“Yes,” I said; “that was done purposely, so as to make the dropping of the slush-pot appear an accident.”
She looked at me a moment; then, slowly, a little wave of colour passed across her face—and grew.
And at that, as it were in an instant of time, I knew, and knowing, I cried almost inanely:
“You cared?”
The colour grew gloriously in her face, and suffused her throat and temples. She turned and looked out across the sea. For my part, I was filled with a tumult of wonder and unbelief, and, deeper than these, joy.
“Miss Vairne—Miss Vairne!” I cried.
She turned now and faced me, and her eyes were like love stars.
“Eina,” she said. “Call me Eina. And you?”
She paused.
“Eina! Eina! Eina!” I repeated, in a sort of delirium.
“You haven’t told me yours?” she reproached.
“Mine!” I said, with a sort of little gasp. “Mine! Just John.”
“John Kenstone?” she said.
“Yes,” I replied stupidly.
“And you’re one of the deck-hands—common sailors?” she added joyously.
“Nay,” I said, gathering my wits somewhat, “but your sweetheart.”
She laughed splendidly, and seemed intending to add some new impertinence; then, suddenly changing her mind, said:
“But you have not told me that you love me. You have not asked me. You—”
“You know that I do—since the very first moment in which I set eyes upon you. I believe you knew—then.”
I would have stood up to embrace her there upon the poop before all, but she beckoned me with her hand not to move.
“Nay, Mr. Common Sailor,” she answered. “Stay you and scrape up your grease-spots—”
She paused, caught her breath with a naughty little gurgle, and bent towards me, her eyes fairly dancing.
“John Kenstone,” she said, “you’re a naughty boy, and a silly boy, and you don’t know one bit how to make love. You gave me a horrid fright, and you’re afraid to say that you love me; but I’m not afraid. I love you. I loved you at first, and I shall always love you.”
She bent lower.
“Quick!” she said. “Now!”
Something touched my lips for the briefest part of an instant, and then she was standing demurely a yard away.
She had kissed me! It had been no more than like the breath of a summer wind; yet she had kissed me, and with the very thought, almost, I was overwhelmed.
I looked up at her confusedly. She was looking back at me with a funny little droop of the lids, and round her mouth it seemed to me there lurked a shadow of tenderness that was only for me.
Abruptly her mood changed.
“What was it you wanted to say when you risked your life?”
She nodded with her head towards the gaff.
“I didn’t—” I began; but she interrupted me with a queer air of sternness.
“What was it?”
I felt momentarily confused.
“Oh, lots of things!” I said. Then, remembering more particularly; “You seemed unhappy.”
“I was,” she put in, “but I’m not now! Oh, I have wanted you, but I’ve been afraid of getting you into trouble with that—that brute!”
“The second mate?”
“Yes. He seems to have kept you away from me at the other end of the ship, and I didn’t know—”
“That I loved you?” I said, as she hesitated.
She nodded.
“I’m afraid of that man and the first mate! They’ve—they’ve—”
“They’ve not said anything?” I asked, feeling suddenly savage.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I told the captain, and he’s had an awful row with the second mate. I keep out of their way as much as possible.”
“Your chaperon?” I questioned.
“I can’t stand her!” she returned passionately. “I believe she’s a bad woman. She’s false to me, and she and the steward and the second mate talk together. She watches me.”
I told her what the steward had said to me, and how afterwards I had seen her chaperon talking to the second mate under the break of the poop.
“You must take a stand,” I said. “Ask the skipper for a cabin for yourself. Lock yourself in at nights; you’ll be safe then. And, besides, there’s always the skipper. He’s the boss, you know.”
“And now I’ve got you,” she added.
“Yes,” I said.
“What a great man you are!” she went on, looking down at me as I knelt there upon the deck.
“Only six foot,” I said apologetically.
“No, not only that way—broad. And your arms; I noticed them that first day. I love your arms!”
I laughed, for I was very strong, and she seemed to sting all the virility in me to greater life.
“I do love a man!” she said, as though to herself. Then, quite gravely: “You could kill the second mate!”
I stared at her.
“I don’t know,” I said, with equal gravity. “He’s a great, thick-set brute.”
She gave a gesture of dissent, and abruptly dropped her serious air. A ripple of mischief ran across her face and stirred in her eyes. She came a step towards me, and bent her face dangerously near.
“Wouldn’t you like to?” she said.
I caught her with my great hands.
“Yes,” I replied; and kissed her full on the lips.
I released her, and she stood up, her hair tossing in the wind and her cheeks gloriously rosy. On my part, I knelt upon the deck almost at her feet and looked up at her manfully. Then I caught the sound of the second mate returning along the main-deck. She also heard him, and walked away to the side and leant over. I went on with my scraping.
During the rest of that watch the second mate stayed on the poop, so that I had no further chance of speaking with Eina. Yet, in spite of his presence, our eyes met more than once, and that was something.
That same night Eina and I had a long, cautious talk as I stood at the wheel. She managed it by leaning over the taffrail and staring down into the wake, as though lost in thought. Yet all the time that she kept her face turned away she was talking to me in a low voice.
