The Isle of Seven Moons/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
A DISCORDANT LOHENGRIN
That carefree and slightly patronizing attitude towards the universe in general had forsaken the bridegroom. He was growing nervous, even over trifles. Perhaps the twin bracers which he had just taken were responsible, or his rather real infatuation for the unattainable (in the guise of Sally). Or possibly the cause was another lady, most maladroit and inopportune, she who never waited her cues, but entered unbidden.
Just now the faithful Agatha, who took the place of butler, an official unheard of in Salthaven even in the Huntington household, was shrilling up the stairs,—
"Telephone for Mr. Philip."
His father rose with an eagerness, suspiciously high-keyed.
"I'll answer, my boy, you hurry and dress."
This was the second time that the old gentleman had insisted on answering the call. Philip guessed there had been others. He was right about that.
He stole to the door and listened, the end of the conversation that he could hear being suspicious enough.
"No!"
("Just five minutes?")
"Not one second!" But the receiver half way back to the hook, was replaced at his ear.
("Cost yuh something if yuh don't.")
"You threaten? Why, that's blackmail!—I'll call the police."
("Wouldn't you like to know the name an' number?") This sally being accompanied by laughter unmistakably feminine but suggesting bronze rather than any precious metal.
Now it is maddening to be jeered at by someone who stands incog. at the other end of a wire, and the old gentleman fumed.
"I can find it, young woman, and when I do, you'll be run out of town."
("All right, dearie, but lissen,—before you do, just take your bunch of keys an' unlock that closet an' give the little ol' skeleton the O. O. If he looks good to you, all right, for we're goin to 'xhibit him on Preble Street, sure as you're bald an got false teeth an' one foot in the grave.")
The only reply now was the receiver's click, and as Master Philip returned to his grooming, suddenly beset was he with impulses for reform, quite as elusive as that collar-button.
Now these implements of torture were troubling many good citizens of the town that night, but that such should disturb Master Phil, the dapper, the immaculate, was indeed surprising. However, it takes but a trifle to suggest a horror. And now somehow, by a strange association, as he stood before the mirror, the little gold stud brought up a picture of another,—one of plain bone, in the band of a shirt always greasy and collarless. And above that band, the bleary green eyes and foul whiskers of a wicked old man. Over his shoulders he could see the face blinking at him in the mirror, as the saw mouth jeered,—
"May God have mercy on yer soul!"
It wasn't exactly a pleasant recalling of that night at the wharf, the fight, the foul blow. Whether the latter had been fatal or not there had been no means of determining.
Just before the figure dissolved from the glass, it stuck one finger down between the band and the neck, and ran it round with a peculiarly significant gesture.
So real it was that Master Phil hurled his shaving mug at the apparition, shattering the mirror beyond repair. Agatha, passing the doorway just then, threw up her hands.
"Lord forgive us!" she mumbled, "there'll be no luck in that match!"
But the "chug, chug" of the motor sounded outside, with the pleasant and reassuring purr of prosperity, and the voice of his father followed—jovial, almost too resolutely jovial.
"Hurry, my boy, never keep a girl waiting on a night like this."
It was perplexing that the old gentleman didn't sound out the boy about this mystery, but he himself was feverishly grasping at the hope that the wedding would prove the ending of this and many other problems that had been troubling him ever since Philip's unique adolescence began.
With fingers still trembling, the groom finished dressing, descended the stairs, and bowled off towards the church in his shiny, seven-passenger car.
And, now, a few streets away, the high-pitched voice of Aunt Abigail was calling up the stairs to the bride.
The girl paused, though she was dressed and ready. Before, in that slender body there had always been an elasticity, delicate yet invigorating and delightful to see. Now she almost seemed to sag—on the brink.
It was so short a step over that doorsill. Over it she had skipped light-heartedly all the years of her life. Why did she hesitate and shrink back now as though a chasm lay beyond?
That it is a momentous step for any maiden when she passes beyond the threshold for the last time, she knew—even when happiness beckons. She had no right to ask greater security than any of the long host that had passed that way, but she could see, on the other side, only spirits of evil lurking for her. And in the room, the dear ghosts of her youth were pleading with faintly discerned hands, waving her back.
