The ebb tide : a trio & quartette

THE EBB TIDE

THE EBB TIDE

A TRIO £r QUARTETTE

BY

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Gr

LLOYD OSBOURNE

" There is a tide
in the affairs of men."

STONE & KIMBALL
CHICAGO & CAMBRIDGE

M DCCCXC IV

. £3

COPYRICHT, 1893, BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
AND LLOYD OSBOURNE

CONTENTS.

PART I. — THE TRIO.

Chapter Page

I. Night on the Beach 9

II. Morning on the Beach. — The Three

Letters 26

III. The Old Calaboose, — Destiny at the

Door 39

IV. The Yellow Flag 53

V. The Cargo of Champagne 62

VI. The Partners 93

PART II. — THE QUARTETTE.

VII. The Pearl Fisher 106

VIII. Better Acquaintance 126

IX. The Dtnner Party 144

X. The Open Door 157

XI. David and Goliath 174

XII. A Tailpiece 201

The Ebb Tide.

A TRIO AND QUARTETTE.

PART I. — THE TRIO.

CHAPTER I.

NIGHT ON THE BEACH.

THROUGHOUT the island world of the Pa-
cific, scattered men of many European races and
from almost every grade of society carry activity
and disseminate disease. Some prosper, some
vegetate. Some have mounted the steps of thrones
and owned islands and navies. Others, again, must
marry for a livelihood ; a strapping, merry, choco-
late-colored dame supports them in sheer idleness ;
and dressed like natives, but still retaining some
foreign element of gait or attitude, still perhaps
with some relic (such as a single eye-glass) of the
officer and gentleman, they sprawl in palm^eaf ve-
randas, and entertain an island audience with me-
moirs of the music-hall. And there are still others,

10

THE EBB TIDE.

less pliable, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps
less base, who continue, even in these isles of
plenty, to lack bread.

At the far end of the town of Papeete, three
such men were seated on the beach, under zpurao
tree.

It was late. Long ago the band had broken up
and marched musically home, a motley troop of
men and women, merchant clerks and navy officers
dancing in its wake, arms about waist and crowned
with garlands. Long ago darkness and silence
had gone from house to house about the tiny
pagan city. Only the street lamps shone on, mak-
ing a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous alleys, or
drawing a tremulous image on the waters of the
port. A sound of snoring ran among the piles
of lumber by the Government pier. It was
wafted ashore from the graceful, clipper-bottomed
schooners, where they lay moored close in like
dinghies, and their crews were stretched upon the
deck, under the open sky, or huddled in a rude
tent amidst the disorder of merchandise.

But the men under the purao had no thought of
sleep. The same temperature in England would
have passed without remark in summer ; but it was
bitter cold for the South Seas. Inanimate nature
knew it, and the bottle of cocoanut oil stood frozen
in every bird-cage house about the island ; and the
men knew it, and shivered. They wore flimsy cot-
ton clothes, the same they had sweated in by day
and run the gantlet of the tropic showers ; and to

NIGHT OX THE BEACH.

1 1

complete their evil case, they had had no break-
fast to mention, less dinner, and no supper at all.

In the telling South Sea phrase, these three men
were on the beach. Common calamity had brought
them acquainted, as the three most miserable Eng-
lish-speaking creatures in Tahiti ; and beyond their
misery, they knew next to nothing of each other,
not even their true names. For each had made a
long apprenticeship in going downward ; and each,
at some stage of the descent, had been shamed into
the adoption of an alias. And yet not one of them
had figured in a court of justice. Two were men
of kindly virtues ; and one, as he sat and shivered
under the fiurao, had a tattered Virgil in his
pocket.

Certainly, if money could have been raised upon
the book, Robert Herrick would long ago have
sacrificed that last possession. But the demand
for literature, which is so marked a feature in some
parts of the South Seas, extends not so far as the
dead tongues; and the Virgil, which he could not
exchange against a meal, had often consoled him
in his hunger. He would study it, as he lay with
tightened belt on the floor of the old calaboose,
seeking favorite passages, and finding new ones
only less beautiful because they lacked the conse-
cration of remembrance. Or he would pause on
random country walks, sit on the pathside, gazing
over the sea, on the mountains of Eimeo, and dip
into the ^Eneid, seeking sortes. And if the oracle
(as is the way of oracles) replied with no very cer-

12

THE EBB TIDE.

tain or encouraging voice, visions of England, at
least, would throng upon the exile's memory, — the
busy schoolroom; the green playing-fields ; holidays
at home, and the perennial roar of London ; and the
fireside, and the white head of his father. For it
is the destiny of those grave, restrained, and clas-
sic writers, with whom we make enforced and often
painful acquaintanceship at school, to pass into the
blood and become native in the memory ; so that a
phrase of Virgil speaks not so much of Mantua or
Augustus, but of English places and the student's
own irrevocable youth.

Robert Herrick was the son of an intelligent, ac-
tive, and ambitious man, small partner in a consid-
erable London house. Hopes were conceived of
the boy ; he was sent to a good school, gained there
an Oxford scholarship, and proceeded in course to
the Western university. With all his talent and
taste (and he had much of both) Robert was defi-
cient in consistency and intellectual manhood,
wandered in by-paths of study, worked at music
or at metaphysics when he should have been at
Greek, and took at last a paltry degree. Almost
at the same time the London house was disas-
trously wound up ; Mr. Herrick must begin the
world again as a clerk in a strange office, and
Robert relinquish his ambitions, and accept with
gratitude a career that he detested and despised.
He had no head for figures, no interest in affairs,
detested the constraint of hours, and despised the
aims and the success of merchants. To grow rich

NIGHT OX THE BEACH.

13

was none of his ambitions ; rather to do well. A
worse or a more bold young man would have re-
fused the destiny ; perhaps tried his fortune with
his pen ; perhaps enlisted. Robert, more prudent,
possibly more timid, consented to embrace that
way of life in which he could most readily assist
his family. But he did so with a mind divided ;
fled the neighborhood of former comrades, and
chose, out of several positions placed at his dis-
posal, a clerkship in New York.

His career thenceforth was one of unbroken
shame. He did not drink, he was exactly honest,
he was never rude to his employers, yet was every-
where discharged. Bringing no interest to his
duties, he brought no attention; his day was a
tissue of things neglected and things done amiss ;
and from place to place, and from town to town,
he carried the character of one thoroughly incom-
petent. No man can hear the word applied to him
without some flush of color, as indeed there is none
other that so emphatically slams in a man's face
the door of self-respect. And to Herrick, who was
conscious of talents and acquirements, who looked
down upon those humble duties in which he was
found wanting, the pain was the more exquisite.
Early in his fall he had ceased to be able to make
remittances ; shortly after, having nothing but fail-
ure to communicate, he ceased writing home ; and
about a year before his tale begins, turned suddenly
upon the streets of San Francisco by a vulgar and
infuriated German Jew, he had broken the last

r4

THE EBB TIDE.

bonds of self-respect, and upon a sudden impulse,
changed his name, and invested his last dollar in a
passage on the mail brigantine, the " City of Pa-
peete." With what expectation he had trimmed
his flight for the South Seas, Herrick perhaps
scarcely knew. Doubtless there were fortunes to
be made in pearl and copra ; doubtless others, not
more gifted than himself, had climbed in the island
world to be queens' consorts and kings' ministers.
But if Herrick had gone there with any manful
purpose, he would have kept his father's name ;
the alias betrayed his moral bankruptcy ; he had
struck his flag ; he entertained no hope to reinstate
himself or help his straitened family ; and he came
to the islands (where he knew the climate to be
soft, bread cheap, and manners easy) a skulker
from life's battle and his own immediate duty.
Failure, he had said, was his portion ; let it be a
pleasant failure.

It is fortunately not enough to say, " I will be
base." Herrick continued in the islands his career
of failure; but in the new scene, and under the
new name, he suffered no less sharply than before.
A place was got, it was lost in the old style. From
the long-suffering of the keepers of restaurants, he
fell to more open charity upon the wayside ; as
time went on, good nature became weary, and,
after a repulse or two, Herrick became shy.
There were women enough who would have sup-
ported a far worse and a far uglier man ; Herrick
never met or never knew them ; or if he did both,

NIGHT ON THE BEACH.

15

some manlier feeling would revolt, and he preferred
starvation. Drenched with rains, broiling by day,
shivering by night, a disused and ruinous prison
for a bedroom, his diet begged or pilfered out of
rubbish heaps, his associates two creatures equally
outcast with himself, he had drained for months
the cup of penitence. He had known what it was
to be resigned, what it was to break forth in a
childish fury of rebellion against fate, and what it
was to sink into the coma of despair. The time
had changed him. He told himself no longer
tales of an easy and perhaps agreeable declen-
sion ; he read his nature otherwise ; he had proved
himself incapable of rising, and he now learned by
experience that he could not stoop to fall. Some-
thing that was scarcely pride or strength, that was
perhaps only refinement, withheld him from capitu-
lation ; but he looked on upon his own misfortune
with a growing rage, and sometimes wondered at
his patience.

It was now the fourth month completed, and
still there was no change or sign of change. The
moon, racing through a world of flying clouds of
every size and shape and density, some black as
inkstains, some delicate as lawn, threw the marvel
of her Southern brightness over the same lovely
and detested scene, — the island mountains crowned
with the perennial island cloud, the embowered
city studded with rare lamps, the masts in the
harbor, the smooth mirror of the lagoon, and the
mole of the barrier-reef on which the breakers

i6

THE EBB TIDE.

whitened. The moon shone, too, with bull's-eye
sweeps, on his companions, — on the stalwart frame
of the American who called himself Brown, and
was known to be a master-mariner in some dis-
grace ; and on the dwarfish person, the pale eyes,
and toothless smile of a vulgar and bad-hearted
cockney clerk. Here was society for Robert Her-
rick ! The Yankee skipper was a man at least ; he
had sterling qualities of tenderness and resolution ;
he was one whose hand you could take without a
blush. But there was no redeeming grace about
the other, who called himself sometimes Hay and
sometimes Tomkins, and laughed at the discrep-
ancy; who had been employed in every store in
Papeete, for the creature was able in his way; who
had been discharged from each in turn, for he was
wholly vile ; who had alienated all his old em-
ployers, so that they passed him in the street as if
he were a dog, and all his old comrades, so that
they shunned him as they would a creditor.

Not long before, a ship from Peru had brought
an influenza, and it now raged in the island, and
particularly in Papeete. From all round the purao
arose and fell a dismal sound of men coughing,
and strangling as they coughed. The sick natives,
with the islander's impatience of a touch of fever,
had crawled from their houses to be cool, and,
squatting on the shore or on the beached canoes,
painfully expected the new day. Even as the crow-
ing of cocks goes about the country in the night,
from farm to farm, accesses of coughing arose, and

NIGHT ON THE BEACH. 1 7

spread, and died in the distance, and sprang up
again. Each miserable shiverer caught the sug-
gestion from his neighbor, was torn for some
minutes by that cruel ecstasy, and left spent and
without voice or courage when it passed. If a
man had pity to spend, Papeete Beach, on that
cold night and in that infected season, was a place
to spend it on. And of all the sufferers, perhaps
the least deserving, but surely the most pitiable,
was the London clerk. He was used to another
life, to houses, beds, nursing, and the dainties of
the sick-room; he lay here now, in the cold open,
exposed to the gusting of the wind, and with an
empty belly. He was besides infirm ; the disease
shook him to the vitals ; and his companions
watched his endurance with surprise. A profound
commiseration filled them, and contended with and
conquered their abhorrence. The disgust attend-
ant on so ugly a sickness magnified this dislike ; at
the same time, and with more than compensating
strength, shame for a sentiment so inhuman bound
them the more straitly to his service; and even
the evil they knew of him swelled their solicitude,
for the thought of death is always least support-
able when it draws near to the merely sensual and
selfish. Sometimes they held him up; sometimes,
with mistaken helpfulness, they beat him between
the shoulders ; and when the poor wretch lay back,
ghastly and spent, after a paroxysm of coughing,
they would sometimes peer into his face, doubtfully
exploring it for any mark of life. There is no one
2

i8

THE EBB TIDE.

but has some virtue ; that of the clerk was courage,
and he would make haste to reassure them in a
pleasantry not always decent.

" I 'm all right, pals," he gasped once ; " this is
the thing to strengthen the muscles of the larynx."

" Well, you take the cake ! " cried the captain.

" Oh, I 'm good-plucked enough," pursued the
sufferer, with a broken utterance ; " but it do seem
bloomin' 'ard to me that I should be the only party
to be down with this form of vice, and the only one
to do the funny business. I think one of you other
parties might walk up. Tell a fellow something."

" The trouble is, we Ve nothing to tell, my son,"
returned the captain.

" I '11 tell you, if you like, what I was thinking,"
said Herrick.

" Tell us anything," said the clerk. " I only
want to be reminded that I ain't dead."

Herrick took up his parable, lying on his face,
and speaking slowly and scarce above his breath ;
not like a man who has anything to say, but like
one talking against time.

" Well, I was thinking this," he began. " I was
thinking I lay on Papeete Beach one night, — all
moon and squalls, and fellows coughing, — and I
was cold and hungry, and down in the mouth, and
was about ninety years of age, and had spent about
two hundred and twenty of them on Papeete Beach.
And I was thinking I wished I had a ring to rub,
or had a fairy godmother, or could raise Beelzebub.
And I was trying to remember how you did it. I

NIGHT ON THE BEACH.

19

knew you made a ring of skulls, for I had seen that
in the * Freischiitz ; ' and that you took off your
coat and turned up your sleeves, for I had seen
Formes do that when he was playing Kaspar, and
you could see, by the way he went about it, it was
a business he had studied ; and that you ought to
have something to kick up a smoke and a bad
smell, — I daresay a cigar might do, — and that you
ought to say the Lord's Prayer backward. Well,
I wondered if I could do that ; it seemed rather a
feat, you see. And then I wondered if I could say
it forward, and I thought I did. Well, no sooner
had I got to 'world without end ' than I saw an old
man in a pariu, and with a mat under his arm,
come along the beach from the town. He was
rather a hard-favored old party, and he limped and
crippled, and all the time he kept coughing. At
first I didn't cotton to his looks, I thought, and
then I got sorry for the old soul because he coughed
so hard. I remembered we had some of that cough
mixture the American consul gave the captain for
Hay. It never did Hay a ha'p'orth of service, but
I thought it might do the old gentleman's business
for him, and stood up. — ' Yorana 1 1 said I. — 1 Yo~
rana t 1 says he. — 1 Look here,' I said, 1 1 've got
some first-rate stuff in a bottle ; it '11 fix your cough,
— savvy? Harry my1 and I'll measure you out
a tablespoonful in the palm of my hand, for all our
plate is at the banker's.' So I thought the old
party came up, and the nearer he came the less I
1 Come here.

20

THE EBB TIDE.

took to him. But I had passed my word, you
see."

" Wot is this bloomin' drivel ? " interrupted the
clerk. " It 's like the rot there is in tracts."

" It 's a story. I used to tell them to the kids
at home," said Herrick. " If it bores you, I 'II
drop it."

" Oh, cut along ! " returned the sick man irritably.
" It 's better than nothing."

" Well," continued Herrick, " I had no sooner
given him the cough mixture than he seemed to
straighten up and change, and I saw he was n't a
Tahitian after all, but some kind of an Arab, and
had a long beard on his chin. 4 One good turn
deserves another,' says he. I am a magician out
of the Arabian Nights, and this mat that I have
under my arm is the original carpet of Mohammed
Ben Somebody-or-other. Say the word and you
can have a cruise upon the carpet.' 'You don't
mean to say this is the Travelling Carpet ? ' I
cried. 4 You bet I do,' said he. 1 You 've been
to America since last I read the Arabian Nights,'
said I, a little suspicious. 4 1 should think so,'
said he. 4 Been everywhere. A man with a car-
pet like this is n't going to moulder in a semi-de-
tached villa.' Well, that struck me as reasonable.
* All right,' I said, 4 and do you mean to tell me I
can get on that carpet and go straight to London,
England ? ' I said, 4 London, England,' captain, be-
cause he seemed to have been so long in your part
of the world. 4 In the crack of a whip,' said he. I

NIGHT ON THE BEACH.

21

figured up the time. What is the difference be-
tween Papeete and London, captain ? "

" Taking Greenwich and Point Venus, nine hours,
odd minutes and seconds," replied the mariner.

" Well, that 's about what I made it," resumed
Herrick ; " about nine hours. Calling this three
in the morning, I made out I would drop into Lon-
don about noon, and the idea tickled me im-
mensely. * There 's only one bother,' I said, * I
have n't a copper cent. It would be a pity to go
to London and not buy the morning " Standard." 1
i Oh! 1 said he, 'you don't realize the conveniences
of this carpet. You see this pocket ? You 've only
got to stick your hand in, and you pull it out filled
with sovereigns. ' "

" Double-eagles, was n't it ? " inquired the cap-
tain.

"That was what it was!" cried Herrick. " I
thought they seemed unusually big, and I remem-
ber now I had to go to the money changers at
Charing Cross and get English silver."

" Oh, you went then ? " said the clerk. " Wot
did you do ? Bet you had a B. and S. ! "

" Well, you see, it was just as the old boy said,
like the cut of a whip," said Herrick. " The one
minute I was here on the beach at three in the
morning, the next I was in front of the Golden
Cross at midday. At first I was dazzled, and
covered my eyes, and there did n't seem the
smallest change ; the roar of the Strand and the
roar of the reef were like the same ; hark to it

22

THE EBB TIDE.

now, and you can hear the cabs and the 'busses
rolling and the streets resound ! And then at last
I would look about, and there was the old place
and no mistake, with the statues in the square, and
St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and the bobbies, and
the sparrows, and the hacks ; and I can't tell you
what I felt like. I felt like crying, I believe,
or dancing, or jumping clean over the Nelson
column. I was like a fellow caught up out of
hell and flung down into the dandiest part of
heaven. Then I spotted for a hansom with a
spanking horse. 1 A shilling for yourself if you 're
there in twenty minutes,' said I to the jarvey. He
went a good pace, though, of course, it was a
trifle to the carpet ; and in nineteen minntes and
a half I was at the door."

" What door ? " asked the captain.

" Oh, a house I know of," returned Herrick.

" Bet it was a public house ! " cried the clerk —
only these were not his words. " And w'y did n't
you take the carpet there instead of trundling in a
growler ? "

" I did n't want to startle a quiet street," said
the narrator. " Bad form. And besides, it was a
hansom."

" Well, and what did you do next ? " inquired
the captain.

" Oh, I went in," said Herrick.

" The old folks ? " asked the captain.

" That 's about it," said the other, chewing a
grass.

NIGHT ON THE BEACH.

23

" Well, I think you are about the poorest 'and
at a yarn ! " cried the clerk. " Crikey, it 's like
1 Ministering Children.' I can tell you there would
be more beer and skittles about my little jaunt.
I would go and have a B. and S. for luck. Then
I would get a big ulster with astrakhan fur, and
take my cane, and do the la-de-da down Piccadilly.
Then I would go to a slap-up restaurant, and have
green peas and a bottle of fizz and a chump chop
— Oh ! and I forgot, I 'd 'ave some devilled
w'itebait first, and green gooseberry tart, and 'ot
coffee, and some of that form of vice in big bottles
with a seal — Benedictine — that's the bloomin'
nyme ! Then I 'd drop into a theatre, and pal on
with some chappies, and do the dancing-rooms
and bars and that, and would n't go 'ome till
morning, till d'ylight doth appear. And the next
d'y I 'd 'ave water-creases, 'am, muffin, and fresh
butter ; would n't I just ? Oh, my ! "

The clerk was interrupted by a fresh attack of
coughing.

" Well, now, I '11 tell you what I would do," said
the captain. " I would have none of your fancy
rigs with the man driving from the mizzen cross-
trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the
highest registered tonnage. First of all, I would
bring up at the market and get a turkey and a
sucking pig. Then I 'd go to a wine merchant's
and get a dozen of champagne and a dozen of
some sweet wine, rich and sticky and strong, some-
thing in the port or Madeira line, the best in the

24

THE EBB TIDE.

store. Then I 'd bear up for a toy store, and lay
out twenty dollars in assorted toys for the picca-
ninnies ; and then to a confectioner's and take in
cakes and pies and fancy bread, and that stuff
with the plums in it ; and then to a news agency,
and buy all the papers — all the picture ones for
the kids, and all the story papers for the old girl :
about the Earl discovering himself to Anna
Maria, and the escape of the Lady Maude from
the Private Madhouse ; and then I 'd tell the
fellow to drive home."

" There ought to be some syrup for the kids,"
suggested Herrick. " They like syrup."

" Yes, syrup for the kids, red syrup at that ! "
said the captain. " And those things they pull at
and go pop, and have measly poetry inside. And
then I tell you we 'd have a Thanksgiving Day
and Christmas tree combined. Great Scott, but
I would like to see the kids ! I guess they would
light right out of the house when they saw daddy
driving up. My little Adar — "

The captain stopped sharply.

" Well, keep it up," said the clerk.

"The damned thing is, I don't know if they
are n't starving ! " cried the captain.

" They can't be worse off than we are, and that 's
one comfort," returned the clerk. " I defy the
devil to make me worse off."

It seemed as if the devil heard him. The light
of the moon had been some time cut off, and they
had talked in darkness. Now there was heard a

NIGHT ON THE BEACH.

25

roar, which drew impetuously nearer ; the face of
the lagoon was seen to whiten, and, before they
had staggered to their feet, a squall burst in rain
upon the outcasts. The rage and volume of that
avalanche, one must have lived in the tropics to
conceive ; a man panted in its assault as he might
pant under a shower bath ; and the world seemed
whelmed in night and water.

They fled, groping for their usual shelter — it
might be almost called their home — in the old cala-
boose ; came drenched into its empty chambers,
and lay down, three sops of humanity, on the cold
coral floors. And presently, when the squall was
overpassed, the others could hear in the darkness
the chattering of the clerk's teeth.

" I say, you fellows," he wailed, " for God's sake
lie up and try to warm me. I 'm blymed if I don't
think I '11 die else ! "

So the three crept together into one wet mass,
and lay until day came, shivering and dozing off,
and continually reawakened to wretchedness by
the coughing of the clerk.

CHAPTER II.

MORNING ON THE BEACH. — THE THREE
LETTERS.

1 HE clouds were all fled, the beauty of the
tropic day was spread upon Papeete ; and the wall
of breaking seas upon the reef, and the palms upon
the islet, already trembled in the heat. A French
man-of-war was going out that morning, homeward
bound; she lay in the middle distance of the port, an
ant-heap for activity. In the night a schooner had
come in, and now lay far out, hard by the passage ;
and the yellow flag, the emblem of pestilence, flew on
her. From up the coast a long procession of canoes
headed round the point and toward the market,
bright as a scarf with the many-colored clothing of
the natives and the piles of fruit. But not even
the beauty and the welcome warmth of the morning,
not even these naval movements, so interesting to
sailors and to idlers, could engage the attention of
the outcasts. They were still cold at heart, their
mouths sour from the want of sleep, their steps
rambling from the lack of food ; and they strung
like lame geese along the beach in a disheartened

MORNING ON THE BEACH.

27

silence. It was towards the town they moved;
towards the town whence smoke arose, where hap-
pier folk were breakfasting; and as they went,
their hungry eyes were upon all sides, but they
were only scouting for a meal.

A small and dingy schooner lay snug against
the quay, with which it was connected by a plank.
On the forward deck, under a spot of awning, five
Kanakas, who made up the crew, were squatted
round a basin of fried feis 1 and drinking coffee
from tin mugs.

" Eight bells ; knock off for breakfast ! " cried
the captain with a miserable heartiness. " Never
tried this craft before ; positively my first appear-
ance ; guess I '11 draw a bumper house."

He came close up to where the plank rested on
the grassy quay, turned his back upon the schooner,
and began to whistle that lively air, " The Irish
Washerwoman." It caught the ears of the Kanaka
seamen like a preconcerted signal. With one ac-
cord they looked up from their meal and crowded
to the ship's side, fei in hand, and munching as
they looked. Even as a poor brown Pyrenean
bear dances in the streets of English towns under
his master's baton, even so, but with how much
more of spirit and precision, the captain footed it
in time to his own whistling, and his long morning
shadow capered beyond him on the grass. The
Kanakas smiled on the performance ; Herrick
looked on heavy-eyed, hunger for the moment
1 Fei is the hill banana.

2S

THE EBB TIDE.

conquering all sense of shame ; and a little far-
ther off, but still hard by, the clerk was torn by
the seven devils of the influenza.

The captain stopped suddenly, appeared to per-
ceive his audience for the first time, and represented
the part of a man surprised in a private hour of
pleasure.

" Hello!" said he.

The Kanakas clapped hands and called upon
him to go on.

"No, sir!" said the captain. "No eat, no
dance. Savvy?"

" Poor old man ! " returned one of the crew.
" Him no eat ? "

" Lord, no ! " said the captain. " Like-um too
much eat. No got."

"All right. Me got," said the sailor. "You
tome here. Plenty toffee, plenty feu Nutha man
him tome too."

" I guess we '11 drop right in," observed the cap-
tain ; and he and his companions hastened up the
plank. They were welcomed on board with the
shaking of hands ; place was made for them
about the basin ; a sticky demijohn of molasses
was added to the feast in honor of company, and
an accordion brought from the forecastle, and sig-
nificantly laid by the performer's side.

" Ariaua" 1 said he, lightly touching the instru-
ment as he spoke ; and he fell to on a long savory
fei, made an end of it, raised his mug of coffee,
1 By and by.

MORNING ON THE BEACH.

29

and nodded across at the spokesman of the crew.
" Here 's your health, old man. You 're a credit to
the South Pacific," said he.

