Gideon's Band Part 9

And there, close before Hugh, at the stairs' foot, under the open sky, were the twins. In their hunger for notice, their equal disdain of the captain and the deputation of seven, and their belief that the gayest defiance of the plague was its best preventive, they had set their bottle on the deck and in opposite directions were daintily pacing round it in a long ellipse and chanting to a camp-meeting tune their song of Gideon:

"O, Noah, he did build de ahk, O, Noah, he did build de ahk, O, Noah, he did build de ahk, An' s.h.i.+ngle it wid cinnamon bahk.

Do you belong to Gideon's band?

Here's my heart an' here's my hand!

Do you belong to Gideon's band?

Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"[1]

A glance at Hugh gave them new life. Singing on, they halted at opposite ends of the beat, patted thighs, called figures, leaped high, crossed s.h.i.+ns, cracked heels, cut double-shuffles, balanced, swung round the bottle, lifted it, drank, replaced it, and resumed their elliptical march to another stanza:

"He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed, He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed, He couldn't tote de whole worl' breed, He los' de c.r.a.p, but he save' de seed!

Do you belong to Gideon's band?

Fight'n' fo' yo' home!"

Hugh moved on down. "Both at once," he had said, but on every account--their mother's, her daughter's, his father's--it must be both at once without a high word from him. On the bottom step he was about to speak, when a tall, flaxen-haired German in big boots and green cap and coat, meek of brow and barely a year or two his senior, came out from behind the stair and stepped between the dancers, silent but with a hand lifted to one and then to the other.

"No," said Hugh to him. The alien's meekness vanished. He motioned toward the sick. His blue eyes flashed. But in the same instant he was jolted half off his feet by the lunging shoulder of one of the Hayles marching to the refrain:

"Do _you_ belong to Gideon's band?"

His answer was a blow so swift that Hugh barely saw it. The singer fell as if he had slipped on ice. Yet promptly he was up again, and from right and left the brothers leaped at their foe. But while men rushed in and hustled the immigrant aft the negro who had saved Ramsey caught one twin as lightly as he had caught her, and Hugh, jerking the other to his knees, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bottle and whirled it overboard. A moment later he found himself backing up-stairs, followed closely by the pair. These were being pushed up from below by others, and, in lofty phrases hot with oaths, were accusing all Courteneys of a studied plan to insult, misguide, imperil, a.s.sault, and humiliate every Hayle within reach and of a cowardly use of deckhands and Dutchmen for the purpose.

His replies were in undertone: "Come up! Hush your noise, your mother'll hear you! Come on! Come up!"

On the boiler deck they halted. The crowd filled the stair beneath and he marvelled once more as he gazed on the two young Hectors, who, true to their ideals and loathing the obliquities of a moral world that left them off deputations, blazed with self-approval in a plight whose shame burned through him, Hugh Courteney, by sheer radiation.

"And as sure," said Julian, "as sure as _h.e.l.l_, sir, your life's blood or that of your kin shall one day pay for this! To-night we are helpless. What is your wish?"

"My father's wish is that you go to your stateroom and berths and keep your word of honor given to him."

"That, sir, is what we were doing when a hired ruffian----"

"Never mind the hired ruffian. Charge that to me."

"Oh, sir, it is charged!" said the two. "And the charge will be collected!" They went their way.

[Footnote 1: [music]]

XIII

THE SUPERABOUNDING RAMSEY

In his hurricane-deck chair, with eyes out ahead on the water, John Courteney gently took his son's hand as the latter, returning to his side, stood without a word.

"Tucked in, are they, both of them?"

No reply.

"Hugh, I hear certain gentlemen are coming to ask me to put our deck pa.s.sengers ash.o.r.e."

"You can't do it, sir."

"Would you like to tell them so?"

"I'd like nothing better."

"Now that you've tasted blood, eh?"

No reply.

"It wouldn't be a mere putting of bad boys to bed, my son. It would be David and Goliath, with Goliath in the plural."

"Can't I pa.s.s them on to you if I find I must?"

"Of course you can. Hugh, I'm tempted to try you."

"I wish you would, sir."

"With no coaching? No 'Polonius to the players'?"

"I wish you would."

The father looked into the sky. "Superb night," he said.

Again no reply.

"Were you not deep in the spell of it when I found you here awhile ago?"

"Yes, I was."

"My son, I covet your better acquaintance."

"You mean I--say so little?"

"You reveal yourself so little. Even your mother felt that, Hugh."

"I know it, father. And yet, as for you----"

"Yes--as for me----?"

"I've never seen you without wanting to tell out all that's in me." The pair smiled to each other.

"And you say that at last, now, you can do it?"