My gad! I was happy. She spoke unhesitatingly, and told me that I was the one fellow on this earth, and the sea, too—I heard her laugh naughtily to herself at that—whom she should ever love. And once, when the second mate had gone down on to the main deck to give the yards a cant, she stepped swiftly over to where I stood and kissed me on the lips. I had not become inured to such surprises, and it was done so quickly that she was back again by the rail and staring down demurely into the waters before I had recovered my wits. Yet she had left me tingling, so that I was possessed with a blind desire to leave the wheel and take her into my arms.
Even as I comprehended my wish, the second mate’s head appeared over the top step of the poop-ladder. He came aft and stared into the binnacle. Fortunately, the ship’s head was steady on her course. As he turned away, he gave one sharp, almost suspicious glance into my face; but I was prepared for him, and my features were set in an expression of complete indifference, while my eyes bore steadily on the compass-card swaying within the lighted binnacle.
I think he was satisfied, for the next instant he went for’ard and resumed his interrupted tramp to and fro across the break of the poop.
As soon as he was gone, Eina began again to talk to me, though still taking the utmost care never to turn her face in my direction. Indeed, once she even left her place and went to sit on the saloon skylight some distance away; but presently she came back to her former post.
It was after her return that I put into execution an idea that had occurred to me since the morning. This was to take from my pocket a peculiar little whistle that I had used years previously when second mate. The tone of this whistle was extraordinarily piercing, and I knew that I should be able at any time to recognise its note
were it blown.
“Eina,” I said, “I’ve a whistle here that I’m going to throw over to you. See you catch it.”
I waited until the second mate was on the opposite side of the deck; then I threw. It struck her dress and tinkled down on to the deck, but in an instant she had it.
“Look you, Eina,” I called, in a low voice, “if ever you want me at any time—want me badly—blow that whistle, and I will come to you, if I am alive.”
It was the following day, in the afternoon watch, that a great sensation went through the ship. This was neither more nor less than the sudden death of the captain. He had complained soon after dinner of feeling unwell, and had gone to his bunk. Then, a little before four bells, he was discovered by the steward lying there dead.
I was convinced, as soon as I heard the news, that the poor old chap had been done to death. I remembered how the steward and second mate had colloqued together. It would have been but a very simple matter for the steward—at someone’s instigation—to doctor the skipper’s grub. I felt sure that the second mate was not the sort of chap to stick at anything, and there had been that row between him and the skipper. I thought of Eina, and grew afraid for her, alone amongst the crowd aft. I thanked God for the thought that had prompted me to give her the whistle. At least, it gave her a means of communicating with me, should there be need. And then there was the third mate. He, I felt sure, was to be depended on. The idea came to me to try and get a few words with him, and this I managed at the end of the second dog watch that night. At first he was inclined to be on his dignity, but I showed him my second’s ticket, and he came round then, I spoke of Eina, and told him how that the second mate had acted towards her in an insulting manner.
At that the good fellow’s blood boiled up in a heavyish sort of way, and I knew that it would be safe to talk to him straightly. I hinted at my suspicions that the skipper’s death had not been natural, but this he would not have. Yet I know that he was impressed in spite of himself, and he agreed to act with me in mounting guard as much as possible over Miss Vairne. Then I left him, and returned for’ard.
The next day the second mate started in to show the sort of stuff of which he was made. He ran the men round like a lot of slaves, and when one or two of them grumbled, came down on to the main deck, and laid them out with a belaying-pin. In his own watch, and in his own particular way, the first mate was just as bad, and for a week the ship was more like a floating prison than aught else.
At the end of that time, being a crowd of Britishers, they were just ripe for mutiny, and when at last the second struck me, and in return I laid him out upon the deck with a blow in the face, they would have torn him to pieces and mutinied outright, only that I bade them “hold on” and wait.
After that time the second went armed, though never again did he venture to touch me. I had taught him one lesson. And all these weary days I listened and listened perchance the whistle should call me to rescue my darling from vile hands.
It was two nights later, and in the middle watch, that the call came. I was lying half dressed in my bunk, and, though asleep when the note went, it thrilled in my ears like a bugle. In one instant of time I was upon the deck, and racing aft in my stockinged feet. As I ran I thought I caught a faint scream from aft. Then I was at the saloon doorway that opens on to the main-deck under the poop. The door was open, and I leapt into the short passage, my stockings making no sound. Even as I entered, from within there came a man’s voice raised in anger. It was the third mate’s. Then a pistol-shot, and a cry of agony from him, and a curse in the second’s voice, accompanied by the colder, more deadly laughter of the first mate. Immediately afterwards there rose a short, despairing scream from Eina, and then I was among them. My gad! I am a quiet man, but then I was mad. They—the first and second mates—had hold of her. In the first mate’s left hand there still smoked a revolver. Standing by, holding a candle, was the hideous steward, an evil grin on his monkey face.
He sung out something, and the mate glanced round. He saw me, and raised his revolver; but in the same instant I struck him, and his face disappeared from sight. The second mate staggered back, loosing Eina, and reaching back to his pistol-pocket. Yet he, like the mate, was too late. Once, and then again, I struck him with my clenched hands; and after that there was scarcely life, let alone fight, in him. He collapsed with a crash on to the now diddering steward, and the two rolled helplessly on to the deck.
