Latitude 19 degree Part 38

"Say? Of course! Who is that? Oh, I forgot! You never saw William Brown."

"No, I never did," said I, "except in a sickly looking picture that's giving some shark indigestion, I hope, by this time. But the picture that you do me the honour to wear is myself."

"It isn't!" said Cynthia flatly.

"It is!" said I.

"Good Heavens, no!"

She snapped the slide of the chain apart, held the locket up before her eyes, gave one glance at the face, and then, with a quick movement of her hand, she tossed the locket into the stream.

"Why don't you throw it into the sea?" asked I.

She answered carelessly, "Oh, I think the stream will carry it down."

Cynthia sat in meditative pose for some moments. "Now where could that have come from? Oh, yes! I believe I know now. Yes, that must be it. You see Helose and I were comparing lockets one day just before I left Martinique. I remember now that William Brown's picture was always loose. It fell out. Helose had this one of you, and somehow, as we were putting them back, they got exchanged. I remember Helose admired William Brown very much. She said she thought him the handsomest man she had ever seen. I can send Helose this, and she will send me William."

"Mine's in the stream," said I. "Did you know who the picture was meant for?" I asked.

Cynthia cast down her eyes.

"I had seen you pa.s.sing the hotel," she answered. "Uncle told me that you were the new Mate."

I arose crestfallen. That perfidious Helose!

"Then this absurd marriage is off?" said I.

"Well," said she, "you know what Uncle is. He's set his heart--I hate to disapp----"

"Come and get your pork!" called the Skipper.

We went up to our early supper.

"Wonder what kind of weather we're goin' to have for the weddin'?" said the Skipper.

"It may rain," said I. "You know there was a rainbow this----"

"Now! now! now! None of _that_!" The Skipper raised his hand as if in protest. "I know what you're agoin' to say, Jones. Everything that happens in the morning you must take warning about just because it rhymes. And everything that happens at night must be a sailor's delight because it rhymes. Why, one of the worst harricanes that I ever knew happened to me off Hatteras when we had had a rainbow the night before.

Ricketts was Mate. He came up to me along about seven o'clock one evening and he says, 'Cap'n Schuyler, we are mighty lucky this trip. Do you see that rainbow, sir?' 'What of it?' said I. I didn't fancy that fellow much. He wore a ring. Well, the next morning it began to blow, and it blew so it nearly blew my teeth out. Did blow the Mate's hair off. It was a wig. I was glad of it. He shouldn't have been so presuming. Had to go all the way to Coenties Slip with a red waistcoat b.u.t.toned round his head. Another time, I remember, I had a young supercargo with me, taking a trip for his health. It wasn't a fair division. I know he made _me_ sick enough before we got through. I came on deck one morning, and he had the a.s.surance to tell me that we would have fine weather now right down through the Windward Pa.s.sage.

"'How do you know?' said I. 'Ever been there before?'

"And then, if you'll reelly believe me, he projuced a book, with all those rhymes printed in it, and he read 'em aloud for my benefit.

"'Here's one, Captain, that perhaps you've never seen.' And then he puffed out his chest and got up on a hawse block and read:

"'Evening red and morning gray Sets the _teraveller_ on his way.'

"'Get off that hawse block!' said I. I threw the book overboard and kicked the supercargo down to leeward. 'You stay your own side the deck,' I said, 'and don't come here with your saws.' For just that moment there came along a squall which nearly took the sticks out of her, and we had just been experiencing 'evenin' red and mornin' gray,'

'When they made you a supercargo, Mr. Whiting,' said I, 'they spoiled a good loblolly boy.'

"'A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing, Captain Schuyler, as perhaps you'll find out when you get home,' said he.

"'Don't answer back your betters, sir,' said I. 'I suppose you think you're a very superior cargo, but, if the underwriters ask my opinion, I shall tell 'em I consider you a blanked inferior one. Get down there to leeward, where you belong!'"

