Kitabı oku: «The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn», sayfa 6
Book Two – Chapter Three.
A Quarterdeck Dream
“Once a sailor, gentlemen,” began Halcott, as he filled his pipe, gazing thoughtfully over the sea, “always a sailor.
“That’s a truism, I believe. Why, the very sight of the waves out yonder, with the evening sunlight dancing and playing on their surface, makes me even at this moment long to tread the deck again.
“And there are, perhaps, few seafarers who have more inducements to stay at home than I, Charlie Halcott, have.
“I have a beautiful house of my own, and some day soon, I hope, you will both come and see it, and judge for yourselves.
“My house has a tower to it. Many a night, while walking the quarterdeck keeping my watch, with no companions save the silver-shining stars, I have said to myself – ‘Charlie Halcott,’ I have said, ‘if ever you leave off ploughing the ocean wave, and settle down on shore, you must have a house with a tower to it.’
“And now I’ve got it.
“A large, square, old-fashioned tower it is, with a mullioned window on each side of it; and up the walls the dense green ivy climbs, with just enough Virginia creeper to cast a glamour of crimson over it in autumn, like the last red rays of the setting sun.
“One window looks up the valley of the Thames, where not far off is a little Niagara, a snow-white weir: I can hear the drowsy monotone of its foaming waters by night and by day, and its song is ever the same. Another window looks away down the valley, and the river here goes winding in and out among the meadows and the green and daisied leas, till, finally, it takes the appearance of a silver string, and loses itself, or is lost to me, amidst the distant trees. A third window, from which I dearly like to look early on a summer’s morning, while the blackbirds are yet in fullest, softest song, shows an English landscape that to me is the sweetest of the sweet. As far as eye can reach, till bounded by the grey horizon’s haze, are woods and wilds and meadows green, with the red gables or the roofs of many a stately farm peeping up through the rolling cloudland of foliage; and many a streamlet too, seen here and there in the sunbeams, as it goes speeding on towards the silent river.
“But though this house of mine has a tower to it, it is not a castle by any means, apart from the fact that every Englishman’s house is his castle. I have a tower, but no donjon keep. My castle is a villa – ‘a handsome modern-built villa,’ the agent described it when I commenced correspondence with a view to its purchase. It is indeed a beautiful villa, and it is situated high up on the brow of a hill, all among the dreamy woods.
“Though I have been but a short spell on shore, my town friends already call me the ‘Sailor hermit,’ because I stick to my castle and its woods and gardens. Not for a single day can they prevail upon me to exchange it for the bustle and din of hideous London. But I retaliated on my city friends by bringing them down to my ‘castle’ in spring time, when the early flowers were opening their petals in the warm sunshine, and the very tulips seemed panting in the heat, and when there was such a gush of bird-melody coming from grove and copse and hedgerow that every leaf seemed to hide a feathered songster. And I rejoiced to see those friends of mine struck dumb by the wealth of beauty they beheld around them. For Philomel was making day melodious with a strange, unearthly music.
“All through the darkness the bird sang to his mate, and all through the day as well. No bolder birds than our nightingales live. They sing at our side, at our feet; they sing as they fly, sing as they alight, sing to us, ay and at us defiantly. No wonder we all love this sweet bird, this sweet spirit of the spring.
“So my quarterdeck dream has become a dear reality.
“Strange to say, it is always at night that I think most of the ocean. And on nights of storm – then it is that I lie awake listening to the wind roaring through the stately elms, with a sound like the sough of gale-tossed waves. It is then I long to tread once more the deck of my own bonnie barque, and feel her move beneath me like a veritable thing of life and reason. My house with the ivied tower is well away among the midlands; and yet on nights of tempest, sea-birds – the gull, and the tern, and the light-winged kittywake – often fly around the house and the trees. I can hear their voices rising shrill and high above the roar of the wind.
“‘Kaye – kay – ay – ay,’ they scream. ‘Come away – come away – ay,’ they seem to cry. ‘Why have you left us? why have you left the seas? We miss you. Come away – come away – ay – ay.’