With the unsightly greed of hounds they glutted
themselves with the hot food and coffee ; and even
the clerk revived and the color deepened in his
eyes. The kettle was drained, the basin cleaned ;
their entertainers, who had waited on their wants
throughout with the pleased hospitality of Polyne-
sians, made haste to bring forward a dessert of
island tobacco and rolls of pandanus leaf to serve
as paper, and presently all sat about the dishes,
puffing like Indian sachems.

"When a man 'as breakfast every day, he don't
know wot it is, observed the clerk.

" The next point is dinner," said Herrick ; and
then with a passionate utterance : " I wish to God
I was a Kanaka ! "

" There 's one thing sure," said the captain.
" I 'm about desperate. I 'd rather hang than rot
here much longer." And with the word he took the
accordion and struck up " Home, Sweet Home."

" Oh, drop that ! " cried Herrick. " I can't stand
that."

" No more can I," said the captain. " I Ve got
to play something, though ; got to pay the shot, my
son." And he struck up "John Brown's Body"
in a fine, sweet baritone : " Dandy Jim of Caro-
lina" came next; "Rosin the Bold," "Swing
low, sweet chariot," and " The Beautiful Land "
followed. The captain was paying his shot with

3o

THE EBB TIDE.

usury, as he had done many a time before ; many
a meal had he bought with the same currency from
the melodious-minded natives, always, as now, to
their delight.

He was in the middle of "Fifteen dollars in
the inside pocket," singing with dogged energy,
for the task went sore against the grain, when a
sensation was suddenly to be observed among
the crew.

" Tapena Tom harry my" 1 said the spokesman,
pointing.

And the three beach-combers, following his indi-
cation, saw the figure of a man in pajama trousers
and a white jumper approaching briskly from the
town.

" That 's Tapena Tom, is it? " said the captain,
pausing in his music. " I don't seem to place the
brute."

" We 'd better cut," said the clerk. " 'E 's no
good."

" Well," said the musician deliberately, " one
can't most always generally tell. I '11 try it on, I
guess. Music has charms to soothe the savage
tapena, boys. We might strike it rich ; it might
amount to iced punch in the cabin."

" Hiced punch ? Oh, my ! " said the clerk.
" Give him something 'ot, captain. * Way down the
Swanee River ; ' try that."

" No, sir! Looks Scotch," said the captain; and
he struck, for his life, into " Auld Lang Syne."
1 Captain Tom is coming.

MORNING ON THE BEACH.

31

Captain Tom continued to approach with the
same business-like alacrity ; no change was to be
perceived in his bearded face as he came swinging
up the plank ; he did not even turn his eyes on the
performer.

11 We twa hae paidled in the burn
Frae morning tide till dine,"

went the song.

Captain Tom had a parcel under his arm, which
he laid on the house-roof, and then, turning suddenly
to the strangers, " Here, you ! " he bellowed, " be
off out of that ! "

The clerk and Herrick stood not on the order
of their going, but fled incontinently by the plank.
The performer, on the other hand, flung down the
instrument and rose to his full height slowly.

" What 's that you say ? " he said. " I Ve half a
mind to give you a lesson in civility."

" You set up any more of your gab to me," re-
turned the Scotchman, " and I '11 show ye the
wroang side of a jyle. I 've heard tell of the three
of ye. Ye 're not long for here, I can tell ye that.
The Goavernment has their eyes upon ye. They
make shoart work of damned beach-combers, I '11
say that for the French."

" You wait till I catch you off your ship ! "
cried the captain; and then turning to the crew,
" Good-by, you fellows ! " he said. " You 're gen-
tlemen, anyway ! The worst nigger among you
would look better upon a quarter-deck than that
filthy Scotchman."

3^

THE EBB TIDE.

Captain Tom scorned to reply. He watched
with a hard smile the departure of his guests, and
as soon as the last foot was off the plank, turned
to the hands to work cargo.

The beach-combers beat their inglorious retreat
along the shore; Herrick first, his face dark with
blood, his knees trembling under him with the hys-
teria of rage. Presently, under the same fturao
where they had shivered the night before, he cast
himself down, and groaned aloud, and ground his
face into the sand.

" Don't speak to me ! don't speak to me. I can't
stand it ! " broke from him.

The other two stood over him, perplexed.

" Wot can't he stand now ? " said the clerk.
" 'As n't he 'ad a meal? I^m lickin' my lips."

Herrick reared up his wild eyes and burning face.
" I can't beg," he screamed, and again threw him-
self prone.

" This thing 's got to come to an end," said the
captain, with an intake of the breath.

" Looks like signs of an end, don't it ? " sneered
the clerk.

" He's not so far from it, and don't you deceive
yourself," replied the captain. " Well," he added
in a livelier voice, " you fellows hang on here, and
I '11 go and interview my representative."

Whereupon he turned on his heel, and set off at
a swinging sailor's walk towards Papeete.

It was some half-hour later when he returned.
The clerk was dozing with his back against a tree :

MORNING ON THE BEACH.

33

Herrick still lay where he had flung himself ; noth-
ing showed whether he slept or waked.

" See, boys ! " cried the captain, with that artifi-
cial heartiness of his which was at times so painful,
" here 's a new idea." And he produced note-
paper, stamped envelopes, and pencils, three of
each. " We can all write home by the mail brig-
antine. The consul says I can come over to his
place and ink up the addresses."

"Well, that's a start, too," said the clerk. "I
never thought of that."

" It was that yarning last night about going home
that put me up to it," said the captain.

" Well, 'and over," said the clerk. " I '11 have a
shy." And he retired a little distance to the shade
of a canoe.

The others remained under the purao. Now they
would write a word or two, now scribble it out ; now
they would sit biting at the pencil-end and staring
seaward; now their eyes would rest on the clerk
where he sat propped on the canoe, leering and
coughing, his pencil racing glibly on the paper.

" I can't do it," said Herrick, suddenly. " I
have n't got the heart."

" See here," said the captain, speaking with un-
wonted gravity. " It may be hard to write, and to
write lies at that, and God knows it is ; but it 's the
square thing. It don't cost anything to say you 're
well and happy, and sorry you can't make a remit-
tance this mail ; and if you don't, I '11 tell you what
I think it is, — I think it 's about the high-water
mark of being a brute beast."

3

34

THE EBB TIDE.

"It's easy to talk," said Herrick. "You don't
seem to have written much yourself, I notice."

11 What do you bring in me for ? " broke from
the captain. His voice was indeed scarce raised
above a whisper, but emotion clanged in it. " What
do you know about me ? If you had commanded
the finest barque that ever sailed from Portland,
Maine ; if you had been drunk in your berth when
she struck the breakers in Fourteen Island Group,
and had n't had the wit to stay there and drown, but
come on deck, and given drunken orders, and lost
six lives, — I could understand your talking then !
There," he said more quietly, " that 's my yarn, and
now you know it. It's a pretty one for the father
of a family. Five men and a woman murdered.
Yes, there was a woman on board, and had n't no
business to be either. Guess I sent her to hell, if
there is such a place. I never dared go home
again ; and the wife and the little ones went to
England to her father's place. I don't know
what 's come to them," he added, with a bitter
shrug.

" Thank you, Captain," said Herrick. " I never
liked you better."

They shook hands, short and hard, with eyes
averted, tenderness swelling in their bosoms.

M Now, boys ! to work again at lying ! " said the
captain.

M I '11 give my father up," returned Herrick, with
a writhen smile. " I '11 try my sweetheart, instead,
for a change of evils."

MORNING ON THE BEACH.

35

And here is what he wrote : —

"Emma, — I have scratched out the beginning to
my father, for I think I can write more easily to you.
This is my last farewell to all ; the last you will ever
hear or see of an unworthy friend and son. I have
failed in life. I am quite broken down and disgraced.
I pass under a false name. You will have to tell my
father that, with all your kindness. It is my own fault.
I know, had I chosen, that I might have done well ; and
yet, I swear to you, I tried to choose. I could not bear
that you should think I did not try. For I loved you
all ; you must never doubt me in that, you least of all.
I have always unceasingly loved ; but what was my love
worth, and what was I worth ? I had not the manhood
of a common clerk. I could not work to earn you. I
have lost you now, and for your sake I could be glad
of it. When you first came to my father's house — do
you remember those days ? I want you to — you saw
the best of me then, all that was good in me. Do you
remember the day I took your hand and would not let
it go ? And the day on Battersea Bridge, when we
were looking at a barge, and I began to tell one of my
silly stories, and broke off to say I loved you ? That
was the beginning, and now here is the end. When
you have read this letter, you will go round and kiss
them all good-by, — my father and mother, and the chil-
dren, one by one, and poor uncle ; and tell them all to
forget me, and forget me yourself. Turn the key in
the door ; let no thought of me return ; be done with
the poor ghost that pretended he was a man and stole
your love. Scorn of myself grinds in me as I write. I
should tell you I am well and happy and want for
nothing. I do not exactly make money, or I should

36

THE EBB TIDE.

send a remittance ; but I am well cared for, have
friends, live in a beautiful place and climate, such as
we have dreamed of together, and no pity need be
wasted on me. In such places, you understand, it is
easy to live, and live well, but often hard to make six-
pence in money. Explain this to my father; he will
understand. I have no more to say ; only linger, going
out, like an unwilling guest. God in heaven bless you !
Think of me, at the last, here, on a bright beach, the
sky and sea immoderately blue, and the great breakers
roaring outside on a barrier-reef, where a little isle sits
green with palms. I am well and strong. It is a more
pleasant way to die than if you were crowding about
me on a sick-bed. And yet I am dying. This is my
last kiss. Forgive, forget, the unworthy."

So far he had written ; his paper was all filled,
when there returned a memory of evenings at the
piano, and that song, the masterpiece of love, in
which so many have found the expression of their
dearest thoughts : Einst, O Wunder I he added.
More was not required ; he knew that, in his love's
heart, the context would spring up, escorted with
fair images and harmony ; of how all through life
her name should tremble in his ears, her name be
everywhere repeated in the sounds of nature ;
and when death came and he lay dissolved, her
memory linger and thrill among his elements.

" Once, O wonder ! once from the ashes of my heart
Arose a blossom n

Herrick and the captain finished their letters
about the same time ; each was breathing deep,

MORNING ON THE BEACH.

37

and their eyes met and were averted as they closed
the envelopes.

" Sorry I write so big," said the captain, gruffly.
" Came all of a rush, when it did come."

" Same here," said Herrick. " I could have done
with a ream when I got started ; but it 's long
enough for all the good I had to say."

They were still at the addresses when the clerk
strolled up, smirking, and twirling his envelope, like
a man well pleased. He looked over Herrick's
shoulder.

"Hullo," he said, "you ain't writing 'ome."

" I am, though," said Herrick. " She lives with
my father. Oh, I see what you mean," he added.
"My real name is Herrick. No more Hay" —
they had both used the same alias — " no more
Hay than yours, I dare say."

" Clean bowled in the middle stump," laughed the
clerk. " My name 's 'Uish, if you want to know.
Everybody has a false nyme in the Pacific. Lay
you five to three the captain 'as."

" So I have, too," replied the captain, " and I 've
never told my own since the day I tore the title-
page out of my Bowditch and flung the damned thing
into the sea. But I '11 tell it to you, boys. John
Davis is my name. I 'm Davis of the 1 Sea Ranger.'"

" Dooce you are ! " said Huish. " And what was
she, a pirate or a sly ver ? "

" She was the fastest barque out of Portland
Maine," replied the captain ; " and for the way I
lost her, I might as well have bored a hole in her
side with an auger."

33

THE EBB TIDE.

" Oh, you lost her, did you ? " said the clerk.
" 'Ope she was insured."

No answer being returned to this sally, Huish,
still brimming over with vanity and conversation,
struck into another subject.

" I Ve a good mind to read you my letter," said he
" I Ve a good fist with a pen when I choose, and
this is a prime lark. She was a barmaid I ran
across in Northampton ; she was a spanking fine
piece, no end of style ; and we cottoned at first
sight like parties in the play. I suppose I spent
the chynge of a fiver on that girl. Well, I 'appened
to remember her nyme, so I wrote to her, and told
her 'ow I had got rich, and married a queen in the
Hislands, and lived in a blooming palace. Such a
sight of crammers ! I must read you one bit about
my opening the nigger parliament in a cocked 'at.
It 's really prime."

The captain jumped to his feet. " That 's what
you did with the paper that I went and begged for
you ? " he roared.

It was perhaps lucky for Huish — it was surely
in the end unfortunate for all — that he was seized
just then by one of his prostrating accesses of
cough ; his comrades would have else deserted him,
so bitter was their resentment. When the fit had
passed, the clerk reached out his hand, picked up
the letter, which had fallen to the earth, and tore it
into fragments, stamp and all.

" Does that satisfy you ? " he asked sullenly.

" We '11 say no more about it," replied Davis.

CHAPTER III.

THE OLD CALABOOSE. — DESTINY AT THE DOOR.

1 HE old calaboose, in which the waifs had so
long harbored, was a low, rectangular enclosure of
building, at the corner of a shady western avenue,
and a little townward of the British Consulate.
Within was a grassy court, littered with wreckage
and the traces of vagrant occupation. Six or seven
cells opened from the court ; the doors, that had
once been locked on mutinous whalermen, rotting
before them in the grass. No mark remained of
their old destination, except the rusty bars upon
the windows.

The floor of one of the cells had been a little
cleared ; a bucket (the last remaining piece of furni-
ture of the three caitiffs) stood full of water by the
door, a half cocoanut-shell beside it for a drinking-
cup; and on some ragged ends of mat Huish
sprawled asleep, his mouth open, his face deathly.
The glow of the tropic afternoon, the green of sun-
bright foliage, stared into that shady place through
door and window ; and Herrick, pacing to and fro
on the coral floor, sometimes paused, and laved his
face and neck with tepid water from the bucket.
His long arrears of suffering, the night's vigil, the

40

THE EBB TIDE.

insults of the morning, and the harrowing business
of the letter, had strung him to that point when
pain is almost pleasure, time shrinks to a mere
point, and death and life appear indifferent To
and fro he paced like a caged brute, his mind
whirling through the universe of thought and mem-
ory ; his eyes, as he went, skimming the legends on
the wall. The crumbling whitewash was all full of
them, — Tahitian names, and French and English,
and rude sketches of ships under sail, and men at
fisticuffs.

It came to him of a sudden that he too must
leave upon these walls the memorial of his passage.
He paused before a clean space, took the pencil
out, and pondered. Vanity, so hard to dislodge,
awoke in him. We call it vanity, at least ; per-
haps unjustly. Rather it was the bare sense of his
existence prompted him ; the sense of his life, the
one thing wonderful, to which he scarce clung with
a finger. From his jarred nerves there came a
strong sentiment of coming change ; whether good
or ill, he could not say : change, — he knew no
more ; change, with inscrutable, veiled face, ap-
proaching noiseless. With the feeling came the
vision of a concert-room, the rich hues of instru-
ments, the silent audience, and the loud voice of
the symphony. " Destiny knocking at the door,"
he thought ; drew a stave on the plaster, and wrote
in the famous phrase from the Fifth Symphony.
" So," thought he, " they will know that I loved
music and had classical tastes. They ? He, I

THE OLD CALABOOSE.

41

suppose ; the unknown, kindred spirit that shall
come some day and read my mentor querela. Ha !
he shall have Latin too." And he added : " terque
quaterque beati queis ante ora patrum"

He turned again to his uneasy pacing, but now
with an irrational and supporting sense of duty
done. He had dug his grave that morning ; now
he had carved his epitaph ; the folds of the toga
were composed, why should he delay the insignifi-
cant trifle that remained to do ? He paused and
looked long in the face of the sleeping Huish,
drinking disenchantment and distaste of life. He
nauseated himself with that vile countenance.
Could the thing continue ? What bound him now ?
Had he no rights? Only the obligation to go on,
without discharge or furlough, bearing the unbear-
able? Ich trage tinertrcigliches ; the quotation
rose in his mind. He repeated the whole piece,
one of the most perfect of the most perfect of
poets ; and a phrase struck him like a blow : Du,
stolzes Herz, du hast es ja gewollt. Where was
the pride of his heart? And he raged against
himself, as a man bites on a sore tooth, in a heady
sensuality of scorn. " I have no pride, I have no
heart, no manhood," he thought, " or why should I
prolong a life more shameful than the gallows ?
Or why should I have fallen to it ? No pride, no
capacity, no force. Not even a bandit. And to be
starving here with worse than banditti — with this
trivial hell-hound ! " His rage against his comrade
rose and flooded him, and he shook a trembling
fist at the sleeper.

42

THE EBB TIDE.

A swift step was audible. The captain appeared
upon the threshold of the cell, panting and flushed,
and with a foolish face of happiness. In his arms
he carried a loaf of bread and bottles of beer ; the
pockets of his coat were bulging with cigars. He
rolled his treasures on the floor, grasped Herrick
by both hands, and crowed with laughter.

" Broach the beer ! " he shouted. " Broach the
beer, and glory hallelujah ! "

" Beer ? " repeated Huish, struggling to his feet.

44 Beer it is ! " cried Davis. 44 Beer, and plenty
of it. Any number of persons can use it (like
Lyon's tooth tablet) with perfect propriety and
neatness. Who's to officiate?"

44 Leave me alone for that," said the clerk. He
knocked the necks off with a lump of coral, and
each drank in succession from the shell.

44 Have a weed? " said Davis. 44 It's all in the
bill."

44 What is up ? " asked Herrick.

The captain fell suddenly grave. 44 1 'm coming
to that," said he. 44 1 want to speak with Herrick
here. You, Hay — or Huish, or whatever your
name is — you take a weed and the other bottle,
and go and see how the wind is down by the purao.
I '11 call you when you 're wanted."

44 Hey? Secrets? That ain't the ticket," said
Huish.

44 Look here, my son," said the captain, 44 this is
business, and don't you make any mistake about
it. If you 're going to make trouble, you can have

THE OLD CALABOOSE.

43

it in your own way and stop right here. Only get
the thing right ; if Herrick and I go, we take the
beer. Savvy?"

" Oh, I don't want to shove my oar in," returned
Huish. " I '11 cut right enough. Give me the
swipes. You can jaw till you 're blue in the face,
for what I care. I don't think it 's the friendly
touch ; that 's all." And he shambled, grumbling,
out of the cell into the staring sun.

The captain watched him clear of the courtyard,
then turned to Herrick.

" What is it ? " asked Herrick, thickly.

" I '11 tell you," said Davis. " I want to consult
you. It's a chance we've got. What 's that ? "
he cried, pointing to the music on the wall.

"What?" said the other. "Oh, that! It's
music ; it 's a phrase of Beethoven's I was writ-
ing up. It means destiny knocking at the door."

" Does it ? " said the captain, rather low, and
he went near and studied the inscription ; " and
this French ? " he asked, pointing to the Latin.

" Oh, it just means I should have been luckier if
I had died at home," returned Herrick impatiently.
" What is this business ? "

" Destiny knocking at the door," repeated the
captain ; and then, looking over his shoulder,
"Well, Mr. Herrick, that's about what it comes
to," he added.

" What do mean ? Explain yourself," said
Herrick.

But the captain was again staring at the music.

44

THE EBB TIDE.

" About how long ago since you wrote up this
truck ? " he asked.

"What does it matter?" exclaimed Herrick.
" 1 dare say half an hour."

" My God, it 's strange ! " cried Davis. " There 's
some men would call that accidental ; not me.
That — " and he drew his thick finger under the
music — " that 's what I call providence."

" You said we had a chance ? " asked Herrick.

" Yes, sir / " said the captain, wheeling suddenly
face to face with his companion. 44 1 did so If
you 're the man I take you for, we have a chance."

" I don't know what you take me for," was the
reply. M You can scarce take me too low."

" Shake hands, Mr. Herrick," said the captain.
M I know you. You 're a gentleman and a man of
spirit. I didn't want to speak before that bummer
there ; you '11 see why. But to you I '11 rip it right
out. I got a ship."

" A ship ? " cried Herrick. " What ship ? "

" That schooner we saw this morning off the
passage."

"The schooner with the hospital flag? "

" That's the hooker," said Davis. "She's the
1 Farallone,' hundred and sixty7 tons register, out of
'Frisco for Sydney, in California champagne. Cap-
tain, mate, and one hand all died of small-pox,
same as they had round in the Paumotus, I guess.
Captain and mate were the only white men ; all
the hands Kanakas ; seems a queer kind of outfit
from a Christian port. Three of them left and a

THE OLD CALABOOSE.

45

cook ; did n't know where they were ; I can't think
where they were either, if you come to that; Wise-
man must have been upon the booze, I guess, to
sail the course he did. However, there he was,
dead ; and here were the Kanakas as good as lost.
They bummed around at sea like the babes in the
wood, and tumbled end-on upon Tahiti. The
consul here took charge. He offered the berth
to Williams; Williams had never had the small-
pox and backed down. That was when I came
in for the letter-paper. I thought there was some-
thing up when the consul asked me to look in
again ; but I never let on to you fellows, so 's
you'd not be disappointed. Consul tried M'Neil ;
scared of small-pox. He tried Capriati, that Cor-
sican, and Leblue, or whatever his name is;
would n't lay a hand on it ; all too fond of their
sweet lives. Last of all, when there wasn't
nobody else left to offer it to, he offers it to me.
1 Brown, will you ship captain and take her to
Sydney ? 1 says he. * Let me choose my own
mate and another white hand,' says I, 1 for I
don't hold with this Kanaka crew racket ; give
us all two months' advance to get our clothes
and instruments out of pawn, and I '11 take stock
to-night, fill up stores, and get to sea to-morrow
before dark ! ' That 's what I said. 1 That 's good
enough,' says the consul ; ' and you can count your-
self damned lucky, Brown,' says he. And he said
it pretty meaningful-appearing, too. However,
that's all one now. I 11 ship Huish before the

46

THE EBB TIDE.

mast, — of course I '11 let him berth aft ; and I '11
ship you mate at seventy-five dollars and two
months' advance."

" Me mate ? Why, I 'm a landsman ! " cried
Herrick.

" Guess you 've got to learn," said the captain.
" You don't fancy I 'm going to skip and leave you
rotting on the beach perhaps? I 'm not that sort,
old man. And you Ve handy, anyway ; I Ve been
shipmates with worse."

" God knows I can't refuse," said Herrick.
" God knows I thank you from my heart."

"That's all right," said the captain. "But it
ain't all." He turned aside to light a cigar.

M What else is there ? " asked the other, with a
pang of indefinable alarm.

" I 'm coming to that," said Davis, and then
paused a little. " See here," he began, holding
out his cigar between his finger and thumb, " sup-
pose you figure up what this '11 amount to. You
don't catch on? Well, we get two months' ad-
vance ; we can't get away from Papeete — our
creditors would n't let us go — for less. It '11 take
us along about two months to get to Sydney; and
when we get there — I just want to put it to you
squarely — what the better are we ? "

M We 're off the beach, at least," said Herrick.

" I guess there 's a beach at Sydney," returned
the captain ; " and I '11 tell you one thing, Mr.
Herrick — I don't mean to try. No, sir ! Sydney
will never see me."

THE OLD CALABOOSE.

47

u Speak out plain," said Herrick.

" Plain Dutch," replied the captain, " I 'm going
to own that schooner. It's nothing new; it's
done every year in the Pacific. Stephens stole a
schooner the other day, did n't he ? Hayes and
Pease stole vessels all the time. And it 's the mak-
ing of the crowd of us. See here, you think of
that cargo. Champagne ! Why, it 's like as if it
was put up on purpose. In Peru, we '11 sell that
liquor off at the pier head, and the schooner after
it, if we can find a fool to buy her, and then light
out for the mines. If you'll back me up, I stake
my life I '11 carry it through."

" Captain," said Herrick, with a quailing voice,
" don't do it ! "

" I 'm desperate," returned Davis. " I Ve got a
chance ; I may never get another. Herrick, say
the word ; back me up. I think we 've starved to-
gether long enough for that."

" 1 can't do it. I 'm sorry. I can't do it. I 've
not fallen as low as that," said Herrick, deadly
pale.

"What did you say this morning?" said Davis.
" That you could n't beg ? It 's the one thing or the
other, my son."

" Ah, but this is the jail ! " cried Herrick.
"Don't tempt me. It's the jail."

" Did you hear what the skipper said on board
that schooner ? " pursued the captain. " Well, I
tell you he talked straight. The French have let
us alone a long time ; it can't last longer. They 've

4S

THE EBB TIDE.

got their eye on us, and as sure as you live, in three
weeks you '11 be in jail, whatever you do. I read it
in the consul's face."

" You forget, captain," said the young man.
" There is another way. I can die ; and to say
truth, I think I should have died three years ago."

The captain folded his arms and looked the other
in the face. " Yes," said he, " yes, you can cut
your throat ; that 's a frozen fact. Much good
may it do you ! And where do I come in ? "

The light of a strange excitement came in Her-
rick's face. " Both of us," said he, " both of us
together. It's not possible you can enjoy this
business. Come," and he reached out a timid
hand, " a few strokes in the lagoon — and rest ! "

" I tell you, Herrick, I 'm 'most tempted to an-
swer you the way the man does in the Bible, and
say, 1 Get thee behind me, Satan ! ' " said the cap-
tain. " What ! you think I would go drown myself,
and I got children starving? Enjoy it? No, by
God ! I do not enjoy it ; but it 's the row I Ve got
to hoe, and I '11 hoe it till I drop right here. I have
three of them, you see, two boys and the one girl,
Adar. The trouble is that you are not a parent
yourself. I tell you, Herrick, I love you," the man
broke out. " I did n't take to you at first, you were
so Anglified and tony, but I love you now ; it 's a
man that loves you stands here and wrestles with
you. I can't go to sea with the bummer alone ; it 's
not possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes my
last chance, — the last chance of a poor, miserable

THE OLD CALABOOSE.

49

beast earning a crust to feed his family. I can't
do nothing but sail ships, and I Ve no papers.
And here I get a chance, and you go back on me !
Ah, you Ve no family, and that 's where the trouble
is!"