Here, on the old walnut bed, she had fallen asleep with the pure dreams of childhood, awaking, as the years went on, to the shy sweet visions of first love. On the bureau lay the pansy pin with the rhinestone heart, which Captain Harve had given her on her tenth birthday; beside it, the red, all too suddenly-ended diary; the high-school pennant on the wall. In the closet stood the slippers her godfather had brought her from Valparaiso or some strange port; and above them, the red Tam, which, in his memories, Ben would always see crowning her hair. The little jade god, his gift, still grinned like a merry Billiken. This and all the other mutely eloquent things she saw through a mist—but not of tears. She felt that she could not have cried over any catastrophe now.
She went to the window and leaned out. The old sweet fragrance of the honeysuckle, the apple-orchard, the silver grey of the sea, were the same—yet not at all the same.
She looked at the sky beyond the trees. Clouds, feebly lit by flashes of far-off lightning, obscured the Western half, but one gold star still shone in the East, by the Light. Maybe Ben was in that star, awaiting her. Absurd fancy, of course, but as with all our ideas of Heaven hers were not so very clearly defined, and, in the dulling monotony of grief, like Ben on his far away island, she had slipped back into the childlike mind.
"Some day, dearest, we'll be together again." And, for the time, it comforted her, the mere trying to believe it so.
So at last the tears welled in her eyes, stole down her cheeks, and lay on the white veil like dew on the pure anemones in Spring.
Above, the great eye of the Light opened and shut, opened and shut, as it had for so many years. Then the clouds travelled over the face of the star. And on the stairs below, sounded the "tamp, tamp, tamp," of a cane, seeming as immemorial and importunate as the summons of Fate in the Beethoven symphony. Over the threshold she stepped at last—and went down to them.
Then the three,—Aunt Abigail, Cap'n Bluster, and the bride, entered the coach, the most famous of the historic vehicles that had carried the brides and mourners of more than one generation, and rode statelily towards the church.
She felt not the majesty of the occasion, but sank back, a pathetic wisp in the corner, as though, fearing the touch of some hated hand, she were unwilling to let any come near her. Nor did she feel the pathos now. The self-pity, if it had been that she experienced in the upper room, was succeeded by another mood, the ashes of apathy banked over a smouldering rage. The driver had chosen the lower road. From the window she could see the waters. The tide and the clouds seemed to travel with them. She would have been glad if the horses had only fallen, sparing the rest, but carrying her own heavy heart down the hill into the sea. But there was no such salvation, no way out. The ride wound up, as all unhappy journeys, even to the gallows, have a habit of ending, at its appointed destination.
The doors were open, and they could see the lights and the crowd within. Half-way up the walk, she paused.
On the Sabbath, there was something of the harsh about the historic edifice although it never reached the unlovely. From the lofty, unadorned ceiling, hung the severest of gas chandeliers, suggesting nothing so much as crowns fashioned for some race of giant kings, or iron haloes for a hierarchy of tall Puritan saints. High windows of unstained glass, like ascetic eyes, looked arched askance at the worshippers uncomfortably ranged in the pews below. The tablets between the windows, commemorating departed heroes of frigate and ship-of-the-line, had no illumining about their letters; and the three-quarters gallery was primly-railed, the pulpit austere, and the attitude of the pews eternally stiff and uncompromising.
But tonight, little tongues of flame from many jets softened the rigidity, giving the old oak and walnut the suggestion of polished mahogany; and festoons of purple aster and goldenrod added a royal emblazoning. Altogether it should have been a most charming scene, but somehow it wasn't.
Suddenly turning to the right, just before she entered, she saw a figure, a woman's. She was perched on a gravestone of some old admiral or saint, looking in through the window at the assembled guests. The intermittent lightning flashed, turning the cerise dress into a dark crimson blur against the lowering sky. Beside her, also against the headstone, leaned another figure, somewhat taller. Dimly she made it out to be that of a man. Another flash forked across the sky, its reflection winking over the headstones, so crazily leaning that they seemed to stagger. She started—she must be "seeing things." That woman crouched like a dark blood smear against the grey of the graves—and that other face! Her practicality had always rejected stagy, sentimental fancies, but somehow tonight she couldn't conceive of it as anything but pallid, even sneering, like the Prince of Darkness.
She shuddered and rubbed her eyes, half thinking herself mad as that bride in the story she had read—of Lammermoor. But there they were—the two, apparently in the flesh— A jolly wedding with such guests!
But this wasn't like her; she simply must not give way to such fancies. She straightened herself and laughed aloud. It was utterly unlike the old laugh, harsh, with none of the old silver in it.