“Never into my quarterdeck dreams, gentlemen, had there come, strange to say, a companion fair of womankind. My house with the tower to it should be just as it is to-day, just what – following out my dreams – I have made it. Its gardens all should bloom surpassing fair, my woods and trees be green; the rose lawns should look like velvet; my ribboned flower-beds like curves of coloured light; the nightingales in spring should bathe in the spray of my fountains, – there should be joy and loveliness and bird-song everywhere, but a wife? – well, I had somehow never dreamt of that. If any of the officers – for I was captain and part owner of the good barque Sea Flower– had been bold enough to suggest such a thing – I mean such a person, I should have laughed at him where he stood. ‘Who,’ I should have said, ‘would many a simple sailor like me, over thirty, brown-red in face, and hard in hands. Who indeed?’
“But into my quarterdeck dreams companions had come. Should I not have jolly farmers and solid-looking red-faced squires to dine with me, and to smoke with me out of doors in the cool of midsummer evenings, or in the cosy red parlour around the fire in the long forenights of winter, and listen to my yarns of the dark blue sea, or talk to me of the delights of rural life? Well, it was a pretty dream, it must be admitted.
“But it never struck me then, as it does now, that all the joys of life are tame indeed, unless shared by some one you love more than all things bright and fair.
“A pretty dream – and a beautiful dream. A piece of ice itself is beautiful at times; but perhaps, as we stand and admire it, the sunshine may steal down and melt it. Then we find that we love the sunshine even more than we loved the ice.
“It is not every sailor who has the luck to be captain, or, to speak more correctly, master, of so fine a sailing craft as the Sea Flower, at the age of twenty-six. But such had been my fortune; and I had sailed the seas in her for six long years, and, with the exception of the few accidents inseparable from a life at sea, I had never had a serious mishap. Many a wild gale had we weathered in her, my mate and I; many a dark and tempestuous night had we staggered along under bare poles; more than once had we sprung a leak, and twice had we been on fire.
“But all ended well, and during our brief spells on shore, either in England or in some foreign port, though James and I always managed to enjoy ourselves in our own quiet way, yet neither he nor I was sorry when we got back home again to our bonnie barque, and were once more afloat on the heaving sea.
“James was perhaps more of a sailor than I. Well, he was some years my senior, and he was browner and harder by far, and every inch a man. And though a very shy one, as far as female society is concerned, he was a very bold one nevertheless. But for his courageous example on the night of our last fire, the Sea Flower would have helped to swell the list of those ships that go to sea and are heard of no more.
“When we were taken aback in a white squall in the Indian Ocean, and it verily seemed that we had but a few minutes to float, James was here, there, and everywhere, his manly voice, calm and collected, ringing high above the roaring of the wind and the surging of the terrible seas. The very fire of his bravery on that occasion affected the men, and they worked as only bold men can work in face of death and danger, till our craft was once more righted and tearing along before the wind.
“And just as brave on shore as afloat was sturdy James Malone.
“When our steward was attacked by fifty spear-armed savages on shore at the Looboo Island, my mate seized a club that a gorilla could hardly have wielded, and fought his way through the black and vengeful crowd, till he reached and saved our faithful steward.
“And, that day, it was not until he had almost reached the ship that he told me, with that half-shy and quiet smile of his, that he believed he was slightly wounded. Then he fainted dead away.
“I nursed poor James back to health. Yes, but more than once, both before and after that event, he nursed me, and I doubt if even a brother could have been half so kind as my mate James.
“For many a long year, then, James and I had sailed the salt seas together. Without James sitting opposite me at the table at breakfast or at dinner, the neatly painted and varnished saloon, with all its glittering odds and ends, wouldn’t have seemed the same. Without James sitting near me on the quarterdeck on black-dark evenings in the tropics, I should have felt very strange and lonesome indeed.
“But James and I didn’t agree on every subject on which we conversed. Had we done so, conversation would have lost its special charm. No, he aired his opinions and I shook out mine. There were times when I convinced James; there were times when James convinced me; there were times when neither convinced the other, and then we agreed to differ.
“‘Very well, sir,’ James would say, ‘you has your ’pinions, and I has mine. You keeps to your ’pinions, and I sticks to mine.’
“It will be noted that James’s ordinary English would scarcely have passed muster in the first families of Europe. But, like many of his class, James could talk correctly enough when he set himself the task. But there was no better sailor afloat for all that, and on the stormiest night or squalliest day I always felt safe when my first mate trod the planks.
