Mayflower (Flor de mayo) Part 9

For as much as a quarter of an hour the two of them walked on in silence, Roseta frightened at the possible outcome of their conversation; Pascualo, in a gloomy mood, stumbling along with lowered head and frowning darkly whenever he raised his eyes, clenching his fists as though in struggle with an evil thought that would not down.

Thus they reached the Grao and were through it before either of them spoke.

"And anyhow, Roseta," said the Rector at last, from sheer necessity of giving some expression to the anguished meditations that were writhing within him, "and anyhow, it's just as well that it is mere talk. For if I should find some day, that it's more than that ... _recristo_, n.o.body really knows who I am! I'm afraid of myself, sometimes! I'm an easy-going sort of chap, and never go around looking for trouble. I even yield a point down on the beach, now and then, because I've a boy to look out for and have never cared to play the bully, or the tough. But there are two things in this world that I have, and that I call mine: my money, and my wife. Let no one dare lay a finger on either of them. On the way back from Algiers, with that load, I was afraid once the cutter was going to get us. And do you know what I had made up my mind to do?

Back up against the mast there, with my knife out, and kill and kill and kill, till they cut me down on top of those bales of 'mayflower' that for me meant fortune. And then Dolores ... at times when I thought how nice she looked and what a good woman she was, something of the great lady about her--I don't know what--that makes her so wonderful, it occurred to me--why not say it right out?--that some fellow, some day, might try to get her away from me. Well, sir, I could have throttled her almost, at the mere idea of such a thing, and then gone out raving through the streets like a mad dog. I guess that's what I'm like, Roseta, a dog; so good-natured, so harmless, ordinarily, but able to clean the town up when he goes mad, so's they have to kill him. Well, that's the point! They'd better let me alone, and not go monkeying with my happiness, nor with what I've got together with my own hard work...."

There was a drawn expression on his face as he looked at Roseta after this tirade, a veritable oration for the phlegmatic Rector; and the poor girl felt as if she were being accused of the attempted theft of Dolores.

But Pascualo suddenly, with a gesture of disdain, seemed to come out of his abstraction; and it was evident he felt ashamed at having lost hold on his tongue so far, in a moment of baseless alarm. He had had enough of Roseta, however. And, in fact, they could separate there. "Remember me to mother!" he said, as he turned down to the beach, leaving his sister to go on alone along the road toward the tavern-boat. But it was late that night before the influence of that disquieting conversation was lifted from Pascualo's mind. Tonet was at home when he arrived, but did not seem at all embarra.s.sed in his presence. All a lie, of course!

One look at the boy was enough to show that! The Rector looked searchingly into his own heart, and could find no trace of suspicion there. Nothing to it, absolutely, absolutely, nothing! And when, the men of the crew dropped in to get their final orders for the next day, he had forgotten the matter completely.

He had hired a boat to work in team with the _Mayflower_, though, with dog's luck, he would some day be able to build another just like her!

Among the men was an old sailor whom the Rector listened to with profoundest respect. _Tio_ Batiste was the oldest tar in the whole Caba.n.a.l. Seventy years of sailoring were stuffed into that sun-dried crackling hide of his, whence they issued, smelling to heaven of strong tobacco, in the form of practical suggestions and maritime prophecy.

Pascualo had taken him on, not so much for the help his aged arms could give, as for the exact knowledge he had of the coast thereabouts. From the Cabo de San Antonio to the Cabo de Canet, the gulf did not have a hole nor a shallow that _tio_ Batiste did not know all about. Turn him into a smelt and toss him overboard, and he'd tell you where he was, the minute he got to the bottom! The top of the water might be a closed book to other people; but he could read, from the looks of it, just what there was underneath.

He would sit up forward on the boat, and describe the b.u.mps on the bottom as though he were on a wagon roughing the road-ruts. With one glance he could tell whether your boat was over the kelp grounds, or over the mud-banks, called _El Fanch_, or over those mysterious submarine hillocks, called the _Pedrusquets_, where the fishermen were always in terror of losing their nets on the sharp crags that cut the seines to shreds. Between the _Muralls de Confit_, the _Bareta de Casaret_ and the _Roca de Espioca_, lay deep tortuous gullies far down under the sea. _Tio_ Batiste could drag a net through the winding channel there without catching on a single rock, and without scooping up a ma.s.s of kelp that would break your tackle through. A dark night of fog! Not a lighthouse visible! Thick gloom ten feet ahead! One taste of the mud on your net, and the old wizard would say where you were to a hundred yards. Only a salmon or a squid could have been the teachers of that wondrous learning! And _tio_ Batiste knew many other useful things--that you should not cast your seine on Hallowe'en, for instance, unless you wanted to bring up a corpse; or that the man who carried the Cross of the Grao on Good Friday would never die at sea.