" I have indeed," said Herrick.

"Yes, I know," said the captain, "you think so.
But no man 's got a family till he 's got children.
It 's only the kids count. There 's something about
the little shavers — I can't talk of them. And if
you thought a cent about this father that I hear
you talk of, or that sweetheart you were writing to
this morning, you would feel like me. You would
say, 4 What matter laws, and God, and that ? My
folks are hard up ; I belong to them. I '11 get them
bread, or, by God ! I '11 get them wealth, if I have
to burn down London for it.' That 's what you
would say. And I '11 tell you more : your heart is
saying so this living minute. I can see it in your
face. You 're thinking, ' Here 's poor friendship
for the man I Ve starved along of ; and as for the
girl that I set up to be in love with, here 's a mighty
limp kind of a love that won't carry me as far as
'most any man would go for a demijohn of whiskey.'
There 's not much romance to that love, anyway ;
it 's not the kind they carry on about in song books.
But what 's the good of my carrying on talking,
when it's all in your inside as plain as print? I
put the question to you once for all. Are you
going to desert me in my hour of need — you know
if I 've deserted you — or will you give me your
4

So

THE EBB TIDE.

hand, and try a fresh deal, and go home (as like as
not) a millionnaire ? Say no, and God pity me!
Say yes, and I '11 make the little ones pray for you
every night on their bended knees. 'God bless
Mr. Herrick ! ' that's what they'll say, one after
the other, the old girl sitting there holding stakes
at the foot of the bed, and the damned little inno-
cents— " He broke off. "I don't often rip out
about the kids," he said, " but when I do, there 's
something fetches loose."

" Captain," said Herrick, faintly, " is there noth-
ing else ? "

" I '11 prophesy if you like," said the captain,
with renewed vigor. " Refuse this because you
think yourself too honest, and before a month 's out
you '11 be jailed for a sneak-thief. I give you the
word fair. I can see it, Herrick, if you can't ;
you're breaking down. Don't think, if you refuse
this chance, that you '11 go on doing the evangeli-
cal ; you 're about through with your stock, and
before you know where you are, you '11 be right out
on the other side. No, it's either this for you, or
else it 's Caledonia. I bet you never were there,
and saw those white, shaved men, in their dust
clothes and straw hats, prowling around in gangs
in the lamplight at Noumea ; they look like wolves,
and they look like preachers, and they look like
the sick. Huish is a daisy to the best of them.
Well, there 's your company. They 're waiting for
you, Herrick, and you got to go; and that's a
prophecy."

THE OLD CALABOOSE. 5 1

And as the man stood and shook through his
great stature, he seemed, indeed, like one in whom
the spirit of divination worked and might utter
oracles. Herrick looked at him and looked away ;
it seemed not decent to spy upon such agitation,
and the young man's courage sank.

" You talk of going home," he objected. " We
could never do that."

" We could," said the other. " Captain Brown
could n't, nor a Air. Hay that shipped mate with
him could n't. But what 's that to do with Captain
Davis or Mr. Herrick, you galoot? "

" But Hayes had these wild islands where he
used to call," came the next, fainter objection.

" We have the wild islands of Peru," retorted
Davis. ;t They were wild enough for Stephens no
longer agone than just last year. I guess they '11
be wild enough for us."

" And the crew ? "

" All Kanakas. Come, I see you Ve right, old
man. I see you'll stand by." And the captain
once more offered his hand.

" Have it your own way, then," said Herrick.
" I '11 do it. A strange thing for my father's son.
But I '11 do it. I '11 stand by you, man, for good or
evil."

" God bless you ! " cried the captain, and stood
silent. " Herrick," he added, with a smile, " I be-
lieve I 'd have died in my tracks if you 'd have said
no."

52

THE EBB TIDE,

And Herrick, looking at the man, half believed
so also.

" And now we '11 go break it to the bummer,"
said Davis.

" I wonder how he '11 take it," said Herrick.
" Him ? Jump at it ! " was the reply.

CHAPTER IV.

THE YELLOW FLAG.

The schooner * Farallone ' lay well out in
the jaws of the pass, where the terrified pilot
had made haste to bring her to her moorings and
escape. Seen from the beach, through the thin
line of shipping, two objects stood conspicuous
to seaward, — the little isle, on the one hand, with
its palms, and the guns and batteries raised forty
years before in defence of Queen Poniard's capital ;
the outcast * Farallone ' upon the other, banished
to the threshold of the port, rolling there to her
scuppers, and flaunting the plague flag as she
rolled. A few sea-birds screamed and cried
about the ship, and within easy range a man-
of-war guard-boat hung off and on, and glittered
with the weapons of marines. The exuberant
daylight and the blinding heaven of the tropics
picked out and framed the picture.

A neat boat, manned by natives in uniform,
and steered by the doctor of the port, put from
shore towards three of the afternoon, and pulled
smartly for the schooner. The foresheets were
heaped with sacks of flour, onions, and potatoes,

54

THE EBB TIDE.

perched among which was Huish, dressed as a
foremast hand; a heap of chests and cases im-
peded the action of the oarsmen; and in the
stern, by the left hand of the doctor, sat Herrick,
dressed in a fresh rig of slops, his brown beard
trimmed to a point, a pile of paper novels on his
lap, and nursing the while between his feet a
chronometer, for which they had exchanged that
of the ' Farallone,' long since run down and the
rate lost.

They passed the guard-boat, exchanging hails
with the boatswain's mate in charge, and drew
near at last to the forbidden ship. Not a cat
stirred ; there was no speech of man ; and the
sea being exceedingly high outside, and the reef
close to where the schooner lay, the clamor of the
surf hung round her like the sound of battle.

" Ohe la goelette / " sang out the doctor, with
his best voice.

Instantly, from the house, where they had been
stowing away stores, first Davis and then the raga-
muffin swarthy crew made their appearance.

"Hullo, Hay, that you?" said the captain, lean-
ing on the rail. " Tell the old man to lay her
alongside as if she was eggs. There's a hell of
a run of sea here, and his boat's brittle."

The movement of the schooner was at that
time more than usually violent. Now she heaved
her side as high as a deep-sea steamer's, and
showed the flashing of her copper; now she
swung swiftly toward the boat until her scuppers
gurgled.

THE YELLOW FLAG.

55

" I hope you have sea-legs," observed the doctor.
" You will require them."

Indeed, to board the * Farallone,' in that ex-
posed position where she lay, was an affair of some
dexterity. The less precious goods were hoisted
roughly in; the chronometer, after repeated fail-
ures, was passed gently and successfully from hand
to hand, and there remained only the more difficult
business of embarking Huish. Even that piece of
dead weight (shipped A. B. at eighteen dollars, and
described by the captain to the consul as an inval-
uable man) was at last hauled on board without
mishap, and the doctor, with civil salutations, took
his leave.

The three co-adventurers looked at each other,
and Davis heaved a breath of relief.

" Now let 's get this chronometer fixed," said
he, and led the way into the house. It was a
fairly spacious place ; two staterooms and a good-
sized pantry opened from the main cabin. The
bulk-heads were painted white, the floor laid with
wax-cloth. No litter, no sign of life remained, for
the effects of the dead men had been disinfected
and conveyed on shore. Only on the table, in a
saucer, some sulphur burned, and the fumes set
them coughing as they entered. The captain
peered into the starboard stateroom, where the
bedclothes still lay tumbled in the bunk, the
blanket flung back as they had flung it back from
the disfigured corpse before its burial.

" Now I told those niggers to tumble that truck

THE EBB TIDE.

overboard," grumbled Davis. " Guess they were
afraid to lay hands on it. Well, they 've hosed
the place out ; that 's as much as can be expected,
I suppose. Huish, lay on to these blankets."

" See you blooming well far enough first," said
Huish, drawing back.

" What *s that ? " snapped the captain. " I '11
tell you, my young friend, I think you make a
mistake. I 'm captain here."

" Fat lot I care," returned the clerk.

"That so?" said Davis. "Then you'll berth
forward with the niggers ! Walk right out of this
cabin."

" Oh, I dessay ! " said Huish. " See any green
in my eye ? A lark 's a lark."

M Well, now, I '11 explain this business, and
you '11 see (once for all) just precisely how much
lark there is to it," said Davis. " I 'm captain,
and I 'm going to be it. One thing of three.
First, you take my orders here as cabin steward,
in which case you mess with us. Or, second,
you refuse, and I pack you forward, and you get
as quick as the word 's said. Or, third and last,
I '11 signal that man-of-war and send you ashore
under arrest for mutiny."

" And of course I would n't blow the gaff ? Oh,
no ! " replied the jeering Huish.

M And who 's to believe you, my son ? " inquired
the captain. " No, sir ! There ain't no lark
about my captainizing. Enough said. Up with
these blankets."

THE YELLOW FLAG.

57

Huish was no fool, — he knew when he was
beaten; and he was no coward, either, for he
stepped to the bunk, took the infected bed-clothes
fairly in his arms, and carried them out of the house
without a check or tremor.

" I was waiting for the chance," said Davis to
Herrick. " I need n't do the same with you, be-
cause you understand it for yourself."

" Are you going to berth here ? " asked Herrick,
following the captain into the stateroom, where he
began to adjust the chronometer in its place at the
bed-head.

" Not much ! " replied he. " I guess I '11 berth on
deck. I don't know as I 'm afraid, but I 've no im-
mediate use for confluent small-pox."

" I don't know that I 'm afraid either," said Her-
rick. " But the thought of those two men sticks in
my throat, — that captain and mate dying here, one
opposite to the other. It's grim. I wonder what
they said last ! "

" Wiseman and Wishart ? " said the captain.
" Probably mighty small potatoes. That 's the
thing a fellow figures out for himself one way, and
the real business goes quite another. Perhaps
Wiseman said, 1 Here, old man, fetch up the gin;
I 'm feeling powerful rocky.' And perhaps Wis-
hart said, < Oh, hell ! ' "

" Well, that 's grim enough," said Herrick.

"And so it is," said Davis. "There; there's
that chronometer fixed. And now it 's about time
to up anchor and clear out."

58

THE EBB TIDE.

He lit a cigar and stepped on deck.

" Here, you ! What 's your name ? " he cried to
one of the hands, a lean-flanked, clean-built fellow
from some far Western island, and of a darkness
almost approaching to the African.

" Sally Day," replied the man.

" Devil it is ! " said the captain. " Did n't know
we had ladies on board. Well, Sally, oblige me by
hauling down that rag there. I '11 do the same for
you another time." He watched the yellow bunt-
ing as it was eased past the cross-trees and handed
down on deck. " You '11 float no more on this
ship," he observed. " Muster the people aft, Mr.
Hay," he added, speaking unnecessarily loud.
" I 've a word to say to them."

It was with a singular sensation that Herrick
prepared for the first time to address a crew. He
thanked his stars, indeed, that they were natives.
But even natives, he reflected, might be critics too
quick for such a novice as himself; they might per-
ceive some lapse from that precise and cut-and-dry
English which prevails on board a ship ; it was
even possible they understood no other; and he
racked his brain, and overhauled his reminiscences
of sea romance, for some appropriate words.

"Here, men, tumble aft!" he said at last.
" Lively now ! All hands aft ! "

They crowded in the alleyway like sheep.

" Here they are, sir," said Herrick.

For some time the captain continued to face the
stern, then turned with ferocious suddenness on the
crew, and seemed to enjoy their shrinking.

THE YELLOW FLAG.

59

"Now," he said, twisting his cigar in his mouth,
and toying with the spokes of the wheel, " I 'm
Captain Brown. I command this ship. This is
Mr. Hay, first officer. The other white man is
cabin steward, but he '11 stand watch and do his
trick. My orders shall be obeyed smartly. You
savvy, smartly ? There shall be no growling about
the kaikai, which will be above allowance. You 11
put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on 1 sir '
to every order I give you. If you're smart and
quick, I '11 make this ship comfortable for all
hands." He took the cigar out of his mouth. " If
you 're not," he added, in a roaring voice, " I '11
make it a floating hell. Now, Mr. Hay, we '11 pick
watches, if you please."

"All right," said Herrick.

11 You will please use * sir' when you address me,
Mr. Hay," said the captain. " I '11 take the lady.
Step to starboard, Sally." And then he whispered
in Herrick's ear: " Take the old man."

" I '11 take you there," said Herrick.

" What 's your name ? " said the captain.
"What's that you say? Oh, that's not Eng-
lish ; I '11 have none of your highway gibberish
on my ship. We'll call you old Uncle Ned,
because you 've got no wool on the top of your
head, just the place where the wool ought to
grow. Step to port, Uncle. Don't you hear
Mr. Hay has picked you? Then I'll take the
white man. White Man, step to starboard. Now
which of you two is the cook? You? Then Mr.

6o

THE EBB TIDE.

Hay takes your friend in the blue dungaree. Step
to port, Dungaree. There ! we know who we all
are — Dungaree, Uncle Ned, Sally Day, White
Man, and Cook. All F.F.V.'s, I guess. And now,
Mr. Hay, we '11 up anchor, if you please."

" For heaven's sake, tell me some of the words,"
whispered Herrick.

An hour later the 1 Farallone 1 was under all
plain sail, the rudder hard a-port, and the cheer-
fully clanking windlass had brought the anchor
home.

" All clear, sir," cried Herrick, from the bow.

The captain met her with the wheel, as she
bounded like a stag from her repose, trembling
and bending to the puffs. The guard-boat gave
a parting hail, the wake whitened and ran out;
the ' Farallone ' was under way.

Her berth had been close to the pass. Even as
she forged ahead, Davis slewed her for the chan-
nel between the pier ends of the reef, the breakers
sounding and whitening to either hand. Straight
through the narrow band of blue she shot to sea-
ward, and the captain's heart exulted as he felt her
tremble under foot, and (looking back over the taff-
rail) beheld the roofs of Papeete changing position
on the shore, and the island mountains rearing
higher in the wake.

But they were not yet done with the shore and
the horror of the yellow flag. About midway of
the pass there was a cry and a scurry ; a man was
seen to leap upon the rail, and, throwing his arms
over his head, to stoop and plunge into the sea.

THE YELLOW FLAG.

6i

" Steady as she goes," the captain cried, relin-
quishing the wheel to Huish.

The next moment he was forward, in the midst of
the Kanakas, belaying-pin in hand.

" Anybody else for shore ? " he cried, and the
savage trumpeting of his voice, no less than the
ready weapon in his hand, struck fear in all.
Stupidly they stared after their escaped compan-
ion, whose black head was visible upon the water,
steering for the land. And the schooner mean-
while slipped like a racer through the pass, and
met the long sea of the open ocean with a souse
of spray.

" Fool that I was, not to have a pistol ready ! "
exclaimed Davis. "Well, we go to sea short-
handed; we can't help that. You have a lame
watch of it, Mr. Hay."

" I don't see how we are to get along," said
Herrick.

" Got to," said the captain. " No more Tahiti
for me."

Both turned instinctively and looked astern.
The fair island was unfolding, mountain top on
mountain top ; Eimeo, on the port board, lifted her
splintered pinnacles, and still the schooner raced to
the open sea.

"Think!" cried the captain, with a gesture,
" yesterday morning I danced for my breakfast
like a poodle dog."

CHAPTER V.

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

li he ship's head was laid to clear Eimeo to the
north, and the captain sat down in the cabin with
a chart, a ruler, and an epitome.

" East a half no'the," said he, raising his face
from his labors. " Mr. Hay, you '11 have to watch
her dead reckoning. I want every yard she makes
on every hair's breadth of a course. I 'm going to
knock a hole right straight through the Paumotus,
and that's always a near touch. Now, if this
southeast trade ever blew out of the southeast,
which it don't, we might hope to lie within half a
point of our course. Say we lie within a point of
it. That '11 just about weather Fakarava. Yes,
sir, that 's what we 've got to do, if we tack for it.
Brings us through this slush of little islands in the
cleanest place ; see ? " And he showed where his
ruler intersected the wide-lying labyrinth of the
Dangerous Archipelago. " I wish it was night,
and I could put her about right now ; we 're losing
time and easting. Well, we '11 do our best. And
if we don't fetch Peru, we '11 bring up to Ecuador.
All one, I guess. Depreciated dollars down, and

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

63

no questions asked. A remarkable fine institoo-
tion, the South American don."

Tahiti was already some way astern, the Dia-
, dem rising from among broken mountains ; Eimeo
was already close aboard, and stood black and
strange against the golden splendor of the west,
when the captain took his departure from the two
islands, and the patent log was set.

Some twenty minutes later, Sally Day, who was
continually leaving the wheel to peer in at the
cabin clock, announced in a shrill cry " Fo' Bell,"
and the cook was to be seen carrying the soup into
the cabin.

" I guess I '11 sit down and have a pick with
you," said Davis to Herrick. " By the time I 've
done, it '11 be dark, and we '11 clap the hooker on
the wind for South America."

In the cabin, at one corner of the table, immedi-
ately below the lamp, and on the lee side of a
bottle of champagne, sat Huish.

" What 's this ? Where did that come from ? "
asked the captain.

" It 's fizz ; and it came from the after-'old, if
you want to know," said Huish, and drained his
mug.

" This '11 never do ! " exclaimed Davis, the mer-
chant seaman's horror of breaking into cargo show-
ing incongruously forth on board that stolen ship.
" There was never any good came of games like
that."

"You byby!" said Huish. "A fellow would

64

THE EBB TIDE.

think (to 'ear him) we were on the square ! And
look 'ere, you've put this job up 'andsomely for
me, 'ave n't you ? I'm to go on deck and steer
while you two sit and guzzle, and I 'm to go by a
nickname, and got to call you 1 sir ' and 'mister.'
Well, you look here, my bloke ; I '11 have fizz ad
lib., or it won't wash. I tell you that. And you
know mighty well you ain't got any man-of-war to
signal now."

Davis was staggered. " I 'd give fifty dollars
this had never happened," he said weakly.

" Well, it 'as 'appened, you see," returned Huish.
" Try some ; it 's devilish good."

The Rubicon was crossed without another strug-
gle. The captain filled a mug and drank.

" I wish it was beer," he said with a sigh. " But
there 's no denying it 's the genuine stuff, and cheap
at the money. Now, Huish, you clear out and
take your wheel."

The little wretch had gained a point, and he
was gay. " Ay, ay, sir,'1 said he, and left the
others to their meal.

M Pea soup ! " exclaimed the captain. " Blamed
if I thought I should taste pea soup again ! "

Herrick sat inert and silent. It was impossible,
after these months of hopeless want, to smell the
rough, high-spiced sea victuals without lust, and his
mouth watered with desire of the champagne. It
was no less impossible to have assisted at the
scene between Huish and the captain, and not to
perceive, with sudden bluntness, the gulf wherein

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 65

he had fallen. He was a thief among thieves. He
said it to himself. He could not touch the soup. If
he had moved at all, it must have been to leave the
table, throw himself overboard, and drown — an
honest man.

" Here," said the captain, " you look sick, old
man ; have a drop of this."

The champagne creamed and bubbled in the
mug ; its bright color, its lively effervescence seized
his eye. "It is too late to hesitate," he thought.
His hand took the mug instinctively ; he drank,
with unquenchable pleasure and desire of more ;
drained the vessel dry, and set it down with spark-
ling eyes.

" There is something in life after all ! " he cried.
" I had forgot what it was like. Yes, even this is
worth while. Wine, food, dry clothes — why,
they 're worth dying, worth hanging for ! Cap-
tain, tell me one thing : why are n't all the poor
folk foot-pads ? "

" Give it up," said the captain.

" They must be damned good," cried Herrick.
" There 's something here beyond me. Think of
that calaboose ! Suppose we were sent suddenly
back ! " He shuddered as though stung by a con-
vulsion, and buried his face in his clutching hands.

"Here, what's wrong with you?" cried the
captain. There was no reply ; only Herrick's
shoulders heaved so that the table was shaken.
"Take some more of this. Here, drink this. I
order you to ! Don't start crying when you 're
out of the wood."

5

66

THE EBB TIDE.

" I 'm not crying," said Herrick, raising his face
and showing his dry eyes. " It 's worse than cry-
ing. It 's the horror of that grave that we 've
escaped from."

" Come, now, you tackle your soup ; that '11 fix
you," said Davis, kindly. " I told you you were
all broken up. You could n't have stood out an-
other week."

" That 's the dreadful part of it ! " cried Herrick. '
" Another week, and I 'd have murdered some one
for a dollar ! God ! and I know that ? And I 'm
still living ? It 's some beastly dream."

" Quietly, quietly ! Quietly does it, my son.
Take your pea soup. Food — that's what you
want," said Davis.

The soup strengthened and quieted Herrick's
nerves ; another glass of wine, and a piece of
pickled pork and fried banana completed what the
soup began, and he was able once more to look
the captain in the face.

" I did n't know I was so much run down," he
said.

" Well," said Davis, " you were as steady as a
rock all day ; now you 've had a little lunch, you '11
be as steady as a rock again."

" Yes," was the reply, " I 'm steady enough now,
but I 'm a queer kind of a first officer."

" Shucks ! " cried the captain. " You Ve only
got to mind the ship's course, and keep your slate
to half a point. A babby could do that ; let alone
a college graduate like you. There ain't nothing

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

67

to sailoring, when you come to look it in the face.
And now we '11 go and put her about. Bring the
slate ; we '11 have to start our dead reckoning right
away."

The distance run since the departure was read
off the log by the binnacle light, and entered on
the slate.

" Ready about," said the captain. " Give me
the wheel, White Man, and you stand by the
mainsheet. Boom tackle, Mr. Hay, please, and
then you can jump forward and attend head-sails."

"Ay, ay, sir," responded Herrick.

" All clear forward ? " asked Davis.

" All clear, sir."

" Hard a-lee ! " cried the captain. " Haul in
your slack as she comes," he called to Huish.
" Haul in your slack; put your back into it ; keep
your feet out of the coils." A sudden blow sent
Huish flat along the deck, and the captain was in
his place. " Pick yourself up and keep the wheel
hard over ! " he roared. " You wooden fool, you
wanted to get killed, I guess. Draw the jib," he
cried a moment later ; and then to Huish, " Give
me the wheel again, and see if you can coil that
sheet."

But Huish stood and looked at Davis with an
evil countenance. " Do you know you struck
me ? " said he.

" Do you know I saved your life ? " returned the
other, not deigning to look at him ; his eyes travel-
ling, instead, between the compass and the sails.

63

THE EBB TIDE.

" Where would you have been if that boom had
swung out and you bundled in the slack? No,
sir; we '11 have no more of you at the mainsheet.
Seaport towns are full of mainsheet-men ; they hop
upon one leg, my son, what 's left of them, and the
rest are dead. (Set your boom tackle, Mr. Hay.)
Struck you, did I ? Lucky for you I did."

" Well," said Huish, slowly, " I dessay there may
be somethink in that. 'Ope there is." He turned
his back elaborately on the captain, and entered
the house, where the speedy explosion of a cham-
pagne cork showed he was attending to his
comfort.

Herrick came aft to the captain. " How is she
doing now ? " he asked.

" East and by no'the a half no'the," said Davis.
" It 's about as good as I expected."

" What '11 the hands think of it ? " said Herrick.

" Oh, they don't think. They ain't paid to," said
the captain.

" There was something wrong, was there not,
between you and — " Herrick paused.

"That's a nasty little beast; that's a biter,"
replied the captain, shaking his head. " But so
long as you and me hang in, it don't matter."

Herrick lay down in the weather alleyway ; the
night was cloudless; the movement of the ship
cradled him; he was oppressed, besides, by the
first generous meal after so long a time of famine,
and he was recalled from deep sleep by the voice
of Davis singing out : " Eight bells ! "

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 69

He rose stupidly and staggered aft, where the
captain gave him the wheel.

" By the wind," said the captain. " It comes a
little puffy ; when you get a heavy puff, steal all
you can to windward, but keep her a good full."

He stepped towards the house, paused, and
hailed the forecastle. " Got such a thing as a con-
certina forward ? " said he. " Bully for you, Uncle
Ned. Fetch it aft, will you ? "

The schooner steered very easy ; and Herrick,
watching the moon-whitened sails, was overpowered
by drowsiness. A sharp report from the cabin
startled him ; a third bottle had been opened ; and
Herrick remembered the 'Sea Ranger' and Four-
teen Island Group. Presently the notes of the
accordion sounded, and then the captain's voice:

11 0 honey, with our pockets full of money,

We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay ;
And I will dance with Kate, and Tom will dance with Sail,
When we're all back from South Amerikee."

So it went to its quaint air; and the watch below
lingered and listened by the forward door, and
Uncle Ned was to be seen in the moonlight nod-
ding time, and Herrick smiled at the wheel, his
anxieties awhile forgotten. Song followed song ;
another cork exploded ; there were voices raised,
as though the pair in the cabin were in disagree-
ment; and presently it seemed the breach was
healed, for it was now the voice of Huish that
struck up, to the captain's accompaniment : —

70

THE EBB TIDE.

" Up in a balloon, boys,
Up in a balloon,
Up among the little stars,
All around the moon."

A wave of nausea overcame Herrick at the
wheel. He wondered why the air, the words
(which were yet written with a certain knack), and
the voice and accent of the singer, should all jar
his spirit like a file on a man's teeth. He sickened
at the thought of his two comrades drinking away
their reason upon stolen wine, quarrelling and hic-
cupping and making up, while the doors of a
prison yawned for them in the near future. " Shall
I have sold my honor for nothing ? " he thought ;
and a heat of rage and resolution glowed in his
bosom, — rage against his comrades, resolution to
carry through this business if it might be carried ;
pluck profit out of shame, since the shame at least
was now inevitable; and come home, home from
South America — how did the song go ? — " with
his pockets full of money."

