” said Captain Cammock, glancing at the schooners at anchor.

“Well,” said Captain Cammock, turning towards the harbour entrance, “why has Captain Margaret put into Salcombe? Wasting a fair wind I call it. We could a-drove her out of soundings if we’d held our course.”

“I don’t think I ought to tell you that, Captain Cammock. I know, of course. It has to do with the whole cruise. Personal reasons.”

“I’ll approve of it when we’re safe home again, and the ship’s accounts passed. Now, Mr. Perrin, I’m a man of peace, I am. I don’t uphold going in for trouble. There’s trouble enough on all men’s tallies. But what you’re going to do beats me.”

Perrin murmured a mild assent. The pirate’s vehemence generally frightened him.

“Look here, now, Mr. Perrin,” the captain went on. “One gentleman to another, now. Here am I sailing-master. I’m to navigate this ship to Virginia, and then to another port to be named when we leave England. I don’t know what you want me to do, do I, James? Well, then, can’t you give me a quiet hint, like, so I’ll know when to shoot? If you don’t like that, well, you’re my employers, you needn’t. But don’t blame me if trouble comes. You’re going to the Main. Oh, don’t start; I’ve got eyes, sir. Now I know the Main; you don’t. Nor you don’t know seamen. All you know is a lot of town pimps skipping around like burnt cats. Here now, Mr. Perrin, fair and square. Are you going on the account?”

“Well, you see, captain,” said Perrin, “it’s like this. Captain Margaret. I don’t know. You know that, in Darien, the Spaniards—they—they—they drove out the Indians very brutally.”

“Well,” continued Perrin. “You’d have been told to-day, anyhow; so it doesn’t much matter my telling you now. What he wants to do is this. He wants to get in with the Indians there, and open up a trade; keeping back the Spaniards till the English are thoroughly settled. Then, when we are strong enough, to cut in on the Spanish treasure-trains, like Sir Francis Drake did. But first of all, our aim is to open up a trade. Gold dust.”

Captain Cammock’s face grew serious. He gazed, with unseeing eyes, at the swans in the reach.

“I’ll think it over,” he said curtly. “I’m obliged to you for telling me.” He made one or two quick turns about the deck. “Here you, boy,” he cried, “coil them ropes up on the pins.” He glanced down at the quarter-deck guns to see if the leaden aprons were secured over the touch-holes. “Mr. Perrin,” he continued, “about Captain Margaret. Has he got anything on his mind?”

“I thought it was something of that sort. Rum or women, I say. Them and lawyers. They get us all into trouble sooner or later.”

“He was in love with a girl,” said Perrin. “He was in love with her for four years. Now she’s gone and married some one else.”

“I suppose she was a society lady,” said Cammock, investing that class with the idea of vices practised by his own.

“Yes?” said the captain. “And now she’ll learn her error. Women aren’t rational beings, not like men are. What would a beautiful woman want more, with Captain Margaret?”

“It’s about done for him,” said Perrin. “He’ll never be the man he was. And as for her. The man she married cheated a lad out of all his money at cards, and then shot him in a duel.”

“Oh, but he did a worse thing than that,” said Perrin. “He’d a child by his cousin; and when the girl’s mother turned her out of doors, he told her she might apply to the parish.”

“Bah!” said the captain, with disgust. “I’d like to know the name of that duck. He’s a masterpiece.”

“Tom Stukeley, his name is,” said Perrin. “His wife’s Olivia Stukeley. They are stopping in Salcombe here. They are still wandering about on their honeymoon. They were married two or three months back.”

“Ah,” said Cammock, “so that’s why the captain put in here. He’ll be going ashore, I reckon.” He walked to the break of the poop and blew his whistle. “Bosun,” he cried. “Get the dinghy over the side, ’n clean her out.” He walked back to Perrin. “Much better get him away to sea, sir. No good’ll come of it.”

“He’ll only see her with this Stukeley fellow. It’ll only make him sick. Very likely make her sick, too.”

“I can’t stop him,” said Perrin. “He’ll eat his heart out if he doesn’t go. It’s better for him to go, and get a real sickener, than to stay away and brood. Don’t you think that?”

“As you please,” said Cammock. “But he ain’t going to do much on the Main, if he’s going to worry all the time about a young lady. The crowd you get on the Main don’t break their hearts about ladies, not as a general act.”

The conversation lapsed. The captain walked to the poop-rail, to watch the men cleaning up the main-deck. He called a boy, to clean the brass-work on the poop.

“No, sir,” said the captain. “On the Main, you lays your ship on her side on the softest mud anywheres handy. And you gets Indian ducks to build little houses for you. Fine little houses. And there you lays ashore, nine months of the year, listening to the rain. Swish. Your skin gets all soft on you, like wet paper. And you’ll see the cabin below here, all full of great yellow funguses. And all this brass will be as green as tulips. It will. And if you don’t watch out, you could grow them pink water-lilies all over her. It’s happy days when you’ve a kind of a pine-apple tree sprouting through your bunk-boards.” He paused a moment, noted the effect on Perrin, and resolved to try an even finer effort. “I remember a new Jamaica sloop as come to One Bush Key once. I was logwood-cutting in them times. She was one of these pine-built things; she come from Negrill. They laid her on her side in the lagoon, while the hands was cutting logwood. And you know, sir, she sprouted. The ground was that rich she sprouted. Them planks took root. She was a tidy little clump of pines before I left the trade.”

“Thank you,” said Cammock. “Make it. Who’s watchman, bosun? Let him call me at once if any boat comes off.”

The steward, an old negro, dressed in the worn red uniform of a foot-soldier, came with his bell to the break of the poop, to announce the cabin breakfast. The men, with their feet bare from washing down, were passing forward to the forecastle. Their shirts, of red, and blue, and green, were as gay as flags. The wet decks gleamed; the banner blew out bravely from the peak. As the bell struck its four couplets, the bosun ran up to the main-truck the house-flag, of Captain Margaret’s arms, upon a ground of white. The watchman, in his best clothes, passed aft rapidly to the gangway, swallowing the last of his breakfast.

“After you, sir,” said Cammock to Perrin, as they made politeness at the cabin door.

The cabin of the Broken Heart was large and airy. The stern-windows, a skylight amidships, and the white paint upon the beams and bulkheads, made it lighter than the cabins of most vessels. A locker, heaped with green cushions, so that it made a seat for a dozen persons, ran below the windows. Under the skylight was the table, with revolving chairs about it, clamped to the deck. At both sides of the cabin were lesser cabins opening into it. On the port side, the perpetual wonder of Captain Cammock (who, though, like all seamen, a scrupulously clean man, never dreamed of desecrating it by use), was a bath-room. To starboard was a large, double state-room, with a standing bed in it, where Captain Margaret slept. Forward of the cabin bulkhead (which fitted in a groove, so that it might be unshipped in time of battle) were other quarters, to which one passed from the cabin by an alley-way leading to the deck below the break of the poop. To port, in these quarters, was Perrin’s cabin, with Cammock’s room beyond. To starboard was the steward’s pantry and sleeping-place, with the sail-room just forward of it. The bulkheads were all painted white, and each cabin was lighted by scuttles from above, as well as by the heavy gun-ports in the ship’s side, each port-lid with a glass bull’s-eye in it. The cabins were therefore light and bright, having always an air of cleanly freshness. The great cabin would have passed for the chamber of a house ashore, but for the stands of arms, bright with polished metal, on each side of the book-case. Over the book-case was a small white shield, on which, in red brilliants, was the Broken Heart. When the light failed, at the coming of the dusk, the crimson of the brilliants gleamed; there was a burning eye above the book-case, searching those at meat, weighing them, judging them.

The stern-windows were open, letting in the sunlight. The table was laid for breakfast. The steward in his uniform stood bare-headed, waiting for the company. The door of the state-room opened smartly, and Captain Margaret entered. He advanced with a smile, shook hands with the two men, bidding them good morning. Perrin, ever sensitive to his friend, glanced at him for a moment to note if he had slept ill, through brooding on his love; but the mask upon his friend’s face was drawn close, the inner man was hidden; a sufficient sign to Perrin that his friend was troubled. Captain Cammock looked at his employer with interest, as he would have looked at a man who had been at the North Pole. “So he’s in love with a girl, hey?” he thought. “Gone half crazed about a girl. In love. And the lady give him the foresheet, hey?” He even peered out of the stern-window over Salcombe, with the thought that somewhere among those houses, or walking in one of those gardens, went the lady Olivia, wonderfully beautiful, squired by the unspeakable Stukeley.

“Hope we didn’t wake you, sir,” he said politely. “One can’t carry on without noise, coming to anchor.”

“I thought I heard your voice once,” said Captain Margaret. “You were talking about grilling the blood of some one.”

“They don’t understand no other language,” said the captain, with a grin. Then, rapping the table with his knife, at his place as captain, he mumbled out a blessing. “Bless this food, O Lord, for the support of our bodies.” The rest of the blessing he always omitted; for a jocular shipmate had once parodied it, in a scandalous manner, much appreciated by himself. “He’d had a wonderful education, that man,” he always maintained. “He must have had a brain, to think of a real wit like that was.”

Captain Cammock helped the fresh salmon (bought that morning from a fisherman) with the story of the duff. Until the tale was ended, the company hungered.

“Did y’ever hear of the captain and the passenger?” he asked. “They was at dinner on Sunday; and they’d a roll of duff. So the captain asks the passenger, like I’d ask you about this salmon. He asks him, ‘Do you like ends?’ No, he didn’t like no ends, the passenger didn’t. ‘Well, me and my mate does,’ says the captain; so he cuts the duff in two, and gives the mate one half and eats the other himself.”

“I believe Captain Cammock makes these stories up,” said Margaret. “In the night-watches, when he isn’t grilling seamen’s bloods.”

“Is that right, captain?” asked Margaret. “Do you make these stories up yourself?”

“No, sir,” said Cammock, “I’ve not got the education, and I’ve something else to think about. These writer fellows—beg pardon, Captain Margaret, I don’t mean you, sir—they’re often very unpractical. They’d let a ship fall overboard.”

“So you think them very unpractical, do you, captain?” said Margaret. “What makes you think that?”

“Because they are, sir,” he replied. “They’re always reading poetry and that. From all I can make out of it, poetry’s a lot of slush.”

“Who? Me?” said Cammock. “Bless yer, yes. Reams of it. A book of it called Paradise Lost. Very religious, some of it. I had enough of poetry with that inside me. I can’t say as I ever read much since.”

“No, sir,” said the captain. “But then I never give it a chance to. I’ve always had my work to see to.”

“Oh, it’s hard work, sir. Don’t you forget it. You’re chopping all the forenoon, and splitting what you chopped all afternoon, and rolling the pieces to the lagoon all evening. And all night you drink rum and sings. Then up again next morning. Your arms get all bright red from logwood, and you get a taste for sucking the chips. A queer taste.”

“And who buys your logwood?” said Margaret. “Who uses it? What’s it used for?”

“I don’t rightly know about that, except for dyeing,” said Cammock. “A Captain Brown bought all we cut. But we’d great times along the banks of the lagoon.”

“When you say great times,” said Margaret, “what do you mean exactly? What was it, in logwood-cutting, which seems great to you? And was it great to you then, or only now, when you look back on it?”

“Did y’ever hear tell of the ‘last ship,’ sir?” said Cammock. With another man he might have resented the continual questioning; but Captain Margaret always made him feel that he, old pirate as he was, had yet, even in spite of, perhaps by reason of, his piracies, a claim upon, an interest for, the man of intellect and the man of culture. “Did y’ever hear tell of the ‘last ship,’ sir?” said Cammock.

“What has the last ship got to do with the great times on the lagoon?” asked Margaret.

“Just this, Captain Margaret. When a growler. A pug, you understand; one of the hands forward there. When a seaman comes aboard a new ship, he always blows at the rate of knots about his last. You’ll never hear of the ship he’s in. No, sir. She’s hungry. Or wet. Or her old man’s a bad one. But so soon as he leaves her. Oh, my love, what a ship she was, my love. Bacon for breakfast; fires to dry your clothes at; prayers and rum of a Sunday forenoon. Everything. That’s what I mean by a last ship. So when I says we’d great times on the lagoon, why, it’s only a way of speaking. I mean as it seems just beautiful, now it’s over. I’ll just trouble you, Mr. Perrin, if there’s any more beer in the jug.”

“So that’s the last ship, Captain Cammock,” said Margaret. “Well, and now tell us what seems great to you, when you think of—of your last ship, in the lagoon, as you call it.”

Captain Cammock looked at Perrin, who seldom spoke at meals, perhaps because his intellect was too feeble to allow him to do more than one thing at a time. Perrin, who hated to be looked at when he was eating, from some shy belief that no one looked at him save with a desire to laugh, gulped what he had in his mouth at the moment, choked, and hid his confusion in his tankard. Captain Cammock did the same, lest he should appear rude.

“Now that’s no easy question, Captain Margaret,” he said. “It wasn’t great, now I come to think of it. It was hard work. As hard as shovelling coal. And hot. Oh, it’s hot in them lagoons. Sometimes our shirts would be wringing wet with perspiration. And often we were up to our knees in mud, where we worked, and little red devils biting us, besides mosquitoes. And there were thorns on the logwood; spikes as sharp as stings.”

“Oh, as to them,” replied the captain. “We’d go hunt a wild cow on Saturdays. Or perhaps fish. Or sometimes we’d go a lot of us among the Indians, to a paw-waw. And then ships come. We’d great times when ships come. In the moonlight. We’d sing and drink rum. And firing off pistols and cheering. Oh, we’d great times.”

“Why don’t you go back to it?” asked Captain Margaret. “You don’t go back to it. Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” said Cammock, as he prepared his morning’s pipe. “The men I knowed are gone. They’d have new ways, the new lot. Besides, that sort of thing only goes when you’re young. When you get the salt in your bones, you find the young devils don’t like having you around. And the girls get particular. You can’t get a wife no longer for a yard of blue baize and a stick of sealing-wax. Excuse me, captain. I’m a sailor. I sometimes talk rough. But there it is. All a sailor has at the end is just what he can remember. What I can mind of logwood-cutting is the same as a trader’s money-bags is to him. I must be off forward, to have my morning draw.” He spun his chair round, and rose, pressing the tobacco into his clay pipe. “Give me my hat, stooard.” He bowed to the two friends, walking slowly to the cabin door. “By the way, sir,” he called back. “I forgot to ask. I suppose you’ll be going ashore this fine morning?”

“Yes,” said Margaret, “I am going ashore. I shall want the boat, captain.”

“No,” said Margaret. “I shall sail before sunset, if the wind holds. We shall fill no more water till we make Virginia.”

“Very good, Captain Margaret,” said Cammock. “If you don’t want the hands, I’ll try them at the guns. It’s time they got into the way of doing things.”

He spun upon his heel, leaving the two friends together. The steward, gathering up the gear, retired to the pantry to wash up.

Captain Charles Margaret, the owner of the Broken Heart, sitting there in his chair, in the quiet cabin, was not yet forty; but his brown hair was grizzled, and his handsome face, so grave, so full of dignity, was marked austerely with lines. He gave one, at first, the impression of a man who had lived fully, grandly, upon many sides of life; with a nobility inherent, not to be imitated. It was only after long months of friendship that the observer could learn the man’s real nature. He would see then that the real nature, ripened, as it was, on so many sides, ready, as it was, to blossom wonderfully, had never come to flower, still less to fruit. It was a great nature, checked by some hunger of the soul, which (this is the sorrow of all beautiful desire) would perhaps have destroyed the soul, had it been satisfied. He was one who had loved for many years. He had paid away all the gold of his life, for a sorrow and a few copper memories. He had loved nobly, like a man of the heroic time, letting life go by him with a smile, so long as the woman whom he loved might be spared one little moment’s annoyance, one little wrinkling of the beautiful brow. He had said to himself that he had worn this woman’s glove, and that he would wear no other woman’s petticoat. And from long brooding on this wayward beauty who had spoiled his life, he had learned much of women. He understood them emotionally with a clearness which sometimes frightened him. He felt that he took a base advantage of them in allowing them to talk to him. Their hearts were open books to him. Though the woman said, “Look on this page, or on this,” his instinct, never wrong, revealed to him the page she tried to hide; and his indulgence of this sense made him, at times, of little use in conversation; for the revealed truth amused him more than its polite screen. At times its possession saddened him, for he knew that he would never exercise that sense in the tenderness of the accepted lover, reading the unspoken thought in the beloved eyes. In his person he was tall and finely built, but a certain clumsiness in his walk made his appearance ungraceful when he left his chair. His hands were singularly beautiful. His eyes were grey and deep-set. His face was pale, inclining to sallow, but bronzed by the wind and sun. He was careful, but quiet in his dress. He wore a black suit, precisely cut, like the clothes of a Puritan, but for its fine lace collar and elaborately carved buttons of scarlet ivory.

He had, as he felt, failed in life, because he had failed in love; a point of view common among women, in a man a confession of self-praise, selfishness, almost of vanity. He had allowed his passion to keep him from action; by which, alone, growth or worth can be determined. He, as a lover, having, as he thought, created a life for himself, more beautiful, because intenser, than the lives of others, even of artists, had lived retired, judging, as all retired men will, all actions, all life, all things, by an arbitrary standard, his own standard, the value of which he was incapable of judging. He had been certain, led away, as he had been, by wild love, that his way was the way of self-perfection, to which all ways assisted, rightly used. In so far as his passion had fitted him for the affairs of the world, by adding graces, or accomplishments to a nature rich already, he had profited. He had studied arts, some half a dozen different kinds, so that his mind might have the more facets to twinkle agreeably for his mistress’s pleasure. But with the confidence of various skill had come, also, intellectual pride; for to the man who knew a little of many things, many things seemed little, since none, save a hopeless passion, seemed great. With this had come a shrinking from the world, a tolerance of it that was half contempt, a distrust of it that was half sorrow for it. He lived away from the world, in a fanciful chamber, where the kings of his imagination offered precious balms for ever to the aloof lady, queen and saint. It was his fancy, in the latter years of his passion, to sublime all human experience, to reduce all action to intellectual essence, as an offering to her. This had begun from a desire to amuse her in conversation. Later, as his aloofness from the world drove him still more upon his folly, he had one day trembled lest she should ask him something that he did not know, or could not resolve. It had given to him a new interest in the world; but a fantastic interest; he saw it only for her, to some extent through her. He searched the measure of his friends’ experience, trying to find, as he had tried that morning with Captain Cammock, some purpose or delight, some glory or dignity in the various tale, which might, in his own hands, become beauteous to her, and to himself sweet, being, as he never doubted it would prove, less glorious, less grand, than his daily experience of high emotion.

Now that the two friends were together in the cabin, there was a silence. Throughout the meal Margaret had kept the old pirate talking, in order to divert Perrin from the protests which he knew would come. Now that they were alone, the protests were long in coming. Perrin fidgeted between the table and the book-case, biting his thumbs, evidently waiting for his friend to speak. At last, feeling that he could wait no longer, and speaking crudely because he spoke from his own initiative, he began—

“Her marriage was the end of everything,” said Perrin. “Look here, man, you’re coming this cruise to get rid of your sorrow. Don’t go ashore and begin it all over again. You’ll only upset yourself, and very likely give her pain.”

“You don’t understand, Edward,” said Margaret. “She has been my whole life for four years. If I could. I don’t know. If I could, it might be wiser to go away without a word. Ah, no, no. I can’t. You can’t cut off a part of your life like that. I must go.”

“Well, then,” said Perrin, “I insist on coming with you. You’ll just see her, and come away. I’m weak, I know, and all that; but I will save you from making ducks and drakes of your life. If you see her, you’ll see her with me. But I think you’re very unwise, Charles. If you weren’t owner, I’d clap you in irons and put to sea. I know one thing. If you see her, no good’ll come of it. Look here, man; do drop her, and let’s get away while the wind holds.”

“No. I must see her,” said Margaret stubbornly. “And I couldn’t have you with me. That’s impossible.”

“Because. Well, we won’t talk of that. My mind is made up. By the way, Edward, you were up very early, weren’t you?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to see the sunrise. I’ve heard so much about sunrise at sea. And I got into talk with the captain. I told him a little about our plans. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. I’m glad. We shall have to go into that to-night. By the way, Edward, I want you, after this, to stand two watches a day. I shall do the same. We must learn what stuff our men are made of before we reach Virginia; for in Virginia we shall have to weed out our crew. We can have no skulkers where we are going.”

“All right, Charles. I’m going on deck now. I think you’re very foolish. Your going to see her will do no good. So I tell you. Remember me to her.” He picked up his hat, and walked out of the cabin to the deck.

Captain Margaret rose from his chair, glanced through the stern-port at the harbour, and sighed a little.

“Well,” he said abruptly, shrugging his shoulders, “what must be, must be. Perhaps they’ll be out when I get there. Perhaps she’ll refuse to see me.”

His mind, which now made none save romantic images, imaged for him the Broken Heart at sea, under her colours, going over the water, her owner looking astern at land he would never again tread. It imaged for him a garden ashore, full of roses and tall white campanulas. A lady walked there, looking seaward, regretting that she had not seen him, that she had not bidden him good-bye. Oh, very sweet, very tender, were the images which rose up in him, for the ten thousandth time, as he stared out over Salcombe harbour. And each image, each romantic symbol imagined or created, was a heavy nail, a heavy copper bolt, nailing him within the coffin of his past, among the skeletons of starved hopes and strangled passions.

II.
A FAREWELL

In a little room ashore, in a private suite of a big inn near the church, Tom Stukeley sat alone at breakfast, staring down the garden, across the sea, to the moored ships. He was a tall, powerful, well-made man, of a physical type more common in Ireland than in England, but not rare here. He was, above all things, a creature of the body. One had but to look at him to realize that when he died there would be little for Rhadamanthus. One could not like the man; for though his body had a kind of large splendour, it was the splendour of the prize cabbage, of the prize pig, a splendour really horrible. It is horrible to see any large thing without intelligence. The sight is an acquiescence in an offence against nature. Tom Stukeley was designed by nature for the position of publican. He had the vulgarity and the insolence of a choice English bagman, in the liquor line, together with this handsome body, red face, and thick black hair. By the accident of birth he was a gentleman. In seeing him one realized the tragedy of life’s apportionments. One realized that to build up this, this mass of mucous membrane, boorishly informed, lit only by the marsh-lights of indulged sense, the many toiled in poverty, in enforced though hated ignorance, in life without ease, without joy.

His coarsely coloured face passed for beauty, his insolence for strength of character, even for wit, among those men and women with whom he consorted. His outward manner had something of the off-handed ease of the inferior actor, who drinks, and tells tales, and remarks upon the passing women. But he had little of the actor’s good humour. He had, instead, that air of insolent superiority which makes the inferior soul, arrogant always, like the dunghill cock, clamorous of the glory of dung. In company he was rude to all whom he did not fear. He was more rude to women than to men, partly because he feared them less; but partly because his physical tastes were gross, so that he found pleasure in all horse-play—such as the snatching of handkerchiefs or trinkets, or even of kisses—in gaining which he had to touch or maul his victims, whether protesting or acquiescent. Women were attracted by him, perhaps because he frightened them physically. His love affairs were not unlike the love affairs of python and gazelle. “They like it,” he would say. “They like it.”

To men whom he did not fear, to those of them, that is, who had no advantage of fortune or position from which he could hope to profit, he acted with studied rudeness, with the unintellectual unvaried rudeness of a school bully, particularly if they displayed any little sally of wit, any fondness for art, any fineness of intelligence beyond him. It is possible to think of him with pity, as of one born out of his due time and out of his right circle. He was a cad, born a gentleman.

He sat alone at breakfast, with the breakfast dishes pushed far away from him; for he had risen late, and had sat late at wine the night before. The thought of food was nauseous to him; he drank small beer thirstily; and damned his wife under his breath for being risen from table, as he would, perhaps, have damned her aloud had she been present. He had been married for some three months and had begun to find the simulation of virtue tedious. His head ached; and he was very angry with his wife. He had married her for her money, and he now found that the money was so tied that her husband had no power over it; but that the trustees of her father’s estate, who viewed him with no favour, had powers which he had not suspected. Much as he had ever hated the law, he had never—— He rose up from his seat with an oath, believing for a wild moment that the marriage might be set aside. She had misled him; she must have known that all he wanted was her money. The marriage had been a secret one. But that belief only lasted for a moment; he was “married and done for,” and here was the lawyer’s letter refusing supplies. He had run through their ready money at cards the night before. All that remained to him was a handful of small change, and a handful of tradesmen’s bills. All through breakfast the bills had been arriving, for the word had spread abroad that the Stukeleys were leaving Salcombe at the end of their third week’s stay. He had been in awkward corners before; but never in the country, and never before had he been involved with a wife. He could not think what to do, for his head ached furiously. He had made too free with the common purse in the certainty of receiving money that morning. “Your obedient servants,” ran the letter. He stamped up and down the room, swearing and biting his nails. He could not return to London without money; nor did he dare to return; for he had many debts, and feared arrest. He wondered whether Olivia had any friends in those parts from whom he or she might borrow money. “It’s time Olivia got broken in,” he thought.

A servant entered with a letter. He took it from her, staring at her with the hard insolence of his class. The girl dropped her eyes, looked confused, and then smiled at him.

“Aha,” he said lightly. He caught her hand and pressed it, still looking into her eyes.

“You’re my little duckling, aren’t you?” he said softly, catching her round the waist.

“Be quiet,” she answered, frightened. “I’m sure I hear some one coming.”

He listened for a second, maintaining his hold. “Nonsense,” he said. “Nonsense, Amy.”

He bent and kissed her lips; the girl made some show of virtue by calling him a bad man.

“Oh law,” said Jessie, breaking from him hastily. “There’s some one——” She seized two plates upon the table, and made a bustling pretence at clearing away. On learning that it was a false alarm, she looked at him with a sort of slinking grace.

“Yes, mum,” she cried. “In a minute, mum. There’s an answer, sir. What’s the answer, sir?”

He picked up his cane and walked out swiftly. The servant listened at the door for the details of the quarrel.

“Hark-ee,” came Stukeley’s voice. “Here’s your bill. D’ye see it? There!”—there came a sound of tearing paper—“Now take that back to your master. Next time you disturb me at breakfast I’ll break your head. Get out of this.”

The haberdasher’s clerk withdrew. The landlady aided his retreat with a few words about not having her guests disturbed.

“Aha, Jessie,” he said. “What nice arms you’ve got. Eh? Haven’t you? Eh? Beautiful arms.” He pinched them, following her about as she backed to avoid him.

“You’ve got a wife,” said Jessie. “What do you want with arms? Don’t! Don’t! You’ll make me scream out.”

She soon returned, bringing a visitor, a coarse fair-haired man, with a face not unlike a horse’s face, but without the beauty. His cheeks were rather puffy; his eyelids drooped down over his eyes, so that he gave one the impression of extreme short sight, or of some eye-disease. He peered out under his eyelids. One felt that the house so lit was a dark, narrow, mean little thieves’ house.

Mr. Haly entered, to find his friend Stukeley retiring through the other door. He turned back in the doorway on hearing the name.

“You took me for a dun,” said Mr. Haly, with a jocular whine peculiar to him. “You took me for a dun. I’ll sit down, if this pretty charmer here”—he ogled Jenny, with a look which would have made a wanton chaste—“will give me a chair. Thank you, my dear.” He sat down; Jessie left the room.

“I’ve come down with young Killigrew,” he said. “He offered to pay my expenses. So I thought I’d look you up, to see how married bliss looks. Hey, Tom? How’s the wife? Hey, Tom? How’s Cupid’s dove? Hey? I suppose she’s making little clothes already? Hey?”

He laughed pursily; helped himself, unbidden, to the beer, cut himself a snack from his friend’s untasted breakfast, buttered it thickly, and began to eat. His friendships were selfish always. “Give nothing, but take all you can get,” would have been his motto, had he had sufficient intellect to think it out. It had helped him in the world; but his greed, never sated, had perhaps helped him less than his power of flattering those who were richer, but no more intelligent than himself. Stukeley ignored his friend’s questions, not because he objected to them, but because he expected something more from Mr. Haly.

“There was another reason why I called,” said Haly, after a pause. “I travelled down from town with old Bent, your landlord that was.”

“Yes,” continued Haly. “He’d heard you were in Salcombe. I believe he wants to see you.”

“Well,” said Haly, “then I hope it’s not a large sum. But still, now you’re married to an heiress, you lucky dog, why, you can laugh at old Bent, I should think.”

Haly shrugged his shoulders. “We’re not in town now,” he said. “He might come any time.”

“By the way, Tom,” said Haly, “I don’t want to rob you, but could you lend me a fiver, just to go on with?”

“Oh, come, Tom,” said Haly. “Don’t be a swine, man. I’d lend it to you fast enough. I’d not see a friend in want.”

“Damn it,” said Haly, lowering his voice to a whining reproachful tone. “Well, I wouldn’t be a mean swine. Lord, man! I gave you the office about Bent. You might have a little gratitude. What’s a fiver to you? Don’t be a swine, man. I wouldn’t refuse you, I know.”

Stukeley stared insolently at Haly’s blinking eyes. He seemed to relish the man’s disappointment.

“No! Can’t be done, Monty,” he said. “Have some more buttered toast, instead—with sugar on it.”

Haly had already eaten plenteously of this dainty; he was not to be comforted with flagons.

“You are a swine,” he said angrily. “Now you’re married, I suppose you’re going back on your pals. You dirty swine. My God! I wouldn’t be mean like that. Well, keep your fiver. But old Bent shall hear something. Yes, and my new wife shall hear something. My wife Olivia, Olivia.”

Stukeley watched his friend with careless tolerance, ringing the bell meanwhile, with a hand stretched idly behind him. He laughed lightly, bidding Haly to be of good cheer. When Jessie came, in answer to the bell, he bade his friend good morning, and bowed him out. Haly disappeared, cursing.

When he had gone, Stukeley wondered if he had done wisely in choking off Haly so soon. He had made up his mind, during the months of his honeymoon, to break with his old circle; for his wife’s friends were rich and powerful, and his own friends, being men about town, had never been more to him than flash companions. Besides, he realized that a man like Haly was hardly likely to bring him credit with his new acquaintances. And anyhow his headache made him devilish, and he had had pleasure in seeing the horse-face flush, and the little mean eyes blink with anger. He did not set much store by the man’s threats. If old Bent had come to Salcombe after him, he would see his victim, whether Haly helped or refused to help. He did not rightly know what he could say to old Bent, and his head was throbbing and in pain; he could not think. Jessie returned to clear away; but even Jessie would not comfort him, for missus was in the next room and could hear every word.

Something in the girl’s coyness stirred his lust. He caught hold of her, shutting the door with his disengaged hand.

He drew her head back and kissed her lips and throat. Something in the girl amused him and excited him. He was conscious of a sudden anger against Olivia. She needed some devil of wantonness, he thought. She never moved him as this tavern trollop moved him.

It had been love at first sight. While they kissed, Olivia’s voice sounded clearly in the passage. “I’ll see him in the breakfast-room, with Mr. Stukeley.”

“Oh law!” said Jessie, wrenching herself free. “Go inside, Mr. Stukeley. Don’t let’s be seen together.”

He went so quickly that Jessie’s question, “Is my hair tidy?” was unanswered. As Jessie dabbed at her hair before the mirror, Olivia entered. She thought that Jessie’s heightened colour and nervous manner were signs that she was ashamed of being caught at a glass. She smiled at the girl, who smiled back at her as she hurried to remove her tray. Had Olivia looked at Jessie as she left the room with the table-cloth, the trollop’s gaze of confident contempt would have puzzled her; she might, perhaps, have found it disquieting.

She had only been married a few weeks; and she loved her husband so dearly that to speak of him to any one, to an inn-servant, for example, seemed sacrilegious to her. She felt this very strongly at this moment, though she longed to ask Jessie where her husband might be found. She felt some slight displeasure at her husband’s absence, for he had never before left her for so long. This breakfast had been the first meal eaten apart since the day of their marriage. When Jessie had left the room, she looked at her image in the mirror, straightening the laces at her throat and smoothing the heavy hair, one of her chief beauties. She loved her husband. All other men were mere creatures to her—creatures with no splendour of circling memory, creatures of dust. But the announcement that Captain Margaret was even then without, waiting to be admitted, was somehow affecting. She felt touched, perhaps a little piqued. He had loved her, still loved her, she felt. She had never much cared for him, though she had found a sort of dreadful pleasure in the contemplation of her power over him. At the moment, she felt a little pity for him, and then a little pity for herself. Now that she was married, she thought, she would be unattractive to him; her power would be gone; and as that was the first time the thought had come to her, it made her almost sad, as though she were parting with a beautiful memory, with a part of her youth, with a part of her youthful beauty. Her look into the glass was anxious. She was eager to look her best, to make the most of her pale beauty; for (like less intelligent women) she believed that it was her beauty which most appealed to him. As a matter of fact it was the refinement of her voice which swayed him, her low voice, full of music, full of intensity, of which each note told of an inner grace, of some beauty of mind unattainable by men, but sometimes worshipped by them. She was not a clever talker. Her power lay in sympathy, in creating talk in others, for when she was of a company it was as though music were being played; the talk showed fine feeling; at least, the talkers went away delighted. She had a little beauty. Her eyes were beautiful; her hair was beautiful; but beautiful beyond all physical beauty was the beauty of her earnest voice, so unspeakably refined and pure, coming holy from the inner shrine.

She had not waited a minute, before Captain Margaret entered. She had expected to see him troubled, and to hear the ring of emotion in his voice as he greeted her. She had half expected to be surprised by some rush of frantic passion. But he entered smiling, greeting her with a laugh. She felt at once, from his manner, from his obvious dislike for her hand, which he scarcely touched and then dropped, an implied shrinking from her husband. It gave her firmness. He looked at her eyes a moment, wondering with what love they had looked at Stukeley during the night-watches. The thought came to him that she was a beautiful soiled thing, to be pitied and tenderly reproved. The image of Stukeley cast too dark a shadow for any brighter thought of her. When she began to speak she had him bound and helpless.

“Well, Olivia,” he said gaily, “I’m glad I came in time to catch you.”

“Yes,” she answered, “we were just going. We have been—— And how did you come here?” She found it harder to talk to him than she had expected.

“I came here in my ship,” he answered. “I wanted to see you, to wish you, to hope—to wish you all happiness. Before I leave England.”

“I had not heard that you were going abroad. To what part are you going? Italy again?”

“No. I’m going to Darien.” It seemed to him to be almost tragical that she really did not know where Darien lay. “The Spanish Main,” he added.

He covered her retreat by saying that he was going to Virginia first. She looked at him with quickened interest.

“Going in your ship,” she said. “That sounds very grand. Is she in Salcombe here? Which is she among all those schooners?”