For that matter he had spent all his life on s.h.i.+pboard. By the time he was ten, he could show callouses under his arm-pits, from hauling at the lines. He had a dozen trips to Cuba to his credit--not the kind of trips youngsters brag about nowadays, because they've been across as waiters or barbers on a big liner--but real voyages, in good old-fas.h.i.+oned _faluchas_, better built than they make them now, that went out with wine and came back with sugar, and were owned by gentlemen in cape-coats and top-hats! And every trip with a lamp on board, lighted at the wick floating in the oil bowl before the Christ of the Grao! And a rosary every night on board, without fail, unless you wanted something awful to happen! Those were the days, according to _tio_ Batiste, the real days, for sailormen. And as he cursed on, the wrinkles would wiggle all over his face, and his ancient goatee would whip up and down; while vicious bits of forecastle obscenity would punctuate his contempt for the irreligion and the conceit of the younger generation of salts.

Pascualo liked to hear the old man talk. There was something of his old master, _tio_ Borrasca, about him, and the man reminded him of his father, old Pascualo, too. Though the other members of the crew, Tonet, two sailors and the "cat," made fun of the venerable tar, and tried to get him angry all the time by a.s.suring him he was too old for the business now, and that the curate would be willing to take him on as sacristan. _Chentla!_ Too old for real work, eh! Wait till they got out to sea, and they'd whistle another tune! The boys of these days don't know what a wind is! He'd be fanning himself, while they'd be calling for mama!

The next morning all the Cabin section was in motion. The _bu_-boats would put to sea that evening after sundown--taking the men-folks offsh.o.r.e for their honest battle with the elements for bread. An annual migration of husbands, brothers and sons, this; but, nevertheless, the women, thinking of the months of worry and uneasiness they would have ahead of them till spring, could never take the event very calmly.

Captains were bustling about with their last preparations. They went down to the harbor to look over their boats, test the pulleys, run the lines, raise and lower the sails, pound the bottom over inside, be sure the supplies of rope and canvas were on hand, count baskets, examine nets. And when inventories were complete they would have still to go back to the office to get clearance papers from all those stuck-up fellows in white collars who could hardly speak to a workingman decently!

When the Rector went home for dinner at noontime, he found _sina_ Tona in the kitchen talking to Dolores, weeping her eyes out, and patting a bundle she held across her knees. When she saw her son coming, she began at him angrily. "I've just heard, and it's a pretty father you are! So Pascualet is going 'cat' on the _Mayflower_! A boy of eight, who might better be at home with his mother, or at least playing down at the tavern with me! The idea! A baby like that going to sea and made to do a man's work, and Lord knows what else! Well, I'm not going to stand it, I'm not! That's not the way to treat a child! And since his mother don't dare open her head, and his father is actually the one to blame, his grandma must take a hand! I've come to get Pascualet and take him home with me. I won't allow such a thing. Pascualet! Pascualet! Your grandmother wants to see you."

Pascualet came in, the little devil, swallowed up in a suit of yellow baize, barefoot, to be more in character, and with a sash that pa.s.sed almost under his arm-pits and made his blouse bulge out like a balloon.

c.o.c.king his black cap down over one ear, he began to strut up and down in front of the women, imitating the tough and independent manner of _tio_ Batiste, and trying to put some of that worthy's picturesque obscenity into the insults he heaped upon his grandmother for her efforts in his behalf. "I'm through playing at the tavern! You can keep your bread and cheese! I'm a man now, I am; and I'm going 'cat' in the _Mayflower_!"

His father and mother were in convulsions at the saucy antics of this chip of the old block. As for the Rector, he could have eaten the boy alive with kisses. But _sina_ Tona could only bawl and bawl like a cry-baby, till her son got really angry. "Mama, will you stop that noise! What do you think we are doing to the boy, cutting his throat?

The world isn't coming to an end! Pascualet is just going to sea, the way his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather did. What do you want to make of him? A tramp? No, I want him to be a man of pluck, and able to do a day's work, and not be afraid of salt water, where his living is likely to be. If I can leave him a little bit, when I pa.s.s on, so much the better; but he ought to be ready to look out for himself.

