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diff --git a/75530-0.txt b/75530-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f08c134 --- /dev/null +++ b/75530-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7272 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75530 *** + + + + + + A HIGH WIND + IN + JAMAICA + + + + + By Richard Hughes + + _Short Stories_ + + A MOMENT OF TIME + + _Poems_ + + CONFESSIO JUVENIS + + _Drama_ + + PLAYS: IN ONE VOL. + _Also available separately_ + + Chatto & Windus + + * + + _Mr. Hughes has also edited a + selection of Skelton’s Poems, + published by Wm. Heinemann Ltd._ + + + + + A HIGH WIND + IN JAMAICA + + RICHARD HUGHES + + 1929 + + CHATTO & WINDUS + LONDON + + + + + Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. Constable Ltd. + at the University Press, Edinburgh + + Third Impression + + All rights reserved + + Copyright in the U.S.A. by Richard Hughes, 1929, + under the title of ‘The Innocent Voyage.’ + + + + +A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA + + + + +_Chapter 1_ + + +One of the fruits of Emancipation in the West Indian islands is +the number of the ruins, either attached to the houses that remain +or within a stone’s throw of them: ruined slaves’ quarters, ruined +sugar-grinding houses, ruined boiling houses; often ruined mansions +that were too expensive to maintain. Earthquake, fire, rain, and +deadlier vegetation, did their work quickly. + +One scene is very clear in my mind, in Jamaica. There was a vast +stone-built house called Derby Hill (where the Parkers lived). It had +been the centre of a very prosperous plantation. With Emancipation, +like many others, that went _bung_. The sugar buildings fell down. +Bush smothered the cane and guinea-grass. The field negroes left +their cottages in a body, to be somewhere less disturbed by even the +possibility of work. Then the house negroes’ quarters burned down, +and the three remaining faithful servants occupied the mansion. The +two heiresses of all this, the Miss Parkers, grew old; and were by +education incapable. And the scene is this: coming to Derby Hill on +some business or other, and wading waist-deep in bushes up to the front +door, now lashed permanently open by a rank plant. The jalousies of +the house had been all torn down, and then supplanted as darkeners, +by powerful vines: and out of this crumbling half-vegetable gloom +an old negress peered, wrapped in filthy brocade. The two old Miss +Parkers lived in bed, for the negroes had taken away all their clothes: +they were nearly starved. Drinking water was brought in two cracked +Worcester cups and three coconut shells on a silver salver. Presently +one of the heiresses persuaded her tyrants to lend her an old print +dress, and came and pottered about in the mess half-heartedly: tried to +wipe the old blood and feathers of slaughtered chickens from a gilt and +marble table: tried to talk sensibly: tried to wind an ormolu clock: +and then gave it up and mooned away back to bed. Not long after this, +I believe, they were both starved altogether to death. Or, if that +were hardly possible in so prolific a country, perhaps given ground +glass--rumour varied. At any rate, they died. + +That is the sort of scene which makes a deep impression on the mind; +far deeper than the ordinary, less romantic, everyday thing which shows +the real state of an island in the statistical sense. Of course, even +in the transition period one only found melodrama like this in rare +patches. More truly typical was Ferndale, for instance, an estate about +fifteen miles away from Derby Hill. Only the overseer’s house here +remained: the Big House had altogether collapsed and been smothered +over. It consisted of a ground floor of stone, given over to goats and +the children, and a first floor of wood, the inhabited part, reached +from outside by a double flight of wooden steps. When the earthquakes +came the upper part only slid about a little, and could be jacked back +into position with big levers. The roof was of shingles: after very dry +weather it leaked like a sieve, and the first few days of the rainy +season would be spent in a perpetual general-post of beds and other +furniture to escape the drips, until the wood swelled. + +The people who lived there at the time I have in mind were the +Bas-Thorntons: not natives of the Island, ‘Creoles,’ but a family from +England. Mr. Bas-Thornton had a business of some kind in St. Anne’s, +and used to ride there every day on a mule. He had such long legs that +his stunted mount made him look rather ridiculous: and being quite +as temperamental as a mule himself, a quarrel between the two was +generally worth watching. + +Close to the dwelling were the ruined grinding and boiling houses. +These two are never quite cheek by jowl: the grinding-house is set on +higher ground, with a water-wheel to turn the immense iron vertical +rollers. From these the cane juice runs down a wedge-shaped trough to +the boiling house, where a negro stands and rinses a little lime-wash +into it with a grass brush to make it granulate. Then it is emptied +into big copper vats, over furnaces burning faggots and ‘trash,’ or +squeezed-out cane. There a few negroes stand, skimming the poppling +vats with long-handled copper ladles, while their friends sit round, +eating sugar or chewing trash, in a mist of hot vapour. What they +skim off oozes across the floor with an admixture of a good deal of +filth--insects, even rats, and whatever sticks to negroes’ feet--into +another basin, thence to be distilled into rum. + +This, at any rate, is how it used to be done. I know nothing of modern +methods--or if there are any, never having visited the island since +1860, which is a long time ago now. + +But long before that year all this was over at Ferndale: the big copper +vats were overturned, and up in the grinding-house the three great +rollers lay about loose. No water reached it: the stream had gone +about its own business elsewhere. The Bas-Thornton children used to +crawl into the cut-well through the vent, among dead leaves and the +wreck of the wheel. There, one day, they found a wild-cat’s nest, with +the mother away. The kittens were tiny, and Emily tried to carry them +home in her pinafore; but they bit and scratched so fiercely, right +through her thin frock, that she was very glad--except for pride--that +they all escaped but one. This one, Tom, grew up: though he was never +really tamed. Later he begat several litters on an old tame cat they +had, Kitty Cranbrook; and the only survivor of this progeny, Tabby, +became rather a famous cat in his way. (But Tom soon took to the jungle +altogether.) Tabby was faithful, and a good swimmer, which he would do +for pleasure, sculling around the bathing-pool behind the children, +giving an occasional yowl of excitement. Also, he had mortal sport with +snakes: would wait for a rattler or a black-snake like a mere mouse: +drop on it from a tree or somewhere, and fight it to death. Once he +got bitten, and they all wept bitterly, expecting to see a spectacular +death-agony; but he just went off into the bush and probably ate +something, for he came back in a few days quite cock-a-hoop and as +ready to eat snakes as ever. + +Red-headed John’s room was full of rats: he used to catch them in big +gins, and then let them go for Tabby to despatch. Once the cat was so +impatient he seized trap and all and caterwauled off into the night +banging it on the stones and sending up showers of sparks. Again he +returned in a few days, very sleek and pleased: but John never saw his +trap again. Another plague of his were the bats, which also infested +his room in hundreds. Mr. Bas-Thornton could crack a stockwhip, and +used to kill a bat on the wing with it most neatly. But the din +this made in that little box of a room at midnight was infernal: +earsplitting cracks, and the air already full of the tiny penetrating +squeaks of the vermin. + +It was a kind of paradise for English children to come to, whatever it +might be for their parents: especially at that time, when no one lived +in at all a wild way at home. Here one had to be a little ahead of +the times: or decadent, whichever you like to call it. The difference +between boys and girls, for instance, had to be left to look after +itself. Long hair would have made the evening search for grass-ticks +and nits interminable: Emily and Rachel had their hair cut short, and +were allowed to do everything the boys did--to climb trees, swim, and +trap animals and birds: they even had two pockets in their frocks. + +It was round the bathing-pool their life centred, more than the +house. Every year, when the rains were over, a dam was built across +the stream, so that all through the dry season there was quite a +large pool to swim in. There were trees all round: enormous fluffed +cotton-trees, with coffee trees between their paws, and log-wood, and +gorgeous red and green peppers: amongst them, the pool was almost +completely shaded. Emily and John set tree-springes in them--Lame-foot +Sam taught them how. Cut a bendy stick, and tie a string to one end. +Then sharpen the other, so that it can impale a fruit as bait. Just at +the base of this point flatten it a little, and bore a hole through the +flat part. Cut a little peg that will just stick in the mouth of this +hole. Then make a loop in the end of the string: bend the stick, as in +stringing a bow, till the loop will thread through the little hole, and +jam it with the peg, along which the loop should lie spread. Bait the +point, and hang it in a tree among the twigs: the bird alights on the +peg to peck the fruit, the peg falls out, the loop whips tight round +its ankles: then away up out of the water like pink predatory monkeys, +and decide by ‘Eena, deena, dina, do,’ or some such rigmarole, whether +to twist its neck or let it go free--thus the excitement and suspense, +both for child and bird, can be prolonged beyond the moment of capture. + +It was only natural that Emily should have great ideas of improving +the negroes. They were, of course, Christians, so there was nothing to +be done about their morals: nor were they in need of soup, or knitted +things; but they were sadly ignorant. After a good deal of negotiation +they consented in the end to let her teach Little Jim to read: but +she had no success. Also she had a passion for catching house-lizards +without their dropping their tails off, which they do when frightened: +it needed endless patience to get them whole and unalarmed into a +match-box. Catching green grass-lizards was also very delicate. She +would sit and whistle, like Orpheus, till they came out of their +crannies and showed their emotion by puffing out their pink throats: +then, very gently, she would lasso them with a long blade of grass. +Her room was full of these and other pets, some alive, others probably +dead. She also had tame fairies; and a familiar, or oracle, the White +Mouse with an Elastic Tail, who was always ready to settle any point in +question, and whose rule was a rule of iron--especially over Rachel, +Edward, and Laura, the little ones (or Liddlies, as they came to be +known in the family). To Emily, his interpreter, he allowed, of course, +certain privileges: and with John, who was older than Emily, he quite +wisely did not interfere. + +_He_ was omnipresent: the fairies were more localised, living in a +small hole in the hill guarded by two dagger-plants. + +The best fun at the bathing-pool was had with a big forked log. John +would sit astride the main stem, and the others pushed him about by the +two prongs. The little ones, of course, only splashed about the shallow +end: but John and Emily dived. John, that is to say, dived properly, +head-foremost: Emily only jumped in feet first, stiff as a rod; but +she, on the other hand, would go off higher boughs than he would. Once, +when she was eight, Mrs. Thornton had thought she was too big to bathe +naked any more. The only bathing-dress she could rig was an old cotton +night-gown. Emily jumped in as usual: first the balloons of air tipped +her upside down, and then the wet cotton wrapped itself round her head +and arms and nearly drowned her. After that, decency was let go hang +again: it is hardly worth being drowned for--at least, it does not at +first sight appear to be. + +But once a negro really was drowned in the pool. He had gorged himself +full of stolen mangoes: and feeling guilty, thought he might as well +also cool himself in the forbidden pond, and make one repentance cover +two crimes. He could not swim, and had only a child (Little Jim) +with him. The cold water and the surfeit brought on an apoplexy: Jim +poked at him with a piece of stick a little, and then ran away in a +fright. Whether the man died of the apoplexy or the drowning was a +point for an inquest; and the doctor, after staying at Ferndale for +a week, decided it was from drowning, but that he was full of green +mangoes right up to his mouth. The great advantage of this was that +no negro would bathe there again, for fear the dead man’s ‘duppy,’ or +ghost, should catch him. So if any black even came near while they +were bathing, John and Emily would pretend the duppy had grabbed at +them, and off he would go, terribly upset. Only one of the negroes at +Ferndale had ever actually seen a duppy: but that was quite enough. +They cannot be mistaken for living people, because their heads are +turned backwards on their shoulders, and they carry a chain: moreover +one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them +power. This poor man forgot, and called out ‘_Duppy!_’ when he saw it. +He got terrible rheumatics. + +Lame-foot Sam told most stories. He used to sit all day on the stone +barbecues where the pimento was dried, digging maggots out of his toes. +This seemed at first very horrid to the children, but he seemed quite +contented: and when jiggers got under their own skins, and laid their +little bags of eggs there, it was not absolutely unpleasant. John used +to get quite a sort of thrill from rubbing the place. Sam told them +the Anansi stories: Anansi and the Tiger, and how Anansi looked after +the Crocodile’s nursery, and so on. Also he had a little poem which +impressed them very much: + + Quacko Sam + Him bery fine man: + Him dance all de dances dat de darkies can: + Him dance de schottische, him dance de Cod Reel: + Him dance ebery kind of dance till him foot-bottom peel. + +Perhaps that was how old Sam’s own affliction first came about: he was +very sociable. He was said to have a great many children. + + +ii + +The stream which fed the bathing-hole ran into it down a gully through +the bush which offered an enticing vista for exploring: but somehow +the children did not often go up it very far. Every stone had to be +overturned in the hope of finding cray-fish: or if not, John had to +take a sporting gun, which he bulleted with spoonfuls of water to +shoot humming-birds on the wing, too tiny frail quarry for any solider +projectile. For, only a few yards up, there was a Frangipani tree: a +mass of brilliant blossom and no leaves, which was almost hidden in +a cloud of humming-birds so vivid as much to outshine the flowers. +Writers have often lost their way trying to explain how brilliant a +jewel the humming-bird is: it cannot be done. + +They build their wee woollen nests on the tops of twigs, where no snake +can reach them. They are devoted to their eggs, and will not move +though you touch them. But they are so delicate the children never did +that: they held their breath and stared and stared--and were out-stared. + +Somehow the celestial vividness of this barrier generally arrested +them: it was seldom they explored further: only once, I think, on a day +when Emily was feeling peculiarly irritated. + +It was her own tenth birthday. They had frittered away all the morning +in the glass-like gloom of the bathing-hole. Now John sat naked on +the bank making a wicker trap. In the shallows the small ones rolled +and chuckled. Emily, for coolness, sat up to her chin in water, and +hundreds of infant fish were tickling with their inquisitive mouths +every inch of her body, a sort of expressionless light kissing. + +Anyhow she had lately come to hate being touched--but this was +abominable. At last, when she could stand it no longer, she clambered +out and dressed. Rachel and Laura were too small for a long walk: and +the last thing, she felt, that she wanted was to have one of the boys +with her: so she stole quietly past John’s back, scowling balefully +at him for no particular reason. Soon she was out of sight among the +bushes. + +She pushed on rather fast, not taking much notice of things, up the +river bed for about three miles. She had never been so far afield +before. Then her attention was caught by a clearing leading down +to the water: and here was the source of the river. She caught her +breath delightedly: it bubbled up clear and cold, through three +distinct springs, under a clump of bamboos, just as a river should: +the greatest possible find, and a private discovery of her own. She +gave instantaneous inward thanks to God for thinking of such a perfect +birthday treat, especially as things had seemed to be going all wrong: +and then began to ferret in the limestone sources with the whole length +of her arm, among the ferns and cresses. + +Hearing a splash, she looked round. Some half-dozen strange negro +children had come down the clearing to fetch water and were staring at +her in astonishment. Emily stared back. In sudden terror they flung +down their calabashes and galloped away up the clearing like hares. +Immediately, but with dignity, Emily followed them. The clearing +narrowed to a path, and the path led in a very short time to a village. + +It was all ragged and unkempt, and shrill with voices. There were small +one-storey wattle huts dotted about, completely overhung by the most +enormous trees. There was no sort of order: they appeared anywhere: +there were no railings, and only one or two of the most terribly +starved, mangy cattle to keep in or out. In the middle of all was an +indeterminate quagmire or muddy pond, where a group of half-naked +negroes, and totally naked black children, and a few brown ones, were +splashing with geese and ducks. + +Emily stared: they stared back. She made a movement towards them: they +separated at once into the various huts, and watched her from there. +Encouraged by the comfortable feeling of inspiring fright she advanced, +and at last found an old creature who would talk: Dis Liberty Hill, +dis Black Man’s Town, Old-time niggers, dey go fer run from de bushas +(overseers), go fer live here. De piccaninnies, dey never see buckras +(whites).... And so on. It was a refuge, built by runaway slaves, and +still inhabited. + +And then, that her cup of happiness might be full, some of the bolder +children crept out and respectfully offered her flowers--really to get +a better look at her pallid face. Her heart bubbled up in her, she +swelled with glory: and taking leave with the greatest condescension +she trod all the long way home on veritable air, back to her beloved +family, back to a birthday cake wreathed with stephanotis, lit with +ten candles, and in which it so happened that the sixpenny piece was +invariably found in the birthday-person’s slice. + + +iii + +This was, fairly typically, the life of an English family in Jamaica. +Mostly these only stayed a few years. The Creoles--families who had +been in the West Indies for more than one generation--gradually evolved +something a little more distinctive. They lost some of the traditional +mental mechanism of Europe, and the outlines of a new one began to +appear. + +There was one such family the Bas-Thorntons were acquainted with, who +had a ramshackle estate to the eastward. They invited John and Emily to +spend a couple of days with them, but Mrs. Thornton was in two minds +about letting them go, lest they should learn bad ways. The children +there were a wildish lot, and, in the morning at least, would often run +about barefoot like negroes, which is a very important point in a place +like Jamaica where the whites have to keep up appearances. They had a +governess whose blood was possibly not pure, and who used to beat the +children ferociously with a hair-brush. However, the climate at the +Fernandez’s place was healthy, and also Mrs. Thornton thought it good +for them to have some intercourse with other children outside their own +family, however undesirable: and she let them go. + +It was the afternoon after that birthday, and a long buggy-ride. Both +fat John and thin Emily were speechless and solemn with excitement: +it was the first visit they had ever paid. Hour after hour the buggy +laboured over the uneven road. At last the lane to Exeter, the +Fernandez’s place, was reached. It was evening, the sun about to do +his rapid tropical setting. He was unusually large and red, as if +he threatened something peculiar. The lane, or drive, was gorgeous: +for the first few hundred yards it was entirely hedged with ‘seaside +grapes,’ clusters of fruit half-way between a gooseberry and a golden +pippin, with here and there the red berries of coffee trees newly +planted among the burnt stumps in a clearing, but already neglected. +Then a massive stone gateway in a sort of Colonial-Gothic style. This +had to be circumvented: no one had taken the trouble to heave open the +heavy gates for years. There was no fence, nor ever had been, so the +track simply passed it by. + +And beyond the gates an avenue of magnificent cabbage-palms. No tree, +not oldest beech nor chestnut, is more spectacular in an avenue: rising +a sheer hundred feet with no break in the line before the actual crown +of plumes; and palm upon palm, palm upon palm, like a heavenly double +row of pillars, leading on interminably, till even the huge house was +dwarfed into a sort of ultimate mouse-trap. + +As they journeyed on between these palms the sun went suddenly down, +darkness flooded up round them out of the ground, retorted to almost +immediately by the moon. Presently, shimmering like a ghost, an old +blind white donkey stood in their way. Curses did not move him: the +driver had to climb down and push him aside. The air was full of the +usual tropic din: mosquitoes humming, cicalas trilling, bull-frogs +twanging like guitars. That din goes on all night and all day almost: +is more insistent, more memorable than the heat itself, even, or the +number of things that bite. In the valley beneath the fire-flies came +to life: as if at a signal passed along, wave after wave after wave +of light swept down the gorge. From a neighbouring hill the cockatoos +began their serenade, an orchestration of drunk men laughing against +iron girders tossed at each other and sawn up with rusty hack-saws: +the most awful noise. But Emily and John, so far as they noticed it +at all, found it vaguely exhilarating. Through it could presently be +distinguished another sound: a negro praying. They soon came near him: +where an orange tree loaded with golden fruit gleamed dark and bright +in the moonlight, veiled in the pinpoint scintillation of a thousand +fire-flies sat the old black saint among the branches, talking loudly, +drunkenly, and confidentially with God. + +Almost unexpectedly they came on the house, and were whisked straight +off to bed. Emily omitted to wash, since there seemed such a hurry, but +made up for it by spending an unusually long time over her prayers. She +pressed her eyeballs devoutly with her fingers to make sparks appear, +in spite of the slightly sick feeling it always induced: and then, +already sound asleep, clambered, I suppose, into bed. + +The next day the sun rose as he had set: large, round, and red. It +was blindingly hot, foreboding. Emily, who woke early in a strange +bed, stood at the window watching the negroes release the hens from +the chicken-houses, where they were shut up at night for fear of +John-crows. As each bird hopped sleepily out, the black passed his hand +over its stomach to see if it meditated an egg that day: if so, it was +confined again, or it would have gone off and laid in the bush. It was +already as hot as an oven. Another black, with eschatological yells and +tail-twistings and lassoings, was confining a cow in a kind of pillory, +that it might have no opportunity of sitting down while being milked. +The poor brute’s hooves were aching with the heat, its miserable +tea-cup of milk fevered in its udder. Even as she stood at the shady +window Emily felt as sweaty as if she had been running. The ground was +fissured with drought. + +Margaret Fernandez, whose room Emily was sharing, slipped out of bed +silently and stood beside her, wrinkling the short nose in her pallid +face. + +‘Good morning,’ said Emily politely. + +‘Smells like an earthquake,’ said Margaret, and dressed. Emily +remembered the awful story about the governess and the hair-brush: +certainly Margaret did not use one for its ordinary purpose, though she +had long hair: so it must be true. + +Margaret was ready long before Emily, and banged out of the room. +Emily followed later, neat and nervous, to find no one. The house was +empty. Presently she spied John under a tree, talking to a negro boy. +By his off-hand manner Emily guessed he was telling _disproportionate_ +stories (not _lies_) about the importance of Ferndale compared with +Exeter. She did not call him, because the house was silent and it was +not her place, as guest, to alter anything: so she went out to him. +Together they circumnavigated: they found a stable-yard, and negroes +preparing ponies, and the Fernandez children, barefoot even as Rumour +had whispered. Emily caught her breath, shocked. Even at that moment a +chicken, scuttling across the yard, trod on a scorpion and tumbled over +stark dead as if shot. But it was not so much the danger which upset +Emily as the unconventionality. + +‘Come on,’ said Margaret: ‘it’s much too hot to stay about here. We’ll +go down to Exeter Rocks.’ + +The cavalcade mounted--Emily very conscious of her boots, buttoned +respectably half-way up her calf. Somebody had food, and calabashes +of water. The ponies evidently knew the way. The sun was still red +and large: the sky above cloudless, and like blue glaze poured over +baking clay: but close over the ground a dirty grey haze hovered. As +they followed the lane towards the sea they came to a place where, +yesterday, a fair-sized spring had bubbled up by the roadside. Now it +was dry. But even as they passed a kind of gout of water gushed forth: +and then it was dry again, although gurgling inwardly to itself. But +the cavalcade were hot, far too hot to speak to one another: they sat +their ponies as loosely as possible, longing for the sea. + +The morning advanced. The heated air grew quite easily hotter, as if +from some reserve of enormous blaze on which it could draw at will. +Bullocks only shifted their stinging feet when they could bear the +soil no longer: even the insects were too languorous to pipe, the +basking lizards hid themselves and panted. It was so still you could +have heard the least buzz a mile off. Not a naked fish would willingly +move his tail. The ponies advanced because they must. The children +ceased even to muse. + +They all very nearly jumped out of their skins; for close at hand a +crane had trumpeted once desperately. Then the broken silence closed +down as flawless as before. They perspired twice as violently with the +stimulus. Their pace grew slower and slower. It was no faster than a +procession of snails that at last they reached the sea. + +Exeter Rocks is a famous place. A bay of the sea, almost a perfect +semicircle, guarded by the reef: shelving white sands to span the few +feet from the water to the under-cut turf: and then, almost at the mid +point, a jutting-out shelf of rocks right into deep water--fathoms +deep. And a narrow fissure in the rocks, leading the water into a small +pool, or miniature lagoon, right inside their bastion. There it was, +safe from sharks or drowning, that the Fernandez children meant to soak +themselves all day, like turtles in a crawl. The water of the bay was +as smooth and immovable as basalt, yet clear as the finest gin: albeit +the swell muttered a mile away on the reef. The water within the pool +itself could not reasonably be smoother. No sea-breeze thought of +stirring. No bird trespassed on the inert air. + +For a while they had not energy to get into the water, but lay on their +faces, looking down, down, down, at the sea-fans and sea-feathers, +the scarlet-plumed barnacles and corals, the black and yellow +schoolmistress-fish, the rainbow-fish--all that forest of ideal +Christmas trees which is a tropical sea-bottom. Then they stood up, +giddy and seeing black, and in a trice were floating suspended in water +like drowned ones, only their noses above the surface, under the shadow +of a rocky ledge. + +An hour or so after noon they clustered together, puffy from the warm +water, in the insufficient shade of a Panama fern: ate such of the +food they had brought as they had appetite for; and drank all the +water, wishing for more. Then a very odd thing happened: for even as +they sat there they heard the most peculiar sound: a strange, rushing +sound that passed overhead like a gale of wind--but not a breath of +breeze stirred, that was the odd thing: followed by a sharp hissing and +hurtling, like a flight of rockets, or gigantic swans--very distant +rocs, perhaps--on the wing. They all looked up: but there was nothing +at all. The sky was empty and lucid. Long before they were back in the +water again all was still. Except that after a while John noticed a +sort of tapping, as if some one were gently knocking the outside of +a bath you were in. But the bath they were in had no outside, it was +solid world. It was funny. + +By sunset they were so weak from long immersion they could barely stand +up, and as salted as bacon: but, with some common impulse, just before +the sun went down they all left the rocks and went and stood by their +clothes, where the ponies were tethered, under some palms. As he sank +the sun grew even larger: and instead of red was now a sodden purple. +Down he went, behind the western horn of the bay, which blackened till +its water-line disappeared and substance and reflection seemed one +sharp symmetrical pattern. + +Not a breath of breeze even yet ruffled the water: yet momentarily it +trembled of its own accord, shattering the reflections: then was glassy +again. On that the children held their breath, waiting for it to happen. + +A school of fish, terrified by some purely sub-marine event, thrust +their heads right out of the water, squattering across the bay in an +arrowy rush, dashing up sparkling ripples with the tiny heave of their +shoulders: yet after each disturbance all was soon like hardest, dark, +thick, glass. + +Once things vibrated slightly, like a chair in a concert-room: and +again there was that mysterious winging, though there was nothing +visible beneath the swollen iridescent stars. + +Then it came. The water of the bay began to ebb away, as if some one +had pulled up the plug: a foot or so of sand and coral gleamed for a +moment new to the air: then back the sea rushed in miniature rollers +which splashed right up to the feet of the palms. Mouthfuls of turf +were torn away: and on the far side of the bay a small piece of cliff +tumbled into the water: sand and twigs showered down, dew fell from the +trees like diamonds: birds and beasts, their tongues at last loosed, +screamed and bellowed: the ponies, though quite unalarmed, lifted up +their heads and yelled. + +That was all: a few moments. Then silence, with a rapid countermarch, +recovered all his rebellious kingdom. Stillness again. The trees moved +as little as the pillars of a ruin, each leaf laid sleekly in place. +The bubbling foam subsided: the reflections of the stars came out +among it as if from clouds. Silent, still, dark, placid, as if there +could never have been a disturbance. The naked children too continued +to stand motionless beside the quiet ponies, dew on their hair and +eyelashes, shine on their infantile round paunches. + +But as for Emily, it was too much. The earthquake went completely to +her head. She began to dance, hopping laboriously from one foot on to +another. John caught the infection. He turned head over heels on the +damp sand, over and over in an elliptical course, till before he knew +it he was in the water, and so giddy as hardly to be able to tell up +from down. + +At that, Emily knew what it was she wanted to do. She scrambled on to +a pony and galloped him up and down the beach, trying to bark like a +dog. The Fernandez children stared, solemn but not disapproving. John, +shaping a course for Cuba, was swimming as if sharks were paring his +toe-nails. Emily rode her pony into the sea, and beat and beat him till +he swam: and so she followed John towards the reef, yapping herself +hoarse. + +It must have been fully a hundred yards before they were spent. Then +they turned for the shore, John holding on to Emily’s leg, puffing and +gasping, both a little overdone, their emotion run down. Presently John +gasped: + +‘You shouldn’t ride on your bare skin, you’ll catch ringworm.’ + +‘I don’t care if I do,’ said Emily. + +‘You would if you did,’ said John. + +‘I don’t care!’ chanted Emily. + +It seemed a long way to the shore. When they reached it the others had +dressed and were preparing to start. Soon the whole party were on +their way home in the dark. Presently Margaret said: + +‘So that’s that.’ + +No one answered. + +‘I could smell it was an earthquake coming when I got up. Didn’t I say +so, Emily?’ + +‘You and your smells!’ said Jimmie Fernandez. ‘You’re always smelling +things!’ + +‘She’s awfully good at smells,’ said the youngest, Harry, proudly, to +John. ‘She can sort out people’s dirty clothes for the wash by smell: +who they belong to.’ + +‘She can’t really,’ said Jimmie: ‘she fakes it. As if every one smelt +different!’ + +‘I can!’ + +‘Dogs can, anyway,’ said John. + +Emily said nothing. Of course people smelt different: it didn’t need +arguing. She could always tell her own towel from John’s, for instance: +or even knew if one of the others had used it. But it just showed what +sort of people Creoles were, to _talk_ about Smell, in that open way. + +‘Well, anyhow I said there was going to be an earthquake and there was +one,’ said Margaret. + +That was what Emily was waiting for! So it really had been an +Earthquake (she had not liked to ask, it seemed so ignorant: but now +Margaret had said in so many words that it was one). + +If ever she went back to England, she could now say to people, ‘_I have +been in an Earthquake_.’ + +With that certainty, her soused excitement began to revive. For there +was nothing, no adventure from the hands of God or Man, to equal it. +Realise that if she had suddenly found she could fly it would not +have seemed more miraculous to her. Heaven had played its last, most +terrible card; and small Emily had survived, where even grown men (such +as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram) had succumbed. + +Life seemed suddenly a little empty: for never again could there happen +to her anything so dangerous, so sublime. + +Meanwhile, Margaret and Jimmie were still arguing: + +‘Well, there’s one thing, there’ll be plenty of eggs to-morrow,’ said +Jimmie. ‘There’s nothing like an earthquake for making them lay.’ + +How funny Creoles were! They didn’t seem to realise the difference it +made to a person’s whole after-life to have been in an Earthquake. + +When they got home, Martha, the black housemaid, had hard things to +say about the sublime cataclysm. She had dusted the drawing-room china +only the day before: and now everything was covered again in a fine +penetrating film of dust. + + +iv + +The next morning, Sunday, they went home. Emily was still so saturated +in earthquake as to be dumb. She ate earthquake and slept earthquake: +her fingers and legs were earthquake. With John it was ponies. +The earthquake had been fun: but it was the ponies that mattered. +But at present it did not worry Emily that she was alone in her +sense of proportion. She was too completely possessed to be able +to see anything, or realise that any one else pretended to even a +self-delusive fiction of existence. + +Their mother met them at the door. She bubbled questions: John +chattered ponies, but Emily was still tongue-tied. She was, in her +mind, like a child who has eaten too much even to be able to be sick. + +Mrs. Thornton got a little worried about her at times. This sort of +life was very peaceful, and might be excellent for nervy children like +John: but a child like Emily, thought Mrs. Thornton, who is far from +nervy, really needs some sort of stimulus and excitement, or there is +a danger of her mind going to sleep altogether for ever. This life was +too vegetable. Consequently Mrs. Thornton always spoke to Emily in +her brightest manner, as if everything was of the greatest possible +interest. She had hoped, too, the visit to Exeter might liven her up: +but she had come back as silent and expressionless as ever. It had +evidently made no impression on her at all. + +John marshalled the small ones in the cellar, and round and round +they marched, wooden swords at the slope, singing ‘Onward, Christian +Soldiers.’ Emily did not join them. What did it now matter, that +earlier woe, that being a girl she could never when grown up become a +real soldier with a real sword? She had been in an Earthquake. + +Nor did the others keep it up very long. (Sometimes they would go on +for three or four hours.) For, whatever it might have done for Emily’s +soul, the earthquake had done little to clear the air. It was as hot as +ever. In the animal world there seemed some strange commotion, as if +they had wind of something. The usual lizards and mosquitoes were still +absent: but in their place the earth’s most horrid progeny, creatures +of darkness, sought the open: land-crabs wandered about aimlessly, +angrily twiddling their claws: and the ground seemed almost alive with +red ants and cockroaches. Up on the roof the pigeons were gathered, +talking to each other fearfully. + +The cellar (or rather, ground floor), where they were playing, had +no communication with the wooden structure above, but had an opening +of its own under the twin flight of steps leading to the front door; +and there the children presently gathered in the shadow. Out in the +compound lay one of Mr. Thornton’s best handkerchiefs. He must have +dropped it that morning. But none of them felt the energy to go and +retrieve it, out into the sun. Then, as they stood there, they saw +Lame-foot Sam come limping across the yard. Seeing the prize, he was +about to carry it off. Suddenly he remembered it was Sunday. He dropped +it like a hot brick, and began to cover it with sand, exactly where he +had found it. + +‘Please God, I thieve you to-morrow,’ he explained hopefully. ‘Please +God, you still there?’ + +A low mutter of thunder seemed to offer grudging assent. + +‘Thank you, Lord,’ said Sam, bowing to a low bank of cloud. He hobbled +off: but then, not too sure perhaps that Heaven would keep Its promise, +changed his mind: snatched up the handkerchief and made off for his +cottage. The thunder muttered louder and more angrily: but Sam ignored +the warning. + +It was the custom that, whenever Mr. Thornton had been to St. Anne’s, +John and Emily should run out to meet him, and ride back with him, one +perched on each of his stirrups. + +That Sunday evening they ran out as soon as they saw him coming, in +spite of the thunderstorm that by now was clattering over their very +heads--and not only over their heads either, for in the Tropics a +thunderstorm is not a remote affair up in the sky, as it is in England, +but is all round you: lightning plays ducks and drakes across the +water, bounds from tree to tree, bounces about the ground, while the +thunder seems to proceed from violent explosions in your own very core. + +‘Go back! Go back, you damned little fools!’ he yelled furiously: ‘Get +into the house!’ + +They stopped, aghast: and began to realise that after all it was a +storm of more than ordinary violence. They discovered that they were +drenched to the skin--must have been the moment they left the house. +The lightning kept up a continuous blaze: it was playing about their +father’s very stirrup-irons; and all of a sudden they realised that he +was afraid. They fled to the house, shocked to the heart: and he was in +the house almost as soon as they were. Mrs. Thornton rushed out: + +‘My dear, I’m so glad....’ + +‘I’ve never seen such a storm! Why on earth did you let the children +come out?’ + +‘I never dreamt they would be so silly! And all the time I was +thinking--but thank Heaven you’re back!’ + +‘I think the worst is over now.’ + +Perhaps it was; but all through supper the lightning shone almost +without flickering. And John and Emily could hardly eat: the memory of +that momentary look on their father’s face haunted them. + +It was an unpleasant meal altogether. Mrs. Thornton had prepared for +her husband his ‘favourite dish’: than which no action could more annoy +a man of whim. In the middle of it all in burst Sam, ceremony dropped: +he flung the handkerchief angrily on the table and stumped out. + +‘What on earth ...’ began Mr. Thornton. + +But John and Emily knew: and thoroughly agreed with Sam as to the cause +of the storm. Stealing was bad enough anyway, but on a Sunday! + +Meanwhile, the lightning kept up its play. The thunder made talking +arduous, but no one was anyhow in a mood to chatter. Only thunder was +heard, and the hammering of the rain. But suddenly, close under the +window, there burst out the most appalling inhuman shriek of terror. + +‘Tabby!’ cried John, and they all rushed to the window. + +But Tabby had already flashed into the house: and behind him was a +whole club of wild cats in hot pursuit. John momentarily opened the +dining-room door and puss slipped in, dishevelled and panting. Not +even then did the brutes desist: what insane fury led these jungle +creatures to pursue him into the very house is unimaginable; but there +they were, in the passage, caterwauling in concert: and as if at their +incantation the thunder awoke anew, and the lightning nullified the +meagre table lamp. It was such a din as you could not speak through. +Tabby, his fur on end, pranced up and down the room, his eyes blazing, +talking and sometimes exclaiming in a tone of voice the children +had never heard him use before and which made their blood run cold. +He seemed like one inspired in the presence of Death, he had gone +utterly Delphic: and without in the passage Hell’s pandemonium reigned +terrifically. + +The check could only be a short one. Outside the door stood the +big filter, and above the door the fanlight was long since broken. +Something black and yelling flashed through the fanlight, landing clean +in the middle of the supper table, scattering the forks and spoons and +upsetting the lamp. And another and another--but already Tabby was +through the window and streaking again for the bush. The whole dozen of +those wild cats leapt one after the other from the top of the filter +clean through the fanlight onto the supper table, and away from there +only too hot in his tracks: in a moment the whole devil-hunt and its +hopeless quarry had vanished into the night. + +‘Oh Tabby, my darling Tabby!’ wailed John; while Emily rushed again to +the window. + +They were gone. The lightning behind the creepers in the jungle lit +them up like giant cobwebs: but of Tabby and his pursuers there was +nothing to be seen. + +John burst into tears, the first time for several years, and flung +himself on his mother: Emily stood transfixed at the window, her eyes +glued in horror on what she could not, in fact, see: and all of a +sudden was sick. + +‘God, what an evening!’ groaned Mr. Bas-Thornton, groping in the +darkness for what might be left of their supper. + +Shortly after that Sam’s hut burst into flames. They saw, from the +dining-room, the old negro stagger dramatically out into the darkness. +He was throwing stones at the sky. In a lull they heard him cry: ‘I gib +it back, didn’t I? I gib de nasty t’ing back?’ + +Then there was another blinding flash, and Sam fell where he stood. Mr. +Thornton pulled the children roughly back and said something like ‘I’ll +go and see. Keep them from the window.’ + +Then he closed and barred the shutters, and was gone. + +John and the little ones kept up a continuous sobbing. Emily wished +some one would light a lamp, she wanted to read. Anything, so as not to +think about poor Tabby. + +I suppose the wind must have begun to rise some while before this, but +now, by the time Mr. Thornton had managed to carry old Sam’s body into +the house, it was more than a gale. The old man, stiff in the joints as +he might have been in life, had gone as limp as a worm. Emily and John, +who had slipped unbeknownst into the passage, were thrilled beyond +measure at the way he dangled: they could hardly tear themselves away, +and be back in the dining-room, before they should be discovered. + +There Mrs. Thornton sat heroically in a chair, her brood all grouped +round her, saying the Psalms, and the poems of Sir Walter Scott, over +by heart: while Emily tried to keep her mind off Tabby by going over +in her head all the details of her Earthquake. At times the din, the +rocketing of the thunder and torrential shriek of the wind, became so +loud as almost to impinge on her inner world: she wished this wretched +thunderstorm would hurry up and get over. First she held an actual +performance of the earthquake, went over it direct, as if it was again +happening. Then she put it into Oratio Recta, told it as a story, +beginning with that magic phrase, ‘Once I was in an Earthquake.’ +But before long the dramatic element reappeared--this time, the awed +comments of her imaginary English audience. When that was done, she put +it into the Historical--a Voice, declaring that a girl called Emily was +once in an Earthquake. And so on, right through the whole thing a third +time. + +The horrid fate of poor Tabby appeared suddenly before her eyes, caught +her unawares: and she was all but sick again. Even her earthquake had +failed her. Caught by the incubus, her mind struggled frantically to +clutch at even the outside world, as an only remaining straw. She tried +to fix her interest on every least detail of the scene around her--to +count the slats in the shutters, any least detail that was _outward_. +So it was that for the first time she really began to notice the +weather. + +The wind by now was more than redoubled. The shutters were bulging as +if tired elephants were leaning against them, and Father was trying +to tie the fastening with that handkerchief. But to push against +this wind was like pushing against rock. The handkerchief, shutters, +everything burst: the rain poured in like the sea into a sinking +ship, the wind occupied the room, snatching pictures from the wall, +sweeping the table bare. Through the gaping frames the lightning-lit +scene without was visible. The creepers, which before had looked like +cobwebs, now streamed up into the sky like new-combed hair. Bushes were +lying flat, laid back on the ground as close as a rabbit lays back his +ears. Branches were leaping about loose in the sky. The negro huts +were clean gone, and the negroes crawling on their stomachs across the +compound to gain the shelter of the house. The bouncing rain seemed to +cover the ground with a white smoke, a sort of sea in which the blacks +wallowed like porpoises. One nigger-boy began to roll away: his mother, +forgetting caution, rose to her feet: and immediately the fat old +beldam was blown clean away, bowling along across fields and hedgerows +like some one in a funny fairy-story, till she fetched up against a +wall and was pinned there, unable to move. But the others managed to +reach the house, and soon could be heard in the cellar underneath. + +Moreover the very floor began to ripple, as a loose carpet will ripple +on a gusty day: in opening the cellar door the blacks had let the wind +in, and now for some time they could not shut it again. The wind, to +push against, was more like a solid block than a current of air. + +Mr. Thornton went round the house--to see what could be done, he said. +He soon realised that the next thing to go would be the roof. So he +returned to the Niobe-group in the dining-room. Mrs. Thornton was +half-way through _The Lady of the Lake_, the smaller children listening +with rapt attention. Exasperated, he told them that they would probably +not be alive in half an hour. No one seemed particularly interested in +his news: Mrs. Thornton continued her recitation with faultless memory. + +After another couple of cantos the threatened roof went. Fortunately, +the wind taking it from inside, most of it was blown clear of the +house: but one of the couples collapsed skew-eyed, and was hung up on +what was left of the dining-room door--within an ace of hitting John. +Emily, to her intense resentment, suddenly felt cold. All at once, +she found she had had enough of the storm: it had become intolerable, +instead of a welcome distraction. + +Mr. Thornton began to look for something to break through the floor. +If only he could make a hole in it, he might get his wife and children +down into the cellar. Fortunately he did not have to look far: one arm +of the fallen couple had already done the work for him. Laura, Rachel, +Emily, Edward and John, Mrs. Thornton and finally Mr. Thornton himself, +were passed down into the darkness already thronged with negroes and +goats. + +With great good sense, Mr. Thornton brought with him from the room +above a couple of decanters of madeira, and every one had a swig, from +Laura to the oldest negro. All the children made the most of this +unholy chance, but somehow to Emily the bottle got passed twice, and +each time she took a good pull. It was enough, at their age; and while +what was left of the house was blown away over their heads, through +the lull and the ensuing aerial return match, John, Emily, Edward, +Rachel, and Laura, blind drunk, slept in a heap on the cellar floor: a +sleep over which the appalling fate of Tabby, torn to pieces by those +fiends almost under their very eyes, dominated with the easy empire of +nightmare. + + + + +_Chapter 2_ + + +All night the water poured through the house floor onto the people +sheltering below: but (perhaps owing to the madeira) it did them no +harm. Shortly after the second bout of blowing, however, the rain +stopped; and when dawn came Mr. Thornton crept out to assess the damage. + +The country was quite unrecognisable, as if it had been swept by a +spate. You could hardly tell, geographically speaking, where you were. +It is vegetation which gives the character to a tropic landscape, not +the shape of the ground: and all the vegetation, for miles, was now +pulp. The ground itself had been ploughed up by instantaneous rivers, +biting deep into the red earth. The only living thing in sight was a +cow: and she had lost both her horns. + +The wooden part of the house was nearly all gone. After they had +succeeded in reaching shelter, one wall after another had blown down. +The furniture was splintered into matchwood. Even the heavy mahogany +dining-table, which they loved, and had always kept with its legs in +little glass baths of oil to defeat the ants, was spirited right away. +There were some fragments which might be part of it, or they might not: +you could not tell. + +Mr. Thornton returned to the cellar and helped his wife out: she was +so cramped as hardly to be able to move. They knelt down together and +thanked God for not having treated them any worse. Then they stood up +and stared about them rather stupidly. It seemed not credible that +all this had been done by a current of air. Mr. Thornton patted the +atmosphere with his hand. When still, it was so soft, so rare: how +could one believe that Motion, itself something impalpable, had lent it +a hardness: that this gentle, hind-like Meteor should have last night +seized Fat Betsy with the rapacity of a tiger and the lift of a roc, +and flung her, as he had seen her flung, across two fair-sized fields? + +Mrs. Thornton understood his gesture. + +‘Remember who is its Prince,’ she said. + +The stable was damaged, though not completely destroyed: and Mr. +Thornton’s mule was so much hurt he had to tell a negro to cut its +throat. The buggy was smashed beyond repair. The only building +undamaged was a stone chamber which had been the hospital of the old +sugar-estate: so they woke the children, who were feeling ill and +beyond words unhappy, and moved into this: where the negroes, with an +unexpected energy and kindliness, did everything they could to make +them comfortable. It was paved and unlighted: but solid. + +The children were bilious for a few days, and inclined to dislike +each other: but they accepted the change in their lives practically +without noticing it. It is a fact that it takes experience before +one can realise what is a catastrophe and what is not. Children have +little faculty of distinguishing between disaster and the ordinary +course of their lives. If Emily had known this was a _Hurricane_, she +would doubtless have been far more impressed, for the word was full of +romantic terrors. But it never entered her head: and a thunderstorm, +however severe, is after all a commonplace affair. The mere fact that +it had done incalculable damage, while the earthquake had done none at +all, gave it no right whatever to rival the latter in the hierarchy +of cataclysms: an Earthquake is a thing apart. If she was silent, and +inclined to brood over some inward terror, it was not the hurricane +she was thinking of, it was the death of Tabby. That, at times, seemed +a horror beyond all bearing. It was her first intimate contact with +death--and a death of violence, too. The death of Old Sam had no such +effect: there is, after all, a vast difference between a negro and a +favourite cat. + +There was something enjoyable, too, in camping in the hospital: a sort +of everlasting picnic in which their parents for once were taking part. +Indeed it led them to begin for the first time to regard their parents +as rational human beings, with understandable tastes--such as sitting +on the floor to eat one’s dinner. + +It would have surprised Mrs. Thornton very much to have been told +that hitherto she had meant practically nothing to her children. +She took a keen interest in Psychology (the Art Babblative, Southey +calls it). She was full of theories about their upbringing which she +had not time to put into effect; but nevertheless she thought she +had a deep understanding of their temperaments and was the centre of +their passionate devotion. Actually, she was congenitally incapable +of telling one end of a child from the other. She was a dumpy little +woman--Cornish, I believe. When she was herself a baby she was so small +they carried her about on a cushion for fear a clumsy human arm might +damage her. She could read when she was two and a half. Her reading was +always serious. Nor had she been backward in the humaner studies: her +mistresses spoke of her Deportment as something rarely seen outside +the older Royal Houses: in spite of a figure like a bolster, she could +step into a coach like an angel getting onto a cloud. She was very +quick-tempered. + +Mr. Bas-Thornton also had every accomplishment, except two: that of +primogeniture, and that of making a living. Either would have provided +for them. + +If it would have surprised the mother, it would undoubtedly have +surprised the children also to be told how little their parents meant +to them. Children seldom have any power of quantitative self-analysis: +whatever the facts, they believe as an article of faith that they love +Father and Mother first and equally. Actually, the Thornton children +had loved Tabby first and foremost in all the world, some of each other +second, and hardly noticed their mother’s existence more than once +a week. Their father they loved a little more: partly owing to the +ceremony of riding home on his stirrups. + +Jamaica remained, and blossomed anew, its womb being inexhaustible. +Mr. and Mrs. Thornton remained, and with patience and tears tried to +reconstruct things, in so far as they could be reconstructed. But the +danger which their beloved little ones had been through was not a thing +to risk again. Heaven had warned them. The children must go. + +Nor was the only danger physical. + +‘That awful night!’ said Mrs. Thornton, once, when discussing their +plan of sending them home to school: ‘Oh my dear, what the poor little +things must have suffered! Think how much more acute Fear is to a +child! And they were so brave, so English.’ + +‘I don’t believe they realised it.’ (He only said that to be +contradictious: he could hardly expect it to be taken seriously.) + +‘You know, I am terribly afraid what permanent, _inward_ effect a shock +like that may have on them. Have you noticed they never so much as +mention it? In England they would at least be safe from dangers of that +sort.’ + +Meanwhile the children, accepting the new life as a matter of course, +were thoroughly enjoying it. Most children, on a railway journey, +prefer to change at as many stations as possible. + +The rebuilding of Ferndale, too, was a matter of absorbing interest. +For there is one advantage to these match-box houses--easy gone, easy +come: and once begun, the work proceeded apace. Mr. Thornton himself +led the building gang, employing no end of mechanical devices of his +own devising, and it was not long before the day came when he stood +with his handsome head emerging through the fast dwindling hole in +the new roof, shouting directions to the two black carpenters, who, +lying spread-eagle in their check shirts, pinned on shingle after +shingle--walling him in, like the victim in some horrid story. At last +he had to draw in his head, and where it had been the last few shingles +were clapped into place. + +An hour later the children had looked their last on Ferndale. + +When they had been told they were to go to England, they had received +it as an isolated fact: thrilling in itself, but without any particular +causation--for it could hardly be due to the death of the cat, and +nothing else of importance had occurred lately. + +The first stage of their journey was by land, to Montego Bay, and +the notable thing about it was that the borrowed wagonette was drawn +not by a pair of horses or a pair of mules, but by one horse and one +mule. Whenever the horse wanted to go fast the mule fell asleep in the +shafts: and if the driver woke it up it set off at a gallop, which +angered the horse. Their progress would have been slow anyhow, as all +the roads were washed away. + +John was the only one who could remember England. What he remembered +was sitting at the top of a flight of stairs, which was fenced off +from him by a little gate, playing with a red toy milk-cart: and he +knew, without having to look, that in the room on the left Baby Emily +was lying in her cot. Emily _said_ she could remember something which +sounded like a Prospect of the Backs of some Brick Houses at Richmond: +but she might have invented it. The others had been born in the +Island--Edward only just. + +They all had, nevertheless, most elaborate ideas about England, built +up out of what their parents had told them, and from the books and +old magazines they sometimes looked at. Needless to say it was a very +Atlantis, a land at the back of the North Wind: and going there was +about as exciting as it would be to die and go to Heaven. + +John told them all about the top of the stairs for the hundredth time +as they drove along; the others listening attentively (as the Believing +do to a man remembering his reincarnations). + +Suddenly Emily recalled sitting at a window and seeing a big bird with +a beautiful tail. At the same time there had been a horrid screeching +going on, or perhaps something else disagreeable--she could not quite +remember which sense was offended. It did not occur to her that it was +this self-same bird which had screeched: and anyhow it was all too +vague for her to try to describe it. She switched off to wondering how +it was possible actually to _sleep_ when walking, as the driver said +the mule did. + +They put up for the first night at St. Anne’s, and there another +notable thing occurred. Their host was a hardened Creole: and at supper +he ate Cayenne pepper with a spoon. Not ordinary Cayenne pepper, mind, +such as is sold in shops, which is heavily adulterated with log-wood: +but the far fierier pure original. This indeed was an Event of the +first water: none of them ever forgot it. + +The desolation through which they drove is indescribable. Tropical +scenery is anyhow tedious, prolific, and gross: the greens more or +less uniform: great tubular stems supporting thick leaves: no tree +has an outline because it is crushed up against something else--no +_room_. In Jamaica this profusion swarms over the very mountain +ranges: and even the peaks are so numerous that on the top of one you +are surrounded by others, and can see nothing. There are hundreds of +flowers. Then imagine all this luxuriance smashed, as with a pestle and +mortar--crushed, pulped, and already growing again! Mr. Thornton and +his wife were ready to shout with relief when they caught their first +glimpse of the sea, and at last came out in view of the whole beautiful +sweep of Montego Bay itself. + +In the open sea there was a considerable swell: but within the shelter +of the coral reef, with its pinhole entrance, all was still as a +mirror, where three ships of different sizes lay at anchor, the whole +of each beautiful machine repeated in the water under it. Within +the Roads lay the Bogue Islands; and immediately to the left of the +islands, in the low land at the base of the hills, was the mouth of a +small river--swampy, and (Mr. Thornton informed John) infested with +crocodiles. The children had never seen a crocodile, and hoped one +might venture as far as the town, where they presently arrived: but +none did. It was with considerable disappointment that they found they +were to go on board the barque at once; for they still hoped that round +some corner of the street a crocodile might yet appear. + +The _Clorinda_ had let go her anchor in six fathoms: the water so +clear, and the light so bright, that as they drew near the reflection +suddenly disappeared, and instead they found themselves looking right +underneath her and out the other side. The refraction made her seem +as flat-bellied as a turtle, as if practically all of her were above +the surface: and the anchor on its cable seemed to stream out flatly, +like a downwards kite, twisting and twining (owing to the undulating +surface) in the writhing coral. + +This was the only impression Emily retained of going on board the ship: +but the ship itself was a strange enough object, requiring all her +attention. John was the only one who could remember the journey out at +all clearly. Emily thought she could, but was really only remembering +her visualisations of what she had been told: in fact, she found that a +real ship was totally unlike the thing she thought she remembered. + +By some last whim of the captain’s the shrouds were being set +up--tauter than seemed good to the sailors, who grumbled as they +strained the creaking lanyards. John did not envy them, winding away at +that handle in the hot sun: but he did envy the chap whose job it was +to dip his hand in a great pot of aromatic Stockholm tar, and work it +into the dead-eyes. He was tarred up to the elbows: and John itched to +be so too. + +In a moment the children were scattered all over the ship, smelling +here, miaowing, sniffing there, like cats in a new home. Mr. and Mrs. +Thornton stood by the main companion-way, a little disconsolate at +their children’s happy preoccupation, a little regretting the lack of +proper emotional scene. + +‘I think they will be happy here, Frederic,’ said Mrs. Thornton. ‘I +wish we could have afforded to send them by the steamboat: but children +find amusement even in discomfort.’ + +Mr. Thornton grunted. + +‘I wish schools had never been invented!’ he suddenly burst out: ‘they +wouldn’t then be so indispensable!’ + +There was a short pause for the logic of this to cross the footlights: +then he went on: + +‘I know what will happen; they’ll come away ... _mugs_! Just ordinary +little mugs, like any one else’s brats! I’m dashed if I don’t think a +hundred hurricanes would be better than that.’ + +Mrs. Thornton shuddered: but she continued bravely: + +‘You know, I think they were getting almost _too_ devoted to us? We +have been such an unrivalled centre of their lives and thoughts. It +doesn’t do for minds developing to be completely dependent on one +person.’ + +Captain Marpole’s grizzled head emerged from the scuttle. A sea-dog: +clear blue eyes of a translucent trustworthiness: a merry, wrinkled, +morocco-coloured face: a rumbling voice. + +‘He’s too good to be true,’ whispered Mrs. Thornton. + +‘Not at all! It’s a sophism to imagine people don’t conform to type!’ +barked Mr. Thornton. He felt at sixes and sevens. + +Captain Marpole certainly looked the ideal Children’s Captain. He +would, Mrs. Thornton decided, be careful without being fussy--for she +was all in favour of courageous gymnastics, though glad she would not +have to witness them herself. Captain Marpole cast his eyes benignantly +over the swarming imps. + +‘They’ll worship him,’ she whispered to her husband. (She meant, of +course, that he would worship them.) It was an important point, this, +of the captain: important as the personality of a headmaster. + +‘So that’s the nursery, eh?’ said the captain, crushing Mrs. Thornton’s +hand. She strove to answer, but found her throat undoubtedly paralysed. +Even Mr. Thornton’s ready tongue was at a loss. He looked hard at the +captain, jerked his thumb towards the children, wrestled in his mind +with an elaborate speech, and finally enunciated in a small, unlikely +voice: + +‘Smack ’em.’ + +Then the captain had to go about his duties: and for an hour the father +and mother sat disconsolately on the main-hatch, quite deserted. Even +when all was ready for departure it was impossible to muster the flock +for a collective good-bye. + +Already the tug was fulminating in its gorge: and ashore they must go. +Emily and John had been captured, and stood talking uneasily to their +parents, as if to strangers, using only a quarter of their minds. With +a rope to be climbed dangling before his very nose, John simply did +not know how this delay was to be supported, and lapsed into complete +silence. + +‘Time to go ashore, Ma’am,’ said the captain: ‘we must be off now.’ + +Very formally the two generations kissed each other, and said farewell. +Indeed the elders were already at the gangway before the meaning of +it all dawned in Emily’s head. She rushed after her mother, gripped +her ample flesh in two strong fists, and sobbed and wept, ‘Come too, +Mother, oh, do come too!’ + +Honestly, it had only occurred to her that very moment that this was a +_parting_. + +‘But think what an adventure it will be,’ said Mrs. Thornton bravely: +‘much more than if I come too!--You’ll have to look after the Liddlies +just as if you were a real grown-up!’ + +‘But I don’t want any more adventures!’ sobbed Emily: ‘I’ve _got_ an +_Earthquake_!’ + +Passions were running far too high for any one to be aware how the +final separation took place. The next thing Mrs. Thornton could +remember was how tired her arm had been, after waving and waving at +that dwindling speck which bore away on the land breeze, hung awhile +stationary in the intervening calm, then won the Trade and climbed up +into the blue. + +Meanwhile, at the rail stood Margaret Fernandez, who, with her little +brother Harry, was going to England by the same boat. No one had come +to see them off: and the brown nurse who was accompanying them had +gone below the moment she came on board, so as to be ill as quickly as +possible. How handsome Mr. Bas-Thornton had looked, with his English +distinction! Yet every one knew he had no money. Her set white face +was turned towards the land, her chin quivering at intervals. Slowly +the harbour disappeared: the disordered profligacy of the turbulent, +intricate mass of hills sunk lower in the sky. The occasional white +houses, and white puffs of steam and smoke from the sugar-mills, +vanished. At last the land, all palely shimmering like the bloom on +grapes, settled down into the mirror of emerald and blue. + +She wondered whether the Thornton children would prove companionable, +or a nuisance. They were all younger than she was: which was a pity. + + +ii + +On the journey back to Ferndale both father and mother were silent, +actuated by that tug of jealousy against sympathy which a strong common +emotion begets in familiar rather than passionate companions. They +were above the ordinary sentimentalities of grass-bereavement (above +choking over small shoes found in cupboards): but not above a rather +strong dose of the natural instincts of parenthood, Frederic no less +than his wife. + +But when they were nearly home, Mrs. Thornton began to chuckle to +herself. + +‘Funny little thing, Emily! Did you notice almost the last thing she +said? She said “I’ve got an earthquake.” She must have got it mixed up +in her silly old head with earache.’ + +There was a long pause: and then she remarked again: + +‘John is so much the most sensitive: he was absolutely too full to +speak.’ + + +iii + +When they got home it was many days before they could bring themselves +openly to mention the children. When some reference had to be made, +they spoke round them, in an uncomfortable way, as if they had died. + +But after a few weeks they had a most welcome surprise. The _Clorinda_ +was calling at the Caymans, and taking the Leeward Passage: and while +riding off the Grand Cayman Emily and John wrote letters, and a vessel +bound for Kingston had taken charge of them and eventually they reached +Ferndale. It had not even occurred to either parent that this would be +possible. + +This was Emily’s: + + MY DEAR PARENTS,--This ship is full of Turtles. We stopped here and + they came out in boats. There is turtles in the saloon under the + tables for you to put your feet on, and turtles in the passages and + on the deck, and everywhere you go. The captain says we mustn’t fall + overboard now because his boats are full of turtles too, with water. + The sailors bring the others on deck every day to have a wash and + when you stand them up they look just as if they had pinafores on. + They make such a funny sighing and groaning in the night, at first + I thought it was everybody being ill, but you get used to it, it is + just like people being ill.--Your loving daughter, + EMILY. + +And John’s: + + MY DEAREST PARENTS,--The captain’s son Henry is a wonderful chap, + he goes up the rigging with his hands alone, he is ever so strong. + He can turn round under a bellying pin without touching the deck, I + can’t but I hang from the ratlines by my heels which the sailors say + is very brave, but they don’t like Emily doing it, funny. I hope you + are both in excellent health, one of the sailors has a monkey but its + tail is Sore.--Your affectionate Son, + JOHN. + +That was the last news they could expect for many months. The +_Clorinda_ was not touching anywhere else. It gave Mrs. Thornton a cold +feeling in the stomach to measure just _how_ long. But she argued, +logically enough, that the time must come to an end, all time does: +there is nothing so inexorable as a ship, plodding away, plodding +away, all over the place, till at last it quite certainly reaches that +small speck on the map which all the time it had intended to reach. +Philosophically speaking, a ship in its port of departure is just as +much in its port of arrival: two point-events differing in time and +place, but not in degree of reality. _Ergo_, that first letter from +England was as good as written, only not quite ... legible yet. And +the same applied to seeing them. (But here one must stop, for the same +argument applied to old age and death, it wouldn’t do.) + +Yet, a bare fortnight after the arrival of this first budget, still +another letter arrived, from Havana. The _Clorinda_ had put in there +unexpectedly, it appeared: the letter was from Captain Marpole. + +‘What a dear man he is,’ said Alice. ‘He must have known how anxious we +would be for every scrap of news.’ + +Captain Marpole’s letter was not so terse and vivid as the children’s +had been: still, for the news it contained, I give it in full: + + HAVANA DE CUBA. + + HONOURED SIR AND MADAM,--I hasten to write to you to relieve you of + any uncertainty! + + After leaving the Caymans we stood for the Leeward Passage, and + sighted the Isle of Pines and False Cape on the morning of the 19th + and Cape S. Antonio in the evening, but were prevented from rounding + the same by a true Norther, the first of the season, on the 22nd, + however, the wind coming round sufficiently we rounded the cape in + a lively fashion and stood N½E. well away from the Coloradoes which + are a dangerous reef lying off this part of the Cuban coast. At six + o’clock on the morning of the 23rd there being light airs only I + sighted three sail in the North-East, evidently merchantmen bound on + the same course as ourselves, at the same time a schooner of similar + character was observed standing out towards us from the direction + of Black Key, and I pointed her out to my mate just before going + below, having the wind of us he was within hailing distance by ten + in the morning, judge then of our astonishment when he rudely opened + ten or twelve disguised gun-ports and unmasked a whole broadside + of artillery trained upon us, ordering us at the same time in the + most peremptory manner to heave-to or he would sink us instanter. + There was nothing to do but to comply although considering the + friendly relations at present existing between the English and all + other governments my mate was quite at a loss to account for his + action, and imagined it due to a mistake which would be speedily + explained, we were immediately boarded by about fifty or seventy + ruffians of the worst Spanish type, armed with knives and cutlasses, + who took possession of the ship and confined me in my cabin and my + mate and crew forward while they ransacked the vessel committing + every possible excess broaching rum-casks and breaking the necks + off wine-bottles and soon a great number of them were lying about + the deck in an intoxicated condition, their leader then informed + me he was aware I had a considerable sum in specie on board and + used _every possible threat which villainy could devise_ to make + me disclose its hiding-place, it was useless for me to assure him + that beyond the fifty or so pounds they had already discovered I + carried none, he grew even more insistent in his demands, declaring + that his information was certain, tearing down the panelling in my + cabin in his search. He carried off my instruments, my clothes, and + all my personal possessions, even taking from me the poor Locket in + which I was used to carry the portrait of my Wife, and no appeal to + his sensibility, tho’ I shed tears, would make him return this to + him worthless object, he also tore down and carried away the cabin + bell-pulls, which could be of no possible use to him and was an act + of the most open _piracy_, at length, seeing I was obdurate, he + threatened to blow up the ship _and all in it_ if I would not yield, + he prepared the train and would have proceeded to carry out this + devilish threat if I had not in this last extremity, consented. + + I come now to the latter part of my tale. The children had taken + refuge in the deck-house and had been up to now free from harm, + except for a cuff or two and the Degrading Sights they must have + witnessed, but no sooner was the specie some five thousand pounds in + all mostly my private property and most of our cargo (chiefly rum + sugar coffee and arrowroot) removed to the schooner than her captain, + in sheer infamous wantonness, had them all brought out from their + refuge your own little ones and the two Fernandez children who were + also on board and murdered them, every one. That anything so wicked + should look like a man I should not have believed, had I been told, + tho’ I have lived long and seen all kinds of men, I think he is mad: + indeed I am sure of it; and I take Oath that he shall be brought + to at least that tithe of justice which is in Human hands, for two + days we drifted about in a helpless condition, for our rigging had + all been cut, and at last fell in with an American man-of-war, who + gave us some assistance, and would have proceeded in pursuit of the + miscreants himself had he not most explicit orders to elsewhere. I + then put in to the port of Havana, where I informed the correspondent + of Lloyds, the government, and the representative of the _Times_ + newspaper, and take the opportunity of writing you this melancholy + letter before proceeding to England. + + There is one point on which you will still feel some anxiety, + considering the sex of some of the poor innocents, and on which I am + glad to be able to set your minds at rest, the children were taken + onto the other vessel in the evening and I am glad to say there done + to death _immediately_, and their little bodies cast into the sea, as + I saw with great relief with my own eyes. There was no time for what + you might fear to have occurred, and this consolation I am glad to be + able to give you.--I have the honour to be, + + Your obedient servant, + JAS. MARPOLE, + Master, barque _Clorinda_. + + + + +_Chapter 3_ + + +The passage from Montego Bay to the Caymans, where the children had +written their letters, is only a matter of a few hours: indeed, in +clear weather one can look right across from Jamaica to the peak of +Turquino in Cuba. + +There is no harbour; and the anchorage, owing to the reefs and ledges, +is difficult. The _Clorinda_ brought up off the Grand Cayman, the +look-out man in the chains feeling his way to a white, sandy patch of +bottom which affords the only safe resting-place there, and causing the +anchor to be let go to windward of it. Luckily, the weather was fine. + +The island, a longish one at the western end of the group, is low, +and covered with palms. Presently a succession of boats brought out +a quantity of turtles, as Emily described. The natives also brought +parrots to sell to the sailors: but failed to dispose of many. + +At last, however, the uncomfortable Caymans were left behind, and +they set their course towards the Isle of Pines, a large island in a +gulf of the Cuban coast. One of the sailors, called Curtis, had once +been wrecked there, and was full of stories about it. It is a very +unpleasant place; sparsely inhabited, and covered with labyrinthine +woods. The only food available is a kind of tree. There is also a +species of bean which looks tempting: but it is deadly poison. The +crocodiles, Curtis said, were so fierce they chased him and his +companions into trees: the only way to escape from them was to throw +them your cap to worry: or if you were bold, to disable them with a +blow of a stick on the loins. There were also a great many snakes, +including a kind of boa. + +The current off the Isle of Pines sets strongly to the east: so +the _Clorinda_ kept close inshore, to cheat it. They passed Cape +Corrientes--looking, when first sighted, like two hummocks in the +sea: they passed Holandes Point, known as False C. Antonio: but were +prevented for some time, as Captain Marpole told in his letter, from +rounding the true one. For to attempt C. Antonio in a Norther is to +waste your labour. + +They lay-to in sight of that long, low, rocky, treeless promontory +in which the great island of Cuba terminates, and waited. They were +so close that the fisherman’s hut on its southern side was clearly +discernible. + +For the children, those first few days at sea had flashed by like a +kind of prolonged circus. There is no machine invented for sober +purposes so well adapted also to play as the rigging of a ship: and +the kindly captain, as Mrs. Thornton had divined, was willing to give +them a lot of freedom. First came the climbing of a few rungs of the +ratlines in a sailor’s charge: higher each time, till John attained a +gingerly touching of the yard: then hugged it: then straddled it. Soon, +running up the ratlines and prancing on the yard (as if it were a mere +table-top) had no further thrill for John or Emily either. (To go out +on the yard was not allowed.) + +But when the ratlines had palled, the most lasting joy undoubtedly +lay in that network of foot-ropes and chains and stays which spreads +out under and on each side of the bowsprit. Here, familiarity only +bred content. Here, in fine weather, one could climb or be still: +stand, sit, hang, swing, or lie: now this end up, now that: and all +with the cream of the blue sea being whipt up for one’s own especial +pleasure, almost within touching distance: and the big white wooden +lady (Clorinda herself), bearing the whole vessel so lightly on her +back, her knees in the hubble-bubble, her cracks almost filled up +with so much painting, vaster than any living lady, as a constant and +unannoying companion. + +In the midst there was a kind of spear, its haft set against the +under-side of the bowsprit, its point perpendicularly down towards +the water--the dolphin-striker. Here it was that the old monkey (who +had the Sore tail) loved to hang, by the mere stub which was all a +devouring cancer had left him, chattering to the water. He took no +notice of the children, nor they of him: but both parties grew attached +to each other, for all that. + +--How small the children all looked, on a ship, when you saw them +beside the sailors! It was as if they were a different order of beings! +Yet they were living creatures just the same, full of promise. + +_John_, with his downy, freckled face, and general round +energeticalness. + +_Emily_, with her huge palm-leaf hat, and colourless cotton frock tight +over her minute impish erect body: her thin, almost expressionless +face: her dark grey eyes contracted to escape the blaze, yet shining +as it were in spite of themselves: and her really beautiful lips, that +looked almost as if they were sculptured. + +_Margaret Fernandez_, taller (as midgets go: she was just thirteen), +with her square white face and tangled hair, her elaboratish clothes. + +Her little brother _Harry_, by some throw-back for all the world like a +manikin Spaniard. + +And the smaller Thorntons: _Edward_, mouse-coloured, with a general +mousy (but pleasing) expression: _Rachel_, with tight short gold curls +and a fat pink face (John’s colouring watered down): and last of all +_Laura_, a queer mite of three with heavy dark eyebrows, and blue eyes, +a big head-top and a receding chin--as if the Procreative Spirit was +getting a little hysterical by the time it reached her. A silver-age +conception, Laura’s, decidedly. + +When the Norther blew itself out, it soon fell away almost dead calm. +The morning they finally rounded Cape San Antonio was hot, blazing hot. +But it is never stuffy at sea: there is only this disadvantage, that +while on land a shady hat protects you from the sun, at sea nothing can +protect you from that second sun which is mirrored upwards from the +water, strikes under all defences, and burns the unseasoned skin from +all your under-sides. Poor John! His throat and chin were a blistered +red. + +From the point itself there is a whitish bank in two fathoms, bowed +from north to north-east. The outer side is clean and steep-to, and +in fine weather one can steer along it by eye. It ends in Black Key, +a rock standing out of the water like a ship’s hull. Beyond that +lies a channel, very foul and difficult to navigate: and beyond that +again the Coloradoes Reef begins, the first of a long chain of reefs +following the coast in a north-easterly direction as far as Honde Bay, +two-thirds the way to Havana. Within the reefs lies the intricate Canal +de Guaniguanico, of which this channel is the westernmost outlet, with +its own rather dubious little ports. But ocean traffic, needless to +say, shuns the whole box of tricks: and the _Clorinda_ advisedly stood +well away to the northward, keeping her course at a gentle amble for +the open Atlantic. + +John was sitting outside the galley with the sailor called Curtis, who +was instructing him in the neat mystery of a Turk’s-head. Young Henry +Marpole was steering. Emily was messing around--not talking, just being +by him. + +As for the other sailors, they were all congregated in a ring, up in +the bows, so that one saw nothing but their backs. But every now and +then a general guffaw, and a sudden surging of the whole group, showed +they were up to something or other. + +John presently tiptoed forward, to see what it might be. He thrust his +bullet-head among their legs, and worked his way in till he had as good +a view as the earliest comer. + +He found they had got the old monkey, and were filling him up with +rum. First they gave him biscuit soaked in it: then they dipped rags +in a pannikin of the stuff, and squeezed them into his mouth. Then +they tried to make him drink direct: but that he would not do--it