" 0 honey, with our pockets full of money,

We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay : w —

so the words ran in his head, and the " honey "
took on visible form ; the quay rose before him,
and he knew it for the lamplit Embankment, and
he saw the lights of Battersea bridge bestride the
sullen river. All through the remainder of * his
trick he stood entranced, reviewing the past. He
had been always true to his love, but not always

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

71

sedulous to recall her. In the growing calamity
of his life, she had swum more distant, like the
moon in mist. The letter of farewell, the dis-
honorable hope that had surprised and corrupted
him in his distress, the changed scene, the sea, the
night, and the music, — all stirred him to the roots
of manhood. " I will win her," he thought, and
ground his teeth. " Fair or foul, what matters if I
win her ? "

" Fo' bell, matey. I think um fo' bell." He was
suddenly recalled by these words in the voice of
Uncle Ned.

" Look in at the clock, Uncle," said he. He
would not look himself from horror of the
tipplers.

" Him past, matey," repeated the Hawaiian.

" So much the better for you, Uncle," he
replied ; and he gave up the wheel, repeating the
directions as he had received them.

He took two steps forward, and remembered his
dead reckoning. " How has she been heading ? "
he thought ; and he flushed from head to foot.
He had not observed, or had forgotten ; here was
the old incompetence ; the slate must be filled up
by guess. " Never again ! " he vowed to himself
in silent fury, " never again. It shall be no fault
of mine if this miscarry." And for the remainder
of his watch he stood close by Uncle Ned, and
read the face of the compass as, perhaps, he had
never read a letter from his sweetheart.

All the time, and spurring him to the more

72

THE EBB TIDE.

attention, song, loud talk, fleering laughter, and the
occasional popping of a cork reached his ears from
the interior of the house ; and when the port watch
was relieved at midnight, Huish and the captain
appeared upon the quarter-deck with flushed faces
and uneven steps, the former laden with bottles,
the latter with the two tin mugs. Herrick silently
passed them by. They hailed him in thick voices ;
he made no answer. They cursed him for a churl ;
he paid no heed, although his belly quivered with
disgust and rage. He closed to the door of the
house behind him, and cast himself on a locker in
the cabin — not to sleep, he thought ; rather to
think and to despair. Yet he had scarce turned
twice on his uneasy bed before a drunken voice
hailed him in the ear, and he must go on deck
again to stand the morning watch.

The first evening set the model for those that
were to follow. Two cases of champagne scarce
lasted the four and twenty hours, and almost the
whole was drunk by Huish and the captain. Huish
seemed to thrive on the excess. He was never
sober, yet never wholly tipsy; the food and the
sea air had soon healed him of his disease, and he
began to lay on flesh. But with Davis things went
worse. In the drooping, unbuttoned figure that
sprawled all day upon the lockers, tippling and
reading novels, in the fool who made of the even-
ing watch a public carouse on the quarter-deck,
it would have been hard to recognize the vigorous
seaman of Papeete roads. He kept himself rea-

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 73

sonably well in hand till he had taken the sun and
yawned and blotted through his calculations ; but,
from the moment he rolled up the chart, his hours
were passed in slavish self-indulgence or in hog-
gish slumber. Every other branch of his duty was
neglected, except maintaining a stern discipline
about the dinner table. Again and again, Herrick
would hear the cook called aft, and see him run-
ning with fresh tins, or carrying away again a meal
that had been totally condemned. And the more
the captain became sunk in drunkenness, the more
delicate his palate showed itself. Once (in the
forenoon) he had a bo'sun's chair rigged over the
rail, stripped to his trousers, and went overboard
with a pot of paint. " I don't like the way this
schooner 's painted," said he, " and I '11 take a turn
upon her name." But he tired of it in half an hour,
and the schooner went on her way with an incon-
gruous patch of color on the stern, and the word
1 Farallone ' part obliterated and part looking
through. He refused to stand either the middle
or the morning watch. It was fine-weather sail-
ing, he said ; and asked, with a laugh, " Who ever
heard of the old man standing watch himself ? "
To the dead reckoning, which Herrick still tried
to keep, he would pay not the least attention nor
afford the least assistance.

"What do we want of dead reckoning?" he
asked. " We get the sun all right, don't we ? "

"We mayn't get it always, though," objected
Herrick. "And you told me yourself you weren't
sure of the chronometer."

74

THE EBB TIDE.

" Oh, there ain't no flies on the chronometer ! "
cried Davis.

" Oblige me so far, captain," said Herrick, stiffly.
" I am anxious to keep this reckoning, which is a
part of my duty. I do not know what to allow for
current, nor how to allow for it. I am too inex-
perienced, and I beg of you to help me."

" Never discourage zealous officer," said the cap-
tain, unrolling the chart again, for Herrick had
taken him over his day's work, and while he was
still partly sober. " Here it is ; look for yourself ;
anything from the west-no'the-west, and anyways
from five to twenty-five miles. That's what the
A'm'ralty chart says. I guess you don't expect to
get ahead of your own Britishers ? "

" I am trying to do my duty, Captain Brown,"
said Herrick, with a dark flush ; " and I have the
honor to inform you that I don't enjoy being trifled
with."

" What in thunder do you want ? " roared Davis.
" Go and look at the blamed wake. If you Ve try-
ing to do your duty, why don't you go and do it ?
I guess it 's no business of mine to go and stick my
head over the ship's rump. I guess it's yours.
And I '11 tell you what it is, my fine fellow, I '11
trouble you not to come the dude over me. You 're
insolent ; that 's what 's wrong with you. Don't you
crowd me, Mr. Herrick, Esquire."

Herrick tore up his papers, threw them on the
floor, and left the cabin.

" He 's turned a bloomin' swot, ain't he ? " sneered
Huish.

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

75

" He thinks himself too good for his company ;
that 's what ails Herrick, Esquire," raged the cap-
tain. " He thinks I don't understand when he
comes the heavy swell. Won't sit down with us,
won't he ? Won't say a civil word ? I '11 serve the
son of a gun as he deserves. By God, Huish, I '11
show him whether he's too good for John Davis ! "

" Easy with the names, Cap'," said Huish, who
was always the more sober. " Easy over the stones,
my boy ! "

"All right, I will. You're a good sort, Huish.
I did n't take to you at first, but I guess you 're
right enough. Le 's open another bottle," said the
captain ; and that day, perhaps because he was
excited by the quarrel, he drank more recklessly,
and by four o'clock was stretched insensible upon
the locker.

Herrick and Huish supped alone, one after the
other, opposite his flushed and snorting body. And
if the sight killed Herrick's hunger, the isolation
weighed so heavily on the clerk's spirit that he was
scarce risen from table ere he was currying favor
with his former comrade.

Herrick was at the wheel when he approached,
and Huish leaned confidentially across the binnacle.

" I say, old chappie," he said, M you and me don't
seem to be such pals, somehow."

Herrick gave her a spoke or two in silence ; his
eye, as it skirted from the needle to the luff of the
foresail, passed the man by without speculation.
But Huish was really dull, a thing he could sup-

76

THE EBB TIDE.

port with difficulty, having no resources of his own.
The idea of a private talk with Herrick, at this
stage of their relations, held out particular induce-
ments to a person of his character. Drink, besides,
as it renders some men hyper-sensitive, made Huish
callous ; and it would almost have required a blow
to make him quit his purpose.

" Pretty business, ain't it?" he continued. "Dyvis
on the lush ! Must say I thought you gave it 'im
A-one to-day. He did n't like it a bit ; took on
hawful after you were gone. 1 'Ere,' says I, 4 'old
on; easy on the lush,' I says. "Errick was right,
and you know it. Give 'im a chanst,' I says.
4 'Uish,' sezee, ' don't you gimme no more of your
jaw, or I '11 knock your bloomin' eyes out.' Well,
wot can I do, 'Errick ? But I tell you, I don't
'arf like it. It looks to me like the 1 Sea Rynger '
over again."

Still Herrick was silent.

" Do you 'ear me speak ? " asked Huish, sharply.
" You 're pleasant, ain't you ? "

" Stand away from that binnacle," said Herrick.

The clerk looked at him, long and straight and
black; his figure seemed to writhe like that of a
snake about to strike ; then he turned on his heel,
went back to the cabin, and opened a bottle of
champagne. When eight bells were cried, he slept
on the floor beside the captain on the locker ; and
of the whole starboard watch, only Sally Day ap-
peared upon the summons. The mate proposed to
stand the watch with him, and let Uncle Ned lie

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

77

down. It would make twelve hours on deck, and
probably sixteen ; but in this fair-weather sailing,
he might safely sleep between his tricks of wheel,
leaving orders to be called on any sign of squalls.
So far he could trust the men, between whom and
himself a close relation had sprung up. With Un-
cle Ned he held long nocturnal conversations, and
the old man told him his simple and hard story of
exile, suffering, and injustice among cruel whites.
The cook, when he found Herrick messed alone,
produced for him unexpected and sometimes un-
palatable dainties, of which he forced himself to
eat. And one day, when he was forward, he was
surprised to feel a caressing hand run down his
shoulder, and to hear the voice of Sally Day croon-
ing in his ear: "You gootch man!" He turned,
and, choking down a sob, shook hands with the
negrito. They were kindly, cheery, childish souls.
Upon the Sunday each brought forth his separate
Bible ; for they were all men of alien speech, even
to each other, and Sally Day communicated with
his mates in English only. Each read, or made
believe to read, his chapter, Uncle Ned with spec-
tacles on nose, and they would all join together in
the singing of missionary hymns. It was thus a
cutting reproof to compare the islanders and the
whites aboard the 1 Farallone.' Shame ran in
Herrick's blood to remember what employment
he was on, and to see these poor souls — and even
Sally Day, the child of cannibals, in all likelihood a
cannibal himself — so faithful to what they knew of

78

THE EBB TIDE.

good. The fact that he was held in grateful favor
by these innocents served like blinders to his con-
science, and there were times when he was inclined,
with Sally Day, to call himself a good man. But
the height of his favor was only now to appear.
With one voice the crew protested. Ere Herrick
knew what they were doing, the cook was aroused,
and came a willing volunteer ; all hands clustered
about their mate with expostulations and caresses,
and he was bidden to lie down and take his cus-
tomary rest without alarm.

"He tell you tlue," said Uncle Ned. "You
sleep. Evely man hea he do all light. Evely man
he like you too much."

Herrick struggled — choked upon some trivial
words of gratitude — and walked to the side of the
house, against which he leaned, struggling with
emotion.

Uncle Ned presently followed him, and begged
him to lie down.

"It's no use, Uncle Ned," he replied. "I
could n't sleep. I 'm knocked over with all your
goodness."

" Ah, no call me Uncle Ned no mo' ! " cried the
old man. " No my name ! My name Taveeta,
all-e-same Taveeta, King of Islael. Wat for he
call that Hawaii? I think no savvy nothing —
all-e-same Wise-a-mana."

It was the first time the name of the late captain
had been mentioned, and Herrick grasped the
occasion. The reader shall be spared Uncle Ned's

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 79

unwieldy dialect, and learn, in less embarrassing
English, the sum of what he now communicated.
The ship had scarce cleared the Golden Gate be-
fore the captain and mate had entered on a career
of drunkenness, which was scarcely interrupted by
their malady, and only closed by death. For days
and weeks they had encountered neither land nor
ship ; and, seeing themselves lost on the huge deep
with their insane conductors, the natives had drunk
deep of terror.

At length they made a low island, and went
in ; and Wiseman and Wishart landed in the boat.
There was a great village, a very fine village,
and plenty Kanakas in that place, but all mighty
serious ; and, from every here and there in the
back parts of the settlement, Taveeta heard the
sounds of island lamentation. " I no savvy talk
that island," said he. " I savvy hear um cly. I
think, Hum ! too many people die here ! " But
upon Wiseman and Wishart the significance of
that barbaric keening was lost. Full of bread and
drink, they rollicked along, unconcerned ; em-
braced the girls, who had scarce energy to repel
them ; took up and joined (with drunken voices) in
the death wail ; and at last (on what they took to
be an invitation) entered under the roof of a house
in which was a considerable concourse of people
sitting silent. They stooped below the eaves,
flushed and laughing ; within a minute they came
forth again with changed faces and silenced
tongues ; and, as the press severed to make way for

So

THE EBB TIDE.

them, Taveeta was able to perceive, in the deep
shadow of the house, the sick man raising from his
mat a head already defeatured by disease. The
two tragic triflers fled, without hesitation, for their
boat, screaming on Taveeta to make haste. They
came aboard with all speed of oars, raised anchor,
and crowded sail upon the ship with blows and
curses, and were at sea again — and again drunk
— before sunset. A week after, and the last of the
two had been committed to the deep. Herrick
asked Taveeta where that island was, and he re-
plied that, by what he gathered of folks' talk as
they went up together from the beach, he supposed
it must be one of the Paumotus. This was in it-
self probable enough, for the Dangerous Archi-
pelago had been swept that year from east to west
by devastating small-pox ; but Herrick thought it
a strange course to lie for Sydney. Then he re-
membered the drink.

" Were they not surprised when they made the
island ? " he asked.

" Wise-a-mana he say, 1 Dam ! what this ? ' " was
the reply.

"Oh, that's it, then," said Herrick. "I don't
believe they knew where they were."

" I tink so, too," said Uncle Ned. " I tink no
savvy. This one mo' betta," he added, pointing
to the house where the drunken captain slumbered.
" Take-a-sun all-e-same."

The implied last touch completed Herrick's pic-
ture of the life and death of his two predecessors ;

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 8l

of their prolonged, sordid, sodden sensuality as
they sailed, they knew not whither, on their last
cruise. He held but a twinkling and unsure belief
in any future state ; the thought of one of punish-
ment, he derided ; yet for him (as for all) there dwelt
a horror about the end of the brutish man. Sickness
fell upon him at the image thus called up; and
when he compared it with the scene in which him-
self was acting, and considered the doom that
seemed to brood upon the schooner, a horror that
was almost superstitious fell upon him. And yet
the strange thing was, he did not falter. He who
had proved his incapacity in so many fields, being
now falsely placed amid duties which he did not
understand, without help, and, it might be said,
without countenance, had hitherto surpassed ex-
pectation ; and even the shameful misconduct and
shocking disclosures of that night served but to
nerve and strengthen him. He had sold his honor;
he vowed it should not be in vain. " It shall be no
fault of mine if this miscarry," he repeated. And
in his heart he wondered at himself. Living rage,
no doubt, supported him ; no doubt, also, the sense
of the last cast, of the ships burned, of all doors
closed but one, which is so strong a tonic to the
merely weak, and so deadly a depressant to the
merely cowardly.

For some time the voyage went otherwise well.
They weathered Fakarava with one board ; and,
the wind holding well to the southward and
blowing fresh, they passed between Ranaka and
6

82

THE EBB TIDE.

Ratiu, and ran some days, northeast by east half
east, under the lee of Takume and Honden, neither
of which they made. In about fourteen south
and between one hundred and thirty-four and
one hundred and thirty-five west, it fell a dead
calm, with rather a heavy sea. The captain re-
fused to take in sail; the helm was lashed, no
watch was set, and the * Farallone ' rolled and
banged for three days, according to observation, in
almost the same place. The fourth morning, a
little before day, a breeze sprang up and rapidly
freshened. The captain had drunk hard the night
before ; he was far from sober when he was roused ;
and when he came on deck for the first time, at
half past eight, it was plain he had already drunk
deep again at breakfast. Herrick avoided his eye,
and resigned the deck, with indignation, to a man
more than half seas over. By the loud commands
of the captain and the singing out of fellows at the
ropes, he could judge from the house that sail was
being crowded on the ship ; relinquished his half-
eaten breakfast, and came on deck again, to find
the main and the jib topsails set, and both watches
and the cook turned out to hand the stay-sail. The

* Farallone 1 lay already far over ; the sky was ob-
scured with misty scud ; and from the windward
an ominous squall came flying up, broadening and
blackening as it rose.

Fear thrilled in Herrick's vitals. He saw death
hard by, and, if not death, sure ruin ; for if the

* Farallone ' lived through the coming squall, she

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 83

must surely be dismasted. With that, their enter-
prise was at an end, and they themselves bound
prisoners to the very evidence of their crime. The
greatness of the peril and his own alarm sufficed to
silence him. Pride, wrath, and shame raged with-
out issue in his mind, and he shut his teeth and
folded his arms close.

The captain sat in the boat to windward, bellow-
ing orders and insults, his eyes glazed, his face
deeply congested, a bottle set between his knees,
a glass in his hand, half empty. His back was to
the squall, and he was at first intent upon the set-
ting of the sail. When that was done, and the
great trapezium of canvas had begun to draw and
to trail the lee-rail of the * Farallone ' level with
the foam, he laughed out an empty laugh, drained
his glass, sprawled back among the lumber in the
boat, and fetched out a crumpled novel.

Herrick watched him, and his indignation glowed
red-hot. He glanced to windward, where the squall
already whitened the near sea, and already heralded
its coming with a singular and dismal sound. He
glanced at the steersman, and saw him clinging to
the spokes with a face of a sickly blue. He saw
the crew were running to their stations without
orders, and it seemed as if something broke in his
brain ; and the passion of anger, so long restrained,
so long eaten in secret, burst suddenly loose, and
filled and shook him like a sail. He stepped across
to the captain, and smote his hand heavily on the
drunkard's shoulder.

34

THE EBB TIDE.

" You brute," he said, in a voice that tottered,
" look behind you ! "

" Wha 's that ? " cried Davis, bounding in the
boat and upsetting the champagne.

" You lost the 1 Sea Ranger ' because you were a
drunken sot," said Herrick. " Now you 're going
to lose the ' Farallone.' You 're going to drown
here the same way as you drowned others, and be
damned. And your daughter shall walk the streets,
and your sons be thieves like their father."

For the moment, the words struck the captain
white and foolish. " My God ! " he cried, looking
at Herrick as upon a ghost ; " my God, Herrick ! "

" Look behind you, then ! " reiterated the as-
sailant.

The wretched man, already partly sobered, did
as he was told, and in the same breath of time
leaped to his feet. " Down staysail ! " he trum-
peted. The hands were thrilling for the order, and
the great sail came with a run, and fell half over-
board among the racing foam. " Jib topsail hal-
yards ! Let the stays'l be," he said again.

But before it was well uttered, the squall shouted
aloud and fell, in a solid mass of wind and rain
commingled, on the * Farallone,' and she stooped
under the blow, and lay like a thing dead. From
the mind of Herrick reason fled ; he clung in the
weather rigging, exulting ; he was done with life,
and he gloried in the release ; he gloried in the
wild noises of the wind and the choking onslaught
of the rain ; he gloried to die so, and now, amid

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 85

this coil of the elements. And meanwhile, in
the waist, up to his knees in water, — so low the
schooner lay, — the captain was hacking at the
foresheet with a pocket-knife. It was a question
of seconds, for the * Farallone ' drank deep of the
encroaching seas. But the hand of the captain
had the advance. The foresail boom tore apart
the last strands of the sheet, and crashed to lee-
ward ; the * Farallone ' leaped up into the wind
and righted ; and the peak and throat halyards,
which had long been let go, began to run at the
same instant.

For some ten minutes more she careered under
the impulse of the squall ; but the captain was now
master of himself and of his ship, and all danger at
an end. And then, sudden as a trick-change upon
the stage, the squall blew by, the wind dropped
into light airs, the sun beamed forth again upon
the tattered schooner ; and the captain, having se-
cured the foresail boom, and set a couple of hands
to the pump, walked aft, sober, a little pale, and with
the sodden end of a cigar still stuck between his
teeth, even as the squall had found it. Herrick
followed him. He could scarce recall the violence
of his late emotions, but he felt there was a scene
to go through, and he was anxious and even eager
to go through with it.

The captain, turning at the house end, met him
face to face, and averted his eyes. " We 've lost the
two tops'ls and the stays'l," he gabbled. " Good
business we did n't lose any sticks. I guess you
think we Ve all the better without the kites."

86

THE EBB TIDE.

" That 's not what I 'm thinking," said Herrick,
in a voice strangely quiet, that yet echoed con-
fusion in the captain's mind.

" I know that," he cried, holding up his hand.
" 1 know what you 're thinking. No use to say it
now. I 'm sober."

" I have to say it, though," returned Herrick.

"Hold on, Herrick; you've said enough," said
Davis. " You 've said what I would take from no
man breathing but yourself ; only I know it 's true."

" I have to tell you, Captain Brown," pursued
Herrick, " that I resign my position as mate. You
can put me in irons or shoot me, as you please. I
will make no resistance ; only I decline in any way
to help or to obey you ; and I suggest you should
put Mr. Huish in my place. He will make a worthy
first officer to your captain, sir." He smiled, bowed,
and turned to walk forward.

"Where are you going, Herrick?" cried the
captain, detaining him by the shoulder.

" To berth forward with the men, sir," replied
Herrick, with the same hateful smile. " I Ve been
long enough aft here with you — gentlemen."

" You 're wrong there," said Davis. " Don't you
be too quick with me ; there ain't nothing wrong
but the drink — it's the old story, man! Let me
get sober once, and then you '11 see," he pleaded.

" Excuse me, I desire to see no more of you,"
said Herrick.

The captain groaned aloud. " You know what
you said about my children ? " he broke out.

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 87

" By rote. In case you wish me to say it to you
again ? " asked Herrick.

" Don't ! " cried the captain, clapping his hands
to his ears. " Don't make me kill a man I care
for ! Herrick, if you see me put a glass to my lips
again till we 're ashore, I give you leave to put a
bullet through me. I beg you to do it ! You 're the
only man aboard whose carcass is worth losing.
Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I
ever went back on you ? I always knew that you
were in the right of it ; drunk or sober, I knew
that. What do you want ? An oath ? Man,
you 're clever enough to see that this is sure-
enough earnest."

" Do you mean there shall be no more drink-
ing," asked Herrick ; " neither by you nor Huish ?
That you won't go on stealing my profits and drink-
ing my champagne, that I gave my honor for ? And
that you '11 attend to your duties, and stand watch
and watch, and bear your proper share of the ship's
work, instead of leaving it all on the shoulders of a
landsman, and making yourself the butt and scoff
of native seamen ? Is that what you mean ? If it
is, be so good as to say it categorically."

" You put these things in a way hard for a gentle-
man to swallow," said the captain. " You would n't
have me say I was ashamed of myself ? Trust me
this once ! I '11 do the square thing ; and there 's
my hand on it."

" Well, I '11 try it once," said Herrick. " Fail
me again — "

S8

THE EBB TIDE.

" No more now ! " interrupted Davis. " No
more, old man ! Enough said. You 've a riling
tongue when your back 's up, Herrick. Just be
glad we 're friends again, the same as what I am,
and go tender on the raws. I '11 see as you don't
repent it. We 've been mighty near death this
day, — don't say whose fault it was ! — pretty near
hell too, I guess. We 're in a mighty bad line of
life, us two, and ought to go easy with each
other."

He was maundering ; yet it seemed as if he were
maundering with some design, beating about the
bush of some communication that he feared to
make, or perhaps only talking against time, in
terror of what Herrick might say next. But Her-
rick had now spat his venom. His was a kindly
nature, and, content with his triumph, he had now
begun to pity. With a few soothing words he
sought to conclude the interview, and proposed
that they should change their clothes.

" Not right yet," said Davis. " There 's another
thing I want to tell you first. You know what you
said about my children ? I want to tell you] why
it hit me so hard ; I kind of think you '11 feel bad
about it too. It 's about my little Adar. You
had n't ought to have quite said that — but of
course I know you did n't know. She — she 's
dead, you see."

" Why, Davis ! " cried Herrick. " You Ve told
me a dozen times she was alive ! Clear your head,
man ! This must be the drink."

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE.

89

" No, sir"" said Davis. " She 's dead, right
enough. Died of a bowel complaint. That was
when I was away in the brig ' Oregon. ' She lies
in Portland, Maine. 1 Adar, only daughter of
Captain John Davis and Mariar his wife, aged
five.' I had a doll for her on board. I never
took the paper off 'n that doll, Herrick ; it went
down the way it was, with the 1 Sea Ranger,' that
day I was damned."

The captain's eyes were fixed on the horizon ;
he talked with an extraordinary softness, but a
complete composure; and Herrick looked upon
him with something that was almost terror.

" Don't think I 'm crazy, neither," resumed
Davis. " I 've all the cold sense that I know
what to do with. But I guess a man that 's un-
happy 's like a child ; and this is a kind of a child's
game of mine. I never could act up to the plain-
out truth, you see. So I pretend. And I warn you
square : as soon as we 're through with this talk,

I '11 start in again with the pretending. Only, you
see, she can't walk no streets," added the captain ;

II could n't even make out to live and get that
doll ! "

Herrick laid a tremulous hand upon the captain's
shoulder.

" Don't do that ! " cried Davis, recoiling from
the touch. " Can't you see I 'm all broken up the
way it is ? Come along, then ; come along, old
man. You can put your trust in me right through.
Come along and get dry clothes."

9o

THE EBB TIDE.

They entered the cabin, and there was Huish on
his knees, prizing open a case of champagne.

" 'Vast, there ! " cried the captain. " No more
of that. No more drinking on this ship."

" Turned teetotal, 'ave you ? " inquired Huish.
" I 'm agreeable. About time, eh ? Bloomin'
nearly lost another ship, I fancy." He took out a
bottle, and began calmly to burst the wire with
the spike of a corkscrew.

" Do you hear me speak ? " cried Davis.

" I suppose I do. You speak loud enough,"
said Huish. " The trouble is that I don't care."

Herrick plucked the captain's sleeve. " Let
him be now," said he ; " we 've had all we want
this evening."

" Let him have it, then," said the captain. " It's
his last."

By this time the wire was open, the string was
cut, the head of gilded paper was torn away, and
Huish waited, mug in hand, expecting the usual
explosion. It did not follow. He eased the cork
with his thumb ; still there was no result. At last
he took the screw and drew it. It came out very
easy and with scarce a sound.