He'll be in no danger. But if he gets to know what a boat is, he'll go to it with his eyes open. Any one can have an accident, afloat or ash.o.r.e. Just because my father ended the way he did is no signs we're all to end that way. Too much bawling around here! Give us a rest, will you!"

But _sina_ Tona knew they were all possessed of the devil! The sea had her eye on the whole family, and would get them all, finally! She hadn't slept a wink for nights--and the most frightful dreams! Worry and worry about your son! And then you find they're taking the baby, too. No, she couldn't stand it any more. They were bound to kill her with worry and sorrow! If they weren't her children, she wouldn't look them in the face, they were so brutal!

But the Rector, letting the old lady grumble on, sat down to his bowl of steaming soup. "What do you say to dinner, Pascualet! Don't mind her!

Your daddy is going to make the best sailor in the Caba.n.a.l out of you!

Tell us, mama, what you got in that bundle?"

_Sina_ Tona boo-hooed louder than ever at the joking question. A present! A little present, that was all! She thought it would ease her mind. So she had taken what money she had saved--a few pennies it was--and had bought something for him. A life-preserver! A neighbor of hers had gotten it from an engineer on an English steamer! And she produced the huge vest of padded cork, which folded up so easily along the seams! The Rector looked at the strange mechanism and smiled. Did you ever! What things people could think of! "I'd heard there were rigs like that in the world, but I never saw one before. Glad to have it aboard, though I can swim like a fish, myself, and never do it in uniform!" And he was tickled to death, at bottom. He left his soup and tried the life-belt on, laughing at his own stoggy appearance in it; for it made his already generous allowance of paunch still more conspicuous, and he ended by looking and puffing like a seal--for the straps made it hard for him to breathe. "Thanks, thanks! I'll not drown in this. I'll simply strangle. But the _Mayflower_ will like to have it!" And he dropped it to the floor. When Pascualet, tugging and straining, finally got the thing on, his head and feet barely extended beyond the cork armor. He was a tortoise in a sh.e.l.l, for all the world!

The meal was almost over, when Tonet came in, with a huge bandage around his hand. He had just had a bad blow, that morning; and he reported the news in such a way, that his brother did not see fit to ask how nor why; nor was the Rector sharp enough to note the self-conscious expression on the face of Dolores. Up to his usual tricks, that boy! Probably been in another fight in some drinking-place! "But what do you expect you'll be good for outside? All trussed up like that! Never mind this trip. We won't be out more than a day or two, if we have any kind of luck. We'll take you day after to-morrow, or next day!" The Rector talked on very calmly. That temper of his was hard to ruffle! But Tonet and Dolores sat looking at the floor, as though they were ashamed of something.

At four o'clock, the final preparations for the sailing of the fleet began. The _bu_-boats, two by two, were moored to the harbor wharfs, dipping their masts on the swell as though curtseying to the people ash.o.r.e, while their hulls went up and down in graceful undulation. Those tiny sea-dogs, with their rough profiles of ancient galleys, made one think of the old armadas of Aragon, or of the fleets of doughty pinnaces with which Roger de Lauria used to spread terror along the coasts of Sicily. And the fishermen, too, as they came down, crew by crew, their clothes and blankets in rolls over their backs, looked like the bands of _almogavars_ that gathered, of old, on the beach of Salou, to sail, in like craft or worse ones, to the conquest of Majorca. A savor of the historic, of the antique, hovered about that fleet and about each separate craft, which took you back, perforce, to sea legends of the Middle Ages, when the triangular sails of Aragon were as dreaded of the Moors of Andalusia as of the isles that lay smiling in the cla.s.sic seas of Greece.

The whole village was down on the sh.o.r.e. Women and children were running here and there, trying to identify, in the forests of masts, of crossing and criss-crossing cordage, the boats where their own men were.

It was the annual excursion into the deserts of the sea, the recurring foray out into danger to s.n.a.t.c.h bread from the mysteries of the deep, which sometimes gives up its treasures peacefully and without a struggle, but at others hangs on to them and threatens the plucky Argonaut with death.