only +wasted a lot of spirit. + +John felt a vague horror at all this: though of course he did not guess +the purpose behind it. + +The poor brute shivered and chattered, rolled his eyes, spluttered. +I suppose it must have been an excruciatingly funny sight. Every now +and then he would seem altogether overcome by the spirit. Then one of +them would lay him on the top of an old beef barrel--but hey presto, he +would be up like lightning, trying to streak through the air over their +heads. But he was no bird: they caught him each time, and set to work +to dope him again. + +As for John, he could no more have left the scene now than Jacko the +monkey could. + +It was astonishing what a lot of spirit the wizened little brute could +absorb. He was drunk, of course: hopelessly, blindly, madly drunk. But +he was not paralytic, not even somnolent: and it seemed as if nothing +could overcome him. So at last they gave up the attempt. They fetched +a wooden box, and cut a notch in the edge. Then they put him on the +barrel-top, and clapped the box over him, and after much manœuvring his +gangrenous tail was made to come out through the notch. Anaesthetised +or not, the operation on him was to proceed. John stared, transfixed, +at that obscene wriggling stump which was all one could see of the +animal: and out of the corner of his eye he could see at the same time +the uproarious operators, the tar-stained knife. + +But the moment the blade touched flesh, with an awful screech the +mommet contrived to fling off his cage--leapt on the surgeon’s +head--leapt from there high in the air--caught the forestay--and in a +twinkling was away and up high in the fore-rigging. + +Then began the hue and cry. Sixteen men flinging about in lofty +acrobatics, all to catch one poor old drunk monkey. For he was drunk +as a lord, and sick as a cat. His course varied between wild and +hair-raising leaps (a sort of inspired gymnastics), and doleful +incompetent reelings on a taut rope which threatened at every moment to +catapult him into the sea. But even so they could never quite catch him. + +No wonder that all the children, now, stood open-mouthed and open-eyed +on the deck beneath in the sun till their necks nearly broke--_such_ a +Free Fun Fair and Circus! + +And no wonder that on that passenger-schooner which Marpole, before +going below, had sighted drifting towards them from the direction +of the Black Key channel, the ladies had left the shade of the +awning and were crowding at the rail, parasols twirling, lorgnettes +and opera-glasses in action, all twittering like a cage of linnets. +Just too far off to distinguish the tiny quarry, they might well +have wondered what sort of a bedlam-vessel of sea-acrobats the light +easterly air was bearing them down upon. + +They were so interested that presently a boat was hoisted out, and the +ladies--and some gentlemen as well--crowded into it. + +Poor little Jacko missed his hold at last: fell plump on the deck +and broke his neck. That was the end of him--and of the hunt too, +of course. The aerial ballet was over, in its middle, with no final +tableau. The sailors began, in twos and threes, to slide to the deck. + +But the visitors were already on board. + +That is how the _Clorinda_ really was taken. There was no display of +artillery--but then, Captain Marpole could hardly know this, seeing he +was below in his bunk at the time. Henry was steering by that sixth +sense which only comes into operation when the other five are asleep. +The mate and crew had been so intent on what they were doing that the +Flying Dutchman himself might have laid alongside, for all they cared. + + +ii + +Indeed, the whole manœuvre was executed so quietly that Captain Marpole +never even woke--incredible though this will seem to a seaman. But +then, Marpole had begun life as a successful coal-merchant. + +The mate and crew were bundled into the fo’c’sle (the Fox-hole, the +children thought it was called), and confined there, the scuttle being +secured with a couple of nails. + +The children themselves were shepherded, as related, into the +deck-house, where the chairs, and perfectly useless pieces of old rope, +and broken tools, and dried-up paint-pots were kept, without taking +alarm. But the door was immediately shut on them. They had to wait for +hours and hours before anything else happened--nearly all day, in fact: +and they got very bored, and rather cross. + +The actual number of the men who had effected the capture cannot +have been more than eight or nine, most of them ‘women’ at that, and +not armed--at least with any visible weapon. But a second boatload +soon followed them from the schooner. These, for form’s sake, were +armed with muskets. But there was no possible resistance to fear. Two +long nails through the scuttle can secure any number of men pretty +effectually. + +With this second boatload came both the captain and the mate. The +former was a clumsy great fellow, with a sad, silly face. He was +bulky; yet so ill-proportioned one got no impression of power. He was +modestly dressed in a drab shore-going suit: he was newly shaven, +and his sparse hair was pomaded so that it lay in a few dark ribbons +across his baldish head-top. But all this shore-decency of appearance +only accentuated his big splodgy brown hands, stained and scarred and +corned with his calling. Moreover, instead of boots he wore a pair of +gigantic heel-less slippers in the Moorish manner, which he must have +sliced with a knife out of some pair of dead sea-boots. Even his great +spreading feet could hardly keep them on, so that he was obliged to +walk at the slowest of shuffles, flop-flop along the deck. He stooped, +as if always afraid of banging his head on something; and carried the +backs of his hands forward, like an orang-outang. + +Meanwhile the men set to work methodically but very quietly to remove +the wedges that held the battens of the hatches, getting ready to haul +up the cargo. + +Their leader took several turns up and down the deck before he seemed +able to make up his mind to the interview: then lowered himself into +Marpole’s cabin, followed by his mate. + +This mate was a small man: very fair, and intelligent-looking beside +his chief. He was almost dapper, in a quiet way, in his dress. + +They found Captain Marpole even now only half awake: and the stranger +stood for a moment in silence, nervously twiddling his cap in his +hands. When he spoke at last, it was with a soft German accent: + +‘Excuse me,’ he began, ‘but would you have the goodness to lend me a +few stores?’ + +Captain Marpole stared in astonishment, first at him and then at +the much be-painted faces of the ‘ladies’ pressed against his cabin +skylight. + +‘Who the devil are you?’ he contrived to ask at last. + +‘I hold a commission in the Columbian navy,’ the stranger explained: +‘and I am in need of a few stores.’ + +(Meanwhile his men had the hatches off, and were preparing to help +themselves to everything in the ship.) + +Marpole looked him up and down. It was barely conceivable that even the +Columbian navy should have such a figure of an officer. Then his eye +wandered back to the skylight: + +‘If you call yourself a man-of-war, sir, who in Heaven’s name are +_those_?’ As he pointed, the smirking faces hastily retreated. + +The stranger blushed. + +‘They are rather difficult to explain,’ he admitted ingenuously. + +‘If you had said _Turkish_ navy, that would have been more +reasonable-sounding!’ said Marpole. + +But the stranger did not seem to take the joke. He stood, silent, in a +characteristic attitude: rocking himself from foot to foot, and rubbing +his cheek on his shoulder. + +Suddenly Marpole’s ear caught the muffled racketing forward. Almost +at the same time a bump that shivered the whole barque told that the +schooner had been laid alongside. + +‘What’s that?’ he exclaimed. ‘Is there some one in my hold?’ + +‘Stores ...’ mumbled the stranger. + +Marpole up to now had lain growling in his bunk like a dog in its +kennel. Now for the first time realising that something serious was +afoot he flung himself out and made for the companion-way. The little +silent fair man tripped him up, and he fell against the table. + +‘You had much better stay here, yes?’ said the big man. ‘My fellows +shall keep a tally, you shall be paid in full for everything we take.’ + +The eyes of the marine coal-merchant gleamed momentarily: + +‘You’ll have to pay for this outrage to a pretty tune!’ he growled. + +‘I will pay you,’ said the stranger, with a sudden magnificence in his +voice, ‘at the very least five thousand pounds!’ + +Marpole stared in astonishment. + +‘I will write you an order on the Columbian government for that +amount,’ the other went on. + +Marpole thumped the table, almost speechless: + +‘D’you think I believe that cock-and-bull story?’ he thundered. + +Captain Jonsen made no protest. + +‘Do you realise that you are technically guilty of _piracy_, making a +forced requisition on a British ship like this, even if you pay every +farthing?’ + +Still Jonsen made no reply: though the bored expression of his mate was +lit up for a moment by a smile. + +‘You’ll pay me in _cash_!’ Marpole concluded. Then he went off on a +fresh tack: ‘Though how the devil you got on board without being called +beats me!--Where’s my mate?’ + +Jonsen began in a toneless voice, as if by rote: ‘I will write you an +order for five thousand pounds: three thousand for the stores, and two +thousand you will give me in money.’ + +‘We know you’ve got specie on board,’ interjected the little fair mate, +speaking for the first time. + +‘Our information is certain!’ declared Jonsen. + +Marpole at last went white and began to sweat. It took even Fear an +extraordinarily long time to penetrate his thick skull. But he denied +that he had any treasure on board. + +‘Is that your answer?’ said Jonsen. He drew a heavy pistol from his +side pocket. ‘If you do not tell us the truth, your life shall pay the +forfeit.’ His voice was peculiarly gentle, and mechanical, as if he did +not attach much meaning to what he said. ‘Do not expect mercy, for this +is my profession, and in it I am inured to blood.’ + +A frightful squawking from the deck above told Marpole that his +chickens were being moved to new quarters. + +In an agony of feeling Marpole told him that he had a wife and +children, who would be left destitute if his life was taken. + +Jonsen, with rather a perplexed look on his face, put the gun back in +his pocket, and the two of them began to search for themselves, at the +same time stripping the saloon and cabins of everything they contained: +firearms, wearing apparel, the bedclothes, and even (as Marpole with a +rare touch of accuracy mentioned in his report) the bell-pulls. + +Overhead there was a continuous bumping: the rolling of casks, cases, +etc. + +‘Remember,’ Jonsen went on over his shoulder while he searched, ‘money +cannot recall life, nor in the least avail you when you are dead. +If you regard your life in the least, at once acquaint me with the +hiding-place, and your life shall be safe.’ + +Marpole’s only reply was again to invoke the thought of his wife +and children (he was, as a matter of fact, a widower: and his only +relative, a niece, would be the better off by his death to the tune of +some ten thousand pounds). + +But this reiteration seemed to give the mate an idea: and he began to +talk to his chief rapidly in a language Marpole had never even heard. +For a moment a curious glint came into Jonsen’s eye: but soon he was +chuckling in the sentimentalest manner, and rubbing his hands. + +The mate went on deck to prepare things. + +Marpole had no inkling of what was afoot. The mate went on deck to +prepare his plan, whatever it was: and Jonsen busied himself with a +last futile search for the hiding-place, in silence. + +Presently the mate shouted down to him, and he ordered Marpole on deck. + +Poor Marpole groaned. Unloading cargo is inclined to be a messy +business anyway: but these visitors had been none too careful. There is +no smell in the world worse than when molasses and bilge-water marry: +now it was let loose like ten thousand devils. His heart was almost +broken when he saw the havoc that had been made with the cargo: broken +cases, casks, bottles, all about the deck: everything in the greatest +confusion: tarpaulins cut to pieces: hatches broken. + +From the deck-house came the piercing voice of Laura: + +‘_I want to come out!_’ + +The Spanish ladies seemed to have returned to the schooner. His own men +were shut up in the fo’c’sle. It was obvious where all the children +were, for Laura was not the only vociferator. But the only persons to +be seen were six members of the visiting crew, who stood in a line, +facing the deck-house, a musket apiece. + +It was the little mate who now took charge of the situation: + +‘Where is your specie hid, Captain?’ + +The musketeers having their backs to him, ‘Go to the Devil!’ replied +Marpole. + +A startling volley rang out: six neat holes were punctured in the top +of the deck-house. + +‘Hi! Steady there, what are you doing?’ John cried out indignantly from +within. + +‘If you refuse to tell us, next time their aim will be a foot lower.’ + +‘You fiends!’ cried Marpole. + +‘Will you tell me?’ + +‘_No!_’ + +‘_Fire!_’ + +The second row of holes can only have missed the taller children by a +few inches. + +There was a moment’s silence: then a sudden wild shriek from within the +deck-house. It was so terrified a sound not their own mothers could +have told which throat it came from. One only, though. + +The stranger-captain had been slouching about in an agitated way: but +at that shriek he turned on Marpole, his face purple with a sudden fury: + +‘_Now_ will you say?’ + +But Marpole was now completely master of himself. He did not hesitate: + +‘NO!’ + +‘Next time he gives the order it will be to shoot right through their +little bodies!’ + +So that was what Marpole had meant in his letter by ‘_every possible +threat which villainy could devise_’! But even by this he was not to be +daunted: + +‘No, I tell you!’ + +Heroic obstinacy! But instead of giving the fatal order, Jonsen lifted +a paw like a bear’s, and banged Marpole’s jaw with it. The latter fell +to the deck, stunned. + +It was then they took the children out of the deck-house. + +They were not really much frightened; except Margaret, who did seem to +be taking it all to heart rather. Being shot at is so unlike what one +expects it to be that one can hardly connect the two ideas enough to +have the appropriate emotions, the first few times. It is not half so +startling as some one jumping out on you with a ‘_Boo!_’ in the dark, +for instance. The boys were crying a little: the girls were hot and +cross and hungry. + +‘What were you doing?’ Rachel asked brightly of one of the firing-party. + +But only the captain and the mate could speak English. The latter, +ignoring Rachel’s question, explained that they were all to go on board +the schooner--‘to have some supper,’ he said. + +He had all a sailor’s reassuring charm of manner. So under the charge +of two Spanish seamen they were helped over the bulwarks onto the +smaller vessel, which was just casting off. + +There the strange sailors broke open a whole case of crystallised +fruits, on which they might turn the edge of their long appetites as +much as they would. + + * * * * * + +When poor stunned Captain Marpole came to his senses, it was to +find himself tied to the mainmast. Several handfuls of shavings and +splintered wood were piled round his feet, and Jonsen was sprinkling +them plentifully with gun-powder--though not perhaps enough, it is +true, to ‘blow up the ship and all in it.’ + +The small fair mate stood at hand in the gathering dusk with a lighted +torch, ready to fire the pyre. + +What could a man do in such straits? At that dreadful moment the +gallant old fellow had to admit that he was beaten at last. He told +them where his freight-money--some £900--was hidden: and they let him +go. + +Just as the darkness closed in, the last of the pirates returned to +their ship. Not a sound was to be heard of the children: but Marpole +guessed that they had been taken there too. + +Before releasing his crew he lit a lantern and began a sort of +inventory of what was gone. It was heart-breaking enough: besides the +cargo, all his spare sails, cordage, provisions, guns, paint, powder: +all his wearing apparel, and that of his mate: all nautical instruments +gone, cabin stores--the saloon in fact gutted of everything, not even a +knife or spoon left, tea or sugar, nor a second shirt to his back left. +Only the children’s luggage was left untouched: and the turtles. Their +melancholy sighing was the sole sound to be heard. + +But it was almost as heart-breaking to see what the pirates had _left_: +anything damaged, such worn-out and useless gear as he had been only +waiting for some ‘storm’ to wash overboard--not one of these eyesores +was missing. + +What, in Heaven’s name, was the use of an insurance policy? He began to +collect the rubbish himself and dump it over the side. + +But Captain Jonsen saw him: + +‘Hi!’ he shouted: ‘You dirty svindler! I will write to Lloyds and +expose you! I will write myself!’ He was horribly shocked at the +other’s dishonesty. + +So Marpole had to give it up, for the time at any rate: took a +spike and broke open the fo’c’sle: and as well as the sailors found +Margaret’s brown nurse. She had hidden there the whole day: probably +from motives of fright. + + +iii + +You would have thought that supper on the schooner that night would +have been a hilarious affair. But, somehow, it was _manqué_. + +A prize of such value had naturally put the crew in the best of +humours: and a meal which consisted mainly of crystallised fruit, +followed as an afterthought by bread and chopped onions served in one +enormous communal bowl, eaten on the open deck under the stars, after +bed-time, should have done the same by the children. But nevertheless +both parties were seized by a sudden, overpowering, and most unexpected +fit of shyness. Consequently no state banquet was ever so formal, or so +boring. + +I suppose it was the lack of a common language which first generated +the infection. The Spanish sailors, used enough to this difficulty, +grinned, pointed, and bobbed: but the children retired into a display +of good manners which it would certainly have surprised their parents +to see. Whereon the sailors became equally formal: and one poor +monkeyfied little fellow who by nature belched continually was so +be-nudged and be-winked by his companions, and so covered in confusion +of his own accord, that presently he went away to eat by himself. +Even then, so silent was this revel, he could still be heard faintly +belching, half the ship’s length away. + +Perhaps it would have gone better if the captain and mate had been +there, with their English. But they were too busy, looking over the +personal belongings they had brought from the barque, sorting out by +the light of a lantern anything too easily identifiable and reluctantly +committing it to the sea. + +It was at the loud splashes made by a couple of empty trunks, stamped +in large letters JAS. MARPOLE, that a roar of unassumed indignation +arose from the neighbouring barque. The two paused in their work, +astonished: why should a crew already spoiled of all they possessed +take it so hardly when one heaved a couple of old worthless trunks in +the sea? + +It was inexplicable. + +They continued their task, taking no further notice of the _Clorinda_. + +Once supper was over, the social situation became even more awkward. +The children stood about, not knowing what to do with their hands, or +even their legs: unable to talk to their hosts, and feeling it would be +rude to talk to each other, wishing badly that it was time to leave. If +only it had been light they could have been happy enough exploring: but +in the darkness there was nothing to do, nothing whatever. + +The sailors soon found occupations of their own: and the captain and +mate, as I have said, were already busy. + +Once the sorting was over, however, there was nothing for Jonsen to do +except return the children to the barque, and get well clear while the +breeze and the darkness lasted. + +But on hearing those splashes, Marpole’s lively imagination had +interpreted them in his own way. They suggested that there was now no +reason to wait: indeed, every reason to be gone. + +I think he was quite honestly misled. + +It was after all but a small slip to say he had ‘seen with his own +eyes’ what he had heard with his own ears: and the intention was pious. + +He set his men feverishly to work: and when Captain Jonsen looked his +way again, the _Clorinda_, with every stitch spread in the starlight, +was already half a mile to leeward. + +To pursue her, right in the track of shipping, was out of the question. +Jonsen had to content himself with staring after her through his +night-glass. + + +iv + +Captain Jonsen set the little monkeyfied sailor, who had been so +mortified earlier in the evening, to clear the schooner’s fore-hold. +The warps and brooms and fenders it contained were all piled to one +side, and a sufficiency of bedclothes for the guests was provided from +the plunder. + +But nothing could now thaw them. They clambered down the ladder and +received their blanket apiece in an uncomfortable silence. Jonsen hung +about, anxious to be helpful in this matter of getting into beds which +were not there, but not knowing how to set about it. So he gave it +up at last, and swung himself up through the fore-hatch, talking to +himself. + +The last they saw of him was his fantastic slippers, hanging each from +a big toe, outlined against the stars: but it never entered their heads +to laugh. + +Once, however, the familiar comfort of a blanket under their chins had +begun to have its effect, and they were obviously quite alone, a little +life did begin to return into these dumb statues. + +The darkness was profound, only accentuated by the starlit square +of the open hatchway. First the long silence was broken by some one +turning over, almost freely. Then presently: + +LAURA (_in slow sepulchral tones_). I don’t like this bed. + +RACHEL (_ditto_). I do. + +LAURA. It’s a horrid bed; there isn’t any! + +EMILY. } + } Sh! Go to sleep! +JOHN. } + +EDWARD. I smell cockroaches. + +EMILY. Sh! + +EDWARD (_loudly and hopefully_). They’ll bite all our nails off, +because we haven’t washed, and our skin, and our hair, and---- + +LAURA. There’s a cockroach in my bed! Get out! + + (_You could hear the brute go zooming away. But Laura was already out + too._) + +EMILY. Laura! Go back to bed! + +LAURA. I can’t when there’s a cockroach in it! + +JOHN. Get into bed again, you little fool! He’s gone long ago! + +LAURA. But I expect he has left his wife. + +HARRY. They don’t have wives, they’re wives themselves. + +RACHEL. Ow!--Laura, stop it!--Emily, Laura’s walking on me! + +EMILY. Lau-RER! + +LAURA. Well, I must walk on something! + +EMILY. Go to sleep! + + (_Silence for a while._) + +LAURA. I haven’t said my prayers. + +EMILY. Well, say them lying down. + +RACHEL. She mustn’t, that’s lazy. + +JOHN. Shut up, Rachel, she must. + +RACHEL. It’s wicked! You go to sleep in the middle then. People who go +to sleep in the middle ought to be damned, they ought.--Oughtn’t they? +(_Silence._) Oughtn’t they? (_Still silence._) Emily, I say, oughtn’t +they? + +JOHN. NO! + +RACHEL (_dreamily_). I think there’s lots more people ought to be +damned than are. + + (_Silence again._) + +HARRY. Marghie. + + (_Silence._) + +Marghie! + + (_Silence._) + +JOHN. What’s up with Marghie? Won’t she speak? + + (_A faint sob is heard._) + +HARRY. I don’t know. + + (_Another sob._) + +JOHN. Is she often like this? + +HARRY. She’s an awful ass sometimes. + +JOHN. Marghie, what’s up? + +MARGARET (_miserably_). Let me alone! + +RACHEL. I believe she’s frightened! (_Chants tauntingly_) Marghie’s got +the bogies, the bogies, the bogies! + +MARGARET (_sobbing out loud_). _Oh_ you little fools! + +JOHN. Well, what’s the matter with you then? + +MARGARET (_after a pause_). I’m older than any of you. + +HARRY. Well, _that’s_ a funny reason to be frightened! + +MARGARET. It isn’t. + +HARRY. It is! + +MARGARET (_warming to the argument_). It isn’t, I tell you! + +HARRY. _It is!_ + +MARGARET (_smugly_). That’s simply because you’re all too young to +know.... + +JOHN. Oh, hit her, Emily! + +EMILY (_sleepily_). Hit her yourself. + +HARRY. But, Marghie, why are we here? + + (_No answer._) + +Emily, why are we here? + +EMILY (_indifferently_). I don’t know. I expect they just wanted to +change us. + +HARRY. I expect so. But they never _told_ us we were going to be +changed. + +EMILY. Grown-ups never _do_ tell us things. + + + + +_Chapter 4_ + + +The children all slept late, and all woke at the same moment as if +by clockwork. They sat up, and yawned uniformly, and stretched the +stiffness out of their legs and backs (they were lying on solid wood, +remember). + +The schooner was steady, and people tramping about the deck. The +main-hold and fore-hold were all one: and from where they were they +could see the main-hatch had been opened. The captain appeared +through it legs first, and dropped onto the higgledy-piggledy of the +_Clorinda’s_ cargo. + +For some time they simply stared at him. He looked uneasy, and was +talking to himself as he tapped now this case with his pencil, now +that; and presently shouted rather fiercely to people on deck. + +‘All right, all right,’ came from above the injured voice of the mate. +‘There’s no such hurry as all that.’ + +On which the captain’s mutterings to himself swelled, as if ten people +were conversing at once in his chest. + +‘May we get up yet?’ asked Rachel. + +Captain Jonsen spun round--he had forgotten their existence. + +‘Eh?’ + +‘May we get up, please?’ + +‘You can go to the debble.’ He muttered this so low the children did +not hear it. But it was not lost on the mate. + +‘Hey! Ey! Ey!’ he called down, reprovingly. + +‘Yes! Get up! Go on deck! Here!’ The captain viciously set up a short +ladder for them to climb through the hatch. + +They were greatly astonished to find the schooner was no longer at sea. +Instead, she was snugly moored against a little wooden wharf, in a +pleasant land-locked bay; with a pleasant but untidy village, of white +wooden houses with palm-leaf roofs, behind it; and the tower of a small +sandstone church emerging from the abundant greenery. On the quay were +a few well-dressed loungers, watching the preparations for unloading. +The mate was directing the labours of the crew, who were rigging the +cargo-gaff and getting ready for a hot morning’s work. + +The mate nodded cheerfully to the children, but thereafter took no +notice of them, which was rather mortifying. The truth is that the man +was busy. + +At the same time there emerged from somewhere aft a collection of the +oddest-looking young men. Margaret decided she had never seen such +beautiful young men before. They were slim, yet nicely rounded: and +dressed in exquisite clothes (if a trifle threadbare). But their faces! +Those beautiful olive-tinted ovals! Those large, black-ringed, soft +brown eyes, those unnaturally carmine lips! They minced across the +deck, chattering to each other in high-pitched tones, ‘twittering like +a cage of linnets ...’ and made their way on shore. + +‘Who are they?’ Emily asked the captain, who had just re-emerged from +below. + +‘Who are who?’ he murmured absently, without looking round. ‘Oh, those? +Fairies.’ + +‘_Hey! Yey! Yey!_’ cried the mate, more disapprovingly than ever. + +‘_Fairies?_’ cried Emily in astonishment. + +But Captain Jonsen began to blush. He went crimson from the nape of his +neck to the bald patches on the top of his head, and left. + +‘He is _silly_!’ said Emily. + +‘I wonder if we go onto the land yet,’ said Edward. + +‘We’d better wait until we’re told, hadn’t we, Emily?’ said Harry. + +‘I didn’t know England would be like this,’ said Rachel: ‘it’s very +like Jamaica.’ + +‘This isn’t England,’ said John, ‘you stupid!’ + +‘But it must be,’ said Rachel: ‘England’s where we’re going.’ + +‘We don’t get to England yet,’ said John: ‘it must be somewhere we’re +stopping at, like when we got all those turtles.’ + +‘I like stopping at places,’ said Laura. + +‘I don’t,’ said Rachel. + +‘I do, though,’ pursued Laura. + +‘Where are those young men gone?’ Margaret asked the mate. ‘Are they +coming back?’ + +‘They’ll just come back to be paid, after we’ve sold the cargo,’ he +answered. + +‘Then they’re not living on the ship?’ she pursued. + +‘No, we hired them from Havana.’ + +‘But what for?’ + +He looked at her in surprise: ‘Why, those are the “ladies” we had on +board, to look like passengers--You didn’t think they were real ladies, +did you?’ + +‘What, were they dressed up?’ asked Emily excitedly: ‘What fun!’ + +‘I like dressing up,’ said Laura. + +‘I don’t,’ said Rachel, ‘I think it’s babyish.’ + +‘_I_ thought they were real ladies,’ admitted Emily. + +‘We’re a respectable ship’s crew, we are,’ said the mate, a trifle +stiffly--and without too good logic, when you come to think of it. +‘Here, you go on shore and amuse yourselves.’ + +So the children went ashore, holding hands in a long row, and +promenaded the town in a formal sort of way. Laura wanted to go off by +herself, but the others would not let her: and when they returned, the +line was still unbroken. They had seen all there was to see, and no one +had taken the least notice of them (so far as they were aware), and +they wanted to start asking questions again. + +It was, then, a charming little sleepy old place, in its way, this +Santa Lucia: isolated on the forgotten western end of Cuba between +Nombre de Dios and the Rio de Puercos: cut off from the open sea by +the intricate nature of the channels through the reefs and the Banks +of Isabella, channels only navigable to the practised and creeping +local coasting craft and shunned like poison by bigger traffic: on land +isolated by a hundred miles of forest from Havana. + +Time was, these little ports of the Canal de Guaniguanico had been +pretty prosperous, as bases for pirates: but it was a fleeting +prosperity. There came the heroic attack of an American squadron under +Captain Allen, in 1823, on the Bay of Sejuapo, their headquarters. +From that blow (although it took many years to take full effect) +the industry never really recovered: it dwindled and dwindled, like +hand-weaving. One could make money much faster in a city like Havana, +and with less risk (if less respectably). Piracy had long since ceased +to pay, and should have been scrapped years ago: but a vocational +tradition will last on a long time after it has ceased to be economic, +in a decadent form. Now, Santa Lucia--and piracy--continued to exist +because they always had: but for no other reason. Such a haul as the +_Clorinda_ did not come once in a blue moon. Every year the amount +of land under cultivation dwindled, and the pirate schooners were +abandoned to rot against the wharves or ignominiously sold as traders. +The young men left for Havana or the United States. The maidens yawned. +The local grandees increased in dignity as their numbers and property +dwindled: an idyllic, simple-minded country community, oblivious of the +outer world and of its own approaching oblivion. + +‘I don’t think I should like to live here,’ John decided, when they got +back to the ship. + +Meanwhile the cargo had been unloaded onto the quay: and after the +siesta a crowd of about a hundred people gathered round, poking and +discussing. The auction was about to begin. Captain Jonsen tramped +about rather in the way of everybody, but especially annoying the mate +by shouting contrary directions every minute. The latter had a ledger, +and a number of labels with numbers on them which he was pasting onto +the various bales and packages. The sailors were building a kind of +temporary stage--the thing was to be done in style. + +Every moment the crowd increased. Because they all talked Spanish it +was a pantomime to the children: like puppets acting, not like real +people moving and talking. So they discovered what a fascinating game +it is to watch foreigners, whose very simplest words mean nothing to +you, and try to guess what they are about. + +Moreover, these were all such funny-looking people: they moved about +as if they were kings, and spat all the time, and smoked thin black +cigars, the blue smoke of which ascended from their enormous hats as +from censers. + +At one moment there was a diversion--the crowd suddenly gaped, and +there staggered onto the stage the whole crew of the schooner carrying +a huge pair of scales: it was always on the point of being too much for +them, and running suddenly away with them in another direction. + +There were quite a number of ladies in the crowd--old ones, they seemed +to the children. Some were thin and dried up, like monkeys: but most +were fat, and one was fatter than all of them and treated with the +greatest respect (perhaps for her moustache). She was the wife of the +Chief Magistrate--Señora del Illustrious Juzgado del Municipal de Santa +Lucia, to give her her title. She had a rocking-chair of suitable +strength and width, which was carried by a short squinting negro and +set in the very middle of the scene, right in front of the platform. +There she throned herself: and the negro stood behind her, holding a +violet silk sunshade over her head. + +No one can doubt that she immediately became the most noticeable thing +in the picture. + +She had a powerful bass voice, and when she uttered some jocundity +(as she repeatedly did), every one heard it, however much they were +chattering among themselves. + +The children, as was their custom, wormed their way without any excess +of civility through the crowd and grouped themselves round her throne. + +The captain either did not know, or suddenly refused to know, a single +word of Spanish: so the auctioneering devolved on the mate. The latter +mounted the stage: and with a great assumption of competence began. + +But auctioneering is an art: it is as easy to write a sonnet in a +foreign tongue as to conduct a successful auction. One must have at +one’s command eloquence without a hitch: the faculty of kindling an +audience, amusing them, castigating them, converting them, till they +rattle out increments as a camp-meeting rattles out Amens: till they +totally forget the worth (and even the nature) of the lot, and begin +to take a real pride in a long run of bidding--as a champion does in a +long break at billiards. + +This little Viennese had been to a good school, it is true: for he +had once resided in Wales, where one sees auctioneering in its finest +flower. In Welsh, or English, or even in his native tongue, he could +have acquitted himself fairly well: but in Spanish, just that margin of +power was lacking to him. The audience remained stern, cold, critical, +bidding grudgingly. + +As if this language difficulty were not in itself enough, there sat +that overpowering old dame on her throne, distracting with her jokes +whatever vestige of attention he might otherwise have managed to arouse. + +When the third lot of coffee came to be dealt with, there was even the +beginning of a rather nasty row. The children were highly scandalised: +they had never seen grown-ups being rude to one another before. The +captain had undertaken the weighing: and it was something to do with a +habit he had of leaning against the scales while he read them. Being +short-sighted, he could see the figures much more clearly like that: +but it displeased the buyers, and they had a lot to say about it. + +The captain, mortified, wrung his hands, and began to answer them in +Danish. They rejoined in Spanish even more stingingly. He stumped off +in a sulk: they could all conduct his affairs without him, if they +weren’t prepared to treat him with a little consideration. + +But who would be less partial? The mate, angry, maintained that to +elect one of the buyers was equally objectionable. + +Thereon an earthquake began in the fat old lady, and gradually gathered +enough force to lift her onto her feet. She took John by the shoulders, +and pushed him before her to the scales. Then in a few witty, ringing +words she suggested her solution--_he_ should do the weighing. + +The audience were pleased: but as soon as John understood he went very +red, and wanted to escape. The rest of the children, on the other hand, +were eaten with envy. + +‘Mayn’t I help too?’ piped Rachel. + +The despairing mate thought he saw just a forlorn hope in this. While +John was being instructed, he gathered the other children: and out of +the heap of miscellaneous clothing rigged them all out in a sort of +fancy dress. Then he gave them the samples to carry round, and the sale +began anew. + +It had now assumed rather the character of a parochial bazaar. Even the +Vicar was present--though less well shaved than he would have been in +England, and cunninger-looking. He was one of the only buyers. + +The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and minced and pranced and +tugged each other’s turbans. But the crowd was a Latin one, not Nordic: +and their endearing tricks failed altogether to arouse any interest. +The sale went worse than ever. + +There was only one exception, and that was the important old lady. +Once her attention had been called (by her own act) to the children, +it fixed itself on one of them, on Edward. She drew him to her bosom, +like a mother in melodrama, and with her hairy mouth gave him three +resounding kisses. + +Edward could no more have struggled than if caught by a boa. Moreover, +the portentous woman fascinated him, as if she had been a boa indeed. +He lay in her arms limp, self-conscious, and dejected: but without +active thought of escape. + +And so the business went on: on the one hand the unheeded drone of the +mate, on the other the great creature still keeping up her witticisms, +still dominating everything: all of a sudden remembering Edward, and +giving him a couple of kisses like so many bombs: then clean forgetting +all about him: then remembering him again, and hugging him: then +dropping her salts: then nearly dropping Edward: then suddenly twisting +round to launch a dart into the crowd behind her--she was the despair +of that unhappy auctioneer, who saw lot after lot fall for a tenth of +its value, or even find no bidder at all. + +Captain Jonsen, however, had his own idea of how to enliven a parochial +bazaar that is proving a frost. He went on board, and mixed several +gallons of that potion known in alcoholic circles as Hangman’s Blood +(which is compounded of rum, gin, brandy, and porter). Innocent (merely +beery) as it looks, refreshing as it tastes, it has the property of +increasing rather than allaying thirst, and so, once it has made a +breach, soon demolishes the whole fort. + +This he poured out into mugs, merely remarking that it was a noted +English cordial, and gave it to the children to distribute among the +crowd. + +At once the Cubans began to show more interest in them than when they +came bearing samples of arrowroot: and with their popularity their +happiness increased, and like rococo Ganymedekins and Hebelettes they +darted about the crowd, distributing the enticing poison to all who +would. + +When he saw what was on foot, the mate wiped his mouth in despair. + +‘_Oh_ you fool!’ he groaned. + +But the captain himself was highly pleased with his ruse: kept rubbing +his hands, and grinning, and winking. + +‘That’ll liven ’em, eh?’ + +‘Wait and see!’ was all the mate let himself say. ‘You just wait and +see!’ + +‘Look at Edward!’ said Emily to Margaret in a pause. ‘It’s perfectly +sickening!’ + +It was. The very first mug rendered the fat señora even more motherly. +Edward by now was fascinated, was in her power completely. He sat and +gazed up in her little black eyes, his own large brown ones glazed with +sentiment. He avoided her moustache, it is true: but on her cheek he +was returning her kisses earnestly. All this, of course, without the +possibility of their exchanging a single word--pure instinct. ‘With +a fork drive Nature out ...’ one would gladly have taken a fork to +Nature, on that occasion. + +Meanwhile, on the rest of the crowd the liquor was having exactly the +effect the mate had foreseen. Instead of stimulating them, it dissolved +completely whatever vestiges of attention they were still giving to +the sale. He stepped down from the platform--gave it all up in despair. +For they had now broken up into little groups, which discussed and +argued their own affairs as if they were in a café. He in his turn went +on board, and shut himself in his cabin--Captain Jonsen could deal with +the mess he had made himself! + +But alas! No worse host than Jonsen was ever born: he was utterly +incapable of either understanding or controlling a crowd. All he could +think of doing was plying them with more. + +For the children the spectacle was an absorbing one. The whole nature +of these people, as they drank, seemed to be changing: under their very +eyes something seemed to be breaking up, like ice melting. Remember +that to them this was a pantomime: no word spoken to explain, and so +the eyes exercised a peculiar clearness. + +It was rather as if the whole crowd had been immersed in water, and +something dissolved out of them while the general structure yet +remained. The tone of their voices changed, and they began to talk much +slower, to move more slowly and elaborately. The expression of their +faces became more candid, and yet more mask-like: hiding less, there +was also less to hide. Two men even began to fight: but they fought +so incompetently it was like a fight in a poetic play. Conversation, +which before had a beginning and an end, now grew shapeless and +interminable, and the women laughed a lot. + +One old gentleman in most respectable clothes settled himself on the +dirty ground at full length, with his head in the shade of the throned +lady, spread a handkerchief over his face, and went to sleep: three +other middle-aged men, holding each other with one hand to establish +contact and using the other for emphasis, kept up a continuous clacking +talk, that faltered intolerably though never quite stopping--like a +very old engine. + +A dog ran in and out among them all wagging its tail, but no one kicked +it. Presently it found the old gentleman who was asleep on the ground, +and began licking his ear excitedly: it had never had such a chance +before. + +The old lady also had fallen asleep, a little crookedly--she might +even have slipped off her chair if her negro had not buttressed her +up. Edward got off her, and went and joined the other children rather +shamefacedly: but they would not speak to him. + +Jonsen looked round him perplexedly. Why had Otto abandoned the sale, +now the crowd were all primed and ready? Probably he had some good +reason, though. He was an incomprehensible man, that mate: but clever. + +The truth is that Captain Jonsen was himself a man with a very weak +head for liquor, and so he very seldom touched it, and knew little of +the subtler aspects of its effects. + +He paced up and down the dusty wharf at his usual slow shuffle, his +head sunk forward in wretchedness, occasionally wringing his hands in +the naturalest way, and even whimpering. When the priest came up to him +confidentially and offered him a price for all that remained unsold he +simply shook his head and continued his shuffle. + + * * * * * + +There was something a little nightmare-like in the whole scene which +riveted the children’s attention, and was very near the border of +frightening them. It was with something of a struggle that at last +Margaret said ‘Let’s go on the ship.’ So they all went on board: and +feeling a little unprotected even there, descended into the hold, which +was the safest place because they had already slept in it. They sat +down on the kelson without doing or saying much, still with a vague +apprehension, till boredom at last eliminated it. + +‘Oh I _wish_ I had brought my paint-box!’ said Emily, with a sigh +fetched right up from her boots. + + +ii + +That night, after they had all gone to bed, they saw in a half-asleep +state a lantern bobbing up and down in the open hatch. It was held by +José, the little monkeyfied one (they had already decided he was the +nicest of the crew). He was grinning winningly, and beckoning to them. + +Emily was too sleepy to move, and so were Laura and Rachel: so leaving +them to lie, the others--Margaret, Edward, and John--scrambled on deck. + +It was mysteriously quiet. Not a sign of the crew, but for José. In the +bright starlight the town looked unnormally beautiful: there was music +coming from one of the big houses up by the church. José conducted them +ashore and up to this house: tiptoed up to the jalousies and signed to +them to follow him. + +As the light struck his face it became transfigured, so affected was he +by the opulence within. + +The children craned up to the level of the windows and peered in too, +oblivious of the mosquitoes making havoc of their necks. + +It was a very grand sight. This was the house of the Chief Magistrate: +and he was giving a dinner in honour of Captain Jonsen and his mate. +There he sat at the head of the table, in uniform; very stiff, yet his +little beard even stiffer than himself. His was the kind of dignity +that grows from reserve and stillness, from freezing every minute like +game which scents the hunter: while in total contrast to him there sat +his wife (the important señora who had made so much of Edward), far +more impressive than her husband, but doing it not by dignity but by +that calculated abandon and vulgarity which transcends dignity. Indeed, +her flinging about got the greater part of its effect from the very +formality of her setting. + +When the children arrived at the window she must even have been +discussing the size of her own belly: for she suddenly seized the shy +hand of the mate, and made him, willy-nilly, feel it, as if to clench +an argument. + +As for her husband, he did not seem to see her: nor did the servants: +she was such a very great lady. + +But it was not her, it was the meal which raped José’s attention. It +was certainly an impressive one. Together on the table were tomato +soup, mountain mullet, cray-fish, a huge red-snapper, land-crabs, rice +and fried chicken, a young turkey, a small joint of goat-mutton, a wild +duck, beef steak, fried pork, a dish of wild pigeons, sweet potatoes, +yuca, wine, and guavas and cream. + +It was a meal which would take a long time. + +Captain Jonsen and the lady appeared to be on excellent terms: he +pressing some project on her, and she, without the least loss of +amiability, putting it on one side. What they were talking about, +of course, the children could not hear. As a matter of fact, it was +themselves. Captain Jonsen was trying to get the lady to discuss the +disposal of his impromptu nursery: the most reasonable solution being +plainly to leave them at Santa Lucia, more or less in her charge. But +she was adept at eluding the importunate. It was not till the banquet +was over that he realised he had failed to make any arrangement +whatever. + +But long before this, before the dinner was ended and the dance began, +the children were tired of the peep-show. So José tiptoed away with +them, down to the back streets by the dock. Presently they came to a +mysterious door at the bottom of a staircase, with a negro standing +as if on guard. But he made no effort to stop them, and, José leading +them, they climbed several flights to a large upper room. + +The air was one you could hardly push through. The place was crowded +with negroes, and a few rather smudgy whites: among whom they +recognised most of the rest of the crew of the schooner. At the far end +was the most primitive stage you ever saw: there was a cradle on it, +and a large star swung on the end of a piece of string. There was to be +a nativity-play--rather early in the season. While the Chief Magistrate +entertained the pirate captain and mate, the priest had got this up in +honour of the pirate crew. + +A nativity-play, with real cattle. + +The whole audience had arrived an hour early, so as to see the entry of +the cow. The children were just in time for this. + +The room was in the upper part of a warehouse, which had been built, +through some freak of vanity, in the English fashion, several stories +high; and was provided with the usual large door opening onto +nothingness, with a beam-and-tackle over it. Many the load of gold-dust +and arrowroot which must have once been hoisted into it: now, like most +of the others at Santa Lucia, it had long since ceased to be used. + +But to-day a new rope had been rove through the block: and a broad +belly-band put round the waist of the priest’s protesting old cow. + +Margaret and Edward lingered timidly near the top of the stairs; but +John, putting his head down and burrowing like a mole, was not content +till he had reached the open doorway. There he stood looking out into +the darkness: where he saw a slowly revolving cow treading the air a +yard from the sill, while at each revolution a negro reached out to +the utmost limit of balance, trying to catch her by the tail and draw +her to shore. + +John, in his excitement, leaned out too far. He lost his balance and +fell clear to the ground, forty feet, right on his head. + +José gave a cry of alarm, sprang onto the cow’s back, and was instantly +lowered away--just as if the cinema had already been invented. He must +have looked very comic. But what was going on inside him the while it +is difficult to know. Such a responsibility does not often fall on an +old sailor; and he would probably feel it all the more for that reason. +As for the crowd beneath, they made no attempt to touch the body till +José had completed his descent: they stood back and let him have a good +look at it, and shake it, and so on. But the neck was quite plainly +broken. + +Margaret and Edward, however, had not any clear idea of what was going +on, since they had not actually seen John fall. So they were rather +annoyed when two of the schooner’s crew appeared and insisted on their +coming back to bed at once. They wanted to know where John was: but +even more they wanted to know where José was, and why they weren’t to +be allowed to stay. However they obeyed, in the impossibility of asking +questions, and started back to bed. + +Just as they were about to go on board the schooner, they heard a huge +report on their left, like a cannon. They turned; and looking past +the quiet, silver town, with its palm-groves, to the hills behind, +they saw a large ball of fire, travelling at a tremendous rate. It was +quite close to the ground: and not very far off either--just beyond the +Church. It left a wake of the most brilliant blue, green, and purple +blobs of light. For a while it hovered: then it burst, and the air was +shortly charged with a strong sulphurous smell. + +They were all frightened, the sailors even more than the children, and +hastened on board. + + * * * * * + +In the small hours, Edward suddenly called Emily in his sleep. She woke +up: ‘What is it?’ + +‘It’s rather cow-catching, isn’t it?’ he asked anxiously, his eyes +tight shut. + +‘What’s the matter?’ + +He did not answer, so she roused him--or thought she had. + +‘I only wanted to see if you were a _real_ Cow-catching Zomfanelia,’ he +explained in a kind voice: and was immediately deep asleep again. + +In the morning they might easily have thought the whole thing a +dream--if John’s bed had not been so puzzlingly empty. + +Yet, as if by some mute flash of understanding, no one commented +on his absence. No one questioned Margaret, and she offered no +information. Neither then nor thereafter was his name ever mentioned by +anybody: and if you had known the children intimately you would never +have guessed from _them_ that he had ever existed. + + +iii + +The children’s only enemy on board the schooner (which presently put to +sea again, with them still on board) was the big white pig. (There was +a little black fellow, too.) + +He was a pig with no decision of mind. He could never choose a place +to lie for himself; but was so ready to follow any one else’s opinion, +that whatever position you took up he immediately recognised as the +best, the only site: and came and routed you out of it. Seeing how rare +shady patches of deck are in a calm, or dry patches in a stiff breeze, +this was a most infernal nuisance. One is so defenceless against big +pigs when lying on one’s back. + +The little black one could be a nuisance also, it is true--but that was +only from excess of friendliness. He hated to be left out of any party: +nay more, he hated lying on inanimate matter if a living couch was to +be found. + +On the north beach of Cape San Antonio it is possible to land a boat, +if you pick your spot. About fifty yards through the bushes there are a +couple of acres of open ground: cross this, and among some sharp coral +rocks in the scrub on the far side are two wells, the northernmost the +better of the two. + +So, being becalmed off the Mangrove Keys one morning, Jonsen sent a +boat on shore to get water. + +The heat was extreme. The ropes hung like dead snakes, the sails as +heavy as ill-sculptured drapery. The iron stanchion of the awning +blistered any hand that touched it. Where the deck was unsheltered, the +pitch boiled out of the seams. The children lay gasping together in the +small shade, the little black pig squealing anxiously till he found a +comfortable stomach to settle down on. + +The big white pig had not found them yet. + +From the silent shore came an occasional gun-shot. The water-party +were potting pigeons. The sea was like a smooth pampas of quicksilver: +so steady you could not split shore from reflection, till the casual +collision of a pelican broke the phantom. The crew were mending sails, +under the awning, with infinite slowness: all except one negro, who +straddled the bowsprit in his trousers, admiring his own grin in the +mirror beneath. The sun lit an iridescent glimmer on his shoulders: in +such a light even a negro could not be black. + +Emily was missing John badly: but the little black pig snuffled in +supreme content, his snout buried amicably in her armpit. + +When the boatload returned, they had other game besides pigeons and +grey land-crabs. They had stolen a goat from some lonely fisherman. + +It was just as they came up over the side that the big white pig +discovered the party under the awning, and prepared for the attack. But +the goat at that moment bounded nimbly from the bulwarks: and without +even stopping to look round, swallowed his chin and charged. He caught +the old pig full in the ribs, knocking his wind out completely. + +Then the battle began. The goat charged, the pig screamed and hustled. +Each time the goat arrived at him the pig yelled as if he was killed; +but each time the goat drew back the pig advanced towards him. The +goat, his beard flying like a prophet’s, his eyes crimson and his +scut as lively as a lamb’s at the teat, bounded in, bounded back into +the bows for a fresh run: but at each charge his run grew shorter and +shorter. The pig was hemming him in. + +Suddenly the pig gave a frightful squeal, chiefly in surprise at his +own temerity, and pounced. He had got the goat cornered against the +windlass: and for a few flashing seconds bit and trampled. + +It was a very chastened goat which was presently led off to his +quarters: but the children were prepared to love him for ever, for the +heroic bangs he had given the old tyrant. + + * * * * * + +But he was not entirely inhuman, that pig. That same afternoon, he was +lying on the hatch eating a banana. The ship’s monkey was swinging on a +loose tail of rope; and spotting the prize, swung further and further +till at last he was able to snatch it from between his very trotters. +You would never have thought that the immobile mask of a pig could wear +a look of such astonishment, such dismay, such piteous injury. + + + + +_Chapter 5_ + + +When Destiny knocks the first nail in the coffin of a tyrant, it is +seldom long before she knocks the last. + +It was the very next morning that the schooner, in the lightest of +airs, was sidling gently to leeward. The mate was at the wheel, +shifting his weight from foot to foot with that rhythmic motion many +steersmen affect, the better to get the feel of a finicky helm; and +Edward was teaching the captain’s terrier to beg, on the cabin-top. The +mate shouted to him to hang on to something. + +‘Why?’ said Edward. + +‘_Hang on!_’ cried the mate again, spinning the wheel over as fast as +he could to bring her into the wind. + +The howling squall took her, through his promptness, almost straight +in the nose; or it would have carried all away. Edward clung to the +skylight. The terrier skidded about alarmedly all over the cabin-top, +slipped off onto the deck, and was kicked by a dashing sailor clean +through the galley door. But not so that poor big pig, who was taking +an airing on deck at the time. Overboard he went, and vanished to +windward, his snout (sometimes) sticking up manfully out of the water. +God, Who had sent him the goat and the monkey for a sign, now required +his soul of him. Overboard, too, went the coops of fowls, three +new-washed shirts, and--of all strange things to get washed away--the +grind-stone. + +Up out of his cabin appeared the captain’s shapeless brown head, +cursing the mate as if it was _he_ who had upset the apple-cart. He +came up without his boots, in grey wool socks, and his braces hanging +down his back. + +‘Get below!’ muttered the mate furiously. ‘I can manage her!’ + +The captain did not, however: still in his socks, he came up on deck +and took the wheel out of the mate’s hand. The latter went a dull +brick-red: walked for’ard: then aft again: then went below and shut +himself in his cabin. + +In a few moments the wind had combed up some quite hearty waves: then +it blew their tops off, and so flattened the sea out again, a sea that +was black except for little whipt-up fountains of iridescent foam. + +‘Get my boots!’ bellowed Jonsen at Edward. + +Edward dashed down the companion with alacrity. It is a great moment, +one’s first order at sea; especially when it comes in an emergency. He +reappeared with a boot in each hand, and a lurch flung him boots and +all at the captain’s feet. ‘Never carry things in both hands,’ said the +captain, smiling pleasantly. + +‘Why?’ asked Edward. + +‘Keep one hand to lay hold with.’ + +There was a pause. + +‘Some day I will teach you the three Sovereign Rules of Life.’ He shook +his head meditatively. ‘They are very wise. But not yet. You are too +young.’ + +‘Why not?’ asked Edward. ‘When shall I be old enough?’ + +The captain considered, going over the Rules in his head. + +‘When you know which is windward and which is leeward, then I will +teach you the first rule.’ + +Edward made his way forward, determined to qualify as soon as he +possibly could. + +When the worst of the squall was over they got the advantage of it, the +schooner lying over lissomly and spinning along like a race-horse. The +crew were in great spirits--chaffing the carpenter, who, they declared, +had thrown his grind-stone overboard as a lifebuoy for the pig. + +The children were in good spirits also. Their shyness was all gone now. +The schooner lying over as she did, her wet deck made a most admirable +toboggan-slide; and for half an hour they tobogganed happily on their +bottoms from windward to leeward, shrieking with joy, fetching up in +the lee-scuppers, which were mostly awash, and then climbing from thing +to thing to the windward bulwarks raised high in the air, and so all +over again. + +Throughout that half hour, Jonsen at the wheel said not a single word. +But at last his pent-up irritation broke out: + +‘Hi! You! Stop that!’ + +They gazed at him in astonishment and disillusion. + +There is a period in the relations of children with any new grown-up +in charge of them, the period between first acquaintance and the first +reproof, which can only be compared to the primordial innocence of +Eden. Once a reproof has been administered, this can never be recovered +again. + +Jonsen now had done it. + +But he was not content with that--he was still bursting with rage: + +‘Stop it! Stop it, I tell you!’ + +(They had already done so, of course.) + +The whole unreasonableness, the monstrousness of the imposition of +these brats on his ship suddenly came over him, and summed itself up in +a single symbol: + +‘If you go and wear holes in your drawers, do you think _I_ am going to +mend them?--Lieber Gott! What do you think I am, eh? What do you think +this ship is? What do you think we all are? To mend your drawers for +you, eh? _To mend ... your ... drawers?_’ + +There was a pause, while they all stood thunderstruck. + +But even now he had not finished: + +‘Where do you think you’ll get new ones, eh?’ he asked, in a voice +explosive with rage. Then he added, with an insulting coarseness of +tone: ‘And I’ll not have you going about my ship without them! See?’ + +Scarlet to the eyes with outrage they retreated to the bows. They +could hardly believe so unspeakable a remark had crossed human lips. +They assumed an air of lightness, and talked together in studied loud +voices: but their joy was dashed for the day. + +So it was that--small as a man’s hand--a spectre began to show over +their horizon: the suspicion at last that this was _not_ all according +to plan, that they might even not be wanted. For a while their actions +showed the unhappy wariness of the uninvited guest. + +Later in the afternoon, Jonsen, who had not spoken again, but looked +from time to time acutely miserable, was still at the wheel. The mate +had shaved himself and put on shore clothes, as a parable: he now +appeared on deck: pretended not to see the captain, but strolled like a +passenger up to the children and entered into conversation with them. + +‘If I’m not fit to steer in foul weather, I’m not fit to steer in +fair!’ he muttered, but without glancing at the captain. ‘He can take +the helum all day and night, for all the help _I’ll_ give him!’ + +The captain appeared equally not to see the mate. He looked quite ready +to take both watches till kingdom come. + +‘If _he’d_ been at the wheel when that squall struck us,’ said the mate +under his voice but with biting passion, ‘he’d have lost the ship! He’s +no more eye for a squall coming than a sucker-fish! And he knows it, +too: that’s what makes him go on this way!’ + +The children did not answer. It shocked them deeply to have to see +a grown-up, a should-be Olympian, displaying his feelings. In exact +opposition to the witnesses at the Transfiguration, they felt it would +have been good for them to be almost anywhere rather than there. He +was totally unconscious of their discomfort, however: too self-occupied +to notice how they avoided catching his eye. + +‘Look! There’s a steamship!’ exclaimed Margaret, with much too bright a +brightness. + +The mate glowered at it. + +‘Aye, they’ll be the death of us, those steamers,’ he said. ‘Every year +there’s more of them. They’ll be using them for men-of-war next, and +then where’ll we be? Times are bad enough without steamers.’ + +But while he spoke he wore a preoccupied expression, as if he were more +concerned with what was going on at the back of his mind than with what +went on in the front. + +‘Did you ever hear about what happened when the first steamer put to +sea in the Gulf of Paria?’ he asked, however. + +‘No, what?’ asked Margaret, with an eagerness that even exceeded the +necessities of politeness in its falsity. + +‘She was built on the Clyde, and sailed over. (Nobody thought of using +steam for a long ocean voyage in those days.) The Company thought they +ought to make a to-do--to popularise her, so to speak. So the first +time she put to sea under her own power, they invited all the big-wigs +on board: all the Members of Assembly in Trinidad, and the Governor +and his Staff, and a Bishop. It was the Bishop what did the trick.’ + +His story died out: he became completely absorbed in watching sidelong +the effect of his bravado on the captain. + +‘Did what?’ asked Margaret. + +‘Ran ’em aground.’ + +‘But what did they let him steer for?’ asked Edward. ‘They might have +known he couldn’t!’ + +‘Edward! How dare you talk about a Bishop in that rude way!’ admonished +Rachel. + +‘It wasn’t the steamer he ran aground, sonny,’ said the mate: ‘it was a +poor innocent little devil of a pirate craft, that was just beating up +for the Boca Grande in a northerly breeze.’ + +‘Good for him!’ said Edward. ‘How did he do it?’ + +‘They were all sea-sick, being on a steamer for the first time: the way +she rolls, not like a decent sailing-vessel. There wasn’t a man who +could stay on deck--except the Bishop, and he just thrived on it. So +when the poor little pirate cut under her bows, and seen her coming up +in the eye of the wind, no sail set, with a cloud of smoke amidships +and an old Bishop bung in the middle of the smoke, and her paddles +making as much turmoil as a whale trying to scratch a flea in its ear, +he just beached his vessel and took to the woods. Never went to sea +again, he didn’t; started growing cocoa-nuts. But there was one poor +fish was in such a hurry he broke his leg, and they came ashore and +found him. When he saw the Bishop coming for him he started yelling out +it was the Devil.’ + +‘O-oh!’ gasped Rachel, horror-struck. + +‘How silly of him,’ said Edward. + +‘I don’t know so much!’ said the mate. ‘He wasn’t too far wrong! Ever +since that, they’ve been the death of our profession, Steam and the +Church ... what with steaming, and what with preaching, and steaming +and preaching.... Now that’s a funny thing,’ he broke off, suddenly +interested by what he was saying: ‘_Steam_ and the _Church_! What have +they got in common, eh? Nothing, you’d say: you’d think they’d fight +each other cat-and-dog: but no: they’re thick as two thieves ... thick +as thieves.--Not like in the days of Parson Audain.’ + +‘Who was he?’ asked Margaret helpfully. + +‘He was a right sort of a parson, he was, _yn wyr iawn_! He was Rector +of Roseau--oh, a long time back.’ + +‘Here! Come and take this wheel while I have a spell!’ grunted the +captain. + +‘I couldn’t well say _how_ long back,’ continued the mate in a loud, +unnatural, and now slightly exultant voice: ‘forty years or more.’ + +He began to tell the story of the famous Rector of Roseau: one of the +finest pathetic preachers of his age, according to contemporaries; +whose appearance was fine, gentle, and venerable, and who supplemented +his stipend by owning a small privateer. + +‘Here! Otto!’ called Jonsen. + +But the mate had a long recital of the parson’s misfortunes before him: +beginning with the capture of his schooner (while smuggling negroes to +Guadaloupe) by another privateer, from Nevis; and how the parson went +to Nevis, posted his rival’s name on the court-house door, and stood +on guard there with loaded pistols for three days in the hope the man +would come and challenge him. + +‘What, to fight a _duel_?’ asked Harry. + +‘But wasn’t he a clergyman, you said?’ asked Emily. + +But duels, it appeared, did not come amiss to this priest. He fought +thirteen altogether in his life, the mate told them: and on one +occasion, while waiting for the seconds to reload, he went up to his +opponent, suggested ‘just a little something to fill in time, good +sir’--and knocked him flat with his fist. + +This time, however, his enemy lay low: so he fitted out a second +schooner, and took command of her, week-days, himself. His first quarry +was an apparently harmless Spanish merchantman: but she suddenly opened +fourteen masked gun-ports and it was he who had to surrender. All his +crew were massacred but himself and his carpenter, who hid behind a +water-cask all night. + +‘But I don’t understand,’ said Margaret: ‘was he a pirate?’ + +‘Of course he was!’ said Otto the mate. + +‘Then _why_ did you say he was a clergyman?’ pursued Emily. + +The mate looked as puzzled as she did. ‘Well, he was Rector of Roseau, +wasn’t he? And B.A., B.D.? Anyway, he was Rector until the new Governor +listened to some cock-and-bull story against him, and made him resign. +He was the best preacher they ever had--he’d have been a Bishop one +day, if some one hadn’t slandered him to the Governor!’ + +‘Otto!’ called the captain in a conciliatory voice. ‘Come over here, I +want to speak to you.’ + +But the deaf and exulting mate had plenty of his story still to run: +how Audain now turned trader, and took a cargo of corn to San Domingo, +and settled there: how he challenged two black generals to a duel, and +shot them both, and Christophe threatened to hang him if they died. +But the parson (having little faith in Domingan doctors) escaped by +night in an open boat and went to St. Eustatius. There he found many +religions but no ministers; so he recommenced clergyman of every kind: +in the morning he celebrated a mass for the Catholics, then a Lutheran +service in Dutch, then Church of England matins: in the evening he sang +hymns and preached hell-fire to the Methodists. Meanwhile his wife, who +had more tranquil tastes, lived at Bristol: so he now married a Dutch +widow, resourcefully conducting the ceremony himself. + +‘But I _don’t_ understand!’ said Emily despairingly: ‘Was he a real +clergyman?’ + +‘Of course he wasn’t,’ said Margaret. + +‘But he couldn’t have married himself _himself_ if he wasn’t,’ argued +Edward. ‘Could he?’ + +The mate heaved a sigh. + +‘But the English Church aren’t like that nowadays,’ he said. ‘They’re +all against us.’ + +‘I should think not, indeed!’ pronounced Rachel slowly, in a deep +indignant voice. ‘He was a very wicked man!’ + +‘He was a most respectable person,’ replied the mate severely, ‘and a +_wonderful_ pathetic preacher!--You may take it they were chagrined at +Roseau, when they heard St. Eustatius had got him!’ + +Captain Jonsen had lashed the wheel, and came up, his face piteous with +distress. + +‘Otto! Mein Schatz...!’ he began, laying his great bear’s-arm round the +mate’s neck. Without more ado they went below together, and a sailor +came aft unbidden and took the wheel. + + * * * * * + +Ten minutes later the mate reappeared on deck for a moment, and sought +out the children. + +‘What’s the captain been saying to you?’ he asked. ‘Flashed out at you +about something, did he?’ + +He took their complex, uncomfortable silence for assent. + +‘Don’t you take too much notice of what he says,’ he went on. ‘He +flashes out like that sometimes; but a minute after he could eat +himself, fair eat himself!’ + +The children stared at him in astonishment: what on earth was he trying +to say? + +But he seemed to think he had explained his mission fully: turned, and +once more went below. + + * * * * * + +For hours a merry but rather tedious hubble-bubble, suggesting liquor, +was heard ascending from the cabin skylight. As evening drew on, the +breeze having dropped away almost to a calm, the steersman reported +that both Jonsen and Otto were now fast asleep, their heads on each +other’s shoulders across the cabin table. As he had long forgotten what +the course was, but had been simply steering by the wind, and there was +now no wind to steer by, he (the steersman) concluded the wheel could +get on very well without him. + +The reconciliation of the captain and the mate deserved to be +celebrated by all hands with a blind. + +A rum-cask was broached: and the common sailors were soon as +unconscious as their betters. + +Altogether this was one of the unpleasantest days the children had +spent in their lives. + +When dawn came, every one was still pretty incapable, and the neglected +vessel drooped uncertainly. Jonsen, still rather unsteady on his feet, +his head aching and his mind Napoleonic but muddled, came on deck and +looked about him. The sun had come up like a searchlight: but it was +about all there was to be seen. No land was anywhere in sight, and the +sea and sky seemed very uncertain as to the most becoming place to +locate their mutual firmament. It was not till he had looked round and +round a fair number of times that he perceived a vessel, up in what by +all appearances must be sky, yet not very far distant. + +For some little while he could not remember what it is a pirate +captain does when he sees a sail; and he felt in no mood to overtax his +brain by trying to. But after a time it came back unbidden--one gives +chase. + +‘Give chase!’ he ordered solemnly to the morning air: and then went +below again and roused the mate, who roused the crew. + +No one had the least idea where they were, or what kind of a craft +this quarry might be: but such considerations were altogether too +complicated for the moment. As the sun parted further from his +reflection a breeze sprang up: so the sails were trimmed after a +fashion, and chase was duly given. + +In an hour or two, as the air grew clearer, it was plain their quarry +was a merchant brig, not too heavily laden, and making a fair pace: a +pace, indeed, which in their incompetently trimmed condition they were +finding it pretty difficult to equal. Jonsen shuffled rapidly up and +down the deck like a shuttle, passing his woof backwards and forwards +through the real business of the ship. He was hugging himself with +excitement, trying to evolve some crafty scheme of capture. The chase +went on: but noon passed, the distance between the two vessels was +barely, if at all, lessened. Jonsen, however, was much too optimistic +to realise this. + +It used to be a common device of pirates when in chase of a vessel to +tow behind them a spare topmast, or some other bulky object. This would +act as a drogue, or brake: and the pursued, seeing them with all sail +set apparently doing their utmost, would under-estimate their powers of +speed. Then when night fell the pirate would haul the spar on board, +overtake the other vessel rapidly, and catch it unprepared. + +There were several reasons why this device was unsuitable to the +present occasion. First and most obviously, it was doubtful whether, in +their present condition, they were capable of overtaking the brig at +all, leaving such handicaps altogether out of consideration. A second +was that the brig showed no signs of alarm. She was proceeding on her +voyage at her natural pace, quite unaware of the honour they were doing +her. + +However, Captain Jonsen was nothing if not a crafty man; and during +the afternoon he gave orders for a spare spar to be towed behind as I +have described. The result was that the schooner lost ground rapidly: +and when night fell they were at least a couple of miles further from +the brig than they had been at dawn. When night fell, of course, they +hauled the spar on board and prepared for the last act. They followed +the brig by compass through the hours of darkness, without catching +sight of her. When morning came, all hands crowded expectantly at the +rail. + +But the brig was vanished. The sea was as bare as an egg. + +If they were lost before, now they were double-lost. Jonsen did +not know where he might be within two hundred miles; and being no +sextant-man, but an incurable dead-reckoner, he had no means of finding +out. This did not worry him very greatly, however, because sooner or +later one of two things might happen: he might catch sight of some bit +of land he recognised, or he might capture some vessel better informed +than himself. Meanwhile, since he had no particular destination, one +bit of sea was much the same to him as another. + +The piece he was wandering in, however, was evidently out of the main +track of shipping; for days went by, and weeks, without his coming even +so near to effecting a capture as he had been in the case of the brig. + +But Captain Jonsen was not sorry to be out of the public eye for a +while. Before he had left Santa Lucia, news had reached him of the +_Clorinda_ putting into Havana; and of the fantastic tale Marpole +was telling. The ‘twelve masked gun-ports’ had amused him hugely, +since he was altogether without artillery: but when he heard Marpole +accused him of murdering the children--Marpole, that least reputable +of skunks--his anger had broken out in one of its sudden explosions. +For it was unthinkable--during those first few days--that he would ever +touch a hair of their heads, or even speak a cross word to them. They +were still a sort of holy novelty then: it was not till their shyness +had worn off that he had begun to regret so whole-heartedly the failure +of his attempt to leave them behind with the Chief Magistrate’s wife. + + + + +_Chapter 6_ + + +The weeks passed in aimless wandering. For the children, the lapse +of time acquired once more the texture of a dream: things ceased +happening: every inch of the schooner was now as familiar to them as +the _Clorinda_ had been, or Ferndale: they settled down quietly to +grow, as they had done at Ferndale, and as they would have done, had +there been time, on the _Clorinda_. + +And then an event did occur, to Emily, of considerable importance. She +suddenly realised who she was. + +There is little reason that one can see why it should not have happened +to her five years earlier, or even five later; and none, why it should +have come that particular afternoon. + +She had been playing houses in a nook right in the bows, behind the +windlass (on which she had hung a devil’s-claw as a door-knocker); and +tiring of it was walking rather aimlessly aft, thinking vaguely about +some bees and a fairy queen, when it suddenly flashed into her mind +that she was _she_. + +She stopped dead, and began looking over all of her person which +came within the range of eyes. She could not see much, except a +fore-shortened view of the front of her frock, and her hands when she +lifted them for inspection: but it was enough for her to form a rough +idea of the little body she suddenly realised to be hers. + +She began to laugh, rather mockingly. ‘Well!’ she thought, in effect: +‘Fancy _you_, of all people, going and getting caught like this!--You +can’t get out of it now, not for a very long time: you’ll have to go +through with being a child, and growing up, and getting old, before +you’ll be quit of this mad prank!’ + +Determined to avoid any interruption of this highly important +occasion, she began to climb the ratlines, on her way to her favourite +perch at the mast-head. Each time she moved an arm or a leg in this +simple action, however, it struck her with fresh amusement to find +them obeying her so readily. Memory told her, of course, that they +had always done so before: but before, she had never realised how +surprising this was. + +Once settled on her perch, she began examining the skin of her hands +with the utmost care: for it was _hers_. She slipped a shoulder out of +the top of her frock; and having peeped in to make sure she really was +continuous under her clothes, she shrugged it up to touch her cheek. +The contact of her face and the warm bare hollow of her shoulder gave +her a comfortable thrill, as if it was the caress of some kind friend. +But whether the feeling came to her through her cheek or her shoulder, +which was the caresser and which the caressed, that no analysis could +tell her. + +Once fully convinced of this astonishing fact, that she was now Emily +Bas-Thornton (why she inserted the ‘now’ she did not know, for she +certainly imagined no transmigrational nonsense of having been any one +else before), she began seriously to reckon its implications. + +First, what agency had so ordered it that out of all the people in the +world who she might have been, she was this particular one, this Emily: +born in such-and-such a year out of all the years in Time, and encased +in this particular rather pleasing little casket of flesh? Had she +chosen herself, or had God done it? + +At this, another consideration: who was God? She had heard a terrible +lot about Him, always: but the question of His identity had been left +vague, as much taken for granted as her own. Wasn’t she perhaps God, +herself? Was it that she was trying to remember? However, the more she +tried, the more it eluded her. (How absurd, to disremember such an +important point as whether one was God or not!) So she let it slide: +perhaps it would come back to her later. + +Secondly, why had all this not occurred to her before? She had been +alive for over ten years now, and it had never once entered her head. +She felt like a man who suddenly remembers at eleven o’clock at night, +sitting in his own arm-chair, that he had accepted an invitation to go +out to dinner that night. There is no reason for him to remember it +now: but there seems equally little why he should not have remembered +it in time to keep his engagement. How could he have sat there all the +evening without being disturbed by the slightest misgiving? How could +Emily have gone on being Emily for ten years without once noticing this +apparently obvious fact? + +It must not be supposed that she argued it all out in this ordered, +but rather long-winded fashion. Each consideration came to her in a +momentary flash, quite innocent of words: and in between her mind +lazed along, either thinking of nothing or returning to her bees and +the fairy queen. If one added up the total of her periods of conscious +thought, it would probably reach something between four and five +seconds; nearer five, perhaps; but it was spread out over the best part +of an hour. + +Well then, granted she was Emily, what were the consequences, besides +enclosure in that particular little body (which now began on its +own account to be aware of a sort of unlocated itch, most probably +somewhere on the right thigh), and lodgment behind a particular pair of +eyes? + +It implied a whole series of circumstances. In the first place, there +was her family, a number of brothers and sisters from whom, before, she +had never entirely dissociated herself; but now she got such a sudden +feeling of being a discrete person that they seemed as separate from +her as the ship itself. However, willy-nilly she was almost as tied to +them as she was to her body. And then there was this voyage, this ship, +this mast round which she had wound her legs. She began to examine it +with almost as vivid an illumination as she had studied the skin of her +hands. And when she came down from the mast, what would she find at the +bottom? There would be Jonsen, and Otto, and the crew: the whole fabric +of a daily life which up to now she had accepted as it came, but which +now seemed vaguely disquieting. What was going to happen? Were there +disasters running about loose, disasters which her rash marriage to the +body of Emily Thornton made her vulnerable to? + +A sudden terror struck her: did any one know? (Know, I mean, that she +was some one in particular, Emily--perhaps even God--not just any +little girl.) She could not tell why, but the idea terrified her. +It would be bad enough if they should discover she was a particular +person--but if they should discover she was God! At all costs she must +hide _that_ from them.--But suppose they knew already, had simply been +hiding it from her (as guardians might from an infant king)? In that +case, as in the other, the only thing to do was to continue to behave +as if she did not know, and so outwit them. + +But if she was God, why not turn all the sailors into white mice, or +strike Margaret blind, or cure somebody, or do some other Godlike act +of the kind? Why should she hide it? She never really asked herself +why: but instinct prompted her strongly of the necessity. Of course, +there was the element of doubt (suppose she had made a mistake, and +the miracle missed fire): but more largely it was the feeling that she +would be able to deal with the situation so much better when she was a +little older. Once she had declared herself there would be no turning +back; it was much better to keep her godhead up her sleeve for the +present. + +Grown-ups embark on a life of deception with considerable misgiving, +and generally fail. But not so children. A child can hide the most +appalling secret without the least effort, and is practically secure +against detection. Parents, finding that they see through their child +in so many places the child does not know of, seldom realise that, if +there is some point the child really gives his mind to hiding, their +chances are nil. + +So Emily had no misgivings when she determined to preserve her secret, +and needed have none. + +Down below on the deck the smaller children were repeatedly crowding +themselves into a huge coil of rope, feigning sleep and then suddenly +leaping out with yelps of panic and dancing round it in consternation +and dismay. Emily watched them with that impersonal attention one gives +to a kaleidoscope. Presently Harry spied her, and gave a hail. + +‘Emilee-ee! Come down and play House-on-fire!’ + +At that, her normal interests momentarily revived. Her stomach as it +were leapt within her sympathetically toward the game. But it died in +her as suddenly; and not only died, but she did not even feel disposed +to waste her noble voice on them. She continued to stare without making +any reply whatever. + +‘Come on!’ shouted Edward. + +‘Come and play!’ shouted Laura. ‘Don’t be a pig!’ + +Then in the ensuing stillness Rachel’s voice floated up: + +‘Don’t call her, Laura, we don’t really want her.’ + + +ii + +But Emily was completely unaffected--only glad that for the present +they were all right by themselves. She was already beginning to feel +the charge of the party a burden. + +It had automatically devolved on her with the defection of Margaret. + +It was puzzling, this Margaret business. She could not understand it, +and it disturbed her. It dated back really to that night, about a week +ago, when she herself had so unaccountably bitten the captain. The +memory of her own extraordinary behaviour gave her now quite a little +shiver of alarm. + +Everybody had been very drunk that night, and making a terrible +racket--it was impossible to get to sleep. So at last Edward had asked +her to tell them a story. But she was not feeling ‘storyable,’ so +they had asked Margaret; all except Rachel, who had begged Margaret +not to, because she wanted to think, she said. But Margaret had been +very pleased at being asked, and had begun a very stupid story about a +princess who had lots and lots of clothes and was always beating her +servant for making mistakes and shutting him up in a dark cupboard. +The whole story, really, had been nothing but clothes and beating, and +Rachel had _begged_ her to stop. + +In the middle, a sort of rabble of sailors had come down the ladder, +very slowly and with much discussion. They stood at the bottom in a +knot, swaying a little and all turned inwards on one of their number. +It was so dark one could not see who this was. They were urging him to +do something--he hanging back. + +‘Oh, damn it!’ he cried in a thick voice. ‘Bring me a light, I can’t +see where dey are!’ + +It was the voice of the captain--but how altered! There was a sort of +suppressed excitement in it. Some one lit a lantern and held it up in +the middle. Captain Jonsen stood on his legs half like a big sack of +flour, half like a waiting tiger. + +‘What do you want?’ Emily had asked kindly. + +But Captain Jonsen stood irresolute, shifting his weight from foot to +foot as if he was steering. + +‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’ Rachel had piped, loudly and disapprovingly. + +But it was Margaret who had behaved most queerly. She had gone yellow +as cheese, and her eyes large with terror. She was shivering from head +to foot as if she had the fever. It was absurd. Then Emily remembered +how stupidly frightened Margaret had been the very first night on the +schooner. + +At that moment Jonsen had staggered up to Emily, and putting one hand +under her chin had begun to stroke her hair with the other. A sort of +blind vertigo seized her: she caught his thumb and bit as hard as she +could: then, terrified at her own madness, dashed across the hold to +where the other children were gathered in a wondering knot. + +‘What _have_ you done!’ cried Laura, pushing her away angrily: ‘Oh you +wicked girl, you’ve hurt him!’ + +Jonsen was stamping about, swearing and sucking his thumb. Edward had +produced a handkerchief, and between them all they had managed to tie +it up. He stood staring at the bandaged member for a few moments: shook +his head like a wet retriever and retreated on deck, dang-danging under +his breath. Margaret had then been so sick they thought she must really +have caught fever, and they couldn’t get any sense out of her at all. + +As Emily, with her new-found consciousness, recapitulated the scene, it +was like re-reading a story in a book, so little responsibility did she +feel for the merely mechanical creature who had bitten the captain’s +thumb. Nor was she even very interested: it had been queer, but then +there was very little in life which didn’t seem queer, now. + +As for Jonsen, he and Emily had avoided each other ever since, by +mutual consent. She indeed had been in Coventry with everybody for +biting him; none of the other children would play with her all the +next day, and she recognised that she thoroughly deserved it--it was a +_mad_ thing to have done. And yet Jonsen, in avoiding her, had himself +more the air of being ashamed than angry ... which was unaccountable. + +But what interested her more was the curious way Margaret had gone on, +those next few days. + +For some time she had behaved very oddly indeed. At first she seemed +exaggeratedly frightened of all the men: but then she had suddenly +taken to following them about the deck like a dog--not Jonsen, it is +true, but Otto especially. Then suddenly she had departed from them +altogether and taken up her quarters in the cabin. The curious thing +was that now she avoided them all utterly, and spent all her time with +the sailors: and the sailors, for their part, seemed to take peculiar +pains not only not to let her speak to, but even not to let her be seen +by the other children. + +Now they hardly saw her at all: and when they did she seemed so +different, they hardly recognised her: though where the difference lay +it would be hard to say. + +Emily, from her perch at the mast-head, could just see the girl’s head +now, through the cabin skylight. Further forward, José had joined the +children at their game, and was crawling about on hands and knees with +all of them on his back--a fire-engine, of course, such as they had +seen in the illustrated magazines from England. + +‘Emily!’ called Harry: ‘Come and play!’ + +Down with a rush fell the curtain on all Emily’s cogitations. In a +second she was once more a happy little animal--_any_ happy little +animal. She slid down the shrouds like a real sailor, and in no time +was directing the fire-fighting operations as imperiously as any other +of this brigade of superintendents. + + +iii + +That night in the Parliament of Beds there was raised at last a +question which you may well be surprised had not been raised before. +Emily had just reduced her family to silence by sheer ferocity, when +Harry’s rapid, nervous, lisping voice piped up: + +‘Emily, Emily may I ask you a question, please?’ + +‘Go to sleep!’ + +There was a moment’s whispered confabulation. + +‘But it’s very important, please, and we all want to know.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘Are these people pirates?’ + +Emily sat bolt upright with astonishment. + +‘Of course not!’ + +Harry sounded rather crestfallen. + +‘I don’t know ... I just thought they might....’ + +‘But they _are_!’ declared Rachel firmly. ‘Margaret told me!’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Emily. ‘There aren’t any pirates nowadays.’ + +‘Margaret said,’ went on Rachel, ‘that time we were shut up on the +other ship she heard one of the sailors calling out pirates had come on +board.’ + +Emily had an inspiration. + +‘No, you silly, he must have said _pilots_.’ + +‘What are pilots?’ asked Laura. + +‘They Come On Board,’ explained Emily, lamely. ‘Don’t you remember that +picture in the dining-room at home, called The Pilot Comes On Board?’ + +Laura listened with rapt attention. The explanation of what pilots were +was not very illuminating; but then she did not know what pirates were +either. So you might think the whole discussion meant very little to +her, but there you would be wrong: the question was evidently important +to the older ones, therefore she gave her whole mind to listening. + +The pirate heresy was considerably shaken. How could they say for +certain which word Margaret had really heard? Rachel changed sides. + +‘They can’t be pirates,’ she said. ‘Pirates are wicked.’ + +‘Couldn’t we ask them?’ Edward persisted. + +Emily considered. + +‘I don’t think it would be very polite.’ + +‘I’m sure they wouldn’t mind,’ said Edward. ‘They’re awfully decent.’ + +‘I think they mightn’t like it,’ said Emily. In her heart she was +afraid of the answer; and if they were pirates, it would here again be +better to pretend not to know. + +‘I know!’ she said. ‘Shall I ask the Mouse with the Elastic Tail?’ + +‘Yes, do!’ cried Laura. It was months since the oracle had been +consulted; but her faith was still perfect. + +Emily communed with herself in a series of short squeaks. + +‘He says they are _Pilots_,’ she announced. + +‘Oh,’ said Edward deeply: and they all went to sleep. + + + + +_Chapter 7_ + + +Edward often thought, as he strode scowling up and down the deck by +himself, that this was exactly the life for him. What a lucky boy he +was, to have tumbled into it by good fortune, instead of having to run +away to sea as most other people did! In spite of the White Mouse’s +pronouncement (whom secretly he had long ceased to believe in), he had +no doubt that this was a pirate vessel: and no doubt either that when +presently Jonsen was killed in some furious battle the sailors would +unanimously elect him their captain. + +The girls were a great nuisance. A ship was no place for them. When he +was captain he would have them marooned. + +Yet there had been a time when he had wished he was a girl himself. +‘When I was young,’ he once confided to the admiring Harry, ‘I used to +think girls were bigger and stronger than boys. Weren’t I silly?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Harry. + +Harry did not confide it to Edward, but he also, _now_, wished he was a +girl. It was not for the same reason: younger than Edward, he was still +at the amorous age; and because he found the company of girls almost +magically pleasing, fondly imagined it would be even more so if he were +one himself. He was always finding himself, for being a boy, shut out +from their most secret councils. Emily of course was too old to count +as female in his eyes: but to Rachel and Laura he was indiscriminately +devoted. When Edward was captain, he would be mate: and when he +imagined this future, it consisted for the most part in rescuing +Rachel--or Laura, _n’importe_--from new and complicated dangers. + +They were all by now just as much at home on the schooner as they had +been in Jamaica. Indeed, nothing very continuous was left of Ferndale +for the youngest ones: only a number of luminous pictures of quite +unimportant incidents. Emily of course remembered most things, and +could put them together. The death of Tabby, for instance: she would +never forget that as long as she lived. She could recollect, too, that +Ferndale had tumbled down flat. And her Earthquake: she had been in an +earthquake, and could remember every detail of _that_. Had it been as a +result of the earthquake that Ferndale had tumbled down? That sounded +likely. There had been quite a high wind at that time, too.... She +could remember that they had all been bathing when the earthquake had +come, and then had ridden somewhere on ponies. But they had been _in_ +the house when it fell down: she was pretty sure of that. It was all +a little difficult to join up.--Then, when was it she had found that +negro village? She could remember with a startling clearness bending +down and feeling among the bamboo roots for the bubbling spring, then +looking round and seeing the black children scampering away up the +clearing. That must have been years and years ago. But clearer than +everything was that awful night when Tabby had stalked up and down the +room, his eyes blazing and his fur twitching, his voice melodious with +tragedy, until those horrible black shapes had flown in through the +fanlight and savaged him out into the bush. The horror of the scene was +even increased because it had once or twice come back to her in dreams, +and because when she dreamt it (though it seemed the same) there was +always some frightful difference. One night (and that was the worst of +all) she had rushed out to rescue him, when her darling faithful Tabby +had come up to her with the same horrible look on his face the captain +had worn that time she bit his thumb, and had chased her down avenues +and avenues and avenues and avenues of cabbage-palms, with Exeter House +at the end of them never getting any nearer however much she ran. She +knew, of course, it was not the real Tabby, but a sort of diabolic +double: and Margaret had sat up an orange tree jeering at her, gone as +black as a negro. + +One of the drawbacks of life at sea was the cockroaches. They were +winged. They infested the fore-hold, and the smell they made was +horrible. One had to put up with them. But one didn’t do much washing +at sea: and it was a common thing to wake up in the morning and find +the brutes had gnawed the quick from under one’s nails, or gnawed all +the hard skin off the soles of one’s feet, so that one could hardly +walk. Anything in the least greasy or dirty they set on at once. +Button-holes were their especial delight. One did little washing: fresh +water was too valuable, and salt water had practically no effect. +From handling tarry ropes and greasy ironwork their hands would have +disgraced a slum-child. There is a sailor saying which includes a peck +of dirt in the mariner’s monthly rations: but the children on the +schooner must have often consumed far more. + +Not that it was a dirty ship--the fo’c’sle probably was, but the +Nordicism of captain and mate kept the rest looking clean enough. But +even the cleanest-looking ship is seldom clean to the touch. Their +clothes José washed occasionally with his own shirt: and in that +climate they were dry again by the morning. + +Jamaica had faded into the past: England, to which they had supposed +they were going, and of which a very curious picture had formerly +been built up in their minds by their parents’ constant references to +it, receded again into the mists of myth. They lived in the present, +adapted themselves to it, and might have been born in a hammock and +christened at a binnacle before they had been there many weeks. They +seemed to have no natural fear of heights, and the farther they were +above the deck, the happier. On a calm day Edward used to hang by his +knees from the cross-trees in order to feel the blood run into his +head. The flying-jib, too, which was usually down, made an admirable +cocoon for hide-and-seek: one took a firm grip of the hanks and +robands, and swathed oneself in the canvas. Once, suspecting Edward was +hidden there, instead of going out on the jib-boom to look, the other +children cast off the down-haul and then all together gave a great tug +at the halyard which nearly pitched him into the sea. The shark myth +is greatly exaggerated: it is untrue, for instance, that they can take +a leg clean off at the hip--their bite is a tearing one, not a clean +cut: and a practised bather can keep them off easily with a welt on +the nose each time they turn over to strike[1]: but all the same, +once overboard there would have been little hope for a small boy like +Edward: and a severe wigging they all got for their prank. + +Often several of those thick, rubber-like protuberances would follow +the vessel for hours--perhaps in the hope of just some such antic. + +Sharks were not without their uses, however: it is well known that +Catch a Shark Catch a Breeze, so when a breeze was needed the sailors +baited a big hook and presently hauled one on board with the winch. The +bigger he was, the better breeze was hoped for: and his tail was nailed +to the jib-boom. One day they got a great whacking fellow on board, +and having cut off his jaw some one heaved it into the ship’s latrine +(which no one was so lubberly as to use for its proper purpose) and +thought no more about it. One wildish night, however, old José did go +there, and sat full on that wicked _cheval de frise_. He yelled like +a madman: and the crew were better pleased than they had been with +any joke that year, and even Emily thought if only it had been less +improper how funny it would have been. It would certainly have puzzled +an archæologist, faced with José’s mummy, to guess how he came by those +curious scars. + +The ship’s monkey also added a lot to the ship’s merriment. One day +some sucker-fish had fixed themselves firmly to the deck, and he +undertook to dislodge them. After a few preliminary tugs, he braced +three legs and his tail against the deck and lunged like a madman. +But they would not budge. The crew were standing round in a ring, and +he felt his honour was at stake: somehow, they _must_ be removed. So, +disgusting though they must have tasted to a vegetarian, he set to and +ate them, right down to the sucker, and was loudly applauded. + +Edward and Harry often talked over how they would distinguish +themselves in the next engagement. Sometimes they would rehearse it: +storm the galley with uncouth shouts, or spring into the main rigging +and order every one to be thrown into the sea. Once, as they went into +battle, + +‘I am armed with a sword and a pistol!’ chanted Edward: + +‘And I am armed with a key and half a whist-le!’ chanted the more +literal Harry. + +They took care to hold those rehearsals when the real pirates were out +of the way: it was not so much that they feared the criticism of the +professional eye as that it was not yet openly recognised what they +were; and all the children shared Emily’s instinct that it was better +to pretend not to know--a sort of magical belief, at bottom. + +Although Laura and Rachel were thrown together a great deal, and were +all one goddess to Harry, their inner lives differed in almost every +respect. It was a matter of principle, as will have been noticed, for +them to disagree on every point: but it was a matter of nature too. +Rachel had only two activities. One was domestic. She was never happy +unless surrounded by the full paraphernalia of a household: she left +houses and families wherever she went. She collected bits of oakum and +the moultings of a worn-out mop, wrapped them in rags and put them to +sleep in every nook and cranny. _Guai_, who woke one of her twenty or +thirty babies--worse still, should he clear it away! She could even +summon up maternal feelings for a marline-spike, and would sit up +aloft rocking it in her arms and crooning. The sailors avoided walking +underneath: for such an infant, if dropped from a height, will find its +way through the thickest skull (an accident which sometimes befalls +unpopular captains). + +Further, there was hardly an article of ship’s use, from the windlass +to the bosun’s chair, but she had metamorphosed it into some sort of +furniture: a table or a bed or a lamp or a tea-set: and marked it as +her property: and what she had marked as her property no one might +touch--if she could prevent it. To parody Hobbes, she claimed as her +own whatever she had mixed her imagination with; and the greater +part of her time was spent in angry or tearful assertions of her +property-rights. + +Her other interest was moral. She had an extraordinary vivid, _simple_ +sense, that child, of Right and Wrong--it almost amounted to a +precocious ethical genius. Every action, her own or any one else’s, was +immediately judged good or bad, and uncompromisingly praised or blamed. +She was never in doubt. + +To Emily, Conscience meant something very different. She was still +only half aware of that secret criterion within her: but was terrified +of it. She had not Rachel’s clear divination: she never knew when she +might offend this inner harpy, Conscience, unwittingly: and lived in +terror of those brazen claws, should she ever let it be hatched from +the egg. When she felt its latent strength stir in its pre-natal sleep, +she forced her mind to other things, and would not even let herself +recognise her fear of it. But she knew, at the bottom of her heart she +_knew_, that one day some action of hers would rouse it, something +awful done quite unwittingly would send it raging round her soul like +a whirlwind. She might go weeks together in a happy unconsciousness, +she might have flashes of vision when she knew she was God Himself: but +at the same time she knew, beyond all doubt, in her innermost being, +that she was damned, that there never had been any one as wicked as her +since the world began. + +Not so Rachel: to her, Conscience was by no means so depressing +an affair. It was simply a comfortable mainspring of her life, +smooth-working, as pleasant as a healthy appetite. For instance, it was +now tacitly admitted that all these men were pirates. That is, they +were wicked. It therefore devolved on her to convert them: and she +entered on her plans for this without a shadow either of misgiving or +reluctance. Her conscience gave her no pain because it never occurred +to her as conceivable that she should do anything but follow its +dictates, or fail to see them clearly. She would try and convert these +people first: probably they would reform, but if they did not--well, +she would send for the police. Since either result was right, it +mattered not at all which Circumstance should call for. + +So much for Rachel. The inside of Laura was different indeed: +something vast, complicated, and nebulous that can hardly be put into +language. To take a metaphor from tadpoles, though legs were growing +her gills had not yet dropped off. Being nearly four years old, she +was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term +‘human’ a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: +and babies of course are not human--they are animals, and have a very +ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even +snakes: the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, +since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the +lower vertebrates. + +In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their +own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the +human mind. + +It is true they look human--but not so human, to be quite fair, as many +monkeys. + +Subconsciously, too, every one recognises they are animals--why else +do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the +human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a +less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely. + +Possibly a case might be made out that children are not human either: +but I should not accept it. Agreed that their minds are not just more +ignorant and stupider than ours, but differ in kind of thinking (are +_mad_, in fact): but one can, by an effort of will and imagination, +think like a child, at least in a partial degree--and even if one’s +success is infinitesimal it invalidates the case: while one can no more +think like a baby, in the smallest respect, than one can think like a +bee. + +How then can one begin to describe the inside of Laura, where the +child-mind lived in the midst of the familiar relics of the baby-mind, +like a Fascist in Rome? + +When swimming under water, it is a very sobering thing suddenly to look +a large octopus in the face. One never forgets it: one’s respect, yet +one’s feeling of the hopelessness of any real intellectual sympathy. +One is soon reduced to mere physical admiration, like any silly +painter, of the cow-like tenderness of the eye, of the beautiful and +infinitesimal mobility of that large and toothless mouth, which accepts +as a matter of course that very water against which you, for your +life’s sake, must be holding your breath. There he reposes in a fold of +rock, apparently weightless in the clear green medium but very large, +his long arms, suppler than silk, coiled in repose, or stirring in +recognition of your presence. Far above, everything is bounded by the +surface of the air, like a bright window of glass. Contact with a small +baby can conjure at least an echo of that feeling in those who are not +obscured by an uprush of maternity to the brain. + +Of course it is not really so cut-and-dried as all this; but often the +only way of attempting to express the truth is to build it up, like a +card-house, of a pack of lies. + +It was only in Laura’s inner mind, however, that these elaborate +vestiges of babyhood remained: outwardly she appeared fully a child--a +rather reserved, odd, and indeed rather captivating one. Her face was +not pretty, with its heavy eyebrows and reduced chin: but she had a +power of apt movement, the appropriate attitude for every occasion, +that was most striking. A child who can show her affection for you, +for instance, in the very way she plants her feet on the ground, +has a liberal gift of that bodily genius called charm. Actually, +this particular one was a rare gesture with her: nine-tenths of her +life being spent in her own head, she seldom had time to feel at all +strongly either for or against people. The feelings she thus expressed +were generally of a more impersonal kind, and would have fascinated +an admirer of the ballet: and it was all the more remarkable that she +_had_ developed a dog-like devotion to the reserved and coarse-looking +captain of the pirates. + +No one really contends that children have any insight into character: +their likings are mostly imaginative, not intuitive. ‘What do you think +I am?’ the exasperated ruffian had asked on a famous occasion. One +might well ask what Laura thought he was: and there is no means of +knowing. + + +ii + +Pigs grow quickly, quicker even than children: and much though the +latter altered in the first month on board, the little black porker +(whose name by the by was Thunder) altered even more. He soon grew to +such a size one could not possibly allow him to lie on one’s stomach +any more: so, as his friendliness did not diminish, the functions +were reversed, and it became a common thing to find one child, or a +whole bench of them, sitting on his scaly side. They grew very fond +of him indeed (especially Emily), and called him their Dear Love, +their Only Dear, their Own True Heart, and other names. But he had +only two things he ever said. When his back was being scratched he +enunciated an occasional soft and happy grunt; and that same phrase +(only in a different tone) had to serve for every other occasion and +emotion--except one. When a particularly heavy lot of children sat down +on him at once, he uttered the faintest ghost of a little moan, as +affecting as the wind in a very distant chimney, as if the air in him +was being squeezed out through a pinhole. + +One cannot wish for a more comfortable seat than an acquiescent pig. + +‘If I was the Queen,’ said Emily, ‘I should most certainly have a pig +for a throne.’ + +‘Perhaps she has,’ suggested Harry. + +‘He _does_ like being scratched,’ she added presently in a very +sentimental tone, as she rubbed his scurfy back. + +The mate was watching: + +‘I should think _you_’d like being scratched, if your skin was in that +condition!’ + +‘Oh how disGUSTing you are!’ cried Emily, delighted. + +But the idea took root. + +‘I don’t think I should kiss him quite so much if I was you,’ Emily +presently advised Laura, who was lying with her arms tight round his +neck and covering his briny snout with kisses from ring to ears. + +‘My pet! My love!’ murmured Laura, by way of indirect protest. + +The wily mate had foreseen that some estrangement would be necessary +if they were ever to have fresh pork served without salt tears. He +intended this to be the thin end of the wedge. But alas! Laura’s mind +was as humoursome an instrument to play as the Twenty-three-stringed +Lute. + +When dinner-time came, the children mustered for their soup and biscuit. + +They were not overfed on the schooner: they were given little that +is generally considered wholesome, or to contain vitamines (unless +these lurked in the aforesaid peck of dirt): but they seemed none the +worse. First the cook boiled the various non-perishable vegetables they +carried in a big pot together for a couple of hours. Then a lump of +salt beef from the cask forward, having been rinsed in a little fresh +water, was added, and allowed to simmer with the rest till it was just +cooked. Then it was withdrawn, and the captain and mate ate their soup +first and their meat afterwards, out of plates, like gentlemen. After +that, if it was a week-day, the meat was put to cool on the cabin +shelf, ready to warm up in to-morrow’s soup, and the crew and children +ate the liquor with biscuit: but if it was Sunday, the captain took the +lump of meat and with a benevolent air cut it up in small pieces, as if +indeed for a nursery, and mixed it up with the vegetables in the huge +wooden bowl out of which crew and children all dipped. It was a very +patriarchal way of feeding. + +Even at dinner Margaret did not join the others, but ate in the cabin; +though there were only two plates on the whole ship. Probably she used +the mate’s when he had finished. + +Laura and Rachel fought that day to tears over a particularly succulent +piece of yam. Emily let them. To make those two agree was a task she +was wise not to undertake. Besides, she was very busy over her own +dinner. Edward managed to silence them, however, by declaring in a most +terrible voice: ‘Shut up or I’ll SABRE you!’ + +Emily’s estrangement from the captain had reached by now a rather +uncomfortable stage. When these things are fresh and new the two +parties avoid meeting, and all is well: but after some days they are +apt to forget, find themselves on the point of chatting, and then +suddenly remember that they are not on speaking terms and have to +retire in confusion. Nothing can be more uncomfortable for a child. +The difficulty of effecting a reconciliation in this case was that +both parties felt wholly in the wrong. Each repented the impulse of a +momentary insanity, and neither had an inkling the other felt the same: +thus each waited for the other to show signs of forgiveness. Moreover, +while the captain had far the more serious reason for being ashamed of +himself, Emily was naturally far the more sensitive and concerned of +the two: so it about balanced. Thus, if Emily rushed blithely up to the +captain embracing a flying-fish, caught his eye and slunk round the +other side of the galley, he put it down to a permanent feeling of +condemnation and repulsion: blushed a deep purple and stared stonily at +his wrinkling mainsail--and Emily wondered if he was _never_ going to +forget that bitten thumb. + +But this afternoon things came to a head. Laura was trotting about +behind him, striking her attitudes. Edward had at last discovered which +was windward and which was leeward, and had come hot-foot to learn +the first of the Sovereign Rules of Life: and Emily, with one of her +wretched lapses of memory, was all agog at his elbow. + +Edward was duly catechised and passed. + +‘Dis is the first rule,’ said the captain: ‘_Never throw anything to +windward except hot water or ashes._’ + +Edward’s face developed exactly the look of bewilderment that was +intended. + +‘But _windward_ is ...’ he began: ‘I mean, wouldn’t they blow ...’ then +he stopped, wondering if he had got the terms the right way round after +all. Jonsen was delighted at the success of this ancient joke. Emily, +trying to stand on one leg, bewildered also, lost her balance and +clutched at Jonsen’s arm. He looked at her--they all looked at her. + +Much the best way of escaping from an embarrassing rencontre, when to +walk away would be an impossible strain on the nerves, is to retire in +a series of somersaults. Emily immediately started turning head over +heels up the deck. + +It was very difficult to keep direction, and the giddiness was +appalling; but she _must_ keep it up till she was out of sight, or die. + +Just then, Rachel, who was up the mainmast, dropped, for the first +time, her marline-spike. She uttered a terrible shriek--for what _she_ +saw was a baby falling to dash its brains out on the deck. + +Jonsen gave an ineffectual little grunt of alarm--men can never learn +to give a full-bodied scream like a woman. + +But Emily gave the most desperate yell of all, though several seconds +after the other two: for the wicked steel stood quivering in the deck, +having gouged a track through her calf on the way. Her wrought-up +nerves and sickening giddiness joined with the shock and pain to give a +heart-rending poignancy to her crying. Jonsen was by her in a second, +caught her up, and carried her, sobbing miserably, down into the cabin. +There sat Margaret, bending over some mending, her slim shoulders +hunched up, humming softly and feeling deadly ill. + +‘Get out!’ said Jonsen, in a low, brutal voice. Without a word or sign +Margaret gathered up her sewing and climbed on deck. + +Jonsen smeared some Stockholm tar on a rag, and bound up Emily’s leg +with more than a little skill, though the tar of course was agonising +to her. She had cried herself right out by the time he laid her in his +bunk. When she opened her streaming eyes and saw him bending over her, +nothing in his clumsy face but concern and an almost overpowering pity, +she was so full of joy at being at last forgiven that she reached up +her arms and kissed him. He sat down on the locker, rocking himself +backwards and forwards gently. Emily dozed for a few minutes: when she +woke up he was still there. + +‘Tell me about when you were little,’ she said. + +Jonsen sat on, silent, trying to project his unwieldy mind back into +the past. + +‘When I was a boy,’ he said at last, ‘it wasn’t thought lucky to grease +your own sea-boots. My Auntie used to grease mine before we went out +with the lugger.’ + +He paused for some time. + +‘We divided the fish up into six shares--one for the boat, and one for +each of us.’ + +That was all. But it was of the greatest interest to Emily, and she +shortly fell asleep again, supremely happy. + +So for several days the captain and mate had to share the latter’s +bunk, Box-and-Cox; Heaven knows what hole Margaret was banished to. +The gash in Emily’s leg was one which would take some time to heal. To +make things worse, the weather became very unsteady: when she was awake +she was all right, but if she fell asleep she began to roll about the +bunk, and then, of course, the pain waked her again; which soon reduced +her to a feverish and nervous condition, although the leg itself was +going on as well as could be expected. The other children, of course, +used to come and see her: but they did not enjoy it much, as there was +nothing to do down in the cabin, once the novelty of admittance to the +Holy Place had worn off. So their visits were perfunctory and short. +They must have had a high old time at night, however, by themselves in +the fore-hold, now that the cat was away. They looked like it, too, in +the mornings. + +Otto used sometimes to come and teach her to make fancy knots, and at +the same time pour out his grievances against the captain: though these +latter were always received with an uncomfortable silence. Otto was a +Viennese by birth, but had stowed away in a Danube barge when he was +ten years old, had taken to the sea, and thereafter generally served +in English ships. The only place since his childhood where he had ever +spent any considerable time on shore was Wales. For some years he had +sailed coastwise from the once-promising harbour of Portdinlleyn, +which is now practically dead: and so, as well as German, Spanish, and +English, he could talk Welsh fluently. It was not a long residence, but +at an impressionable age; and when he talked to Emily of his past it +was mostly of his life as a ‘boy’ on the slate-boats. Captain Jonsen +came of a Danish family settled on the Baltic coast, at Lübeck. He too +had spent most of his time on English ships. How or when he and Otto +had first met, or how they had drifted into the Cuban piracy business, +Emily never discovered. They had plainly been inseparable for many +years. She preferred letting them ramble on, to asking questions or +trying to fit things together: she had that sort of mind. + +When the knots palled, José sent her a beautiful crochet-hook he had +carved out of a beef bone: and by pulling threads out of a piece of +sail-cloth she was able to set to work to crochet doilies for the +cabin table. But I am afraid that she also drew a lot, till the whole +of the inside of the bunk was soon as thoroughly scribbled over as +a palæolithic cave. What the captain would say when he found out +was a consideration best postponed. The fun was to find knots, and +unevennesses in the paint, that looked like something; and then with a +pencil to make them look more like it--putting an eye in the walrus, or +supplying the rabbit with his missing ear. That is what artists call +having a proper feeling for one’s material. + +Instead of getting better the weather got worse: and the universe soon +became a very unstable place indeed: it became almost impossible to +crochet. She had to cling on to the side of the bunk all the time, to +prevent her leg getting banged. + +It was in this inconvenient weather, however, that the pirates chose +at last to make another capture. It turned out not a rich one: a small +Dutch steamer, taking a consignment of performing animals to one of Mr. +Barnum’s predecessors. The captain of the steamer, who was conceited +in a way that only certain Dutchmen _can_ be conceited, gave them a +lot of trouble, in spite of the fact that he had practically nothing +worth taking. He was a first-class sailor: but he was very fair, and +had no neck. In the end they had to tie him up, bring him on board the +schooner, and lay him on the cabin floor where Emily could keep an eye +on him. He reeked of some particularly nauseous brand of cigars that +made her head swim. + +The other children had played quite an important part in the capture. +They did far better as a badge of innocuousness than even the ‘ladies.’ +The steamer (little more than dressed-up sailing-vessels they were +then), thoroughly disgruntled at the weather, was wallowing about like +a porpoise, her decks awash and her funnel over one ear, so to speak: +so when a boat put out from the schooner, its departure cheered lustily +by Edward, Harry, Rachel, and Laura, though his pride might resent +it, the Dutchman never thought of suspecting this presumable offer of +assistance, and let them come on board. + +It was then he began to give trouble, and they had to remove him onto +the schooner. Their tempers were none too good on finding their booty +was a lion, a tiger, two bears, and a lot of monkeys: so it is quite +likely they were none too gentle with him in transit. + +The next thing was to discover whether the _Thelma_, like the +_Clorinda_, carried another, a secret cargo of greater value. They had +imprisoned all the crew, now, aft: so one by one they were brought up +on deck and questioned. But either there was no money on board, or +the crew did not know of it, or would not tell. Most of them, indeed, +appeared frightened enough to have sold their grandmothers: but some of +them simply laughed at the pirates’ bogey-bogey business, guessing they +drew the line at murder in cold blood, sober. + +What was done in each case was the same. When each man was finished +with he was sent forward and shut in the fo’c’sle: and before bringing +another up from aft one of the pirates would unmercifully belabour a +roll of sail-cloth with a cat-o’-nine-tails while another yelled like +the damned. Then a shot was fired in the air, and something thrown +overboard to make a splash. All this, of course, was to impress those +still down in the cabin awaiting their turns: and the pretence was +quite as effective as the reality could have been. But it did no good, +since probably there was no treasure to disclose. + +There was, however, a plentiful supply of Dutch spirits and liqueurs on +board: and these the pirates found a welcome change after so much West +Indian rum. + +After they had been drinking them for an hour or two Otto had a +brilliant idea. Why not give the children a circus? They had begged and +begged to be taken onto the steamer to see the animals. Well, why not +stage something really magnificent for them--a fight between the lion +and the tiger, for instance? + +No sooner said than done. The children, and every man who could be +spared, came onto the steamer, and took up positions at safe heights +in the rigging. The cargo-gaff was rigged, the hatch opened, and the +two iron cages, with their stale cat-like reek, were hauled up on deck. +Then the little Malay keepers, who kept twittering to each other in +their windy tones, were made to open them, that the two monarchs of the +jungle might come out and do battle. + +How they were to be got in again was a question that never occurred to +any one’s consideration. Yet it is generally supposed to be easier to +let tigers out of cages than to put them back. + +In this case, however, even when the cages were open, neither of the +beasts seemed very anxious to get out. They lay on the floor growling +(or groaning) slightly, but making no move except to roll their eyes. + +It was very unfortunate for poor Emily that she was missing all this, +laid by the leg in Jonsen’s stuffy cabin with the Dutch captain to +guard. + +When at first they had been left alone together he had tried to speak +to her: but unlike so many Dutchmen he did not know a word of English. +He could just move his head, and he kept turning his eyes first on a +very sharp knife which some idiot had dropped in a corner of the cabin +floor, then on Emily. He was asking her to get it for him, of course. + +But Emily was terrified of him. There is something much more +frightening about a man who is tied up than a man who is not tied up--I +suppose it is the fear he may get loose. + +The feeling of not being able to get out of the bunk and escape added +the true nightmare panic. + +Remember that he had no neck, and the cigar-reek. + +At last he must have caught the look of fear and disgust in her face, +where he had expected compassion. He began to act for himself. First +gently rocking his bound body from side to side, he set himself to roll. + +Emily screamed for help, beating with her fist on the bunk: but none +came. Even the sailors who were left on board were out of ear-shot: +they were straining all their attention to see what was happening on +the steamer that wallowed and heaved seventy yards away. There, one +of the pirates, greatly daring, had descended to the rail and begun +throwing belaying-pins at the cages, to rouse their occupants. If the +beasts so much as lashed their tails in response, however, he would +scuttle up any rope like a frightened mouse. Only the Malay keepers +remained permanently on deck, taking no notice: sitting on their heels +in a ring and crooning discordantly through their noses. Probably they +felt inside much as the lion and tiger did. + +After some minutes, however, the pirates grew bolder. Otto came right +up to one cage, and started poking the tiger’s ribs with a hand-spike. +But the poor beast was far too sea-sick to be roused even by that. +Gradually the whole crowd of the spectators descended onto the deck and +stood round, still not unprepared to bolt, while the drunk mate, and +even Captain Jonsen (who was perfectly sober), goaded and jeered. + +It was not surprising no one heard poor Emily, left alone in the cabin +with the terrible Dutchman. + +She screamed and screamed: but there was no awakening from _this_ +nightmare. + +By now he had managed to roll himself, in spite of the motion of the +vessel, almost within reach of the coveted knife. The veins on his +forehead stood out with his exertion and the stricture of his bonds. +His fingers were groping, behind his back, for the edge. + +Emily, beside herself with terror, suddenly became possessed by the +strength of despair. In spite of the agony it caused her leg she flung +herself out of the bunk, and just managed to seize the knife before he +could manœuvre his bound hands within reach of it. + +In the course of the next five seconds she had slashed and jabbed at +him in a dozen places: then, flinging the knife towards the door, +somehow managed to struggle back into the bunk. + +The Dutchman, bleeding rapidly, blinded with his own blood, lay still +and groaned. Emily, her own wound reopened, and overcome with pain and +terror, fainted. The knife, flung wildly, missed its aim and clattered +down the steps again onto the cabin floor: and the first witness of the +scene was Margaret, who presently peered down from the deck above, her +dulled eyes standing out from her small, skull-like face. + + * * * * * + +As for Jonsen and Otto, unable by other means to rouse the dormant +animals, they collected their men and with big levers managed to tilt +the cages, spilling the beasts out onto the deck. + +But not even so would they fight--or even show signs of resentment. As +they had lain and groaned in their cages, so they now lay and groaned +on the deck. + +They were small specimens of their kind, and emaciated by travel. Otto +with a sudden oath seized the tiger round its middle and hauled it +upright on its hind legs: Jonsen did the same by the more top-heavy +lion: and so the two principals to the duel faced each other, their +heads lolling over the arms of their seconds. + +But in the eyes of the tiger a slight ember of consciousness seemed +to smoulder. Suddenly it tautened its muscles: a slight effort, yet +it burst from the merely human grip of Otto like Samson from the new +ropes--nearly dislocated his arms before he had time to let go. +Quicker than eye could see, it had cuffed him, rending half his face. +Tigers are no plaything. Jonsen dropped the huge bulk of the lion +on top of it, and escaped with Otto through an open door: while the +pirates, tumbling over each other like people in a burning theatre, +struggled to get back in the rigging. + +The lion rolled clear. The tiger, lurching unsteadily, crept back into +its cage. The keening Malays took no notice of the whole scene. + +And yet, what a scene it had been! + +But now the heroic circus was over. Chastened, bruised by each other in +their panic, the drunken pirates helped the mate into the first of the +two boats, and pulling helter-skelter in the choppy sea, returned to +the schooner. One by one they climbed the rail and vaulted on deck. + +Sailors have keen noses. They smelt blood at once, and crowded round +the companion-way: where Margaret still sat, as if numb, on the top +step. + +Emily lay in the bunk below, her eyes shut--conscious again, but her +eyes shut. + +The Dutch captain they could see on the floor, stretched in a pool of +blood. ‘_But, Gentlemen, I have a wife and children!