“James could tell a good story too, and I used to keep him at it of an evening – any evening save Sunday. On Sunday, James did nothing in the intervals of duty except read the Bible – the ‘Good Book,’ as he called it. This New Testament was one of those large type editions which very old people use.
“His mother – dead and gone – had left him that Book, and also her gold-rimmed specs, and it was interesting, on a Sunday afternoon, to see James sitting solemnly down to the Book, and shipping those specs athwart his nose.
“‘What on earth,’ I said once to him, ‘do you use the specs for, my friend?’
“When James looked up at me, half-upbraidingly, those eyes of his, seen through the powerful lenses, looked as big and wild and round as a catamount’s. It was unearthly.
“‘My mother bade me. Would you disobey your mother?’
“This was a bombshell, and I said no more.
“But there was one subject on which James and I never disagreed – namely, ‘the ladies,’ as he called women folks. ‘They are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,’ James would say, ‘and I means to steer clear on ’em.’ And James always did.
“There was one pleasure James and I had in common – namely, witnessing a good tragedy on the boards of Liverpool theatre. You see this was our port of destination on our return from the far, far south. Mind, we wouldn’t go to see a drama, because there might be too much nonsensical love business in it, and too many of ‘the frivolous antics of women’ – James’s own words. But in a tragedy the women often came to grief, which James thought was only natural.
“So we chose tragedy.
“Now, one night at this same theatre, I had one of the strangest experiences of my life; and never yet have I found any one who could explain it.
“James and I had gone early that evening, because there was something specially tragic on, and we desired to secure good seats. We sat in the front row, and at the left end of the row, because we wished to leave the theatre between each act to enjoy a few whiffs of tobacco.
“The play was well begun, and my eyes were riveted on the stage. There was a momentary silence, and during this time I was sensible, from a slight rustling noise, that the private box behind and above me was being occupied.
“Did you ever hear psychologists mention the term or feeling ‘ecstasy’? That was what stole over me now. For a few minutes I saw nothing on the stage; only a feeling of intense happiness, such as I have seldom experienced since that night, stole over me, occupying, bathing, I may say, my whole soul and mind.
“I turned at last, and my eyes met those of a young lady in that private box. Never before had I seen such radiant beauty. Never had I been impressed with beauty of any kind before. My heart almost stood still. It was really an awful moment – that is, if intense happiness can ever be awful.
“Well, if it is possible for a sailor, with a face as brown as the back of a fiddle, to blush, I blushed. She, too, I think, coloured just a little.
“What was it? What could it mean?
“I know not how I sat out the act. When I rose with James to go out, I dared one other glance towards the box. The lady had gone, and a feeling of coldness crept round my heart. I felt as depressed now as I had recently felt happy.
“‘James,’ I said, ‘take me home, I – I believe I’m ill.’
“‘Why,’ said James, ‘you look as though you had seen a ghost.’
“I got home. Something, I knew not what, was going to happen; but all that night dream after dream haunted my pillow, and of every dream, the sweet young face I had seen in the private box was the only thing I could remember when daylight broke athwart the eastern sky.”
Book Two – Chapter Four.
“Dear, Unselfish, but Somewhat Silly Fellow.”
“I never had a secret from James Malone; no, not so much as one. Had I known what was the matter with me on the evening before, I should have told James manfully and in a moment.
“But when he came to my rooms in the morning, to share my humble breakfast, and consult about the duties of the day, we being just then fitting out for sea, —
“‘James,’ I began —
“And then – well, then I told him all the story, even down to my strange dreams and the sweet young face that had haunted them.
“‘Why, James,’ I concluded, ‘I have only to close my eyes now to see her once again, and I can neither read nor write without thinking of her.’
“James sat silently beholding me for fully a minute. His face was clouded, and pity and anxiety were in every lineament of his manly features.
“‘I’m taken aback,’ he stammered at last. ‘White squalls is nothin’ to it. Charlie Halcott, you’re in love. It’s an awful, fearful thing. No surgical operation can do anything for you. It’s worse by far than I thought. A mild touch of the cholera would be mere moonshine to this. A brush wi’ Yellow Jack wouldn’t be a circumstance to it. O Halcott, Halcott! O Charlie! what am I to do with you?’
“‘James,’ I interrupted, ‘light your pipe. Did you see the beautiful vision – the lovely child?’
“‘I followed your eyes.’
“‘And what saw you, James?’ I asked, leaning eagerly towards him.