Down over the gang-planks from wharf to deck moved a procession of bare feet, yellow trousers, sun-baked faces, all that miserable flock of human beings who are born, live and die, on that sh.o.r.e there, knowing nothing of the world that lies beyond that blue horizon. Hunger, on the starting-line, as it were, for a race with death at the signal of opulence! Men condemned to ignorance and filth and danger, that, inland, other men may sit down before glossy linen table-cloths, and feel their mouths water before a succulent lobster's claw on a creamy cod swimming in luscious sauce!

The sun was hanging low. The last flies of summer, their huge bellies swollen and their wings sluggish, were buzzing about in the golden afternoon, gleaming with a sputtering fire. Away to the horizon, which the peak of the Mongo broke with a blotch of haze, like an island floating in the distance, the sea stretched calm and tranquil. Good weather! Good weather! That was the burden of every woman's tongue, as the boats swallowed up crew after crew. With good luck, there would soon be good things a-plenty in every house! Now the "cats" were almost the only sailors left on sh.o.r.e. They were still running up and down the wharves, stamping barefoot on the pitchy floorings, doing the last errands of the captains, putting the hard-tack aboard, and a final cask of wine!

And the sun was down. Everybody--more than a thousand men in all, there were--was now on board. The boats were waiting only for the papers to come down from the offices. How slow those lubbers worked! The spectators on sh.o.r.e were beginning to get impatient, as though the curtain were late in rising on a show.

For still one ceremony had not yet been completed. From time immemorial it had been the custom of the whole village to wish the _bu_-fleet G.o.dspeed by insulting the men who were going away. As the boats cast off, atrocious witticisms flew back and forth between deck and sh.o.r.e--all in good humor, of course, for such tradition would have it, and it was a test of brains, besides, to be able to say just the right word to those _lanudos_, those husbands whose eyes would be snugly plugged with wool, and come home in blessed ignorance of all their wives had been up to meanwhile! This theme of the wayward wife and the unsuspecting husband is the commonest sport--however cruel it may seem--along the sh.o.r.es of the Levant; and so inveterate the habit, so inevitable the parting serenade, that some of the departing sailors went aboard with pockets or baskets full of stones, to be ready for any thrusts they could not parry with words.

And the last of the after-glow had faded. The lamps along the wharves gleamed like a rosary of fire. Red snakes of light coiled and writhed out over the placid waters of the basin. Stars, green and scarlet, shone from the peak of every mast. The sea was catching the ashen brightness of the nocturnal sky, and boats and buildings stood out in dark outlines of indigo against a vast background of nickel gray. "They're off!

They're off!" Sails were being hoisted one by one, and in the night the canvas filtered the harbor lights as through veils of distended crepe, or translucent wings of great black b.u.t.terflies.

Swarming mobs of ragam.u.f.fins had occupied the points farthest projecting seaward. That would give their gibes the greatest possible range. And what fun it would be! But all ready to duck I They've got plenty of stones aboard to-night!

Slowly, gently, with barely perceptible motion in that breath of air, the first pair of boats drew out from the wharf-side, nodding idly on the swells like lazy bulls reluctant to make their dash. It was still possible from the piers to identify the teams and the men aboard them.

"Good-by! Good-by!" the women called to their husbands. "_Adios! Bon viache!_" But the youngsters were already at it, shrieking obscenities into the night in a tumultuous uproar. "Did you ever hear such talk!"

Though the very wives who caught allusions to themselves laughed as loudly as any one at the most happy scores. It was one carnival of free language, where truth ran riot with slander.

"_Lanudos!_ Worse than _lanudos_! I know where the curate is going to stay to-night! Johnnie will take good care of her, don't worry, my lad!

Moo-oo! Moo-oo!" And this mooing of cattle was supposed to evoke the image of well-horned oxen in the minds of those brave sailors who were thus being cheered on their way out into peril. But then the stones began to come, whistling like bullets and striking sparks on the rocks where the serenaders were seeking cover. The greatest uproar was at the end of the Breakwater near which every boat had to pa.s.s on its way out from the basin. And when the volleys of jest would slacken from the sh.o.r.e, provocation would come from the boats themselves. The sailors seemed offended if their team went past without attention. "And you've nothing to say to us, eh!" some stentorian voice of an old tar would call. "_Lanudos! Lanudos!_" the answer would come in a storm of shouting, while the "cats" on board would begin to blow on the conches, which the boats used at sea in time of dark or fog.