" 'Illo ! " said Huish, " 'ere 's a bad bottle."

He poured some of the wine into the mug ; it
was colorless and still. He smelt and tasted it.

" W'y, wot 's this ? " he said. " It 's water ! "

If the voice of trumpets had suddenly sounded
about the ship in the midst of the sea, the three
men in the house could scarce have been more

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE. 91

stunned than by this incident. The mug passed
round ; each sipped, each smelt of it ; each stared
at the bottle, in its glory of gold paper, as Crusoe
may have stared at the footprint ; and their minds
were swift to fix upon a common apprehension.
The difference between a bottle of champagne
and a bottle of water is not great ; between a ship-
load of one or of the other lay the whole scale
from riches to ruin.

A second bottle was broached. There were two
cases standing ready in a stateroom. These two
were brought out, broken open and tested ; still
with the same result : the contents were still color-
less and tasteless, and dead as the rain in a
beached fishing-boat.

" Crikey! " said Huish.

" Here, let 's sample the hold ! " said the captain,
mopping his brow with a back-handed sweep ; and
the three stalked out of the house, grim and heavy-
footed.

All hands were turned out : two Kanakas were
sent below, another stationed at a purchase, and
Davis, axe in hand, took his place beside the
coaming.

" Are you going to let the men know ? " whispered
Herrick.

" Damn the men ! " said Davis. " It 's beyond
that. We Ve got to know ourselves."

Three cases were sent on deck and sampled in
turn ; from each bottle, as the captain smashed it
with the axe, the champagne ran bubbling and
creaming.

92

THE EBB TIDE.

" Go deeper, can't you ? " cried Davis to the
Kanakas in the hold.

The command gave the signal for a disastrous
change. Case after case came up, bottle after
bottle was burst, and bled mere water. Deeper
yet, and they came upon a layer where there was
scarcely so much as the intention to deceive, —
where the cases were no longer branded, the
bottles no longer wired or papered ; where the
fraud was manifest, and stared them in the face.

" Here 's about enough of this foolery ! " said
Davis. " Stow back the cases in the hold,
Uncle, and get the broken crockery overboard.
Come with me," he added to his co-adventurers,
and led the way back into the cabin.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PARTNERS.

EaCH took a side of the fixed table. It was
the first time they had sat down at it together ;
but now all sense of incongruity, all memory of
differences, was quite swept away by the presence
of common ruin.

" Gentlemen," said the captain, after a pause,
and with very much the air of a chairman opening
a board-meeting, " we 're sold."

Huish broke out in laughter. " Well, if this
ain't the 'ighest old rig ! " he cried. " And Davis
'ere, who thought he had got up so bloomin' early
in the mornin* ! We 've stolen a cargo of spring
water ! Oh, my crikey ! " and he squirmed with
mirth.

The captain" managed to screw out a phantom
smile.

" Here 's Old Man Destiny again," said he to
Herrick ; " but this time I guess he 's kicked the
door right in."

Herrick only shook his head.

"Oh, Lord, it's rich!" laughed Huish. "It
would really be a scrumptious lark if it 'ad 'ap-
pened to somebody else. And wot are we to do

94

THE EBB TIDE.

next ? Oh, my eye ! with this bloomin' schooner,
too."

"That's the trouble," said Davis. "There's
only one thing certain : it's no use carting this old
glass and ballast to Peru. No, sirr we 're in a
hole."

" Oh, my ! and the merchant ! " cried Huish ;
" the man that made this shipment ! He '11 get the
news by the mail brigantine, and he'll think of
course we 're making straight for Sydney."

" Yes, he '11 be a sick merchant," said the
captain. " One thing : this explains the Kanaka
crew. If you 're going to lose a ship, I would ask
no better myself than a Kanaka crew. But there 's
one thing it don't explain ; it don't explain why
she came down Tahiti ways."

" W'y, to lose her, you byby ! " said Huish.

" A lot you know," said the captain. " Nobody
wants to lose a schooner ; they want to lose her on
her course^ you skeesicks ! You seem to think un-
derwriters have n't got enough sense to come in out
of the rain."

" Well," said Herrick, " I can tell you, I am
afraid, why she came so far to the eastward. I
had it of Uncle Ned. It seems these two unhappy
devils, Wiseman and Wishart, were drunk on the
champagne from the beginning, and died drunk at
the end."

The captain looked on the table.

" They lay in their two bunks, or sat here in this
damned house," he pursued, with rising agitation,

THE PARTNERS.

95

"filling their skins with the accursed stuff, till sick-
ness took them. As they sickened, and the fever
rose, they drank the more. They lay here howl-
ing and groaning, drunk and dying, all in one.
They did n't know where they were ; they did n't
care. They did n't even take the sun, it seems."

" Not take the sun ! " cried the captain, looking
up. " Sacred Billy ! what a crowd ! "

"Well, it don't matter to Joe!" said Huish.
" Wot are Wiseman and the t' other buffer to us ? "

" A good deal, too," said the captain. " We 're
their heirs, I guess."

"It is a great inheritance," said Herrick.

"Well, I don't know about that," returned Davis.
" Appears to me as if it might be worse. 'T ain't
what the cargo would have been, of course ; at
least, not money down. But I '11 tell you what it
appears to figure up to. Appears to me as if it
amounted to about the bottom dollar of the man
in 'Frisco."

" 'Old on," said Huish. " Give a fellow time.
'Ow's this, umpire?"

"Well, my sons," pursued the captain, who
seemed to have recovered his assurance, " Wise-
man and Wishart were to be paid for casting away
this old schooner and its cargo. We 're going to
cast away the schooner right enough, and I '11
make it my private business to see that we get
paid. What were W. and W. to get ? That 's
more 'n I can tell. But W. and W. went into this
business themselves ; they were on the crook. Now

96

THE EBB TIDE.

we*re on the square; we only stumbled into it;
and that merchant has just got to squeal, and I 'm
the man to see that he squeals good. Xo, sir!
there 's some stuffing to this ' Farallone 1 racket,
after all."

"Go it, Cap!" cried Huish. "Yoicks! For-
rard ! 'Old 'ard ! There 's your style for the
money ! Blow me if I don't prefer this to the
hother."

" I do not understand," said Herrick. " I have
to ask you to excuse me ; I do not understand."

u Well, now, see here, Herrick," said Davis.
" I 'm going to have a word with you, any way,
upon a different matter, and it 's good that Huish
should hear it too. We 're done with this boozing
business, and we ask your pardon for it right here
and now. We have to thank you for all you did
for us while we were making hogs of ourselves.
You '11 find me turn to all right in future ; and as
for the wine, which I grant we stole from you, I '11
take stock and see you paid for it. That 's good
enough, I believe. But what I want to point out
to you is this. The old game was a risky game.
The new game 's as safe as running a Vienna
bakery. We just put this 1 Farallone ' before the
wind, and run till we 're well to leeward of our
port of departure, and reasonably well up with
some other place where they have an American
consul. Down goes the 4 Farallone,' and good-by
to her ! A day or so in the boat ; the consul packs
us home, at Uncle Sam's expense, to 'Frisco; and

THE PARTNERS.

97

if that merchant don't put the dollars down, you
come to me ! "

uBut I thought — n began Herrick; and then
broke out, " Oh, let 's get on to Peru ! "

"Well, if you're going to Peru for your health,
I won't say no," replied the captain. " But for
what other blame' shadow of a reason you should
want to go there, gets me clear. We don't want
to go there with this cargo. I don't know as old
bottles is a lively article anywheres ; leastways I '11
go my bottom cent it ain't in Peru. It was always
a doubt if we could sell the schooner ; I never
rightly hoped to, and now I 'm sure she ain't worth
a hill of beans. What 's wrong with her, I don't
know. I only know it 's something, or she would n't
be here with this truck in her inside. Then, again,
if we lose her, and land in Peru, where are we?
We can't declare the loss, or how did we get to
Peru ? In that case the merchant can't touch the
insurance ; most likely he '11 go bust ; and don't
you think you see the three of us on the beach
of Callao?"

" There 's no extradition there," said Herrick.

" Well, my son, and we want to be extradished,"
said the captain. " What 's our point ? We want
to have a consul extradish us as far as San Fran-
cisco and that merchant's office door. My idea is
that Samoa would be found an eligible business
centre. It's dead before the wind; the States
have a consul there, and 'Frisco steamers call,
so's we could skip right back and interview the
merchant."

7

9S

THE EBB TIDE.

"Samoa?" said Herrick. "It will take us for-
ever to get there."

"Oh, with a fair wind ! " said the captain.

" No trouble about the log, eh ? " asked Huish.

" No, sir" said Davis. " Light airs and baffling
winds. Squalls and calms. D. R. : Jive miles.
No obs. Pumps attended. And fill in the barom-
eter and thermometer off of last year's trip. 4 Never
saw such a voyage,' says you to the consul.
'Thought I was going to run short — '" He
stopped in mid-career. "Say," he began again,
and once more stopped. " Beg your pardon, Her-
rick," he added, with undisguised humility, " but
did you keep the run of the stores?"

" Had I been told to do so, it should have been
done, as the rest was done, to the best of my little
ability," said Herrick. " As it was, the cook helped
himself to what he pleased."

Davis looked at the table.

" I drew it rather fine, you see," he said at last.
" The great thing was to clear right out of Papeete
before the consul could think better of it. Tell you
what, — I guess I '11 take stock."

And he rose from the table, and disappeared with
a lamp in the lazaretto.

" 'Ere 's another screw loose," observed Huish.

" My man," said Herrick, with a sudden gleam
of animosity, " it is still your watch on deck, and
surely your wheel also ? "

" You come the 'eavy swell, don't you, ducky ? "
said Huish. " Stand away from that binnacle.
4 Surely your w'eel, my man.' Yah ! "

THE PARTNERS.

99

He lit a cigar ostentatiously, and strolled into the
waist with his hands in his pockets.

In a surprisingly short time the captain reap-
peared ; he did not look at Herrick, but called
Huish back and sat down.

" Well," he began, " I Ve taken stock — roughly."
He paused, as if for somebody to help him out ; and,
none doing so, both gazing on him instead with
manifest anxiety, he yet more heavily resumed :
" Well, it won't fight. We can't do it ; that 's the
bed-rock. I 'm as sorry as what you can be, and
sorrier. But the game 's up. We can't look near
Samoa. I don't know as we could get to Peru."

" Wot-ju mean?" asked Huish, brutally.

" I can't most tell myself," replied the captain.
" I drew it fine ; I said I did ; but what 's been
going on here gets me ! Appears as if the devil
had been around. That cook must be the holiest
kind of a fraud. Only twelve days, too ! Seems
like craziness. I'll own up square to one thing:
I seem to have figured too fine upon the flour. But
the rest — my land ! I '11 never understand it !
There 's been more waste on this two-penny ship
than what there is to an Atlantic Liner." He stole
a glance at his companions ; nothing good was to
be gleaned from their dark faces ; and he had re-
course to rage. " You wait until I interview that
cook ! " he roared, and smote the table with his
fist. " I '11 interview the son of a gun as he 's
never been spoken to before. I '11 put a bead
upon the — ! "

100

THE EBB TIDE.

"You will not lay a finger on the man," said
Herrick. " The fault is yours, and you know it.
If you turn a savage loose in your ^tore-room, you
know what to expect. I will not allow the man to
be molested."

It is hard to say how Davis might have taken
this defiance, but he was diverted to a fresh
assailant.

" Well ! " drawled Huish, " you Ye a plummy
captain, ain't you ? You 're a blooming captain !
Don't you set up any of your chat to me, John
Dyvis. I know you now ; you ain't any more use
than a bloomin' dawl ! Oh, you 1 don't know,' don't
you? Oh, it 'gets you,' do it? Oh, I dessay!
W'y, were n't you 'owling for fresh tins every
blessed day? 'Ow often 'ave I 'eard you send
the 'ole bloomin' dinner off, and tell the man to
chuck it in the swill-tub? And breakfast? Oh,
my crikey ! Breakfast for ten, and you 'ollerin'
for more ! And now you 1 can't most tell 1 ! Blow
me if it ain't enough to make a man write an in-
sultin' letter to Gawd ! You dror it mild, John
Dyvis. Don't 'andle me ; I 'm dyngerous."

Davis sat like one bemused ; it might even have
been doubted if he heard. But the voice of the
clerk rang about the cabin like that of a cormorant
among the ledges of a cliff.

" That will do, Huish," said Herrick.

" Oh, so you tyke his part, do you, you stuck-up,
sneerin' snob ? Tyke it, then. Come on, the pair
of you ! But as for John Dyvis, let him look out !

THE PARTNERS.

101

He struck me the first night aboard, and I never
took a blow yet but wot I gave as good. Let him
knuckle down on his marrowbones and beg my
pardon ; that 's my last word ! "

"I stand by the captain,r said Herrick. "That
makes us two to one, both good men; and the
crew will all follow me. I hope I shall die very-
soon ; but I have not the least objection to killing
you before I go. I should prefer it so. I should
do it with no more remorse than winking. Take
care, take care, you little cad ! "

The animosity with which these words were
uttered was so marked in itself, and so remark-
able in the man who uttered them, that Huish
stared, and even the humiliated Davis reared up
his head and gazed at his defender. As for Her-
rick, the successive agitations and disappointments
of the day had left him wholly reckless ; he was
conscious of a pleasant glow, an agreeable ex-
citement. His head seemed empty ; his eyeballs
burned as he turned them ; his throat was dry as
a biscuit. The least dangerous man by nature,
except in so far as the weak are always dangerous,
at that moment he was ready to slay or be slain,
with equal unconcern.

Here, at least, was the gage thrown down, and
battle offered. He who should speak next would
bring the matter to an issue there and then. All
knew it to be so, and hung back ; and for many
seconds by the cabin clock the trio sat motionless
and silent.

102

THE EBB TIDE.

r

Then came an interruption, welcome as the
flowers in May.

" Land ho ! " sang out a voice on deck. " Land
a weatha bow ! "

" Land ! " cried Davis, springing to his feet.
"What's this? There ain't no land here."

And, as men may run from the chamber of a
murdered corpse, the three ran forth out of the
house, and left their quarrel behind them, un-
decided.

The sky shaded down at the sea level to the
white of opals ; the sea itself, insolently, inkily
blue, drew all about them the uncompromising
wheel of the horizon. Search it as they pleased,
not even the practised eye of Captain Davis could
descry the smallest interruption. A few filmy
clouds were slowly melting overhead ; and about
the schooner, as around the only point of interest,
a tropic bird, white as a snowflake, hung and cir-
cled, and displayed, as it turned, the long vermil-
ion feather of its tail. Save the sea and the heaven,
that was all.

" Who sang out land ? " asked Davis. " If there 's
any boy playing funny-dog with me, I '11 teach him
skylarking ! "

But Uncle Ned contentedly pointed to a part
of the horizon where a greenish, filmy iridescence
could be discerned, floating like smoke on the pale
heavens.

Davis applied his glass to it, and then looked at
the Kanaka. " Call that land ? " said he. " Well,
it 's more than I do ! "

THE PARTNERS.

103

" One time, long ago," said Uncle Ned, "I see
Anaa all-e-same that, four, five hours befo' we come
up. Capena he say sun go down, sun go up again ;
he say lagoon all-e-same milla."

" All-e-same what?" asked Davis.

" Milla, sah," said Uncle Ned.

"Oh, ah! mirror," said Davis. " I see, — reflec-
tion from the lagoon. Well, you know, it is just
possible, though it 's strange I never heard of it.
Here, let's look at the chart."

They went back to the cabin, and found the posi-
tion of the schooner well to windward of the archi-
pelago, in the midst of a white field of paper.

" There, you see for yourselves ! " said Davis.

" And yet I don't know," said Herrick ; " I some-
how think there 's something in it. I '11 tell you
one thing, too, captain : that 's all right about the
reflection ; I heard it in Papeete."

"Fetch up that Findlay, then!" said Davis;
"I '11 try it all ways. An island would n't come
amiss the way we 're fixed."

The bulky volume was handed up to him, broken-
backed, as is the way with Findlay ; and he turned
to the place, and began to run over the text, mut-
tering to himself, and turning over the pages with
a wetted finger.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed; "how's this?" And
he read aloud: "New Island. According to M.
Delille, this island, which from private interests
would remain unknown, lies, it is said, in latitude
120 49' 10" south, longitude 1330 6' west. In addi-

104

THE EBB TIDE.

tion to the position above given, Commander Mat-
thews, H.M. S. * Scorpion,' states that an island
exists in latitude 12° o' south, longitude 1330 16,
west. This must be the same, if such an island
exists, which is very doubtful, and totally dis-
believed in by South Sea traders."
" Golly ! " said Huish.

" It 's rather in the conditional mood," said
Herrick.

"It's anything you please," cried Davis, "only
there it is ! That 's our place, and don't you make
any mistake."

" < Which from private interests would remain
unknown,' " read Herrick, over his shoulder.
"What may that mean?"

" It should mean pearls," said Davis. "A pearl-
ing island the government don't know about. That
sounds like real estate. Or suppose it don't mean
anything. Suppose it's just an island; I guess we
could fill up with fish and cocoanuts and native
stuff, and carry out the Samoa scheme hand over
fist. How long did he say it was before they
raised Anaa? Five hours, I think."

" Four or five," said Herrick.

Davis stepped to the door. " What breeze had
you that time you made Anaa, Uncle Ned ? "
said he.

" Six or seven knots," was the reply.

" Thirty or thirty-five miles," said Davis. " High
time we were shortening sail, then. If it is an
island, we don't want to be butting our head against

THE PARTNERS.

105

it in the dark ; and if it is n't an island, we can
get through it just as well by daylight. Ready
about !" he roared.

And the schooner's head was laid for that elusive -
glimmer in the sky, which began already to pale in
lustre and diminish in size, as the stain of breath
vanishes from a window-pane. At the same time
she was reefed close down.

PART II. — THE QUARTETTE.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PEARL FISHER.

About four in the morning, as the captain and
Herrick sat together on the rail, there arose from
the midst of the night, in front of them, the voice
of breakers. Each sprang to his feet and stared
and listened. The sound was continuous, like the
passing of a train; no rise or fall could be dis-
tinguished ; minute by minute the ocean heaved
with an equal potency against the invisible isle ;
and as time passed, and Herrick waited in vain
for any vicissitude in the volume of that roaring,
a sense of the eternal weighed upon his mind. To
the expert eye, the isle itself was to be inferred
from a certain string of blots along the starry
heaven. And the schooner was laid to and anx-
iously observed till daylight.

There was little or no morning bank. A bright-
ening came in the east ; then a wash of some in-
effable, faint, nameless hue between crimson and

THE PEARL FISHER.

107

silver; and then coals of fire. These glimmered
awhile on the sea-line, and seemed to brighten
and darken and spread out ; and still the night
and the stars reigned undisturbed. It was as
though a spark should catch and glow and creep
along the foot of some heavy and almost incom-
bustible wall-hanging, and the room itself be scarce
menaced. Yet a little after, and the whole east
glowed with gold and scarlet, and the hollow of
heaven was filled with the daylight.

The isle — the undiscovered, the scarce believed
in — now lay before them and close aboard ; and
Herrick thought that never in his dreams had he
beheld anything more strange and delicate. The
beach was excellently white, the continuous bar-
rier of trees inimitably green ; the land perhaps ten
feet high, the trees thirty more. Every here and
there, as the schooner coasted northward, the wood
was intermitted ; and he could see clear over the
inconsiderable strip of land (as a man looks over a
wall) to the lagoon within ; and clear over that,
again, to where the far side of the atoll prolonged
its pencilling of trees against the morning sky. He
tortured himself to find analogies. The isle was
like the rim of a great vessel sunken in the waters ;
it was like the embankment of an annular railway
grown upon with wood. So slender it seemed
amidst the outrageous breakers, so frail and pretty,
he would scarce have wondered to see it sink and
disappear without a sound, and the waves close
smoothly over its descent.

ioS

THE EBB TIDE.

Meanwhile the captain was in the fore-crosstrees,
glass in hand, his eyes in every quarter, spying for
an entrance, spying for signs of tenancy. But the
isle continued to unfold itself in joints and to run
out in indeterminate capes, and still there was
neither house nor man nor the smoke of fire.
Here a multitude of sea-birds soared and twinkled
and fished in the blue waters ; and there, and for
miles together, the fringe of cocoa-palm and pan-
danus extended desolate, and made desirable green
bowers for nobody to visit ; and the silence of death
was only broken by the throbbing of the sea.

The airs were very light, their speed was small ;
the heat intense. The decks were scorching under-
foot; the sun flamed overhead, brazen out of a
brazen sky; the pitch bubbled in the seams, and
the brains in the brain-pan. And all the while the
excitement of the three adventurers glowed about
their bones like a fever. They whispered and nod-
ded and pointed and put mouth to ear with a sin-
gular instinct of secrecy, approaching that island
underhand, like eavesdroppers and thieves ; and
even Davis, from the crosstrees, gave his orders
mostly by gestures. The hands shared in this
mute strain, like dogs, without comprehending it ;
and through the roar of so many miles of breakers,
it was a silent ship that approached an empty
island.

At last they drew near to the break in that in-
terminable gangway. A spur of coral sand stood
forth on the one hand ; on the other, a high and

THE PEARL FISHER. I09

thick tuft of trees cut off the view ; between was
the mouth of the huge laver. Twice a day the
ocean crowded in that narrow entrance and was
heaped between these frail walls; twice a day,
with the return of the ebb, the mighty surplusage
of water must struggle to escape. The hour in
which the * Farallone ' came there was the hour of
flood. The sea turned (as with the instinct of
the homing pigeon) for the vast receptacle, swept
eddying through the gates, was transmuted, as it-
did so, into a wonder of watery and silken hues,
and brimmed into the inland sea beyond. The
schooner worked up, close-hauled, and was caught
and carried away by the influx like a toy. She
skimmed ; she flew ; a momentary shadow touched
her decks from the shoreside trees ; the bottom of
the channel showed up for a moment, and was in a
moment gone ; the next, she floated on the bosom
of the lagoon ; and below, in the transparent
chamber of waters, a myriad of many-colored
fishes were sporting, a myriad pale flowers of coral
diversified the floor.

Herrick stood transported. In the gratified lust
of his eye he forgot the past and the present ; for-
got that he was menaced by a prison on the one
hand and starvation on the other ; forgot that he
was come to that island, desperately foraging,
clutching at expedients. A drove of fishes, painted
like the rainbow and billed like parrots, hovered up
in the shadow of the schooner, and passed clear of
it, and glinted in the submarine sun. They were

no

THE EBB TIDE.

beautiful like birds, and their silent passage im-
pressed him like a strain of song.

Meanwhile, to the eye of Davis in the cross-
trees, the lagoon continued to expand its empty
waters, and the long succession of the shoreside
trees to be paid out like fishing-line off a reel.
And still there was no mark of habitation. The
schooner, immediately on entering, had been kept
away to the northward, where the water seemed to
be the most deep ; and she was now skimming
past the tall grove of trees, which stood on that
side of the channel and denied further view. Of
the whole of the low shores of the island, only this
bight remained to be revealed. And suddenly the
curtain was raised ; they began to open out a haven,
snugly elbowed there, and beheld, with an aston-
ishment beyond words, the roofs of men. The
appearance, thus " instantaneously disclosed " to
those on the deck of the * Farallone,' was not that
of a city, rather of a substantial country farm
with its attendant hamlet, — a long line of sheds
and store-houses ; apart, upon the one side, a deep-
verandahed dwelling-house ; on the other, perhaps
a dozen native huts, a building with a belfry and
some rude offer at architectural features that
might be thought to mark it out for a chapel ; on
the beach in front, some heavy boats drawn up,
and a pile of timber running forth into the burn-
ing shallows of the lagoon. From a flag-staff at
the pierhead, the red ensign of England was dis-
played. Behind, about, and over, the same tall

THE PEARL FISHER.

Ill

grove of palms which had masked the settlement
in the beginning, prolonged its roof of tumultuous
green fans, and tossed and ruffled overhead, and
sang its silver song all day in the wind. The place
had the indescribable but unmistakable appear-
ance of being in commission, yet there breathed
from it a sense of desertion that was almost
poignant ; no human figure was to be observed
going to and fro about the houses, and there
was no sound of human industry or enjoyment.
Only, on the top of the beach and hard by the
flag-staff, a woman of exorbitant stature and as
white as snow was to be seen, beckoning with up-
lifted arm. The second glance identified her as a
piece of naval sculpture, the figure-head of a ship
that had long hovered and plunged into so many
running billows, and was now brought ashore to be
the ensign and presiding genius of that empty
town.

The 1 Farallone ' made a soldier's breeze of
it ; the wind, besides, was stronger inside than
without under the lee of the land : and the stolen
schooner opened out successive objects with the
swiftness of a panorama, so that the adventurers
stood speechless. The flag spoke for itself ; it was
no frayed and weathered trophy that had beaten
itself to pieces on the post, flying over desolation ;
and, to make assurance stronger, there was to be
descried, in the deep shade of the veranda, a glitter
of crystal and the fluttering of white napery. If
the figure-head at the pier end, with its perpetual

112

THE EBB TIDE.

gesture and its leprous whiteness, reigned alone in
that hamlet, as it seemed to do, it could not have
reigned long. Men's hands had been busy, men's
feet stirring there, within the circuit of the clock.
The Farallones were sure of it ; their eyes dug in
the deep shadow of the palms for some one hiding.
If intensity of looking might have prevailed, they
would have pierced the walls of houses ; and there
came to them, in these pregnant seconds, a sense
of being watched and played with, and of a blow
impending, that was hardly bearable.

The extreme point of palms they had just passed
enclosed a creek, which was thus hidden up to the
last moment from the eyes of those on board ; and
from this a boat put suddenly and briskly out, and
a voice hailed.