Aunt Abigail recalled her to the event at hand with a snort of disapproval.
"Sally!" One word, but sufficient!
And Captain Bluster, blind in more ways than one, though he heard the Huntington doubloons clinking loudly enough, patted her arm clumsily.
"Come, come, my lass, it'll soon be over." Ah, but there was the rub. Would it?
In the vestibule she paused to adjust her veil. Not heeding at all the ecstatic whispers of Stella Appleby, her maid-of-honour, she surveyed the pews, then, urged by some strange compulsion, turned, and at one of the rear windows saw the two faces staring in,—the woman's and the man's, the one angry and scornful, the other mocking—oh, yes, it was, it was mocking! She knew them for the two of the graveyard.
Now, the strange woman who in the flash of the lightning had seemed clad in a robe of blood, was herself in deadly fear of a medium's prophecy. It therefore seems incredible to credit her with occult powers. Those other eyes—of the man beside her—rather suggested these disturbing things, perhaps even deserving the term malevolent. But Carlotta was almost supernatural in her gift for clowning, uncanny in her power of placing another in an embarrassing position. She could have turned Elsa into a Vesta Tilley, the holy grail into a stein. In fact, it has been reported that once when she had gone to attend the funeral of some old Broadway first-nighter and squire of "Janes," she had entered the room, humming unconsciously but so entrancingly to herself that the knee of the corpse was seen to twitch—the whole side of the coffin was down—vainly pawing the air as if trying to execute a one-step. Now even if exaggerated, this gruesome story has much of truth, in its spirit. And she seemed even now to be giving just such a farcical touch to the whole proceedings.
It seems strange, however, that she should have had any effect on forthright Sally, always so straight-seeing, courageous, and loyal. But Sally's nerves were snarled and jangling. Perhaps in her distraught state she was savage, and even welcomed, as a showing up, a facing of facts, the burlesque into which the ceremony was threatening to turn. Afterwards she never knew whether to weep with vexation, shudder in horror, or to laugh, at the madness, the wild confusion, the absurdity, of it all.
In any event, now, as the evil influence in the famous play transforms by its very propinquity the characters in the cast to its own light, to its own kind—the place, the people were changed for her. So, too, a pilot of the spot-light can transform the whole complexion of a scene by throwing a new hue upon it. Sally's eyes seemed, for the moment, to be following some such baleful rays projected from that window. They were all neighbours whom she had known and loved,—simple, kindly folk, walking well-ordered ways. Yet now in the twinkling of an eye, the chatter, the witticisms—from years of acquaintance she could almost quote them verbatim—instead of being lighthearted, cheery, and amusing, racy of salt water and the soil, were all too obvious and coarse. And everywhere the faces, the costumes, were exaggerated, not heightened into tragedy—that were forgiveable—but twisted into the grotesque, into caricature.
The male part of the congregation were no longer sound citizens to whom she gave her respect and loyalty, but awkward yokels, with uneasy Adam's apples above unyielding linen armour-plate. The salty atmosphere which always pleasantly enveloped the old sea-captains abjectly surrendered to the bay rum emanating from the stout person of Gus Peters "the livery," who had so unsuccessfully tried to conceal the aroma of the stable.
On the edge of her pew perched Lizzie Rountree, the plump milliner. Well Sally knew the journey she was in fancy taking—up the flower bordered aisle, with the sailor sweetheart lost so many years ago. There should have been pathos there, but it was irretrievably gone. She was merely a fat, simpering old maid.
And Mrs. Dr. Ferguson. A moment ago she had been just a sweet little old lady, the youthful wave crinkling her silver hair; her husband a warring saint who had ministered to the bodily and spiritual needs of the village for seventy years. Now the lovelight was befogged into senility.
Two seats behind them, the little birdlike postmistress, Phoebe Prentice, was whispering to Mrs. Schauffler—oh, yes, Sally could hear her as well as if she had been by her side—"Ain't that sweet now,—the two dear old people, lovers still at seventy?" Suddenly Phoebe, too, grew ridiculous.
And then, as Millie Smith, seeing the reflection of the bridal party in the mirror beside the keys, struck up the familiar wedding march, almost the girl expected the dulcet strains of Lohengrin to backslide into hideous ragtime.
Truly Carlotta was having at least part of her revenge.