“That one,” he answered, pointing through the window. “The ship with the flag.”

“Oh, don’t let’s talk about that,” he answered. “Tell me about yourself, and your plans. What are you going to do, now you’re leaving Salcombe? Will you go home to Flaxley?”

“No,” she answered, colouring slightly. “Uncle Nestor was rather rude to Tom, to my husband.”

The captain bit his lip, and gazed out absently over the sea. He had heard why Uncle Nestor had been rude. The knowledge made him doubtful of Olivia’s future happiness.

“So I suppose you’ll go back to town,” he answered, “and settle down. What do married people do, when they settle down?”

“Oh,” she said, “I’ve great schemes for Tom. He’s going to stand for Parliament. But I want to know what you’re going to do in Darien. What is your scheme?”

“Just to help the Indians,” he answered. “The Spaniards have robbed them and ill-treated them, and I thought that if some Englishmen settled on the Isthmus, and opened up a trade with them. For you see, we could trade with both Jamaica and Virginia. And if we opened up a trade there, we could check the Spanish power there, making the Indians our allies.”

“The country is very rich in gold. Gold is found in all the rivers. But of course the gold is not to be our aim. I want, really, to found an English colony; or a colony of workers, at any rate. The Spanish colony is just a press, which squeezes the land. Now the land ought, in a sense, to squeeze the colonists. It ought to bring out all their virtues. That is what I want. The country will have to be cleared. And then we shall plant cacao, or whatever the land is fit for, and—— The scheme is thought out, in detail. I’m confident; but I won’t talk about it.”

“And the Indians will be your allies?” repeated Olivia; “and the Spaniards will probably fight you?”

“Yes,” he answered. “And you will be in a townhouse in London, going to the play, or dancing at a ball, in grey silk.”

“And you will give sprigs of verbena to those who see over your garden in the country.”

“We’re going to plant all sorts of things, when we get home. You must send some roots from Darien.”

“Oh, you must stay to see my husband. He wants to see you. He’ll be so disappointed if you don’t stay to see him.”

She held out her hand without emotion of any kind. She would have shaken hands with any other acquaintance with just so little feeling. Margaret wondered what it was that would get within her guard. He took her hand. He tried hard to say no more, but failed, being sorely tempted.

“God bless you,” he said. “I hope you will be very, very happy. God bless you, dear. I wonder if I shall hear of you ever. Or see you again.”

“If you want to, you will,” she said simply, glad that it had gone no further.

“Of course you will,” she answered. “I hope your colony will be a success.”

Something in her voice made the conventional words beautiful. Captain Stukeley, on the other side of the door, hearing that quality in his wife’s voice, wished that the keyhole were bigger. With an effort, Captain Margaret rewarded that moving tone.

“When I come back,” he said, “I hope that I shall get to know your husband. Make my apologies to him.”

Her voice seemed to come from her whole nature. All that her lover could remember afterwards was the timbre of the voice; he had no memory of her face. Her eyes he remembered, and her heavy antique ear-rings. “Eyes, ear-rings, and a voice,” he repeated, walking down to the jetty. He wondered what she was. “What is she? What is she? Oh Lord, what is she?” He could not answer it. She was beautiful. Most beautiful. Beautiful enough to drive him mad. Her beauty was not a bodily accident; but a quality of soul, the quality of her nature, her soul made visible. But what was she? She had talked commonly, conventionally. She had said no wise thing, no moving thing. Never once had she revealed herself; she was only kind, fond of flowers, fond of music, a lover of little children. But oh, she was beyond all beauty, that dark, graceful lady with the antique ear-rings. It was her voice. Any conventional, common word her voice made beautiful. He wondered if she were, after all, divine; for if she were not divine, how came it that her voice had that effect, that power? He felt that human beings were all manifestations of a divine purpose. Perhaps that lovely woman was an idea, an idea of refinement, of delicate, exquisite, right grace, clothed in fitting flesh, walking the world with heavenly intention. But if that were so, how the devil came Stukeley there, that was the puzzle? The blood came into that pale face sometimes; and oh, the way she turned, the way she looked, the way of that voice, so thrilling, so infinitely beautiful. Ah well; he had played and lost, and there was his ship with her flag flying; he was bound down and away

But he had loved her, he had seen her, he had been filled with her beauty as a cup with wine. He would carry her memory into the waste places of the world. Perhaps in the new Athens, over yonder, among the magnolia bloom, and the smell of logwood blossom, he would make her memory immortal in some poem, some tragedy, something to be chanted by many voices, amid the burning of precious gums, and the hush of the theatre. On the way, he stopped, thinking of her personal tastes. He, too, would have those tastes. Little things for which she cared should come with him to the Main. He gave the merchant the impression that he was dealing with one melancholy mad.

Drums sounded in the street, for troops were marching west, to a rousing quick-step. They marched well, with their heads held firm in their stocks. The sergeants strutted by them, handling their halberds. Captain Margaret paused to watch them, just as a sailor will stop to watch a ship. “They are like the world,” he thought. “The men drop out, but the regiment remains. It still follows the rags on the broomstick, and a fool commands it, and a halberd drills it, and women and children think it a marvellous fine thing. Well, so be it. I’ve bought my discharge.” The fifes and drums passed out of hearing. “They’ll never come back,” he said to himself. “Perhaps twenty years hence I shall meet one of those men, and be friends with him. Why not now? And why should I see that regiment now? What does it mean? It is a symbol. All events are symbols. What does it mean? What is it a symbol of? Why should that regiment pass to-day, now, after I’ve bidden my love good-bye? And what ought I to learn from it? What message has it for me?” He was convinced that it had a message. He stood still, looking down the road, vacant as a British statue.

He woke up with a start, remembering that he had to buy some materials for the practice of one of his amusing handicrafts. A little gold, some silver, and a few stones of small value, together with glass beads, were all that he needed. He was planning to make jewels for the Indian princesses. “Beads is what they goes for,” so Cammock had said. He bought large stores of beads. He also bought materials for a jewel for Olivia, thinking, as he examined the gems, of the letter he would send with the gift. “It will be written under palm-thatch,” he thought, “in the rains.” He was able to plan the jewel in all its detail. People stared at him with curiosity. He was speaking aloud as he walked. “Nothing matters very much to me,” he said. “I know the meaning of life. Life and death are the same to me.” So saying he arrived upon the jetty, and hailed his boat, which lay at a little distance, her oarsmen playing dice in the stern-sheets. His purchases were stowed between the thwarts, a few grocer’s boxes made an obelisk in the bows. As they shoved off, there came a flash of fire from the side of the Broken Heart. White smoke-rings floated up and away, over her topgallant-masts. Grey smoke clung and drifted along the sea. The roar of the cannon made the Salcombe windows rattle. The boat’s crew grinned. Being boatmen, they had escaped the gun-drill. They knew what all hands were getting from the stalwart Cammock.

He stepped quickly up the side, acknowledging Cammock’s salute and the pipe of the boatswain. Perrin met him at the break of the poop. He noticed that Perrin stared rather hard at him. He grinned at Perrin cheerfully.

It seemed to Perrin that his gaiety was natural, and that, perhaps, the sight of Mrs. Stukeley, with her husband, had proved an effective cure. A gun’s crew swayed the gear out of the boat. The other guns’ crews, heaving the heavy trucks, training the guns forward, wished that they might help. Captain Cammock resumed his drill.

“Starboard battery, on the bow!” he exclaimed. “Port battery, upon the beam. Imagine them hulks. Them’s the enemy. Bring aft your train tackles. No. No. Oh, what are you playing at? Drop them blocks. What in hell are you thinking of there, number three? I’m not talking to you, port battery. Now. Wait for the word of command. Take heed. Silence. Silence there. Now. Cast off the tackles and breechings. Carry on.”

The figures by the guns became active. Though they carried on “in silence,” there was a good deal of noise, many muttered oaths, much angry dropping of rammers. Captain Margaret stood by Cammock, waiting till the guns were fired. He had learned the practical part of naval gunnery from a book in Cammock’s cabin, The Mariner’s Friend, or Compleat Sea Gunner’s Vade Mecum. He watched the drill wearily, knowing how hard and dull a thing it was to the men who swayed the tackles, and hove the trucks along with crows. In the moment of peace after the broadsides, he felt a pity for his men, a pity for humanity. He had hired these men at four shillings a week apiece. He gave them their food, worth, perhaps, tenpence a day, with their rum worth twopence more, bought wholesale, out of bond. “For eleven shillings a week,” he thought, “a man will clog his heavenly soul with gun-drill, which his soul loathes; and refrain from drabs and drams, which his soul hungers and thirsts for.” He felt ashamed that he had not thought more of his men’s comfort.

“Yes,” said Margaret, “it takes time.” He paused a moment, remembered his kindly feeling, and continued. “I want to ask you about fresh meat, captain. Shall I get some fresh meat here, to see us well into the Western Ocean? Or flour, now? I want the hands kept in good trim. I don’t want to lose any by sickness.”

“Fresh meat is always good at sea,” said Cammock. “But there’s better things than meat. For keeping a crew in good shape, you can’t beat sugar and flour. It takes the salt out of their bones.”

Perrin had joined them. “I’ve ordered fresh meat and sugar,” he said. “And three dozen fowls. They’ll be off in about an hour’s time.”

Captain Cammock secured his guns, returned his powder, and piped the boat to be cleared. The hen-coop was lashed down for a full due below the break of the poop. After the meat had been hung in the harness-room, the hands went forward to loaf and stand-by. The two friends walked the poop with Cammock, ten paces and a turn, talking of old times, and of the fortune of the sea.

They were waiting for the ebb-tide to take them out. The wind was fair, but light; they needed the ebb. Waiting like that is always a weariness. Captain Margaret wished that he had never put in to Salcombe. He was a fool, he thought. The thing was over, the wound was closed. He had begun it anew; reopened it. Now he had to apply the cautery. If he had held his course, his ship would have been out of sight of land, going on, under all sail, forty miles south-west from Scilly, bringing him nearer to content at each wave, each bubble. He felt also the discontent of the tide-bound sailor. He felt that he was at liberty wrongfully; that it was wrong for him to be there, doing nothing, merely because the tide still flowed. Perrin, though he was eager to talk to his friend about the results of the farewell call, was bored to death by the inaction, by the sudden stoppage of the routine. As for Cammock, he smoked his pipe, and looked out to windward, wondering inwardly at the strangeness of gentlemen. Thinking that they were hipped, he told them his favourite tale of how the cow came at him one time, when he was hunting for beef near One Bush Key. It was an exciting story; but nothing, he said, to what “happened him” one time when he was loading live steers at Negril, after the cattle pest at Antigua.

“So I got into one of the shore-boats,” he concluded. “I’d had enough of them great horns a yard long.”

Captain Margaret asked if the long-horns were bred from imported stock. Cammock had expected them to laugh. The situation was saved by the entrance of a sixth-rate, under all plain sail, on the last of the flood. Her blue sides were gay with gold leaf; her colours streamed out astern; she broke the water to a sparkle. In her main-chains stood a leadsman crying his melancholy cry of “And a half, three,” which another voice repeated harshly. Though she came quietly she came swiftly; for the flood had strength. She was a lovely thing, swaying in there softly. The Broken Heart saluted her. The friends watched her as she passed. Cammock saw his opportunity. He turned to his companions.

“I’ll tell you what I make of her,” said Cammock. “She was built in France, that’s easy seen, and she was bought or taken at least three years back. She was re-masted at Deptford, and her captain thinks the masting’s spoiled her. She’s been in the West Indies within a year, and there she’d a pile of hard times. Lost her topmasts for one of them. Then she came home, and took a big nob of some sort up the Mediterranean, for political reasons, and in a hurry, with a scratch crew. She’s made a quick passage, and the captain’s cabin is taken up with ladies, probably one big sort of a duchess or that. The Government is short of funds, and the wind’s going to draw more westerly. Her lieutenant is a Devonshire man. And I bet I know her captain’s name and what her hands think of him. That’s what I make of her.”

“Every man to his trade,” said Cammock. He felt that he had retrieved the honour lost over the cows.

At this moment four bells were made; the cabin steward rang them to the cabin supper.

They found the table heaped with dainties; for Perrin and Cammock had foraged ashore together, so that the last night in port might be merry. Punch, strawberries, and a pigeon-pie. Captain Margaret proposed the conundrum, why strawberries would be considered flippant among the bakemeats at a funeral dinner. Captain Cammock gorged the conundrum, hook and all.

III.
OUTWARDS

After supper, the party went on deck again, to see the last of their country. The two mates, who had their cabins in the after ’tween-decks, where they messed, had made all ready for getting under way. The hands walked to and fro about the fo’c’s’le, waiting for the order. The last bum-boat had shoved off for the shore, having sold her last onion and last box of red herrings. Snatches of song came aft to the poop. It was slack water; the sea seemed to be marking time. Already, further up the harbour, a schooner had swung athwart the stream. One or two boats were hoisting their foresails, ready to catch the first ebb. The sun was still strong in the heavens; there was more than an hour of day to come.

“We may as well up hook,” said Cammock, “if you’ll say the word, sir.”

“Right,” said Cammock, bustling forward to the poop-rail. “Hands up anchor, bosun.”

The boatswain’s pipe made the call. The fo’c’s’le was thronged with hurrying sailors. The trumpeter at the gangway blew a flourish, and sounded his “Loath to depart.” The men cheered as the bars were shipped. The waisters tended on the messenger with their nippers. Slowly the pawls began to click as the men strained round, heaving on tiptoe. The two capstans hove in, moving the cable. All down the ’tween-decks rang the snapping creak of a cable at a shaking strain. Some one at one of the bars, down in the half-darkness, began to sing. The crowd made chorus together, lifting the tune. Voice after voice joined in. Bar after bar sounded and shouted. The ship rang with song. The music of the tune floated out over the harbour. In the sixth-rate, the men joined in, till the whole crew were singing. Ashore they heard it. In the schooners at anchor, in the inns ashore, in the dance-house up the town, the music made echo, stirring the heart. As the light wind moved or failed, so died the tune or lifted. With a great sweep it rose up, towering on many voices, then drooped to the solo, to soar again when the men sang. They were singing that they would go no more a-roving. To Margaret and Perrin, standing there at the poop-rail, hearkening to them, much moved by the splendour of the song, the coarse old words seemed touching, infinitely sad, the whole of sea-life set to music.

Now they were moving slowly, making the water talk. Their spritsail was set. Hands were aloft loosing the topsails. On the fo’c’s’le head the mate bustled, looking over the rail. Very slowly the ship moved; but now, as she left her berth, heading for the narrows, past the breakers, where Ram Rock gleamed in his smother, the song at the capstan ceased. On deck, a watch gathered at the halliards. The foretopsail jolted up to the song of “Lowlands.” Sail was being made. Voices from aloft gave notice to hoist away. In the bustle and confusion, with coils of rope rattling down, men running here and there, getting pulls of this and that, and the noise of the sails slatting, the two friends walked the poop, looking back at the sixth-rate, dipping their ensign to her. Cammock had come aft, and was standing by them, looking aloft at the boy on the maintopgallant yard. He spun round suddenly, hearing a hail from the man-of-war.

“Hullo!” he shouted; adding, under his breath, “Lord, she’s going to press us.”

He darted to the bulwark, and shouted “Hullo!” again. He saw the mate of the watch, in a dirty old tarred coat, walking her weather gangway, where a soldier stood at attention in old red regimentals.

The mate of the watch did not speak to them. He merely lifted his hand to Cammock, and pointed towards the jetty.

He seized the glass hastily, and looked at the advancing boat. She was rowing rapidly towards them.

“Who the devil can it be?” said Perrin, as he watched Cammock bring the ship to the wind. “Lord, captain,” he said, with real anger. “It’s that woman with her husband.”

“It’s a lady, that’s plain,” said Cammock. “And they’re in a hurry. The man’s double-banking the stroke oar.”

“Presents, I guess,” said Cammock. “A present of fowls and that. Or a case or two of bottles.”

Captain Margaret flushed, walked up and down uneasily, and called to the steward to open wine.

“There’s something queer,” said Cammock to Perrin. “Hark at all them shouts. Gad, sir, I believe they’re being chased. There’s two shore boats after them. Ain’t they smoking, hey?”

Indeed, the pursuing boats were being pulled furiously; their oars were bending.

“What in James is the rally?” said Cammock. “Is Captain Margaret made King of England or anything?”

“Captain Cammock,” he said, “they’re coming aboard us. They’re being chased. I bet they’re flying from their creditors.”

“Charles,” said Perrin, “they’ve come to beg a passage. Stukeley’s being chased by creditors. Man, for heaven’s sake don’t take them in. Don’t, man.”

“What nonsense,” said Margaret. “Have you never seen these boatman race before?”

He looked at the hurrying boats. Cries came from the pursuers. Men and women were running down the steps to the pier, now black with people, excited, shouting people. Olivia and Stukeley were now almost within fifty yards. Stukeley was standing in the sternsheets, double-banking the stroke with all his strength.

“There, sir,” said Cammock. “Did you hear that, sir? Those fellows in the cutter are singing out to them to stop. There. They’re going to fire.”

Captain Margaret muttered something; his face flushed suddenly, and then became pale. A gun was fired from the cutter.

“Captain Cammock,” cried Margaret, “lively now; get her off to her course.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, as the ship paid off. “Are you not going to pick them up?”

A hail came from the pursuing boats. “Ship ahoy! Stop those persons on your peril.”

“King’s officers, sir,” said Cammock. “They’re fugitives from the law. It’s transportation to receive fugitives, sir.”

Two more guns were fired in quick succession; a bullet from one of them struck the bends of the Broken Heart.

“Arrest those fugitives. In the name of the King,” came the shout of a man in the cutter.

The words were clear enough. All that Margaret saw was Olivia’s face, laughing and happy, her great eyes bright, as the boat swept alongside.

“It’s a hanging matter, Charles,” said Perrin, biting his thumbs till the blood came.

“I don’t care if they hang me fifty times,” said Margaret. “They fired at her.”

“Oh, all right. All right,” said Perrin resignedly. “Now we’re in for trouble,” he added angrily. “Oh, damn it. Damn it. I knew how it would be.”

“Here,” he said, drawing them aside. “We’re coming with you. I’m wanted. And I’m coming with you. She thinks I’m coming to help—to help the Indians.” He seemed to choke with laughter. He was out of breath from rowing.

Cammock did not answer, but walked to the rail, and called to the boatmen in the boat. “Hook on these boxes lively now,” he said. “You’d best come aboard, all four of you, unless you want a taste of gaol.”

Two of the men hooked on the trunks in one sling; the other two cast off the boat and dropped astern, as the tackle swept the trunks over the side. It was all done in a moment.

Perrin found himself with Stukeley, who was talking. “She must never know it,” he was saying, between gasps. “Oh, Lord, what a joke, eh?” Perrin heard him absently, for his ears were straining to hear what his friend said to Olivia. There she was, flushed with the race, swaying a little as the ship swayed. He heard the words, “We beat them,” and saw her go to the rail to watch the pursuing boats. Perrin took off his hat, advanced to her, and bade her welcome. He could have hurled her overboard willingly. His reason for advancing was to see what the pursuing boats were doing.

“It was such a race,” said Olivia. “But we beat them. They chased us all the way from Halwell. It was such fun.” She talked on excitedly; Perrin had never seen her so radiant. She was delighted to be on board, going to the New World, in a real ship. And then the suddenness of it, and the rush of the boat-race.

As for the boats, one of them, the cutter, was a hundred yards or more astern, pulling hard upon their quarter. The other was rowing up alongside the sixth-rate. Perrin saw a man in a red coat waving a paper from her sternsheets. The man-of-war’s deck was full of men, who had crowded to the side to watch. Cammock was hurrying his hands. His maintopsail and topgallantsail were mastheaded together, to songs which made Olivia hasten to the poop-rail to hearken. Loud was the jolly chorus. The ship felt the sail. Bubbles burst brightly over the trailing anchor-flakes. Old Harry beacon drove by, rolling in the wash they made. Cammock walked aft hurriedly to take a bearing. He noticed then for the first time that the cutter which had fired on them was the red cutter of the man-of-war. He could now see her broadside. Her men fired no more. They were stepping the mast, while two of them kept way upon her. “We’re in for it now,” he thought. He let his helmsman feel that it would not do to glance astern.

“You mind your eye,” he said fiercely. He took an anxious glance at the Wolf Rock, and at the toppling seas on the Blackstone. “I never saw a beastlier place,” he said. “Haul in there, leadsman,” he shouted. “Another cast, now.”

The ship seemed to pause a moment, like a bird suddenly stricken with the palsy. A kind of death seemed to lay hold of her, checking all on board. She dragged a moment, and then drove on, muddying the sea. She had touched Ripple Sands.

“My God, we’re done if you stick,” said Cammock. “And here’s Splat Point and the Bass.”

“Hello, captain,” he began. “My old sea-dog. Eh? Where can I get a spot of brandy? Eh?”

Cammock took his cross-bearing without answering. Then he looked steadily at the harbour-mouth, and at the curved white line of the bar. He bade his helmsman “come to” a point. He conned the ship, ordered a small pull of a sheet, and glanced astern at the man-of-war.

Cammock glanced at him for a second. “Lots of dirty pubs ashore there,” he said coldly. He turned to look again at the man-of-war.

He was not too far from her to see that she was casting loose her forecastle gun. He looked bitterly at Stukeley. “I wonder what you’ve done, my duck,” he said under his breath. He walked up to the little group by the mizen shrouds; he wished not to annoy the lady.

“Look here, sir,” he said hurriedly, “the man-of-war’s going to fire on us. I don’t know what reasons you may have for taking these people aboard. But the man’s escaping from justice, and the lady’s been bamboozled. In another ten ticks you’ll have a round-shot into you. Now, sir, is it fair? A round-shot may kill and maim you a dozen hands, with the decks so busy as they are. Let me heave her to, sir. The man’s a damned scum. And it’s hanging if you’re caught.”

Perrin joined them, leaving Olivia alone. Her husband was talking to the helmsman, getting no answer.

“Charles, for the Lord’s sake, send them in,” said Perrin. “Do, for the Lord’s sake, think what you’re doing. You’ll ruin yourself. You’ll wreck the cruise. You simply can’t have them aboard. Look at that great hulking beast abaft there.”

“Your old sea-dog hasn’t learned manners, eh?” said Stukeley insolently. “You must teach him.”

He stared at Cammock, who returned the stare, and then spun upon his heel to con the ship through the channel.

“Oh, Charles. For the last time. Think what you’re doing. I must heave her to. You aren’t fit to decide. Heave to, Captain Cammock.”

“As she goes,” cried Margaret angrily. “No, Edward,” he added quietly; “I’ll take them. I’ll save her one shock, anyway. And if I must hang for it, I must. That’s settled.”

“He’s her husband,” said Margaret. “And they fired on her. They fired on her. Now go and talk to her. No more talk, Ned. They’re coming with us. Go and talk to her.”

Perrin turned from his friend with a gesture of childish passion. He took off his hat, ripped the brim from the crown with a single violent tug, and flung both portions into the sea. Then he walked swiftly down the ladder (and to his cabin) muttering curses so vehemently that they seemed to shake him. As he passed under the cabin door a flash came from the bows of the sixth-rate. A ball from a long nine-pounder hit up a jet from the sea close alongside, then bounded on, raising successive jets, till it was spent. Another shot flew over them. A third, fired after an interval, brought the maintopgallant braceblock down. A part of the sheave just missed Olivia’s head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV.
A CABIN COUNCIL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

V.
STUKELEY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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?”

“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.

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

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

“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?”

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?”

“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?”

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

“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?”

“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?”

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

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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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.

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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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. 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——”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.

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.

“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.

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

“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?”

“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?”

“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.”

“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——”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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?”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.

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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

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

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.

“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.

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.

“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?”

“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.

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

“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.”

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.”

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

“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.”

“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

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?”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.

“Why do I sigh? Captain Cammock was signalling to me. I was afraid we might be quarantined. But it’s all right now. He’s signalled that it’s all right. I’m relieved.”

“Charles,” she said, pausing in the alleyway, “I sometimes feel that I’ve given you pain by coming with you like this. Have I?”

“We’re old friends, you and I, Olivia. Old friends like you and I don’t get angry with each other.”

“Some day I hope you’ll marry, Charles. You’d make the right woman very happy.”

“You will, Charles. You will. And yet it would be sad to see all one’s boy and girl friends married. A woman doesn’t like to feel old.”

“Now come in and see Tom. Do you think there are good doctors here?” The question was earnestly asked. It seemed to Margaret that it took for granted that he knew, that it was the woman’s way of taking him into her confidence, into the dark, locked cupboard, meagrely catalogued without, which is a woman’s confidence. It made a strange jangling of all his strings to hear her. In the dark passage there, with her great eyes looking into his, and the earrings gleaming palely against the hair, she moved him, she shook him out of tune.

“Olivia,” he said, stammering. “Olivia. If. When. When your. If you ever have a child, Olivia. Will you let me—let me—— Let me see it often. Be its godfather. Be something to it?”

“Yes,” she said softly, pressing the back of his hand quickly. “Yes, Charles. I promise you that.”

“Come in to Tom, now,” she said in a low voice. She was moved and touched. They went in.

Stukeley sat at the cabin table, drinking brandy without water. He was white and sick. Their entrance made him start up with an oath.

“What’s the matter, Stukeley?” said Margaret. “We aren’t going into—into quarantine. Cammock’s signalled that it’s all right. What’s the matter with you? Let me feel your pulse.”

“Oh, my head’s all right. Don’t bother. Don’t bother.” He rose from his seat, laughing wildly. “What a turn it gave me,” he said. “I’m going to see old Brandyco. I’m all right again, Olivia.” He took her by the shoulders and bent back her head so that he might kiss her. “Poor little Olive,” he said caressingly, pinching her arms. “She’s been worrying, ever so. Hasn’t she? Hasn’t she? Eh?” He kissed her eyes. Margaret turned away, wondering whether the kiss smelt worse of brandy or tobacco.

“Don’t go on deck,” said Olivia. “Don’t go on deck, Tom dear. The sun’s so strong.”

“Stukeley looks on the captain as a sort of a show,” said Margaret quickly. “The captain has just been talking with strangers. Wouldn’t you like to see a man who’d really seen a new face, Olivia; and heard a new voice?”

“No,” said Margaret, leaving the cabin. “But I don’t think there’s much wrong. I think he’ll soon be all right, Olivia. Make him lie down and rest. I must just see the captain.” He went on deck hurriedly, holding his breath till he was in the fresh air. “Poison,” he said to himself. “Poison. What a life. What squalor. That woman going to have a child. And Stukeley, pah. Drinking and smoking there, waiting to be dragged to gaol. She doesn’t see it. One would think he must shock every fibre of her nature. And he doesn’t. He gives her love, I suppose. That was the only thing she wanted. And now that beast is her standard.” In the pure air he blamed himself for thinking ill of her. “After all,” he thought, “Stukeley isn’t a beast to her. She, with her much finer sense, sees something in him. Something that is all the world to her. Something beautiful. She may even be happy with him. She may be.” He thought pitifully of women and angrily of men. It was all wrong, he thought. Men and women could never understand each other, except in rare moments, in love, when the light in each heart burned clearly. Women were hidden; they were driven to covert, poor trembling fawns. They were like the nymphs hidden in the reeds by the river. They took care that men should see only the reeds. He had never really seen Olivia; he was not sure if he knew her yet; he couldn’t say what it was that he loved. He did not care; he was not going to ask. She was beautiful; her beauty moved him to the bone; beauty was in all of her, in the whole woman, the whole nature, body and spirit, in the ways of body and spirit. She was going to have a child; Stukeley’s child; red-cheeked, curly; a little boy-beast, the bully of his school. Ah, but the child would be hers, too. She would bring it up to be like her. He would have that refinement of voice, that lovely, merry, almost timid manner, her eyes, her grace, her shyness. Captain Cammock, who had been watching him for a full thirty seconds, half amused, half sad, that his passion had so strong a hold still, even in a moment of anxiety, now tapped him on the shoulder.

“It’s all right, sir. Nothing come yet. You can land your goods as soon as you like. The Governor said he remembered you, and hopes that you will wait upon him.”

“Yes. We must feast to-night. And send the boat in for a cask of fresh water. Two-month water is poor tipple.”

“Yes. What would you say to six-month water? We must give a free pump in port. And a cask of rum or beer, sir, on the quarter-deck, would help our trade. For visitors you know, sir.”

“Then make the Governor and the others your friends. Send ’em a few cases of wine. Square the man-of-war captains. There’ll be no trouble if you make them all your friends.”

During the next few days there was bustle in the Broken Heart. Visitors came aboard to look at samples of goods; to talk with the seamen; and to taste the rum and beer, which was served out, a cup to each comer, for the first forty-eight hours of her stay in the port. All sorts came aboard her; traders and planters, oyster and fisher men, soldiers from the fort, officers of the Governor’s house, Indians, men from the backwoods, trappers, a sun-burned, good-humoured, silent company, very sharp at a bargain.

After the first two days, the trade began. The seamen rigged up trading-booths ashore, with some old sails, stretched upon poles. Planks were laid upon casks to serve as trade tables. The goods were arranged at the back of each booth, in the care of trusty hands. Clothing was more in demand than any other kind of goods; but the only clothes bought were those of fine quality and beautiful colour. It puzzled Captain Margaret to see a small planter, owning perhaps only one white apprenticed servant, or redemptioner, buying clothes of great price, putting them on in the booth, and riding off, like an earl, on his little Virginian horse, to his little clearing in the wilderness. A few planters, especially those who were newly come to the colony from the islands, where they had been privateering, paid for their purchases in ounces of silver. It was easy to recognize these planters. They had not lost their sea-walk, nor that steadfast anxiety of gaze which marks the sailor. They all carried arms; though the richer sort of them wore only pistols and a knife, leaving the carriage of the musket, the bag containing lead, a mould, and some bullets, and the heavy leather-covered powder-bottle, to a redemptioner, a Moskito Indian, or, more rarely, to a negro slave. Cammock had known some of these men in the past. Often, as he sat in the shade, watching the beauty of the scene, now so glorious with coming autumn, Captain Margaret would see one of these strangers approaching, followed by his man. He was always impressed by them, sometimes by their physical splendour, sometimes by the sense that they were full of a rather terrible exuberance. As he watched such a man approaching the booths, puffing at his pipe, dressed in elaborate clothes, hung about with silver at all points, with silver buttons, silver brooches, silver discs, buckles of heavy silver, links and stars of silver, silver chains and necklets, so that the man’s whole wealth was on his body at one time, Captain Margaret was conscious of a feeling of envy. His own training, his own beautifully ordered life in an English college, had shut him off from such a life as this man’s. This clashing, tinkling pirate—he was nothing more, although he often looked so fine—was master of his world. Captain Margaret was the slave of his; the unhappy slave. The pirate could leave his plantation when he wished, letting the wild bines choke his tobacco. He could ship himself in any ship in the harbour, and go to any part of the world which pleased his fancy. If chance flung him down in a tropical forest, on an island in the sea, in a battle, in a shipwreck, at a wedding, he would know what to do, what to say, what to propose. The world had no terrors for such a man. Captain Margaret forgot, when he thought thus enviously, that he himself was one of the few who had escaped from the world, escaped from that necessity for tooth and claw which is nature; and that by being no longer “natural,” instinctive, common, he had risen to something higher, to a point from which he could regard the pirate as an interesting work of art. He never pursued his fancy far enough to ask himself if he would willingly imitate or possess that work; because the pirate, passing him by with a hard, shrewd glance, would stride into the booth, taking off his hat to thrust back his long hair. He would listen then to the conversation. If the man was known to Cammock, the talk began promptly.

Then they would mix some rum and sugar, and sprinkle the mixture with a squeeze of a scrap of lemon-peel. They would drink together, calling their curious toasts of “Salue,” “Here’s How,” “Happy Days,” and “Plenty Dollars.” Then, over the trade as the men haggled—

“I got about fifty acres burned off. That’s the grant here, Lion, fifty acres. Tobacco, you know. I do a bit of fishing, whiles. A nice handy sloop, I got. Small, of course.”

“A sight too good, if you ask me. This black soil’ll sprout a coffin. But tobacco’s away down. We burn half our crops, trying to keep up prices. It’s only worth about ninepence.”

“Yes. I do a bit that way. Other things, too. I’m in with some of Ned’s lot.”

“Yes. We run blacks sometimes, too. Run ’em into Carolina. New York sometimes.”

“Indians. I done a bit that way, too, Lion. You catch two or three squaws. They fetch as much as a white woman down to Campeachy. Two or three of them; it runs into money.”

“I’ve known that done,” said Cammock. “The man done it was Robert Jolly. He come to a jolly end, what’s more. The braves got him.”

“There’s always a risk of that,” said Ned. “And it’s 10,000 lbs. of leaf fine, if the Governor gets you.”

“Well, Ned. If you want fun, why don’t you come in with us. And bring in some of your mates.”

“Not on your life. But we’re in for a big thing. A very big thing. I wouldn’t mention it. But you see, I know you, Ned; and so, you see, it’s like this.”

Between them, Margaret and Cammock persuaded some half a dozen recruits to join during the first few days in port. The new recruits promised to come aboard when the ship sailed, but not before, lest the Governor should grow suspicious. They agreed, also, seeing that Margaret had a commission, to submit to a sharper discipline than was usual among privateers. Margaret had no intention of admitting these men into his fo’c’s’le. They were not waged men like the seamen shipped in London; but volunteers agreeing to serve for shares. To admit them into the fo’c’s’le, where they would enjoy certain privileges not shared by the sailors, would cause bad blood, and bickering for precedence. To avoid this, he planned with Cammock to create a military company, to be called “the men of war.” The privateers who joined him were to be enlisted in this company, under the command (as he suggested) of an old buccaneer (one of the first to join) who kept an alehouse some miles out of Jamestown. This old man was named Raphael Gamage. He had served with Cammock many years before in Morgan’s raid on Porto Bello. As far as Cammock could remember, he was a trusty old man, well liked. The troop of men of war (when fully recruited) was to mess in the ’tween-decks; just forward of the officers’ cabins and the wardroom. At sea, they were to work the mizen-mast, standing three watches. In battle, half of them were to man the quarter-deck guns, while the other half walked the poop as sharp-shooters. But all of them, at all times, were to obey the officers of the ship like the other members of her crew. It was a pleasure to Perrin to help in the arrangement of the ’tween-decks for the reception of these men. He screwed in hammock-hooks and battens, and designed removable mess-tables which the carpenter, being one of the politest of men, thought equal to the Navy.