" Schooner ahoy ! " it cried. i: Stand in for the
pier ! In two cables' lengths you '11 have twenty
fathoms' water and good holding-ground."

The boat was manned with a couple of brown
oarsmen in scanty kilts of blue. The speaker, who
was steering, wore white clothes, the full dress of
the tropics. A wide hat shaded his face; but it
could be seen that he was of stalwart size, and his
voice sounded like a gentleman's. So much could
be made out. It was plain, besides, that the 4 Far-
allone' had been descried some time before at
sea, and the inhabitants were prepared for its
reception.

Mechanically the orders were obeyed, and the
ship berthed ; and the three adventurers gathered

THE PEARL FISHER. 113

aft beside the house and waited, with galloping
pulses and a perfect vacancy of mind, the coming
of the stranger who might mean so much to them.
They had no plan, no story prepared, there was no
time to make one, they were caught red-handed,
and must stand their chance. Yet this anxiety was
checkered with hope. The island being undeclared,
it was not possible the man could hold any office or
be in a position to demand their papers. And be-
yond that, if there was any truth in Findlay, as it
now seemed there should be, he was the represen-
tative of the " private reasons ; " and must see their
coming with a profound disappointment; and per-
haps (hope whispered) he would be willing and
able to purchase their silence.

The boat was by that time forging alongside, and
they were able at last to see what manner of man
they had to do with. He was a huge fellow, six
feet four in height, and of a build proportionately
strong, but his sinews seemed to be dissolved in a
listlessness that was more than languor. It was
only the eye that corrected this impression, — an
eye of an unusual mingled brilliancy and softness,
sombre as coal, and with lights that outshone the
topaz ; an eye of unimpaired health and virility ; an
eye that bid you beware of the man's devastating
anger. A complexion naturally dark had been
tanned in the island to a hue hardly distinguishable
from that of a Tahitian; only his manners and
movements, and the living force that dwelt in him,
like fire in flint, betrayed the European. He was
8

114

THE EBB TIDE.

dressed in white drill, exquisitely made ; his scarf
and tie were of tender colored silks ; on the thwart
beside him there leaned a Winchester rifle.

" Is the doctor on board ? " he cried, as he came
up. " Doctor Symmonds, I mean ? You never
heard of him? Nor yet of the 'Trinity Hall'?
Ah ! " He did not look surprised; seemed, rather,
to affect it in politeness ; but his eye rested on each
of the three white men in succession with a sudden
weight of curiosity that was almost savage. " Ah,
then" said he, " there is some small mistake, no
doubt, and I must ask you to what I am indebted
for this pleasure ? "

He was by this time on the deck, but he had the
art to be quite unapproachable ; the friendliest vul-
garian, three parts drunk, would have known better
than take liberties ; and not one of the adventurers
so much as offered to shake hands.

" Well," said Davis, " I suppose you may call it
an accident. We had heard of your island, and
read that thing in the 1 Directory ' about the pri-
vate reasons, you see ; so when we saw the lagoon
reflected in the sky, we put her head for it at once,
and here we are."

" 'Ope we don't intrude ! " said Huish.

The stranger looked at Huish with an air of faint
surprise, and looked pointedly away again. It was
hard to be more offensive in dumb show.

"It may suit me, your coming here," he said.
" My own schooner is overdue, and I may put
something in your way in the mean time. Are you
open to a charter ? "

THE PEARL FISHER.

"5

"Well, I guess so," said Davis; " it depends."

" My name is Attwater," continued the stranger.
" You, I presume, are the captain ? "

" Yes, sir. I am the captain of this ship. Cap-
tain Brown," was the reply.

" Well, see 'ere ! " said Huish, " better begin fair !
'E 's skipper on deck right enough, but not below.
Below we 're all equal, all got a lay in the adven-
ture. When it comes to business, I 'm as good as
'e ; and what I say is, let 's go into the 'ouse and
have a lush, and talk it over among pals. We 've
some prime fizz," he said, and winked.

The presence of the gentleman lighted up like a
candle the vulgarity of the clerk ; and Herrick, in-
stinctively, as one shields himself from pain, made
haste to interrupt.

" My name is Hay," said he, " since introduc-
tions are going. We shall be very glad if you will
step inside."

Attwater leaned to him swiftly. " University
man ? " said he.

"Yes, Merton," said Herrick, and the next mo-
ment blushed scarlet at his indiscretion.

" I am of the other lot," said Attwater : " Trinity
Hall, Cambridge. I called my schooner after the
old shop. Well ! this is a queer place and com-
pany for us to meet in, Mr. Hay," he pursued, with
easy incivility to the others. " But do you bear
out — I beg this gentleman's pardon, I really did
not catch his name."

" My name is 'Uish, sir," returned the clerk, and
blushed in turn.

n6

THE EBB TIDE.

u Ah ! " said Attwater. And then turning again
to Herrick, " Do you bear out Mr. Whish's descrip-
tion of your vintage, or was it only the unaffected
poetry of his own nature bubbling up ? "

Herrick was embarrassed ; the silken brutality
of their visitor made him blush. That he should
be accepted as an equal, and the others thus
pointedly ignored, pleased him in spite of him-
self, and then ran through his veins in a recoil
of anger.

" I don't know," he said. " It 's only California ;
it 's good enough, I believe."

Attwater seemed to make up his mind. " Well,
then, I '11 tell you what: you three gentlemen come
ashore this evening, and bring a basket of wine
with you ; I '11 try and find the food," he said.
" And by the by, here is a question I should have
asked you when I came on board : Have you had
small-pox ? "

" Personally, no," said Herrick. " But the
schooner had it."

" Deaths ? " from Attwater.

" Two," said Herrick.

" Well, it is a dreadful sickness," said Attwater.

" 'Ad you any deaths," asked Huish, u 'ere on
the island ? "

" Twenty-nine," said Attwater. " Twenty-nine
deaths and thirty-one cases, out of thirty-three
souls upon the island. That's a strange way to
calculate, Mr. Hay, is it not? Souls! I never say
it but it startles me."

THE PEARL FISHER.

117

" Oh, so that 's why everything 's deserted ? "
said Huish.

"That is why, Mr. Whish," said Attwater;
u that is why the house is empty and the grave-
yard full."

" Twenty-nine out of thirty-three ! " exclaimed
Herrick. "Why, when it came to burying — or
did you bother burying?"

" Scarcely," said Attwater ; " or there was one
day, at least, when we gave up. There were five
of the dead that morning, and thirteen of the
dying, and no one able to go about except the
sexton and myself. We held a council of war,
took the — empty bottles — into the lagoon, and —
buried them." He looked over his shoulder, back
at the bright water. " Well, so you '11 come to
dinner, then? Shall we say half-past six? So
good of you ! "

His voice, in uttering these conventional phrases,
fell at once into the false measure of society ; and
Herrick unconsciously followed the example.

" I am sure we shall be very glad," he said.
" At half-past six ? Thank you so very much."

" 1 For my voice has been tuned to the note of the gun,
That startles the deep when the combat 's begun,' "

quoted Attwater, with a smile, which instantly
gave way to an air of funereal solemnity. " I
shall particularly expect Mr. Whish," he con-
tinued. " Mr. Whish, I trust you understand
the invitation ? "

n8

THE EBB TIDE.

" I believe you, my boy ! " replied the genial
Huish.

" That is right, then ; and quite understood, is it
not ? " said Attwater. " Mr. Whish and Captain
Brown at six-thirty without fail; and you, Hay, at
four sharp."

And he called his boat.

During all this talk, a load of thought or anx-
iety had weighed upon the captain. There was
no part for which nature had so liberally endowed
him as that of the genial ship-captain. But to-day
he was silent and abstracted. Those who knew
him could see that he hearkened close to every
syllable, and seemed to ponder and try it in bal-
ances. It would have been hard to say what look
there was, cold, attentive, and sinister, as of a man
maturing plans, which still brooded over the uncon-
scious guest; it was here, it was there, it was
nowhere ; it was now so little that Herrick chid
himself for an idle fancy ; and anon it was so
gross and palpable that you could say every hair
on the man's head talked mischief.

He woke up now, as with a start. " You were
talking of a charter,' 1 said he.

" Was I ? " said Attwater. " Well, let 's talk
of it no more at present."

" Your own schooner is overdue, I understand ? "
continued the captain.

"You understand perfectly, Captain Brown,"
said Attwater ; " thirty-three days overdue at noon
to-day."

THE PEARL FISHER.

II9

"She comes and goes, eh? Flies between here
and — ?" hinted the captain.

" Exactly ; every four months ; three trips in
the year," said Attwater.

" You go in her, ever ? " asked Davis.

" No, I stop here," said Attwater ; " one has
plenty to attend to here."

" Stop here, do you ? " cried Davis. " Say, how
long?"

11 How long, O Lord ! " said Attwater, with per-
fect, stern gravity. 4i But it does not seem so,"
he added, with a smile.

M No, I dare say not," said Davis. " No, I sup-
pose not. Not with all your gods about you, and
in as snug a berth as this. For it is a pretty snug
berth," said he, with a sweeping look.

" The spot, as you are good enough to indicate,
is not entirely intolerable," was the reply.

44 Shell, I suppose ? " said Davis.

44 Yes, there was shell," said Attwater.

44 This is a considerable big beast of a lagoon,
sir," said the captain. 44 Was there a — was the
fishing — would you call the fishing anyways
good?"

44 I don't know that I would call it anyways any-
thing," said Attwater, 44 if you put it to me direct."

" There were pearls, too?" said Davis.

" Pearls, too," said Attwater.

" Well, I give out!" laughed Davis, and his
laughter rang cracked like a false piece. 44 If
you 're not going to tell, you 're not going to tell,
and there 's an end to it."

120

THE EBB TIDE.

" There can be no reason why I should affect
the least degree of secrecy about my island,"
returned Attwater. " That came wholly to an
end with your arrival ; and I am sure at any rate
that gentlemen like you and Mr. Whish I should
have always been charmed to make perfectly at
home. The point on which we are now differ-
ing— if you can call it a difference — is one of
times and seasons. I have some information
which you think I might impart, and I think not.
Well, we '11 see to-night ! By-by, Whish ! " He
stepped into his boat and shoved off. " All under-
stood, then?" said he. "The captain and Mr.
Whish at six-thirty, and you, Hay, at four precise.
You understand that, Hay ? Mind, I take no
denial. If you 're not there by the time named,
there will be no banquet. No song, no supper,
.Air. Whish ! "

White birds whisked in the air above, a shoal
of party-colored fishes in the scarce denser medium
below ; between, like Mahomet's coffin, the boat
drew away briskly on the surface, and its shadow
followed it over the glittering floor of the lagoon.
Attwater looked steadily back over his shoulders
as he sat ; he did not once remove his eyes from
the 'Farallone' and the group on her quarter-
deck beside the house, till his boat ground upon
the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, he hurried
ashore, and they saw his white clothes shining in
the checkered dusk of the grove until the house
received him.

THE PEARL FISHER.

121

The captain, with a gesture and a speaking
countenance, called the adventurers into the cabin.

" Well," he said to Herrick, when they were
seated, "there's one good job at least. He's
taken to you in earnest."

" Why should that be a good job ? " said Herrick.

" Oh, you '11 see how it pans out presently," re-
turned Davis. " You go ashore and stand in with
him, that's all ! You'll get lots of pointers ; you
can find out what he has, and what the charter is,
and who 's the fourth man, — for there 's four of
them, and we 're only three."

" And suppose I do, what next ? " cried Herrick.
" Answer me that ! "

" So I will, Robert Herrick," said the captain.
" But first, let 's see all clear. I guess you know,"
he said with an imperious solemnity, " I guess you
know the bottom is about out of this 1 Farallone '
speculation? I guess you know it's right out; and
if this old island had n't turned up right when it
did, I guess you know where you and I and Huish
would have been ? "

" Yes, I know that," said Herrick. " No matter
who 's to blame, I know it. And what next ? "

" No matter who's to blame, you know it, right
enough," said the captain, " and I 'm obliged to you
for the reminder. Now here's this Attwater;
what do you think of him ? "

" I do not know," said Herrick. " I am attracted
and repelled. He was insufferably rude to you."

" And you, Huish ?" said the captain.

122

THE EBB TIDE.

Huish sat cleaning a favorite brier-root ; he
scarce looked up from that engrossing task.
" Don't ast me what I think of him ! " he said.
" There 's a day comin,' I pray Gawd, when I can
tell it him myself."

" Huish means the same as what I do," said
Davis. " When that man came stepping around,
and saying : ' Look here, I 'm Attwater ' — and you
knew it was so, by God ! — I sized him right straight
up. Here 's the real article, I said, and I don't
like it ; here 's the real, first-rate, copper-bottomed
aristocrat. 1 A w ! don't k7iow ye, do If God d—n
ye, did God 7nakeye t ' No, that could n't be nothing
but genuine ; a man 's got to be born to that. And
notice ! smart as champagne and hard as nails ; no
kind of a fool ; no, sir ! not a pound of him ! Well,
what 's he here upon this beastly island for ? I said.
He 's not here collecting eggs. He 's a palace at
home, and powdered flunkies ; and if he don't stay
there, you bet he knows the reason why ! Follow ? "

" Oh, yes, I 'ear you," said Huish.

" He 's been doing good business here, then,"
continued the captain. " For years he 's been
doing a great business. It 's pearl and shell, of
course ; there could n't be nothing else in such a
place ; and no doubt the shell goes off regularly by
this 1 Trinity Hall,' and the money for it straight
into the bank, so that's no use to us. But what
else is there? Is there nothing else he would be
likely to keep here ? Is there nothing else he would
be bound to keep here ? Yes, sir ; the pearls !

THE PEARL FISHER.

123

First, because they 're too valuable to trust out of
his hands. Second, because pearls want a lot of
handling and matching ; and the man who sells his
pearls as they come in, one here, one there, instead
of hanging back and holding up — well, that man 's
a fool, and it 's not Attwater.,,

" It 's likely," said Huish, " that 's w'at it is ; not
proved, but likely."

" It's proved," said Davis, bluntly.

"Suppose it was?" said Herrick. "Suppose
that was all so, and he had these pearls, — years
and years' collection of them? Suppose he had?
There 's my question."

The captain drummed with his thick hands on
the board in front of him; he looked steadily in
Herrick's face, and Herrick as steadily looked upon
the table and the pattering fingers. There was a
gentle oscillation of the anchored ship, and a big
patch of sunlight travelled to and fro between one
and the other.

" Hear me ! " Herrick burst out suddenly.

11 No, you better hear me first," said Davis.
" Hear me and understand me. We 've got no use
for that fellow, whatever you may have. He 's
your kind, he 's not ours ; he 's took to you, and he 's
wiped his boots on me and Huish. Save him if
you can ! "

" Save him ? " repeated Herrick.

" Save him if you 're able ! " reiterated Davis,
with a blow of his clinched fist. " Go ashore, and
talk him smooth ; and if you get him and his pearls

124

THE EBB TIDE.

aboard, I '11 spare him. If you don't, there 's going
to be a funeral. Is that so, Huish ? Does that
suit you ? "

" I ain't a forgiving man," said Huish, "but I 'm
not the sort to spoil business neither. Bring the
bloke on board, and his pearls along with him, and
you can have it your own way ; maroon him where
you like — I 'm agreeable."

" Well, and if I can't ? " cried Herrick, while the
sweat streamed upon his face. " You talk to me
as if I was God Almighty, to do this and that !
But if I can't ? "

" My son," said the captain, " you better do your
level best, or you '11 see sights ! "

" Oh, yes," said Huish. " Oh, crikey, yes ! " He
looked across at Herrick with a toothless smile that
was shocking in its savagery ; and, his ear caught
apparently by the trivial expression he had used,
he broke into a piece of the chorus of a comic song
which he must have heard twenty years before in
London, — meaningless gibberish that, in that hour
and place, seemed hateful as a blasphemy : " Hikey,
pikey, crikey, fikey, chillingawallaba dory."

The captain suffered him to finish ; his face was
unchanged.

" The way things are, there 's many a man that
would n't let you go ashore," he resumed. " But
I 'm not that kind. I know you 'd never go back
on me, Herrick ! Or if you choose to — go and do
it, and be d — d ! " he cried, and rose abruptly from
the table.

THE PEARL FISHER. 12$

He walked out of the house, and, as he reached
the door, turned and called Huish, suddenly and
violently, like the barking of a dog. Huish followed,
and Herrick remained alone in the cabin.

" Now, see here," whispered Davis ; " I know
that man. If you open your mouth to him again,
you '11 ruin all.,,

CHAPTER VIII.

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

ThE boat was gone again, and already half way
to the 1 Farallone,' before Herrick turned and went
unwillingly up the pier. From the crown of the
beach, the figure-head confronted him with what
seemed irony, her helmeted head tossed back, her
formidable arm apparently hurling something,
whether shell or missile, in the direction of the an-
chored schooner. She seemed a defiant deity from
the island, coming forth to its threshold with a rush
as of one about to fly, and perpetuated in that
dashing attitude. Herrick looked up at her, where
she towered above him head and shoulders, with
singular feelings of curiosity and romance, and
suffered his mind to travel to and fro in her life
history. So long she had been the blind con-
ductress of a ship among the waves ; so long she
had stood here idle in the violent sun that yet did
not avail to blister her ; and was even this the end
of so many adventures, he wondered, or was more
behind ? And he could have found it in his heart
to regret that she was not a goddess, nor yet he a
pagan, that he might have bowed down before her
in that hour of difficulty.

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

127

Where he now went forward, it was cool with the
shadow of many well-grown palms ; draughts of the
dying breeze swung them together overhead ; and
on all sides, with a swiftness beyond dragon-flies or
swallows, the spots of sunshine flitted and hovered
and returned. Underfoot, the sand was fairly solid
and quite level, and Herrick's steps fell there noise-
less as in new-fallen snow. It bore the marks of
having been once weeded like a garden alley at
home ; but the pestilence had done its work, and
the weeds were returning. The buildings of the
settlement showed here and there through the stems
of the colonnade, fresh-painted, trim and dandy,
and all silent as the grave. Only here and there
in the crypt there was a rustle and scurry and some
crowing of poultry ; and from behind the house with
the verandas he saw smoke rise and heard the
crackling of a fire.

The store-houses were nearest him upon his
right. The first was locked ; in the second he
could dimly perceive, through a window, a certain
accumulation of pearl shell piled in the far end ; the
third, which stood gaping open on the afternoon,
seized on the mind of Herrick with its multiplicity
and disorder of romantic things. Therein were
cables, windlasses, and blocks of every size and
capacity ; cabin windows and ladders ; rusty tanks ;
a companion hatch ; a binnacle with its brass
mountings, and its compass idly pointing, in the
confusion and dusk of that shed, to a forgotten
pole ; ropes, anchors, harpoons ; a blubber-dipper

123

THE EBB TIDE.

of copper, green with years ; a steering-wheel ; a
tool-chest with the vessel's name upon the top, the
1 Asia,' — a whole curiosity-shop of sea curios,
gross and solid, heavy to lift, ill to break, bound
with brass and shod with iron. Two wrecks at
least must have contributed to this random heap
of lumber ; and as Herrick looked upon it, it
seemed to him as if the two ships' companies were
there on guard, and he heard the tread of feet
and whisperings, and saw with the tail of his eye
the commonplace ghosts of sailormen.

This was not merely the work of an aroused
imagination, but had something sensible to go
upon. Sounds of a stealthy approach were no
doubt audible ; and while he still stood staring at
the lumber, the voice of his host sounded suddenly,
and with even more than the customary softness of
enunciation, from behind.

" Junk," it said, " only old junk ! And does Mr.
Hay find a parable ? "

" I find at least a strong impression," replied
Herrick, turning quickly, lest he might be able to
catch, on the face of the speaker, some commentary
on the words.

Attwater stood in the doorway, which he almost
wholly filled, his hands stretched above his head
and grasping the architrave. He smiled when
their eyes met, but the expression was inscrutable.

" Yes, a powerful impression. You are like me
— nothing so affecting as ships ! " said he. " The
ruins of an empire would leave me frigid, when a

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

T29

bit of an old rail that an old shellback leaned on in
the middle watch would bring me up all standing.
But come, let 's see some more of the island. It 's
all sand and coral and palm-trees ; but there 's a
kind of quaintness in the place."

" I find it heavenly," said Herrick, breathing
deep, with head bared in the shadow.

" Ah, that 's because you 're new from sea," said
Attwater. " I dare say, too, you can appreciate
what one calls it. It 's a lovely name. It has a
flavor, it has a color, it has a ring and fall to it ;
it ?s like its author — it 's half Christian ! Remem-
ber your first view of the island, and how it 's only
woods and water ; and suppose you had asked
somebody for the name, and he had answered,
ne?norosa Zacynthos"

" Jct7n medio apparet fluctu I " exclaimed Her-
rick. " Ye gods ! yes, how good ! "

" If it gets upon the chart, the skippers will make
nice work of it," said Attwater. " But here, come
and see the diving-shed."

He opened a door, and Herrick saw a large dis-
play of apparatus neatly ordered, — pumps and
pipes, and the leaded boots, and the huge snouted
helmets shining in rows along the wall, — ten com-
plete outfits,

" The whole eastern half of my lagoon is shallow,
you must understand," said Attwater ; " so we were
able to get in the dress to great advantage. It paid
beyond belief, and was a queer sight when they
were at it ; and these marine monsters " — tapping
9

THE EBB TIDE.

the nearest of the helmets — "kept appearing and
reappearing in the midst of the lagoon. Fond of
parables ? " he asked abruptly.
" Oh, yes ! " said Herrick.

"Well, I saw these machines come up dripping
and go down again, and come up dripping and
go down again, and all the while the fellow
inside as dry as toast," said Attwater; "and I
thought we all wanted a dress to go down into the
world in, and come up scathless. What do you
think the name was ? " he inquired.

" Self-conceit," said Herrick.

" Ah, but I mean seriously," said Attwater.

" Call it self-respect, then," corrected Herrick,
with a laugh.

" And why not grace ? Why not God's grace,
Hay?" asked Attwater. "Why not the grace
of your Maker and Redeemer, he who died for
you, he who upholds you, he whom you daily
crucify afresh ? There is nothing here " — strik-
ing on his bosom — " nothing there " — smiting
the wall — " and nothing there " — stamping —
" nothing but God's grace ! We walk upon, we
breathe it ; we live and die by it ; it makes the
nails and axles of the universe ; and a puppy in
pyjamas prefers self-conceit ! " The huge dark
man stood over against Herrick by the line of
divers' helmets, and seemed to swell and glow;
and the next moment the life had gone from him.
" I beg your pardon," said he ; " I see you don't
believe in God."

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE. 131

" Not in your sense, I am afraid," said Herrick.

" I never argue with young atheists or habitual
drunkards," said Attwater, flippantly. " Let us go
across the island to the outer beach."

It was but a little way, the greatest width of that
island scarce exceeding a furlong, and they walked
gently. Herrick was like one in a dream. He had
come there with a mind divided, — come prepared to
study that ambiguous and sneering mask, drag out
the essential man from underneath, and act accord-
ingly; decision being till then postponed. Iron
cruelty, an iron insensibility to the suffering of
others, the uncompromising pursuit of his own in-
terests, cold culture, manners without humanity, —
these he had looked for, these he still thought he
saw. But to find the whole machine thus glow
with the reverberation of religious zeal, surprised
him beyond words ; and he labored in vain, as he
walked, to piece together into any kind of whole
his odds and ends of knowledge ; to adjust again,
into any kind of focus with itself, his picture of the
man beside him.

"What brought you here to the South Seas?"
he asked presently.

" Many things," said Attwater. " Youth, curi-
osity, romance, the love of the sea, and (it will
surprise you to hear) an interest in missions. That
has a good deal declined, which will surprise you
less. They go the wrong way to work; they are
too parsonish, too much of the old wife, and even
the old apple-wife. Clothes, clothes, are their idea;

132

THE EBB TIDE.

but clothes are not Christianity, any more than they
are the sun in heaven, or could take the place of it !
They think a parsonage with roses, and church
bells, and nice old women bobbing in the lanes,
are part and parcel of religion. But religion is a
savage thing, like the universe it illuminates; sav-
age, cold, and bare, but infinitely strong.'1

" And you found this island by an accident ? "
said Herrick.

" As you did," said Attvvater. " And since then
I have had a business and a colony and a mission
of my own. I was a man of the world before I
was a Christian ; I 'm a man of the world still, and
I made my mission pay. No good ever came of
coddling. A man has to stand up in God's sight
and work up to his weight avoirdupois ; then I '11
talk to him, but not before. I gave these beggars
what they wanted, — a judge in Israel, the bearer of
the sword and scourge. I was making a new peo-
ple here, and behold ! the angel of the Lord smote
them, and they were not ! "

With the very uttering of the words, which were
accompanied by a gesture, they came forth out of
the porch of the palm wood by the margin of the
sea, and full in front of the sun, which was near
setting. Before them the surf broke slowly. All
around, with an air of imperfect wooden things in-
spired with wicked activity, the land-crabs trundled
and scuttled into holes. On the right, whither Att-
water pointed and abruptly turned, was the ceme-
tery of the island, a field of broken stones from the

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

133

bigness of a child's hand to that of his head, diver-
sified by many mounds of the same material, and
walled by a rude rectangular enclosure of the same.
Nothing grew there but a shrub or two with some
white flowers ; nothing but the number of the
mounds, and their disquieting shape, indicated the
presence of the dead.