The veil was shivering now, as the mist of green leaves around the silver birch when the slender trunk under it is trembling, too. Was she actually going mad—stark, staring mad? Where was the old loyalty, the old sweetness of life? For one black moment she hated the strangers, she hated herself, she hated everybody. She could have screamed, and, had she been less of a Spartan, would have fallen in one of Stella's statuesque faints, but instead, she straightened herself—slowly—as if to shake off the spell, and dug her nails deep into her palms, muttering,—"I've promised—I must go through with it," then started up the aisle.
Meanwhile, the woman outside, who had returned to her strange eerie on the headstone, was not realizing this phase of her revenge. She was all unconscious of any preternatural gifts, and her conversation was pitched in another key than the sublime or horrific. She was at the moment replying angrily to her taunting companion:
"For Gawd's sake, leave me alone. If you had what's comin' to you, you'd be lyin' at right angles to where you're standing now, and six feet under."
"Nerves, feminine nerves!" exclaimed MacAllister, but Carlotta turned on him in a fury.
"What are you goin' to do about it? Haven't you gotta plan? I thought you wasn't solid above the shoulders."
"Little saint! How like an angel you do look upon that grave!"
"I may look it, but I feel like the Devil," then, as the lightning by some queer distortion revealed the crazy colony of the dead apparently staggering to and fro, she softened her voice to an awed though raucous stage-whisper,— "Say, Mac, we oughta choose some other set. Supposin' the Devil was walkin' round here, now!" She looked up at him—"maybe you're him yourself, who knows."
And he repeated airily: "Who knows!"
But as the thunder rolled again, a little nearer on the heels of the lightning this time, she cowered against him in spite of the imputed diablerie.
"Oh, Mac," she wailed, "can't you help me out?"
"Well, you might do the Clyde Fitch, Moth and the Flame act. It's highly dramatic—and an ideal rôle for you, you sweet, sorrow-stricken soul."
"For the love of Pete, speak English! Yuh talk like recitation day in the district school.— But what's this fire act?"
"Oh, you rush up to the altar as they pronounce the beautiful and fatal words. Now listen, Desdamona, and get this right. When the sky-pilot in there says feelingly, through his nose,— 'Or forever after hold your peace,' you rise from your seat, and raise your hand, outraged, thus, to high Heaven—and give 'em Hell"
"We're getting that ourselves right now," she shrieked with a crashing bolt and a foretaste of the rain to follow. "Hadn't you better cut out that language?"
"Oh, come, Carlotta, you don't mean to tell me you believe in a Hell!"
Didn't believe it where the lights was bright," she muttered, looking half-fearfully around, "but I'm not so sure—here."
"Well you'd better mosey along into the holy place—but hold on—to do it up brown, you ought to have a brat."
"If you keep on doin' a Joe Webber," she returned, "we might as well split. You don't seem to care at all—just stand there grinnin' like a rube at the circus, as if you was enjoyin' yourself."
"No, your most charming and amusing self," he amended. "But let 'em get spliced, we can cash in, after as well as before."
"All right, Benedick Arnstein, if you're goin' ta desert me in the pinch I'll do a little hittin' myself. Anyway, I'm not goin' to stand out here with that any longer. An' if I can't stop that weddin', I'll queer it—an that's somethin' after all."
Yes, it was something after all.
But now the organ notes, mellowing under Milly's skilful hand, floated out on the night air. From the vestry door the groom's party approached the altar, as the lovely vision, rather wraith than girl, passed up the aisle. A subdued hush settled on the pews, broken only by the soft susurrus of feminine whispers,— "Isn't she sweet?" "Isn't she lovely?" Then came the solemn pause—followed by the minister's voice, sonorous yet fittingly modulated, as he repeated the impressive words of the old, old rite, so beautiful and brief, and yet sometimes so long and terrible in their consequences.
"Beloved, we are gathered together—" So he came to the old question,
"Do you, Philip?"
But the answer was snatched from the groom's lips
Sally, herself, apparently nothing but an automaton now, lovely though she was, could afterwards recount it—always between laughter and tears—so every detail of the incidents that followed must have been indelibly though subconsciously registered. For it was at this juncture that the gods of Laughter intervened, providentially, of course, for theirs is the wisdom of tears. But from that moment the dignity and solemnity befitting the occasion, and so far bravely upheld, were irretrievably lost.