Trade throve beyond their dreams; for the Broken Heart was the first ship in since the tobacco crop. Her general cargo of hemp and flax seed, tools, wines, ploughs, linens and woollens, boxes, cart-wheels, rope, weapons, books, and musical instruments, sold at good rates, for silver and leaf tobacco.

Captain Margaret had planned to arrive at Jamestown early in the season, so that he might secure the cream of the tobacco crop before the summer fleet came in. Now that he was safe for a little while, he set about his business. At the end of the fifth day he chartered a couple of swift sloops from a Jamaica merchant, and loaded them, in one day, under official supervision, with fifty tons of assorted goods. He kept some twenty seamen at the work, from turn-to time till sunset, driving them himself. His zeal startled all of them. But Margaret was working with his whole nature to save the merchants who had fitted him out. He felt that he had risked their money, by gratifying a foolish whim; now he was to save them, having seen his chance. The bales and casks swung up out of the hold into the sloops. The winches clanked, the ropes creaked, the bosun swore at the slingmen. The slingmen, dripping in the hot darkness, damned and spat, and worked their hands full of splinters. A fine dust rose up out of the hatch to quiver in the sunlight. The slings fell with a rattling thud on to the boxes below; the block creaked as the fall was overhauled; a thirsty throat called “Hoist.” The bosun, too hurried to pipe, bent over the coamings to spit, telling the men on deck to hoist or sway away. Up came the boxes and casks, swinging to the yard-arm tackle. The boatswain, bearing them over, swearing, followed them to the rail, as the yard-arm was rounded in. Then there came the “High enough. Walk back”; and the sling strained slowly downwards to the stevedores, whose black skins gleamed in the sun. By sunset the sloops were cast off from the Broken Heart. Cammock and Margaret swung themselves into the stern of one of them as she sheered out. The slingmen, relieved from their hell below, stared at them silently over the rail with grime-ringed eyes. The sweat had streaked the dirt on their faces, making them look haggard. Like a row of corpses, dug up after the first day of burial, those silent men stood. Margaret, looking at them, thought with horror that the lives of some men might be expressed, defined, summed, in a sort of purser’s tally: so many boxes hoisted out, so many creatures killed, so many pots drunk, so many books read: with the sum added, the life extinct, nothing remaining, nothing for God or the Devil; merely a sum in addition for the harping quirers.

Sail was packed upon the sloops. All that night they drove, a red lamp burning astern. At dawn, when the sea below the woods was like steel, though tremulous in pale light, they were standing in to a jetty on the Accomac side. It was dusk in the clearing where the house stood; but the stumps of felled trees stood up black, a troop of dwarfs; and the cattle moved dimly among them, cropping grass with a wrench. Casks stood at the edge of the jetty; there was a gleam upon their hoops. There was a gleam of dew upon the forest, as a little dawn-wind, stirring the birds, made a patter of dropping. A fire with a waving flame burned under a pent-house, making a thick, sweet smoke, which floated everywhere, smelling of burning gum, driving away the mosquitoes. When the flame leaped up, brightly shaking, it showed a tilted cart, with a man under a red robe asleep against the wheel. Quietly, before the light was come, they made the sloops fast and stepped ashore. They stamped to kill the numbness in their feet; then, rousing the sleeper, they helped him to prepare a breakfast, of apples, fish, and new cider, before trading for his tobacco.

All that day they plied along the Accomac coast, Cammock in the Peach, Margaret in the Daisy, buying tobacco at every clearing, paying the planters in goods. When the Peach sloop was full, Cammock drove her back, with her boom-end under, to sling the tobacco into the Broken Heart at dawn, and to fill up again with trade. Margaret’s keenness puzzled him; the man was on fire. “I thought he was one of these dreamy fellows,” he said to himself. “But he drives a tight bargain, and he goes at it like a tiger.”

He went aboard the ship, putting all hands to the work of clearing and reloading the sloop. Mr. Cottrill met him at the gangway with word that two of their best men had deserted from the trading-booth, taking with them about fifty pounds’ worth of goods; that they had gone off at sunset, just as the sloops cast off; and that one of the men aboard had heard that they were going for a run with a gang of Indian-snatchers. Worse still. The foretopmast was sprung at the heel, and the new spar couldn’t be ready for a week. Cammock had been at a driving strain for a couple of days; but, like most hard cases, he found the second day a day of exaltation, of nervous excitement. The news pleased him; it occupied his mind. He bade his men get out trade from all three hatches as fast as the winches could sway it out, while he with a dozen men went ashore in the sloop, still half full of tobacco.

As soon as he got ashore he struck the booth, crammed all the goods into the sloop, lock, stock, and barrel, and carried them back aboard. As they were thrust into the sloop he made a rough inventory.

“Now, Mr. Cottrill,” he said, “just take this list and check it as soon as you’ve got a chance. Then check it with the trade-book, and find out what’s missing. Then check that with the clerk’s list. Rig up an awning from the break of the poop to the mast there. That’ll be your trade booth. Call the trade clerk. Call Mrs. Inigo. Mr. Harthop, you’ll keep your trade booth here in future. Mrs. Inigo, you’ll have to give up your berth in the sail-locker. See to that, Mr. Cottrill. Mrs. Inigo’ll sleep in the steward’s room. The steward’ll have to go into the round-house. Mr. Harthop, you’ll use the sail-room, where Mrs. Inigo’s been sleeping, as your sample-room. See that no one goes up the alleyway to the cabin. Keep a clear gangway from the alley to the companion there. Mr. Cottrill, give Mr. Harthop three hands and let him arrange his shop. He’d better stone out the sail-room after breakfast. Shift your things, Mrs. Inigo. You, too, steward. Mr. Cottrill, pick out three good hands to be under Mr. Harthop. Quiet, steady men. Pick one or two of the boys. Mr. Harthop, what were you doing to let those men away?”

Mr. Harthop, a little, bald jocular man with a pale face and long drooping moustaches, which gave him a sad, Chinese expression, rolled slowly forward, peering under his spectacles.

“Why didn’t you send one of the men? Or wait till trade was over for the day?”

“Women’ll be the death of this cruise,” said Cammock to himself. “Who was in charge while you were gone?”

“Please, zur,” said Smale, a short young ploughboy from Gloucestershire, “I were a-’avin’ my zupper, zur. ’N I seed a owd feller come up and give ’is fist like to Andrews. And her’d a-done it avore. Zo they talked, and by’n by, Captain Cammock, zur, another feller come like. Her said as Mr. Harthop said as I wus to go to Governor’s house, to fetch a few fowls for th’ ’en-coop. Zo I went. And her’d all gone avore I’d come back. And her’d took the things.”

“Mr. Cottrill,” he said. “You, Mr. Ramage, and the bosun, will have to stand trade watches. No visitor is to talk to any of the hands under any pretext whatsoever.”

“You may go, Mr. Harthop. It ought never to have been allowed. Directly my back was turned.” He was blaming himself for having been so easy of access, and so friendly with old acquaintance. “Naturally,” he said to himself, “the men got notions. Well, they’ll get no more.” He walked to the waist, where the work was going busily with songs. The sloop was being loaded forward as she discharged abaft. His presence made the men zealous. He had never seen cargo worked so well.

“Pearson, Captain Cammock,” said Harris. He smeared his mouth with the back of his hand, and left a cask to dangle aloft over the hatch. He ran towards Cammock in a shambling trot.

“Tell Pearson that I want him. Mr. Cottrill, choose a good man to stand night watchman with Pearson, to walk round the ship, harbour-guard, all night long, in opposite directions. No man whatever to come aboard or to leave the ship after sunset. Pearson, when you come on duty to-night you’ll apply to Mr. Ramage for a pair of pistols. You’re to shoot at any man who attempts to desert. You’re to heave cold shot into any boat which tries to come alongside. Tell the lamp-man he’s to have lanterns lit abreast the main and fore chains. Call all hands if any boat comes off to us after two bells. You’re to shoot at any boat which does not answer to a hail. You understand.”

“Yes, sir. Shoot at any man as tries to desert, and any boat as don’t reply.”

“H’m,” said Cammock to himself, noting the faces of the crew. “There’ll be no more deserting from this hooker.”

“Carry on,” he said aloud. “Bosun, call away the gig. Let the gig’s crew dress. Doctor, there, kill me six fowls. The best we’ve got in the fattening coop. Steward there. Call the steward you, boy. Tell him to bring a dozen Burgundy. Now, Mr. Cottrill, a word with you, sir. Mr. Perrin and the rest, are they all well?”

“Mr. Stukeley’s like fat Jack of the Boneyard, I guess, sir. He’s bigger than the admiral.”

“He’s been wanting the gig’s crew all day. I told him I needed the men in the hold. He’d have to use the long-boat, I said, when she goes in for water.”

“So he came and called me down before the men. Said I wasn’t a gentleman. He said as Captain Margaret had said he and his lady was to have the gig whenever they wanted her.”

“No, sir. So I up and said that I’d had no orders. Then he calls me down some more; and goes and gets Mr. Perrin to come to me, to say that Captain Margaret wished to oblige Mr. Stukeley in all things.”

“So I told Mr. Perrin, pretty quick, I said, I was in command, I said. It wasn’t for him to tell me my duty. I told him to tell his society friends they could do the Barney’s Bull act. They’d get no gig out of me. That’s what I said.”

“So that Mr. Stukeley, he went ashore in the long-boat, after calling me down some more before the men. He got a shore-boat to go about in. After that he said his boatman should have dinner aboard of us. I stopped that. But Mr. Stukeley was very rude, and then the man got rude. All hands working the hatch there, hearing it all. Mrs. Stukeley beside. So that was two blocks, I thought. I give the boatman a thick ear there and then. I told him if he didn’t sheer off I’d drop a cold shot into him. And I would have. Mr. Stukeley told me to keep my hands off the man. Then the man wanted his money. My hat, we had it all up and down. I thought that Stukeley would hit me, one time. I wish ’e ’ad done. I’d a laid him out.”

“I saw some of the hands knocked off to listen, so I give them a few. And he stood there telling them not to take no blows. Telling ’em to down me. And then the long-boat come alongside with water. Mr. Ramage was in her, of course. He hears the row, and he come over the side just as quick as cut. He just took that Stukeley by the arm, and walked him into the alleyway. ‘Don’t you incite no sailors, sir,’ he says. ‘No more of that, sir. I respects your feelings, sir,’ he says, ‘but for Gord’s and your lady’s sake,’ he says, ‘you quit. You don’t know what you’re doin’.’ That was the end for that time. I suppose we’ll ’ave another dollop of it to-day.”

“Put him in irons at once, publicly, if he gives you any more trouble. And he’s not to talk to any man. That’s another thing. Iron him directly he gives a back answer. Tell Mr. Ramage, too. Now bring those fowls along doctor. I’m off to the man-of-war sloop, about them Indian-snatchers.”

He pulled aboard the man-of-war sloop, with his present of wine and poultry. As he sat in his gig calling to the men to pull the stroke out, he wrote descriptions of the missing seamen.

When he returned to the Broken Heart, the sloop was nearly full of trade. It was just half-past seven. He went to his cabin to wash, walking quickly and quietly, like a forest Indian. There was some slight noise to his left as he entered the alleyway. He turned sharply, to look into the sail-room, to see if it were ready for the samples. The door shut in his face with a bang. He could not swear to it—the door shut in a fraction of a second—yet it seemed to him that he had seen Stukeley with Mrs. Inigo, for one bright flash of time. He would not open to make sure; for it was a woman’s cabin; he might have been mistaken; but he turned in his tracks and blew his whistle. A man ran to him.

“Get some dry stone, and stone this door clean,” he said, showing Mrs. Inigo’s door. “Stone the outside, and keep at it till breakfast.” That would keep Stukeley within (if he were within) until breakfast, at any rate. He flung his clothes from him and swilled himself with water; then dressed rapidly and went to Perrin’s cabin. “Mr. Perrin,” he said, bursting in after knocking once, “how are you, Mr. Perrin? I want you to keep your eye on Mrs. Inigo’s door. See who comes out of it. Is Mrs. Stukeley well?”

“We’d a lot of trouble yesterday. I’ll be glad when you’re back for good.”

“Cheer up, sir,” said Cammock. “Remember. Mrs. Inigo’s door till one bell. If Mrs. Inigo comes out, open it and search the cabin.” He went on deck again, where the steward met him with a tray. He sat down on a coaming and made a hurried breakfast, while the sloop’s crew hoisted sail. When he had finished his meal, he glanced into the alleyway, where the man was rubbing holystone across the door. “Anybody in there?” he said.

“I hear some one shifting around, sir,” said the man. “The woman’s getting her gear, sir.”

“Right,” said Cammock. “I wish I could stay to see the end,” he said to himself. “But I must be off.” In a few minutes he was bound again for Accomac, under a huge square cutter’s foresail, which made the sloop leap like a flying-fish.

Very late one night, having just arrived aboard after a week of labour, Captain Margaret sat in his cabin comparing tally-books with Captain Cammock; but quietly, lest they should wake Perrin. He was very tired; for the hurry from one clearing to another, and the long rides into the wilderness to planters who lived far away, had been a strain. He had endured them only in the fire of his excitement. He had enjoyed his week of bargaining; the zest of the struggle had been like wine to him. On the lonely clearings, or drinking with strangers in woodmen’s shacks, he had forgotten his love, forgotten the torment of the voyage, Olivia’s child, the settlement on Darien. All had been forgotten. Now that the struggle was over, he felt the exhaustion; but nodding as he was, over his tally-book, his whirling brain praised him with that excited inner voice which talks to the overwrought. “You’ve got the pick of the crop, the pick of the crop, the cream of the year’s leaf,” the voice kept telling him. He had bought seven hundred tons of the best tobacco in the colony; the little that remained to be sold was the poor, crude leaf from the young plants and the poorly cured, poorly flavoured leaf from the distant walks in the forest.

“We’ve got the whole trade, sir,” said Cammock. “You needn’t fear for your owners.”

“No,” said Margaret. “Now to get a bottom to carry it home. Of course, in a week we ought to have the summer fleet here.”

“They’ll not find much,” said Cammock. “We’ve got it all. But supposing a letter comes with the fleet. We shall have to sail that night probably, shan’t we? Supposing we’ve to cut and run, leaving it all in the warehouse?”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Margaret, “I thought of that, too. Heigho, captain, I’m tired. This week has been an experience. I shall leave Mr. Harthop in charge ashore, with powers to deal. He’s shrewd. He’s got a funny way of getting at the point with that queer humour as a cloak. And I’ve got Howard, Cammock. Howard’s our agent.”

“Oh yes. That was my first move. I knew old Howard wanted specie; so I went to see him and told him my plans. He was expensive, though. He knew his worth to a penny.”

“What it is to be a gentleman. If I’d gone, he’d have kicked me out. Well. Birth tells, they say.”

“A servile, insolent, bribing, tipping race, the English,” he said. “An Englishman will never do anything for any one without expecting something.”

“Oh, you’re awake, are you? At it again, too,” said Cammock. “How about that door, sir?”

“Oh. Mrs. Inigo’s door,” said Perrin. “Oh yes. Yes. Mrs. Inigo came out at eight bells, and then I tried to get in. But it was locked on the inside. So I called Mr. Harthop’s three men, and the man who was scrubbing it.”

“And I told them ‘the door was jammed.’ So they’d a jemmy there, for opening cases with, and we burst the door open. We found Stukeley inside.”

“He was on his knees on the deck, sponging that blue silk dress Olivia wears.”

“He was rather red in the face, but he asked us what was the matter. Then he asked me to give him a hand, as he’d got to get the dress ready for Olivia, he said. She’d spilt some chocolate down it. It was——”

“Afterwards. Not then. He kept saying that Olivia wished to wear the dress at breakfast.”

“Yes. Oh yes. I don’t know, Charles. There might have been nothing wrong.”

“Well,” said Margaret. “I suppose we’ll have to discharge Mrs. Inigo, and pay her passage home. Captain Cammock, what do you think of Stukeley?”

“I’m like the parrot,” said Cammock, “I think a lot more’n I’ll say. Now turn in, all hands. A long lie, and pie for dinner. Captain Margaret, if you don’t turn in, you’ll find you won’t sleep. Oh. Has Mr. Stukeley been in irons?”

“He’s been threatened with them. He’s been very quiet though lately. That Inigo time gave him a scare, I think.”

As Captain Margaret drew his bunk-curtains and settled himself to sleep, the voices in his brain took bodies to them, fiery bodies, which leaned and called to him. “You’ve got the pick of the crop, the pick of the crop, the pick of the crop,” they called. “Lucky devil. Lucky devil. Oh, you lucky devil.”

VIII.
IN PORT

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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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?”

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

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

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.”

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.

“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?”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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.”

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

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:—

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.

IX.
A FAREWELL DINNER

Standing on the poop, looking seaward, the five cabin-dwellers watched the summer fleet come in. It came in haltingly, a scattered troop of ships, some with spars gone, one or two, fir-built, streaked white where a shot had struck; all seaworn. Cammock, watching them, sent his boat round to the “men of war” to order them aboard at once. Harthop had already been settled ashore, in charge of the tobacco, under the Governor’s eye. He would make good terms for the ship’s owners; the merchants at home could hardly lose on the venture.

“We’re all right, sir,” said Cammock to Margaret. “There’s probably a letter. But the Governor’s your friend. You needn’t worry.”

“I wish I could see things as you see them, captain,” said Margaret. “But I can’t. How is it you always have a plan? How do you discipline yourself? How is it you’re always ready?”

“I dunno, sir. I’ve only got a few things to think of, and I think ’em out. P’r’aps that’s it. But just step aft, sir. Look here, sir. We’re ready to sail. The new topmast’s aloft. We’re a little light, perhaps, but nothing to hurt. The thing is—are you going to give him up? You got to decide now.”

“There’ll be time enough to arrange something else when we get there. But she must be spared the shock.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll send the long-boat in for all the fresh meat and fruit there is.”

“Oh, I know, captain. I know it’s not the rightest thing for her. A voyage to sea.”

“She’ll get that anyway, sir. Either way. Very good, sir. I’ll have all ready to sail. I’ve sent for the ‘men of war.’ They’ll join us either here, or between the Points. Well, Mr. Perrin. We’re off to-night, sir.”

“But we’re all dining with the Governor. You’ve surely not forgotten that, Charles.”

“What if it is? We can’t throw the Governor over. We must dine with the Governor. What? You an Englishman and want not to dine with a lord?”

“No Englishman would arrest a guest at dinner. He values his digestion and his butler’s opinion too much. There’s no risk. Oh, we must go to the dinner. I’ve got a new American coat to go in.”

“No harm in it, sir,” said Cammock. “It might divert the lady, poor thing.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, sighing. “If it won’t tire her.” He crossed over to the Stukeleys. “Olivia,” he said, “Perrin has just reminded me that we’re dining to-night at the Governor’s. It won’t tire you?”

“We both want to go. Tom’s going to sing ‘Twankydillo.’ We may have enough ladies for a dance.”

“Ah-h.” She turned white. Little as she liked Virginia, she knew it, she had proved it. The unknown was before her now, close at hand, shapeless yet, ill-defined, a spectral country. For a moment she stared blankly at Margaret with the eyes of a frightened animal. “Isn’t it. Isn’t it rather sudden?” she asked.

“Yes. Rather sudden,” he answered in a hard voice. “But, of course, we may not go. You see, Stukeley. You see, Olivia. The summer fleet there may have letters for us. May have letters for us.” He groped about for an excuse. “My owners,” he went on. “My merchants may wish me to proceed at once. On the other hand, we may be told to trade at Charleston. Or trade rather longer here. Though we’ve done well here. It’s possible. You understand, Olivia. I told you the day we left Falmouth. Our whole aim was to have our work done before the summer fleet arrived. To buy up the tobacco crop before some of it is fully cured. And, to tell the truth, we’ve hurried all we could.”

“Don’t worry, old girl,” said Stukeley, drawing his wife aside. “The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.”

“Oh, come, come,” he said, biting his lips. “It’ll be all right. Maggy. Come here, Maggy. If you meet a home-bound English ship on our way we may ask to be transhipped.”

“Oh,” said Olivia; “then why not go ashore now, Tom? Why go on to Darien?”

Stukeley muttered to himself about his folly. “Now we’re going all over it again,” he said to himself. “Remember, I’m pledged in honour, Livy,” he said.

“Then, Charles, you’ll release him from his pledge, won’t you? Let him come ashore. I want to go home.”

Margaret flushed, and then turned white. For a moment he wavered; she saw him waver.

“Olivia,” he answered. “I cannot. I’d like to. But he’s such a good Spanish scholar. He’s the only one of us who really knows Spanish. I’d grown to count on him. We all had.”

“But you could get Spanish talkers here, Charles. Couldn’t he, Captain Cammock?”

“No, ma’am. You couldn’t get gentlemen, Mrs. Stukeley. And you see the Dons is particular.”

“We decided to try to trade with some of the Spanish cities, Olivia; having so good an interpreter.”

“I thought you were going to fight with the Spanish cities. That’s what we decided in council.”

“But I want——” She checked herself sharply, and looked at the incoming ships. The men also turned to look, as she had planned that they should.

“How do you know whether to trust a man when you meet him, Mrs. Stukeley? You don’t rightly know. You have an instinct. I’ve an instinct for ships. There’s twenty things tells me she’s Dutch, long before I’ve time to examine them.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, only too glad of the diversion. “But I want you to tell us now what it is that makes you say she’s Dutch. It’s in her hull, isn’t it? What is it in her hull?”

“The Dutch, sir,” said Cammock, “are built for the India trade, and they give their ships a rather high sheer, and not quite so much camber as an English builder likes. Then they like a very flat floor, and a tuck that——” He wandered on into a swamp of sea terms, taking it for granted that his hearers understood him. Margaret and Perrin plied him close with questions as the ship loitered past them, rolling in the light wind, her men singing out at her cluelines. While they talked, Stukeley and Olivia went below to the cabin; Stukeley with the feeling that Olivia would now make no more fuss; Olivia with the sense that all was not well, that something was withheld from her.

“Tom,” she said suddenly, as soon as the cabin-door had closed, “you’re keeping something from me. What is it? Why am I not to know?”

“Tom, I think you’re being made a tool of. I think Charles has some scheme that isn’t quite right. Don’t be dragged into it, Tom.”

“You’ve a noble, trusting nature, Tom; and I love you for it. But. Oh, I feel sure Charles has some deep-laid scheme, that he’s afraid to tell you of. I don’t think he was telling the truth to me just now.”

“But it was the plan, Livy. We expected to sail as soon as the summer fleet came.”

“There may be letters ordering us to sail. My dear girl. Maggy’s got a whole firm of merchants to order him as they please. We had to be ready in case an order came from them. There may be no order.”

“But we weren’t ready, Tom. When the fleet was signalled we were in the midst of trading.”

“Yes. But my dear child. If there’s no order, we may trade again to-morrow.”

“But why should they alter their scheme of fighting the Spaniards? You promised to help the Indians against the Spaniards. Now you’re suddenly asked to help Charles’s merchants to make trade with the Spaniards. You never promised to do that. And I should never have let you. Never. Never. Oh, Tom, they’ve tricked us cruelly. They aren’t going to help the Indians, Tom. They’re going to make money, like common city-merchants. And they want my noble, generous Tom to help them. Don’t do it, dear. Don’t do it. I can’t bear it.”

“Look here, old girl. Aren’t you a little unreasonable? We’ve decided that we can help the Indians best by making some sort of agreement with the Spaniards.”

“We haven’t really decided. It was suggested last night. After you’d gone to bed.”

“It’s a fine idea, Livy. Cammock suggested our going to one of the towns and proposing an agreement with the Governor.”

“The Governor to trade with us, just as if we were Spanish. The English to abstain from hostilities, and the Indians to be accounted English subjects. And they want me to interview the Governor.”

“It’s only an excuse to make money, Tom. To make money without the self-sacrifice of fighting. And what if the Spaniards refuse?”

“Tom, I don’t think they’ve been straightforward with us. There’s something hidden. I’m sure of it.”

“But what can be hidden, Livy? My darling charmer. Eh? Besides, look here, my beauty-spot. I’m ambitious. I want to make my Livy proud. See? If I see these Governors, and bring off some arrangement. You see? It’s a big matter, Livy. It’s knighthood. It may be a seat on the Trade and Plantations Board. It may be all sorts of things.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tom, I quite see that. I’m ambitious for you, too. There, dear, I know you’ve set your heart on it. Oh, Tom, though, I hate the thought of it all. And I’m sure there’s something hidden. I’m sure there is. I wish I knew.”

“Nonsense,” he said, taking her in his arms. “Where’d you like to be kissed? I’m going to kiss your nose because you’ve got it turned up in the air to-day.”

“Come here,” he said, catching her as she wriggled free. “None of your wriggles. Come and be kissed. You’re not going to dress till your nose is kissed.”

An hour later, they stood in the Governor’s house waiting for the Governor to receive them. They fidgeted about the large, cool, rather bare room; now staring through the window at the ships, now fingering the books, turning up the pictures to the light. Stukeley took a pistol from the wall, and examined the engraved silver of the butt. Olivia chatted with Perrin about the rambler roses trailing round the window.

“We must take some slips to Darien,” said Perrin. “But I don’t much like this dark red kind.”

“We have them at home,” she answered quietly. “I shall take home some slips from Darien; for everything will grow with us. I expect lots of things would transplant.”

“Why,” she said. “It’s the Hundred Guilder Print. It’s like meeting an old friend.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, peering. “It’s a very beautiful state, too. What’s the etching beyond you there, Edward?”

“Ah, yes,” said Margaret. “It’s interesting to put a Hollar beside the real thing. No artist can make a ship wonderful to us. A ship is a wonderful work of art without him. Just look at them there, Olivia.”

“They’re beautiful,” she said, looking at the ships. “Why. The Broken Heart’s under sail.”

“Yes. In case.” Olivia looked at him steadily, noting that, for all his self-control, he seemed uneasy at her look. The situation was saved by the entrance of an orderly, in the white coat and blue scarf of the Virginia troop. He saluted.

“The Governor presents ’s compliments ’n’ ’ll join you d’rec’ly.”

“Thank you,” said Margaret. “I suppose the mails have arrived? Do you know?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, as he stood in the doorway. “In the summer fleet, sir.”

“Yes. Spanish,” said Stukeley. “Wheel-lock. Loaded. Priming-cup lidded. A very nice little gun. See the Spanish motto?”

“What does the Spanish mean?” asked Olivia. “Se nada, pero. I can’t read it.”

“It means, ‘I know nothing. But I talk well.’ I wonder if I’ve forgotten my pistol shooting. Eh? I used to be able to nail the ace of diamonds at a dozen yards. Let’s make Pilly back up against the wall, and do the William Tell act.”

“Tom, dear. Don’t play with that. It’s loaded. You might hurt somebody.”

“Yes. Put it down, Stukeley,” said Margaret. “It’s one of old Howard’s treasures. Put it down.”

“Put it down?” said Stukeley. “You’ve got a nerve to tell me to put it down. I want this little gun. I like it. I’m going to bag it. If anybody interferes with me at dinner, Livy, I shall just plug him. Pop. In between the eyes. You see if I don’t.” He slipped the pistol into his pocket.

“Why,” said Stukeley. “Why, Livy, that’s what they do in this country. What are old what’s-his-name’s swords like? Look here, for a sword. Eh? There’s a temper. Look here. See?”

“Milanese? Milanese? Milanese in your eye. Are you touched? It’s Spanish. Comes from a place called Toledo, if you’ve ever heard of it. Spanish motto like the other. Old Howard must collect Spanish things.”

“No me saques sin razon: well. Do not draw me without reason. Unless he spits in your face, for instance. No me envaines sin honor: Nor sheathe me till. Well. Till you’ve made sure.”

“Seen that the other fellow’s juice is pink. Stand still, Maggy, till I see if you’ve got red blood in you. I could prod you from here just under your fourth rib. Ping. Eh? This sword just suits me. Look, Olivia. Look how they’ve inlaid this hilt.”

“What beautiful work, Tom. And what a waste. To put all that beautiful work on to a sword.”

“A sword’s a knight’s weapon,” said Margaret. “How could we defend Olivia Stukeley if our swords weren’t worthily made.”

“There’s the question,” said Stukeley. “Look at old Pilly there. What book have you got there, Pilly? Read it out to us.”

“It’s a book of sick man’s meditations,” said Perrin. “I won’t read it out. Look at it. It’s all thumbed to dog’s ears.”

“Howard’s,” said Margaret. “What an extraordinary book for him to have.”

“Oh,” said Perrin, “that’s the secret of an Englishman’s success. He’s nothing better than a pirate, grabbing all he can get. Oh, I’m not English, myself. But the secret of his success is in this book here. He makes his peace with God as he goes on. The other people. I don’t know about the Dutch. They beat you; so they must be like you, only better. The other people try to make their peace before or after; and so they lose, either way. But you know, Olivia, you are——”

“The Dutch didn’t beat us,” said Stukeley. “We beat them. So you’re out of it there, little Taffy with the Leek.”

“How about the Medway? Look, Olivia. Look at Jamestown. This is the capital of our chief colony. Would any other nation in the world produce a capital of twenty wooden houses, a fort, a church, and a Governor’s mansion? This is the mansion. Look at it.”

“A better mansion than you’ve got at home,” said Stukeley. “What are you talking of?”

“What a hot head it is,” said Margaret gently. “I don’t agree with you a bit, Edward. You’re all wrong. The Dutch haven’t done much in the East.”

“Isn’t that an argument against you? It tells just the other way. Work is often one of the most degrading things in the world. All work that gives no rapture of creation is degrading. That is why the merchant is poor company, and the professional a conservative. The Dutch built Batavia; but their system has ruined the spice trade. The Spaniards built San Domingo; but their system ruined the island. They’ve built Panama and Lima; but they’ve destroyed both Costa Rica and Peru. A city can only be the growth of a civilization. You can only build a colonial city by agreeing to ruin the colony. So here. There may be a time when all the trees in sight will have sailed out to sea. This harbour may be crowded with ships. Who knows? This place may be another Athens some day.”

“There’s not much Athens here now. The colonials aren’t much like Athenians.”

“I think they’re very like, Edward. They’re fond of liberty. They take a beautiful pride in their bodies. They are attached to the country. They’re very like Athenians. The world doesn’t alter much.”

“They were not the world. They had wrought themselves to something finer than the world.”

“The Governor’s got a devil of a lot of letters,” said Stukeley. “There goes his secretary to him.”

“Well, I pity the man who tries it,” Stukeley muttered, thinking of an arrest.

“Yes; very good,” said Margaret. “Don’t you love to imagine the river here full of ships, the biggest and most beautiful kinds of ships? And then the banks here, and yonder, with a city. A city, built of marble. Marble cathedrals. And a great citadel on the hill there.”

“A great naval power is always on the brink of ruin,” said Perrin. “Athens was a great naval power, and had her navy smashed by a power without a navy. Carthage the same. Spain was greatest at the eighty-eight. There’s another instance.”

“Naval power is a very fine thing,” said Margaret. “You’re mixing up greatness, and the weakness which comes of overweening pride, or the defect of greatness.”

“Beg pardon, sirs,” he said, “but which of you gents is Captain Margaret?”

Margaret glanced at the faces of his friends. Stukeley sat down, nursing the sword, looking at the doorway and at the window. Perrin, who sincerely hoped he was about to see the end of Stukeley, enjoyed a mental vision of the Ephesian matron. His day-dream was of Olivia in black, in a darkened London room, and of himself, the comforter, come to console her, with platitude in low tone, sentiment speaking grief’s language. Olivia turned to the spinet. She tried one or two notes with her finger, making little wry mouths at the want of tune. “Is there any Virginian music, Edward?” she asked. “I heard some negroes singing in the tobacco fields the other day. It sounded very sweet. It came home to one strangely. All working songs come home to one, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” said Perrin. “They are so simple. They’re like a simple person speaking passionately. They leave the intellect untouched, of course.”

“Yes. But you and Charles are always blaming poultry, shall we say, for not being golden eagles. Poultry as poultry are very good. Don’t you think so? Won’t you sit down, Edward? This is the song the negroes sang. I think it’s so charming.”

While she touched the tune upon the spinet, Margaret stood in the presence of Howard, the Governor, a heavy-looking, weary-looking man with dark moustaches. His voice was hard and grating, an official voice. It jarred on Margaret, who expected bad news from it.

“Sit down, Margaret,” he said, picking up a letter. “I hope you’re well.”

He glanced through the letter of instructions from the Board. It set forth Stukeley’s crime, the details of the escape from Salcombe, the necessity for the arrest of the whole party; it was not a pleasant letter. No one had ever before described Margaret as an abettor of felons; the sensation was new; and oppressive, like some contaminations.

“He’s married to a charming woman. A woman I’ve known for years. You can see for yourself that she’s a lot too good for him.”

“I think, Howard, he ought to be cut off. But his wife’s going to have a child. I happen to know her, as I said. She believes in him. She doesn’t suspect. I’m afraid the shock would kill both her and the child.”

“For her sake, yes. And for the sake of the merchants concerned in the venture with me.”

“Your tobacco will keep them from loss. They’re all right. Do you know that your Darien scheme is known in Spain?”

“Ah. Then. Then the Government will curry favour with Spain by arresting us on this pretext, and claiming to have stopped us on her account?”

“That is, of course, possible. It depends on party needs at the moment. I know nothing of that.”

“Well. If I don’t arrest you. You’ve put me in such an awkward position. I can’t very well arrest my guests. It would bring me into disfavour, and my office into disrepute. I don’t know what to say. Are you ready to sail?”

“Why didn’t you sail two or three days ago? As soon as you’d made your voyage. Why in the world did you wait for the tobacco fleet?”

“We were kept waiting for our new topmast. We found our foretopmast sprung. It was only this morning that we finished setting up the rigging on the new spar.”

“You understand, Margaret, that at this moment you’re Stukeley’s judge. You’ve got power of life and death over him. You can turn it over in your mind, and then say, whether you wish me to arrest him, or not. You wish to spare the girl, his wife. Looking at it impartially, I should doubt whether you would spare her by sparing him. The man’s a scoundrel.”

“If you arrest us all and send us home, of course her people will look after her on arrival. Is that a possible solution to you?”

“Between you and me, Margaret, I don’t want to arrest you all. If I do, why, there’ll be a scandal here. ‘The Governor’s friends proved to be escaping felons.’ The cry will be everywhere. I don’t want that. On the other hand, the man’s a scoundrel. H’m. It’s a pretty problem.”

“No,” said the Governor, shaking his head; “that won’t do. What are your plans for the lady in case I don’t arrest?”

“I suppose we shall have to leave her at Jamaica after a month or two in Darien.”

“Perhaps she’ll be better off there than in England. Has she a woman with her?”

“Very well, then. You must sail this night. Sail directly you get on board.”