Then I turned to her, and caught her into my arms just as she fell senseless. I carried her out on to the deck, and laid her on the after-hatch. The crew had come aft, hearing the firing and the shouts. To some of them I shouted to go into the saloon, and make the steward hustle out with brandy; yet I had scarcely spoken before the cringing object stood beside me with a decanter half full.
Presently, when my sweetheart was revived, she told me how that she had waked to find the second mate in the doorway of her berth. Evidently he must have got in by means of a master key, probably obtained from the rascally steward. She had blown her whistle, and, before she could do so again, he had snatched it from her. Then the first mate had appeared upon the scene, and almost directly the third mate. The third had interposed, but him the first had shot down like a dog without a word. Then—I had come.
The tone in which she said that thrilled me. Yet she called me to myself, by asking whether anything had yet been done for the poor third mate. I told her no, but that I would go at once. At that she said she would come with me.
We found him lying on the port side of the saloon table, and a short examination showed that he had been shot through the chest. Yet he still lived, and we carried him into his berth and laid him in his bunk, and left him in Eina’s charge, while I, with some of the men, carried the second into a spare berth and locked him in; first, however, removing from him his pistol. When we came to the mate, there was need of nothing but some old canvas, for he was stone dead. I directed them to carry him out on to one of the hatches for the present. As they went, I caught a man’s voice.
“My Gawd!” it said. “That’s where ’e ’it ’im!”
And when they came back, quite naturally for further orders, they eyed me with awe-stricken glances.
There is little remaining to be told. I took charge of the ship, and worked her home. The third mate, under the unremitting care and attention of Eina, recovered. Indeed, he acted as my best man at a certain ceremony that Eina and I went through soon after our return. With regard to the second mate and the steward, the newspapers have already told what happened to them, and I will leave it there. There would I also leave all the flattering things that were said about my unworthy self, but that I cannot resist quoting one line:
“Mr. John Kenstone is indeed to be envied in his bonny wife.”
And I am.
How Sir Jerrold Treyn Dealt with the Dutch in Caunston Cove
I.
My father, Sir Charles Treyn, stamped his foot. “Confound the ways of the Government” he said, walking up and down the room.
He had just received a letter from my uncle (on my mother’s side), who owned what is still called Ralby Common, seven miles inland from Rayle, on the South Coast, about twenty miles from Caunston.
“Hear this,” said my father, and read from my uncle’s letter:
“ ‘A Dutch frigate, Van Ruyter, landed a hundred men at Rayle yestermorn, so I have just heard. They have burned Starly Manor, and half the village, and were gone clean away before the soldiers were come from Bideford. They made their raid in their own devilish way, which is to sail in from the sea during the night, with never a light showing, and to land at daybreak. They use not the big guns, lest this bring the soldiers upon them quickly from the big towns. Likewise, their burnings are not seen so well afar in the daylight. They killed twenty-three men, of Rayle village, that opposed them, and two women, and harmed many more. They shot an herd lad in the Manor lane, where he lay dead all day; and this because he would have run off to warn old Sir James,
who, by the blessing of Providence, heard that same shot, and roused his household, and escaped by the well passage.’
“He says,” added my father, “that we must build more and better ships to hunt the Dutch from the sea. Everyone knows that we build no ships as good as those we take from the Dutch; but, thank God, we fight ’em as they should be fought. But we need more ships and better ships, and we need coast ships.”
“We ought to have more guns, and heavier, on the Head,” I told my father. “James Corby’s schooner is in, and he’s two guns in the hold, long thirty-two-pounders, that he lifted out of the wreck of a French frigate. They will throw a shot near two miles, and at close range would go near through the two sides of a line-of-battleship.”
“I’ve done my duty to our cove,” said my father, pinching his forehead, as is his way when vexed. “Two hundred and thirty pounds I paid in good money for the guns and the mountings and the powder and shot, and the conveying of them to the Head, and building the platform to carry them. Let Sir Beant show his loyalty, and match them with three more guns on the Lanstock cliff, and we shall be very well prepared for any of these murdering Dutch who may think they will run in here and play the Old Harry with our property and our lives.”
I looked at John, my brother, and made a motion to him to keep silent. I knew that when my father had made up his mind, it was no use arguing with him, and I feared to explain the plans John and I had talked over, lest our father put a stop to all.
II.
“Come down to the cove,” I said later. “I believe we can buy one of those guns out of our allowance, if only Corby will not be so everlastingly greedy. Leave it to me to handle him.”
“Well, Corby,” I said, as we clambered aboard, “my father will not buy the guns. He has done more than his share for the cove. If anyone here is going to buy them, you’d better try Sir Beant. Or else take them up the coast as far as Mallington.”
“No use, sir,” said Corby, as I knew he would. “Sir Beant’s as stingy as my own mother, an’ that’s saying a heap. He’d never pay for mounting ’em, let alone the guns themselves. And I don’t want to bother takin’ them up the coast. Guns is mighty rum things to market.”
The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions Page 22