Concerned as he was, Captain Fairwinds wanted to roar out in relieving mirth—he did afterwards, out under the stars. His own memory held nothing like it for a mixture of the sacred and profane, except possibly the Holy Week processions in the cathedral cities of old Spain,—the grotesque holy images, the jewelled Virgin dancing on the shoulders of the revelling marchers, the Macareros in gay-coloured, slitted masks, the kneeling throng, the drunken singers, the benedictions and Rabelaisian jests interspersed, the hymns, the clashing instruments—the whole discordant pandemonium. But in old world haunts one expects sometimes the sacrament to be tinctured with colourful ribaldry—in this cool austere shrine of the ancient Fathers—never!
But it was not unlike it,—the question,—"Do you, Philip, take this woman?" and the answer taken from his mouth,—
"I'll be damned if I do!" shattering the silences to the very belfry rafters—not from the rouged lips of Carlotta, peering down from the gallery, the spot she had chosen as most effective, but from some seemingly preternatural being in that strange procession, as weird and motley as any in Spanish streets, and now advancing up the aisle.
A little man led it, grinning widely and looking as self-important as only a little man can feel. He was followed by a taller figure with curling brown beard, brass earrings, and a red and yellow handkerchief about his head. His heavy shoes sounded with almost a convict's thud, even on the carpeted aisle, and he in turn led a little yellow cur, and carried a cage wherein swung the reprobate who had so rudely interrupted the rites. He or she—it matters not which, for sex places no restrictions on depravity—continued the maledictions.
Meanwhile Milly's organ had stopped with a crash; the minister stood, his mouth agape, and on his face the most bewildered and outraged of expressions; the audience stared, transfixed in their seats; while, coming from the rear, the sexton tried to halt the strange procession, now halfway to the altar. But he didn't help matters at all, in his rashness merely stepping on the little dog's paw, and an agonized yelping added to the mad pandemonium.
As for the bride, she was still too benumbed to analyze anything—if anyone could analyze so fantastic a visitation. But automatically and vaguely she imputed, or connected it rather, with the stranger—two there was the woman, now, with arms folded on the gallery rail, peering down at her with amused triumphant eyes, and clad like the scarlet symbol of old. It was nothing so fine and dramatic as that—it was a farce—a circus—nothing more. It was all so horrible—or was it now—rather fitting, in fact; the blasphemies, the sacrilege quite appropriate.
So there they were, advancing up the aisle, the parrot still shrieking out his abominable "I'll be damned if I do."
Sally was little given to profanity—however, dazed as she was, the grotesque fancy occurred to her that this should have been precisely her own answer, if she had had the courage and sense. It was odd that as yet she didn't see in the rude interruption the sign of a respite if not of an ultimate reprieve.
But now the little man was taking something from the tall funny looking one, and was handing it to her. She tried to grasp it, but it fell from her fingers. Captain Harve was picking it up. But what was the little man saying?
"Better look at it, Lady Celeste, it's your pardon from the governor." Then to himself,—"Stopped at the altar—saved from the electric chair! Shades of Jean Libby! Can y' beat it! Why it's the sensation of the year—the scoop of the ages!"
Captain Fairwinds looked up from the scroll and spoke to the little man.
"I don't know where you hail from, or where you got this, but let me tell you, son, it's no time for practical joking."
"From the look of the bride and the merry bridegroom there, I should say it wasn't," responded Butts. "But it's on the level, all right." He turned to the foreigner. "Here, Flying Dutch, you tell him where you got the news."
Spanish Dick thrust his face into the group in childlike bewilderment at it all, but he comprehended enough of Butts' admonition to answer:
"Si, Señor capitan, I found it in a bottle. From the sea it came—I swear it by all the saints—by Santa Maria de Colon—by"
"Shush," interposed Butts, "haven't you got any tact? You'll offend 'His Nibs,'" shrugging his shoulder at the minister, "you're in a Puritan hangout now."
Then he went on to the captain, "He's told you the truth. He picked it up down in Jersey, on Barnabee Beach—and it cost my last cent to tote it here."
"It won't be your last, son, if it's genuine," the captain assured him, then grasping Sally's arm with an unconscious roughness in his excitement, exclaimed,—
"And, by Godfrey, it does seem genuine!"
But seeing the frightened look in her eyes, he addressed her tenderly,—
"Sally, look here, can't you stand some news—if it's good news? Well, it's a miracle, almost too good to be true, but"
He saw that she didn't comprehend what he was saying at all, but stood there, still in that daze, and her answering query was almost petulant.