On one of the rocks, in the full midst of a noisy crowd, and quite indifferent to the flying stones, stood Dolores, alone. The women who had gone down to the sh.o.r.e with her kept farther back away from the line of fire. Yet she was not quite alone. For a man had sauntered carelessly in her direction and finally stopped behind her. The splendid creature felt the warmth of Tenet's breath upon her neck, and her skin tingled under that burning contact. She turned her head and caught one fiery glance from his hungry eyes. And the bandaged hand, which had been drawing feigned groans of pain a few hours before, sought hers in the darkness. Free at last! For once, free! Free from fear of surprise, from thoughts of danger! Neither the Rector nor his son would be at home!

But a sudden shouting of redoubled violence awakened them from their swooning dream of guilty antic.i.p.ation. "The Rector! There he goes! _Flor de Mayo!_ 'Mayflower'!" And the most rousing of all the send-offs was for him. It was not only the young ones this time. Grown-ups, men and women, joined in the scathing jollity. For Dolores, the beautiful, Dolores, the bewitching, had her enemies in that throng of jealous wives. "Hey, the Rector! Hey, the prize-_lanudo_! A _toreador_ for you, when you come home! The devil will want you, for the horns you'll have!

Is it Jersey or Holstein? Or just any old steer, except a short-horn!

And we're telling the truth, for once!"

Tonet grew uneasy. He was in plain sight of the throng. Some one might carry the joke too far! But Dolores showed herself a true daughter of _tio_ Paella! She laughed and laughed, as though the best compliments of the sailing had been for her.

And the Rector was delighted. He had always thought himself the most popular man in town! "And what else have you got to say, mutton-heads?"

he challenged, as his boat glided slowly along the sh.o.r.e, his moon-face beaming over the varnished stern of the _Mayflower_. "What else have you got to say!" That bravado gave impetus to the pointed insolence on the Breakwater. "Look at them over there? Tonet is with Dolores! Tonet is with Dolores! _Lanudo!_ Cuckold! He's leaving a happy home to-night! But Tonet will be there! No vacation for Dolores!"

The Rector let go the tiller and stood up on the stern, livid with anger! "Pigs, hogs, grunters! _Morrals! Cochinos!_"

It was all very well to make fun of him. But this bringing the name of a woman in, and his brother's too, was going a bit too strong, a bit too strong!

CHAPTER IX

"PROOFS! PROOFS! ROSARIO!"

G.o.d had poor folks in mind that year! The women of the Caba.n.a.l, crowding the beach in the afternoon, were sure of that. The boats had been out two nights and a day, and they were already coming home. The stiff horizon line was dotted with sails, in pairs, the _bu_-teams hurrying sh.o.r.eward before a favoring breeze, like couples of doves yoked by a belt at the water-line. The oldest women along sh.o.r.e could not remember such fis.h.i.+ng! Lord, the fish just seemed to be sitting there in solid packs, waiting patiently to be scooped out. The poorest people in town would have plenty to eat for once in their lives.

The boats ran in and anch.o.r.ed a few yards from the surf, lowering their big sails, and swinging round to head the wind, gently, gracefully, pitching. Mobs of dirty calico skirts, red faces and tangled heads rushed to the water's edge in front of each team, the women shrieking, cursing, quarreling, arguing, as to whom the fish should go. Overboard the "cats" jumped into the water that reached their waists, and the other men followed. A straight line of moving baskets formed between vessel and sh.o.r.e, human torsos rising higher and higher above the surface of the sea till bare feet touched dry sand. There the wives of the skippers were on hand to take charge of the catch.

The beach was one sparkling s.h.i.+ning display of beauty. The fish were still alive and flopping in the baskets. Rock-salmon, like palpitating carnation petals, lay there wriggling their soft vermilion and gasping frantically for breath. Slimy devil-fish crooked their backs in agony or drew together in ma.s.ses of squirming, crawling suckers. Flounders, as thin and flat as the sole of a shoe, pounded their tails vigorously about. The wide, kite-like fins of rays, quivered in their sticky glue.

But squid, squid, everywhere, the most valuable prey of all! The waters offsh.o.r.e seemed literally alive with squid! And the catch was tremendous. Basket after basket shone with ma.s.ses of transparent iridescent crystal, the slimy crustaceans waving their tentacles desperately about, setting the black of their receptacles a-glitter with the soft colors of mother-of-pearl.

The stretch of water between the boats and the surf was as crowded as a city street. "Cats" were wading out with flagons of water on their shoulders. The sailors, tired of the lukewarm filthy drink from the hogsheads aboard, longed for a draught from the ice-cold _fnt de Gas_.