“Thank you, Howard. I will. You won’t get into trouble with the Board over this?”

“I shall say that you crept away in the night. No singing at the capstan, remember. No cheering. If you’re not gone by dawn I’ll arrest the whole pack of you. I can’t do more.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, with a sigh. “And I’m pleading with you, trying to make you shirk it.”

“Not a bit of it,” said the Governor. “There’s the gong. We’ll go down to dinner. By the way, there’s a letter for you. Where did I put it? Here it is.” He handed a sealed packet to Margaret, who glanced abstractly at the seal, and then, not recognizing the crest, put it in his pocket, and followed his host to the door. “Honour,” he repeated to himself. “Honour. My honour is a smirched rag. A smirched rag.”

The dining-room was a long, low, bare apartment. The whitewashed walls were hung with one or two prints by Dürer, the “Adam and Eve,” the “Justice,” and “The Man of Sorrows,” from the “Lesser Passion.” The table was heaped with a deal of silver, all of it very crudely designed. The dinner was mostly of fruit and vegetables; it was too hot for meat. The wine bottles lay outside the window in jackets of wetted flannel. Each guest had a palm fan at his side, for use between the courses.

The Governor sat at the end of the table with the door at his back. Olivia sat next to him, with Margaret beside her. Mrs. Prinsep sat next to Margaret, with Stukeley on her right, then Perrin, then an empty seat directly at the Governor’s left. During the dinner Howard asked the footman if Captain Lewin had arrived. The man told him, no.

“Captain Lewin is in command of the frigate there,” Howard explained to Olivia. “I asked him to join us, so that you could hear the news. By the by, I’m sorry to hear you’re sailing.”

Olivia noticed that he, too, looked at her with something of the shrewd, hard, medical gaze with which Perrin and Cammock sometimes looked at her. She resented the look as an impertinence, half wondering if there was something strange about her face—some sudden growth of eyelid or droop of hair.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry we’re going, too, for several reasons. But I hope we shall meet again in England. You must come and see us when we’re settled there.”

“Oh yes. Indeed. Flaxley. That’s near the sea. I know Flaxley, Mrs. Stukeley. There’s a beautiful old house there. I once stayed a night there. What was the fellow’s name, now?”

“Pile. Yes. Pile. Of course. So he’s your uncle, Mrs. Stukeley? What a fine old man he is.”

“Yes,” she said, with quiet indifference. “He is very much loved.” She would have given much to be back at Flaxley sitting in the great hall there. A Vandyck hung in the hall, the portrait of Sir Nicolas Pile, her great-uncle, once the king’s standard-bearer, who had been killed in the fight at Naseby. He looked down upon the hall in melancholy honour, a noble guardian, full of grave pride, helpful to those who sat there. Howard’s words gave her a longing to see that austere, sweet, thoughtful face looking down upon her, a longing all the more keen for the knowledge that perhaps she would never again see him, now that her uncle had been so horrid to Tom. The pang of homesickness went shrewdly to her heart; but she sipped her wine, her face unchanged, her smile ready.

“What brought you to Flaxley, I wonder?” she added. “I wonder if I was there then.”

“It was seven or eight years ago,” said Howard. “I had to go there about some Roman coins. I collect antiques, you know. Rather a dull subject for you. Your uncle had written a little pamphlet on the coins dug up at Hurst’s Castle, that old Roman Camp in Somerset.”

“Yes. He used to collect coins then. He’d a few very rare ones. Were you there in the summer? Did you see the rose-garden?”

“I’ve a dim recollection of it. I was only there one night. You weren’t there then?”

“Is that old gate-keeper of yours alive still? An oldish woman. Rather a character?”

“Old Maggie? Oh, do you remember old Maggie? Poor old Maggie. She’s dead now. There was a shipwreck on the rocks beyond Flaxley, and she rowed out to the wreck with her idiot son. She was such a fine old woman. None of the men would go out; so she said she would go. She rowed and rowed. There’s a very strong current there, too. When she got to the wreck her boat was smashed against the side, so she had to stay there for nearly a day, I think, and she died soon afterwards from the exposure.”

Perrin looked up to remark that the courage of a woman was as it were complementary to the courage of man. That women did things which men could not do; and that their courage was on the whole of a finer quality. Mrs. Prinsep, who may perhaps have thought that the compliment to her sex was designed subtly to please her, seemed to bridle.

“I think women would be proud to hear that,” she said contemptuously. She disliked Perrin; all common natures did.

“Yes,” said Margaret. “A woman’s courage comes from a quality of soul. A man’s comes more from a faculty of body. You can’t think of the two without feeling that in the woman you have something far finer.”

“Yes? If you will name the highest flight of man’s courage, I will prove to you that at that point woman’s courage begins.”

“A man’s courage is often indifference,” said Perrin. “When I was nearly drowned once, I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to die. Why am I not frightened?’ I wasn’t frightened. I was only tired of swimming and swimming, with the water against me.”

“Oh,” said Stukeley, with a chuckle. “A dog that flounced out at him from one of the houses here. Good luck. To see old Pilly run. Did he get you, Pilly, or did you get up the tree in time?”

At this moment Captain Lewin entered, so that the discussion came to an end before it had well begun, like most discussions of the kind.

Captain Lewin was a tall, grey, upright man, with a sharp, dictatorial manner that was somehow not authoritative, and therefore not offensive. He entered the room with his hands behind his back, snapping quickly from the nervous strain of being late. Howard greeted him and introduced him. He sat down nervously on his host’s left, looked round the room with the quick apprehension of an animal, much as he would have looked aloft on coming on deck, and began to apologize for his lateness.

“I dined before I left the ship,” he said. “That rascal, my purser, kept me. Very good claret, your Excellency. Who’s the man next but one on my left? I seem to know his face.”

“Stukeley. Thomas Stukeley, husband of the lady here,” the Governor answered in a low voice.

“I seem to have seen him somewhere. Wasn’t he in the rising in Beverley’s time?”

“Yes,” said the captain. “We sailed at the end of July. Your Excellency, I wouldn’t go down the river with such another convoy. Not if the King knighted me.”

Olivia was not quite sure of the technical terms, so she answered nothing, but smiled a smile of interested sympathy. She remembered suddenly that perhaps he had brought mails. She asked him.

“Mails? Yes, madam. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh I’ve brought the mails. They’re in his Excellency’s hands.”

“None for you, Mrs. Stukeley, I’m afraid,” said Howard. “Captain Margaret had one.”

“Captain Margaret?” said Lewin quickly. “Do you know a Captain Margaret here?”

Stukeley pushed back his chair, and seemed to fumble in his pocket. Margaret looked up quickly from the cracking of a nut.

“You are he, are you? I missed your name just now,” said Lewin, putting his hand within his coat.

“Ah,” continued Lewin, in his hard voice with its ring of jocularity, “I’ve a letter for you. I was to deliver it into your hands. You’ve got friends at Court, I think, sir. It came to me through the Secretary.”

Margaret kept a steady face, not daring to glance at Stukeley; for a wink to a blind horse may be as disastrous as a blow. His first thought was, “here it ends”; his second thought told him that Perrin was giving the show away, by pushing back his chair; his third thought took in the possibilities of the pistol. He filled his wine-glass composedly, so that he might have a missile handy, then poured a little claret into Olivia’s glass.

“Friends at Court, Captain Lewin?” he answered. “No. I don’t think so. Let me see this mysterious letter.” A sudden impulse urged him to keep Olivia’s eyes from her husband’s face. “Howard,” he added, “you never showed Mrs. Stukeley those experiments of yours on the maize-ear. Aren’t those some of the maize-ears just behind you?”

“Ah yes, Mrs. Stukeley,” said Howard, reaching behind him to the jar. “Let me explain them to you.”

Lewin selected a sealed packet from his pocket-book and handed it across the table. Olivia, reaching out her hand to pass the letter to Margaret, saw the superscription.

“Why,” she cried, “it’s from Uncle Nestor. How strange. We were just now talking of him.”

“So is this Sir Nestor’s hand?” said Margaret, putting the letter to one side. He asked because the letter in his pocket was addressed in the same hand.

“Yes,” said Olivia, looking down at it. “Aren’t you going to read it?”

Howard laid down his maize-cobs. The letter lay at Margaret’s side; everybody looked at it. Mrs. Prinsep, in her shrewd Scotch way, glanced at her neighbours, and saw that there was something wrong. “There is something wrong somewhere,” she said to herself. Olivia, looking at Perrin and at her husband, wondered if the heat had been too much for them. Their faces were so very curious. It struck her that the talk had gone to pieces. The host, waiting for her head to turn, so that he might expound his new science to her, held his peace.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Prinsep, guessing that Margaret disliked Olivia’s prompting. “Captain Margaret will tell us all the news.”

“Oh,” said Margaret lightly, as he put the letter in his pocket, “I won’t read the letter during dinner. I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mrs. Prinsep, how you keep domestic servants here, with such a scarcity of white women.”

“I’d rather hear what the letter says,” she answered, “than talk about servants. We get so little news here from England.”

“I don’t understand the craving for news,” said Perrin. “One carries the world in one’s head.”

“It doesn’t matter what size it is, so long as it’s empty. Why read letters and gazettes when one can read imaginative work?”

Mrs. Prinsep remarked with bitterness that she knew not what imaginative work meant, unless it was a kind of thing which she disliked very much. She half rose, catching Olivia’s eye. The two ladies left the room—Mrs. Prinsep to abuse Perrin and to apply crudely an examination; Olivia to suffer from home-sickness, thinking of her uncle’s letter. Mrs. Prinsep could draw little from her; for Mrs. Prinsep, while suspecting something wrong, naturally suspected a woman of finer beauty than her own of being a party to it. Her theory was that Olivia had run away from her home, and that, being beautiful, she was possibly not correctly married. She liked Stukeley; but she had her duty to herself to consider. She put Olivia through a conventional catechism, in the course of which she asked for particulars of the wedding. Olivia, seeing her drift, replied coldly, in monosyllables.

Meanwhile, in the dining-room, over the wine, Stukeley badgered Margaret to read the letter.

Howard wondered at his tone; but as he knew something of Stukeley’s affairs, he drew Lewin out of the room, so that the voyagers might read the letter together undisturbed. When he had gone, Margaret opened the packet brought by Lewin. Stukeley picked up his wine-glass and crossed over towards Margaret, so that he, too, might read.

“Are you?” Margaret looked at him coolly, finished his letter, and started to read the other. As he had expected, the letters were alike. One had been brought by a merchantman, the other by the man-of-war. The letter was that saddest of all letters, the letter of the old man who asks humbly, knowing the selfishness of youth. That the old man wrote without hope seemed evident to Margaret from the appeal he made to chivalrous sentiment. “I am confident to write to you,” ran the un-confident words, “though we are little acquainted. I had the honour to serve with your father more than forty years ago.” Then there came a request that Captain Margaret would cause Stukeley to be arrested and brought home to trial, so that Olivia might again be under his care. There was also a moving prayer that he, the son of that old brother-in-arms who had ridden with the writer at Newbury forty odd years before, would let Olivia know what her husband had done. She was ignorant of her husband’s nature; but in England it was said that she was not so ignorant. In England her honour seemed smirched, for there were some who saw in her flight the ruse of a criminal and his doxy. It was right that she should know this, and very right that her husband should stand his trial, so that their honour might be cleared. The letter was bitter reading to Margaret. It made him feel that he had stained Olivia’s honour in staining his own, and all for the sake of a ruffian incapable of feeling the sacrifice. If the letter had come before his interview with Howard he would have pleaded differently, child or no child. He looked grave, helped himself to more wine, and handed a letter to Perrin.

“Leave Edward alone,” said Margaret. “The letter’s a private letter to myself. I prefer that you shall not read it, Stukeley.”

“Give me that letter.” He was within snatching distance; but Perrin twisted aside, so that he missed his mark. He sprawled across Perrin trying to reach his outstretched hand.

“Temper, eh?” said Stukeley. He feinted quickly for Perrin’s nose; Perrin’s outstretched hand flew back to guard; the letter was seized with a whoop of triumph. Stukeley glanced contemptuously at Perrin, and began to read the letter, as Margaret quietly walked round the table to him.

Stukeley saw him coming, and kicked Mrs. Prinsep’s chair across his shins, checking his progress for an instant. As he kicked the chair, Perrin dashed at him, to snatch the paper. Stukeley flung him aside heavily, laughing at the fun of the tussle.

“You see what you get, little Pilly,” he said. “You see what you get. Eh?”

Margaret set aside the chair and advanced upon him. “Now, Stukeley,” he said, “that letter.”

Stukeley backed a pace to avoid him. Perrin, recovering, felt blindly along the table for a knife. At this moment the door opened, and Olivia entered.

“I’ve come to ask if I might read the letter. Uncle Nestor’s letter, Charles,” she said.

Perrin, in a voice which shook with the hysteria of wrath, told her that she had better ask her husband.

Olivia glanced at the three men with surprise, even anxiety. Stukeley, who had not yet read the letter, looked to Margaret for a hint that the letter might be shown.

“What is the matter with you three men?” Olivia asked. “You were fighting.”

Olivia walked softly to her husband. “May I see the letter?” she said, her eyes full of tears. “I may read the letter, Charles?”

“There it is,” said Stukeley, handing it to her. “What did you two asses make such a fuss for?” He sat down, helped himself to wine, and lighted a roll of tobacco-leaf, a kind of primitive cigar. Between the puffs, he glanced at the two men, and at Olivia’s face. Something in Olivia’s face attracted him: the eyes seemed to burn; the eyes seemed to be her intelligence, now starting outward. He looked at Margaret, wondering if he had done rightly to give the letter; but Margaret stood there, grave, courteous, self-controlled, his face a mask. Olivia read the letter, turned the sheet to see if a postscript had been added, then read it through a second time, turning very white.

Stukeley read the letter, with a desire to have Margaret’s throat in his hands, squeezing the life out of him. He looked savagely at Margaret. “You swine, to let me in for this,” he thought. Then he became conscious that Olivia was closely watching him.

“Strange,” he said, puckering his brows. He took a gulp of wine and looked at Margaret. “Hadn’t we better go aboard?” he added. “It’s not a thing we can discuss here. Old Howard might come in.”

“Yes. But we must get them. We must go home. You see that, Tom, don’t you? We must go home to clear our names.”

“Who is? Some tea-drinking old maids who’ve got at your uncle Nestor. He doesn’t like me, as you know, so naturally he believes them.”

“Ah,” she said, turning very pale, as though a bitter thought had come to her. “Charles, Charles. Oh, why did not Uncle Nestor write to me, instead of you? He need not have told you the scandal.”

Margaret, who had gone to the window with Perrin, to look out over the darkened harbour, while the husband and wife talked together, now turned gravely towards her, too sad to answer.

“I didn’t mean that, Charles.” She looked from one face to another, searching for a key to the puzzle, for a way back to the peace of ten minutes ago.

“He told me it concerned me,” said Stukeley, “and naturally, in a playful way, I snatched it. In a playful way.”

“We can’t discuss it here, Livy,” Stukeley said. “Old Howard may come in. Let’s go on board.”

“Tom, we can’t go on board. I can’t enter that ship again. They’ve been calling us that for three months. Do think what it means, dear.”

“Only cackle,” he answered sullenly. “I’m not going to alter my plans for a little old wives’ cackle.”

“But let’s go home and put an end to it. If we don’t it may grow. It may——”

The door opened. Howard entered. He looked round them with his air of weary boredom.

“Captain Margaret,” he said coldly, “your boat is waiting. Your captain is anxious not to lose the tide.”

“No,” Olivia said. “No. Not that. We’re not going, Charles. We’re going home. Oh, this letter is like a fire.”

“Tom,” she cried, “you aren’t going to run away like this, letting them think you guilty? You can’t, Tom. Go back. No. No. I can’t let you. Dear, we must face this. We must go home and face this.”

Margaret was at the door again, hooking the heavy silver cloak-clasp at his throat. He looked at her pitifully, saying nothing. He wished that he could help her, for the sake of her little one; but the letter had struck a jangle in him, and Stukeley had made him lose his temper. He thought that he had gone too far now, that he had shown Stukeley to be guilty. He could not bring himself to speak. He was worn out with the long anxiety of love. He was tired. Stukeley must fight his own battles, tell his own lies, maintain his own deceptions. He was too weary of it all to be sad, even when, after shaking the Governor’s hand and thanking him for his kindness, he turned to Olivia, with his hand outstretched.

“Of course I’m going home. Do you think that. Do you think I could live longer in that ship, eating, and lying down, and watching the sea, with this being said of me?”

“Yes,” said Stukeley, “I think you could. Put on your wraps, Livy, and come on.”

“I would go, Mrs. Stukeley, if I were you,” said the Governor. “You couldn’t leave the colony here much before November.”

“I am very sorry,” she answered. “But I don’t think you know the circumstances.”

“I don’t think my wife wants your advice,” said Stukeley. “Come, Livy. Here are your wraps. Come on. Don’t let’s have a scene.”

“Tom,” she said, holding out her hands, swaying a little, her eyes blind with tears. “Tom, I beseech you, let’s go home. What is your pledged word to—to what they are saying?”

“I’m going to keep my word,” he answered brutally. “Good-bye, Howard. Thanks for the pie-crust. I hope, next time I see you, you’ll have some decent wine. Your port is—— So long.” He turned to the other men. “Come on, Pilly. Come, Maggy.” As he walked to the door, he looked again at Howard. “So long, me lord,” he said.

“Oxford man. Eh!” he said, and passed out. Olivia stood swaying, looking after him, calling to him, through her tears.

“Olivia,” Perrin said, “this goes round your throat, doesn’t it? Then, here’s your glove. You mustn’t forget your glove.” He helped her with her things, evidently deeply pained.

She took a stumbling step forward, her hand on Perrin’s arm, then paused, and faced Margaret. “You think, Charles. You think, because. Because I’m not very happy. That I shall not notice. But I see. Oh, I see so well. You wish to poison me against Tom. You wish me to think. That. That. Him guilty.”

“Quiet, Margaret,” said Howard. “Mrs. Stukeley, it’s my duty to tell you that your husband is guilty. Better now than later,” he added to Margaret in a low voice. “She can’t have two scenes like this. It’d kill her. It is true, Mrs. Stukeley,” he continued. “If he returns to England, he will be hanged. Now you two, take her out. She’s stunned. Take her out before the flunkies notice. Get to sea. Don’t wait. Into the boat with her. Get to sea. Get to the devil.”

The two men supported the dazed creature to the boat. Howard watched them from his pleasaunce, with an air of weary boredom. “Like clubbing a kitten,” he said to himself. “But nervous women are. They are.”

He watched them pass away into the night, the oars grunting through the darkness, the voice of the coxswain sounding very clear. He noted it as a sign of rain. Afterwards he heard the feet tramping round the capstan, amid yells and screams and pistol-shots. “There are the men of war. The buccaneers,” he said cynically. “My reputation’s gone. I forgot them.” He stood amid his flowers, watching the fireflies, waiting for the end. He saw dimly the jib of the great ship cloaking a star. Then among the screams of many drunken men, with laughter, and shots, and oaths, the topsails jolted up, the parrels groaning, to a ditty about a girl in Paradise Street. The roaring chorus woke the ships in harbour. The crews answered, cheering, beating their bells. The bell of the Broken Heart was rung like the alarm of fire. He smiled to hear them, repeating the phrases he had planned for his official report. “She stole away, unnoticed, in the night,” he repeated. “So that I could not give effect to the Honourable Board’s command.” “It’s getting chilly,” he said. “I must go in. She’s gone. She’s out of sight.” From very far away came the words of a chorus, the cat-fall chorus, sung by men so drunk that they had to take the cat-fall to the capstan:—

It was the last of her farewells. Howard went indoors, to his game of cribbage with Mrs. Prinsep. “They have gone to found an empire,” he said to himself. “That song is an imperial hymn. Men of the Breed. Eh?”

X.
THE LANDFALL

The Broken Heart made a poor passage. The eighteen hundred miles of sea between the Capes and the Samballoes were dragged through wearily, in calms, in light airs, in head winds, during six weeks of torment. Through the Florida Channel, across a sea of brass; through the Yucatan Channel, hugging the Cuban side; then launching out, past Grand Cayman, past Providence, she rolled and drove, foul with her months at sea. Her gilt was battered off, her paint peeled; her once white decks were crossed with tar marks, where the seam-tar, sticking to shoes, had been impressed crosswise as the seamen walked. An awning was over her poop. Her boys splashed her decks continually with salt water. The men about decks did their work languidly. At night they lay among the booms, sheltered from the dew, sleeping in their watches, their eyes covered lest the moon should blast them.

A ship driving to the south, with all her sails set, her side a little bowed, whitening a line along her fo’c’s’le, is beautiful to see, noble, an image of wonder. She should be allowed to pass, swaying her beauty in a rhythm; for beauty is enough; one should not question beauty. If one question, then in that stately ship may be found a hell. Men mutinous, officers overdriven, boys in misery, the captain drunk; wasted men forward, flying from justice; broken men aft, carrying their incompetence to other lands, to breed it there unchecked; the rigging rotten, the sails threadbare, all the hull of the ship in outcry, a decay, a fraud; down in the hold a fire smouldering, a little red glow, a fireball, not flame yet, waiting, charring the beams, blackening in the bales, till the wind fan it to a crackling triumph, to a blaze, a mastery, amid the screams of men, amid death. Even such a ship was the Broken Heart, as she drove on to the south, her sails slatting. Within her were many tortured hearts, each heart a chamber in hell, in the hell of the wicked or the weak, where the prisoned soul atoned, or added to the account to be paid later. At the galley door, waiting for the cook to let them light their pipes, their one pleasure, the seamen watched the gentry, envying them, talking bitterly of them, angry at the world’s injustice to themselves, angry at the ease which they would lack, though they lived to be old men, always working hard.

Of all the ship’s company, Olivia was the most to be pitied, for she was in the worst hell. Her soul had been bruised in the stalk; all that made life for her had been taken from her violently. She could not think. When she rose up an image rose up with her. If she shut her eyes, it was there; if she looked out over the sea, it was there still: the image of the room ashore; the fruit plates, the smell of wine, the men standing guiltily, the sheet of creased letter, with its fine, tremulous writing. All of it she saw. It was always with her. When she lay down it was there; when she slept it was heavy upon her, like the trance of a sick man. Sometimes, in spite of her will, against her nature, it played itself over to her in her mind, like a farce, a stupid farce, ending in tragedy, in one stunning blow, crushing out sense, as it had crushed her in life. Her husband would be there, rude and common—rude to her, common before all those men—stripping away the cloaks her love had wrapped about him. Her husband, the flaming young love, the man she had chosen, was before her, acting as she had once seen a drunken man act when dragged by his wife out of a beer-shop. She had loved that, given herself to that. Then Howard’s words, clubbing home the meaning of her husband’s rudeness. That horrible flash of insight, of intuition, which made the guilt apparent; that was harder to bear than Howard’s words, more terrible, now that it returned to her. All along the memories of her married life were headlands, promontories, projecting blacknesses, unexplained, irritating; the unanswered questions which had puzzled her. Thus and thus her husband had acted in the past, queerly, she had thought, even then, not as she would have had him act, not as a knight would have acted, not as the men she had known would have acted. The acts had puzzled her, they had frightened her; but she had explained them, she had told herself that men were different, and that she loved this man. Now there came a light, a sudden meteor. The black capes and headlands glared out upon her, lit up, one after the other, in a baleful vista, a marching, illuminated army of witnesses, glaring out his guilt, one after the other, day after day, night after night, a sleepless company. They seemed to shout to her, tossing the words one from the other, in her disordered mind, “If he returns to England, he will be hanged.” He had said that he had loved her; but that seemed ages ago; and he had tricked her into this, deceived her at every turn, lied to her, cajoled others into lying to her, all the time amusing himself, laughing, pretending, a common thing, a man with a mind like a footman’s. At first, nerving herself, she had tried to talk with him, willing to forgive, only asking, for her own part, an explanation. She would have been content with that. She would have been almost happy had he come to her like an erring boy, asking her to count him merely that. She had spoken to him in her cabin that night, pleading with him, kneeling to him, while the drunkards on deck made sail. Her whole world had lain in ruins; she had thought that nothing more could hurt her; but when she spoke the ruins flew about her, wounding her, cutting her to the quick. He had answered her brutally. His answer had come, as it were, set to the music of the drunkards above. It would not out of her head. All her nerves shook with it, as though the blow struck her in her face. He had sworn at her, jeered at her, called her a lump of cold batter, told her to get to the devil, told her that he was sick of the sight of her, that he had married her for her money, that if she gave him any more of her canting preaching he’d hit her one that she’d remember. Later in the night, as she lay crying at his side, he bade her for God’s sake to stop snivelling, so that he might get to sleep. As she could not stop, he had arisen, telling her that she might cry herself sick, but that he was going to Mrs. Inigo, a woman who wasn’t quite such a cold poultice. She had not stopped him. She could not stop him. He had gone from her; leaving her life too empty for her to wish even to kill herself.

Another dreadful thing, still dreadful, although so much was numbed in her, was the meeting with her husband the next day. She had thought him some common stranger; that had been the dreadful thing. He had seemed vulgar to her; a person out of her circle; she could not bring herself to speak to him. All that she could do was to glance at his neck continually. It had a horrible fascination for her, this neck that the rope was laid for. She did not hate him. He was dead to her; that was all; the worst horror was when she remembered her love-days, seeing him now as he was. She bore her lot alone, shut up in her cabin, seldom venturing out. At times she would lie back, in a nervous crisis, clenching her fingers into her palms, shaking with the hate of Captain Margaret. He might, she thought, have spared her that scene at the Governor’s. But no; it was all his plan; all; from the very first; his plan to have her near him. That was his love for her, to have her near him, to poison her against her husband, to tempt her husband with another woman, to heap all these indignities, all these torments, so that he, the lover, might triumph. All the voyage he had been at it. Little things came back to her now; little tender, insinuating acts. They came over her in a shock of shame. She hated him, she hated him. And yet, for all her hate of him, she could not think of leaving the ship, nor of what her future was to be; that was all dead and blank to her. England was dead and blank to her. She could not go back to England, save as some wounded hare, with the blood glazing on her fur, limping to her form to die. She was stunned; she could not think. Her death in life would go on for a little; perhaps for a long while; it did not matter how. Then it would stop; all that she could ask would be that it might soon stop. Perrin was the only person whom she could bear to see, or to speak with. It was through him, she guessed, that her husband was removed from her sight. He was living now, Perrin told her, in the ’tween-decks, having his meals in the wardroom. Perrin, Margaret, and Cammock had taken to living in their cabins, so that she might not be oppressed with company. She filled in the unsaid portion of Perrin’s speech with “living with Mrs. Inigo”; and she knew from Perrin’s face that he understood her thought, and that she was right. She liked Perrin more and more as the days passed. She understood him now, she thought. The world had gentled him by some such blow as had crushed her. She could never think of him as the thoroughly foolish man he was. She only thought of him as a poor hurt waif, almost a woman in many ways, who felt for her keenly enough to know that he must not show his feeling. She liked his shy way of coming into the cabin in the late afternoon, when the steward served the chocolate. He would enter shyly, speaking with a false air of jocularity, to propose chess, poetry, a game at cards, or a little music. The time would pass quietly. He would lose that false air of his; they would talk together almost like sisters, until the change of the watch at six o’clock. He helped her through her worst days, nor did she ever know that the tales he told her, the little jokes in his conversation, were repeated from the talk of the man she hated; as the hated man had planned, in his blind love for her.

Captain Margaret had his little hell about him; the days were bitter to him. All day long, and through the night, he had the image of his dishonour with him. All the weeks of deceit, all the acts of deceit, all the long strain of pretence; they were all over. They had ended in her hating and suspecting him. He would lie awake in the night, and the memory of his deceit would eat into him like acid, burning. He would blush, lying there in his bunk, at the thought of his baseness; it stuck in his throat, now that he could see things clearly. He had eaten dirt in a vile cause; all honest men must loathe him, he thought. Then came another memory, the memory of Olivia, her beauty, her paleness, her voice, her sorrow. It was bitter to him to feel that he was the bitterest part of her sorrow, and that he could not help her, nor comfort her, but only prompt Perrin to help her. He tried to tell himself that her beauty was an excuse for him. His love had been noble enough; it had not been selfish; he had had little joy of the ignoble things he had done for her sake. He wished that some spirit would surround his tortured head with heavenly essence, so that he might see clearly, as God sees, all the moral value of his acts, all the right and the wrong, in fiery letters, easy to read. She was very beautiful, and still young. Meanwhile he had his life to live, and his task to do. It was not going to be an easy task. He was coming to it broken. His only comfort in these days was the knowledge that Stukeley had lied when he had said that Olivia was going to have a child. That horror was removed for ever. Stukeley had lied. He prayed that some day the patient fates would take Stukeley, and show him, for an instant, before death, the image of himself. He needed not to have prayed. To most of us the patient fates come, holding up that image. Besides, Margaret knew well that Stukeley had had his image spoiled for him by the accident of his birth. The man loved animals; was truly kind and thoughtful with them. He should have been a groom, a hunt groom, with an alehouse and ostlers for his evenings. Margaret could see Stukeley holding up his hands, when his image came to him, saying that it was not his own work, but the work of the drunken fox-hunter his father, who came home bloody from the mangling of a fox, to give his little son drink, and to egg him on to kiss the maids.

Cammock was not free from trouble; he had his own share. The Broken Heart was no happier to him, though he no longer suffered from Stukeley. The men of war were the cause of the trouble, even as he had feared. They were too independent, they resented control, they had a bad effect upon the ship’s discipline. He had had trouble with them from the very first, when they came aboard drunk, twenty-seven of them, bringing with them, as members of their company, the two deserters from the trading-booth. He had promptly put the two deserters into irons for a night. He had then turned them forward, stopped their rum for the voyage, and forced them to work on deck from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon, on all days, whether it was their watch or not. This had caused a mutiny among the men of war. They had come on deck to demand the return of their mates. Margaret, having called all hands aft, had spoken to them, as Cammock confessed, “like a father.” He had read his commission to them. He had promised them that, if they showed any signs of rebellion, he would land them at an English colony, where they should be drafted into the Navy without mercy. He had then called out the two men who had been most noisy in the mutiny, and had put them in the bilboes abaft the main mast, under a sentry, for the next three days. But though the mutiny was crushed, the ill-feeling remained. The men of war went about their duties sullenly, showing that they resented his action. The fo’c’s’le hands, quick to catch the mutinous temper, became “soldiers,” who loafed and skulked, till the mates, goaded by their insolence, made protest, with a bight of the topgallant brace. Cammock had more than the anxieties of office on his shoulders. He had to walk the poop, the captain of all on board, in a false position. In a sense he was a privateer. Had he been, as he once was, a privateer only, he would have known how to handle the privateers beneath him. He understood them. He could even feel for them; he knew how they felt towards him; when he saw them hanging round the hatch, cursing the cruise and all on board. But in the Broken Heart he was less the privateer than the merchant captain going trading. He had divided interests to manage; he had a divided crew under his command. He could see that the temper of the ship was as bad as it could be. The men were in that difficult state a little on this side of mutiny, always on the verge, never quite declaring, but sullen enough to make their captain’s life an anxious life. He expected that their arrival at Springer’s Key would put them in a better spirit. He wished that he could give them some fighting on the way; for it was the belief of his old commander that there is nothing like the sight of a dead or wounded comrade to make a man look to his leader with trust and thankfulness. Meanwhile he drilled all hands daily at the guns, expecting a refusal of duty at any moment. Thinking of the situation in the quiet of his cabin, he decided that the crew would not stand failure. “If we fail,” he said, “this gang will not try twice. No privateers will. And these aren’t the pick of the Kipe.” He felt that the cruise would fail. His forebodings obsessed him. When he walked the poop at nights, walking athwartships now, not fore and aft, lest the helmsman should attack him from behind, he was sure that he would never see home again. He was always imagining a place of noise and smoke, with himself falling forward on the sand, looking his last, shot in the body. The obsession made him more serious than usual. He borrowed a Testament from Perrin and read the last chapter. Perrin angered him by saying that the last chapter bored him to death.

As for Stukeley, his senses were gratified; he asked for nothing more from the world. He had every reason to feel satisfied. He had not been arrested in Virginia, that was good; he had broken with his batter-pudding of a wife, that was better; and he was no longer tortured by the prigs of the cabin. He was messing now in the wardroom, with Cottrill and Ramage, visiting Mrs. Inigo openly, whenever he liked; that was best of all. Neither Margaret nor Perrin had spoken to him since he had bragged to them of having broken with Olivia, of having fooled them about her child. Cammock had told him that he was to leave the cabin precincts and that when they wanted him as an interpreter they would send for him; but that until then he would either lie low or go in irons. At the moment he was too pleased with his successes to regret his loss of power. He was content to lie low, and to refrain from offering insults to all who irritated him. He patched up a truce with Mr. Cottrill, whom he found to be good company. He made friends with Smut, the ship’s cat, and taught one of her kittens to walk on bottle-mouths. He made friends with several of the men of war, who had their mess without the wardroom. He would sing “Old Rose” and “Twankydillo” to them, in the fine bass voice of which he was so vain. Like most seafaring men, the privateers thought much of a fine singer. They used to hang about the wardroom door after supper, to hear him singing quietly to himself, going over his trills and gurgles. He had but to come out into the ’tween-decks to find himself a popular idol. Men would rise up from their chests, with real courtesy, as he came among them. If there were singers there they became silent suddenly, tale-tellers ceased in their stories. There came a low murmur of “Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mr. Stukeley. Will you sit down, sir? Are we past the Serranas yet, d’ye know, sir?” till he was entrapped among them. As he did not know sailors, he took all this to be a tribute to his good looks, to his fine physique, to his manner, to his taking conversation. He used to get them to tell him of their lives on the coast, believing that it was a kind of life which might please himself. He inquired also of the life in the Spanish towns, that lazy, luxurious life, with so many opportunities for amassing wealth and for self-indulgence. A buccaneer would handle a guitar, and sing, in a high, false, musical whine, about “my Santa Marta.” Another buccaneer, drumming on his chest-lid, would begin about the Spanish girls and the sack of Porto Bello. Listening to them, down in the half-darkness, Stukeley felt that he, too, would soon taste of that life. He would lie in a grass hammock, fanned by a Spanish-Indian girl, whose great eyes would look into his. Eh? He would eat skewered “soldiers” from the hands of an Indian wife. He would catch fireflies to stick in her hair. Perhaps he would see the sack of a town, with the women crouched in their rooms, waiting for the conquerors. “Brown women; modest, lively little things,” so Raphael Gamage told him.