“‘I saw what appeared to be – a woman. Nothin’ more and nothin’ less.’
“‘James, did you not notice her blue and heavenly eyes, that seemed to swim in ether; her delicately pencilled eyebrows; the long lashes that swept the rounded rosy cheeks; her golden hair like sunset’s glow; her little mouth; her lips like the blossom of the blueberry, and the delicate play of her mobile countenance?’
“‘Delicate play of a mobile marling-spike!’ cried James, jumping up. He rammed a piece of paper into his pipe and thrust it into his pocket.
“‘Charles Halcott, I’m off,’ he cried.
“‘Off, James?’
“‘Yes, off. Every man Jack shall be on board the Sea Flower to-day, bag and baggage. We’ll drop down stream to-morrow morning early, ship a pilot, and get away to sea without more ado.’
“He was at the door by the time he had finished but he stopped a moment with a look of wondrous pity on his handsome face, then came straight back and clasped my hand in brotherly affection, and so, without another word, walked out and away.
“Now, I was master of the Sea Flower, but in the matter of sailing next day – three or four whole days before I had intended – I should no more have thought of gainsaying honest James Malone than of disobeying my father had he been alive. James was acting towards me with true brotherly affection, quite disinterestedly in my behalf, and —quien sabe? – probably saving me from a lifetime’s misery.
“I would be advised by James.
“So after he had left, and I had smoked in solitary sadness for about an hour, I rose with a sigh, and commenced throwing my things together in the great mahogany sea-chest that while afloat stood in my state-room, and which on shore I never travelled without.
“For the whole of that forenoon I wandered about the streets of Liverpool, looking chiefly at the photographers’ windows. I was bewitched, and possessed some faint hope of seeing a photograph of her who had bewitched me. I even entered the shops under pretence of bargaining for a likeness of my sailor-self, and looked over their books of specimens.
“Had I come across her picture, the temptation to purchase it would, I fear, have proved irresistible.
“Suddenly I pulled myself taut up with a round turn, and planked myself, so to speak, on my mental quarterdeck before Commander Conscience.
“‘What are you doing, or trying to do, Charles Halcott?’ said Commander Conscience.
“‘Only trying,’ replied Charles Halcott, ‘to procure a photograph of the loveliest young lady on earth, whose eyes shine like stars in beauty’s night.’
“‘Don’t be a fool, Charles Halcott. Are you not wise enough to know that, even if you procure this photograph, you will have to keep it a secret from honest James Malone? His friendship is better far than love of womankind. Besides,’ added Commander Conscience, ‘you need no photograph. Is not the image of the lady who has bewitched you indelibly photographed upon your soul? Charles Halcott, I am ashamed of you!’
“I stood at a window for a few minutes, looking sheepish enough; then I threw temptation to the winds, put about, and sailed right away back to my chambers, studding-sails set low and aloft.
“I finished packing, saw my owners in the afternoon, and when James came off to the ship he found me quietly smoking my biggest pipe in the saloon of the Sea Flower.
“He smiled now.
“‘Better already,’ he said; ‘His name be praised!’
“James was a strange man in some ways. This was one: he thanked Heaven for every comfort, even the slightest, and did nothing without, in a word or two, asking a blessing thereon.
“In three days’ time we were staggering southwards, and away across Biscay’s blue bay, with every inch of canvas set. And a pretty sight we were – our white sails flowing in the sunshine – the sea as blue as the sky, and the waves sparkling around us as if every drop of water contained a diamond.
“All the way to the Cape, and farther, James treated me as tenderly and compassionately as if I had been an invalid brother. He never contradicted me even once. He used to keep me talking and yarning on the quarterdeck, when he wasn’t on watch, for whole hours at a stretch; and in the evenings, when tired spinning me yarns, he would take his banjo and sing to me old sea-songs in his bold and thrilling voice. And James could sing too; there were the brine, and the breeze, and the billows’ roll in every bar of the grand old songs he sang, and indeed I was never tired of listening to them. Sometimes I closed my eyes as I sat in my easy-chair; then James’s banjo notes grew softer and softer, and ever so much farther away like, till at last it was ghostly music, and I was in the land of dreams.
“When I awoke, perhaps it would be four bells or even six, and there would be James, with his specs athwart his great jibboom of a nose, poring earnestly over his mother’s Bible.