"What is it? Oh, what is it?"
"He's alive and well—here, read it yourself."
Still, she didn't even look at it, but instead kept looking at the scarlet figure in the gallery, then, turning to the minister, rasped out,—
"For pity's sake, get this thing over!"
But the Captain was taking her into his arms.
"Sally, it isn't going on. I guess you didn't understand. There's a message from Ben"
"Ben?" it was a sigh of despair, then a look almost of hope broke over her face. "A message?"
"Yes, this man—God bless him—picked it up on the shore—it's true—let me read it to you."
"'Shipwrecked on island—about latitude eighteen north—longitude sixty-two west—alive—well—' hear that, girl, he's alive and well—'Notify Captain Harvey Brent—and Miss Sally Fell.' See, it's sent to you—there's the signature."
But it was the voice of the parrot that really called her back. With her astounding flare for the ironic and appropriate, she was shrieking at the bridegroom,
"Buss the lass, matey, buss the lass."
Not heeding this rudeness, Sally was looking wildly into her godfather's face.
"Oh, don't fool me now! I could have stood it before, but I can't go through with it again."
"We're not fooling you, Sally."
Striving hard for comprehension, she looked down at the bit of bark. Yes, there were the letters, looming large, even through the mist she could see them—his name at the bottom. So at last she accepted the release.
But the bridegroom, who in his fright had been presenting rather a sorry figure, recovered his self-possession, and tried to pull her back.
"For the Lord's sake, go on with the ceremony! She's promised to me, and no phony play like that can stop it."
"The boy's right. Come on, Doctor Storrs," put in Cap'n Bluster, the starboard side of the wing-and-wing whiskers almost pulled out in his agitation. But his friend waved him aside—
"You've done enough harm already, Hiram, to last a lifetime—. As for you, my lad, you ought to know when you're aground."
Then he turned to the elder Huntington—
"The whole thing's a profanation, John. I'm sorry for your sake, but you'd better get that young hopeful out of the way quick. This is the church, but, outside, I won't answer for him."
So the unwilling groom was hustled through the vestry door—and Sally was in truth called back from the brink.
And now the floodgates had broken loose in the pews. There were congratulations and commiserations, according to the relationship, and "Oh's" and "Ah's," and a regular feasting on sentiment and thrills. And there was a sudden onslaught on the altar, and a crowding to see the strange messenger and its tattered bearer, who in time grew to be a real ragged messenger sent from Heaven in answer to Sally's faith and prayers.
As for Butts, poor Butts, he never saw his scoop in print, for, as he dashed out to interview the jilted bridegroom, Master Phil seeing him, savagely "threw her into high," turned the corner at a perilous angle, skidded, and bowled over the intrepid reporter. Anyway, he died through devotion to his duty, and, having no kith or kin, was buried with appropriate honours among the gravestones where Carlotta had but lately perched.
But Sally reached her home safely. However, it wasn't long after Captain Harve's protecting presence had been withdrawn that she heard the cane ascending the stairs step by step, then her father's voice booming through the locked door,—
"Listen to me—I'm cap'n of this ship, and I say you've got to marry him—next week. That'll give her time to blow over. If you won't, I'll throw you overboard, disown you, d'y' hear?"
Very probably he didn't mean it, at least literally, for he regretted his words very bitterly next morning, when it was too late.
For just as the grandfather's clock struck ten in the hall below, a half-hour after receiving this ultimatum, Sally Fell threw a few things into her bag, and once more climbed over that trellis, and so hastened over the lawn, through the sibyllic gate, down the hill to the wharf where Captain Harve's ship, the North Star, lay moored, due to sail in the morning, when the tide was right.
Most of the crew were celebrating on shore. She could hear the snatches of song from Tom Grogan's now, across Water Street and up the dark alley. The moon had thoughtfully hidden her face. Except for a green light or two, it was dark, and the watch was drowsy. So she escaped detection as she climbed aboard. She selected a seat in the prow of the port lifeboat, pulled the tarpaulin over her head, and, exhausted, fell asleep.
Captain Harve was uneasy. Nothing in the world meant quite so much to him as that godchild of his. It was indeed a pretty kettle of fish. Back and forth through the narrow quarters of his room he paced, puffing forth great clouds of smoke like an ocean liner's funnels.