The days dragged by slowly. The Broken Heart crawled like a slug, leaving a slug’s track on the sea. The bells struck, the sails slatted. The sun arose greyly in mist, then burned the mist away, a spilling spring of light, in a sky like blue fire. Then in the glare of noon the chart was marked, the pencilled dot moved forward in its zigzag, past the Serranas, past Roncif, past the Roncadores. Then the wind came fair for a few days to help her to the south, her bows in a heap of smother. Presently, when the first land-wind came to them, in a faint breath, smelling, as they said, of arnotto roses, there came drifting butterflies, white and blue, very lovely, settling and dying on the deck, like petals from a fruit tree in spring. A strange bird sailed past them, drooping her legs, her wings beating like a mill-wheel, rhythmically, her fierce eyes looking ahead, searching the sky. A tree tumbled in their wash, rolling over and over. A creeper from the branches sank in the wake, its leaves like little green hands, clutching out, far down, among the globes of the bubbles. Then when the sun was sinking, when the air was intense and clear, like the air in a vision, far ahead a bluish mist showed, so dimly, in such blue faintness, that one could not be sure. Till dark they watched it. When the dawn made each cloud a scale of scarlet, edged with fire to the mid-heaven, the mist took outline. Long before sunset the land lay clear, a long purplish line of land, with a gleaming peak or two round which the cloud streamed. It stretched away on each side of them, like an army in rank. Parts of it were dim; its wings were dim; but ahead the hills were gathered close; one could count each fold in them. Margaret, loitering on the poop with Perrin, watched them intently, with emotions which mastered him. A voice seemed to be talking to him. “What went ye out for to see?” it repeated. He had gone out to see this land, to hear the multitudes of sea-fowl scream. There lay the land. Like all lands seen from the sea, it seemed to lure him, to beckon to him, to be full of mystery, of mystery which he could solve.

“So that’s the land,” he said at length. “What do you make of it, Edward?”

“I?” said Edward. “It makes me shudder somehow. It’s the end of something. Change is always horrible to me.”

“We’re away to the east, sir,” he said to Margaret. “If you’ll stand in a bit further, sir, we shall open Golden Island clear, before dark. That’ll give me a landfall to go by.”

“To-morrow, some time, sir. But we’ll stand in further here, if you don’t mind. There may be some of those friends of ours in the harbour here. A nice little sandy bay in there, sir.”

Soon the hills drew nearer. The line of land became jagged. What had seemed to be the main now showed as islands, a long, low island, dark with mangrove, and to the south of it a sloping peak, wooded to the top, a cone of green, with rocks about it over which the breakers toppled. Margaret could see the line of the breakers advancing towards them, blue and glassy. In the stillness, he could see the curl on the wave, the slow running curl along the line, then the intense brightness of the burst, a momentary marvel of white. He looked at Cammock, who was looking at the wooded hill, full of memories. A few of the men of war, faking a hawser in the waist, stopped their work to look with him. One or two of them, raising their caps, waved to the island. “Good old Golden Island,” they cried. “The good old Golden Island.”

“Yes,” said Captain Cammock to Margaret. “That’s Golden Island. Last time I was ashore there we were three hundred strong, going across the Isthmus. We’d fires on the sands there, I and my brother Bill, roasting crabs together. I remember we chucked pebbles over that palm on the spit there. Queer the palm being there and Bill gone, sir. He could chuck good, too; further’n I could.”

“You were very much attached to your brother, weren’t you?” Margaret asked him.

“I didn’t set much value by him at the time, sir. It’s afterwards one feels it. There’s a little black devil of a reef beyond there, two feet under water at a low spring. You don’t see it, and yet it rips you across all right. Ready oh, Mr. Cottrill. Haul the foot of the mainsail up. Hands about ship. Ease down the hellum.”

They sailed past Golden Island, and past Sasardi, watching the colours of the sunset on the rocks and woods. The brilliant birds flew homing, screaming. A faint smell, sickly sweet, came to them in puffs from the shore. Now and then, in the quiet, they heard the wash of breakers bursting on reefs. The noise kept them company at intervals through the night, as they drove on, under the stars, past Pinos, past Zambo Gandi, towards the Point of San Blas. It burst upon them mournfully, like the blowing of a sea-beast, a wash, a breathing of the sea. When the dawn broke, flashing the flying-fish into silver arrows, they were at their hearts’ desire. The palms on Springer’s Key were trembling, in the light air, before them. The ring of reef on the key’s north side stood up black amid the surf that toppled tirelessly. Pelicans flew past to fish. Macaws screamed from the fruit trees. Two Indians, with gold in their noses, waved to them from their canoe as they paddled softly, to spear cavally. Beyond them, at anchor off the key, was a small sloop. Her men were filling water ashore, wading slowly up the beach with puncheons. The saluting gun, fired by Cammock’s order, made them gather together in a group. One of them waved. Others, still in the boat, rowed out to show the channel. The sun shone bright over the multitude of islands. The sea was so blue that the beauty of her colour was like a truth apprehended. It was so perfect a beauty that Margaret, looking on it, felt that he apprehended the truth.

“I’m not thinking of that,” he answered. “I think that all these things are images in an intellect. I think, by brooding on them, one passes into that intellect.”

The colours and house-flag blew out clear as the ship came to her berth. The sloop fired a salute; the Broken Heart answered her. Soon she was opposite the little sandy beach in the centre of the key. Her sails drooped, her way checked; then, at Cammock’s shout, the anchor dropped, the cable running with a rattle, making the little fish scurry past, in view, though a fathom down.

“I’ve had the old sail-room turned into a dining-room. It’s laid for breakfast now, sir. I’ve got to see the captain of that sloop and learn the news. That’s the first thing. Call my boat away, boatswain.”

The privateer sloop was the Happy Return of Jamaica, Captain Tucket, bound on a roving cruise with twenty men and a French commission. She carried six small guns, and her men wore arms, all of the very choicest make; but her hold was full of goods which Captain Tucket wished to sell. From Jamaica he had brought beads and coloured cloths, with which he was buying gold-dust, wax, and bird-peppers from the Indians. He had also several tons of Guiaquil chocolate and sweetmeats lately taken on the sea. He had come to Springer’s Key, he said, to fill water, before going east along the coast, as far as the ’Seniqua, looking for logwood. Things were quiet, he said, along the Main; there was nothing doing; only a few barcalongas taken. There had been talk at La Sound’s Key of combining and going to the Santa Maria gold-mines, but it had come to nothing. The French and English would not agree upon a leader. For his own part, he said, he believed there was logwood along some of these rivers east there, and he was going to look for it. He was a shrewd, but frank, elderly man.

“Look here,” he said, taking out a handkerchief. “There’s some of it. I dyed that of a slip I cut. None of your business where. There’s a pretty red for you. And I got another dodge I’m working at. Here. What d’you make of these?”

“You’ve got them a very beautiful clear colour. Look, Edward. Did you learn the secret yourself?”

“They’re very good coloured wax anyway,” said Captain Tucker, putting them away.

“We was thinking of trying to trade at Tolu,” Cammock said. “Would you care to stand in with us?”

“I’ve come here,” Margaret said, “to establish a trade, Captain Tucker. If I’m not allowed to trade with the Spanish towns, I shall trade here, like you, and defend such traders as come to me. All this coast is going to waste. I want to see all you roving traders banded together to make use of it. The Spanish can’t work it. Why should not you join us, with your men, for a beginning?”

“The jackal went a-hunting with the lion, sir. But it wasn’t him got the tender-loin,” said Tucket.

“Ah come, come, Abel,” said Cammock. “We’re old hands, you and I. It’s all a matter of articles.”

“I must talk it over,” said Abel. “I’ll run over to La Sound’s Key and talk it out with my mates. I won’t say. No, sir. I won’t say. Not one way or the other.”

He left soon after breakfast, and, having now filled his water, sailed from the key.

“He’s afraid of me,” said Margaret. “He’s afraid that I come from the Government, to put down privateering. Isn’t that what’s in his mind?”

“No, sir,” said Cammock. “He’s pleased with the notion. He’s a trader. He wants to cut logwood without any fear of guarda-costas. He’ll take all the defence you care to give; but he won’t come cruising with you till he’s got enough friends to stop you taking the lion’s share. He’ll be back to-morrow with some friends.”

Margaret went ashore, after this, to view the key. It was one of the larger keys of the archipelago. It was about a mile long, running east and west, and about a quarter of a mile across at its broadest part. In its highest part it was not more than sixty feet above the water; but the trees rising up above it to great height made it seem hilly. A sandy beach shelved down into the water on the side facing the Isthmus. On the north side the shore was rocky and steep-to, and hemmed about, by a five-mile sweep of reef, in a ring of breakers. Indeed, the reef ringed the key round; but the rocks about the beach did not break the seas. The island could only be approached from the south and east. On the other side neither ship nor boat could come within great-gun-shot. To the east, for a dozen miles or more, an array of palm keys stretched, with reefs in tumult round them. To approach the key from the east one had to sail within these keys, in a channel or fairway known as Springer’s Drive. This channel was bordered to the south by the keys fringing the Isthmus. The double line of keys, separated by three miles of sea, made a sort of palm hedge, or avenue, up to the anchorage. There was good holding-ground and riding in every part of the Drive; but ships usually rode near Springer’s Key, for they could get water there. Unlike most of the keys, it had a spring, which bubbled up strongly on the beach, through an old sunk tar-barrel, some yards beyond the tide-marks. The water was cold and clear, gushing up with a gurgle, making the sand grains dance. The bottom of the cask was covered with rusty iron, old nails, old blades of knives, old round-shot, laid there by sailors, long ago, in the belief that they would make the water medicinal. Some one had dammed up a pool below the cask, for the easier filling of the water-breakers. The water gurgled away, over the lip of the pool, amid a tangle of water plants that bore a profuse sweet blossom, like a daisy. Margaret had never seen a lovelier place. The brightness of the sun on the sea, the green of the trees towering up beyond him, the macaws of all colours, making their mockeries in sweet notes, were beautiful exceedingly. It was all new and strange to him. He half wished that he might be left alone there. He had no longer any wish to succeed. Had Olivia been on the other side of the world, his strength would have gone to make this spot a home for half the ships in the world. They would have lain there, with their sails as awnings, at anchor off the city he had builded. His citizens would have made those islands another Venice, another Athens, a glorious city, a city of noble life and law. All that was in his imagination might have existed, he thought. All the splendour should have come in praise of her. Nothing would have stopped him. In his heart her face would have flowered, that beautiful, pale face, the image of the woman he loved; he would have made his city glorious. Marble bridges should have spanned the channels. His empire would have spread. It would have spread over the sea there, over the keys, over the low coast fringed with mangroves, over the hills, dim in the south, over the crags where the clouds streamed, beyond the great bay, far into the south, past Garachina, past Tumbez, beyond Ylo to the Evangelists. He would have been a king. His ships would have scented all the seas of the world, bringing balms and spice home. Now all that was over, he saw what might have been. It would not now be. He had no wish now to see his city rise. He found his imagination dulled. The woman who had been his imagination, through whom, alone, he had lived imaginatively, walked, a tired shadow, with heavy eyes, in the ship beyond the reef. If he passed her she shuddered, averting her eyes. If he spoke to her—twice he had tried to speak to her—she drew in her breath, her eyes shut; she drew away from him as from a snake. He had no heart left to think of cities. All that he wished now was to do what he could for the merchants who had risked their money. The city would have to wait till the other lover came. The city would rise up glorious from the beauty of some other woman. All his love, and high resolve, and noble effort had come to this, that Olivia thought him something lower than Stukeley, something baser than the beasts.

He walked with Cammock to the island’s eastern end, where a rocky hillock stood out from the trees. He saw that a fort there would command the channel. Six of his long-range guns planted there under cover would be enough to defend the anchorage against any probable attack from guarda-costas. He drew a sketch-plan for a small redoubt, and ordered half his crew ashore to begin the clearing of the ground. He would have a wall of unmortared stones, backed by gabions, leaving embrasures for the six cannon. The outside of the fort would be covered with earth and sand, so that from a little distance it would look like a natural hillock. He caused a dozen men to cut down bejuco cane, and to plait it, while green, into wattle for the gabions. An Indian prince came to him from the Main that afternoon. He entertained him with ceremony, giving gifts of beads and petticoats, with the result that, the next morning, there were fifty natives on the key helping in the clearing of the ground. They, too, were bribed by beads. They were kindly, intelligent fellows, accustomed to be reckoned as the equals of white men, so that Cammock, superintending the work, had to watch his hands, lest they should treat their guests, in the English style, as niggers. The fort, such as it was, was finished on the third day. Its outer face showed from the sea like a sloping hillock, which in a few days would be again green with creepers. Within the wall of gabions, backed by wattle-bound piles, was a gun platform, with dry powder storerooms twenty feet behind each gun. The guns were mounted on iron carriages, and so arranged that each of the six could play across some ninety degrees of the compass. A roof of felt was rigged over each gun to protect the gunners in the rains. Margaret wished to hoist the colours over the fort; but Perrin begged that the new republic might be spared, at any rate till it was worth appropriating. Cammock advised him to refrain, lest the buccaneers should suspect him of playing for the hand of the Crown. So no flag was hoisted, though within the fort, daily, military sentries paced, firing a gun at dawn and sunset.

While the fort was in building some of the Indians cleared a space among the wood. In the clearing they built a great house for the workers: a thatched house twelve feet high, with wattle walls made rainproof. The uprights supported the hammocks at night. Those who slept ashore built always a fire of aromatic leaves in the house’s centre. Before turning in they sprinkled this with water to make a smoke. Those who woke in the night smelt the sweet, strong smoke which made their eyes smart, and heard without the never-ceasing march of the surf, the drone of the dew-flies, and the drowsy twang of the mosquitoes, plagued by the smoke.

Captain Tucket returned after some days with a sample of logwood and a consort. The consort was that Captain Pain who afterwards made such a stir in the Western Gulf. He was a prosperous captain even then. His ship was a fine French-built vessel of great beauty. His crew numbered ninety-seven hands, the very flower of the trade. He seemed suspicious of Margaret, who opened a trade with him on liberal terms. The privateers bought arms and clothes, paying for them with silver and gold; but there was constraint on both sides. The privateers were suspicious. At dinner in the trade-room Captain Pain gave voice to his suspicions.

“You’re a gentleman,” he said. “I don’t know what you want out here.”

“Well,” said Margaret, “I’ve already told you. I’ve a scheme for breaking the Spanish power here. But before I take any violent action I wish to try once again to establish a trade on ordinary, peaceful, European lines. There is no reason why they shouldn’t trade.”

“You will be my partner, I hope,” said Margaret. “We will have all these islands laid out in vanillas, cacao, indigo, anatta, cochineal, everything. All the Isthmus there will be our estate. We shall trade with the Spaniards and the whole of Europe.”

“Then we shall declare that they’ve no right here, and that we, in the name of the rest of the world, have a right to assist the rightful owners of the country, who wish us to trade.”

“And then a governor’ll come, and stop our going on the account,” said Pain.

“Yes. But if he does,” said Margaret, “you must see that with the Isthmus in your hands you’ll be better off than you are now. What do you do now? You pick up a boatful of sugar once a month, and share a crown a man. Then you run short of food and go to Toro for turtle.”

“Your scheme’s very pretty,” Pain said. “But you’re a gentleman. I ain’t a gentleman myself, thank God, and I don’t know what your game is. You’re either a bit off your biscuit, or you’re in with the Government. That’s my candid opinion.”

At this moment Stukeley entered, a little flown with rum, from the ward-room dinner.

“Hello, Maggy,” he said. “I’ve come to talk with Captain Pain here. Your servant, captain. I suppose these twisters here have been talking about and about it. Eh? They make a man sick, I say. Eh? Hold your tongue, Maggy. Wait till you’re spoken to. I’ve got something to say. The men of war—my friends in the ’tween-decks there—they’ve been talking with me while you’ve been talking here. You talk all day, and leave off just where you were.”

“Well,” Cammock said, “let’s have the message. Here’s Captain Pete waiting on us.”

“Right,” Stukeley said, sitting down at the table. “Then I’m to tell you that the men of war want to know when they’re going to have what they came for. They’re sick of doing sentry-go in the ant-heap yonder. They signed for a roving life.”

“They signed to obey our orders,” Cammock said. “They’ll get all the roving they’ve a need for soon enough.”

“So they say,” Stukeley answered. “If you don’t give it them they’ll take it, and half your crew besides.”

“Not with Captain Tucket and Captain Pain here,” said Stukeley, grinning. “You see. If you cut up nasty, Cammock. Why. You’ve a very good ship, and a lot of useful weapons in your hold. Long eighteens. Eh? Carry a mile and a quarter. What’s to stop us putting you ashore. Eh?”

“That’s what we did to the Frenchman,” Cammock said. “D’you remember, Pete?”

He spoke with such a strange inflection that none there could guess his meaning, though all looked at him curiously. He turned to Stukeley with attention, as though expecting something more.

“So,” Stukeley continued, “your humble servants of the ’tween-decks ask that you will give them a brush. Or——”

“You seem determined to put me in a queer position, mister,” he said. “But come now, Mr. Margaret. What’s wrong with having a go at Tolu? We’ve a hundred and ninety men. Why not?”

“Quite right, sir,” said Tucket. “I’m a merchant, too. I’d be only too glad to trade.”

“They won’t let you,” said Stukeley. “So why not look at the position honestly.”

“Well. Trade. Try it,” said Pain. “If you try it, you’ll get a sickener. Then you’ll fight all the better, after.”

“They used to trade,” said Cammock. “I’ve known a lot of interloping done. At Maracaibo they traded.”

“They won’t now,” Pain said. “Any man caught trading without the King’s license is up for the everlasting prison remediless. You don’t believe me. You try.”

“Right O,” said Pain. “Then we’ll sail to-morrow. Our two ships will keep out of sight of land. We could lie by among them Bernadoes. You can send in samples with your interpreter in Captain Tucket’s sloop. If they see a big ship standing in they’ll fire at her. So send the sloop. They’ll not listen to you. They’ll likely fire at the sloop. So the next morning we’ll land and take the town. There’s twenty pound a man in Tolu. Silver.”

Cammock, to give Margaret the cue, for he knew that Pain held the whip hand, said that he approved. “That sounds like business,” he said. “This is Tolu, Captain Margaret.” He pulled out a quarto pocket-book containing elaborate charts of many places on the Main. The book had been the work of many days, and of many hands, for some of the charts had been copied, some made on the spot, some taken in fight, others bought, or drawn from hearsay, or bequeathed. It contained manuscript notes worth a lot of money to a good many people. “This is Tolu, sir. In Morrosquillo Gulf here. This long beach runs twenty miles. It’s all hard sand, shelving, and shallowish water in the gulf. Then back of the town there’s forest. But all very flat land, as far as Cispata. Ain’t that so, Pete?”

“Yes. I got some nice ones of these here islands. Every anchorage and spring marked. Basil done them. You remember Basil, Pete. He was a very good drawer.”

“Ah? Now as for Tolu, Captain Margaret. It’s a walled town. But the only guns are in the sea-wall. And the wall ain’t much more than gabions. Not much stone about it. If it comes to fighting, we’ll land on the beach away south here, and creep up, wading, along the beach, so as to arrive about dawn.”

“Well, Captain Pain,” said Margaret. “We’ll sail to-morrow. We’ll see which of us is right.”

He smiled pleasantly, but his thoughts were bitter. He saw that to succeed on the Main one needed to be one of the crowd. Pain there, the inscrutable, pale man, had long ago decided how to use him. He, a cultured gentleman, with a King’s commission, was in Pain’s hands. He must either go with Pain, or lose his crew. His crew would follow Pain at a nod. If he tried to coerce either Pain or his crew, he saw that there would be trouble. The Broken Heart would be taken from him. He had not thought of this chance; but he remembered a word of Cammock’s: “Give them some little success, and they’ll do anything.” If this trading venture prospered, he could proceed to Jamaica, he could come to some treaty with the Spaniards, pledging himself to put down privateering. If the trading venture failed, then it would rest with him to make a conquest of the Indies, to gather all these thieves into a company, and strike at Spain till she tottered. After Tolu, and Tolu would have to be a success, he would lead them against Cartagena. Then he might be able to make a head. At present he was a “new standard.” He understood Pain’s point of view. He knew that he must appear to Pain as an uppish youth who thought that he knew more than old hands. He would show them that he did know more.

Pete laughed. “Oh, him,” he said. “He went to Portobel, and joined the Spaniards.”

“How did the Spaniards treat him?” Perrin asked. He had heard of that wild spirit from Cammock.

“Dunno,” said Pain carelessly. “Give him a position in the Government, I heard.” He turned to Cammock. “One of Bill Knight’s lot was in Panama a year ago,” he continued. “He said he was got to be a big one there.”

“Ah?” said Cammock. “Well. It’s right, too. There’s very good openings for a man in a Spanish town here.”

“Indeed,” said Margaret. “I should have thought there was bitter feeling.”

After this the conversation died down, till Stukeley asked if a herald from a landing party ran risk of being shot.

“No,” said Pain. “I done it two or three times. You go ashore under a white flag, holding up your hands, and then they come and blindfold you, and take you into the town. Then you say your piece to the Governor, and then you come back.”

“Then,” said Stukeley, “you’d better prime me now in what you want said, Maggy. I must have a set speech ready for anything the old cove asks me.”

“That’s quite true. I’m glad you reminded me. We’ll go into it. To-morrow morning, then, Captain Pain. But I wish you could have waited till my ship was scrubbed.”

“Time enough, Mr. Margaret,” Pain answered. “We’ll careen her when we come back.”

He went on deck with Cammock, leaving Margaret to instruct Stukeley in the matter of his speech to the Spanish Governor. One speech, which ran, “Your Excellency, I hold my King’s commission. If you permit me to trade here I pledge my honour to assist your King against his enemies in these seas,” seemed to Stukeley to be a pleasant jest. He repeated it, grinning, till he had it letter perfect. Then he repeated it in Spanish, and left the cabin, laughing.

“Come back here a moment, Stukeley,” Margaret called. “I’ve got something I want to say to you.”

“Stukeley,” he said, “we’re going on a dangerous business to-morrow. I want you before we leave the ship to see your wife. Will you do that? I don’t want to preach. I only ask you to realize what it might be to her if anything happened to you.”

“Stukeley, she’s a long way from friends. Life isn’t very sweet to her.”

“I’ll make it a good deal sourer if you come crawling round. Well, I’ll see her. Now then. No more. Good night, Captain Maggy.”

The door slammed behind him with a clatter of swinging hooks. Margaret was alone, his face buried in his hands, with his world tottering about him, ready to fall.

XI.
THE FLAG OF TRUCE

In the morning, when they were under way, with the two little hills of Pinos astern of them, and the ship’s bows turned towards Morrosquillo, far to the east, still two days distant, Captain Margaret sent Perrin to the cabin to request an audience with Olivia. As he had feared, she refused to see him. She sat, pale and exhausted, at the table, Perrin said, too weary of life to ask whither they were bound, or to ask the nature of their consorts, now sailing easily, under reduced sail, near the lumbering Broken Heart, foul with long weeks at sea. She did not care what happened; but, finding Perrin importunate, she left the cabin, and for two days saw no one. On the second day the ships anchored between Ceycen and the Overfalls, in a harbour shut away by wooden keys, from which the brooks fell pleasantly, with a rippling chatter, that was drowsy and delightsome, after the glare of the sun on the sea, in the hot calms. They loaded the sloop with samples during the afternoon, and chose out hands to go in her. Stukeley was to go as herald and interpreter, Margaret as principal, in case the matter came to a conference; while as crew they picked ten from the Broken Heart, five from Pain, five from Tucket, all good shots, well armed. Perrin was to stay aboard with Cammock, so that Olivia might have a friend aboard, in case the sloop was lost.

After breakfast, Margaret made a last attempt to speak with her. He entered the cabin unannounced, to find her sitting alone, in a black gown, a Bible before her, and her face all pale, her eyes with dark rings round them. She looked up as he entered, then sank back, closing her eyes, with a sharp intake of her breath.

“What do you want with me?” she asked in a hard voice. “Have you come to see if—if——”

“Olivia,” he answered, “I’ve come to tell you that I’m going to a town, now. There’s danger. I’m going with. I mean. Your husband is coming. It’s a dangerous service. I want you to try to realize that. That your husband’s going on a dangerous service. That you might like to see him.”

“That is all,” he said. “Except that I may not see you again. That I wouldn’t like.” The words dragged; his mouth was quite dry. He stumbled in his speech and began again.

“Olivia,” he said. “My conduct. I thought I acted for the best. I ask you to forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” she said. “Thank you. But I’ve no wish to. You lied to me from the moment I came into the ship. You lied at Salcombe. At Falmouth. All the voyage. In Virginia. And then you thought you had lied enough for your purpose. You let me learn the truth.”

“Ah,” she said, with disgust. “You lied to save me, till it was too late for me to hear the truth.”

“Olivia,” he continued, “I won’t speak more of myself. Your husband. I think he wants. He wants to see you. There may be danger. He wants to see you. He wants to say good-bye. I am going now,” he added. “Olivia, we’ve been in each other’s lives a long time. Could you. Could you let this.” He stumbled in his speech again. She did not help him. His throat was dry like a kiln; he seemed unable to speak. “I am going now,” he said again. “I’ll send your husband to you.” He bowed, and left the cabin. As he closed the door he thought that he could not remember his last sight of her. He could not remember her face as it had last looked upon him.

“I was looking for you,” said Stukeley. “We’re waiting for you. It’s time we went.”

“Your wife’s in the cabin,” he answered. “She’s waiting for you. To say good-bye.” As he spoke, the cabin door opened, and Olivia came out into the alley-way.

“Hello, Livy,” he answered. “I’m just going ashore, to interview the Spaniards.”

“No. Do not go,” she answered. “I’ve something to say to you, Tom. I want you to hear it, Charles. Tom, there’s danger in going ashore here. Oh, I know it. I know it. Tom, dear, since we came here there’s been something between us always. Ever since. Tom, dear, you were afraid that I should be angry. Unforgiving. You might have trusted me, Tom. You were afraid I should hate you. I wasn’t very wise. It was so sudden. And I wasn’t myself, Tom. It’s not too late, dear. Don’t let it be too late, Tom.” She paused, looking to her husband for the answer she had put into his mouth. Stukeley found it hard to answer. “Oh, Tom, I want you back. I want you back.”

“There, Livy,” Stukeley said. “There, Livy.” He took her in his arms and kissed her. “When I come back, dear,” he added. “I must go now. I’m going ashore.”

“Don’t go, Tom. Oh, Tom, don’t go. There’s danger. You may be hurt. Charles, tell him.”

“It’s all right, old girl. They all swore there’s not the slightest danger. We shall be back by four o’clock if the wind holds.”

“I must, Livy.” A thought seemed to strike him. “Look here, Livy. It must be our first step to—to our new life together. To a new life out here.”

“Charles,” she said, “come here. I’ve been. Been. Not myself. I spoke cruelly. I want you to forgive me, Charles. Take my hand. And yours, Tom. This is going to be the beginning of a new life together. Will you let it be that, Charles? You will, Tom?”

“It shall be that,” Margaret said. They shook hands in the alleyway, making their bonds of peace.

“You’re my Tom again now,” she said lowly. “I’ve forgotten all the rest, dear.”

Margaret turned aside, crushing his hat-brim, wondering what new misery was in store for her. He walked softly out on deck, leaving the two to their farewell. Perrin said something to him. Cammock was not in sight. A little knot of men stood in the waist, idly watching the sloop.

Presently Stukeley came from the alleyway with a grin upon his face. “Anything for a quiet life,” he said. “Down into the boat with you, Maggy.”

As they shoved off from the Broken Heart, Olivia waved to them from her state-room port. Margaret felt a pang of remorse that he had not shaken hands with Perrin, nor spoken with Cammock, before leaving the ship. He was nearly alongside the sloop when he saw Cammock’s hat above the poop nettings.

“Oars a moment.” The men lay on their oars, watching the drops fall from the blades into the sea. The roar of Cammock sounded.

“No. I must hear. Back a stroke, port oars. Why, starboard. I’ll pull back to find out. Way together.”

Fifty yards nearer to the ship they again lay on their oars. This time the hail was clear.

“I’ve not had it. Ask Mr. Perrin.” He sat down in his seat, Cammock shouted a farewell, to which Margaret raised his hand in salute.

“Nothing can be lost in a ship,” said Stukeley. “Besides, what’s a book of maps?”

“That book was worth a good deal. The Spaniards would pay a high price for it. With all those charts to help them, they could put down privateering when they pleased.”

“Oh, rubbish,” said Stukeley, swinging himself up the sloop’s side. “He could easy get duplicates.”

The sloop was already under sail. The men climbed aboard, and let the boat drag astern. The helm was put up a little, the fore sheet was let draw. Soon, as the boom swung over, straining the blocks, when the mainsail filled, they slipped clear the anchorage. Looking over the rail, they saw the nettings of the two ships lined with men, some of whom waved caps in farewell.

Captain Tucket came to command his sloop. He talked little; for he was trying a new dye. He was boiling a handkerchief in a pan of herbs, over a little brazier fixed on the deck. The experiment made him silent; but in moments of enthusiasm he spoke a few words, stirring the mess with a fid.

“You never will, cap,” said the helmsman. “Them Indians use moss; a kind of tree moss. I’ve seed ’em do it.”

“What’s the matter, Stukeley? Is anything the matter?” Stukeley had burst out laughing without apparent reason.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Stukeley answered. “I was thinking of my interview with the Governor.”

It was high noon when they arrived at Tolu Road. They hoisted a white flag, and stood in boldly till they were a mile to the south-west of the town. Here the sloop was hove-to, while the men prepared for their journey. The six oarsmen of the whale-boat stuffed loaded pistols within their shirts, and laid their muskets in oilskin cases below the thwarts. Margaret and Stukeley sat in the sternsheets, both wearing their swords. Tucket, who steered with an oar, was armed with pistols. A flag of truce was hoisted in the boat. Tucket told his mate to keep a sharp look out in the sloop, and to run in to pick them up “if anything happened.” Then the little lugsail was hoisted, and the boat began to move towards the town.

Margaret was disappointed with himself as the boat crept on towards the town. He had so often lived over this adventure in his fancy that the reality seemed tame to him. He was disappointed with the look of the city; it seemed but a mean place; a church, a fort, a few stone houses, a gleam of red pantiles against the forest, and a mud wall ringing it in. The bell tinkled in the belfry, tinkled continually, jerked by a negro who had had no orders to stop. It seemed to Margaret that a bell was out of place in that half-savage town. It was not a Christian town. Those were not Christians on the beach. They were Indians, negroes, convicts, runaways, half-breeds. They needed some bloodier temple than that old church in the square. They needed a space in the forest, lit by fires in the night. They needed the reek of sacrifice and the clang of gongs. And this was the place he had sailed to. Here his life’s venture was to be put to the touch. Here, in this place, this little old squalid city between the sea and the jungle. All the long anxieties were to be resolved there. There on the sand, beyond the spume of the breakers, the doubts were to end. He could not bring himself to care. His thoughts ran on the pale face of Olivia, on her words to him, on the possibility of a new life for her.

“Stukeley,” he said, speaking very quietly in his hearer’s ear, “look here. I want to say this. After this business, if you care, would you like to settle in Jamaica or somewhere? Or in France? You and Olivia? You could draw on me, you know. We could start something together.”

Stukeley seemed to measure the distance between the boat and the shore. He looked at Margaret with a gleam of humour in his eyes.

“Very well,” Margaret said. “There comes the captain. What strange little horses. Are they imported, Captain Tucket?”

“No, sir. This country horses. Imported horses die of the heat, or the change of grass. Beyond Carta-yaina there’s very good horse country.”

The rabble on the beach drew back now towards the town, handling their arms. Half a dozen horsemen rode as though to meet the boat, almost to the lip of the sea. One of them, a negro, who held his stirrups with his toes, carried a pennon.

“The lad on the pinto’s the capataz,” said Tucket in his beard. “Stand up with the flag in the bows there. Down sail. Let your oars swing fore and aft in their grummets, ready to back her off. Wave your flag of truce, Ed. Don’t shake your pistols out though. Stand by, Captain Stukeley.”

“Oh, Stukeley,” Margaret said. “This little case contains a ring for the Governor. Say that you trust that it may have the felicity to fit.”

“I will,” said Stukeley. “They carry some plate on their headstalls, don’t they?” He put the case in his pocket.

The bow man waved his flag of truce, then lowered it, and knelt, waiting for the shock of the grounding. Very gently, in the wash of little waves and slipping shingle, the boat’s nose took the sand. Captain Margaret stepped across the thwarts, holding a white cloth in his hand. Watching his time, he leaped nimbly beyond the water, and uncovered. Stukeley followed him, jumping clumsily. It seemed to Margaret, as he turned sharply, thinking that the man had fallen, that a book in Stukeley’s inner pocket was surely Cammock’s map-book. It half jolted out as the coat flew open. It was a glimpse, nothing more. Perhaps he was wrong. The two men stood uncovered before the horsemen, who watched them with the grave eyes of animals. An elderly man among the riders rode forward for a pace or two, uncovering with a gesture full of dignity. He had the bearing of a soldier. It seemed to Margaret that the gesture explained the might of Spain. Stukeley advanced towards the horseman with his hat beating against his knee. He spoke quietly in Spanish. After a few words, the elderly man dismounted, and the two walked to and fro together, talking with a grave politeness, which seemed to extend to the listeners, whether they understood or not.

Presently Stukeley bowed very low to the captain, and walked jauntily to Margaret. “It’s all right,” he said. “I think they’ll do your business for you. They’re very friendly. They’re going to take me to see the Governor.”

“You think you run no risk? I’m willing to come if you think you run any. I ought to share it.”

“It ain’t very polite to accept. Eh? I’ll go alone. He knows you’ve a commission. I’ve shown him that duplicate. It’s all right. I’ll go off now. So long, my Maggy. Con Dios, caballero. Try and keep warm on the sands here.”

He saluted the boat’s crew, gave Margaret a queer glance, and rejoined the capataz, who bowed to them gravely. The negro with the pennon led the dismounted horse. The capataz walked with Stukeley, followed by the other troopers. They went slowly towards the gate of the city. The troopers made their horses curvet and passage, clashing their silver gear. Margaret stood at the lip of the water, watching them, till they had passed within the gate, followed by the rabble.