" 1 The rude forefathers of the hamlet lie ! 1 "
quoted Attwater, as he entered by the open gate-
way into that unhomely close. " Coral to coral,
pebbles to pebbles," he said ; " this has been the
main scene of my activity in the South Pacific.
Some were good, and some bad, and the majority
(of course and always) null. Here was a fellow,
now, that used to frisk like a dog; if you had
called him, he came like an arrow from a bow;
if you had not, and he came unbidden, you should
have seen the deprecating eye and the little intri-
cate dancing step. Well, his trouble is over now ;
he has lain down with kings and councillors ; the
rest of his acts, are they not written in the Book of
the Chronicles ? That fellow was from Penrhyn ;
like all the Penrhyn islanders he was ill to manage ;
heady, jealous, violent, — the man with the nose !
He lies here quiet enough. And so they all lie.
'And darkness was the burier of the dead.' "

He stood, in the strong glow of the sunset, with
bowed head ; his voice sounded now sweet and now
bitter, with the varying sense.

" You loved these people ? " cried Herrick,
strangely touched.

134

THE EBB TIDE.

"I?" said Attwater. " Dear, no ! Don't think
me a philanthropist. I dislike men, and I hate
women. If I like the islands at all, it is because
you see them here plucked of their lendings, their
dead birds and cocked hats, their petticoats and
colored hose. Here was one I liked, though," and
he set his foot upon a mound. " He was a fine,
savage fellow; he had a dark soul. Yes, I liked
this one. I am fanciful," he added, looking hard
at Herrick, " and I take fads. I like you."

Herrick turned swiftly, and looked far away to
where the clouds were beginning to troop together
and amass themselves round the obsequies of day.
" No one can like me," he said.

" You are wrong there," said the other, " as a
man usually is about himself. You are attractive,
very attractive."

"It is not me," said Herrick; "no one can
like me. If you knew how I despised myself —
and why ! " His voice rang out in the quiet
graveyard.

" I knew that you despised yourself," said Att-
water. " I saw the blood come into your face
to-day when you remembered Oxford. And I
could have blushed for you myself, to see a man,
a gentleman, with those two vulgar wolves."

Herrick faced him with a thrill. " Wolves? " he
repeated.

" I said wolves, and vulgar wolves," said Att-
water. "Do you know that to-day, when I came
on board, I trembled ? "

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

135

"You concealed it well," stammered Herrick.

" A habit of mine," said Attwater. " But I was
afraid, for all that. I was afraid of the two
wolves." He raised his hand slowly. " And now,
Hay, you poor, lost puppy, what do you do with
the two wolves ? "

" What do I do ? I don't do anything," said
Herrick. "There is nothing wrong; all is above
board ; Captain Brown is a good soul ; he is a —
he is — " The phantom voice of Davis called in
his ear, " There 's going to be a funeral ; " and the
sweat burst forth and streamed on his brow. " He
is a family man," he resumed again, swallowing;
" he has children at home, — and a wife."

" And a very nice man ? " said Attwater. " And
so is Mr. Whish, no doubt ? "

" I won't go so far as that," said Herrick. " I
do not like Huish. And yet — he has his merits,
too."

" And, in short, take them for all in all, as good a
ship's company as one would ask?" said Attwater.

" Oh, yes," said Herrick, " quite."

" So, then, we approach the other point, of why
you despise yourself ? " said Attwater.

" Do we not all despise ourselves ? " cried Her-
rick. " Do not you ? "

" Oh, I say I do. But do I ? " said Attwater.
" One thing I know, at least ; I never gave a cry
like yours. Hay, it came from a bad conscience !
Ah, man, that poor diving-dress of self-conceit is
sadly tattered ! To-day, if ye will hear my voice.

136

THE EBB TIDE.

To-day, now, while the sun sets, and here in this
burying-place of brown innocents, fall on your
knees and cast your sins and sorrows on the
Redeemer. Hay — "

" Not Hay ! " interrupted the other, strangling.
" Don't call me that ! I mean — For God's sake,
can't you see I 'm on the rack ? "

" I see it ; I know it ; I put and keep you there ;
my fingers are on the screws," said Attwater.
" Please God, I will bring a penitent this night
before His throne. Come, come to the mercy
seat ! He waits to be gracious, man, — waits to
be gracious ! "

He spread out his arms like a crucifix ; his face
shone with the brightness of a seraph's; in his
voice, as it rose to the last word, the tears seemed
ready.

Herrick made a vigorous call upon himself.
"Attwater," he said, "you push me beyond bear-
ing. What am I to do ? I do not believe. It is
living truth to you; to me, upon my conscience,
only folk-lore. I do not believe there is any form
of words under heaven by which I can lift the
burthen from my shoulders. I must stagger on to
the end with the pack of my responsibility ; I can-
not shift it. Do you suppose I would not, if I
thought I could ? I cannot — cannot — cannot —
and let that suffice ! "

The rapture was all gone from Attwater's coun-
tenance ; the dark apostle had disappeared, and in
his place there stood an easy, sneering gentleman,

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

137

who took off his hat and bowed. It was pertly
done, and the blood burned in Herrick's face.

u What do you mean by that ? " he cried.

"Well, shall we go back to the house?" said
Attwater. " Our guests will soon be due."

Herrick stood his ground a moment, with clenched
fists and teeth ; and as he so stood, the fact of his
errand there slowly swung clear in front of him, like
the moon out of clouds. He had come to lure that
man on board; he was failing, even if it could be
said that he had tried ; he was sure to fail now, and
knew it, and knew it was better so. And what was
to be next ?

With a groan he turned to follow his host, who
was standing with a polite smile, and instantly, and
somewhat obsequiously, led the way into the now
darkened colonnade of palms. There they went in
silence; the earth gave up richly of her perfume,
the air tasted warm and aromatic in the nostrils,
and, from a great way forward in the wood, the
brightness of lights and fire marked out the house
of Attwater.

Herrick meanwhile revolved and resisted an im-
mense temptation, to go up, to touch him on the
arm, and breathe a word in his ear : " Beware, they
are going to murder you." There would be one
life saved ; but what of the two others ? The
three lives went up and down before him like
buckets in a well, or like the scales of balances.
It had come to a choice, and one that must be
speedy. For certain invaluable minutes the wheels

133

THE EBB TIDE.

of life ran before him, and he could still divert them
with a touch to the one side or the other ; still
choose who was to live and who was to die. He
considered the men. Attwater intrigued, puzzled,
dazzled, enchanted, and revolted him. Alive, he
seemed but a doubtful good; and the thought
of him lying dead was so unwelcome that it pur-
sued him, like a vision, with every circumstance of
color and sound. Incessantly he had before him
the image of that great mass of man, stricken down,
in varying attitudes and with varying wounds, —
fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his side, or
clinging to a doorpost, with the changing face and
the relaxing fingers of the death agony. He heard
the click of the trigger, the thud of the ball, the cry
of the victim; he saw the blood flow. And this
building-up of circumstance was like a consecra-
tion of the man, till he seemed to walk in sacrificial
fillets. Next he considered Davis, with his thick-
fingered, coarse-grained, oat-bread commonness of
nature ; his indomitable valor and mirth in the old
days of their starvation ; the endearing blend of his
faults and virtues ; the sudden shining forth of a
tenderness that lay too deep for tears ; his chil-
dren, — Ada and her bowel complaint, and Ada's
doll. No, death could not be suffered to ap-
proach that head, even in fancy. With a general
heat and a bracing of his muscles, it was
borne in on Herrick that Ada's father would
find in him a son to the death. And even Huish
shared a little in that sacredness ; by the tacit

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE. 1 39

adoption of daily life they were become brothers ;
there was an implied bond of loyalty in their co-
habitation of the ship and of their past miseries, to
which Herrick must be a little true or wholly dis-
honored. Horror of sudden death for horror of
sudden death, there was here no hesitation pos-
sible : it must be Attwater. And no sooner was
the thought formed (which was a sentence) than
the whole mind of the man ran in a panic to the
other side ; and when he looked within himself,
he was aware only of turbulence and inarticulate
outcry.

In all this there was no thought of Robert Her-
rick. He had complied with the ebb-tide in man's
affairs, and the tide had carried him away ; he
heard already the roaring of the maelstrom that
must hurry him under. And in his bedevilled and
dishonored soul there was no thought of self.

For how long he walked silent by his companion,
Herrick had no guess. The clouds rolled suddenly
away ; the orgasm was over ; he found himself
placid with the placidity of despair ; there returned
to him the power of commonplace speech : and he
heard with surprise his own voice say : " What a
lovely evening ! "

" Is it not? " said Attwater. u Yes, the evenings
here would be very pleasant if one had anything to
do. By day, of course, one can shoot."

"You shoot?" asked Herrick.

" Yes, I am what you would call a fine shot,"
said Attwater. "It is faith; I believe my balls

140

THE EBB TIDE.

will go true ; if I were to miss once, it would spoil

me for nine months."

" You never miss, then ? " said Herrick.

" Not unless I mean to," said Attwater. " But
to miss nicely is the art. There was an old king
one knew in the Western Islands, who used to
empty a Winchester all round a man, and stir his
hair or nick a rag out of his clothes with every ball
except the last ; and that went plump between the
eyes. It was pretty practice."

" You could do that ? " asked Herrick, with a
sudden chill.

" Oh, I can do anything," returned the other.
" You do not understand; what must be, must."

They were now come near to the back part of
the house. One of the men was engaged about
the cooking-fire, which burned with the clear,
fierce, essential radiance of cocoanut shells. A
fragrance of strange meats was in the air. All
round in the verandas lamps were lighted, so that
the place shone abroad in the dusk of the trees
with many complicated patterns of shadow.

" Come and wash your hands," said Attwater,
and led the way into a clean, matted room with a
cot-bed, a safe, a shelf or two of books in a glazed
case, and an iron washing-stand. Presently he
cried in the native tongue, and there appeared for
a moment in the doorway a plump and pretty young
woman with a clean towel.

" Hullo ! " cried Herrick, who now saw for the
first time the fourth survivor of the pestilence, and

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

was startled by the recollection of the captain's
orders.

" Yes," said Attwater, " the whole colony lives
about the house, — what 's left of it. We are all
afraid of devils, if you please, and Taniera and she
sleep in the front parlor, and the other boy on the
veranda."

" She is pretty," said Herrick.

" Too pretty," said Attwater. " That was why I
had her married. A man never knows when he
may be inclined to be a fool about women : so
when we were left alone, I had the pair of them to
the chapel and performed the ceremony. She made
a lot of fuss. I do not take at all the romantic views
of marriage," he explained.

" And that strikes you as a safeguard ? " asked
Herrick, with amazement.

" Certainly. I am a plain man, and very literal.
Whom God hath joined together, are the words, I
fancy. So one married them, and respects the
marriage," said Attwater.

"Ah!" said Herrick.

"You see, I may look to make an excellent mar-
riage when I go home," began Attwater, confiden-
tially. " I am rich. This safe alone " — laying his
hand upon it — " will be a moderate fortune when
I have the time to place the pearls upon the mar-
ket. Here are ten years' accumulation from a
lagoon where I have had as many as ten divers
going all day long; and I went farther than people
usually do in these waters, for I rotted a lot of

I42

THE EBB TIDE.

shell, and did splendidly. Would you like to see
them ? "

This confirmation of the captain's guess hit
Herrick hard, and he contained himself with diffi-
culty. " No, thank you, I think not," said he. " I
do not care for pearls. I am very indifferent to all
these — "

" Gewgaws ? " suggested Attwater. " And yet I
believe you ought to cast an eye on my collection,
which is really unique, and which — Oh ! it is the
case with all of us and everything about us ! —
hangs by a hair. To-day it groweth up and flour-
isheth ; to-morrow it is cut down and cast into the
oven. To-day it is here and together in this safe :
to-morrow, to-night, it may be scattered. Thou
fool ! this night thy soul shall be required of thee."

" I do not understand you," said Herrick.

"Not?" said Attwater.

" You seem to speak in riddles," said Herrick,
unsteadily. " I do not understand what manner of
man you are, nor what you are driving at."

Attwater stood with his hands upon his hips,
and his head bent forward. " I am a fatalist," he
replied, M and just now (if you insist on it) an ex-
perimentalist. Talking of which, by the by, who
painted out the schooner's name ? " he said, with
mocking softness. "Because, do you know? one
thinks it should be done again. It can still be
partly read ; and whatever is worth doing, is surely
worth doing well. You think with me ? That is
so nice. Well, shall we step on the veranda? I

BETTER ACQUAINTANCE. 1 43

have a dry sherry that I would like your opinion
of."

Herrick followed him forth to where, under the
light of the hanging lamps, the table shone with
napery and crystal ; followed him as the criminal
goes with the hangman, or the sheep with the
butcher ; took the sherry mechanically, drank it,
and spoke mechanical words of praise. The object
of his terror had become suddenly inverted ; till
then he had seen Attwater trussed and gagged, a
helpless victim, and had longed to run in and save
him ; he saw him now tower up mysterious and
menacing, the angel of the Lord's wrath, armed
with knowledge, and threatening judgment. He
set down his glass again, and was surprised to see
it empty.

" You go always armed ? " he said, and the next
moment could have plucked his tongue out.

" Always," said Attwater. " I have been through
a mutiny here ; that was one of my incidents of
missionary life."

And just then the sound of voices reached them,
and looking forth from the veranda, they saw
Huish and the captain drawing near.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DINNER-PARTY.

ThEY sat down to an island dinner remarkable
for its variety and excellence ; turtle soup and
steak, fish, fowls, a sucking-pig, a cocoanut salad,
and sprouting cocoanut roasted for dessert. Not a
tin had been opened; and save for the oil and
vinegar in the salad, and some green spears of
onion which Attwater cultivated and plucked with
his own hand, not even the condiments were Euro-
pean. Sherry, hock, and claret succeeded each
other, and the 1 Farallone 1 champagne brought up
the rear with the dessert.

It was plain that, like so many of the extremely
religious in the days before teetotalism, Attwater
had a dash of the epicure. For such characters it
is softening to eat well ; doubly so to have designed
and had prepared an excellent meal for others ;
and the manners of their host were agreeably molli-
fied in consequence. A cat of huge growth sat on
his shoulder purring, and occasionally, with a deft
paw, captured a morsel in the air. To a cat he
might be likened himself, as he lolled at the head
of his table, dealing out attentions and innuen-

THE DINNER-PARTY.

145

does, and using the velvet and the claw indiffer-
ently. And both Huish and the captain fell pro-
gressively under the charm of his hospitable
freedom.

Over the third guest, the incidents of the dinner
may be said to have passed for long unheeded.
Herrick accepted all that was offered him, ate and
drank without tasting, and heard without compre-
hension. His mind was singly occupied in con-
templating the horror of the circumstance in which
he sat. What Attwater knew, what the captain
designed, from which side treachery was to be first
expected, these were the ground of his thoughts.
There were times when he longed to throw down
the table and flee into the night. And even that
was debarred him. To do anything, to say any-
thing, to move at all, were only to precipitate the
barbarous tragedy ; and he sat spellbound, eating
with white lips. Two of his companions observed
him narrowly; Attwater with raking, side-long
glances that did not interrupt his talk, the captain
with a heavy and anxious consideration.

" Well, I must say this sherry is a really prime
article," said Huish. " 'Ow much does it stand
you in, if it 's a fair question ? "

" A hundred and twelve shillings in London, and
the freight to Valparaiso and on again," said Att-
water. " It strikes one as really not a bad fluid."

" A 'undred and twelve ! 99 murmured the clerk,
relishing the wine and the figures in a common
ecstasy. " Oh my ! "

10

146

THE EBB TIDE.

"So glad you like it," said Attwater. "Help
yourself, Mr. Whish, and keep the bottle by you."

" My friend's name is Huish and not Whish,
sir," said the captain, with a flush.

" I beg your pardon, I am sure. Huish and not
Whish — certainly," said Attwater. " I was about
to say that I have still eight dozen," he added, fix-
ing the captain with his eye.

" Eight dozen what ? " said Davis.

" Sherry," was the reply. " Eight dozen excel-
lent sherry. Why, it seems almost worth it in it-
self, to a man fond of wine."

The ambiguous words struck home to guilty con-
sciences, and Huish and the captain sat up in their
places and regarded him with a scare.

" Worth what ? ' said Davis.

" A hundred and twelve shillings," replied Att-
water.

The captain breathed hard for a moment. He
reached out far and wide to find any coherency in
these remarks ; then, with a great effort, changed
the subject.

" I allow we are about the first white men upon
this island, sir," said he.

Attwater followed him at once, and with entire
gravity, to the new ground. " Myself and Dr. Sy-
monds excepted, I should say the only ones," he
returned. " And yet who can tell ? In the course
of the ages some one may have lived here, and we
sometimes think that some one must. The cocoa
palms grow all round the island, which is scarce

THE DINNER-PARTY.

147

like Nature's planting. We found, besides, when
we landed, an unmistakable cairn upon the beach ;
use unknown, but probably erected in the hope of
gratifying some mumbo-jumbo whose very name is
forgotten, by some thick-witted gentry whose very
bones are lost. Then the island (witness the * Di-
rectory ') has been twice reported ; and since my
tenancy we have had two wrecks, both derelict.
The rest is conjecture."

h " Dr. Symonds is your partner, I guess ? " said
Davis.

" A dear fellow, Symonds ! How he would regret
it, if he knew you had been here," said Attwater.

" 'E 's on the 1 Trinity 'All,' ain't he ? " asked
Huish.

"JAnd if you could tell me where the 1 Trinity
'AH ' was, you would confer a favor, Mr. Whish ! "
was the reply.

" I suppose she has a native crew ? " said Davis.

" Since the secret has been kept ten years, one
would suppose she had," replied Attwater.

" Well, now, see 'ere ! " said Huish. " You
have everything about you in no end style, and no
mistake, but I tell you it would n't do for me. Too
much of 1 the old rustic bridge by the mill ; ' too
retired by 'alf. Give me the sound of Bow Bells ! "

" You must not think it was always so," replied
Attwater. " This was once a busy shore, although
now, hark ! you can hear the solitude. I find it
stimulating. And talking of the sound of bells,
kindly follow a little experiment of mine in silence."

148

THE EBB TIDE.

There was a silver bell at his right hand to call the
servants ; he made them a sign to stand still, struck
the bell with force, and leaned eagerly forward.
The note rose clear and strong ; it rang out clear
and far into the night and over the deserted island ;
it died into the distance until there only lingered
in the porches of the ear a vibration that was
sound no longer. " Empty houses, empty sea, soli-
tary beaches ! " said Attwater. " And yet God
hears the bell ! And yet we sit in this veranda,
on a lighted stage, with all heaven for spectators !
And you call that solitude ? "

There followed a bar of silence, during which
the captain sat mesmerized.

Then Attwater laughed softly. " These are the
diversions of a lonely man," he resumed, " and
possibly not in "good taste. One tells one's self
these little fairy tales for company. If there should
happen to be anything in folk-lore, Mr. Hay? But
here comes the claret. One does not offer you
Lafitte, captain, because I believe it is all sold to
the railroad dining-cars in your great country :
but this Brane-mouton is of a good year, and Mr.
Whish will give me news of it."

" That 's a queer idea of yours ! " cried the cap-
tain, bursting with a sigh from the spell that had
bound him. " So you mean to tell me, now, that
you sit here evenings and ring up G — well, ring
on the angels — by yourself ? "

" As a matter of historic fact, and since you put
it directly, one does not," said Attwater. " Why

THE DINNER-PARTY.

149

ring a bell, when there flows out from one's self
and everything about one a far more momentous
silence ? The least beat of my heart, and the least
thought in my mind, echoing into eternity forever
and forever and forever."

" Oh, look 'ere," said Huish, " turn down the
lights at once, and the Band of 'Ope will oblige !
This ain't a spiritual stance."

" No folk-lore about Mr. Whish — I beg your
pardon, captain ; Huish, not Whish, of course,"
said Attwater.

As the boy was filling Huish's glass, the bottle
escaped from his hand and was shattered, and the
wine spilt on the veranda floor. Instant grimness
as of death appeared in the face of Attwater ; he
smote the bell imperiously, and the two brown
natives fell into the attitude of attention, and stood
mute and trembling. There was a moment of silence
and hard looks ; then followed a few savage words
in the native ; and, upon a gesture of dismissal, the
service proceeded as before.

None of the party had as yet observed upon the
excellent bearing of the two men. They were
dark, undersized, and well set up ; stepped softly,
waited deftly, brought on the wines and dishes at
a look, and their eyes attended studiously on their
master.

" Where do you get your labor from, anyway ? "
asked Davis.

" Ah, where not ? " answered Attwater.

" Not much of a soft job, I suppose ? " said the
captain.

THE EBB TIDE.

" If you will tell me where getting labor is," said
Attwater, with a shrug. " And, of course, in our
case, as we could name no destination, we had to
go far and wide, and do the best we could. We
have gone as far west as the Kingsmills, and as far
south as Rapa-iti. Pity Symonds isn't here ! He
is full of yarns. That was his part, to collect them.
Then began mine, which was the educational."

"You mean to run them ? " said Davis.

"Ay, to run them," said Attwater.

"Wait a bit," said Davis, " I 'm out of my depth.
How was this? Do you mean to say you did it
single-handed?"

" One did it single-handed," said Attwater, " be-
cause there was nobody to help one."

" By God, but you must be a holy terror ! " cried
the captain, in a glow of admiration.

" One does one's best," said Attwater.

" Well, now ! " said Davis, " I have seen a lot
of driving in my time, and been counted a good
driver myself ; I fought my way, third mate, round
the Cape Horn with a push of packet-rats that
would have turned the Devil out of hell and shut
the door on him ; and, I tell you, this racket of
Mr. Attwater's takes the cake. In a ship, — why,
there ain't nothing to it ! You Ve got the law with
you, that 's what does it. But put me down on
this blame' beach, alone, with nothing but a whip
and a mouthful of bad words, and ask me to — no,
sir ! it 's not good enough ! I have n't got the
sand for that!" cried Davis. "It's the law be-

THE DINNER-PART V.

hind," he added ; " it 's the law does it, every
time ! "

" The beak ain't as black as he 's sometimes
pynted," observed Huish, humorously.

" Well, one got the law after a fashion," said
Attwater. " One had to be a number of things.
It was sometimes rather a bore."

" I should smile ! " said Davis. " Rather lively,
I should think."

" I dare say we mean the same thing," said Att-
water. " However, one way or another, one got it
knocked into their heads that they must work, and
they did — until the Lord took them."

" 'Ope you made 'em jump," said Huish.

"When it was necessary, Mr. Whish, I made
them jump," said Attwater.

" You bet you did ! " cried the captain. He was
a good deal flushed, but not so much with wine as
admiration ; and his eyes drank in the huge pro-
portions of the other with delight. " You bet you
did, and you bet that I can see you doing it. By
God, you 're a man ; and you can say I said
so!"

" Too good of you, I 'm sure," said Attwater.

"Did you — did you ever have crime here?"
asked Herrick, breaking his silence with a plan-
gent voice.

" Yes," said Attwater, " we did."

"And how did you handle that, sir?" cried the
eager captain.

" Well, you see, it was a queer case," replied

152

THE EBB TIDE.

Attwater. " It was a case that would have puzzled
Solomon. Shall I tell it you ? Yes ? "

The captain rapturously accepted.

" Well," drawled Attwater, "here is what it was.
I dare say you know two types of natives, which
may be called the obsequious and the sullen ?
Well, one had them, — the types themselves, — de-
tected in the fact ; and one had them together.
Obsequiousness ran out of the first, like wine out
of a bottle ; sullenness congested in the second.
Obsequiousness was all smiles ; he ran to catch
your eye ; he loved to gabble ; and he had about a
dozen words of beach English, and an eighth of an
inch veneer of Christianity. Sullens was industri-
ous ; a big, down-looking bee. When he was
spoken to, he answered with a black look and a
shrug of one shoulder, but the thing would be
done. I don't give him to you for a model of man-
ners ; there was nothing showy about Sullens,
but he was strong and steady, and ungraciously
obedient. Now. Sullens got into trouble; no mat-
ter how ; the regulations of the place were broken,
and he was punished accordingly — without effect.
So the next day, and the next, and the day after, till
I began to be wean- of the business, and Sullens
(I am afraid) particularly so. There came a day
when he was in fault again, for perhaps the thirtieth
time ; and he rolled a dull eye upon me, with a
spark in it and appeared to be about to speak.
Now, the regulations of the place are formal upon
one point: we allow no explanations. None are

THE DINNER-PARTY.

153

received, none allowed to be offered. So one
stopped him instantly, but made a note of the
circumstance. The next day he was gone from
the settlement. There could be nothing more
annoying ; if the labor took to running away, the
fishery was wrecked. There are sixty miles of
this island, you see, all in length, like the Queen's
Highway ; the idea of pursuit in such a place was
a piece of single-minded childishness, which one
did not entertain. Two days later I made a dis-
covery. It came in upon me with a flash that
Sullens had been unjustly punished from beginning
to end, and the real culprit throughout had been
Obsequiousness. The native who talks, like the
woman who hesitates, is lost. You set him talking
and lying, and he talks and lies, and watches your
face to see if he has pleased you, till at last out
comes the truth ! It came out of Obsequiousness
in the regular course. I said nothing to him ; I
dismissed him ; and, late as it was, for it was already
night, set off to look for Sullens. I had not far to
go; about two hundred yards up the island the
moon showed him to me. He was hanging in a
cocoa palm — I 'm not botanist enough to tell you
how — but it's the way, in nine cases out often,
these natives commit suicide. His tongue was out,
poor devil, and the birds had got at him. I spare
you details ; he was an ugly sight ! I gave the
business six good hours of thinking in this veranda.
My justice had been made a fool of. I don't sup-
pose that I was ever angrier. Next day I had the

154

THE EBB TIDE.

conch sounded and all hands out before sunrise.
One took one's gun and led the way with Obse-
quiousness. He was very talkative ; the beggar
supposed that all was right, now he had confessed.
In the old schoolboy phrase, he was plainly buck-
ing up ' to me ; full of protestations of good will
and good behavior, to which one answered one
really can't remember what. Presently the tree
came in sight, and the hanged man. They all
burst out lamenting for their comrade in the island
way, and Obsequiousness was the loudest of the
mourners. He was quite genuine ; a noxious
creature, without any consciousness of guilt.
Well, presently — to make a long story short —
one told him to go up the tree. He stared a
bit, looked at one with a trouble in his eye, and
had rather a sickly smile, but went. He was
obedient to the last ; he had all the pretty virtues,
but the truth was not in him. So soon as he was
up, he looked down, and there was the rifle cover-
ing him; and at that he gave a whimper like a dog.
You could hear a pin drop ; no more keening now.
There they all crouched upon the ground with
bulging eyes; there was he in the tree-top, the
color of lead ; and between was the dead man,
dancing a bit in the air. He was obedient to
the last, recited his crime, recommended his soul
to God. And then—"

Attwater paused, and Herrick, who had been
listening attentively, made a convulsive movement
which upset his glass.