“‘You’ve had a nice little nap,’ he would say cheerfully. ‘Now you’ll toddle off to your bunk, and when you’re safe between the sheets I’ll bring you a tiny little drop of rum and treacle.’
“Poor James! Rum and treacle was his panacea for every ill; and yet I don’t believe any one in the wide world ever saw James the worse of even rum and treacle.
“When we got as far as to Madeira, he proposed we should anchor here for a few days and dispose of some of our notions. Notions formed our cargo; and notions must be understood to mean, Captain Weathereye, all kinds of jewellery and knick-knacks, including table-knives and forks, watches, strings of bright beads, cotton cloths, parasols, and guns. Now I knew very well that we could easily dispose of all our cargo at the Cape and other parts; but I also knew very well that James’s main object in stopping at Madeira was to give me a few delightful days on shore.
“This was part of the cure, and I had to submit with the best grace I could.
“We had, at that time, as handy and good a second mate as any one could wish on the weather side of a quarterdeck. So it was easy enough for myself and James to leave the ship both at the same time, though this had very seldom been our custom, except when in dock or in harbour.
“To put it in plain language, James did not seem to know how good to be to me, nor how much to amuse me. The honest, simple soul kept talking and yarning to me all the while, and pointing out this, that, and the other strange thing to me, until I was obliged to laugh in his face. But James was not offended; not he. He was working according to some plan he had formulated in his own mind, and nothing was going to turn him aside from his purpose.
“About midday we entered the veranda of a cool and delightful hotel, and seating ourselves at a little marble table, James called for cigars and iced drinks. Then he proposed we should luncheon. No, he would pay, he said; it was not often he had the honour or pleasure of lunching with his captain, in a marble palace like this. So he pulled out an old sock tied round with a morsel of blue ribbon, and thrusting his big brown paw into it, brought forth money in abundance.
“‘Never been here before?’ he asked me quietly.
“‘No,’ I said; ‘strange to say I’ve touched at nearly every port in the world except this place.’
“‘Well, I have,’ said James, ‘and I’m going to put you up to the ropes.’
“‘Now,’ he continued, when we stood once more under the greenery of the trees that bordered the broad pavement, ‘will you have a hammock or a horse?’
“Not knowing quite what he meant, I replied that I would leave it to him.
“‘Well,’ he said, ‘this must be considered a kind of picnic, them’s my notions, and as you’re far from well yet, I’ll have a horse and you a hammock.’
“Both horse and hammock were soon brought round to the door. The hammock was borne by two perspiring half-caste Portuguese, and was attached to a pole, and on board I swung, while James got on board the horse. The saddle was a hard and horrid contrivance of leather and wood, the stirrups a pair of old slippers, and the horse himself – well, he was a beautiful study in equine osteology, and I really did not know which to pity most, James or his Rosinante. But in my hammock I felt comfortably, dreamily happy.
“We passed through the quaint old town of Funchal, then upwards, and away towards the mountains. The day was warm and delightful – hot indeed James must have found it, for he soon divested himself of coat and waistcoat, and even then he had to pause at times to wipe his streaming brow. The peeps at the beautiful gardens I caught while being carried along were charming in the extreme; the verandaed and trellised villas, canopied with flowers of every hue and shape, the bright green lawns where fairy-like children played, and the flowering trees – the whole forming ever-changing scenes of enchantment – I shall never forget. Then the soft and balmy air was laden with perfume.
“‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘to be an invalid! How kind of James to treat me as one! And he jogging along there on that bony horse’s back, with the boy holding fast by the tail! Dear, unselfish, but somewhat silly fellow!’
“Upwards still, steeper and steeper the hill. And now we seemed to have mounted into the very sky itself, and were far away from the tropics and tropical flora.
“We came at last to a table-land. For the life of me I could not help thinking of the story of ‘Jack and the Bean-stalk.’ Here gorgeous heaths and heather bloomed and grew; here birds of sweet song flitted hither and thither among the scented and the yellow-tasselled broom; and here solemn weird-like pine-trees waved dark against the far-off ocean’s blue.
“Under some of these trees, and close to the cliff, we disembarked to rest. We were fully half a mile above the level of the sea. Yet not a stone’s throw from where we sat was the edge of the awful cliff that led downwards without a break to that white line far beneath where the waves frothed and fumed against the rocks.