The boatmen held that it would not be politic to return to the sloop. “It might seem as we didn’t trust them,” Tucket said. So they rigged the boat-rug as an awning over the sternsheets, and whiled away the time, suffering much from the heat. It was a stifling day. The time passed slowly, with many calls for the water-breaker. They made their dinner of plantains, then smoked, exchanging stories, longing for Stukeley’s return. Margaret found the time less irksome than he had expected; for Tucket began to talk, out of a full heart, about the subjects dear to him. He had never had such a listener before. Margaret drew him out, with his usual sympathy, till the man’s inmost life was bare before him. Such woods would take a polish, and such other woods would take a stain; and such and such resins, why should they not stain a wood to all colours of the rainbow, if treated with care in the right way? It would be fine, Captain Tucket said, to be a chemist, and have nothing else to do but to watch your dye vats all day long. Vats of indigo, of anatta, of cochineal, all the lovely colours, and—— Say. If one could get a green that showed the light in it, like the water breaking on a reef. The hours passed; it was nearly three o’clock; but still no Stukeley.

“I guess it’s difficult to get away from the donnas,” said another. The others laughed; for Stukeley’s faults were well known.

“I ain’t much charmed with your friend myself,” said Tucket. “I don’t trust that Master Stukeley.”

“Well, I wouldn’t a trusted him to be my interpreter,” Tucket answered, with the growl of one whose superior wisdom, now proved, is proved too late. “We could a give you Thomas Gandy. He’d have done as good. He knows Spanish just like a book, Tom do. And you could a trusted Tom with your life. Now you ain’t on too good terms with the Mr. Stukeley feller.”

“Why, no, sir. That’s putting your joint in the fire to hot your soup. Stay here, sir.”

“It’s not really safe, sir. There’s cat-fish on this coast. Besides, we better not get all over the place like shifting backstays. Them Dagoes might come some of their monkey-tricks.”

“Siesta time,” said one of the men. “They likes a doss in the afternoon.”

“I dunno what to think,” Tucket said. “But ’t’ain’t too wholesome, to my mind.”

“He could a sent word. Or they’d a sent dinner here. I’ve knowed Dagoes do that. You got good eyes, Ed. What d’you make of the woods there, back of the sand?” He turned to Margaret. “He’d been with the Indians three or four years, Ed done. He sees things in brush like that, just like an animal.”

All hands stared into the wall of green, which rose up eighty yards away, beyond the line of the sand. The trees towered up, notching the sky with their outlines. The sun blazed down upon them, till they flashed, as though their leaves were green steel. They made a wall of forest, linked, tangled, criss-crossed, hiding an inner darkness. A parrot was tearing at a blossom high up on a creeper, flinging out the petals with little wicked twists of his head. He showed up clearly against the sky in that strong light.

“They’re the kind you can learn to speak, sir,” said a seaman. “I’ve known some of them birds swear, you would think it was real. Some of them can do it in Spanish.”

“They’ve got caramba,” said the first. “Caramba. That’s the same as God damn is in English.”

Something had startled the parrot. He leaped up with a scream from his liane, made a half-circle in the air, and flew away, wavering, along the coast. One or two other birds rose as quietly as moths, and flitted into the night of the wood. A deer stepped out on to the beach daintily, picking her steps. She sniffed towards the town, listened, seemed to hear something, caught sight of the boat, and fled. Then came a sudden chattering of monkeys, a burst of abusive crying, lasting only for a moment.

“Yes,” said a seaman. “They go to Covenas. A town along there. They always go by the beach.”

“No saying, mister. May as well make ready,” he answered. “We’ll lay out our boat’s kedge to seaward, so as we can warp off in a hurry.”

They rowed the boat out into the bay, dropped their kedge, and backed her stern-first to the beach. They struck the awning, hoisted sail, and laid their oars in the thole-pins. They waited for another half-hour, watching the mysterious forest.

“I guess we’ll go off to the sloop, cap,” said a seaman. “He’s give us the flying foretopsail.”

“Them paharos is back among them berries,” said Ed. “I guess it was boys come for plantains.”

“I must go up to the town to find out about him,” Margaret said. “I can’t wait like this.”

“But I got him to go. I can’t let him get into trouble through me. I’m responsible. I must see about him. I can’t go back without him.”

“There’s some one in that brush,” said Ed. “Them paharos has topped their booms for keeps.”

“Well,” said Margaret, taking out his white cloth, noting the wild, frightened flight of a half-dozen parrots, “I’m going to the some one, to find out.” He leaped from the sternsheets into the shallow water, and began to wade ashore, holding his cloth.

Margaret heard some one (he thought it was Ed’s voice) saying, “He’s brave all right,” and then, behind him, came the click of gunlocks. He glanced back, and saw that two of the men in the sternsheets had taken out their guns, while a third man laid other loaded guns ready to their hands. Ed called to him as he turned.

“You come back, sir.” Then, seeing that his words were of no avail, he leaped into the water and caught him by the arm. “Back to the boat, sir,” he said. “It’s not you only. It might be us.”

“I must find out about my friend,” said Margaret. “I can’t leave him as he is.”

“Now you go back,” Ed repeated, grinning, “or I’ll have to put you.” He looked up suddenly at the forest. “My Santa Marta!” he cried. “Into the boat. Here they are.” He thrust Margaret backwards towards his fellows, and instantly bent down to shove the boat clear. Both were up to their knees in water at the boat’s side. Some one, it was the man who had worked in Tolu, leaned out and grabbed at Margaret’s collar.

At the instant a swarm of men burst from the edge of the forest. One or two of them who were mounted charged in at a gallop. The others ran down, crying, firing their guns as they ran. The water about the boat was splashed violently, as though some one flung pebbles edgewise from a height. Margaret drew his sword and turned. He saw a horse come down within twenty yards of him. Some one shouted “Crabs” derisively. Half a dozen fierce faces seemed staring on him, rushing on him, their mouths open, their eyes wide. There was a crack of guns. Men were falling. Then the wildness passed; he was calm again. A Spaniard, the rider of the fallen horse, was in the water, thrusting at him with a lance, calling him cuckold and bastard in the only English words he knew. Margaret knocked the lance aside with difficulty, for the man was strong and wild. His thoughts at the moment, for all the danger, was “I can’t be both.” He wondered in that flash of time whether a man could be both. All the beach seemed hidden from him with smoke and fire and the hurrying of splashing bodies. Where was Ed gone? It was all smoke and racket. He was being hit. Something struck his left arm. Striking at random at a voice in the smoke, his sword struck something. He dragged his sword back, and slipped with the effort. He was up to his waist in water for an instant, below the smoke. He saw men’s legs. He saw water splashing. Then there was smoke everywhere. Smoke of a hundred guns. A racket like the chambers shot off at the end of Hamlet; exactly like. A wave went into his face. Some one fell across him and knocked him down again. It was Ed.

“Hold up, you fool,” Ed cried. The voice was the high, querulous voice of the hurt man.

“You’re hit, Ed,” he said, catching him about the body. His arm stung along its length with the effort. “Where are you hit, Ed?”

“Abajo. Vete al carajo, hijo de la gran puta. Cabron! Mierda!” The words came out of the smoke like shots. The roar of the battle seemed to be all about him. He backed, staggering, to get out of the smoke. A half-tamed horse’s teeth ripped the sleeve from his hurt arm, knocking them both down again. Some one jabbed him with a lance in the shoulder. He struck the horse as he rose half choked, still clutching Ed. The horse leaped with a scream. The smoke lifted. It was all bright for a moment. A mad horse; a trooper swearing; Ed’s body like a sack with blood on it; a smoke full of fiery tongues. There was the boat though. Then the smoke cloaked it. Bullets splashed water in his face. The butt of a flung lance banged him on the side of the head. The horse reared above him, screaming, floundering in foam, then falling heavily. He was almost out of his depth now, half swimming, half dead, lugging a nether millstone. Blood was in his eyes, his sword dangled from his wrist, his free hand tried to swim. He clutched at the boat, missed, went under, gulping salt. He clutched again as the white side slid away. His fingers caught upon the gunwale, near the stroke’s thwart. He made the boat sway to one side a little. “Trim her,” said Tucket, as he hauled, face forward, on the warp. He did not look round; merely trimmed her mechanically, flinging the warp’s fakes aft. “Away-hay-hay-i-oh,” he sang. “Lively, Jude,” said another. “If you fire like you load, your bullets has moss on them.” Two of them were firing sharply, lying behind the backboard. “Cut,” cried Tucket. There was a shock of chopping on the gunwale. A hand sculled way upon her with the steering-oar as the sail filled. The midship oars were manned.

“Lord. I thought you were in,” said Tucket. “Up with him. Ed’s gone. Don’t capsize the ship, you. I’d forgot you two.”

Margaret managed to scramble in, helped by the boatmen. Then he collapsed in the bottom of the boat over Ed. He had had a moving time. He came-to quickly, with the taste of rum in his mouth and a feeling of intense cold. His teeth chattered; he was weak and sick. “Land and bring off Stukeley,” he said. “I can’t leave Stukeley.”

“We’ll be in the sloop in a minute,” said one of the men. “We’ll shift him there. He got a prod in the shoulder.”

“Got a bat with a stone, I guess. I can’t see no shot hole. Hold up, Ed. You ain’t dead yet.”

“I’m all right,” said Ed weakly. “That Margaret fellow fell all across me and knocked me down.”

Margaret rose up in the boat. “I can’t leave Stukeley,” he said. “Pull in, Captain Tucket, and bring him off.”

“You lie down, sir, and stay quiet,” said Captain Tucket. “We’ll be there directly.”

One or two of the men tittered. Margaret tried to raise himself to look at the land. He heard the roar of cannon from somewhere astern. “That’s a heavy gun,” he said. “Who’s firing a heavy gun?” Then he felt suddenly very tired, the boat and the guns became blurred to him, he felt that there were ships sailing into action, firing their guns in succession, shaking with the shock. An array of ships was sailing. There were guns, guns. Guns that would never cease firing. There was water roaring. No. Not water. Horses. Horses and ships. Roaring, roaring. They were calling some one “Puta.” When he came-to, he was lying below in the sloop, with a cold mess on his arm and a fiery pain along his shoulder.

“No, sir,” said Tucket, drying his hands. “Mr. Stukeley’s ashore. It’s my belief our Mr. Stukeley put that ambush on us. Mr. Stukeley’ll stay ashore.”

“You just have a lap of this lemon-drink,” said Tucket. “We had about as near a call as may be. Ed got a bat on the head. You been pretty near killed. There’s a pound’s worth of paint knocked off the boat. Jude’s got a slug in his pants. The sail’s like a nutmeg-grater. If we’d not laid that warp out, the land-crabs would be eating us at this present. There’s a couple of hundred soldiers on the beach; besides the guns.”

“They came at us in a rush,” said Margaret. The words seemed not to come from him. His meaning had been to ask Tucket what had happened.

“That’s why they fired so wild,” said Tucket. “They rushed. They saw you and Ed, and thought they’d take you.”

After some hours of quiet, Margaret rose up, feeling very weak. The cabin was hot and foul, so he dressed, and went on deck for the freshness. The boat’s crew were telling the sloop hands exactly what had happened. Margaret knew from the way in which they spoke to him, from the plain words of “Good evening, sir,” and “I hope you’re better, sir,” that he was, for some reason, the hero of the moment. His shoulder pained him, so he sat down, with his back against the taffrail. A sailor placed a coat behind him, so that his rest might be easy. Tucket was steering. The lights of the Broken Heart were visible a couple of miles ahead, against the mass of Ceycen, which hid the stars to the north-eastward.

There came a sort of growl of “Stukeley” from the seamen about him. “Stukeley,” they said. “He’s a mother’s joy, the Portuguese drummer’s get.”

“Stukeley,” said Tucket. “He put that little quiff on us on the beach. I ain’t goin’ to drown no one, shedding tears for Stukeley.”

“Nor I,” said the man called Jude. “I’d only bought them pants a week.”

“Pants,” said Tucket. “You’d not a wanted many pants if Ed and Mr. Margaret hadn’t been in the water. Them two in the water made ’em rush. If they’d come slow, you’d a been a hit in the neck with that chewed slug, my son. Don’t you forget it.”

“Did anybody see Mr. Stukeley?” Margaret asked. “Was he in the rush? Could anybody see in the smoke?”

“Then why do you think he, he prompted the raid? What makes you think that?”

“They’ve always received flags of truce before,” he answered. “And you’d a commission besides. You aren’t like one of us. Why didn’t they shoot when we put the son-of-a-gun ashore? I’ll tell you. They thought we were ordinary flag of truce. That curly-headed gentleman’s son put ’em up to it, after dinner. Why? I know. That’s why.”

“I can’t see your point,” Margaret answered. His thought was that he would have a bad hour with Olivia. The thought had no bitterness; it occurred to him simply, as a necessary part of the pain of moving from the sloop. His shoulder gave him pain; the thought of climbing his ship’s side gave him pain. He had a blurred feeling that he would have to stand painfully, explaining to a nervous woman. He would never be able to do it, he thought. He was too stupid with pain. He was feverish. He was tired. He would have to stand there, trying to be tender and sympathetic, yet failing, stupid, blunt. They would have to rescue Stukeley. Rescue him. “Yes,” he said to himself, “I’ll rescue him for you. I’ll bring him back to you from Tolu, Olivia.” He mumbled and muttered as the fever grew upon him. “I wish all this had never happened,” he said aloud.

“You’re goin’ off into the shakes,” said one of the men, putting a blanket round him. “You want to take bark in a sup of rum, sir, and then turn in.”

“Every one with a green wound gets the shakes in this country,” said another man. “Now up in Virginia you can go from September to May and never have ’em once.”

Bells were beaten from somewhere in the darkness. To Margaret’s throbbing brain the strokes seemed to be violent lights. He thought in his fever that all physical objects were interchangeable, that they all, however indifferent, expressed with equal value (though perhaps to different senses) the infinite intellect that was always One. He thought that the boat was a thought of a thought; and that a ship and a house were much alike, very worthless the pair of them. One should get away from these thoughts of thoughts to thought itself. The Broken Heart loomed large above him.

“Send down a chair, Lion,” some one said. “Mr. Margaret’s had a nasty clip.”

“Easy now with the chair,” said Cammock’s voice. “Is Mr. Stukeley there?”

“He’s got my map-book, then,” said Cammock. “He’s gone with my map-book.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, getting out of the chair. “Your map-book. It’s in his pocket. I think I saw it there.”

“Lean on me, sir,” said Cammock. “The lady’s expecting you. She’s sitting up in the cabin.”

“No. I must go,” Margaret answered. “How has it been here, captain?” Feverish as he was, he felt that he had been away for many days. The ship was strange to him.

“I’ve been throwing the ship overboard, looking for my maps,” Cammock answered. “How is your hurt, sir? When you talk to the lady, you had better have a drop of something. Just stop at my cabin for a moment.”

He fetched wine and bark from his cupboard. Then the three men entered the cabin, where Olivia stood expectantly, her cheeks flushed, waiting for her husband’s return. She had made the most of her beauty for him. She had decked herself out with an art that brought tears to Perrin’s eyes. She had done her best, poor beauty, to keep the heart which, as she thought, she had won back again. Looking at her, as she stood there, Perrin learned that Stukeley had commended a slip of black velvet round her throat, that he had praised her arms, that he liked the hair heaped in such a fashion, with a ribbon of such a tone of green. He guessed all this at a glance, telling himself that he must never again speak of these things to her. And the poor girl had rouged her cheeks, to hide the paleness. She had pencilled her eyebrows. She had drunken some drug to make her eyes bright. In the soft light of the lamp she looked very beautiful. She stood there, half-way to the door, waiting for the lover of her love-days to take her to his heart again.

“Where is Tom?” she said. “You’re hurt, Charles. Where’s Tom? He isn’t killed? He isn’t killed?”

“He went into the city.” His teeth chattered and clicked; he seemed to have been repeating his phrase for hours. “Into the city,” he repeated. He was ill, really ill. He was in a dream of fever. He was dreaming, he was in a nightmare, giving a message in that dream-speech which none comprehend save the speaker.

“He went into the city,” said Olivia slowly. She sank backwards, till she leaned against the bulkhead, her arms straying out along the beading. “But he came back. He came back.”

“I don’t know,” said Margaret. “We waited. He went into the city with them.”

“They made friends,” said Perrin. “Your husband went with the Spaniards.”

“They waited in the boat, ma’am,” said Cammock. “But your husband didn’t come back. And then the Spaniards attacked the boat. Captain Margaret was wounded.”

“Charles was landing to find him when the Spaniards attacked,” said Perrin. “He was wounded. They wounded him, Olivia.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said Cammock. “We think he’s gone over to the Spaniards, with my book of charts as Basil draw.”

“They think he’s gone into the city, Olivia,” Margaret said, “to tell the Spaniards of our plans. Into the city, Olivia. We saw him go into the city a long time before. They think he caused the attack on us. In the water. It was like a bad dream. Don’t. Don’t. I’ll bring him back, Olivia. We’ll bring him back to-morrow.”

“I’m quite calm, Charles,” said Olivia in a shaking voice. “I’m quite calm. Look at my hand here. You see.”

“Sit down, Olivia,” Margaret said. “There. In this chair. I want to say this. He went into the city walking with the captain of the garrison. The negro had his stirrup in his toes. They were to dine with the Governor. They were friends. He told me himself. Your husband told me they were friends. After the siesta they ambushed us. Oh, my God. They offered a hostage even. And your husband advised me to refuse it.”

“And you think,” Olivia said, “that Tom, my husband——” She paused. Then gave way to the running gamut of shaking sobs, her head on the table. “Oh, Tom, Tom, come back to me. Come back to me.”

“It was after he had dined with the Governor that they ambushed us,” Margaret repeated. “And I saw Cammock’s map-book in his pocket.”

“But he’d no thought of it,” she cried. “Only this morning. Only this morning. It was so sweet. Oh, he’d no thought of it this morning. None. You know he had none.”

“And he’s left me,” she sobbed. “Oh, but I know he loves me. It’s not that. I know he does. I know he does. Oh, Charles. What makes you think. I’m quite calm again. I can bear it all. I’m calm. What makes you think that he’s gone?”

“One or two things he asked. He was asking about life with the Spaniards. And his manner.”

“Charles, did you suspect him? Did you expect this when you chose him? Chose him yesterday?”

Margaret burst out crying, with the tearless grief of an overwrought man. “I wish all this had never happened,” he said. “I wish it had all never happened. Never happened.” He checked himself, half aware, in the misery of his fever, that he had to answer Olivia. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me to-night,” he said. “I’ve got such white hands. Such white hands, like a girl.” He laughed in a shrill, silly cackle. “You must think me a silly girl,” he said.

“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m all right.” He pulled himself together with an effort. “Look here,” he said. “Here. I oughtn’t to have let him go alone. It was my fault. All my fault. Into the city alone. You say I thought of this. Never entered my head. Never. I’m talking like a drunk man. What’s the matter with you? No. It was my fault. But. Olivia. Olivia. Don’t. Don’t cry. We’ll get him back. We’ll take Tolu. I swear I’ll take Tolu. I’ll bring him back to you, Olivia. Only. You don’t mean what you said then.” He sank back in his chair. “I think I’m tired,” he added weakly.

“Charles,” she said. “Charles, you’re hurt. You’re hurt. Wounded. I didn’t mean that, Charles. I was upset. But. Oh, you’ll bring him back. Bring him back to me.”

“I’ll bring him back to you, Olivia,” he answered, stroking her hand. “I’ll bring him back.” He raised her from the deck. “And I’ll help him to that. To what you talked of. This morning.”

“The new life together,” he whispered. “Oh, Lord, Olivia. Stop those guns. Stop those guns. They’re red-hot.”

From very far away, in the heat of the battle, in the smoke and trampling, where the triumphing horses laughed, he seemed to hear Olivia’s voice.

“My God. I’ve kept him here. And he’s wounded. Edward. Edward. Is he dead?”

“Help me, captain,” said Perrin’s voice. “You’ve kept him on the rack, Olivia.”

“Don’t say that,” she said. “Lay him on my bed. That’ll be quieter. I must nurse him. Let me have some bark and limes, Captain Cammock. Lay him down there. Now some cold water.”

He was half conscious of being lifted out of the light, while a multitude of Spaniards charged him. He saw the faces, he saw the horses’ heads flung back, and the foam spatting their bit-cups. He was slashing at spear-heads, which pressed in a crown of points about his skull. After that, he fell into the wildness of fever, seeing that endless vision in his brain, the endless, disordered procession of soldiers, and guns, and ships, which shouted crabbed poetry, poetry of Donne, difficult to scan, exasperating:—

He was ill for some days, during which Olivia nursed him tenderly. She found in the vigil a balm for her own sorrow, a respite from the anxieties which ate her heart. The uncertainty made it worse for her. She would fall asleep, sitting uneasily in the chair by the bed, to dream of her husband lying in the earth, among the roots of the creepers, the mould in his eyes. Or she would see him chained to a log, working in the gang, carrying mud bricks to the walls, or singing, like the man in Cammock’s tale, with whip-cuts on his body. Sometimes, in the worst dreams, she saw him with the veiled figure of a woman, and woke crying to him to come back to her, knowing herself deserted. She had at first prayed that the men would attack Tolu at once, to bring him back to her. The point had been debated among the captains. But Perrin, at his best now, with his quiet, clumsy sympathy, had shown her that this was not possible.

“And see, Olivia,” he said, “they must expect us. And we must run no risk of failure. You see, don’t you, what a danger it would be to him if we tried and failed? And the town will be full of troops for the next week or two, expecting an attack.”

There were other good reasons against instant action. Cammock was sure that the Spaniards would send a force against the lurking-places along the Main, now that they had his charts as guides. Other captains thought this possible; so the word was given to return to Springer’s Key. After their arrival, they prepared the fort against attack, and warned all privateers at the frequented anchorages. Then, having time, they careened the Broken Heart, washing her with lime till she had something of her old speed again. Other privateers joined them when they heard that they intended to take Tolu. Margaret, sitting in the cabin, a convalescent, talked of his plans with Olivia. Many of the buccaneers were employed ashore, making long “dug-out” canoas for the attack. He pointed to one of these, as it lay bottom up on the sand, while the seamen tarred it against the worm.

“Yes?” she answered. “But I’ve been thinking, Charles, that I shall never see Tom again.”

“What reasons have you?” he asked. “Look, Olivia, I’ve been thinking it over. There is so much possible to you. Your husband would be happy at a kind of life I’ve planned for him. On a sugar estancia in Jamaica. Or one of the big plantations here, as soon as the ground is cleared.”

“Charles,” she said, “the plantations here will never be cleared. You’ve been dreaming. I’ve been dreaming. And I shall never see Tom again.”

“You were always the despondent one in the old days,” he said lightly; then, growing grave, he added, “Olivia, all the voyage, I helped your dreams. I lied to you. All the voyage long, I lied. I longed to spare you. I could see no better way.”

“No love is folly,” he answered. “But now I see what is possible. After a wreck one finds the planks loose for a raft.”

“You think that, Charles? A woman finds no planks, as you call them. Do you think my life can be patched up by planks? Do you know why I pray for you to go to Tolu?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve been thinking, Charles. I want you to go to Tolu to restore Captain Cammock’s book. That is the first thing. And to make you sure that he isn’t—that he wasn’t killed in your service. I know what you will find at Tolu, Charles. He’s not my husband now. I see him too clearly. He’s forgotten us all by this time. Oh, you know he has.”

“It’s strange how a ship alters one’s judgments,” she said, with a little laugh. “I used to be afraid of you. I couldn’t bear——”

“I was in a dream. A bad dream. Now it’s over.” She shuddered, turning her head aside.

“No, Olivia. Not that,” he said. “Life isn’t over. I can’t talk to you as I should. My wound makes me stupid. You don’t know men, Olivia. Men are selfish, brutal, greedy. You were never told that. You never saw that side of them. It’s only one side. I’ve no right to talk to you like this; but I’m your guardian here. Now suppose. Men, even lovers, aren’t single-natured, like women. Suppose a man saw a woman in his better moment, saw how beautiful and far above him she was, and loved her for that moment, truly, before falling back to his old greeds.”

“We’re talking about life, Olivia. The moment of love was worth while to both of them.”

“Now that you know, Olivia, you know that it’s not all greed, any more than it is all love. You’ve seen a man’s weakness. His sin, even. You’ve seen the part of him he hid from you. We all have a skeleton to hide.”

“Olivia, don’t let me hurt you by discussing your husband. But did you ever realize him?”

“He was unlike any man you had ever seen. Ah. Don’t answer. I know you too well, Olivia. I know all this.”

“It seems a long time ago,” she said coldly. She was pulling a little arnotto rose to pieces, petal by petal, crushing the petals till her finger-tips were stained and scented.

“You never realized him, Olivia. I never realized him. I did not know in Salcombe that day that he is a man with a frightful physical energy. On shore he could work it off. It’s not easy to say this. But at sea, in a ship, shut up here, it turned inward. Do you see, Olivia?”

“Does that excuse a man? That he has a frightful physical energy, and that it turns inward?”

“I’ve nothing to do with excuses. But, suppose that that was the case. Suppose, too, that he had but a moment to decide in Salcombe, between a lie, you, and the possibility of a new life, and the truth, arrest, and the certainty of disgrace. He chose you, the lie, and the possibility. He lied to you. The moment he told the first lie, you became, in his eyes in a sense, an enemy to beware of, an enemy who must be kept from the truth at all costs.”

“Yes. I have seen that, of course. And the lie grew all through the voyage.”

“All through that voyage, Olivia, we were in terror of being arrested on arrival. It was in our thoughts night and day. We used to sit in my cabin there, planning what we could do, if we found a warrant waiting for us. The strain made him reckless.”

“Because there was no one on board, except a few inferiors, who could console him. He could not confide in you. He had lied to you. We were not his sort. There was no one else to whom he could turn.”

“And you could watch this, without a word, without attempting to put the matter right.”

“Your husband wished to spare you, Olivia. We could not speak. We thought. We thought you were going to have a child.”

“All through the voyage, your husband was probably thinking that you would soon learn, and that when you learned you would have nothing more to do with him. Imagination is rare in men. He could think of no other possibility. He made up his mind that you would cast him off, and therefore he cast you on without giving you a chance to do otherwise. Imagination is rare in women, Olivia, and you could not see his point of view, any more than he could see yours.”

“You think I was proud and unforgiving. I have. It. If he’d turned to me. And he left me that morning with a stolen book in his pocket, intending to see us no more.”

“Ah. We see now all that can come of a hasty moment.” He rose from his seat and stood before her. “Olivia,” he said, “I don’t extenuate. I’ve tried to explain. Perhaps neither of you saw very clearly. After Tolu, Olivia, there’s a life possible for you. You haven’t plumbed each other’s natures. You haven’t really lived yet. A fool’s paradise isn’t life. You don’t know what you may make of each other’s lives. He had not much chance, with that ghastly business hanging over him. You had none. Could you not start fair, after Tolu?” She pulled the remaining rose leaves from the arnotto, one by one. “It’s worth it, Olivia.”

“Thank you, Charles,” she said quietly. She walked slowly to her state-room.

“Yes,” he said to himself, after she had gone. “Yes. It’s the best thing.”

XII.
THE END

Ten weeks passed before they felt the time ripe for their attack. By that time Margaret had made a good recovery; his wound was well healed over; he could even use the arm a little. Before leaving the anchorage, he put more guns in the fort, and chose out a garrison to fight them. He had every reason to be pleased with his success. A large part of Springer’s Key had been cleared, under his direction, for plantain-walks and vanilla-patches, as well as for Indian corn. More than a hundred more privateers had come to him, and he had planned with Tucket to load the Broken Heart, on his return from Tolu, at a new logwood forest, never yet cut, on the banks of the Azucar. He felt happier than he had felt since leaving England; for now his way seemed clear. His old suspicion of Pain had gone. Pain’s men had worked like slaves to clear the key for culture. It seemed to him that he was going to succeed after all, and that he would, as he had planned, make something of the wasted energies of the men of the account. He had even started Tucket on a dye-works, with half a dozen cauldrons, and a bale of cotton for experiments. The huts of the Indians had been altered and enlarged. Springer’s Key Town was now a walled city, with a few wooden shops, where the Broken Heart’s goods were sold for gold-dust. His thoughts ran much upon gold-dust; for the rivers were full of it, according to the privateers. He went up the Conception River with some Indians and a party of Pain’s men, during the last of the weeks of waiting, to look for gold-dust in the sands. They washed with sieves in several likely places, finding about six ounces in all. The Indians said that there was more higher up, in the rapid upper reaches, in the torrents of the Six Mile Hills, away to the south. On the way downstream, he cut a bundle of mangrove, thinking that the bark might be of use to tanners in Europe, since the Indians dressed hides with it. The damp heat of the Isthmus overcame him. He saw that nothing could be done there. No Europeans would ever do much in such a climate. But at sea in the bright Samballoes, where the winds blew steadily, never dying to a calm, he felt that much could be done. He offered bounties to all who would clear patches for tobacco, arnotto, cochineal, and indigo. Tucket, a steady, shrewd man, who saw a chance of doing what he had always longed to do, helped him ably. The dye-works occupied their mornings together. The rest of the day, after the noon heat, was passed in the supervision and encouragement of the citizens. The brush at Tolu, and the bringing off of Ed, had made him popular. He found that the privateers were fairly well disposed towards him. Even the inscrutable Pain seemed friendly.

It was not an easy matter to rule such citizens. He began by making a rough division of labour. Those who loved hunting went in parties daily to the Main to hunt. Those who liked to work in the islands cut and cleared jungle, planted plantains, tobacco, or arnotto. Others took boats and fished. Some built huts or canoas. Some dug wells and trenches to supply the plantations. Many Indians came to them. Springer’s Key knew a few weeks of bustling prosperity. Margaret began to worry about another problem—the sex problem, the problem of wives for his settlers. Where was he to get white wives for three hundred men? How was he to avoid the horrors of the mixed races? He remembered in Virginia the strange and horrible colonial mixtures, the mixtures of white with red, white with black, black with red, red with all the mixtures, black with all the mixtures, creatures of no known race, of no traditions, horrible sports, the results of momentary lusts, temporary arrangements. One could buy white transported women in Jamaica at thirty pounds apiece. One could buy redemptioners in Virginia for the same sum. Many of the men at work about him had done so, during their lives in the colonies. But how was a nation to be born from convicted thieves, petty larcenists, bawds, procuresses, women burnt in the hand, branded women? He resolved to hurry home as soon as the plantations began to bear, as soon as the Spaniards began to recognize his rights. He must get settlers, honest, reputable settlers. He would have to search England for them, hundreds of them, so that the bright Samballoes might become the world’s garden. He began to know the islands now. He saw them in all their beauty, Venices not yet glorious, sites for the city of his dream. They shone in their blossoms, hedged by the surf, splendid in their beauty. Among these hundreds of islands, these sparkling keys, were homes for the poor of the world, food for the hungry, beauty for the abased, work for the stinted, rest for the exhausted. For an army could feed from them in the morning, and pass on, yet in the evening there would be food for another army. The earth brought forth in bounty. All the fruits of the world grew there. The trade winds smelt of fruit. The bats from the Isthmus darkened the stars at twilight as they came to gorge the fruit; yet in the morning, when they flew screaming to their caves, it was as though they had scattered but a husk or two, scattered a few seeds, a few sucked skins. The sea gave a multitude of fish. The woods were full of game. It was an earthly paradise. It went to his heart to think that he was almost a king here. To the Indians he was more than a king: he was a god.

He loved the Indians. He loved their dignity, their pride in the white man’s friendship, their devoted service. It reminded him of his life at school and of the devotion of small boys to their captain. During his convalescence he had had many talks with an Indian prince, whom the seamen called Don Toro. He had learned from this man to speak a little in the Indian tongue, enough to draw from him something of the Isthmus. He wished to clear the Isthmus of its poisonous tangle of forest, so that the shore might become savannah land, as at Panama. He longed to see the jungle go up in a blaze, in a roaring, marching army of fire, that would cut a blackened swath to the hills, leaping over tree-tops, charring the undergrowth, making good pasture for cattle, for the great, pale Campeachy cattle which his ships should bring there from Sisal. He tried to make Don Toro understand his wish, but failed; for Don Toro was a woodland Indian; the forest was his home. That stroke of policy, the bonfire, would have to wait till he could bring the Indians to help him, and till the logwood on the banks of the rivers had all been cut and shipped. But he wished that all those miles of wood were lying in blackened ashes. It was now the bright, dry season, when the woods were pleasant, musical with bell-birds, sweet with blossoms. In a few weeks there would come the rains, the months of rain, the streaming months, when the trees would rise up from a marsh, when the sound of dropping would become a burden, the months of the white-ribbed mosquito and the yellow fever.

He loved Olivia still. His passion was his life, his imagination. While that fire burned in him the world was a metal from which he could beat brave sparks. He was not sure how she felt towards her husband. He had done his best for her husband. He could not say that there was much chance of a happy life for her. It had been hard to counsel her, doubly hard, for when she spoke gravely her voice thrilled, the tone burned through him like a flame. A little more, and honour would be thrown aside like a rag; the words would come in a rush, sweeping him away. She had never seemed more beautiful than now. She was pale, still; her eyes had dark rings; but she had never seemed more beautiful. She was still mysterious to him, though he knew her better than he had ever known her. She was an exquisite mystery, beautiful, sacred, unthinkable; but not for him, never for him. She would only be a shy friend to him, giving a little, hiding much, never truly herself before him. So much he could see, hating himself for his clumsy walk, for his gravity, for whatever it was, in him, which kept her away. He saw that she was timid, fearful of all rough and rude things, a shy soul, refined, delicate. He guessed that his love for her made her timid of him. Then came the thought of Stukeley, the torment and hate of the thought of Stukeley. He was to restore Stukeley to her, after all these agonizing weeks. They had been bad weeks, weeks of doubt, weeks of wicked opportunity. Had he followed his own heart, during those weeks, he might have wrought upon her, till the thought of Stukeley was loathsome to her. He could see no possible happiness for her in a life with Stukeley, if Stukeley were restored. She might find peace of mind in having him again beside her; but never happiness. He remembered an old phrase of Perrin’s, that women did not wish to be made happy, but to have the men they loved. It seemed true; possibly it explained many horrible tales of faithfulness. It had been a bitter task to plead for Stukeley. It would be bitter to bring him back, and to watch the new peace broken, as he knew it would be, himself making time and place. Still, it had been the right thing; the right was a better thing than love. He bit his lips for loathing when he thought how very far from the right his love for this woman had led him.