At six bells he picked up his "warsack" and left the place with Dick, whom he had already "signed up." The wind had freshened, the moon had now completely vanished be hind the storm-clouds scudding across the sky, and before he reached the wharf, vast sheets of rain and spate from off the harbour drove at his face. The sea was running high, and the North Star rose and fell on the tide, to the incessant crunching of the piles of the wharf, the creaking of her own gear and tackle, and the singing of the wind through the shrouds.
He climbed aboard, and, as he was making his way aft, the lightning made town, and wharf, and ships, and sea, clear and distinct in a sort of ghostly twilight. Not in his memory could he recall so continuous an electric storm.
In the shelter of the lifeboat a huddling bundle turned over, revealing a face—in the weird twilight the features seemed those of a child who had sobbed itself to sleep.
Darkness and rain again, then another flash, and he saw who it was.
"By the great Lord Harry!" he ejaculated, but did not stop for questioning.
In his powerful arms he carried her to his cabin, lit the oil lamp, and in the dim light ruefully surveyed the drops glistening on the black strands, the rain of Heaven and her heart's own sorrows commingled on her features.
He gently pillowed the head. The eyes opened.
"Uncle Harve," she called, then for the first time in those long months fell back on hysterics.
"It was terrible—that woman—that man—the parrot—the curiosity—everyone looking at me," then, drying her tears a little,—"Could there be anything holy in that?"
"Nothing but holy mackerel, I guess," he replied, trying to lighten her mood.
A little later she grew calmer and told him of her determination. It was indeed a prettier kettle of fish than he had imagined.
"I can't go home now, and I must find Ben."
"Never mind, tonight. Just put on some dry duds if you've got 'em in your bag, and get a little more sleep, and we'll all have clear heads to think it over in the morning."
"But I can't turn you out of your cabin!"
"Nonsense. Rayer is ashore. I'll use his bunk. Good-night, Sally."
"Uncle Harve, come here— You've got to be father as well as god-father to me now."
And she kissed him. And as he left the cabin he felt that like her mother she was worth all the trouble in the world; that he would like to wring the tough neck of Old Aunt Abigail, and that Hiram Fell was a blind old fool and—then he, too, fell asleep.
In the morning the weather was still grey and fitful. Twice he went to his cabin and listened. There was no sound. A half-hour later he was taking a turn on deck while the crew were making preparations for the trip south, when he was blind-folded by two hands clasped across his eyes, and a voice, very funny in its attempted bass, cried:
"Guess who!"
Delighted at the swift recovery of her spirits, he seized both her hands in his, took her blow, and ordered the cook to bring coffee and bacon from the galley. Between nibbles, she asked him, using all the witchery of her black eyes and voice:
"Captain Harve, you'd do anything for me, wouldn't you?"
"Of course, lass, why?"
"Then take me to Ben."
He pretended to be stern.
"What do you mean, you minx of a mermaid, don't you know that with high tide we clear for Rio?"
"But, my dear new daddy," (yes, she was like a child again, he thought) "Ben is alone on an island. He may be starving now, or eaten by wild beasts or cannibals—or what do they have there? Anyway there's something terrible about it. I don't believe any of those fairy stories he and you used to tell about them, beautiful, and floating, and vanishing, and all"
"You don't eh, well you'd better."
"Well it'd be just as bad if the island vanished with him, wouldn't it now? Anyway, I love him and I can't help crying—" and forthwith she began to do so, on his shoulder. It was in truth a little unusual for Sally, for she had never been of the lachrymose sort or one who used such strategy to gain her ends. But it was natural enough. The year's strain had told heavily.
And, of course, like all strong men he was as helpless at this sight as Samson under the more designed wiles of Delilah, and he said, "There, there," as they always do, and he patted her shoulder, as they always do, and then, of course, she dried her tears, and both were fairly rational human beings again.
"I meant to go, all along, Sally, but I didn't know about taking you. They'll have me in irons for kidnapping or abduction. Your poor father! But I'll risk it. We'll find that island somehow—and the lad who's stirred up this confounded mess."
So when the tide was right they sailed away. And in the cabin Sally wrote a note to Cap'n Bluster, which they gave to a passing ship headed for Boston-town, and she smiled happily as she stood by the wheel, while Cap'n Harve paced the quarter-deck, and the great sails bellied, and the ship held up to her course, and headed due south.