"Was he handsome, Uncle, that young supercargo of yours?"

"Well, not so's you'd notice it after I'd finished with him. It's astonis.h.i.+ng how soon he lost his good looks.--I tell you, Jones, it's all because of the rhyme. That's all poetry's written for. Facts are not accounted of at all. Rainbow at night, sailor's delight; rainbow at morning, take warning. Did you ever hear such stuff?"

"What became of the supercargo?" asked Cynthia, who had listened, much interested. "I suppose you took off his head or something, Uncle. You are so fierce." She laid her hand on the old man's back and patted his shoulder gently.

"No, but his father took mine off. He was half owner, and I didn't sail for him any more after that trip. There was another idiot with me along in '9. If you wanted a proof that all the fools were not dead yet, there you had it. It was along back in '9, as I said. I was going from Australia to Singapore. We were running down our Easting, making very fine weather. He comes to me one morning, and he says to me, 'Cap'n, the cyclone is upon us!'

"'Oh, it is,' says I. 'I suppose you got that out of your poetry book.

Do you know that our Cook's half black, Mister Superior Cargo?'

"'No, sir, I haven't seen him yet. Is he, indeed?' says the fellow, with great interest. 'I never heard of one like that. Where do they come from?'

"'From the galley,' says I.

"Just then Cook brought me some of the men's mess to taste.

"'You said he was half black, sir,' said the supercargo, looking in the man's coal-black face.

"'He isn't half white, is he?' says I.

"Tell you the truth, that fellow never understood me, and thought the whole voyage out to Singapore that I had been lying to him."

After our frugal meal was finished, the Skipper led the way to the boat.

Cynthia was very pale during the trip, and I felt once or twice as if it were my duty to forbid the banns. As bridegroom, I was not allowed to pull, and the Skipper, who had made his toilet by was.h.i.+ng his face and running his fingers through his hair in preparation for his duties as clergyman, was not allowed to soil his hands on the oars, so that we were some time in getting out to the wreck. The Bo's'n had to row the whole dead weight. I can see the boat now, the Skipper and Cynthia seated in the stern, Lacelle on the seat athwart s.h.i.+ps, close to them, the Bo's'n pulling steadily at his oars, and I perched high up in the bow, feeling like a little boy at a picnic.

It was quite a long row out to the wreck, and we were a very quiet party. The Skipper seemed to be mumbling the marriage service over to himself. The evening was calm and still. The oars dipped gently in the water, and made blue and pink ripples, the only disturbing feature of the scene except, perhaps, the marriage. Sweet odours came off from the sh.o.r.e, wafted how, I know not, for there was no breeze stirring. The moon was just rising, even before the sun had set, and her pale band ran undulating over the tiny wavelets that we made, and formed oblongs of silver and rose alternately.

Finally we arrived at the wreck. I saw the Skipper's mouth working as he surveyed what had been his taut little vessel. No one spoke. It seemed more like a funeral than a wedding. The Skipper was the first to step upon the charred deck.

He stood there and waved his hand comprehensively in a circle, which included all that was left of the Yankee Blade.

"Here," said the Skipper, with a twitching of the lip, "lies the sarco_pha_gus of all my hopes."

"It ain't a reel cheerful weddin', Mr. Jones, sir, now is it, sir?"

remarked the Bo's'n in a whisper. "Seein' as I ain't dressed, I think I'll send my regrets. Somebody's got to be boatkeeper."

"Don't let your wardrobe trouble you," urged I. "I've got it in my pocket," and I handed the Bo's'n his neckerchief.

A strange look overspread the features of the Bo's'n. If I had not been certain that my action ought to have provoked him, I should have said that he was pleased. But perhaps it was only at getting his neckerchief back again. At all events, he washed his hands, put on his neckerchief, took the painter in his fingers, and leaped on the deck.

"Now you go and stand right under all that's left of the Stars and Stripes," said the Skipper to Cynthia.