Was he right, he wondered, in attacking Tolu, in an attempt to win back Stukeley? The ambush on the beach had been sufficient declaration of war. They had shown that they wished for war. He had put his hand to the plough; it must drive on to the furrow’s end. But how many of his men would fight for a righteous cause when the issue was tried? To help the Indians, ancient lords of America, was a righteous cause, though the ancient lords lay in bones in the caves, dead long ago. Only their grandsons, servile degenerates, or men not yet dispossessed, now lived. And if he helped the Indians, beating the Spaniards, was his colony to sail away, or to have the fruit of their toil? If they were to stay, how soon would the clash come? How soon would the white men burn the forest, so that they might possess the land? When he asked himself this question, he could not honestly say that he was fighting for the Indians’ sake. His men were fighting for loot, like a gang of robbers on a road. And yet. If by their means he broke a corrupt power, so that the islands might become the world’s garden and granary, another Venice, a home of glory and honour, as he prayed, as he truly believed, it was right, the end justified him. Only he must see to it that the Venice rose from all this noisomeness. That was his task. That alone could keep his sword bright. This must be no colony, no refuse heap, where younger sons might work with their hands unseen, and the detected family knave escape his punishment. It must be other than that. When they sailed home from Tolu he would proclaim the republic of the keys; they would agree upon laws together; they would send their first-fruits home. He used to lie in his bunk at night in a trance of prayer that he might make these islands all that he had hoped. It might be, he thought. But there was much to do, and little could be done at once. When they came home from Tolu; perhaps, then, he would see his dream made real. Now and then, in the night watches, he asked himself whether his men would stand success. He remembered how Cammock had said that they would not stand failure. Thinking of Olivia, he knew which was the real test. He began to tremble for the moment of power. St. George became John Bull directly he had killed the dragon. His fine standard in the arts of life made him pray that he might never succeed in that way. Better fail. Failure is spiritual success. What is heaven to those who have the earth.

They sailed from Springer’s Key three hundred strong, packed in the two ships and three sloops. Fifty men remained behind to garrison the key. A party of Indians, under Don Toro, followed the fleet in a large periagua. Each ship in the fleet towed a bunch of canoas in which the attacking force would go ashore. They were very gay with flags when they left the anchorage. They fired guns, and sang, glad of the battle. In a few days a score at least of the singers would be dead in the sand, others would be stricken down, perhaps maimed. Margaret asked Cammock if they ever thought of this before a fight; but he answered, “No.”

“No one would ever fight if he thought,” he said. “I’ve been, now (with other fellows), in three big fights. We’d not got a chance in any one of ’em, if you’d asked before. I was at Panama, where we were all starved and worn, while they’d a fresh army, with a city to fall back on. I was at Perico, and five or six boats of us fought three big ships full of troops. I was at Arica, where about a hundred of us fought what was really a brigade of an army. I don’t think once I heard any say, or even think, as some would be killed and shot.”

“I was in the Low Countries,” said Margaret. “It was the same there. Each man thinks and hopes that it will be the other fellow. Sometimes I feel that if a man thinks with sufficient strength he really makes a sort of intellectual guard about himself. I mean, as faith saved the men in the furnace. What do you think?”

“Yes?” said Cammock. “A man who goes in thinking about himself like that isn’t going to do much with his gun. Besides, he couldn’t.”

“Ay,” said Cammock. “You see ’em swaying from side to side to touch their next-hand man. For company. You see ’em all swaying in a row. Like this. Side to side. But the first shot locks the ranks. When they begin to fire they forget it all. They’ve got to manage their guns. And they get all hid in smoke. That’s another comfort. And they can shout, ‘Give ’em hell. Give ’em hell. Give it the hijos del horos.’ But afterwards. What about afterwards?”

“The dead and wounded? Yes,” said Margaret. “Poor wretches lying out without water. Ammunition carts going over them. Camp followers. The night after a battle. I remember my first. It was all still after the firing. Then one heard cries in the stillness, from all round one. Awful cries. Like wild beasts.”

“I never heard that, sir. But I’ve seen blood really running out of a ship’s scuppers. That gives you a turn. That was at Perico. She was coming past us full tilt, under all sail. Her decks were full of men; full. We were only eighteen of us in the long-boat. So we gave her one volley. It was like a deer dropping dead, sir. The ship broached to. There was scarcely a man left standing in her. Their matches set her on fire. I was aboard her afterwards. I never see such a sight.”

“And how many are over there, now, going about the town, to be killed in a few days, not seeing their slayer? Have you ever thought of the soul, captain? It must be startled to be driven from the body like that.”

“Yes. Many are. But the faces one sees in a fight. I never saw a noble expression on a man’s face in a battle. I’ve seen fear, and sickness, and madness. I always feel a compound of all three. What do you feel? I don’t believe you do feel. You are always so wonderful. I wish I had your self-control.”

“I don’t know what I feel, sir. Fear of having my retreat cut off. That’s the thing I worry over. I tell you, sir, frankly. I don’t want that ever to happen to me. I don’t care who knows it.”

“About our battle, captain. We shall land in force to south of the town, while Tucket’s party makes a strong feint on the north wall. We shall creep up along the beach, and attack the south wall as soon as Tucket’s party draws their fire. We ought to be in the town by the time the sun’s at all strong. The canoas will follow us up, and lie below the sea-wall, ready for us. The ships will anchor within gunshot of the town as soon as we hoist English colours.”

“It’d be well to get all hands off soon, sir. They’ll get straggled, looking for loot, and there’s three garrisons—Lobos, Covenas, and Cispata—within an hour or two’s ride of the place. Another thing, they’ll likely take to drinking.”

“Yes, sir. The lady, poor thing. She must be suffering now, sir. We’re anxious. But nothing to her, poor thing, wondering if that man’s alive.”

“I’m wondering if we are making more trouble for her by bringing him back to her.”

“Maybe so, sir. If you ask me, I say no. She’ll never see him again. I ask Mr. Perrin that. One always comes back to Mr. Perrin. They call him a fool, forward there; but he sees things shrewder than some of these wise ones that tried to drown the duck. He said, ‘No. You’ll never see him again. He’s married to a Spanish girl, and changed his religion, by this time.’ One never believes Mr. Perrin till one finds he was right after all. Then it’s too late.”

“Perhaps,” Margaret said. “He may be right. That may be it. He may be killed in the assault. He may have left the town. We may never see him again. It may be the end. I wonder what sort of life it is going to be for her if it is the end.”

“Life goes on much the same way, sir. Women feel it more than men; they live so cramped. But I always say a man’s a bigger thing than anything he makes. If he makes trouble he’d ought to be big enough to bear it.”

“I think, captain,” said Margaret, “you’re the only one of us all who comes up prepared and calm, ready for everything. I ought to have been on the Main with you and Morgan, instead of learning Latin at a university. If I ever have a son, I shall send him abroad with you to be a buccaneer.”

They entered the gulf in the darkness of the new moon. They sailed in a clump together, Tucket leading. They sailed without lights, but for the night-lights in the binnacles. They moved in blackness on the sea, great fish making fire-streaks, lumbering whales with their brood. The men aboard them, waiting in the darkness for the word, struck their shins on guns and longed to be off. Few of them took their hammocks from the nettings that night. They passed the hours talking and smoking, in slow sea-walks to and fro, humming old tunes over their pipestems. They had made themselves ready many hours before. Their guns had been oiled and loaded, and their belts filled with cartridges, during the afternoon. All that they had to do now was to buckle on their water-bottles and snapsacks, and get into their boats. They heard the surf tumbling on the Mestizos. Setting stars, like ships’ lights, burned out into the sea. The seamen watched them as they shifted their tides, talking of the past, with its memories, of ships and women, its memories of life and the sun.

The word was given some four miles from the city, lest the Indian sentinels should sight the ships from the walls. The land was like a cloud at that distance, like a sharply defined blackness on the sky, shutting off the rising stars. It was a dark morning; but to the seamen’s eyes it was light enough. They had been on deck since the setting of the watch. They had grown accustomed to the darkness. It was now an hour before the dawn. It was to be a red dawn above Tolu.

Captain Margaret stood with Cammock at the gangway watching his men go over the side to the canoas. All the men of war, twenty of his crew, and a few Indians, fifty men in all, were coming with him from the ship. They loitered about the gangway like sheep at a gap, they seemed a great company. They did not talk much among themselves. One or two, the wags of the fo’c’s’le, made jests about “Tolu soup”; and the laughter spread in the canoas, where the men were packed tightly, like lovers on a bench. One or two of the men, the most intelligent among them, asked to shake hands with Captain Margaret as they passed him at the gangway side. Perrin touched him on the shoulder when about half of them had gone.

In the darkness of the alleyway he found Olivia. He could see her great eyes in the oval of her face. She was trembling.

“Well, Olivia,” he said gravely. He took her hands in his, wondering, dully, if he would ever see her again. “I’m just off, Olivia.”

“I wanted to see you,” she said, in a shaking little voice. “I know I’ve only a minute. I tried last night. I want to thank you, Charles. You’ve been good. You’ve been very good to me. Whether you succeed. Or don’t succeed. I mean now. On shore. I. I thank you. Thank you. God keep you.”

He felt that this was the supreme moment of his life, this moment in the dark, with the forms of seamen passing across the door, and the white, beloved face half seen, strained up towards him. He knew that he might kiss her face. Their souls were very near together, nearer, he knew, than they would ever again be. There was the beloved face near his; there was his reward, after all these days, after all this wandering the world.

He knew that he might kiss her face; but would not. He knew that it was the mood and the moment which brought them thus together. She should never reproach herself. He did not love for pay. He pressed her hands for an instant. “Good-bye then,” he said lightly.

He knew that she stood there, leaning against the bulkhead in the dark, long after he had reached the deck. It was like waking from a dream to come on deck again.

“Good-bye, Cammock,” he said, putting his emotion from him. “We’ve got our bearings. Don’t stand further in for half an hour. If anything happens. Well. We’ve talked that out. Haven’t we? Good-bye, Edward.”

“Good-bye. Look here, Charles. Here are my pistols. I should like you to have them.”

“Very well,” he said. “Thanks. How do you put them on?” He slung the pistol-belt over his shoulder, in the sea-style. “Good-bye,” he said again. “Look after her.”

He passed quickly down the ladder to the waiting canoas, which still dragged at the gangway with their freights of armed men. A canoa was pulling towards them out of the night; her oars stroked the sea into flame. Gleams of flame broadened at her bows. Little bright sparks scattered from the oar-blades as the rowers feathered.

“Is that you, Captain Margaret?” said Pain’s voice. “I’ve sent Tucket’s party on ahead. They’ve got a mile further to pull than we got. We’re all ready ahead there. You’re all ready and loaded, and your guns flinted?”

“And you’ve all got white scarves on your arms? Right. The word is ‘Up with her.’ ”

“ ‘Up with her.’ You hear that, all of you? The word is ‘Up with her.’ ”

“We’ll shove ahead, then, cap,” said Captain Pain. “If any man speaks above a whisper, mind, we’ll deal with him after.”

“Silence in the boats,” said Margaret. “On a morning so still as this we may be heard a couple of miles off. Sound goes a long way over water. Remember, all hands. No looting. There’s to be no looting. After the city’s taken, we shall hold it to ransom. After the fight, the trumpeter here will sound the assembly in the Plaza. You will all fall in there. Understand?”

“Right,” came the voice out of the darkness. The hulk of the Broken Heart fell away into the night. The ripple of flame at her bows died astern. The boats drew up into order, Pain’s canoa leading, the other fourteen following close behind, two and two together. There was silence in all the boats, a silence like the hush in a theatre. The wash of the hundred oars, and the slow breathing of the rowers, was all that could be heard. All that could be seen was the advancing oily swell of the water, the gleam where the oars dipped, the track of the great stars dancing on the swell. Dimly one could see the other boats. One could see the transom of Pain’s boat, a ghostly oval, dying away ahead, but never quite gone. Far in front, seeming slowly to climb higher, was the blackness of the shore, from which, very faintly, came the roll of the surf. So they rowed on, in the darkness, pausing sometimes to change their rowers, two hundred men, going to the presence of death.

Their first real sight of the shore was a twinkle of fire upon the beach, below the city. Some infected clothes had been set on fire there the night before. The fire had smouldered all night, and had then broken out, in little leaping tongues, lighting the town’s south gate. Those in the boat wondered when they saw it, thinking that Indians must be camped there, or travellers from Covenas, perhaps, arrived after the shutting of the gates. There was some anxiety lest it should be a signal; but the flames, lighting up the beach, showed them no watchers, and no answering signal shone in the south-west, either from shore or sea. They learned from the fire that they were pointing too near to the city. They swung off four points, and rowed to the south-east, into the shallow water off the mouth of the Pesquero.

They landed about three miles from the town, and at once formed for action. Some Indian scouts led the party, then came Margaret with a dozen axemen, all carrying powder-kegs, for the destruction of the gate. The Broken Heart men formed the vanguard. Pain’s men followed, in rough order. The boats, with a boat-guard of thirty or forty men, some of whom were leeches, pulled out into the gulf, to prepare lint and salves for the hurt. The landing party looked to their firearms. There was a little confusion and splashing, owing to the narrowness of the beach, which forced some of them to stand in the sea. In a few minutes they were all ready. They set forward, as silently as they could, keeping a fast walk, lest Tucket’s men, now hidden among rocks a mile to the north of the town, should grow weary of waiting. It was still dark night about them; but they knew from the faintness of the wind that it was near dawn. The macaws were waking in the forest. Strange cries, strange primeval noises, sounded in the forest. There were stealthy patterings, quick scuttering droppings, as some animal brushed among the scrub, knocking off the dew. The Indian who walked by Margaret knew what these noises meant. He paused at each sound, as though to make sure that they were really what they seemed. A chicaly-chicaly made her sweet, sharp cry, from somewhere ahead. It touched Margaret to the heart; it was so like the tolling of a cuckoo. The Indian bent his head back and replied, so exactly that the bird answered. Margaret had never before heard this done; though he had read of it. He wondered, as he marched, if all knowledge ranked alike, if all power, all imagination, ranked alike, and whether this Indian, who could apprehend the natures of all these creatures in the wood, were not really a finer product than himself. He could not imitate a chicaly-chicaly, he could not raise the devil, he could not see a three-days’-old track on stones. He wished that in the march to a full life one had not to forget so much. One should have all the powers, all the savage powers even, one should be a divine spirit of apprehension, one should inform the whole world, feeling the pismire’s want as keenly as the saint’s ecstasy. One should be able to apprehend the wild things, the things of the wood, as well as the spirit of a poet in his divine moment. True life is to be alive in every fibre to the divine in all things. He wondered whether the Indians communed with the beasts, getting from them something which the white men ignored; coming, through them, to secrets unknown to white men, secrets of nature, of the universal spirit, of the spirit which binds the herds of peccary, and slinks in the wild cat, and sings in the bell-voiced golden-comb. He thought little of the business in hand. His mind was blank about it. All that he could think of the coming struggle was that he must bring back Stukeley, find him and bring him back, or never go back himself. The men were all round him, some of them even ahead of him by this time, for, going fast as they were, often up to their knees in the sea, it was impossible to keep good order.

After half an hour’s march they forded the Arroyo Francesco and came to the broader sands. Here they all marched in the wash; for now they were within twelve minutes of the town. They could see the dark mass of the town ahead of them, a city of sleepers, no light burning, no one stirring, only a little fire near the gate, and a dog baying in the Plaza. The dawn was beginning to change the darkness; it was growing lighter. The screams of the macaws set the monkeys swearing. The men halted, formed into order, and hurried on for another half-mile. They paused again, only four hundred yards from the walls. The pioneers with the powder-kegs made ready for their dash to the gate. The fusemen, carrying many yards of match, now lit their fuses in the scrub. The army marked time, feeling the chill of the dawn, waiting for Tucket to begin. Margaret could feel that many of his men were nervous, waiting like that, with the light growing above them. They had timed the attack well; but to stand, waiting, while the precious moments passed, was hard. Very soon the sentinels would see them. A low growl of discontent muttered up and down the ranks. Voices urged Margaret to attack at once, without waiting for Tucket. “We shall be seen.” “What’s the good of waiting here?” “Why, Lord love us, we could have took the town by this time.” “Shove ahead.” “This is a bit of ‘up with her,’ I don’t think, waiting ’ere.” There was a tendency to edge forward, to press towards the front, to see what was going on. Margaret urged them back, and passed word to Pain to keep his rear ranks from firing into the backs of the storming party. The rear ranks were the eager ranks, as they always are. The front ranks are nearest to the bullets; they have their minds engaged.

Lighter it grew. There was colour in the sky now; the men were surging forward, swearing that they would wait no more. Then from far away, on the farther wall of the town, a cry arose, a cry like a death cry, a cry of alarm. Two shots followed; then yells, shrieks, oaths, the roar of many guns. “Up with her, Tucket,” said the waiting men. Cries sounded within the town, dogs yelped, one or two women screamed, as the firing increased. “Come on,” Margaret called to the pioneers. They splashed out of the water on to the sands, and started towards the city at a run. As they ran, they heard Pain keeping back the ranks till the charge should have been fired. The feet splashed behind them slowly, growing fainter. The fire on the beach grew brighter, they were passing it; the walls were before them, only a hundred yards away. “Against the door,” he said, panting. “Against the hinges. One keg spilled below.” The town was aroused now. They could hear the cries and hurry. Still no sign came from the walls. “Sentinel’s asleep,” said one of the men. “There,” said another. “Up with her. Up with her. We’re seen.” A man showed upon the wall by the gate. “Ahi,” he screamed. “Piratas. Piratas. Piratas. Cuidado. Cuidado.” He fired his gun into the air; the flash shot up like the flash of a blast-charge. There came cries and a noise of running. A few heads showed. The wall spouted fire in a volley. They were up against the wall, against the iron-plated door, piling the kegs against the hinges, tamping them down with sods and stones. Margaret snatched one keg and spilled it along the door-sill. “There,” he said. “There. Now your fuse, fuseman.” The quick-match was thrust into a keg. “Up along the walls, boys. Quick. Scatter. Pronto.” He thrust them sideways. They saw what he wanted. When the imaginations are alert there is little need for speech. No man could have heard him. The racket in the town was uproar like earthquake. The whole wall above them was lit with fire spurts. Mud and plaster were tinkling in a rain upon them. They ran fifty yards like hares, paying out the quick-match. “Now,” said Margaret. The match flashed. A snake of fire rippled from them. They saw the shards of pots gleam, then vanish. They saw old bones, old kettles, all the refuse below the walls. “Down,” he shouted. “Down.” They flung themselves down. The beach to their left flashed, as the pirates fired at the wall.

There came a roar, a rush of fire, a shaking of the land. Mud, brick, stone, shards of iron and wood, all the ruin of the gate, crashed among them, flying far among the trees, thumping them on their backs as they lay. After the roar there was a dismayed silence. A wail of a hurt man sounded, as though the wrecked gate cried. Then with a volley the privateers stormed in. From where he lay, Margaret could watch them plainly; the dawn had broken. He saw them charging, tripping in the sand, their gun-barrels glinting. An Indian led them, a screaming Indian, who danced and spun round, waving his machete. “Lie still,” he shouted to his pioneers. “Let them pass. They’ll shoot you down. Lie still.” With yells and shots the storming party swept up the ruin. “Up with her,” they shouted. “Up with her.” They were clambering over the wreck, tripping, stumbling, kneeling, to fire, clubbing at the guard. “Now,” said Margaret, drawing his sword. They rose up from their nest among the tip. They were with their fellows, they were climbing the heaped stone, amid smoke and oaths and fire-lit faces. Margaret was inside Tolu. The south wall was won.

The land-breeze, very faint now, drifted the smoke slowly. He could see little. He could see in glimpses the whitewashed houses, the line of the south road, a man with his back to a wall, a woman fallen, figures rushing. He could see enough to know that the enemy were making no stand. He ran on up the road to the Plaza, one of a mob. Windows opened above him. People fired from the windows. Women were flinging pots, tiles, braziers. Some one had begun to ring the alarm bell in the church. The broken clang sounded out above the screams and the firing. Now it was all clear before him. He was in the Plaza, shouting to his mob to form. There in front of him the troops were mustering. They were running from their quarters, half clad, in rags, just as they had started from sleep. Heavy fire was rolling at the north wall. Troops were running thither. In the centre of the Plaza, about a cotton tree, a score of Spaniards were forming in line. A halberdier was dressing them. They stood firm, handling their guns, hearkening to their capitan. Margaret saw them clearly, and praised them in his heart for the flower of soldiery. They were of the old Spanish foot, the finest troops in the world. Even as he looked he saw them falling forward. He was among them. His sword jarred him to the shoulder as it struck on a gun-barrel. He saw them about him. They were breaking. They were gathering into clumps. They were being swept into the mob of citizens flying to the east gate.

Half an hour later the newly risen sun showed him a captured town. In the streets, in the Plaza, everywhere, lay the dead and dying. They lay in heaps in some parts. All the clutter and wreck of war, the clouts, the cast arms, the gear flung away by the fleeing, lay littered in the sands. The walls were chipped and starred with bullet marks. The stink of powder was everywhere. Women still screamed. Wounded men wailed where they lay, with the pitiful whimpering cry, like that of a beaten hound, which sickens all who hear it of the glory of war. Firing was still going on; but the fight was over; the town was in the hands of the privateers.

Margaret found himself at the east gate with Pain. About a dozen of the crew of the Broken Heart stood by him, waiting for orders. He took their names, and told them off to look out at the city gates, and to spike the guns on the sea-wall.

“I’m going to the Governor’s house there, to look for my friend,” he said. “Where’s my trumpeter? Sound the assembly, trumpet. Muster your men, will you, Captain Pain?”

The assembly sounded. The men fell in, answering to their names. The boat-guard with the doctors landed. The captains checked off their lists, scanning the ranks closely whenever a man failed to answer. The men were powder-blackened; some of them were wounded, many were cut about the head. They sent the boat-guard with the doctors to search the streets for the dead and hurt. Thirty-three men were missing, all of them, save one, from the party which had stormed the south wall.

“Strengthen the guards at the gates,” Margaret said. “Captain Tucket, you take the north gate. I’ll see to the east. Captain Pain, will you send a dozen to the south? Keep a sharp look out.”

He picked his own guard and sent them off to their duty. The other gate-guards fell out unwillingly. Some of the privateers were eating their breakfasts in the ranks.

“I’m going to the Governor’s house now,” he said to Pain. “Call me at once if the Spaniards send a trumpet. No straggling. No looting, mind.” As he turned towards the Governor’s house he heard the men behind him snigger. He heard a voice ask Pain if this was to be the new rule, now that Springer’s Key was full of college gents. Pain told the man to take a severe turn.

Margaret drew his pistols as he came near the house; for though most of the inhabitants had fled, a few poor men and slaves still lounged in the streets, having nothing to lose. A single man, richly dressed, might tempt these gangrels. He hailed a negro, who sat in the sun in the Plaza, sucking a wound in his wrist.

“Ho muchacho,” he said in his schoolboy Spanish. “Donde esta la casa del Gobernador?”

The negro waved his unhurt hand towards the house with a gesture full of dignity. Then he continued to suck his wound, like a dog licking a hurt paw.

Again the negro waved his hand towards the house, pausing in his suction exactly like a dog. “He,” he said; then bent to suck again.

The house of the Governor fronted the Plaza. It was a big house, with a patio. The lower story had no outer windows, no door. Margaret had to climb the stone steps to the balcony, where a chained monkey leaped up and down in the sun, between bites at a plantain. The door leading to the inner part of the house lay open, just as the fugitives had left it. A woman’s shawl was on the floor. One runner had upset the monkey’s saucer of water. A chair had been upset. As Margaret entered the house, with his pistols cocked, he saw something beneath the chair, something bright, which he took to be a snake. It was the scabbard of a sword, flung aside in a soldier’s hurry. Margaret, pausing on the threshold to listen, wondered if Stukeley had flung it there. He listened intently, expecting to see Stukeley coming from the darkness of the corridor. His mind was busy with the thought of Stukeley. What was he to say to him? What was he to do to him? Suppose Stukeley came out fighting? “I must bring him back,” he repeated. “I must bring him back. He must be brought back.” A step sounded on the stairs behind him. It was West, one of the Broken Heart’s seamen.

“Beg pardon, sir,” the man said, “may I come with you? There’s maybe some of these Dons in the house.”

They listened in the doorway for a moment; but the house was still, save for the chinking of the monkey’s chain.

They passed through the littered hall into the left-hand corridor. The jalousied shutters were shut on the patio side; but the doors of some of the rooms were open, giving light to the passage. It was a barely furnished house, hung with very old Spanish leather, ant-eaten and mothed and mouldy, falling to pieces. In the first room, a sleeping-room, the mosquito-nets had been torn from the cots, and lay wrecked on the floor with a silver chocolate service. In another, a chair stood against the wall, where a man had stood to snatch arms from a trophy. In another sleeping-room they found the clothes of a man and woman by the cot-sides just as they had been laid the night before, when the couple retired. It was like being in the presence of death to walk that house. It was as though they were looking on the corpse of a house, on a house dug up from the sands, the life of it gone and forgotten, only the pathetic husks left, that had once been helps to men. They opened a shutter and looked out upon the patio. A goat was tethered there, crying to be milked. They heard the stamping of horses. One horse was scraping with his forefeet against the floor of his stall. There was no sign of Stukeley there, no trace of him, nothing to mark his presence.

“Now the other corridor,” Margaret said. They retraced their steps, walking on tiptoe, listening intently. The first room in the other corridor was a dining-room, furnished with heavy Spanish furniture of the great period. A lute lay on the table, among wineglasses half full of wine, a box of Peruvian suckets, a box of candied quinces, a dish of avocat pears. Some one had been playing the lute, the night before. The unknown player had fitted a new string. The broken string lay among the litter where it had been thrown. Flies were black among the suckets. The air smelt of the stale gums which had burnt out before a crucifix on the wall. A shaft of sunlight came through a broken shutter. The dust quivered in it. On the floor, in its road of glory, a column of ants marched, stumbling over crumbs. There was much silver in the room. Over the side-board was a Zurbaran, too full of personality to be religious. Margaret looked at it, sighing, thinking that only lesser artists could save their souls. There was no trace of Stukeley here. “Let’s get out,” he said. “He’s not here.”

“There’s three more rooms,” said West. They entered the Governor’s office.

It was a barer room than the others. It contained a table and a few chairs. There were papers on the table; a locked account book, a list of resident Indians, a list of citizens capable of bearing arms, a diary in cipher. Under the table, in a coffer, were more account books, Cammock’s portolano, and a copy of the same, traced from the originals, now nearly finished.

“You see, West,” said Margaret. “You bear witness that I take these two books?”

“Yes, sir,” said West. He walked over to a corner and picked something up from a chair.

“Yes,” said Margaret, crossing over swiftly. “It’s his hat. And there’s his sword-belt.”

They stood together, looking at the things, wondering how lately the owner had flung them there, as he came in, hot, for the onzas. They felt him to be very near them there. It was as though he were coming sneering towards them, his fine teeth showing. His very words came into Margaret’s mind, with their exact inflections. “Found much? Eh?” Those were the words he would use.

In the hush, they heard a sound like a sob, a low murmur of words; then a rustling, chinking sound.

“Careful now,” said Margaret. “Come on after me.” They crept from the office on tiptoe, their pistols ready. In the corridor a board creaked beneath them. They paused guiltily, straining their ears to listen. They heard some one cross the room quietly. Then the door was flung open, letting a glare of light into the corridor. A priest stood before them, holding up a crucifix. Within was a bed. A woman knelt by the bed. Some one lay on the bed, covered with a cloth. Margaret raised his hand, and the priest stepped back, looking at their faces curiously.

“Donde esta el caballero inglès?” Margaret asked. “El señor Stukeley?”

“Here,” he said in good English. He twitched back the bed-cloth reverently, to show the body of Stukeley lying dead. The face was a dull yellow, the mouth was inflamed. There was no need for further words.

The woman rose from the bedside, as though to drive them away. She was a black-eyed, hawk-nosed woman, of a crude and evil beauty. She was dressed in red and brown, in an outlandish style. She spoke in gasps, dreadful to hear; using broken English, laced with oaths and Spanish words. “Damn,” she said. “Damn perros. Cabrones de piratas.”

“De quién es?” Margaret stammered, meaning “Who are you?” He had no gift of tongues.

Margaret bowed; words seemed useless. He was only conscious of the horror of it. He had not been prepared for this. He had sat at meat so many times with this corpse. He had seen him so often, full of life and health, going with a laugh to sin, in the pride of the flesh. Now a little thing, the bite of a fly, no more, had brought him to a death among strangers, in this low cot in the wilds, with his beauty turned to horror, and his strength, if anything, a fiery chain upon his soul. There he lay, under an Indian cotton, gone to his reward so soon. Margaret had hated him. He shuddered now to think how he had hated him. Looking at him as he lay there, in all the hideousness of death, he felt the remorse which a death brings. He felt ashamed, as though he had struck the corpse by hating him whom it had covered. “It was my fault,” he said to himself. “It should have been otherwise. One ought to live with this before one.” He saw where he had acted hastily, where he had failed. He knew all that he might have done. What moved him most was the thought that Olivia had loved this man, had loved him tenderly, and that he, Olivia’s lover had never known his character, had never guessed what it was in him which was beautiful to her. Now he would never know. Standing by the side of the corpse, he tasted all the bitterness of one who has failed to apprehend another, and learns of his failure too late. Stukeley was dead now, the old life was dead now. He would to God that he were dead in Stukeley’s place, and that the old life might be lived again. He would to God that this man’s passage to death had been made pleasanter. He blamed himself. He was touched and humbled almost to tears. “If I had only understood,” he thought, “you would not have cast yourself away thus.” Now he had this to tell Olivia.

“You were not what I thought, Stukeley,” he murmured aloud, looking down at the face. “You were not what I thought. You won her love. You were her chosen.

“My God,” he added to himself, “you won her by that very quality of certainty which made you cast her aside.” He stood there trying to create, in his moment of tenderness, fit words with which to tell her, words which might comfort her, staying in her heart. The words which came to him seemed blunt and cold. The only help that he could give to her was to bury this part of her with all reverent and noble rites.

“He was the Governor’s secretary,” said the priest. “He was not here long. Not long in the country. The vomito takes the new-comers.”

“Ah,” said Margaret, starting. “How well you talk English. Look here. Come aside here. We must bury him at once?”

He raised his hand in benediction over the corpse, then led Margaret out of the room. West followed them, reverent and awed, speaking in a hushed voice. The priest led them by a back way to the patio, thence by a postern to a side street, a good two hundred yards from the house. The burial-ground was hedged with stone, over which some creepers had grown. Little green lizards were darting among the creepers. They glittered like cut glass. The gate of the cemetery swung open on hinges of raw hide. When they entered, some large rats scuttled to their burrows among the graves.

“Much sickness here,” said the priest. “It is not good to dig deep in the ground.”

Margaret looked towards the west, over the low sea-wall. Some of his men were spiking the guns on the platform. He could hear the click of the malls upon the spikes, as they snapped the soft iron flush with the gun. Beyond them, very far away, were the ships; the tide and the land-wind had set them out to sea again.

“They are waiting for the sea-breeze,” said the priest. “No getting in till chocolate.”

“No,” he answered. “I am not a pirate. I demand the right to trade, and the recognition of Andria, King of Darien.”

“Don Andria,” the priest said. “Ah? Don Andria, the King. And so we are not sacked.”

“We do not use spades,” the priest said. “We tickle the earth with our toes and it laughs fruits for us.”

“Sir,” the priest said, “he was a good Catholic. He must look towards the east.”

“Ill for four days. But yesterday he was better. Then the fever grew again. As it does, sir, in some cases. The blood was before the dawn. Like a child, sir. And his eyes turned upon the Cross.”

“Then I will dig the grave here,” Margaret said. “This will be east and west by my watch.” He scratched a narrow oblong with the point of the spade.

“Not you. Not in the sun,” the priest said. “There is very much sickness. Your men will dig.”

“I shall dig,” he answered. He felt that he was burying a part of Olivia. He would do her that service. He would make a grave for that unworthy part of her. That act of his should be a part of his penance towards the dead man’s ghost.

“It is very bad to dig this ground,” the priest said. “It is dust of the dead. We do not dig deep except for an Excellency. You see. The rats. Why toil, since God will bring them together at the Resurrection?”

“This is an evil country,” Margaret answered, driving the spade into the earth.

“There is fever and death. Very evil,” said the priest. “It is not wholesome to be in the sun, turning the earth, before chocolate. I will go to the widow.”

He left the cemetery, holding a handkerchief across his nose. The rats in their burrow-mouths watched him. One or two of them scuttled to other burrows. They seemed to play a game of general post, with Margaret as the “he.”

“No. I must do this,” he answered. “It is dangerous at the top. Perhaps deeper down you shall give me a hand. Gather stones from the wall. I want you to keep away from me, West. This soil is full of infection. Here is some tobacco. I want you to smoke, all the time you are here.”

“No, sir,” said West, looking uncomfortable. “Not just now, thank you, sir.”

“Yes, sir. But it wouldn’t be right, sir, nor respectful to Mrs. Stukeley.”

“Ah,” said Margaret, feeling himself rebuked. He dug for a few minutes in silence; it was light, sandy earth, easily shovelled.

“He was a big man, too, sir. He’d ’ave been a fine big man if he’d taken care of himself.”

“There’s a lot of poor fellows killed, sir,” said West. “But somehow it don’t come ’ome like this one does. That yellow look, after what he was. And the Spanish lady. She wasn’t his real lady, sir.”

So they talked as they dug turn and turn about for an hour and a half, when they had to stop digging. They were coming to water. The bottom of the grave was an inch or two deep in water.

“We can go no further,” Margaret said. “Now we’ll get stones.” They lined the bed of the grave with stones, and turned to the house for the body.

The priest and the woman had laid the body out. Margaret ripped down one of the long, jalousied shutters for a bier, while West searched in the patio for rope. An old Spanish tapestry of the death of Absalom served as a pall. They carried Stukeley to the grave, the priest preceding them, intoning the burial service. Then, very reverently, they lowered him. West and Margaret went aside after this and gathered a heap of lilies while the woman and priest prayed together.

“Take her away, father,” Margaret whispered. The priest led the woman to the house. She walked like one stunned. Margaret and West leaned over the grave, to look their last on Stukeley. They could see the water soaking into the linen, and above that the frayed body of Absalom, the handsome youth, caught in the thicket, as he rode. The town was noisy beyond them, two hundred yards away. Singing and shouting came from the Plaza. It seemed to Margaret to be the dirge the man would have chosen, this singing and shouting of men.

“Quite enough,” he answered. “You heard him say that Mr. Stukeley had changed his religion?”

He spoke the few words. Then with the shovel he began to fill in the grave, from the foot. He placed many heavy stones among the earth, so that the rats might be foiled. When he had levelled the surface he heaped a cairn of stones at the head, and laid the lilies there. He went to a neighbouring garden, and dug up an arnotto rose-bush, to plant upon the grave. When this had been planted, the rites were over, he could do no more. They stood looking down at the grave for a moment, before they left the graveyard. The singing was loud behind them. In front of them, darkening under the breeze, was the bay, with the ships and sloops running in, distant some two or three miles.