“But far as the eye could reach, till lost in distance and merged into the blue of the sky, lay the azure sea, with here and there a sail, the largest of which looked no bigger than a white butterfly with folded wings.
“A delicious sense of happiness stole over me, and for the first time, perhaps, since leaving England I forgot the sweet young face that had so completely bewitched me.
“I think I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I was sensible of was James tuning a broad guitar.
“Then his voice was raised in song, and I closed my eyes again, the better to listen.
“Poor James, he played and sang for over an hour; no wild, wailing sea-songs this time, however, but verses sweet and plaintive, and far more in harmony with the notes of the sad guitar. The romance of our situation, the stillness of our surroundings, unbroken save in the intervals of song by the flitting of a wild bird among the broom, and the low whisper of the wind through the pine-trees overhead, with the balmy ozonic air from the blue ocean, continued to instil into my soul a feeling of calm and perfect joy to which I had hitherto been a stranger.
“Just as the sun was sinking like a great blood orange through a purple haze that lay along the western horizon, James laughingly handed the guitar to the boy who had carried it. Then laughing still – he was so strange and good this James of mine – he pulled out a silver-mounted flask and poured me out a portion of its contents.
“It was a little rum and treacle.
“‘The dews of night isn’t going to harm you after that,’ said James.
“Lights were glimmering here and there on the hills like glow-worms, and far beneath us in the town, long before we reached the streets of Funchal.
“We went straight to the hotel and discharged both horse and hammock.
“Then we dined.
“I thought I should be allowed to go on board after this. Not that there was the slightest hurry.
“However, I was mistaken for once. James had not yet done with me for the night. I had still another prescription of his to use; and as I knew it was part and parcel of James’s love cure, I could not demur. He had given me so much pleasure on that day already, that when he asked me to get up and follow him I did so as obediently as the little lamb followed Mary.
“But that he, James Malone, who feared womankind, if he did not positively hate them, should lead me to a Portuguese ballroom of all places in the world, surprised me more than anything.
“I could hear the tinkling of guitars, the shuffling of feet, and the music of merry, laughing voices, long before we came near the door.
“I stopped short.
“‘James,’ I said, ‘haven’t you made some mistake?’
“His only answer was a roguish laugh.
“I repeated the question.
“‘Not a bit of it,’ he answered gaily.
“‘Charlie Halcott,’ he added, ‘if you were simply suffering from Yellow Jack I’d hand you over to a doctor, but, Charles Halcott, it takes a man to cure love. And you’ve been sorely hit.’
“This had been a day of surprises, but when I entered that ballroom there came the greatest surprise of all. Those here assembled were not so-called gentle-folks. They were the sons and daughters of the ordinary working classes; but the taste displayed, the banks of flowers around the orchestra, the gay bouquets and coloured lights along the walls, the polished and not overcrowded floor, the romantic dresses of the gallants that transported one back to the middle ages, the snow-white costumes of the ladies, and, above all, their innocent, ravishing beauty, formed a scene that reminded me strongly of stories I had read in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.
“I was almost ashamed of my humble attire, but the courtesy of the master of ceremonies was charming. Would the strangers dance? Surely the stranger sailors would dance? He would get us, as partners, the loveliest señoritas in all the room.
“So he did.
“I forgot everything in that soft, dreamy waltz – everything save the thrilling music and the sylph-like form of my dark-eyed partner, who floated with me through the perfumed air, for surely our feet never touched the floor.
“But the drollest thing of all was this – James was dancing too. James with his – well, I must not say aversion to, but fear and shyness of womankind, was dancing; and I knew he was only doing so to encourage me. A handsome fellow he looked, too, almost head and shoulders taller than any man there, and broad and well-knit in proportion. The master of ceremonies had got him a partner ‘for to match,’ as he expressed it; certainly a beautiful girl, with a wealth of raven hair that I had never seen equalled, far less surpassed. I daresay she could dance lightly; but James’s waltzing was of a very solid brand indeed, and he swung his pretty partner round the room in a way that seemed to indicate business rather than pleasure. Several couples cannoned off James and went ricochetting to the farther end of the room, and one went down. James swung past me a moment after, apparently under a heavy press of canvas, and as he did so I heard him say to his partner, referring to the couple he had brought to deck, —