_’ he suddenly said +in Dutch, in a surprised and gentle tone: then died, not so much of +any mortal wound as of the number of superficial gashes he had received. + + * * * * * + +It was plainly Margaret who had done it--killed a bound, defenceless +man, for no reason at all; and now sat watching him die, with her dull, +meaningless stare. + + + + +_Chapter 8_ + + +The contempt they already felt for Margaret, their complete lack of +pity in her obvious illness and misery, had been in direct proportion +to the childhood she had belied. + +This crime would have seemed to them grave on the part of a grown +man, in its unrelieved wantonness: but done by one of her years, and +nurture, it was unspeakable. She was lifted by the arms from the stair +where she still sat, and without a moment’s hesitation (other than that +resulting from too many helping hands) was dropped into the sea. + +But yet the expression of her face, as--like the big white pig in the +squall--she vanished to windward, left a picture in Otto’s mind he +never forgot. She was, after all, his affair. + +The Dutchman’s body was fetched up on deck. Captain Jonsen went below: +and once bent over poor little Emily. She only screwed up her eyes +tighter, when she felt his hot breath on her face. She did not open +them till everybody had quite gone--and shut them again when presently +José came to swab the cabin floor. + + * * * * * + +The second boat, bringing back the rest of the crew and the four +children, almost ran into Margaret before they saw her. She was +swimming desperately, but in complete silence: her hair now plastered +across her eyes and mouth, now floating out on the water as her +head went under. They lifted her into the boat and set her in the +stern-sheets with the other children. So it was they found themselves +together again. + +In her sopping condition, the others naturally gave her elbow-room: but +still, she was among them. They sat and stared at her, their eyes very +wide and serious, but without speaking. Margaret, her teeth chattering +with exhaustion, tried ineffectually to wring out the hem of her frock. +She did not speak either: but nevertheless it was not long before both +she and the other children felt a sort of thaw setting in between them. + +As to the oarsmen, they never troubled their heads as to how she came +in the water. They supposed she had accidentally slipped over the side: +but were not particularly interested, especially as they had their work +cut out manœuvring round to the schooner’s lee and clambering on board. +There was a tremendous pow-wow going on aft, so that no one noticed +them arrive. + +Once on board, Margaret went straight forward as of old, climbed +down the ladder into the fore-hold and undressed, the other children +watching her every movement with an unfeigned interest. Then she +rolled herself in a blanket, and lay down. + +They none of them noticed quite how it happened: but in less than +half an hour they were all five absorbed in a game of Consequences. +Presently one of the crew came, peered down the hatch and then shouted +‘Yes!’ to the rest, and then went away again. But they neither saw nor +heard him. + +From now on, however, the atmosphere of the schooner suffered a change. +A murder is inclined to have this effect on a small community. As a +matter of fact, the Dutch captain’s was the first blood to be shed on +board, in the course of business at any rate (I will not answer for +private quarrels). The way it had been shed left the pirates profoundly +shocked, their eyes opened to a depravity of human nature they had not +dreamt of: but also it gave them an uncomfortable feeling round the +neck. So long as there was only the circus-prank to avenge, no American +man-of-war was likely to be despatched in their pursuit: high Naval +Authorities shrink naturally from any contact with the ridiculous: but +suppose the steamer put into port, and announced the forcible abduction +of her captain? Or worse, suppose her mate, with an accursed spy-glass, +had seen that captain’s bloody body take its last dive? Pursuit would +be only too likely. + +The plea ‘It was none of us men did this wicked deed, but one of our +young female prisoners,’ was hardly one which could be submitted to a +jury. + +Captain Jonsen had discovered from the steamer’s log where he was: so +he put the schooner about, and set a course for his refuge at Santa +Lucia. It was unlikely, he thought, now, that any British man-of-war +would still be cruising about the scene of the _Clorinda_ episode--they +had too much to do: and he had reasons (fairly expensive ones) for +not anticipating any molestation from the Spanish authorities. He did +not like going home with an empty ship, of course: but that appeared +inevitable. + +The outward sign of this change in the atmosphere of the schooner was a +spontaneous increase in the strictness of discipline. Not a drop of rum +was drunk. Watch was kept with the regularity of a line-of-battle ship. +The schooner became tidier, more seamanlike in every way. + +Thunder was slain and eaten the next day, without any regard for the +feelings of his lovers: indeed, all tenderness towards the children +vanished. Even José ceased playing with them. They were treated +with a detached severity not wholly divorced from fear--as if these +unfortunate men at last realised what diabolic yeast had been +introduced into their lump. + +So sensible were the children themselves of the change that they even +forgot to mourn for Thunder--excepting Laura, whose face burned an +angry red for half a day. + +But the ship’s monkey, on the other hand, with no pig now to tease, +nearly died of ennui. + + +ii + +The reopening of the wound in her leg made it several days more before +Emily was fit to be moved from the cabin. During this time she was +much alone. Jonsen and Otto seldom came below, and when they did were +too preoccupied to heed her blandishing. She sang, and conversed to +herself, almost incessantly; only interrupting herself to beseech these +two, with a superfluity of endearments, to pick up her crochet-hook, +to look at the animal she had built out of her blanket, to tell her +a story, to tell her what naughty things they did when they were +little--how unlike Emily it was, all this gross bidding for attention! +But as a rule they went away again, or went to sleep, without taking +the least notice of her. + +As well, she told herself, _to_ herself, endless stories: as many +as there are in _The Arabian Nights_, and quite as involved. But +the strings of words she used to utter aloud had nothing to do with +this: I mean, that when she made a sort of narrative noise (which was +often), she did it for the noise’s sake: the silent, private formation +of sentences and scenes, in one’s head, is far preferable for real +story-telling. If you had been watching her then, unseen, you could +only have told she was doing it by the dramatic expressions of her +face, and her restless flexing and tossing--and if she had had the +slightest inkling you were there, the audible rigmarole would have +started again. (No one who has private thoughts going on loudly in +his own head is quite sure of their not being overheard unless he is +providing something else to occupy foreign ears.) + +When she sang, however, it was always wordless: an endless succession +of notes, like a bird’s, fixed to the first vocable handy, and +practically without tune. Not being musical, there was never any reason +for her to stop: so one song would often go on for half an hour. + +Although José had scrubbed the cabin floor as well as he could, a large +stain still remained. + +At times she let her mind wander about, quite peacefully, in her +memories of Jamaica: a period which now seemed to her very remote, a +golden age. How young she must have been! When her imagination grew +tired, too, she could recall the Anansi stories Old Sam had told her: +and they often proved the point of departure for new ones of her own. + +Also she could remember the creepy things he had told her about +duppies. _How_ they used to tease the negroes about the supposed duppy +at the bathing-hole, the duppy of the drowned man! It gave one an +enormous sense of power, that--not to believe in duppies. + +But she found herself taking much less pleasure in duppies now than she +used. + +She even once caught herself wondering what the Dutchman’s duppy would +look like, all bloody, with its head turned backwards on its shoulders +and clanking a chain ... it was a momentary flash, the way the banished +image of Tabby had come back to her. For a moment her head reeled: +in another she was far from Jamaica, far from the schooner, far from +duppies, on a golden throne in the remotest East. + +The other children were no longer allowed in the cabin to visit her: +but when she heard their feet scampering overhead, she often conversed +with them in loud yells. One of these yells from above told her: + +‘Marghie’s back, you know.’ + +‘O-oh.’ + +After that Emily was silent for a bit, her beautiful, innocent grey +eyes fixed on the ear of a dwarf at the end of her bunk. Only the +slight pucker at the top of her nose showed with what intensity she was +thinking: and the minute drops of sweat on her temples. + +But it was not only when there was some outward occasion, like this, +that she suffered acute distress. + +Froth as she might, those times of consciousness, which had begun +with a moment of such sublime vision, were both growing on her and +losing their lustre. They were become sinister. Life threatened to be +no longer an incessant, automatic discharge of energy: more and more +often, and when least expected, all that would suddenly drop from her, +and she would remember that she was _Emily_, who had killed ... and +who was _here_ ... and that Heaven alone knew what was going to happen +to the incompetent little thing, by what miracle she was going to keep +her end up.... Whenever this happened, her stomach seemed to drop away +within her a hundred and fifty feet. + +She, like Laura, had one foot each side of a threshold now. As a piece +of Nature, she was practically invulnerable. But as _Emily_, she +was absolutely naked, tender. It was particularly cruel that this +transition should come when so fierce a blast was blowing. + +For mark this: any one in bed, with a blanket up to her chin, is in a +measure safe. She might go through abysms of terror; but once these +passed, no practical harm had been done. But once she was up and about? +Suppose it was at some crisis, some call to action, that her Time came +on her? What appalling blunder could she fail to make? + +Oh why must she grow up? Why, for pity’s sake? + +Quite apart from these attacks of blind, secret panic, she had other +times of an ordinary, very rational anxiety. She was ten and a half +now. What sort of future lay before her, what career? (Their mother +had implanted in them young, as a matter of principle, girls and +boys alike, the idea that they would one day have to earn their own +livings.) I say she was ten and a half: but it seemed such ages since +she had come on the schooner that she thought she was probably older +even than that.--Now this life was full of interest: but was it, she +asked herself, a really useful education? What did it fit her for? +Plainly, it taught her nothing but to be a sort of pirate too (what +sort of a pirate, being a girl, was a problem in itself). But as time +slipped by, it became clearer and clearer that every other life would +be impossible for her--indeed, for all of them. + +Gone, alas, was any shred of confidence that she was God. That +particular, supreme career was closed to her. But the conviction that +she was the wickedest person who had ever been born, this would not die +for much longer. Some appalling Power had determined it: it was no good +struggling against it. Had she not already committed the most awful of +crimes ... the most awful of crimes, though, that was not murder, that +was the mysterious crime against the Holy Ghost, which dwarfed even +murder ... had she, unwittingly, at some time committed this too? She +so easily might have, since she did not know what it was. And if that +were so, no wonder the pity of Heaven was sealed against her! + +So the poor little outcast lay shivering and sweating under her +blanket, her gentle eyes fixed on the ear of the dwarf she had drawn. + +But presently she was singing again happily, and hanging right out of +the bunk to outline in pencil the brown stain on the floor. A touch +here, a touch there, and it was an old market-woman to the life, +hobbling along with a bundle on her back! I admit that it staggered +even Otto a bit when he came in later and saw what she had done. + +But when again she lay still on her back, and contemplated the +practical difficulties of the life ahead of her (even leaving God and +her Soul and all that on one side), she had not the support of Edward’s +happy optimism: she was old enough to know how helpless she really was. +How should she, dependent now for her very life on the kindness of +those around her, how should she ever acquire the wit and strength to +struggle against them and their kind? + +She had developed by this time a rather curious feeling about Jonsen +and Otto. In the first place, she had become very fond of them. +Children, it is true, have a way of becoming more or less attached to +any one they are in close contact with: but it was more than that, +deeper. She was far fonder of them than she had ever been of her +parents, for instance. They, for their part, showed every mild sign +consonant with their natures of being fond of her: but how could she +_know_? It would be so easy for adult things like them to dissemble to +her, she felt. Suppose they really intended to kill her: they could so +easily hide it: they would behave with exactly this same kindness ... I +suppose this was the reflection of her own instinct for secretiveness? + +When she heard the captain’s step on the stairs, it might be that he +was bringing her a plate of soup, or it might be that he had come to +kill her--suddenly, with no warning change of expression on his amiable +face even at the very end. + +If that was his intention, there was nothing whatever she could do +to hinder him. To scream, struggle, attempt flight--they would be +absolutely useless, and--well, a breach of decorum. If he chose to keep +up appearances, it behoved her to do so too. If he showed no sign of +his intention, she must show no sign of her inkling of it. + +That was why, when either of them came below, she would sing on, smile +at him impishly and confidently, actually plague him for notice. + +She was a little fonder of Jonsen than of Otto. Ordinarily, any +coarseness or malformity of adult flesh is in the highest degree +repulsive to a child: but the cracks and scars on Jonsen’s enormous +hands were as interesting to her as the valleys on the moon to a boy +with a telescope. As he clumsily handled his parallel rulers and +dividers, fitting them with infinite care to the marks on his chart, +Emily would lie on her side and explore them, give them all names. + +_Why_ must she grow up? _Why_ couldn’t she leave her life always in +other people’s keeping, to order as if it was no concern of hers? + +Most children have something of this feeling. With most children it is +outweighed: still, they will generally hesitate before telling you +they prefer to grow up. But then, most children live secure lives, +and have an at least apparently secure future to grow up to. To have +already murdered a full-sized man, and to have to keep it for ever +secret, is not a normal background for a child of ten: to have a +Margaret one could not altogether banish from one’s thoughts: to see +every ordinary avenue of life locked against one, only a violent road, +leading to Hell, open. + +She was still on the border-line: so often Child still, and nothing +but Child ... it needed little conjuring ... Anansi and the Blackbird, +Genies and golden thrones.... + +Which is all a rather groping attempt to explain a curious fact: that +Emily appeared--indeed _was_ rather young for her age: and that this +was due to, not in spite of, the adventures she had been through. + +But this youngness, it burnt with an intenser flame. She had never +yelled so loud at Ferndale, for sheer pleasure in her own voice, as now +she yelled in the schooner’s cabin, carolling like a larger, fiercer +lark. + +Neither Jonsen nor Otto were nervous men: but the din she made +sometimes drove them almost distracted. It was very little use telling +her to shut up: she only remembered for such a short time. In a minute +she was whispering, in two she was talking, in five her voice was in +full blast. + +Jonsen was himself a man who seldom spoke to any one. His companionship +with Otto, though devoted, was a singularly silent one. But when he did +speak, he hated not to be able to make himself heard at all: even when, +as was usual, it was himself he was talking to. + + +iii + +Otto was at the wheel (there was hardly one of the crew fit to steer). +His lively mind was occupied with Santa Lucia, and his young lady +there. Jonsen slipper-sloppered up and down his side of the deck. + +Presently, his interest in his subject waning, Otto’s eye was caught by +the ship’s monkey, which was sporting on its back on the cabin skylight. + +That animal, with the same ingenious adaptability to circumstance which +has produced the human race, had now solved the playmate question. As +a gambler will play left hand against right, so he fought back legs +against front. His extraordinary lissomness made the dissociation +most lifelike: he might not have been joined at the waist at all, for +all the junction discommoded him. The battle, if good-tempered on +both sides, was quite a serious one: now, while his hind feet were +doing their best to pick out his eyes, his sharp little teeth closed +viciously on his own private parts. + +From below the skylight, too, came tears and cries for help that one +might easily have taken for real if they had not been occasionally +interrupted by such phrases as ‘It’s no good: I shall cut off your head +just the same!’ + +Captain Jonsen was thinking about a little house in far-off, shadowy +Lübeck--with a china stove ... it didn’t do to talk about retiring: +above all, one must never say aloud ‘This is my last voyage,’ even +addressing oneself. The sea has an ironic way of interpreting it in her +own fashion, if you do. Jonsen had seen too many skippers sail on their +‘last voyage’--and never return. + +He felt acutely melancholy, not very far from tears: and presently he +went below. He wanted to be alone. + +Emily by now was conducting, in her head, a secret conversation +with John. She had never done so before: but to-day he had suddenly +presented himself to her imagination. Of course his disappearance +was strictly taboo between them: what they chiefly discussed was +the building of a magnificent raft, to use in the bathing-hole at +Ferndale; just as if they had never left the place. + +When she heard the captain’s step, so nearly surprising her at it, she +blushed a deep red. She felt her cheeks still hot when he arrived. As +usual, he did not even glance at her. He plumped down on a seat, put +his elbows on the cabin table, his head in his hands, and rocked it +rhythmically from side to side. + +‘Look, Captain!’ she insisted. ‘Do I look pretty like this? Look! +_Look!_ Look, _do_ I look pretty like this?’ + +For once he raised his head, turned, and considered her at length. She +had rolled up her eyes till only the whites showed, and turned her +under lip inside out. With her first finger she was squashing her nose +almost level with her cheeks. + +‘No,’ he said simply, ‘you do not.’ Then he returned to his cogitation. + +She stuck out her tongue as well, and waggled it. + +‘Look!’ she went on, ‘Look!’ + +But instead of looking at her, he let his eye wander round the cabin. +It seemed changed somehow--emasculated: a little girl’s bedroom, not a +man’s cabin. The actual physical changes were tiny: but to a meticulous +man they glared. The whole place smelt of children. + +Unable to contain himself, he crammed on his cap and burst up the +stairs. + +On deck, the others were romping round the binnacle, wildly excited. + +‘_Damn!_’ cried Jonsen at the sight of them, stamping in an +ungovernable rage. + +Of course his slippers came off, and one of them skiddered up the deck. + +What devil entered into Edward I do not know: but the sight was too +much for him. He seized the slipper and rushed off with it, shrieking +with delight. Jonsen roared at him: he passed it to Laura, and was soon +dancing up and down at the end of the jib-boom. Edward, of all people! +The timid, respectful Edward! + +Laura could hardly carry the enormous thing: but she clasped it +tight in her arms, lowered her head, and with the purposeful air of +a rugger-player ran back with it very fast up the deck, apparently +straight into Jonsen’s arms. At the last moment she dodged him neatly: +continued right on past Otto at the wheel, just as serious and just as +fast, and forward again on the port-side. Jonsen, no quick mover at any +time, stood in his socks and roared himself hoarse. Otto was shaking +with laughter like a jelly. + +This mad intoxication, which had flashed from child to child, now +dropped a spark into the crew. They were already peering excitedly +from the fo’c’sle hatch, grins struggling with outrage for pride of +place: but at this point they broke into a cheer. Then, like the devils +in a pantomime, they all sank together through the floor, aghast at +themselves, and pulled the scuttle over their heads. + +Laura, still hugging the slipper, caught her toe in an eye-bolt and +fell full length, set up a yell. + +Otto, with a suddenly straight face, ran forward, picked up the slipper +and returned it to Jonsen, who put it on. Edward stopped jumping up and +down and became frightened. + +Jonsen was trembling with rage. He advanced on Edward with an iron +belaying-pin in his hand. + +‘Come down from there!’ he commanded. + +‘Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!’ cried Edward, not moving. Harry suddenly ran and +hid himself in the galley, though he had had no part in it. + +With a surprising agility which he rarely used, Jonsen started out +along the bowsprit towards Edward, who did nothing but moan ‘Don’t!’ at +the sight of that murderous belaying-pin. When Jonsen was just on him, +however, he swarmed up a stay, helping himself with the iron hanks of +the jib. + +Jonsen returned to the deck, wringing his hands and angrier than ever. +He sent a sailor to the cross-trees to head the boy off and drive him +down again. + +Indeed, but for an extraordinary diversion, I shudder to think what +might have happened to him. But just at this moment there appeared, up +the ladder from the children’s fore-hold, Rachel. She wore one of the +sailors’ shirts, back to front, and reaching to her heels: in her hand, +a book. She was singing ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ at the top of her +voice. But as soon as she reached the deck she became silent: strutted +straight aft, looking neither to right nor left, genuflected to Otto at +the wheel, and then sat herself down on a wooden bucket. + +Every one, Jonsen included, stood petrified. After a moment of silent +prayer she arose, and commenced an inarticulate gabble-gabble which +reproduced extraordinarily well the sound of what she used to hear in +the little church at St. Anne’s, where the whole family went one Sunday +in each month. + +Rachel’s religious revival had begun. It could hardly have been more +opportune: who shall say it was not Heaven which had chosen the moment +for her? + +Otto, entering into the thing at once, rolled up his eyes and spread +out his arms, cross-wise, against the wheel-house at his back. + +Jonsen, rapidly recovering some of his temper, strode up to her. Her +imitation was admirable. For a few moments he listened in silence. He +wavered: should he laugh? Then what remained of his temper prevailed. + +‘Rachel!’ he rebuked. + +She continued, almost without taking breath, ‘Gabble-gabble, Bretheren, +gabble-gabble.’ + +‘I am not a religious man myself,’ said the captain, ‘but I will not +allow religion to be made a mock of on my ship!’ + +He caught hold of Rachel. + +‘Gabble-gabble!’ she went on, slightly faster and on a higher note. +‘Let me alone! Gabble-gabble! Amen! Gabble....’ + +But he sat himself on the bucket, and stretched her over his knee. + +‘You’re a wicked pirate! You’ll go to Hell!’ she shrieked, breaking at +last into the articulate. + +Then he began to smack her; so hard that she screamed almost as much +with pain as with rage. + +When at last he set her down, her face was swollen and purple. She +directed a tornado of punches with her little fists against his knees, +crying ‘Hell! Hell! Hell!’ in a strangulated voice. + +He flipped her fists aside with his hand, and presently she went away, +so tired with crying she could hardly get her breath. + +Meanwhile, Laura’s behaviour had been characteristic. When she tripped +and fell, she roared till her bumps ceased hurting. Then, with no +perceptible transition, her convulsions of agony became an attempt to +stand on her head. This she kept up throughout Edward’s flight up the +stay, throughout the electric appearance of Rachel. During the latter’s +punishment, having happened to topple in the direction of the mainmast, +and finding her feet against the rack round its base for belaying the +halyards to, she gave a tremendous shove off--she would roll instead. +And roll she did, very rapidly, till she arrived at the captain’s +feet. There she lay all the while he was smacking Rachel, completely +unconcerned, on her back, her knees drawn up to her chin, humming a +little tune. + + +iv + +When Emily returned to the fore-hold, her first act was one which +greatly complicated life. As if there was not sea enough already +outside the ship, she decreed that practically all the deck was +sea also. The main-hatch was an island, of course; and there were +others--chiefly natural excrescences of the same kind. But all the +rest, all the open deck, could only be safely crossed in a boat, or +swimming. + +As to who was in a boat and who wasn’t, Emily decided that herself. No +one ever knew till she had been asked. But Laura, once she had got the +main idea into her head, always swam, whether said to be in a boat or +not--to be on the safe side. + +‘_Isn’t_ she silly?’ said Edward once, when she refused to stop working +her arms although they had all told her she was safe on board. + +‘I expect we were all as silly as that when we were young,’ said Harry. + +It was a source of consternation to the children that none of the +grown-ups would recognise this ‘sea.’ The sailors trod carelessly on +the deepest oceans, refusing so much as to paddle with their hands. But +it was equally irritating to the sailors when the children, either safe +on an island or bearing down in a vessel of their own, would scream at +them in a tone of complete conviction: + +‘You’re drowning! You’re drowning! O-o-oh, look out! You’re out of your +depth there! The sharks’ll eat you!’ + +‘O-oh look! Miguel’s sinking! The waves are right over his head!’ + +That happens to be the one sort of joke sailors can’t enjoy. Even +though the words were unintelligible, their gist--eked out by the +slightly malicious hints of the mate--was not. If they steadily refused +to swim, they at least took to crossing themselves fervently and +continuously whenever they had to traverse a piece of open deck. For +there was no way one could be certain that these brats were not gifted +with second sight--_hijos de puntas_! + +What the children were really doing, of course, was trying out what it +would feel like when they themselves were all grown pirates, running a +joint venture or each with a craft of his own: and though they never +so much as mentioned piracy in the course of these public navigations, +they talked their heads off about it at night now. + +Margaret also refused to swim: but they knew by now it was no good +trying to make her: no good yelling at _her_ she was drowning, for all +she did at that word was to sit down and cry. So it became a recognised +convention that Margaret, wherever she went or whatever she was +doing, was on a raft, with a keg of biscuit and a barrel of water, by +herself--and could be ignored. + +For, since her return, she had become very dull company. That one game +of Consequences had been a flash in the pan. For several days after it +she had remained in bed, hardly speaking, and inclined to tear strips +off her blanket when she was asleep: and even when she was about +again, though perfectly amiable--more amiable than before--she refused +to join in any game whatever. She seemed happy: but for any imaginative +purpose she was useless. + +Moreover, she made no attempt to regain the sovereignty to which Emily +had succeeded. She never ordered any one about. There was not even any +fun to be got out of baiting her: nothing seemed to ruffle her temper. +She was sometimes treated with a good-humoured contempt, sometimes +ignored altogether: and it was enough for _her_ to say something for it +to be automatically voted silly. + +Rachel also, for several days after her service, showed no disposition +to join with the others. She preferred to sit about below, sulking, in +the hold. From time to time she attempted to pick a hole, with a copper +nail she had got hold of, in the bottom of the ship, and so sink it. It +was Laura who discovered her purpose, and came hot-foot to Emily with +the news. Laura never doubted, any more than Rachel did, that the task +was a possible one. + +Emily came below and found her at it. After three days, she had only +managed to scratch up one single splinter--partly because she never +attacked the same place twice: but both she and Laura expected to see +quantities of water come welling through and rapidly fill the ship. +Indeed, though no water had yet appeared, Laura was convinced the ship +was already perceptibly lowered as a result of Rachel’s efforts. + +Laura clasped her hands in expectation, waiting to see what Emily would +do in the face of this impending disaster. + +‘You stupid, _that’s_ no good!’ was all Emily’s comment. + +Rachel looked at her angrily: + +‘You leave me alone! I know what I am doing!’ + +Emily’s eyes grew very wide, and danced with a strange light. + +‘If you talk to me like that, I’ll have you hanged from the yard-arm!’ + +‘What’s _that_?’ asked Rachel sulkily. + +‘You ought to know which is the yard-arm by now!’ + +‘I don’t care!’ growled Rachel, and went on scratching with her nail. + +Emily picked up a big piece of iron, in a corner, so heavy she could +hardly carry it: + +‘Do you know what I’m going to do?’ she asked in a strange voice. + +At the sound of it Rachel stopped scratching and looked up. + +‘No,’ she said, a trifle uneasily. + +‘I’m going to kill you! I’m turned a pirate, and I’m going to kill you +with this sword!’ + +At the word ‘sword,’ the misshapen lump of metal seemed to Rachel to +flicker to a sharp, wicked point. + +She looked Emily in the eyes, doubtfully. Did she mean it, or was it a +game? + +As a matter of fact, she had always been a little afraid of Emily. +Emily was so huge, so strong, so old (as good as grown up), so cunning! +Emily was the cleverest, the most powerful person in the world! The +muscles of a giant, the ancient experience of a serpent!--And now, her +terrible eyes, with no hint in them of pretence. + +Emily glared fixedly, and saw real panic dawn in Rachel’s face. +Suddenly the latter turned, and as fast as her short fat legs would +carry her began to swarm up the ladder. Emily rang her iron once +against it, and Rachel nearly tumbled down again in her haste. + +The iron was so big and heavy it took Emily a long time to haul it +up on deck. Even when that was done, it greatly impeded her running, +so that she and Rachel did three laps round the deck without their +distances altering much, cheered boisterously by Edward. Even in her +terror Rachel did not forget to work her arms as in breast-stroke. +Finally, with a cry of ‘Oh, I can’t run any more, my bad leg’s +hurting!’ Emily flung down the iron and dropped panting beside Edward +on the main-hatch. + +‘I shall put poison in your dinner!’ she shouted cheerfully to Rachel: +but the latter retreated behind the windlass and began to nurse with an +abandoned devotion the particular brood she had parked there, working +herself almost to tears with the depth of her maternal pity for them. + +Emily went on chuckling for some time at the memory of her sport. + +‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Edward scornfully, puffing out his +chest. He was feeling particularly manly at the moment. ‘Have you got +the giggles?’ + +‘I _like_ having the giggles,’ said Emily disarmingly. ‘Let’s see if we +can’t all get them. Come on, Laura! Harry, come!’ + +The two smaller ones came obediently. They stared her in the face +attentively and seriously, awaiting the Coming of the God, while she +herself broke into louder and louder explosions of laughter. Soon the +infection took and they were laughing too, each shriller and more +wildly than the other. + +‘I can’t stop! I can’t stop!’ they cried at intervals. + +‘Come on, Edward! Look me in the face!’ + +‘I won’t!’ said Edward. + +So she set on him and tickled him till he was as hysterical as the rest. + +‘Oh, I _do_ want to stop, my tummy is hurting so!’ complained Harry at +last. + +‘Go away then,’ advised Emily in a lucid interval. And so the group +presently broke up. But they had all to avoid each other’s eye for a +long while, if they were not to risk another attack. + +It was Laura who was cured the quickest. She suddenly discovered what a +beautiful deep cave her armpit made, and decided to keep fairies in it +in future. For some time she could think of nothing else. + + +v + +Captain Jonsen called suddenly to José to take the wheel, and went +below for his telescope. Then, buttressing his hip against the rail, +and extending the shade over the object-glass, he stared fixedly at +something almost in the eye of the setting sun. Emily, in a gentle +mood, wandered up to him, and stood, her side just touching him. Then +she began lightly rubbing her cheek on his coat, as a cat does. + +Jonsen lowered the glass and tried his naked eye, as if he had more +trust in it. Then he explored with the glass once more. + +What was that business-like-looking sail, tall and narrow as a pillar? +He swept his eye round the rest of the horizon: it was empty: only that +single threatening finger, pointing upwards. + +Jonsen had chosen his course with care to avoid all the ordinary tracks +of shipping at that time of year. Especially he had chosen it to avoid +the routine-passages of the Jamaica Squadron from one British island to +another. This--it had no business here: no more than he had himself. + +Emily put her arm round his waist and gave it a slight hug. + +‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Do let me look.’ + +Jonsen said nothing, continuing to stare with concentration. + +‘_Do_ let me look!’ said Emily. ‘I haven’t ever looked through a +telescope, ever!’ + +Jonsen abruptly snapped the glass to, and looked down at her. His +usually expressionless features were stirred from their roots. He +lifted one hand and gently began to stroke her hair. + +‘Do you love me?’ he asked. + +‘Mm,’ assented Emily. Later she added, with a wriggle, ‘You’re a +darling.’ + +‘If it was to help me, would you do something ... very difficult?’ + +‘Yes, but _do_ let me have a look through your telescope, because I +haven’t, not ever, and I do so want to!’ + +Jonsen gave a weary sigh, and sat down on the cabin-top. What _on +Earth_ were children’s heads made of, inside? + +‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you seriously.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Emily, trying to hide her extreme discomfort. Her eye +plaintively searched the deck for something to hold it. He pressed her +against his knee in an attempt to win her attention. + +‘If bad, cruel men came and wanted to kill me and take you away, what +would you do?’ + +‘Oh, how horrid!’ said Emily. ‘Will they?’ + +‘Not if you help me.’ + +It was unbearable. With a sudden leap she was astride his knees, her +arms round his neck and her hands pressing the back of his head. + +‘I wonder if you make a good Cyclops?’ she said; and holding his head +firmly laid her nose to his nose, her forehead to his forehead, both +staring into each other’s eyes, an inch apart, till each saw the +other’s face grow narrow and two eyes converge to one large, misty eye +in the middle. + +‘Lovely!’ said Emily. ‘You’re just right for one! Only now one of your +eyes has got loose and is floating up above the other one!’ + +The sun touched the sea, and for thirty seconds every detail of the +distant man-of-war was outlined in black against the flame. But, for +the life of him, Jonsen could think of nothing but that house in quiet +Lübeck, with the green porcelain stove. + + + + +_Chapter 9_ + + +The darkness closed down with its sudden curtain on that minatory +finger. + +Captain Jonsen remained on deck all night, whether it was his watch or +not. It was a hot night, even for those latitudes: and no moon. The +suffused brilliance of the stars lit up everything close quite plainly, +but showed nothing in the distance. The black masts towered up, clear +against the jewelry, which seemed to swing slowly a little to one +side, a little to the other, of their tapering points. The sails, the +shadows in their curves all diffused away, seemed flat. The halyards +and topping-lifts and braces showed here, were invisible there, with an +arbitrariness which took from them all meaning as mechanism. + +Looking forward with the glowing binnacle-light at one’s back, the +narrow milky deck sloped up to the fore-shortened tilt of the bowsprit, +which seemed to be trying to point at a single enlarged star just above +the horizon. + +The schooner moved just enough for the sea to divide with a slight +rustle on her stem, breaking out into a shower of sparks, which lit +up also wherever the water rubbed the ship’s side, as if the ocean +were a tissue of sensitive nerves; and still twinkled behind in the +mere paleness of the wake. Only a faint tang of tar in the nostrils +was there to remind one that this was no ivory and ebony fantasia but +a machine. For a schooner is in fact one of the most mechanically +satisfactory, austere, unornamented engines ever invented by Man. + +A few yards off, a shoal of luminous fish shone at different depths. + +But a few hundred yards off, one could see nothing! The sea became a +steady glittering black that did not seem to move. Near, one could see +so much detail it seemed impossible to believe that there a whole ship +might lie invisible: impossible to believe that by no glass, no anxious +straining of the eyes, could one ever _see_. + +Jonsen strode up and down the lee-side of the vessel, so that what +breeze there was, collecting in the hollow of the sails, overflowed +down onto him in a continuous cool cascade. From time to time he +climbed to the foremast-head, in spite of the fact that added height +could not possibly give added vision: stared into the blank till his +eyes ached, and then came down and resumed his restless pacing. A ship +with her lights out might creep within a mile of him, and he not know +it. + +Jonsen was not given to intuitions: but he had now an extraordinary +feeling of certainty that somewhere close in that cover of darkness his +enemy lay, preparing destruction for him. He strained his ears too: +but he could hear nothing either, except the rustle of the water, the +occasional knocking of a loose block. + +If only there had been a moon! He remembered another occasion, fifteen +years before. The slaver of which he was then second mate was bowling +along, the hatches down on her stinking cargo, all canvas spread, when +right across the glittering path of the moon a frigate crossed, almost +within gun-shot--crossed the light, and disappeared again. Jonsen had +realised at once that though the frigate, with the light behind it, +was now invisible to them, they, with the moonlight shining full on +them, would be perfectly visible to the frigate. The boom of a gun soon +proved it. He had wanted to make a blind bolt for it: but his captain, +instead, ordered every stitch of sail to be furled: and so they lay all +night under their bare poles, not moving, of course, but (with nothing +to reflect the light) grown invisible in their turn. When dawn came the +frigate was so far down the wind they had easily shown her a clean pair +of heels. + +But to-night! There was no friendly moon-track to betray the attacker: +nothing but this inner conviction, which grew every moment more +certain. + +Shortly after midnight he had descended from one of his useless climbs +to the mast-head, and stood for a moment by the open fore-hatch. The +warm breath of the children was easily discernible. Margaret was +chattering in her sleep--quite loud, but you could not distinguish a +single clear word. + +Moved by a whim, Jonsen climbed down the ladder into the hold. Below, +it was hot as an oven. A zooming winged cockroach cannoned about. The +sound of the water, a dry rustle above, was here a pleasant gurgle and +plop against the wooden shell; most musical of sounds to a sailor. + +Laura lay on her back in the faint light of the open hatch. She had +discarded her blanket; and the vest which did duty for a night-gown was +rucked right up under her arms. Jonsen wondered how anything so like a +frog could ever conceivably grow into the billowy body of a woman. He +bent down and attempted to pull down the vest: but at the first touch +Laura rolled violently over onto her stomach, then drew her knees up +under her, thrusting her pointed rump up at him; and continued to sleep +in that position, breathing noisily. + +As his eyes got used to the gloom, vague white splodges showed him that +most of the children had discarded their dark blankets. But he did not +notice Emily, sitting up in the darkness and watching him. + +As he turned to go, an experimental smile lit up his face: he bent, and +gently flicked Laura’s behind with his finger-nail. It collapsed like a +burst balloon; but still she went on sleeping, flat on her face now. + +Jonsen was still chuckling to himself as he reached the deck. But +there his forebodings returned to him with redoubled force. He could +_feel_ that man-of-war lying-to in the darkness, biding its time! For +the fiftieth time he climbed the ratlines and took his stand at the +cross-trees, skinning his eyes. + +Presently, looking down, he could just discern the small white figure +on the deck which was Emily, hopping and skipping about. But it passed +at once out of his mind. + +Suddenly his tired eye caught a patch of something darker than the sea. +He looked away, then back again, to make sure. It was still there: on +the port bow: impossible to make out clearly, though.... Jonsen slid +down the shrouds in a flash, like a prentice. Landing on the deck like +a thunderbolt, he nearly startled Emily out of her life: she had no +idea he was up there. She startled him no less. + +‘It’s so _hot_ down there,’ she began, ‘I can’t sleep----’ + +‘Get below!’ hissed Jonsen furiously: ‘don’t you dare come up again! +And don’t let any of the others, till I tell you!’ + +Emily, thoroughly frightened, tumbled down the ladder as fast as she +could, and rolled herself in her blanket from head to foot: partly +because her bare legs were really a little chilled, but more for +comfort. What had she done? What was happening? She was hardly down +when feet were heard scurrying across the deck, and the hatches over +her head were loosely fitted into place. The darkness was profound, and +seemed to be rolling on her. No one was within reach: and she dared not +move an inch. Every one was asleep. + +Jonsen called all hands on deck: and in silence they mustered at the +rail. The patch was clearly visible now: nearer, and smaller than he +had thought at first. They listened for the splash of oars: but it came +on in silence. + +Suddenly they were upon it, it was grating against the ship’s side, +slipping astern. It was a dead tree, carried out to sea by some river +in spate, and tangled up with weed. + +But after that, he kept all hands on deck till dawn. In their new mood +they obeyed him readily enough. For they knew he was not incompetent. +He generally did the right thing--it was only the fuss he made in any +emergency which gave him the appearance of blundering. + +Yet, though there were now so many eyes watching, no further alarm was +given. + +But the moment the first paleness of dawn glimmered, every one’s nerves +tightened to cracking-point. The rapidly increasing light would any +moment show them their fate. + +It was not till full daylight, however, that Jonsen would let himself +be convinced there was absolutely no man-of-war there. + +As a matter of fact, its royals had sunk below the horizon less than an +hour after he had first sighted it. + + +ii + +But the alarm of that night caused Jonsen at last to make up his mind. + +He altered his course: and as before he had designed it to avoid other +shipping, now on the contrary it was calculated to run as soon as +possible into the very track of the Eastward Bounders. + +Otto rubbed his eyes. What had come over the fellow? Did he want +revenge for the fright he had had? Was he going to try and cut out a +prize right in the thick of the traffic? It would be like Jonsen, that: +to put his head in the lion’s mouth after trembling at its roar: and +Otto’s heart warmed towards him. But he asked no questions. + +Meanwhile Jonsen went to his cabin, opened a secret receptacle in his +bunk, and took out a job-lot of ships’ papers which he had bought from +a Havana dealer in such things. _The ‘John Dodson,’ of Liverpool, bound +for the Seychelles with a cargo of cast-iron pots_--what use was that +in these waters? The man had sold him a pup!--Ah, this was better: +‘_Lizzie Green,’ of Bristol, bound from Matanzas to Philadelphia in +ballast_ ... a funny trip to make in ballast, true: but that was no +one’s affair but his imaginary owner’s. Jonsen made sure all was in +order--filled in the blank dates, and so on--then returned the bundle +to its hiding-place for another occasion. Coming on deck, he gave a +number of orders. + +First, stages were rigged over the bows and stern, and José and a +paint-pot went over the rail to add _Lizzie Green_ to the many names +which from time to time had decorated the schooner’s escutcheon. +Not content with that, he had it painted on every other appropriate +place--the boats, the buckets--it was as well to be thorough. +Meanwhile, many of the sails were taken down and new ones bent--or +rather, old ones, distinctive sails that a man would swear he couldn’t +have forgotten if he had ever seen them before. Otto sewed a large +patch to the mainsail, where there was no hole. In his zeal Jonsen even +considered lowering the yards and rigging her as a pure fore-and-after: +but luckily for his sweating crew, abandoned the idea. + +The master-stroke of his disguise was permanent--that he carried no +guns. Guns can be hidden or thrown overboard, it is true: but the +grooves they make in the deck cannot, as many a protesting-innocent +sea-robber has found to his cost. Jonsen not only had no guns to hide, +he had no grooves: any fool could see he had no guns, and never had had +any. And who ever heard of a pirate without guns? It was laughable: +yet he had proved again and again that one could make a capture just +as easily without them: and further, that the captured merchantman, in +making his report, could generally be counted on to imagine a greater +or less display of artillery. Whether it was to save their faces, or +pure conservatism--presumption that there must have been guns--nearly +every vessel Jonsen had had dealings with had reported masked +artillery, manned by ‘fifty or seventy ruffians of the worst Spanish +type.’ + +Of course if he met and was challenged by a man-of-war, he would +have to give in without a fight. But then, it never pays to fight a +man-of-war anyhow. If he is a big one, he sinks you. If he is some +little cock-shell of a cutter, commanded by a fire-eating young officer +just into his teens, you sink him--and then there is the devil to pay. +Better be sunk outright than insult the honour of a great nation in +that fashion. + +When he at last remembered to take the hatches off the children, they +were half dead with suffocation. It was hot enough, stuffy enough +anyhow down there, only the square opening above for ventilation; but +with the hatches even loosely in place it was a Black Hole. Emily had +at last dropped asleep, and slept late, through a chain of nightmares: +when she did wake in the closed hold, she sat up, then fainted +immediately, and fell back, her breath coming in loud snores. Before +she came to again she was already sobbing miserably. At that the little +ones began to cry too: which sound it was that reminded Jonsen, rather +late, to take the hatches off. + +He was quite alarmed when he saw them. It was not till they had been +out in the morning freshness of the deck for some time that they even +summoned up interest in the strange metamorphosis of the schooner that +was in progress. + +Jonsen looked at them with a troubled eye. They had not indeed the +appearance of well-cared-for children: though he had not noticed this +before. They were dirty to a fault: their clothes torn, and mended, if +at all, with twine. Their hair was not only uncombed--there was tar +in it. They were mostly thin, and a yellowy-brown colour. Only Rachel +remained obstinately plump and pink. The scar on Emily’s leg was still +a blushing purple: and they all were blotched with insect bites. + +Jonsen called José off his painting job: gave him a bucket of fresh +water: the mate’s (the only) comb: and a pair of scissors. José +wondered innocently: they did not look to him particularly dirty. But +he did his duty, while they were still too sorry for themselves to +object actively, to do anything more than sob weakly when he hurt them. +Even when he had finished their toilet, of course, he had not reached +the point at which a nursemaid usually begins. + +It was noon before the _Lizzie Green_ looked herself--whoever +that might be: and a little after noon she was still heading for +‘Philadelphia’ when, hull down on the horizon, two sail were sighted, +many miles apart, at about the same minute. Captain Jonsen considered +them carefully; made his choice, and altered his course so as to fall +in with her as soon as might be. + +Meanwhile, the crew had no more doubt than Otto had of Jonsen’s +intention: and the sound of the whetstone floated merrily aft, till +each man’s knife had an edge that did its master’s heart good. I have +said that the murder of the Dutch captain had affected the whole +character of their piracy. The yeast was working. + +Presently the smoke of a large steamer cropped up over the horizon as +well. Otto sniffed the breeze. It might hold, or it might not. They +were still far from home, and these seas crowded. The whole enterprise +looked to him pretty desperate. + +Jonsen was at his usual shuffle-shuffle, nervously biting his nails. +Suddenly he turned on Otto and called him below. He was plainly very +agitated; his cheeks red, his eye wild. He began by plotting himself +meticulously on the chart. Then he growled over his shoulder: + +‘Those children, they must go.’ + +‘Aye,’ said Otto. Then, as Jonsen said no more, he added: ‘You’ll land +them at Santa, I take it?’ + +‘No! They must go now. We may never get to Santa.’ + +Otto took a deep breath. + +Jonsen turned on him, blustering: + +‘If we get taken with them, where’ll _we_ be, eh?’ + +Otto went white, then red, before he answered. + +‘You’ll have to risk that,’ he said slowly. ‘You can’t land them no +other place.’ + +‘Who said I was going to land them?’ + +‘There’s nothing else you can do,’ said Otto stubbornly. + +A light of comprehension dawned suddenly in Jonsen’s worried face. + +‘We could sew them up in little bags,’ he said with a genial smile, +‘and put them over the side.’ + +Otto gave him one quick glance; what he saw was enough to relieve him. + +‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. + +‘Sew them up in little bags! Sew them up in little bags!’ Jonsen +affirmed, rubbing his hands together and chuckling, all the latent +sentimentality of the man getting the better of him. Then he pushed +past Otto and went on deck. + +The big brigantine, which he had aimed for at first, was proving a +bit too far up the wind for him: so now he took the helm and let the +schooner’s head down a couple of points, to intercept the steamer +instead. + +Otto whistled. At last an inkling of what the captain was at had dawned +on him. + + +iii + +As they drew nearer, the children were all immensely interested: they +had never before seen anything like this big, miraculous tub. The Dutch +steamer, an old-fashioned craft, had not differed very materially from +a sailing-vessel: but this, in form, was already more like the steamers +of our own day. Its funnel was still tall and narrow, with a kind of +artichoke on top, it is true: but otherwise it was much the same as you +and I are used to. + +Jonsen spoke her urgently: and presently her engines stopped. The +_Lizzie Green_ slipped round under her lee. Jonsen had a boat lowered: +then embarked in it himself. The children and the schooner’s crew stood +at the rail in tense excitement: watched a little ladder lowered from +her towering iron side: watched Jonsen, alone, in his dark Sunday suit +and the peaked cap of his rank, climb on board. He had timed it nicely: +in another hour it would be dark. + +He had no easy task. First he had his premeditated fiction to +establish, his explanation of how he came by his passengers. Secondly, +he had to persuade the captain of the steamship, a stranger, to relieve +him, where he had so signally failed to persuade his friend the señora +at Santa Lucia. + +Otto was not a man to show agitation: but he felt it, none the less. +This scheme of Jon’s was the foolhardiest thing he had ever heard of: +the slightest suspicion, and they were as good as done for. + +Jonsen had ordered him, if he guessed anything was wrong, to run. + +Meanwhile, the breeze was dropping, and it was still light. + +Jonsen had vanished into the steamer as into a forest. + +Emily was as excited as any of them, pointing out the novel features +of this extraordinary vessel. The children still thought it was +professional quarry. Edward was openly bragging of what he would do +when he had captured it. + +‘I shall cut the captain’s head off and throw it in the water!’ he +declared aloud. + +‘S-s-sh!’ exclaimed Harry in a stage whisper. + +‘Coo! I don’t care!’ cried Edward, intoxicated with bravado. ‘Then I +shall take out all the gold and keep it for myself.’ + +‘I shall sink it!’ said Harry, in imitation: then added as an +afterthought, ‘Right to the very bottom!’ + +Emily fell silent, her peculiarly vivid imagination having the mastery +of her. She saw the hold of the steamer, piled with gold and jewels. +She saw herself, fighting her way through hordes of hairy sailors, +with her bare fists, till only the steamer’s captain stood between her +and the treasure. + +Then it happened! It was as if a small cold voice inside her said +suddenly, ‘_How can you? You’re only a little girl!_’ She felt herself +falling giddily from the heights, shrinking. She was _Emily_. + +The awful, blood-covered face of the Dutch captain seemed to threaten +her out of the air. She cowered back at the shock. But it was over in a +moment. + +She looked around her in terror. Did any one know how defenceless she +was? Surely some one must have noticed her. The other children were +gibbering in their animal innocence. The sailors, their knives half +concealed, grinned at each other or cursed. Otto, his brows knotted, +stood with his eyes fixed on the steamer. + +She feared everybody, she hated everybody. + +Margaret was whispering something to Edward, and he nodded. Again +panic seized her. What was Margaret telling him? Had she told every +one? Did they all know? Were they all playing with her, deceiving +her by pretending not to know, waiting their own time to burst their +revelation on her and punish her in some quite unimaginably awful way? + +_Had_ Margaret told? If she crept up behind Margaret now, and pushed +her in the sea, might she yet be in time?--But even as she thought it, +she seemed to see Margaret rising waist-high out of the waves, telling +the whole story to everybody in a calm, dispassionate voice, and +climbing back on board. + +In another flash she saw the fat, comfortable person of her mother, +standing at the door of Ferndale, abusing the cook. + +Again her eyes roamed round the sinister reality of the schooner. She +suddenly felt sick to death of it all: tired, beyond words tired. +Why must she be chained for ever to this awful life? Could she never +escape, never get back to the ordinary life little girls lead, with +their papas and mamas and ... birthday cakes? + +Otto called her. She went to him obediently: though with a presentiment +that it was to her execution. He turned, and called Margaret too. + +She was in a more attentive mood than she had been the other night with +the captain, Heaven knows! But Otto was too preoccupied to notice how +frightened her eyes were. + +Jonsen had no easy task on the steamer: but Otto did not greatly relish +his own. He did not know how to begin--and everything depended on his +success. + +‘See here,’ he burst out. ‘You’re going to England.’ + +Emily shot him a quick glance. ‘Yes?’ she said at last: her voice +showing merely a polite interest. + +‘The captain has gone onto that steamboat to arrange about it.’ + +‘Aren’t we staying with you any longer, then?’ + +‘No,’ said Otto: ‘you’re going home on that steamboat.’ + +‘Shan’t we see you any more, then?’ Emily pursued. + +‘No,’ said Otto: ‘--Well, some day, perhaps.’ + +‘Are they all going, or only us two?’ + +‘Why, all of you, of course!’ + +‘Oh. I didn’t know.’ + +There was an awkward silence, while Otto wondered how to tackle the +real problem. + +‘Had we better go and get ready?’ asked Margaret. + +‘Now listen!’ Otto interrupted her. ‘When you get on board, they’ll ask +you all about everything. They’ll want to know how you got here.’ + +‘Are we to tell them?’ + +Otto was astonished she took his point so readily. + +‘No,’ he said. ‘The captain and me don’t want you to. We want you to +keep it a secret, do you see?’ + +‘What _are_ we to say, then?’ Emily asked. + +‘Tell them ... you were captured by pirates, and then ... they put you +ashore at a little port in Cuba----’ + +‘--Where the Fat Woman was?’ + +‘--Yes. And then we came along, and took you on board our schooner, +which was going to America, to save you from the pirates.’ + +‘I see,’ said Emily. + +‘You’ll say that, and keep the ... other a secret?’ Otto asked +anxiously. + +Emily gave him her peculiar, gentle stare. + +‘Of course!’ she said. + +Well, he had done his best: but Otto felt heavy at heart. That little +cherub! He didn’t believe she could keep a secret for ten seconds. + +‘Now: do you think you can make the little ones understand?’ + +‘Oh yes, I’ll tell them,’ said Emily easily. She considered for a +moment: ‘I don’t suppose they remember much anyway. Is that all?’ + +‘That’s all,’ said Otto: and they walked away. + +‘What was he saying?’ Margaret asked. ‘What was it all about?’ + +‘Oh shut up!’ said Emily rudely. ‘It’s nothing to do with you!’ + +But inwardly she did not know whether she was on her head or her heels. +Were they really going to let her escape? Weren’t they just tantalising +her, meaning to stop her at the last moment? Were they handing her +over to strangers, who had come to hang her for murder? Was her mother +perhaps on that steamer, come to save her? But she loved Jonsen +and Otto: how could she bear to part with them? The dear, familiar +schooner.... All these thoughts in her head at once! But she dealt +firmly enough with the Liddlies: + +‘Come on!’ she said. ‘We’re going on that steamer.’ + +‘Are _we_ to do the fighting?’ Edward asked, timorously enough. + +‘There isn’t going to be any fighting,’ said Emily. + +‘Will there be another circus?’ asked Laura. + +Then she told them they were to change ships again. + +When Captain Jonsen came back, mopping the sweat from his polished +forehead with a big cotton handkerchief, he seemed in a terrible hurry. +As for the children, they were so excited they were ready to tumble +into the boat: in such a flurry they nearly tumbled into the sea +instead. _Now_ they knew why they had been washed and combed. + +It did not seem at first as if there was going to be any difficulty +about getting them started. But it was Rachel who began the break-away. + +‘My babies! My babies!’ she shrieked, and began running all over the +ship, routing out bits of rag, fuzzy rope-ends, paint-pots ... her arms +were soon full. + +‘Here, you can’t take all that junk!’ dissuaded Otto. + +‘Oh but my darlings, I can’t leave you behind!’ cried Rachel piteously. +Out rushed the cook, just in time to retrieve his ladle--and a +battle-royal began. + +Naturally, Jonsen was on tenterhooks to be gone. But it was essential +they should part on good terms. + +José was lifting Laura over the side. + +‘_Darling_ José!’ she burst out suddenly, and twined her arms tightly +round his neck. + +At that Harry and Edward, who were already in the boat, scrambled back +on deck. They had forgotten to say good-bye. And so each child said +good-bye to each pirate, kissing him and lavishing endearments on him. + +‘Go on! Go on!’ muttered Jonsen impatiently. + +Emily flung herself in his arms, sobbing as if her heart would break. + +‘Don’t make me go!’ she begged. ‘Let me stay with you always, always!’ +She clung tight to the lapels of his coat, hiding her face in his +chest: ‘Oh, I _don’t_ want to go!’ + +Jonsen was strangely moved: for a moment, almost toyed with the idea. + +But the others were already in the boat. + +‘Come on!’ said Otto, ‘or they’ll go without you!’ + +‘Wait! Wait!’ shrieked Emily, and was over the side and in the boat in +a flash. + +Jonsen shook his head confusedly. For this last time, she had him +puzzled. + +But now, as they rowed across to the steamer, all the children stood up +in the boat, in danger of tumbling out, and cried: + +‘Good-bye! Good-bye!’ + +‘Adios!’ cried the pirates, waving sentimental hands, and guffawing +secretly to each other. + +‘C-c-come and see us in England!’ came Edward’s clear treble. + +‘Yes!’ cried Emily. ‘Come and stay with us! All of you!--_Promise_ +you’ll come and stay with us!’ + +‘All right!’ shouted Otto. ‘We’ll come!’ + +‘Come _soon_!’ + +‘My babies!’ wailed Rachel. ‘I’ve lost ’most all my babies!’ + +But now they were alongside the steamer: and soon they were mounting a +rope ladder to her deck. + +What a long way up it was! But at last they were all on board. + +The little boat returned to the schooner. + +The children never once looked after it. + +And well might they forget it. For exciting as it had been to go onto a +ship of any kind for the first time, to find themselves on this steamer +was infinitely more so. The luxury of it! The white paint! The doors! +The windows! The stairs! The brass!--A fairy palace, no: but a mundane +wonder of a quite unimagined kind. + +But they had little time now to take in the details. All the +passengers, wild with curiosity, were gathered round them in a ring. As +the dirty, dishevelled little mites were handed one by one on board, a +gasp went up. The story of the capture of the _Clorinda_ by as fiendish +a set of buccaneers as any in the past that roamed the same Caribbean +was well known: and how the little innocents on board her had been +taken and tortured to death before the eyes of the impotent captain. To +see now face to face the victims of so foul a murder was for them too a +thrill of the first water. + +The tension was first broken by a beautiful young lady in a muslin +dress. She sank on her knees beside little Harry, and folded him in her +delicate arms. + +‘The little angel!’ she murmured. ‘You poor little man, what horrors +you have been through! How will you ever forget them?’ + +As if that were the signal, all the lady passengers fell on the +astonished children and pitied them: while the men, less demonstrative, +stood around with lumps in their throats. + +Bewildered at first, it was not long before they rose to the +occasion--as children generally will, when they find themselves the +butt of indiscriminate adoration. Bless you, they were kings and +queens! They were so sleepy they could hardly keep their eyes open: but +they were not going to bed, not they! They had never been treated like +this before. Heaven alone knew how long it would last. Best not waste a +minute of it. + +It was not long before they ceased even to be surprised, became +convinced that it was all their right and due. They were very important +people--quite unique. + +Only Emily stood apart, shy, answering questions uncomfortably. She did +not seem to be able to throw herself into her importance with the same +zest as the others. + +Even the passengers’ children joined in the fuss and admiration: +perhaps realising the opportunity which the excitement gave of +avoiding their own bed-time. They began to bring (probably not without +suggestion) their toys, as offerings to these new gods: and vied with +each other in their generosity. + +A shy little boy of about her own age, with brown eyes and a nice +smile, his long hair brushed smooth as silk, his clothes neat and +sweet-smelling, sidled up to Rachel. + +‘What’s your name?’ she asked him. + +‘Harold.’ + +She told him hers. + +‘How much do you weigh?’ he asked her. + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘You look rather heavy. May I see if I can lift you?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +He clasped his arms round her stomach from behind, leant back, and +staggered a few paces with her. Then he set her down, the friendship +cemented. + +Emily stood apart; and for some reason every one unconsciously +respected her reserve. But suddenly something seemed to snap in her +heart. She flung herself face-downwards on the deck--not crying, but +kicking convulsively. It was a huge great stewardess who picked her +up and carried her, still quivering from head to foot, down to a neat, +clean cabin. There, soothing and talking to her without ceasing, she +undressed her, and washed her with warm water, and put her to bed. + +Emily’s head felt different to any way it had ever felt before: hardly +as if it were her own. It sang, and went round like a wheel, without so +much as with your leave or by your leave. But her body, on the other +hand, was more than usually sensitive, absorbing the tender, smooth +coolness of the sheets, the softness of the mattress, as a thirsty +horse sucks up water. Her limbs drank in comfort at every pore: it +seemed as if she could never be sated with it. She felt physical peace +soaking slowly through to her marrow: and when at last it got there, +her head became more quiet and orderly too. + +All this while she had hardly heard what was said to her: only a +refrain that ran through it all made any impression, ‘_Those wicked men +... men ... nothing but men ... those cruel men._...’ + +Men! It was perfectly true that for months and months she had seen +nothing but men. To be at last back among other women was heavenly. +When the kind stewardess bent over her to kiss her, she caught tight +hold of her, and buried her face in the warm, soft, yielding flesh, as +if to sink herself in it. Lord! How unlike the firm, muscular bodies of +Jonsen and Otto! + +When the stewardess stood up again, Emily feasted her eyes on her, eyes +grown large and warm and mysterious. The woman’s enormous, swelling +bosom fascinated her. Forlornly, she began to pinch her own thin little +chest. Was it conceivable she would herself ever grow breasts like +that--beautiful, mountainous breasts, that had to be cased in a sort of +cornucopia? Or even firm little apples, like Margaret’s? + +Thank God she had not been born a boy! She was overtaken with a sudden +revulsion against the whole sex of them. From the tips of her fingers +to the tips of her toes she felt female: one with that exasperating, +idiotic secret communion: initiate of the γυναικεῖον. + +Suddenly Emily reached up and caught the stewardess by the head, +pulling it down to her close: began whispering earnestly in her ear. + +On the woman’s face the first look of incredulity changed to utter +stupefaction, from stupefaction to determination. + +‘My eye!’ she said at last. ‘The cheek of the rascals! The impudence!’ + +Without another word she slipped out of the cabin. And you may imagine +that the steamer captain, when he heard the trick that had been played +upon him, was as astonished as she. + +For a few moments after she had gone Emily lay staring at nothing, a +very curious expression on her face indeed. Then, all of a sudden, she +dropped asleep, breathing sweetly and easily. + +But she only slept for about ten minutes: and when she woke the cabin +door was open, and in it stood Rachel and her little boy friend. + +‘What do you want?’ said Emily forbiddingly. + +‘Harold has brought his alligator,’ said Rachel. + +Harold stepped forward, and laid the little creature on Emily’s +coverlet. It was very small: only about six inches long: a yearling: +but an exact miniature of its adult self, with the snub nose and round +Socratic forehead that distinguish it from the crocodile. It moved +jerkily, like a clockwork toy. Harold picked it up by the tail: it +spread its paws in the air, and jerked from side to side, more like +clockwork than ever. Then he set it down again, and it stood there, its +tongueless mouth wide open and its harmless teeth looking like grains +of sand-paper, alternately barking and hissing. Harold let it snap at +his finger--it was plainly hungry in the warmth down there. It darted +its head so fast you could hardly see it move: but its bite was still +so weak as to be painless, even to a child. + +Emily drew a deep breath, fascinated. + +‘May I have him for the night?’ she asked. + +‘All right,’ said Harold: and he and Rachel were summoned away by some +one without. + +Emily was translated into Heaven. So this was an alligator! She was +actually going to sleep with an alligator! She had thought that to any +one who had once been in an earthquake nothing really exciting could +happen again: but then, she had not thought of this. + +_There was once a girl called Emily, who slept with an alligator...._ + +In search of greater warmth, the creature high-stepped warily up the +bed towards her face. About six inches away it paused, and they looked +each other in the eye, those two children. + +The eye of an alligator is large, protruding, and of a brilliant +yellow, with a slit pupil like a cat’s. A cat’s eye, to the casual +observer, is expressionless: though with attention one can distinguish +in it many changes of emotion. But the eye of an alligator is +infinitely more stony and brilliant--reptilian. + +What possible meaning could Emily find in such an eye? Yet she lay +there, and stared, and stared: and the alligator stared too. If there +had been an observer it might have given him a shiver to see them +so--well, eye to eye like that. + +Presently the beast opened his mouth and hissed again gently. Emily +lifted a finger and began to rub the corner of his jaw. The hiss +changed to a sound almost like a purr. A thin, filmy lid first covered +his eye from the front backwards, then the outer lid closed up from +below. + +Suddenly he opened his eyes again, and snapped on her finger: then +turned and wormed his way into the neck of her night-gown, and crawled +down inside, cool and rough against her skin, till he found a place +to rest. It is surprising that she could stand it as she did, without +flinching. + + * * * * * + +Alligators are utterly untamable. + + +iv + +From the deck of the schooner, Jonsen and Otto watched the children +climb onto the steamer: watched their boat return, and the steamer get +under way. + +So: it had all gone without a hitch. No one had suspected his story--a +story so simple as to be very nearly the truth. + +They were gone. + +Jonsen could feel the difference at once: and it seemed almost as if +the schooner could. A schooner, after all, is a place for _men_. He +stretched himself, and took a deep breath, feeling that a cloying, +enervating influence was lifted. José was industriously sweeping up +some of Rachel’s abandoned babies. He swept them into the lee-scuppers. +He drew a bucket of water, and dashed it at them over the deck. The +trap swung open--whew, it was gone, all that truck! + +‘Batten down that fore-hatch!’ ordered Jonsen. + +The men all seemed lighter of heart than they had been for many months: +as if the weight they were relieved of had been enormous. They sang +as they worked, and two friends playfully pummelled each other in +passing--hard. The lean, masculine schooner shivered and plunged in the +freshening evening breeze. A shower of spray for no particular reason +suddenly burst over the bows, swept aft and dashed full in Jonsen’s +face. He shook his head like a wet dog, and grinned. + +Rum appeared: and for the first time since the encounter with the Dutch +steamer all the sailors got bestially drunk, and lay about the deck, +and were sick in the scuppers. José was belching like a bassoon. + +It was dark by then. The breeze dropped away again. The gaffs clanked +aimlessly in the calm, with the motion of the sea: the empty sails +flapped with reports like cannon, a hearty applause. Jonsen and Otto +themselves remained sober, but they had not the heart to discipline the +crew. + +The steamer had long since disappeared into the dark. The foreboding +which had oppressed Jonsen all the night before was gone. No intuition +told him of Emily’s whispering to the stewardess: of the steamer, +shortly after, meeting with a British gunboat: of the long series +of lights flickering between them. The gunboat, even now, was fast +overhauling him: but no premonition disturbed his peace. + +He was tired--as tired as a sailor ever lets himself be. The last +twenty-four hours had been hard. He went below as soon as his watch was +over, and climbed into his bunk. + +But he did not, at once, sleep. He lay for a while conning over the +step he had taken. It was really very astute. He had returned the +children, undoubtedly safe and sound: Marpole would be altogether +discredited. Even to have landed them at Santa Lucia, his first +intention, could never have closed the _Clorinda_ episode so +completely, since the world at large would not have heard of it: and it +would have been difficult to produce them, should need arise. + +Indeed, it had seemed to be a choice of evils: either he must carry +them about always, as a proof that they were alive, or he must land +them and lose control of them. In the first case, their presence would +certainly connect him with the _Clorinda_ piracy of which he might +otherwise go unsuspected: in the second, he might be convicted of their +murder if he could not produce them. + +But this wonderful idea of his, now that he had carried it out +successfully, solved both difficulties. + +It had been a near thing with that little bitch Margaret, though ... +lucky the second boat had picked her up.... + +The light from the cabin lamp shone into the bunk, illuminating part of +the wall defaced with Emily’s puerile drawings. As they caught his eye +a frown gathered on his forehead: but as well a sudden twinge affected +his heart. He remembered the way she had lain there, ill and helpless. +He suddenly found himself remembering at least forty things about +her--an overwhelming flood of memories. + +The pencil she had used was still among the bedding, and his fingers +happened on it. There were still some white spaces not drawn on. + +Jonsen could only draw two things: ships, and naked women. He could +draw any type of ship he liked, down to the least detail--any +particular ship he had sailed in, even. In the same way he could +draw voluptuous, buxom women, also down to the least detail: in any +position, and from any point of view: from the front, from the back, +from the side, from above, from below: his fore-shortening faultless. +But set him to draw any third thing--even a woman with her clothes +on--and he could not have produced a scribble that would have been even +recognisable. + +He took the pencil: and before long there began to appear between +Emily’s crude uncertain lines round thighs, rounder bellies, high +swelling bosoms, all somewhat in the manner of Rubens. + +At the same time his mind was still occupied with reflections on his +own astuteness. Yes, it had been a near thing with Margaret--it would +have been awkward if, when he returned the party, there had been one +missing. + +A recollection descended on his mind like a cold douche, something he +had completely forgotten about till then. His heart sank--as well it +might: + +‘Hey!’ he called to Otto on the deck above. ‘What was the name of that +boy who broke his neck at Santa? Jim--Sam--what was he called?’ + +Otto did not answer, except by a long-drawn-out whistle. + + + + +_Chapter 10_ + + +Emily grew quite a lot during the passage to England on the steamer: +suddenly shot up, as children will at that age. But she did it without +any gawkiness: instead, an actual increase of grace. Her legs and +arms, though longer, did not lose any of the nicety of their shape; +and her grave face lost none of its attractiveness by being a fraction +nearer your own. The only drawback was that she used to get pains in +the calves of her legs, now, and sometimes in her back: but those of +course did not show. (They were all provided with clothes by a general +collection, so it did not matter that she grew out of her old ones.) + +She was a nice child: and being a little less shy than formerly, was +soon the most popular of all of them. Somehow, no one seemed to care +very much for Margaret: old ladies used to shake their heads over her a +good deal. At least, any one could see that Emily had infinitely more +sense. + +You would never have believed that Edward after a few days’ washing and +combing would look such a little gentleman. + +After a short while Rachel threw Harold over, to be uninterrupted in +her peculiar habits of parthenogenesis, eased now a little by the many +presents of real dolls. But Harold became soon just as firm friends +with Laura, young though she was. + +Most of the steamer children had made friends with the seamen, and +loved to follow them about at their romantic occupations--swabbing +decks, and so on. One day, one of these men actually went a short way +up the rigging (what little there was), leaving a glow of admiration on +the deck below. But all this had no glamour for the Thorntons. Edward +and Harry liked best to peer in at the engines: but what Emily liked +best was to walk up and down the deck with her arm round the waist of +Miss Dawson, the beautiful young lady with the muslin dresses: or stand +behind her while she did little water-colour compositions of toppling +waves with wrecks foundering in them, or mounted dried tropical flowers +in wreaths round photographs of her uncles and aunts. One day Miss +Dawson took her down to her cabin and showed her all her clothes, every +single item--it took hours. It was the opening of a new world to Emily. + +The captain sent for Emily, and questioned her: but she added nothing +to that first, crucial burst of confidence to the stewardess. She +seemed struck dumb--with terror, or something: at least, he could get +nothing out of her. So he wisely let her alone. She would probably +tell her story in her own time: to her new friend, perhaps. But this +she did not do. She would not talk about the schooner, or the pirates, +or anything concerning them: what she wanted was to listen, to drink +in all she could learn about England, where they were really going at +last--that wonderfully exotic, romantic place. + +Louisa Dawson was quite a wise young person for her years. She saw that +Emily did not want to talk about the horrors she had been through: but +considered it far better that she should be made to talk than that +she should brood over them in secret. So when the days passed and no +confidences came, she set herself to draw the child out. She had, as +everybody has, a pretty clear idea in her own head of what life is +like in a pirate vessel. That these little innocents should have come +through it alive was miraculous, like the three Hebrews in the fiery +furnace. + +‘Where used you to live when you were on the schooner?’ she asked Emily +one day suddenly. + +‘Oh, in the hold,’ said Emily nonchalantly. ‘Is that your Great-uncle +_Vaughan_, did you say?’ + +In the hold. She might have known it. Chained, probably, down there in +the darkness like blacks, with rats running over them, fed on bread +and water. + +‘Were you very frightened when there was a battle going on? Did you +hear them fighting over your head?’ + +Emily looked at her with her gentle stare: but kept silence. + +Louisa Dawson was very wise in thus trying to ease the load on the +child’s mind. But also she was consumed with curiosity. It exasperated +her that Emily would not talk. + +There were two questions which she particularly wanted to ask. One, +however, seemed insuperably difficult of approach. The other she could +not contain. + +‘Listen, darling,’ she said, wrapping her arms round Emily. ‘Did you +ever actually see any one killed?’ + +Emily stiffened palpably. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Why should we?’ + +‘Didn’t you ever even see a body?’ she went on: ‘A dead one?’ + +‘No,’ said Emily, ‘there weren’t any.’ She seemed to meditate a while. +‘There weren’t many,’ she corrected. + +‘You poor, poor little thing,’ said Miss Dawson, stroking her forehead. + +But though Emily was slow to talk, Edward was not. Suggestion was +hardly necessary. He soon saw what he was expected to say. It was +also what he wanted to say. All these rehearsals with Harry, these +springings into the main rigging, these stormings of the galley ... +they had seemed real enough at the time. Now, he had soon no doubt +about them at all. And Harry backed him up. + +It was wonderful for Edward that every one seemed ready to believe what +he said. Those who came to him for tales of bloodshed were not sent +empty away. + +Nor did Rachel contradict him. The pirates were wicked--deadly wicked, +as she had good reason to know. So they had probably done all Edward +said: probably when she was not looking. + +Miss Dawson did not always press Emily like this: she had too much +sense. She spent a good deal of her time simply in tying more firmly +the knots of the child’s passion for her. + +She was ready enough to tell her about England. But how strange it +seemed that these humdrum narrations should interest any one who had +seen such romantic, terrible things as Emily had! + +She told her all about London, where the traffic was so thick things +could hardly pass, where things drove by all day, as if the supply of +them would never come to an end. She tried also to describe trains, +but Emily could not see them, somehow: all she could envisage was a +steamer like this one, only going on land--but she knew that was not +right. + +What a wonderful person her Miss Dawson was! What marvels she had seen! +Emily had again the feeling she had in the schooner’s cabin: how time +had slipped by, been wasted. Now she would be eleven in a few months: +a great age: and in all that long life, how little of interest or +significance had happened to her! There was her Earthquake, of course, +and she had slept with an alligator: but what were these compared with +the experiences of Miss Dawson, who knew London so well it hardly +seemed any longer wonderful to her, who could not even count the number +of times she had travelled in a train? + +Her Earthquake ... it was a great possession. Dared she tell Miss +Dawson about it? Was it possible that it would raise her a little +in Miss Dawson’s esteem, show that even she, little Emily, had +had experiences? But she never dared. Suppose that to Miss Dawson +earthquakes were as familiar as railway trains: the fiasco would be +unbearable. As for the alligator, Miss Dawson had told Harold to take +it away as if it was a worm. + +Sometimes Miss Dawson sat silently fondling Emily, looking now at her, +now at the other children at play. How difficult it was to imagine +that these happy-looking creatures had been, for months together, in +hourly danger of their lives! Why had they not died of fright? She was +sure that she would have. Or at least gone stark, staring, raving mad? + +She had always wondered how people survived even a moment of danger +without dropping dead with fear: but months and months ... and +children.... Her head could not swallow it. + +As for that other question, how dearly she would have liked to ask it, +if only she could have devised a formula delicate enough. + +Meanwhile Emily’s passion for her was nearing its crisis; and one day +this was provoked. Miss Dawson kissed Emily three times, and told her +in future to call her Lulu. + +Emily jumped as if shot. Call this goddess by her Christian name? She +burnt a glowing vermilion at the very thought. The Christian names of +all grown-ups were sacred: something never to be uttered by childish +lips: to do so, the most blasphemous disrespect. + +For Miss Dawson to tell her to do so was as embarrassing as if she had +seen written up in church, + + PLEASE SPIT. + +Of course, if Miss Dawson told her to call her Lulu, at least she must +not call her Miss Dawson any more. But say ... the Other Word aloud, +her lips refused. + +And so for some time, by elaborate subterfuges, she managed to avoid +calling her anything at all. But the difficulty of this increased +in geometrical progression: it began to render all intercourse an +intolerable strain. Before long she was avoiding Miss Dawson. + +Miss Dawson was terribly wounded: what could she have done to offend +this strange child? (‘Little Fairy-girl,’ she used to call her.) The +darling had seemed so fond of her, but now.... + +So Miss Dawson used to follow her about the ship with hurt eyes, and +Emily used to escape from her with scarlet cheeks. They had never had +a real talk, heart to heart, again, by the time the steamer reached +England. + + +ii + +When the steamer took in her pilot, you may imagine that her news +travelled ashore; and also, that it quickly reached the _Times_ +newspaper. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bas-Thornton, after the disaster, unable to bear Jamaica +any longer, had sold Ferndale for a song and travelled straight back +to England, where Mr. Thornton soon got posts as London dramatic +critic to various Colonial newspapers, and manipulated rather remote +influences at the Admiralty in the hope of getting a punitive +expedition sent against the whole island of Cuba. It was thus the +_Times_ which, in its quiet way, broke the news to them, the very +morning that the steamer docked at Tilbury. She was a long time doing +it, owing to the fog, out of which the gigantic noises of dockland +reverberated unintelligibly. Voices shouted things from the quays. +Bells ting-a-linged. The children welded themselves into a compact +mass facing outwards, an improvised Argus determined to miss nothing +whatever. But they could not gather really what anything was about, +much less everything. + +Miss Dawson had taken charge of them all, meaning to convey them to her +Aunt’s London house till their relations could be found. So now she +took them ashore, and up to the train, into which they climbed. + +‘What are we getting into this box for?’ asked Harry: ‘Is it going to +rain?’ + +It took Rachel several journeys up and down the steep steps to get all +her babies inside. + +The fog, which had met them at the mouth of the river, was growing +thicker than ever. So they sat there in semi-darkness at first, till a +man came and lit the light. It was not very comfortable, and horribly +cold: but presently another man came, and put in a big flat thing which +was hot: it was full of hot water, Miss Dawson said, and for you to put +your feet on. + +Even now that she was in a train, Emily could hardly believe it would +ever start. She had become quite sure it was not going to when at last +it did, jerking along like a cannon-ball would on a leash. + +Then their powers of observation broke down. For the time they were +full. So they played Up-Jenkins riotously all the way to London: and +when they arrived hardly noticed it. They were quite loath to get out, +and finally did so into as thick a pea-soup fog as London could produce +at the tail end of the season. At this they began to wake up again, and +jog themselves to remember that this really was _England_, so as not to +miss things. + +They had just realised that the train had run right inside a sort +of enormous house, lit by haloed yellow lights and full of this +extraordinary orange-coloured air, when Mrs. Thornton found them. + +‘Mother!’ cried Emily. She had not known she could be so glad to see +her. As for Mrs. Thornton, she was far beyond the bounds of hysteria. +The little ones held back at first, but soon followed Emily’s example, +leaping on her and shouting: indeed it looked more like Actæon with his +hounds than a mother with her children: their monkey-like little hands +tore her clothes in pieces, but she didn’t care a hoot. As for their +father, he had totally forgotten how much he disliked emotional scenes. + +‘I slept with an alligator!’ Emily was shouting at intervals. ‘Mother! +I’ve slept with an alligator!’ + +Margaret stood in the background holding all their parcels. None of her +relations had appeared at the station. Mrs. Thornton’s eye at last took +her in. + +‘Why, Margaret ...’ she began vaguely. + +Margaret smiled and came forward to kiss her. + +‘Get out!’ cried Emily fiercely, punching her in the chest. ‘She’s _my_ +mother!’ + +‘Get out!’ shouted all the others. ‘She’s _our_ mother!’ + +Margaret fell back again into the shadows: and Mrs. Thornton was too +distracted to be as shocked as she would normally have been. + +Mr. Thornton, however, was just sane enough to take in the situation. +‘Come on, Margaret!’ he said. ‘Margaret’s _my_ pal! Let’s go and look +for a cab!’ + +He took the girl’s arm, bowing his fine shoulders, and walked off with +her up the platform. + +They found a cab, and brought it to the scene, and they all got in, +Mrs. Thornton just remembering to say ‘How-d’you-do-good-bye’ to Miss +Dawson. + +Packing themselves inside was difficult. It was in the middle of it all +that Mrs. Thornton suddenly exclaimed: + +‘But where’s John?’ + +The children fell immediately silent. + +‘Where is he?--Wasn’t he on the train with you?’ + +‘No,’ said Emily, and went as dumb as the rest. + +Mrs. Thornton looked from one of them to another. + +‘John! Where is John?’ she asked the world at large, a faint hint of +uneasiness beginning to tinge her voice. + +It was then that Miss Dawson showed a puzzled face at the window. + +‘_John?_’ she asked. ‘Why, who is John?’ + + +iii + +The children passed the spring at the house their father had taken in +Hammersmith Terrace, on the borders of Chiswick: but Captain Jonsen, +Otto, and the crew passed it in Newgate. + +They were taken there as soon as the gunboat which apprehended them +reached the Thames. + +The children’s bewilderment lasted. London was not what they had +expected, but it was even more astounding. From time to time, however, +they would realise how this or that did chime in with something they +had been told, though not at all with the idea that the telling had +conjured up. On these occasions they felt something as Saint Matthew +must have felt when, after recounting some trivial incident, he adds: +‘That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet So-and-So.’ + +‘Why look!’ exclaimed Edward. ‘There’s only toys in this store!’ + +‘Why, don’t you remember ...’ began Emily. + +Yes, their mother had told them, on a visit to their father’s general +store in St. Anne’s, that in London there were stores which not only +sold toys but which sold toys only. At that time they hardly knew what +toys were. A cousin in England had once sent them out some expensive +wax dolls, but even before the box was opened the wax had melted: +consequently the only dolls they had were empty bottles, which they +clothed with bits of rag. These had another advantage over the wax +kind: you could feed them, poking it into the neck. If you put in +some water too, in a day or so the food began to digest, visibly. The +bottles with square shoulders they called He-beasties, and the bottles +with round shoulders they called She-beasties. + +Their other toys were mostly freakish sticks, and different kinds of +seeds and berries. No wonder it seemed strange to them to imagine +these things in a shop. But the idea engaged them, nevertheless. Down +by the bathing-hole there were several enormous cotton-trees, which +lift themselves on their roots right out of the earth, as on stilts, +making a big cage. One of these they dubbed their toy-shop: decorated +it up with lace-bark, and strings of bright-coloured seeds, and their +other toys: then they would go inside and take turns to sell them to +each other. So now this was the picture the phrase ‘toy-shop’ evoked in +them. No wonder the London kind was a surprise to them, seemed a very +far-fetched fulfilment of the prophecy. + +The houses in Hammersmith are tall, roomy, comfortable houses, though +not big or aristocratic, with gardens running right down to the river. + +It was a shock to them to find how dirty the river was. The +litter-strewn mud when the tide was out somehow offended them much less +than the sewery water when it was up. At low tide they would often +climb down the wall and scrounge about in the mud for things of value +to them happily enough. They stank like polecats when they came up +again. Their father was sensible about dirt. He ordered a tub of water +to be kept permanently outside the basement door, in which they must +wash before entering the house: but none of the other children in the +terrace were allowed to play in the mud at all. + +Emily did not play in the mud either: it was only the little ones. + +Mr. Thornton was generally at a theatre till the small hours; and when +he came home used to sit and write, and then he would go out, about +dawn, to the post. The children were often awake in time to hear him +going to bed. He drank whisky while he worked, and that helped him to +sleep all the morning (they had to be quiet too). But he got up for +luncheon, and then he often had battles with their mother about the +food. She would try to make him eat it. + +All that spring they were an object of wonder to their acquaintances, +as they had been on the steamer; and also an object of pity. In +the wide world they had become almost national figures: but it was +easier to hide this from them then than it would be nowadays. But +people--friends--would often come and tell them about the pirates: +what wicked men they were, and how cruelly they had maltreated them. +Children would generally ask to see Emily’s scar. They were especially +sorry for Rachel and Laura, who, as being the youngest, must have +suffered most. These people used also to tell them about John’s +heroism, and that he had died for his country just the same as if he +had grown up and become a real soldier: that he had shown himself a +true English gentleman, like the knights of old were and the martyrs. +They were to grow up to be very proud of John, who though still a child +had dared to defy these villains and die rather than allow anything to +happen to his sisters. + +The glorious deeds which Edward would occasionally confess to were +still received with an admiration hardly at all tempered with +incredulity. He had the intuition, by now, to make them always done in +defiance of Jonsen and his crew, not, as formerly, in alliance with or +superseding them. + +The children listened to all they were told: and according to their +ages believed it. Having as yet little sense of contradiction, they +blended it quite easily in their minds with their own memories; or +sometimes it even cast their memories out. Who were they, children, to +know better what had happened to them than grown-ups? + +Mrs. Thornton was a feeling, but an essentially Christian woman. The +death of John was a blow to her from which she would never recover, +as indeed the death of all of them had once been. But she taught the +children in saying their prayers to thank God for John’s noble end and +let it always be an example to them: and then she taught them to ask +God to forgive the pirates for all their cruelty to them. She explained +to them that God could only do this when they had been properly +punished on earth. The only one who could not understand this at all +was Laura--she was, after all, rather young. She used the same form +of words as the others, yet contrived to imagine that she was praying +to the pirates, not for them; so that it gradually came about that +whenever God was mentioned in her hearing the face she imagined for Him +was Captain Jonsen’s. + +Once more a phase of their lives was receding into the past, and +crystallising into myth. + +Emily was too old to say her prayers aloud, so no one could know +whether she put in the same phrase as the others about the pirates or +not. No one, in point of fact, knew much what Emily was thinking about +anything, at that time. + + +iv + +One day a cab came for the whole family, and they drove together right +into London. The cab took them into the Temple: and then they had to +walk through twisting passages and up some stairs. + +It was a day of full spring, and the large room into which they were +ushered faced south. The windows were tall and heavily draped with +curtains. After the gloomy stairs it seemed all sunshine and warmth. +There was a big fire blazing, and the furniture was massive and +comfortable, the dark carpet so thick it clung to their shoes. + +A young man was standing in front of the fire when they came in. He was +very correctly, indeed beautifully dressed: and he was very handsome as +well, like a prince. He smiled at them all pleasantly, and came forward +and talked like an old friend. The suspicious eyes of the Liddlies soon +accepted him as such. He gave their parents cake and wine: and then +he insisted on the children being allowed a sip too, with some cake, +which was very kind of him. The taste of the wine recalled to all of +them that blowy night in Jamaica: they had had none since. + +Soon some more people arrived. They were Margaret and Harry, with a +small, yellow, fanatical-looking aunt. The two lots of children had not +seen each other for a long time: so they only said Hallo to each other +very perfunctorily. Mr. Mathias, their host, was just as kind to the +new arrivals. + +Every one was at great pains to make the visit appear a casual one; but +the children all knew more or less that it was nothing of the sort, +that something was presently going to happen. However, they could +play-act too. Rachel climbed onto Mr. Mathias’s knee. They all gathered +round the fire, Emily sitting bolt upright on a foot-stool, Edward and +Laura side by side in a capacious arm-chair. + +In the middle of every one talking there was a pause, and Mr. Thornton, +turning to Emily, said, ‘Why don’t you tell Mr. Mathias about your +adventures?’ + +‘Oh yes!’ said Mr. Mathias, ‘do tell me all about it. Let me see, +you’re ...’ + +‘Emily,’ whispered Mr. Thornton. + +‘Age?’ + +‘Ten.’ + +Mr. Mathias reached for a piece of clean paper and a pen. + +‘What adventures?’ asked Emily clearly. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Mathias, ‘you started for England on a sailing-ship, +didn’t you? The _Clorinda_?’ + +‘Yes. She was a barque.’ + +‘And then what happened?’ + +She paused before answering. + +‘There was a monkey,’ she said judicially. + +‘A monkey?’ + +‘And a lot of turtles,’ put in Rachel. + +‘Tell him about the pirates,’ prompted Mrs. Thornton. Mr. Mathias +frowned at her slightly: ‘Let her tell it in her own words, please.’ + +‘Oh yes,’ said Emily dully, ‘we were captured by pirates, of course.’ + +Both Edward and Laura had sat up at the word, stiff as spokes. + +‘Weren’t you with them too, Miss Fernandez?’ Mr. Mathias asked. + +Miss Fernandez! Every one turned to see who he could mean. He was +looking at Margaret. + +‘Me?’ she said suddenly, as if waking up. + +‘Yes, you! Go on!’ said her aunt. + +‘Say yes,’ prompted Edward. ‘You were with us, weren’t you?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Margaret, smiling. + +‘Then why couldn’t you say so?’ hectored Edward. + +Mr. Mathias silently noted this curious treatment of the eldest: and +Mrs. Thornton told Edward he mustn’t speak like that. + +‘Tell us what you remember about the capture, will you?’ he asked, +still of Margaret. + +‘The what?’ + +‘Of how the pirates captured the _Clorinda_.’ + +She looked round nervously and laughed, but said nothing. + +‘The monkey was in the rigging, so they just came on the ship,’ Rachel +volunteered. + +‘Did they--er--fight with the sailors? Did you see them hit anybody? Or +threaten anybody?’ + +‘Yes!’ cried Edward, and jumped up from his chair, his eyes wide and +inspired. ‘_Bing! Bang! Bong!_’ he declared, thumping the seat at each +word; then sat down again. + +‘They didn’t,’ said Emily. ‘Don’t be silly, Edward.’ + +‘Bing, bang, bong,’ he repeated, with less conviction. + +‘_Bung!_’ contributed Harry to his support, from under the arm of the +fanatical aunt. + +‘Bim-bam, bim-bam,’ sing-songed Laura, suddenly waking up and starting +a tattoo of her own. + +‘Shut up!’ cried Mr. Thornton. ‘Did you, or did you not, any of you, +see them hit anybody?’ + +‘Cut off their heads!’ cried Edward. ‘And throw them in the sea!--Far, +far ...’ his eyes became dreamy and sad. + +‘They didn’t hit anybody,’ said Emily. ‘There wasn’t any one to hit.’ + +‘Then where were all the sailors?’ asked Mr. Mathias. + +‘They were all up the rigging,’ said Emily. + +‘I see,’ said Mr. Mathias. ‘Er--didn’t you say the monkey was in the +rigging?’ + +‘He broke his neck,’ said Rachel. She wrinkled up her nose disgustedly: +‘He was drunk.’ + +‘His tail was rotted,’ explained Harry. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Mathias, ‘when they came on board, what did they do?’ + +There was a general silence. + +‘Come, come! What did they do?--What did they do, Miss Fernandez?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘Emily?’ + +‘_I_ don’t know.’ + +He sat back in despair: ‘But you saw them!’ + +‘No we didn’t,’ said Emily, ‘we went in the deck-house.’ + +‘And stayed there?’ + +‘We couldn’t open the door.’ + +‘_Bang-bang-bang!_’ Laura suddenly rapped out. + +‘Shut up!’ + +‘And then, when they let you out?’ + +‘We went on the schooner.’ + +‘Were you frightened?’ + +‘What of?’ + +‘Well: them.’ + +‘Who?’ + +‘The pirates.’ + +‘Why should we?’ + +‘They didn’t do anything to frighten you?’ + +‘To _frighten_ us?’ + +‘Coo! José did belch!’ Edward interjected merrily, and began giving an +imitation. Mrs. Thornton chid him. + +‘Now,’ said Mr. Mathias gravely, ‘there’s something I want you to tell +me, Emily. When you were with the pirates, did they ever do anything +you didn’t like? You know what I mean, something _nasty_?’ + +‘Yes!’ cried Rachel, and every one turned to her. ‘He talked about +drawers,’ she said in a shocked voice. + +‘What did he say?’ + +‘He told us once not to toboggan down the deck on them,’ put in Emily +uncomfortably. + +‘Was that all?’ + +‘He shouldn’t have talked about drawers,’ said Rachel. + +‘Don’t _you_ talk about them, then,’ cried Edward: ‘Smarty!’ + +‘Miss Fernandez,’ said the lawyer diffidently, ‘have you anything to +add to that?’ + +‘What?’ + +‘Well ... what we are talking about.’ + +She looked from one person to another, but said nothing. + +‘I don’t want to press you for details,’ he said gently, ‘but did they +ever--well, make suggestions to you?’ + +Emily fixed her glowing eyes on Margaret, catching hers. + +‘It’s no good questioning Margaret,’ said the Aunt morosely; ‘but it +ought to be perfectly clear to you what has happened.’ + +‘Then I am afraid I must,’ said Mr. Mathias. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ + +Mrs. Thornton had for some while been frowning and pursing her lips, to +stop him. + +‘Another time would be much better,’ she said: and Mr. Mathias turned +the examination back to the capture of the _Clorinda_. + +But they seemed to have been strangely unobservant of what went on +around them, he found. + + +v + +When the others had all gone, Mathias offered Thornton, whom he liked, +a cigar: and the two sat together for a while over the fire. + +‘Well,’ said Thornton, ‘did the interview go as you had expected?’ + +‘Pretty much.’ + +‘I noticed you questioned them chiefly about the _Clorinda_. But you +have got all the information you need on that score, surely?’ + +‘Naturally I did. Anything they affirmed I could check exactly by +Marpole’s detailed affidavit. I wanted to test their reliability.’ + +‘And you found?’ + +‘What I have always known. That I would rather have to extract +information from the devil himself than from a child.’ + +‘But what information, exactly, do you want?’ + +‘Everything. The whole story.’ + +‘You know it.’ + +Mathias spoke with a dash of exasperation: + +‘Do you realise, Thornton, that without considerable help from them we +may even fail to get a conviction?’ + +‘What is the difficulty?’ asked Thornton in a peculiar, restrained tone. + +‘We could get a conviction for piracy, of course. But since ’37, +piracy has ceased to be a hanging offence unless it is accompanied by +murder.’ + +‘And is the killing of one small boy insufficient to count as murder?’ +asked Thornton in the same cold voice. + +Mathias looked at him curiously. + +‘We can guess at the probabilities of what happened,’ he said. ‘The boy +was undoubtedly taken onto the schooner; and now he can’t be found. +But, strictly speaking, we have no proof that he is dead.’ + +‘He may, of course, have swum across the Gulf of Mexico and landed at +New Orleans.’ + +Thornton’s cigar, as he finished speaking, snapped in two. + +‘I know this is ...’ began Mathias with professional gentleness, then +had the sense to check himself. ‘I am afraid there is no doubt that we +can personally entertain that the lad is dead: but there is a legal +doubt: and where there is a legal doubt a jury might well refuse to +convict.’ + +‘Unless they were carried away by an attack of common sense.’ + +Mathias paused for a moment before asking: + +‘And the other children have dropped, as yet, no hint as to what +precisely did happen to him?’ + +‘None.’ + +‘Their mother has questioned them?’ + +‘Exhaustively.’ + +‘Yet they must surely know.’ + +‘It is a great pity,’ said Thornton, deliberately, ‘that when the +pirates decided to kill the child, they did not invite in his sisters +to watch.’ + +Mathias was ready to make allowances. He merely shifted his position +and cleared his voice. + +‘Unless we can get definite evidence of murder, either of your boy +or the Dutch captain, I am afraid there is a very real danger of +these men escaping with their lives: though they would of course be +transported.--It’s all highly unsatisfactory, Thornton,’ he went on +confidentially. ‘We do not, as lawyers, like aiming at a conviction for +piracy alone. It is too vague. The most eminent jurists have not even +yet decided on a satisfactory definition of piracy. I doubt, now, if +they ever will. One school holds that it is any felony committed on the +High Seas. But that does little except render a separate term otiose. +Moreover, it is not accepted by other schools of thought.’ + +‘To the layman, at least, it would seem to be a queer sort of piracy to +commit suicide in one’s cabin, or perform an illegal operation on the +captain’s daughter!’ + +‘Well, you see the difficulties. Consequently we always prefer to make +use of it simply as a make-weight with another more serious charge. +Captain Kidd, for instance, was not, strictly speaking, hanged for +piracy. The first count in his indictment, on which he was condemned, +sets forth that he feloniously, intentionally, and with malice +aforethought hit his own gunner on the head with a wooden bucket value +eightpence. That is something definite. What _we_ need is something +definite. We have not got it. Take the second case, the piracy of the +Dutch steamer. We are in the same difficulty there: a man is taken on +board the schooner, he disappears. What happened? We can only surmise.’ + +‘Isn’t there such a thing as turning King’s Evidence?’ + +‘Another most unsatisfactory proceeding, to which I should be loath to +have recourse. No, the natural and proper witnesses are the children. +There is a kind of beauty in making them, who have suffered so much at +these men’s hands, the instruments of justice upon them.’ + +Mathias paused, and looked at Thornton narrowly. + +‘You haven’t been able, in all these weeks, to get the smallest hint +from them with regard to the death of Captain Vandervoort either?’ + +‘None.’ + +‘Well, is it your impression that they do truly know nothing, or that +they have been terrorised into hiding something?’ + +Thornton gave a gentle sigh, almost of relief. + +‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think they have been terrorised. But I do think +they may know something they won’t tell.’ + +‘But why?’ + +‘Because, during the time they were on the schooner, it is plain they +got very fond of this man Jonsen, and of his lieutenant, the man called +Otto.’ + +Mathias was incredulous. + +‘Is it possible for children to be mistaken in a man’s whole nature +like that?’ + +The look of irony on Thornton’s face attained an intensity that was +almost diabolical. + +‘I think it is possible,’ he said, ‘even for children to make such a +mistake.’ + +‘But this ... affection: it is highly improbable.’ + +‘It is a fact.’ + +Mathias shrugged. After all, a criminal lawyer is not concerned with +facts. He is concerned with probabilities. It is the novelist who is +concerned with facts, whose job it is to say what a particular man did +do on a particular occasion: the lawyer does not, cannot be expected to +go further than to show what the ordinary man would be most likely to +do under presumed circumstances. + +Mathias, as he conned these paradoxes, smiled to himself a little +grimly. It would never do to give utterance to them. + +‘I think if they know anything I shall be able to find it out,’ was all +he said. + +‘D’you mean to put them in the box?’ Thornton asked suddenly. + +‘Not all of them, certainly: Heaven forbid! But we shall have to +produce one of them at least, I am afraid.’ + +‘Which?’ + +‘Well. We had intended it to be the Fernandez girl. But she seems ... +unsatisfactory?’ + +‘Exactly.’ Then Thornton added, with a characteristic forward jerk: +‘She was sane enough when she left Jamaica.--Though always a bit of a +fool.’ + +‘Her aunt tells me that she seems to have lost her memory: or a +great part of it. No, if I call her it will simply be to exhibit her +condition.’ + +‘Then?’ + +‘I think I shall call your Emily.’ + +Thornton stood up. + +‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to settle with her yourself what she’s to +say. Write it out, and make her learn it by heart.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Mathias, looking at his finger-nails. ‘I am not in +the habit of going into court unprepared.--It’s bad enough having a +child in the box anyway,’ he went on. + +Thornton paused at the door. + +‘--You can never count on them. They say what they think you want them +to say. And then they say what they think the opposing counsel wants +them to say too--if they like his face.’ + +Thornton gesticulated--a foreign habit. + +‘I think I will take her to Madame Tussaud’s on Thursday afternoon and +try my luck,’ ended Mathias: and the two bade each other good-bye. + + +vi + +Emily enjoyed the wax-works; even though she did not know that a +wax-work of Captain Jonsen, his scowling face bloody and a knife in +his hand, was already in contemplation. She got on well with Mr. +Mathias. She felt very grown-up, going out at last without the little +ones endlessly tagging. Afterwards he took her to a bun-shop in Baker +Street, and tried to persuade her to pour out his tea for him: but she +turned shy at that, and he had in the end to do it for himself. + +Mr. Mathias, like Miss Dawson, spent a good deal of his time and energy +in courting the child’s liking. He was at least sufficiently successful +for it to come as a complete surprise to her when presently he began +to throw out questions about the death of Captain Vandervoort. Their +studied casualness did not deceive her for a moment. He learnt nothing: +but she was hardly home, and his carriage departed, than she was +violently sick. Presumably she had eaten too many cream buns. But, as +she lay in bed sipping from a tumbler of water in that mood of fatalism +which follows on the heels of vomiting, Emily had a lot to think over, +as well as an opportunity of doing so without emotion. + +Her father was spending a rare evening at home: and now he stood unseen +in the shadows of her bedroom, watching her. To his fantastic mind, the +little chit seemed the stage of a great tragedy: and while his bowels +of compassion yearned towards the child of his loins, his intellect was +delighted at the beautiful, the subtle combination of the contending +forces which he read into the situation. He was like a powerless +stalled audience, which pities unbearably, but would not on any account +have missed the play. + +But as he stood now watching her, his sensitive eyes communicated to +him an emotion which was not pity and was not delight: he realised, +with a sudden painful shock, that he was afraid of her! + +But surely it was some trick of the candle-light, or of her +indisposition, that gave her face momentarily that inhuman, stony, +basilisk look? + +Just as he was tiptoeing from the room, she burst out into a sudden, +despairing moan, and leaning half out of her bed began again an +ineffectual, painful retching. Thornton persuaded her to drink off her +tumbler of water, and then held her hot moist temples between his hands +till at last she sank back, exhausted, in a complete passivity, and +slipped off to sleep. + + * * * * * + +There were several occasions after this when Mr. Mathias took her out +on excursions, or simply came and examined her at the house. But still +he learnt nothing. + +What was in her mind now? I can no longer read Emily’s deeper thoughts, +or handle their cords. Henceforth we must be content to surmise. + +As for Mathias, there was nothing for it but to accept defeat at her +hands, and then explain it away to himself. He ceased to believe that +she had anything to hide, because, if she had, he was convinced she +could not have hidden it. + +But if she could not give him any information, she remained, +spectacularly speaking, a most valuable witness. So, as Thornton had +suggested, he set his clerk to copy out in his beautiful hand a sort +of Shorter Catechism: and this he gave to Emily and told her to learn +it. + +She took it home and showed it to her mother, who said Mr. Mathias +was quite right, she was to learn it. So Emily pinned it to her +looking-glass, and learnt the answers to two new questions every +morning. Her mother heard her these with her other lessons, +and badgered her a lot for the sing-song way she repeated them. But how +can one speak naturally anything learnt by heart, Emily wondered? It +is impossible. And Emily knew this catechism backwards and forwards, +inside and out, before the day came. + + * * * * * + +Once more they drove into town: but this time it was to the Central +Criminal Court. The crowd outside was enormous, and Emily was bundled +in with the greatest rapidity. The building was impressive, and full of +policemen, and the longer she had to wait in the little room where they +were shown, the more nervous she became. Would she remember her piece, +or would she forget it? From time to time echoing voices sounded down +the corridors, summoning this person or that. Her mother stayed with +her, but her father only looked in occasionally, when he would give +some news to her mother in a low tone. Emily had her catechism with +her, and read it over and over. + +Finally a policeman came, and conducted them into the court. + +A criminal court is a very curious place. The seat of a ritual quite as +elaborate as any religious one, it lacks in itself any impressiveness +or symbolism of architecture. A robed judge in court looks like a +catholic bishop would if he were to celebrate mass in some municipal +bath-house. There is nothing to make one aware that here the Real +Presence is: the presence of death. + +As Emily came into court, past the many men in black gowns writing with +their quill pens, she did not at first see judge, jury, or prisoners. +Her eye was caught by the face of the Clerk, where he sat below the +Bench. It was an old and very beautiful face, cultured, unearthly +refined. His head laid back, his mouth slightly open, his eyes closed, +he was gently sleeping. + +That face remained etched on her mind as she was shown her way into the +box. The Oath, which formed the opening passages of her catechism, was +administered; and with its familiar phrases her nervousness vanished, +and with complete confidence she sang out her responses to the familiar +questions which Mr. Mathias, in fancy dress, was putting to her. But +until he had finished she kept her eyes fixed on the rail in front of +her, for fear something should confuse her. At last, however, Mr. +Mathias sat down; and Emily began to look around her. High above the +sleeping man sat another, with a face even more refined, but wide +awake. His voice, when now he spoke a few words to her, was the kindest +she had ever heard. Dressed in his strange disguise, toying with a +pretty nosegay, he looked like some benign old wizard who spent his +magic in doing good. + +Beneath her was the table where so many other wigged men were sitting. +One was drawing funny faces: but his own was grave. Two more were +whispering together. + +Now another man was on his feet. He was shorter than Mr. Mathias, and +older, and in no way good-looking or even interesting. He in turn began +to ask her questions. + +He, Watkin, the defending counsel, was no fool. He had not failed to +notice that, among all the questions Mathias had put to her, there had +been no reference to the death of Captain Vandervoort. That must mean +that either the child knew nothing of it--itself a valuable lacuna in +the evidence to establish, or that what she did know was somehow in +his clients’ favour. Up till now he had meant to pursue the obvious +tactics--question her on the evidence she had already given, perhaps +frighten her, at any rate confuse her and make her contradict herself. +But any one, even a jury, could see through that. Nor was there any +hope, under any circumstances, of a total acquittal: the most he could +hope for was escape from the murder charge. + +He suddenly decided to change his whole policy. When he spoke, his +voice too was kind (though it lacked perforce the full benign timbre of +the judge’s). He made no attempt to confuse her. By his sympathy with +her, he hoped for the sympathy, himself, of the court. + +His first few questions were of a general nature: and he continued them +until her answers were given with complete confidence. + +‘Now, my dear young lady,’ he said at last. ‘There is just one more +question I want to ask you: and please answer it loudly and clearly, so +that we can all hear. We have been told about the Dutch Steamer, which +had the animals on board. Now a very horrible thing has been suggested. +It has been said that a man was taken off the steamer, the captain of +it in fact, onto the schooner, and that he was murdered there. Now what +I want to ask you is this. Did you see any such thing happen?’ + +Those who were watching the self-contained Emily saw her turn very +white and begin to tremble. Suddenly she gave a shriek: then after +a second’s pause she began to sob. Every one listened in an icy +stillness, their hearts in their mouths. Through her tears they heard, +they all heard, the words: ‘... He was all lying in his blood ... he +was awful! He ... he died, he said something and then he _died_!’ + +That was all that was articulate. Watkin sat down, thunderstruck. The +effect on the court could hardly have been greater. As for Mathias, he +did not show surprise: he looked more like a man who has digged a pit +into which his enemy has fallen. + +The judge leant forward and tried to question her: but she only sobbed +and screamed. He tried to soothe her: but by now she had become too +hysterical for that. She had already, however, said quite enough for +the matter in hand: and they let her father come forward and lift her +out of the box. + +As he stepped down with her she caught sight for the first time of +Jonsen and the crew, huddled up together in a sort of pen. But they +were much thinner than the last time she had seen them. The terrible +look on Jonsen’s face as his eye met hers, what was it that it reminded +her of? + +Her father hurried her home. As soon as she was in the cab she became +herself again with a surprising rapidity. She began to talk about all +she had seen, just as if it had been a party: the man asleep, and the +man drawing funny faces, and the man with the bunch of flowers, and had +she said her piece properly? + +‘Captain was there,’ she said. ‘Did you see him?’ + +‘What was it all about?’ she asked presently. ‘Why did I have to learn +all those questions?’ + +Mr. Thornton made no attempt to answer her questions: he even shrank +back, physically, from touching his child Emily. His mind reeled with +the many possibilities. Was it conceivable she was such an idiot as +really not to know what it was all about? Could she possibly not know +what she had done? He stole a look at her innocent little face, even +the tear-stains now gone. What was he to think? + +But as if she read his thoughts, he saw a faint cloud gather. + +‘What are they going to do to Captain?’ she asked, a faint hint of +anxiety in her voice. + +Still he made no answer. In Emily’s head the Captain’s face, as she had +last seen it ... what was it she was trying to remember? + +Suddenly she burst out: + +‘Father, _what_ happened to Tabby in the end, that dreadful windy night +in Jamaica?’ + + +vii + +Trials are quickly over, once they begin. It was no time before the +judge had condemned these prisoners to death and was trying some one +else with the same concentrated, benevolent, individual attention. + +Afterwards, a few of the crew were reprieved and transported. + +The night before the execution, Jonsen managed to cut his throat: but +they found out in time to bandage him up. He was unconscious by the +morning, and had to be carried to the gallows in a chair: indeed, he +was finally hanged in it. Otto bent over once and kissed his forehead; +but he was completely insensible. + +It was the negro cook, however, according to the account in the +_Times_, who figured most prominently. He showed no fear of death +himself, and tried to comfort the others. + +‘We have all come here to die,’ he said. ‘_That_’ (pointing to the +gallows) ‘was not built for nothing. We shall certainly end our lives +in this place: nothing can now save us. But in a few years we should +die in any case. In a few years the judge who condemned us, all men now +living, will be dead. _You_ know that I die innocent: anything I have +done, I was forced to do by the rest of you. But I am not sorry. I +would rather die now, innocent, than in a few years perhaps guilty of +some great sin.’ + + +viii + +It was a few days later that term began, and Mr. and Mrs. Thornton took +Emily to her new school at Blackheath. While they remained to tea with +the head mistress, Emily was introduced to her new playmates. + +‘Poor little thing,’ said the mistress, ‘I hope she will soon forget +the terrible things she has been through. I think our girls will have +an especially kind corner in their hearts for her.’ + +In another room, Emily with the other new girls was making friends +with the older pupils. Looking at that gentle, happy throng of clean +innocent faces and soft graceful limbs, listening to the ceaseless, +artless babble of chatter rising, perhaps God could have picked out +from among them which was Emily: but I am sure that I could not. + + +FINIS + + + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] The tiger-shark of the South Seas is of course a very different +cattle. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the + public domain. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75530 *** |