“Come, West,” Margaret said. “I must see after the wounded.” He took a last look at the grave, at the already drooping lilies and dejected rose-bush. “Good-bye, Stukeley,” he murmured. He stooped, and picked some rose-buds, and a little scrap of stone from the grave, putting them carefully in a pocket-case. “Now smoke, West,” he said. “And rub tobacco on your hands.”

He reproached himself for having neglected his wounded for so long; but he knew that Tucket and Pain would look to them. He wished that the singing and shouting would stop. “Old Rose” and “The green grass grew” were not songs which the army in his mind had sung. Thermopylæ was not possible to an army which sang such songs. Pistol-shots marked the singing of each stanza; there were yells and cries. He thought he heard the screams of women. He saw two men come from a house with their arms full of plunder. “My God,” he said to himself bitterly. “Is Stukeley to check me even in death?” He drew his pistols again. “Come on, West,” he cried. He ran to the two looters.

“Get ter hell,” said the men. “You ain’t our captain. Who in hell are yer talking to?” Both men were drunk. One of them had been wounded in the head.

“I been doing your dirty work all morning,” said the wounded man, with drunken gravity. “I’m a free man, and I’m getting a little for myself. You ain’t my cap. Wot d’yer talk to us for? Go and see ’em in the Plaza,” said the other man. “Git ter the swamps and shove yer ’ed in.” They rolled off shouting. The noise in the Plaza became louder at each moment. It was useless to shoot the looters; two-thirds of the whole force were looting. Pain himself was looting.

Indeed, the sight of the Plaza haunted Margaret like a nightmare till he died. Of the two hundred men gathered there, hardly thirty were sober. These stood aloof under Tucket, guarding the wounded and laughing at the antics of the rest. A heap of loot was piled under the cotton tree. At every moment a buccaneer added to the pile. Wine casks lay open about the square, with drunken men lying near them, in the sun, too drunk to stir. Other drunkards, with linked arms, danced and sang, making catcalls and obscene noises. A half-conscious girl lay against a wall, gasping, shaken by hysteria. Her wild eyes were hard and dry, her hands clutched the dress across her bosom. Parties of drunken men hacked at doors with axes, and tossed household gear through the windows on to the heads of other drunkards beneath. Some had been torturing a Spaniard with woolding. The man lay dead with the cords about him, his face in the sands. Others, in wantonness, were now firing the church, dancing obscenely about in the priests’ robes. Women were screaming in an upper room. A dozen savages pursued one shrieking woman. They bawled filthy jests to each other as they ran. Margaret stood over her, as she fell, moaning, unable to run further. He drove the ruffians back, threatening them with his sword.

“It’s the cap,” they said. “If the cap wants ’er he must ’ave ’er.” He placed the woman in a house which had been sacked; it seemed the safest place in that lost city. Pain came by him, drunk, dragging a silver tray.

“No looting,” the drunkard called. “Strictly college gents. No looting ’tall. None. Won’t have it. No.” He passed on, crying drunken catcalls. The eastern side of the town, fanned by the breeze, was fast spreading to a blaze. The dry wood crackled as the flame caught. The church roof was pouring smoke. Little flames were licking out from the eaves. “My God. My God,” said Margaret. “And this is my act and deed. My act and deed.” He went to Tucket, who stood with the wounded, grimly watching it all. He could not speak. He could only shake his head, white to the lips.

“Some of ’em are. Your own men are. Mine are. I never saw men like these, though.”

“Let’s get the wounded to the boats. How many have we? How many men are steady still?”

“Sir,” Tucket answered, “I’ve twenty-five men by me. We lost fourteen killed. There’s nineteen hurt here. That’s fifty-eight. Say there’s twenty at the gates still. That leaves a matter of a hundred and seventy like what you see. Get them hurt into the carts, boys, and start ’em to the boats. Gently does it. That’s you.”

They laid the wounded men in litters and carts, and wheeled them down gently to the canoas. Margaret walked by the side of the carts, talking to the men about their wounds, fanning them with his handkerchief, getting drink for them, wetting their brows with water whenever they passed a cistern. The ships were then coming to anchor within half a mile of the town.

“You won’t be long in the boats,” he told the wounded men. “You’ll soon be in bed on board. You can see the ships. There they are. Do you see?”

He spoke to Tucket, urging that they should withdraw the guards from the east and north gates, lest the Spaniards, guessing what had happened, should attack suddenly, and overpower them.

“I’ve already sent,” said Tucket. “I ain’t goin’ to lose good men because these swine choose to raise hell. This was Captain Pain’s piece. The sooner we’re off the better.”

“I’d sound the assembly,” Margaret said. “But the trumpeter’s drunk.”

“Beg pardon, sir. But we’d oughtn’t to wait,” said Tucket. “We’d ought to get these fellers on board. The sun’s strong. And we got to make two journeys as it is.”

At the boats they were joined by the north-gate guards, about a dozen men in all.

“We can only send away six canoas at a time,” Margaret said. “That’ll mean twenty-four oars. Two wounded men in each canoa. You can’t put more, comfortably.”

“That’s so,” said Tucket. “Get ’em in, sons. Ask Captain Cammock to fire guns.”

They manned six canoas, and laid the worst cases in the sternsheets. The one sober doctor went with them. He was a clever surgeon, pretty well known all over the Indies as Doctor Glass Case. He had left England under a cloud; it was not known why. No man knew his real name.

“Take them aboard the Broken Heart,” Margaret said. “And then come back for the rest. Tell Captain Cammock how things stand here.”

The boats shoved off from the shore below the water-gate. Boat-covers propped on oars made awnings for the wounded. Margaret and Tucket watched them quartering on each other, stringing out into line, some of the stroke oars splashing, so as to spatter water, by request, into the faces of the wounded.

“They’re racing,” said Margaret. He thought how strongly these men resembled boys. They never lost a chance of competing. Now, in that hot sun, after seven hours of exertion, they were making the broad oars bend, driving the canoas through it, racing to the ship.

Men came straggling to the water-gate, asking if they were to go aboard. Margaret and Tucket told them to tend the wounded, while they returned to the Plaza to try to bring off the rest of the hands. There was no question of holding the town. The east side was a roaring bonfire. All that they could hope was that the Spaniards would not attack.

“Yes,” Tucket answered. “And them we fit this morning must be in the woods.”

“I thought I could have trusted Pain,” said Margaret. “They would have ransomed the town. It’s a merchant town. Look at all the balsam sheds. And now they’ve thrown it away.”

“That was Captain Pain,” said Tucket. “He said as all he wanted was for you to help him take the town. He’d do the rest, he said. He’s deceived you, sir. Deceived you all along. He was telling his hands just now, he was going to seize your ship, as soon as he got the stuff aboard.”

They were entering the Plaza as Tucket said this. They were just in time to see the church roof fall in, with a sudden uprush of fire. Many of Pain’s men were dragging the loot out of the heat. They were stripped nearly naked. They tossed the heavy silver from hand to hand. Sometimes a piece was flung at a man’s head, and then a fight would begin. At least thirty men lay drunk about the square, too drunk to move. About thirty others formed a rank across the eastern side, firing and clubbing at the rats which ran from the burning houses. They turned and fired at the rats which broke through them. The Plaza hummed with flying bullets. Bullets were chipping the adobe walls. Splintered tiles of a soft warm redness lay in flakes below each house. Whenever a rat was killed, the slayers yelled and screamed, swinging the corpse by the tail, hitting each other in the face. Tears ran down Margaret’s cheeks. He had never before seen a sight like this. He had never seen a mob at work. And these were the men he had led; these were the men who were to found a new nation with him.

A sudden roar of cannon made them turn to look seaward. The Broken Heart was wreathed in smoke from a broadside; but as the smoke blew clear they could see the danger signal; the foretopsail dropping to the cap, and a red weft dipped at the peak. Two musket-shots followed from the fo’c’s’le.

Pain lay in the sand, propped against a wine cask, with his hat tilted over his eyes. Margaret ran to him and shook him. “Up,” he cried. “Wake up, man.”

A man came running from the south gate shouting, “The Dagoes. The Dagoes.” He was bleeding from his mouth. He was gasping his life out as he ran. “Dagoes,” he gurgled. “Dagoes, you.” He stood for a moment, swaying, pointing half round the compass behind him.

The man stared at him stupidly, groping with his hands. “Take. These feathers. Off my teeth,” he gasped, and sank forward gently from his knees, dead.

“Wha’s a marrer? Wharrer hell’s the marrer?” said Pain, struggling to his feet.

“We’re attacked,” said Margaret, shaking him. “Get your men. Lord, man, get your men to the south gate.”

“Hands off, you damcarajo,” he answered angrily. “Why the hell couldn’t you look out? Hadn’t you sense enough to set a sentry? I’m awake. You Port Mahon fiddler. What in hell are you looking at me for? Get the men.”

The guns of the Broken Heart opened fire in succession, blowing white rings over the trucks. Heavy musket-fire was breaking out at the south gate. Some of the rat-catchers ran towards it.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” said Margaret. “You drunken little boor. See what you’ve done. You and your gang of thieves. Look at your work. Look at it. Answer me again and I’ll run you through.”

“Lord’s sake,” Tucket cried. “They’re on to us. Here they are. Cuidado, sons.”

“I’ll talk t’you later,” Pain said. “Up with her, sons. Rally an’ bust ’em.” He unslung his piece, and ran, followed by the others, to the south road. They reached the mouth of it in time to see their fellows scattering towards them from the breach. All the wall was covered with clambering Spaniards, hundreds of them. They came swarming on like a wave of bodies, firing and dropping down to load, firing again, ever firing, till the air was full of fire. Margaret saw privateers running up to support him. They came from all sides, fifty or sixty men in all, enough to make a rough double rank across the street. They made a stand here, at the corner of the Plaza, fighting steadily and well, but losing heavily. Margaret picked up a gun and fired with them, praying only that a bullet might find him soon. He had no thought of anything save that. He had failed. Now he would die unpitied in a hopeless fight against odds. There were several hundreds of Spaniards coming up, and the privateers’ ammunition failed. They were searching the dead for cartridges. Men were running back to the Plaza to search the drunkards for cartridges. A few men climbed to the roof of a house, and fired above the smoke into the enemy. Margaret climbed up with them, so that he might order the battle. He lay on the tiles with the rest, firing and cheering. For ten minutes they lay there, firing till they had no more powder. Then, as the smoke cleared away, he saw that a troop of horse was coming up. He saw the Indian lances swaying like boat-masts in a sea. He climbed down from his perch, at that, and gave the word to retire, fighting, to the boats. He knew that the fight now was only a matter of moments.

The men fell back, losing heavily. The Spaniards pressed on, cheering, trying to flank them. At the boats was a mob of flying drunkards, struggling with the boat-guard. They were trying to get the canoas for the loot. The beach was littered with loot. A couple of thousand pounds’ worth of plate was lying in the sands. Seventy or eighty men were fighting in the water, shouting and damning, tugging the canoas to and fro. They left the canoas when the fight ranged down to the beach. They ran to save the plate from the sands, to snatch the loot from under the feet of the fighters. They shrieked, with tears in their eyes, to the fighters. They struck at them with fists and guns and candlesticks, telling them to save the loot, damn them, save this precious gear, never mind the Dagoes. The fighters struck back at them, clubbing their guns. That was the end of the fighting. The ranks broke. Fighters, drunkards, boat-guard, all the wreck of the force, were jumbled in a mob among the boats, knee-deep in water. Margaret, Tucket, and a few more, managed to keep clear of the mob, and fired at the sallyport as the Spaniards pressed through to end them. Tucket’s mate cooly filled their pockets with cartridges, helping himself from the men about him. Two canoas upset; a third, with only three men in her, drew clear and pulled for the ships. Spaniards were on the walls above them, firing into them from the platform. The dead and dying men were beaten down and stamped on by the herd of wild beasts in the water. Margaret was careless how it ended for him. He had no wish to live. He felt only the horror of having mixed with men like these, of having led them, of having soiled his honour for ever with them. His gun was shattered with a bullet; the wound in his shoulder had broken out again; he could feel his shirt, sized with blood gluing to his skin. He drew his sword, and waited, looking at the walls, watching the heads of the Spaniards showing in glimpses among the smoke. As he looked there came a rush above him. A yard of the wall shattered into dust with a burst. Cammock had opened on the town with his broadside. That saved them.

He was in the water still. Some loaded canoas were pulling clear. The last canoas were loading. A dozen steady men, calmed by the gun-fire, were covering the retreat. One by one they climbed into the canoas, firing over the gunwales, standing up to fire, anxious to have the last word. A canoa which had pulled clear backed up to Margaret, and a voice shouted in his ear. Looking round, he saw that it was Pain, a grimed and bloody scarecrow, still savage with drink.

“You Portuguese get,” the drunkard screamed. “You called me down just now. Did you, by God. You junk-laid carajo. Now I’m even. See?” He swung his knobbed pistol on to Margaret’s brow with a smash, knocking him senseless. “Give way,” he shouted. “Give way. That’s what I give to college gents what gets gay with Captain Pain.”

When Margaret recovered consciousness he was in the last canoa, a hundred yards from the shore. One of the Indians was mopping his brow with water. Tucket, who was steering, was uncorking a rum-flask with his teeth.

“I’m all right,” he answered, with a little, hysterical laugh. “Where is that man? The man who hit me?”

He sat up, fully roused, splashing water over his head. He felt ill and stupid; but the thought of possible danger to Olivia roused him. Looking back, he saw Tolu blazing above the palm-tree tops, the flames sucking at the forest, scorching the boughs. Looking forward, he saw the Broken Heart, with men struggling on her gangway amid the flash of pistols.

“I cain’t row no harder,” said one of the men petulantly, like a child about to cry. “I see old Jimmy shot, as I owed the dollar to. It ain’t my fault, cap.”

“If I put any more weight on,” said another rower, “this oar’ll go in the slings. It’s got a chewed slug through the service.”

Margaret noticed then, for the first time, that the canoa had a foot of water in her. There were seven men in her. Tucket, himself, an Indian, and four rowers, all of them wounded.

“Let me take an oar,” he said. “Give me your oar, bowman. You’re hit.”

“I ain’t goin’ to lay up,” the bowman answered. “A sailor don’t lay up, nor he don’t take medicine, not till he’s dying, and then he don’t need to.”

“You stay still,” Tucket said. “You been as near it as most. We’re the last canoa. D’ye know what that means? We five got an upset boat and righted her. The Spaniards were riding after us finishing the wounded. Robin there, the Indian, saved you. He swam a matter of thirty yards with you before we picked him up. Then we’d to lie-to and bale her out before she sank, with the Dagoes blazing hell at us. As it is, we’re only crawling.”

The Indian sucked in his golden nose-plate, and cringed upon his hams, grinning. He was the only happy man in the force, this Indian “sin razon.” Tucket added to his happiness by hailing him with his new name, in his own speech of San Blas pigeon, a jumble of Spanish and Indian, spoken as English.

“You Captain Margaret now, Robin. Sabe? You Capitano. Capitano sobre tula guannah anivego. Mamaubah. Eh? Shennorung Capitano. Muchas mujercillas. Eh?”

Five hundred yards further on the rowers had to rest. They splashed themselves with water, took a drink of spirits, and lay back in the stern-sheets. They were worn out. Margaret was worn out, too. He had no strength left in him. He lay back, dully, watching the ship; noting, though with no intellectual comprehension, an array of men passing down the gangway, making a great noise. It was still, after the roar of the battle. The cries and oaths came down the wind to him, clearly, across the water. He saw three long canoas, full of men, pull clear from the ship’s side, with one man, not very big, standing in the sternsheets of the largest, shrilly cursing at the ship. “That’s my note,” were the only words which he could catch. “That’s my note.” He wondered whose note and what note it could be. But his head was reeling; he didn’t really care.

“My God,” he said, rousing up, as the beaten boxer rises, though spent, at his second’s cheer. “It’s not Mrs. Stukeley? It’s not Mrs. Stukeley?”

“Yes,” he said, looking intently. “The other. Mrs. Inigo. What’s happened?”

“Pain’s got your crew,” Tucket answered. “He’s leaving you to the Spaniards.”

Dully, as they passed about the rum-flask, they saw the boats draw up to Pain’s ship. They saw sail made upon her, the sprit-sail for casting, the topgallant-sails in the buntlines. Soon she was under way, lying over to the breeze, sailing a point or two free, bound past the Mestizos to the southward. Her men, gathered on her poop to hoist the mizen, cursed the Broken Heart from the taffrail, firing a volley of pistols at her in farewell. Two of the three sloops sailed at the same time. As they passed away, crowding all sail, foaming at the bows with their eight-knot rush, Margaret heard the chanties at the halliards, a broken music, coming in the gusts of the wind.

Tucket took one of the oars, and sat at the thwart wearily, searching for a helper among the sternsheets. Captain Margaret, the Indian, could not row. The other five were exhausted. “Boys,” he said, “if we don’t get a gait on us, we’ll be sunstruck. We’re losing way, too. The breeze is setting us ashore.”

Margaret rose up wearily, like a man in a dream, and sat down to row at the thwart. They pulled a ragged stroke together. They were too tired to do much. They pulled a few strokes, and paused, to look round. Then pulled again painfully and again paused. One of the men took up a pistol and fired into the air. “We’ll never make it,” he said. He fired again and again, till some one in the ship caught sight of them and fired in reply. A boat manned by half a dozen men put off to them, veering out line astern, so that those aboard might heave them in at the capstan. Cammock and Perrin were two of the rowers, the only two who could pull an oar; the negro steward steered. The rest of them rowed like marines on pay-day going through the platoon. The wounded and weary smiled to see them; they had never seen such rowing. Slowly they drew up. Margaret saw Perrin and Cammock glancing over their shoulders at him. They cheered and waved when they saw him. He waved his unhurt arm to them. The canoa swung round and backed alongside. Cammock, laying in his oar, shifted his towing-line to the bow, and bent to it the painter of Tucket’s canoa, so that the boats might tow together. “Let your oars swing fore and aft, boys,” he said. He lifted his voice, and yelled to the ship to heave in. “Well, sir,” he said, coming aft alongside Margaret. “And how are you? I’m glad to see you alive. The men said you were killed.”

“I’m all right,” he said. “But we had. We had enough, over there. What has happened in the ship?”

“Well, sir,” said Cammock. “Pain’s gone off with most of what were left to us. That’s what happened.”

“I was on deck with Mr. Perrin till the last canoas were putting off,” Cammock answered. “We’d been working the guns. We saw there was rather a mess. Then the doctor sends for us two to help him take off Jowett’s leg. So we went into the wardroom, where he was working. We heard the boats come alongside, and Pain lashing out like a chocalatto-north; so when we got the arteries fast, and Jowett in a cot, we ran on deck to see if you were safe and to see what the row was. They’d been making enough row to caulk a flagship. That was too late, then. Pain had been saying that you were dead, that you’d spoiled the show and got a hundred of ’em killed. God knows what he hadn’t said. More’n half of them were drunk. Our lot had been up all night. So by the time we got on deck they were bundling their bags into the canoas. There was that Fraser fellow going down the gangway with one of our guns. I knocked him back where he belonged. Then they began to fire. I’ll show you my hat when we get aboard. Then they tried to rush the gangway. So I cut the fall, and spilled ’em off it. We’d a lively fight for a few minutes. Pain and Ackett’s lots (Ackett’s lot weren’t so bad) went off then. It was them really kept Pain back a bit. They said they’d play hell with Springer’s Key for me. Ackett’s lot said I’d better stand in with them. They said they’d seen you corpsed on the beach.”

“Mrs. Inigo went off with Iles,” said Perrin. “They’ve gone with Pain and the rest.”

“The rest. The rest. What rest? We must have lost. Oh, my God,” said Margaret weakly. “We must have lost half. Was any roll called?”

“No,” said Perrin. “Twelve of your men went to your sloop, Captain Tucket, after bringing off some wounded. They said there was hell to pay ashore, so they stayed here. That was before the attack. And you’ve five more here; seventeen that makes, besides your ship-keepers.”

“We’ve got eleven left,” Cammock said, “besides nineteen wounded and the doctor. Not counting them. Tucket, we got thirty-nine able-bodied between us. Twenty-four of them yours.”

“By the way, I’ve got your maps, Cammock,” Margaret said. “Here they are. I’m sorry they’re so wet. I fell in the sea coming off.”

Cammock took the maps with a groan. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “But I don’t much value the maps, though, when I think of what’s happened.”

“Why didn’t Pain take the ship?” Perrin asked. “That’s what puzzles me.”

“Afraid you’d government friends, sir. Besides. He thought if he took your men the Dagoes’d get you.”

Very slowly the men at the capstan walked the canoas to the side. Margaret stood on his own deck again, asking himself how many years had gone since he last stood there. The guns were cast loose. Round shot, fallen from the garlands, rolled to and fro as the ship rolled. The decks were littered with wads. Smears, as of lamp-black, showed where the gun-sponges had been dropped. The hammock-nettings were fire-pocked and filthy. There were marks of blood on the coamings, where wounded men had lain, waiting to be carried below.

“Charles,” said Perrin, “you come to the cabin and lie down. I’ll fetch Olivia to you. She’s with the wounded. What about Stukeley?”

“The dead are our only links with God, I think,” Margaret said gravely. “I’ve been in hell to-day, Edward. In hell. In hell.”

He lay down on the window-seat in the cabin, where Stukeley had so often lain. The breeze had swung the ship head to sea. He had only to turn his head to see the fire of Tolu, burning below its pillar of cloud. The sea-wall spurted with smoke at intervals. The flashes were very white and bright, not like the smoke of firelocks. Cammock came in to him with a mess of cold poultice for his head.

“We’re getting under way, sir,” he said. “The Dagoes are blowing the spikes out of their guns. They’ll be firing soon. We’re cutting our cable, sir. We haven’t strength to weigh. Tucket the same. Mrs. Stukeley is coming to you, sir. I told her you were hurt. She wants you not to get up, sir.”

He raised himself to greet her, looking at her sadly. She came up to him and took his hand, and sat at his side.

“Olivia,” he said gently. “Olivia, I bring another sorrow for you. Your husband is dead, Olivia. He died this morning.”

He tried to read her thought; but his head was stupid with pain; he could not. He saw only the calm, pale face with that quality of mystery upon it which is upon all beauty.

“Olivia,” he said, “would it pain you too much to hear. To hear about it?”

“Tell me then,” she said. “If you feel. If you wish. I am quite calm, Charles. Tell me everything.”

“He died of yellow fever, Olivia. In the Governor’s house there. The tall house above the bastion there.”

“He was ill for four days,” Margaret continued. “They thought he was getting better yesterday.”

“A secretary there.” His mouth had grown very dry; it was hard to answer these questions.

“Yes. I found the priest in the room with him. The priest had attended him. At the end.”

“I want to picture it, Charles. Was there fighting in the town when you. When you found him?”

“There was a little firing. But the men were at breakfast. I heard a few shots. Distant shots. So. So I left the men. And West and I made a grave. We buried him there, Olivia. The priest. There was a service.”

“I picked these rosebuds, and this pebble, Olivia. From the grave. For you.”

The rosebuds were crushed and dropping. She took them in the hollow of her hand. There was a grace in all that she did. The holding out of her delicate palm was beautiful; the movement showed curiously her exquisite refinement; it was as though she had said some beautiful thing; her mind showed in it. She took the relics, looking not at them, but at Charles, her eyes swimming with tears, her dear mind wild with tears.

“Thank you,” she said, on a sob. “You planted the roses, Charles? You thought of it.”

He did not answer. He turned his head, to look out over Tolu. The ship was moving slowly, heading out over the gulf; the fiery town was dwindling; the wake whirled pale bubbles about the rudder.

“Charles,” she said, “tell me now, will you. That’s over. That part. What happened in the town?”

“The men got drunk, Olivia, and set the town on fire. They sacked the place. When I came back to the Plaza. Oh, I can’t. I can’t.”

“I helped them, down in the ward-room. Oh, poor fellows. I asked them about the battle. I think I’ve. I think, Charles, I’ve come very near to the world in these last days. They told me a little. Then I heard firing. We were busy below, with a sheet over the ports to keep out the sun. Some of them are dreadfully hurt. I couldn’t see what was happening. But I knew you were attacked. Then the cannon overhead began. The ship shook. Then a wounded man came down. He said you were dead, Charles. It was like the end of everything.”

“You didn’t see that water,” he answered. “Oh, not that water. My act and deed. All of it. All of it by me. And there was a girl in the Plaza. I’m disgraced. Oh, I shall never. It’s all over. All over after to-day.”

“No, Charles. Don’t say that. You. At Springer’s Key. You can begin again there. With better men.”

“Springer’s Key will be a failure, too,” he said bitterly. “Oh, Olivia,” he added, going off into an hysterical laugh, “that water gets on my nerves. There were two upset boats, and they can’t right them.”

“Lie down,” she answered, rising swiftly, to lay the relics on the table. “I’ll see to it at once. Why didn’t I think?”

“I’ll get Perrin,” he said. “Don’t you. You mustn’t. Oh, Olivia, you’ve enough without me.”

She ripped the coat of soiled linen with the scissors in her chatelaine. The old negro, coming in with chocolate, brought hot water for her. Together they dressed the wound with balsam and pitoma leaf, binding it with Indian cotton. The steward brought in fruit and bread. They ate and drank together, mechanically, not as though they wanted food.

“Olivia,” Margaret said, “you are in great sorrow. Some of it, Olivia, perhaps all of it, is due to me. I want you. I want you to feel that I feel for you. Feel deeply. Oh, my God. I’m sorry for you. You poor woman.”

“Charles,” she said, “you mustn’t think. You’ve no right. You mustn’t think that. That what has happened was due to you. Don’t, Charles. You won’t, I know. I see too clearly what happened. I see your mind, Charles, all along. I understand.” She knelt very swiftly and kissed his hand. “There,” she said, very white. “I understand.”

Margaret closed his eyes, then looked at a gleam of flame far distant, and at the blue band on the bows of Tucket’s sloop, plunging the sea into milk within hail of him.

“You were right, Olivia,” he said, in a shaking voice. “I shall never reap my plantations yonder.”

“They came to nothing. Because. There. We were too wild to see what, what we were building with.”

“No, Charles,” she said. “We were living in one little corner of our hearts, you and I. In fool’s paradises. We were prisoners. This is not the end. We only begin here.”

He sighed, thinking of the shame of the morning’s work in Tolu. “My father’s sword,” he thought. “In that cause.”

He thought for a moment, dully, wondering in his blurred brain if she wished to hear more of the battle.

“I must go now to the wounded,” she said softly. “Edward and the doctor will be wanting me. God bless you, Charles.”

“I knew that, Charles. I saw him so clearly. With a woman with a cruel face. Oh, I knew it. It was generous of you not to tell me. But I knew all the time.”

Late that night, in the darkened cabin, Olivia leaned upon the port-sill, looking out over the rudder eddies, as they spun away in fire rings, brightening and dying. She propped the cushions at her back, so that she might rest her head. The nightmare of the past was ashes to her. That evil fire had burned out, as Tolu had burned out. The past and Tolu lay smouldering together somewhere, beyond Fuerte there, beyond the Mestizos. The embers lay red there, crusted in ash.

She had come to see clearly in the pain of her sorrow. She saw her life laid bare and judged. She saw the moral values of things. Great emotions are our high tides. They brim our natures, as a tide brims the flood-marks, bringing strangeness out of the sea, wild birds and amber. She had relics in her hand; rosebuds and a pebble, “feathers and dust.” The rosebuds had spilled their petals. She looked at them there, turning them over with her fingers, holding them to the open port to see them. There was no moon; but the great stars gave the night a kind of glimmering clearness. The sea heaved silvery with star-tracks. Fish broke the water to flame. The scutter of a settling sea-bird made a path of bright scales a few yards from her. She laid the relics on the port-sill, near the open window. Very gently she pushed the pebble into the water, leaning forward to see the gleam of its fall. One by one she pushed the rosebuds over, till they were all gone too. She watched the petals float away into the wake, chased by the sea-birds. They were out of sight in a moment, but the gulls mewed as they quarrelled over them, voices in the darkness, crying in the air aloft. Olivia leaned there, looking after them, for many minutes. Then she drew close the window and covered her eyes with her hands.

It took them five days to win back to the Samballoes. They entered Springer’s Drive a little before noon, eagerly looking out towards the anchorage. No ships lay there, no guns greeted them from the fort. Margaret and Cammock, walking the poop together, knew that Pain had been before them. A thin expanse of smoke wavered and drifted in films among the trees. When it drove down into the palms, after rising above their level, it scattered the macaws, making them cry out. The flagstaff lay prone, like a painted finger, pointing down the spit to the sea. Tucket’s sloop was fifty yards ahead of the ship, plunging in a smother. There was a cockling sea that morning, the reefs were running white, they gleamed milky for fifty yards about them. There was no other sign of life about the island. The smoke was so thin that it was like mist. The beach, which had so lately been thronged, was busy now with crabs, which scuttled and sidled, tearing at the manchineel trees. A wounded man limped down the sand and waved to them. Margaret, going in in his boat, saw that it was the seaman West.

“I been here two days, sir,” he said, “waiting for you. I been living on sapadillies. There been awful times, sir.”

“I came from the town, Tolu town, in one of the sloops, sir,” the man answered. “The Lively, as they called her. When we come here, Captain Pain got all the men you left, all the guard like, to sign on with him. Then he set the town on fire, and scoffed all your gear, the guns and powder and that. So I got away and hid in the wood. I was afraid they want me to join ’em, or put a knife into me. Then I saw ’em flog that Don Toro, and two other Indians. He flog ’em on the beach, and sent ’em back to the Main, sir. He said that would put all them Indians off giving you a hand in the future.”

“So I stayed hidden, sir, ever since, hoping no Indians would come over and find me.”

“So that’s the end,” said Margaret to himself. He would not go ashore there. He could see the ruins of his city, a mass of fallen earth, a heap of ashes, a sprouting crop blasted. He would never set foot there again. That dream had ended like the other, in savagery, in waste, in cruelty. He would let it end. The fallen gabions of the fort would soon be tangled with grasses. In three months there would be shrubs on the city site. The key would be jungle again, the Indians would be savage again, the privateers would be plundering vagabonds again. The dream was over. All that he could do now was to proceed to Jamaica, to sell his goods there, before sailing for England, a beaten man, threatened by the law.

Tucket’s men helped his crew to fill fresh water. Tucket offered to take seven of the slightly wounded men in his ship in exchange for five unhurt men from his own crew. As the men were willing to exchange, this brought the Broken Heart’s complement to twenty men; enough, at a strain, for the passage to Jamaica, if no enemy threatened and no storm arose. When the water had been filled, and the manger stacked with wood, the men gathered stores of fruit. They were ready to sail then. Margaret gave the Indian Robin enough goods to make him a chief in his own land. He made gifts to all of Tucket’s crew. To Tucket himself he gave a pair of pistols, choice weapons, made by the best artist in Paris. Tucket asked for his address, in writing.

“I shall come and look you up, one day,” he said, as he put the paper in his pocket. “I shall be coming home to set up dyer. We’ll have a great yarn, that day.”

“I shall expect you,” Margaret said. “You shall dye for me. But won’t you come home now, captain? With me?”

“No, sir,” he answered. “I want to get that green the Indians get. Then I’ll come home.”

“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “Good-bye, then, Captain Tucket. I wonder if we shall ever meet again.”

They were under way again, close-hauled to the breeze, going out of Springer’s Drive to the east of Caobos. All the Holandès keys were roaring with surf. The palms were bending. The smoke from the key astern trailed in a faint streamer towards the Grullos. That was the last picture which Margaret formed of the keys. The sun bright, the palms lashing, the noise of the surf like a battle, the welter of the surf like milk on the reefs. Tucket was in his sloop now, with all hands gathered on deck, their faces turned to him. The men of the Broken Heart were gathered at the hammock nettings. Margaret thought of the sadness of parting. Two men had shaken hands only a moment before. Now there was this gulf of sea between them. To-morrow they would be many miles apart; and who knew whether they would ever meet again, for all their wandering.

The bells of the ships rang out together, a furious peal. Cammock, standing on a gun, took off his hat, and called for three cheers for the sloop. The sloop’s men cheered the ship. The men of the Broken Heart answered with a single cheer. The bells rang out again, the colours dipped, the guns thundered, startling the pelicans. Tucket had turned away now, to help to secure his guns. His helmsman let the sloop go off three points. She was slipping fast away now, bound towards Zambo-Gandi. Now the figures of the men could no longer be recognized. She was hidden behind the palms of Puyadas. Tucket was gone. Margaret never saw him again.

“That breaks the neck of that,” said Cammock. “All gone, main-topgallant yard?”

Under all sail the Broken Heart swayed seawards, treading down the rollers, creaming a track across the sea, dark now in its blueness, with crinkling wind-ruffles. When the night fell, shutting out the Main, and the stars climbed out, solemn and golden, she was in the strength of the trade, rolling to the northward, circled by the gleams of dolphins, hurrying in sudden fires.

After dark that night Margaret sat on the locker-top, looking at the wake, as it shone below him about the rudder. He was thinking over his manifold failure, feeling disgraced and stained, a defeated, broken man. Olivia entered quietly from the alleyway. He only felt her enter. There was no light in the cabin. The steward was busy with the wounded.

“Is that you, Olivia?” he asked, knowing that it was she. He felt in his heart the gladness which her presence always gave to him. Life could always be noble, he thought, with that beautiful woman in the world.

“Yes, Charles,” she answered. “I’ve been with the wounded. They’re better. How are your wounds?”

“Charles,” she said, “I want you not to brood. Not to grieve. That’s all over, Charles.”

“There is no dishonour, Charles. You failed. The only glory is failure. All artists fail. But one sees what they saw. You see that in their failure.”

“Charles,” she said, kneeling, taking both his hands, hiding her face against him, “it is in my heart. That city. Our city.”

She trembled against him, drawing her breath. He held her with his unhurt arm, waiting till the dear face would lift, pale in that darkness, to the laying of the gold foundation.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

The Grant Richards edition (London, 1908) was consulted for most of the changes listed below.

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. alleyway/alley-way, gold dust/gold-dust, etc.) have been preserved.

“looking aloft at the boy on the maintopgallantyard” to maintopgallant yard.

“Whereever that vague perfume lingers, something of the old” to Wherever.

“That man up on the yard there was once a slave in Virgina” to Virginia.

“The table was rimmed with a patten to keep the plates from falling” to batten.

“and so they lose, either way, But you know, Olivia, you are” change second comma to a period.

“so that the dicussion came to an end before it had well begun” to discussion.

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