THE DINNER-PARTY.

155

" And then ? " said the breathless captain.
" Shot," said Attwater. " They came to ground
together."

Herrick sprang to his feet with a shriek and an
insensate gesture.

"It was a murder," he screamed. "A cold-
hearted, bloody-minded murder! You monstrous
being ! Murderer and hypocrite ! Murderer and
hypocrite ! Murderer and hypocrite ! " he repeated,
and his tongue stumbled among the words.

The captain was by him in a moment. " Her-
rick ! " he cried, "behave yourself! Here, don't
be a blame' fool ! "

Herrick struggled in his embrace like a frantic
child, and suddenly bowing his face in his hands,
choked into a sob, the first of many, which now
convulsed his body silently, and now jerked from
him indescribable and meaningless sounds.

"Your friend appears over-excited," remarked
Attwater, sitting unmoved, but all alert, at table.

" It must be the wine," replied the captain.
" He ain't no drinking man, you see. I — I think
I '11 take him away. A walk '11 sober him up, I
guess."

He led him without resistance out of the veranda
and into the night, in which they soon melted; but
still for some time, as they drew away, his comfort-
able voice was to be heard soothing and remon-
strating, and Herrick answering, at intervals, with
the mechanical noises of hysteria.

" 'E 's like a bloomin' poultry yard," observed

THE EBB TIDE.

Huish, helping himself to wine (of which he spilled
a good deal) with gentlemanly ease. "A man
should learn to beyave at table," he added.

" Rather bad form, is it not ? " said Attwater.
" Well, well, we are left tete-a-tete. A glass of
wine with you, Mr. Whish ! "

CHAPTER X.

THE OPEN DOOR.

The captain and Herrick meanwhile turned
their backs upon the lights in Attwater's veranda,
and took a direction towards the pier and the
beach of the lagoon.

The isle, at this hour, with its smooth floor of
sand, the pillared roof overhead, and the prevalent
illumination of the lamps, wore an air of unreality,
like a deserted theatre or a public garden at mid-
night. A man looked about him for the statues
and tables. Not the least air of wind was stirring
among the palms, and the silence was emphasized
by the continuous clamor of the surf from the sea-
shore, as it might be of traffic in the next street.

Still talking, still soothing him, the captain hur-
ried his patient on, brought him at last to the
lagoon side, and, leading him down the beach,
laved his head and face with the tepid water. The
paroxysm gradually subsided, the sobs became less
convulsive, and then ceased. By an odd but not
quite unnatural conjunction, the captain's soothing
current of talk died away at the same time, and by
proportional steps, and the pair remained sunk in

THE EBB TIDE.

silence. The lagoon broke at their feet in petty
wavelets, and with a sound as delicate as a whis-
per ; stars of all degrees looked down on their own
images in the vast mirror ; and the more angry-
color of the ' Farallone's ' riding-lamp burned in the
middle distance. For long they continued to gaze
on the scene before them, and hearken anxiously
to the rustle and tinkle of that miniature surf, or
the more distant and loud reverberations from the
outer coast. For long, speech was denied them ;
and when the words came at last, they came to
both simultaneously.

" Say, Herrick — " the captain was beginning.

But Herrick, turning swiftly towards his com-
panion, beat him down with the eager cry : " Let 's
up anchor, captain, and to sea ! "

" Where to, my son ? " said the captain. " Up
anchor 's easy saying. But where to ? "

u To sea," responded Herrick. " The sea 's big
enough ! To sea, away from this dreadful island
and that — oh — that sinister man ! "

" Oh, we '11 see about that ! " said Davis. "You
brace up, and we '11 see about that. You 're all
run down, that 's what 's wrong with you. You 're
all nerves like Jemimar. You 've got to brace up
good, and be yourself again, and then we '11 talk."

"To sea," reiterated Herrick; "to sea to-night
— now — this moment ! "

" It can't be, my son," replied the captain firmly.
" No ship of mine puts to sea without provisions ;
you can take that for settled."

THE OPEN DOOR.

'59

" You don't seem to understand," said Herrick.
" The whole thing is over, I tell you. There is
nothing to do here, when he knows all. That
man there with the cat knows all. Can't you take
it in?"

u All what? " asked the captain, visibly discom-
posed. " Why, he received us like a perfect gen-
tleman, and treated us real handsome until you
began with your foolery; and I must say I've
seen men shot for less, and nobody sorry ! What
more do you expect, anyway ? "

Herrick rocked to and fro upon the sand, shak-
ing his head.

"Guying us," he said. "He was guying us —
only guying us ; it 's all we 're good for."

" There was one queer thing, to be sure," ad-
mitted the captain, with a misgiving of the voice ;
"that about the sherry. D — d if I caught on to
that. Say, Herrick, you did n't give me away ? "

" Oh ! give you away ! " repeated Herrick with
weary, querulous scorn. "What was there to
give away ? We 're transparent ; we 've got rascal
branded on us ; detected rascal — detected rascal !
Why, before he came on board, there was the name
painted out, and he saw the whole thing. He
made sure we would kill him there and then, and
stood guying you and Huish on the chance. He
calls that being frightened ! Next he had me
ashore ; a fine time I had ! The two wolves, he
calls you and Huish. What is the P^Ppy doing
with the two wolves? he asked. He showed me

i6o

THE EBB TIDE.

his pearls; he said they might be dispersed before
morning, and all hung by a hair — and smiled as
he said it ; such a smile! Oh, it's no use, I tell
you ! He knows all ; he sees through all. We
only make him laugh with our pretences — he looks
at us, and laughs like God ! "

There was a silence. Davis stood with con-
torted brows, gazing into the night.

" The pearls ? " he said suddenly. " He showed
them to you ? He has them ? "

" No, he did n't show them. I forgot ; only the
safe they were in," said Herrick. " But you '11
never get them ! "

" I Ve two words to say to that," said the captain.

" Do you think he would have been so easy at
table unless he was prepared ? " cried Herrick.
" The servants were both armed. He was armed
himself ; he always is, he told me. You will never
deceive his vigilance. Davis, I know it! It's all
up, I tell you, and keep telling you, and proving it.
All up ; all up ! There 's nothing for it, there 's
nothing to be done. All gone — life, honor, love.
O my God ! my God ! why was I born ? "

Another pause followed upon this outburst.

The captain put his hands to his brow.

" Another thing ! " he broke out. " Why did he
tell you all this? Seems like madness to me."

Herrick shook his head with gloomy iteration
"You wouldn't understand if I were to tell you,"
said he.

" I guess I can understand any blame' thing
that you can tell me," said the captain.

THE OPEN DOOR.

161

" Well, then, he's a fatalist," said Herrick.

" What 's that — a fatalist ? " said Davis.

" Oh, it 's a fellow that believes a lot of things,"
said Herrick. " Believes that his bullets go true ;
believes that all falls out as God chooses, do as
you like to prevent it ; and all that."

" Why, I guess I believe right so myself," said
Davis.

"You do ? " said Herrick.

" You bet I do ! " said Davis.

Herrick shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you
must be a fool," said he, and he leaned his head
upon his knees.

The captain stood biting his hands.

" There 's one thing sure," he said at last. " I
must get Huish out of that. He's not fit to hold
his end up with a man like you describe."

And he turned to go away. The words had
been quite simple ; not so the tone, and the other
was quick to catch it.

" Davis ! " he cried, " no ! Don't do it ! Spare
me, and don't do it ! Spare yourself, and leave it
alone — for God's sake ! for your children's sake ! "

His voice rose to a passionate shrillness ; another
moment, and he might be overheard by their not
distant victim. But Davis turned on him with a
savage oath and gesture ; and the miserable young
man rolled over on his face on the sand, and lay
speechless and helpless.

The captain meanwhile set out rapidly for
Attwater's house. As he went, he considered
ii

THE EBB TIDE.

with himself eagerly, his thoughts racing. The
man had understood ; he had mocked them from
the beginning. He would teach him to make a
mockery of John Davis ! Herrick thought him a
god. Give him a second to aim in, and the god
was overthrown. He chuckled as he felt the butt
of his revolver. It should be done now, as he went
in. From behind ? It was difficult to get there.
From across the table ? No ; the captain preferred
to shoot standing, so as you could be sure to get
you hand upon your gun. The best would be to
summon Huish, and when Attwater stood up
and turned — ah, then would be the moment !
Wrapped in this ardent prefiguration of events,
the captain posted towards the house with his
head down.

" Hands up ! Halt ! " cried the voice of Attwater.

And the captain, before he knew what he was
doing, had obeyed. The surprise was complete
and irremediable. Coming on the top crest of his
murderous intentions, he had walked straight
into an ambuscade, and now stood, with his hands
impotently lifted, staring at the veranda.

The party was now broken up. Attwater leaned
on a post, and kept Davis covered with a Winches-
ter. One of the servants was hard by, with a sec-
ond at the port arms, leaning a little forward,
round-eyed with eager expectancy. In the open
space at the head of the stair, Huish was partly
supported by the other native, his face wreathed in
meaningless smiles, his mind seemingly sunk in the
contemplation of an unlighted cigar.

THE OPEN DOOR.

" Well," said Attwater, " you seem to me to be
a very twopenny pirate ! "

The captain uttered a sound in his throat for
which we have no name ; rage choked him.

" I 'm going to give you Mr. Whish — or the
wine-sop that remains of him," continued Attwater.
" He talks a great deal when he drinks, Captain
Davis of the * Sea Ranger.' But I have quite
done with him, and return the article with thanks.
Now," he cried sharply, " another false movement
like that, and your family will have to deplore the
loss of an invaluable parent ; keep strictly still,
Davis."

Attwater said a word in the native, his eye still
undeviatingly fixed on the captain, and the servant
thrust Huish smartly forward from the brink of
the stair. With an extraordinary simultaneous
dispersion of his members, that gentleman bounded
forth into space, struck the earth, ricochetted, and
brought up with his arms about a palm. His mind
was quite a stranger to these events. The ex-
pression of anguish that deformed his countenance
at the moment of the leap was probably mechani-
cal. And he suffered these convulsions in silence ;
clung to the tree like an infant ; and seemed, by
his dips, to suppose himself engaged in the pastime
of bobbing for apples. A more finely sympathetic
mind, or a more observant eye, might have re-
marked, a little in front of him on the sand, and
still quite beyond reach, the unlighted cigar.

" There is your Whitechapel carrion ! M said

164

THE EBB TIDE.

Attwater. u And now you might very well ask
me why I do not put a period to you at once, as
you deserve. I will tell you why, Davis. It is
because I have nothing to do with the 4 Sea
Ranger ' and the people you drowned, or the
' Farallone 1 and the champagne that you stole.
That is your account with God; He keeps it, and
He will settle it when the clock strikes. In my
own case, I have nothing to go on but suspicion ;
and I do not kill on suspicion, not even vermin like
you. But understand ; if ever I see any of you
again, it is another matter, and you shall eat a
bullet. And now take yourself off. March ! And
as you value what you call your life, keep your
hands up as you go ! "

The captain remained as he was, his hands up,
his mouth open, mesmerized with fury.

" March ! " said Attwater. " One, two, three ! "

And Davis turned and passed slowly away. But
even as he went, he was meditating a prompt,
offensive return. In the twinkling of an eye he
had leaped behind a tree, and was crouching there,
pistol in hand, peering from either side of his place
of ambush with bared teeth, a serpent already
poised to strike. And already he was too late.
Attwater and his servants had disappeared, and
only the lamps shone on the deserted table and
the bright sand about the house, and threw into
the night in all directions the strong and tall
shadows of the palms.

Davis ground his teeth. Where were they gone,

THE OPEN DOOR.

the cowards? To what hole had they retreated
beyond reach ? It was in vain he should try any-
thing — he, single, and with a second-hand revol-
ver, against three persons armed with Winchesters,
and who did not show an ear out of any of the
apertures of that lighted and silent house. Some
of them might have already ducked below it from
the rear, and be drawing a bead upon him at that
moment from the low-browed crypt, the receptacle
of empty bottles and broken crockery. No, there
was nothing to be done but to bring away (if it
were still possible) his shattered and demoralized
forces.

" Huish," he said, " come along."
" 's loss my ciga'," said Huish, reaching vaguely
forward.

The captain let out a rasping oath. " Come
right along here ! " said he.

" 's all righ'. Sleep here 'th Atty — Attwa. Go
boar' t'morr'," replied the festive one.

" If you don't come, and come now, by the living
God I '11 shoot you ! " cried the captain.

It is not to be supposed that the sense of these
words in any way penetrated to the mind of
Huish ; rather that, in a fresh attempt upon the
cigar, he over-balanced himself, and came flying
erratically forward, a course which brought him
within reach of Davis.

" Now you walk straight," said the captain,
clutching him, " or I '11 know why not."

" 's loss my ciga'," replied Huish.

THE EBB TIDE.

The captain's contained fury blazed up for a
moment. He twisted Huish round, grasped him by
the neck of the coat, ran him in front of him to the
pier end, and flung him savagely forward on his
face.

" Look for your cigar, then, you swine ! " said
he ; and blew his boat-call till the pea in it ceased
to rattle.

An immediate activity responded on board the
4 Farallone ; ' far away voices, and soon the sound
of oars, floated along the surface of the lagoon ;
and at the same time, from nearer hand, Herrick
aroused himself and strolled languidly up. He
bent over the insignificant figure of Huish, where
it grovelled, apparently insensible, at the base of
the figure-head.

" Dead?" he asked.

" No, he 's not dead," said Davis.

" And Attwater ? " asked Herrick.

" Now you just shut your head ! " replied Davis.
" You can do that, I fancy ; and by God, I '11 show
you how ! I '11 stand no more of your drivel."

They waited accordingly in silence till the boat
bumped on the farthest piers, then raised Huish,
head and heels, carried him down the gangway,
and flung him summarily in the bottom. On the
way out he was heard murmuring of the loss of his
cigar ; and after he had been handed up the side
like baggage, and cast down in the alleyway to
slumber, his last audible expression was : " Splen'l
fl' Attwa ! " This the expert construed into

THE OPEN DOOR.

11 Splendid fellow, Attwater ! " With so much
innocence had this great spirit issued from the
adventures of the evening.

The captain went and walked in the waist with
brief, irate turns; Herrick leaned his arms on the
taffrail ; the crew had all turned in. The ship had
a gentle, cradling motion ; at times a block piped
like a bird. On shore, through the colonnade of
palm stems, Attwater's house was to be seen shin-
ing steadily with many lamps. And there was
nothing else visible, whether in the heaven above
or in the lagoon below, but the stars and their
reflections. It might have been minutes or it
might have been hours that Herrick leaned there,
looking in the glorified water and drinking peace.
" A bath of stars," he was thinking, when a hand
was laid at last on his shoulder.

" Herrick," said the captain, " I Ve been walking
off my trouble."

A sharp jar passed through the young man, but
he neither answered nor so much as turned his
head.

" I guess I spoke a little rough to you on shore,"
pursued the captain. " The fact is, I was real
mad ; but now it 's over and you and me have to
turn to and think."

" I will not think," said Herrick.

" Here, old man," said Davis kindly, " this won't
fight, you know. You 've got to brace up and help
me get things straight. You're not going back
on a friend? That's not like you, Herrick."

THE EBB TIDE.

" Oh, yes, it is," said Herrick.

" Come, come ! " said the captain, and paused as
if quite at a loss. " Look here," he cried, " you
have a glass of champagne ; / won't touch it, so
that '11 show you if I 'm in earnest. But it 's just
the pick-me-up for you ; it '11 put an edge on you
at once."

"Oh, you leave me alone," said Herrick, and
turned away.

The captain caught him by the sleeve, and Her-
rick shook him off and turned on him, for the
moment, like a demoniac.

" Go to hell in your own way ! " he cried.

And he turned away again, this time unchecked,
and stepped forward to where the boat rocked
alongside, and ground occasionally against the
schooner. He looked about him ; a corner of the
house was interposed between the captain and
himself ; all was well ; no eye must see him in
that last act. He slid silently in the boat, thence
silently into the starry water. Instinctively he
swam a little ; it would be time enough to stop
by and by.

The shock of the immersion brightened his mind
immediately; the events of the ignoble day passed
before him in a frieze of pictures : and he thanked
ki whatever gods there be " for that open door of
suicide. In such a little while he would be done
with it, the random business at an end, the prodigal
son come home. A very bright planet shone before
him and drew a trenchant wake along the water.

THE OPEN DOOR.

169

He took that for his line and followed it ; that was
the last earthly thing that he should look upon ; that
radiant speck, which he had soon magnified into a
city of Laputa, along whose terraces there walked
men and women of awful and benignant features,
who viewed him with distant commiseration. These
imaginary spectators consoled him ; he told himself
their talk, one to another; it was of himself and his
sad destiny.

From such flights of fancy he was aroused by
the growing coldness of the water. Why should
he delay? Here, where he was now, let him drop
the curtain, let him seek the ineffable refuge, let
him lie down with all races and generations of men
in the house of sleep. It was easy to say, easy to
do. To stop swimming — there was no mystery in
that, if he could do it. Could he ? And he could
not. He knew it instantly. He was aware in-
stantly of an opposition in his members, unani-
mous and invincible, clinging to life with a single
and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by sinew ;
something that was at once he and not he; at once
within and without him; the shutting of some
miniature valve in his brain, which a single manly
thought should suffice to open ; and the grasp of
an external fate ineluctable as gravity. To any
man there may come at times a consciousness that
there blows through all the articulations of his
body the wind of a spirit not wholly his ; that his
mind rebels; that another girds him and carries
him whither he would not. It came now to Her-

170

THE EBB TIDE.

rick, with the authority of a revelation. There
was no escape possible. The open door was
closed in his recreant face. He must go back
into the world and amongst men without illusion.
He must stagger on to the end with the pack of
his responsibility and his disgrace, until a cold, a
blow, a merciful chance ball, or the more merciful
hangman, should dismiss him from his infamy.
There were men who could commit suicide : there
were men who could not; and he was one who
could not.

For perhaps a minute there raged in his mind
the coil of this discovery ; then cheerless certitude
followed, and, with an incredible simplicity of sub-
mission to ascertained fact, he turned round and
struck out for shore. There was a courage in this
which he could not appreciate, the ignobility of his
cowardice wholly occupying him. A strong cur-
rent set against him like a wind in his face; he
contended with it heavily, wearily, without enthu-
siasm, but with substantial advantage; marking
his progress the while, without pleasure, by the
outline of the trees. Once he had a moment of
hope. He heard to the southward of him, towards
the centre of the lagoon, the wallowing of some
great fish, doubtless a shark, and paused for a
little, treading water. Might not this be the hang-
man? he thought. But the wallowing died away;
mere silence succeeded; and Herrick pushed on
again for the shore, raging as he went at his own
nature. Ay, he would wait for the shark ; but if

THE OPEN DOOR.

171

he had heard him coming — His smile was tragic.
He could have spat upon himself.

About three in the morning, chance and the set
of the current, and the bias of his own right-handed
body, so decided it between them that he came to
shore upon the beach in front of Attwaters. There
he sat down, and looked forth into a world without
any of the lights of hope. The poor diving-dress
of self-conceit was sadly tattered. With the fairy
tale of suicide, of a refuge always open to him, he
had hitherto beguiled and supported himself in the
trials of life ; and behold ! that also was only a
fairy tale ; that also was folk-lore. With the con-
sequences of his acts he saw himself implacably
confronted for the duration of life, stretched upon
a cross, and nailed there with the iron bolts of his
own cowardice. He had no tears, he told himself
no stories. His disgust with himself was so com-
plete, that even the process of apologetic mythology
had ceased. He was like a man cast down from a
pillar and every bone broken ; he lay there, and ad-
mitted the facts, and did not attempt to rise.

Dawn began to break over the far side of the
atoll, the sky brightened, the clouds became dyed
with gorgeous colors, the shadows of the night
lifted. And suddenly Herrick was aware that
the lagoon and the trees wore again their day-
light livery ; and he saw, on board the 1 Faral-
lone,' Davis extinguishing the lantern, and smoke
rising from the galley.

Davis, without doubt, remarked and recognized

172

THE EBB TIDE.

the figure on the beach — or, perhaps, hesitated
to recognize it — for after he had gazed a long
while from under his hand, he went into the house
and fetched a glass. It was very powerful ; Her-
rick had often used it. With an instinct of shame,
he hid his face in his hands.

" And what brings you here, Mr. Herrick-Hay,
or Mr. Hay-Herrick? " asked the voice of Att-
water. " Your back view from my present posi-
tion is remarkably fine, and I would continue to
present it. We can get on very nicely as we are,
and if you were to turn round, do you know, I
think it would be awkward."

Herrick slowly rose to his feet ; his heart throbbed
hard ; a hideous excitement shook him, but he was
master of himself. Slowly he turned and faced
Attwater and the muzzle of a pointed rifle. " Why
could I not do that last night ? " he thought.

" Well, why don 't you fire ? " he said aloud, with
a voice that trembled.

Attwater slowly put his gun under his arm, then
his hands in his pockets.

" What brings you here ? " he repeated.

" I don't know," said Herrick ; and then, with a
cry, " Can you do anything with me ? "

" Are you armed ? " said Attwater. " I ask for
the form's sake."

" Armed ? No ! " said Herrick. " Oh, yes, I am,
too ! "

And he flung upon the beach a dripping pistol.
" You are wet," said Attwater.

THE OPEN DOOR.

173

"Yes, I am wet," said Herrick. "Can you do
anything with me?"

Attwater read his face attentively.

" It would depend a good deal upon what you
are," said he.

"What? I am a coward! " said Herrick.

" There is very little to be done with that," said
Attwater. " And yet the description hardly strikes
one as exhaustive."

"Oh! what does it matter?" cried Herrick.
" Here I am. I am broken crockery ; the whole of
my life is gone to water ; I have nothing left that
I believe in, except my living horror of myself.
Why do I come to you ? I don 't know. You are
cold, cruel, hateful ; and I hate you, or I think I
hate you. But you are an honest man, an honest
gentleman. I put myself helpless in your hands.
What must I do ? If I can't do anything, be mer-
ciful, and put a bullet through me; it's only a
puppy with a broken leg!"

" If I were you, I would pick up that pistol, come
up to the house, and put on some dry clothes," said
Attwater.

" If you really mean it ? " said Herrick. " You
know they — we — they — But you know all."

" I know quite enough," said Attwater. " Come
up to the house."

And the captain, from the deck of the 4 Faral-
lone,' saw the two men pass together under the
shadow of the grove.

CHAPTER XL

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

H UISH had bundled himself up from the
glare of the day, his face to the house, his knees
retracted ; the frail bones in the thin tropical
raiment seemed scarce more considerable than a
fowl's; and Davis, sitting on the rail, with his
arm about a stay, contemplated him with gloom,
w7ondering what manner of counsel that insignifi-
cant figure should contain. For since Herrick
had thrown him off and deserted to the enemy,
Huish, alone of mankind, remained to him to be
a helper and oracle.

He considered their position with a sinking
heart. The ship was a stolen ship ; the stores,
whether from initial carelessness or ill adminis-
tration during the voyage, were insufficient to
carry them to any port except back to Papeete ;
and there retribution waited in the shape of
a gendarme, a judge with a queer-shaped hat, and
the horror of distant Noumea. Upon that side
there wras no glimmer of hope. Here, at the
island, the dragon was roused ; Attwater with
his men and his Winchesters watched and pa-

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

175

trolled the house ; let him who dare approach it.
What else was then left but to sit there inac-
tive, pacing the decks, until the ' Trinity Hall '
arrived, and they were cast into irons, or until
the food came to an end, and the pangs of
famine succeeded ? For the ' Trinity Hall '
Davis was prepared. He would barricade the
house, and die there, defending it, like a rat in a
crevice. But for the other? The cruise of the
1 Farallone,' into which he had plunged, only a
fortnight before, with such golden expectations,
could this be the nightmare end of it, — the ship
rotting at anchor, the crew stumbling and dying
in the scuppers? It seemed as if any extreme
of hazard were to be preferred to so grisly a
certainty ; as if it would be better to up-anchor,
after all, put to sea at a venture, and perhaps
perish at the hands of cannibals on one of the
more obscure Paumotus. His eye roved swiftly
over sea and sky in quest of any promise of wind,
but the fountains of the Trade were empty.
Where it had run yesterday, and for weeks before,
a roaring blue river charioting clouds, silence now
reigned, and the whole height of the atmosphere
stood balanced. On the endless ribbon of island
that stretched out to either hand of him its array
of golden and green and silvery palms, not the
most volatile frond was to be seen stirring ; they
drooped to their stable images in the lagoon like
things carved of metal, and already their long line
began to reverberate heat. There was no escape

176

THE EBB TIDE.

possible that day, none probable on the morrow.
And still the stores were running out.

Then came over Davis, from deep down in the
roots of his being, or at least from far back
among his memories of childhood and innocence,
a wave of superstition. This run of ill luck was
something beyond natural ; the chances of the
game were in themselves more various ; it seemed
as if the devil must serve the pieces. The devil ?
He heard again the clear note of Attwater's bell
ringing abroad into the night, and dying away.
How, if God — ?

Briskly he averted his mind. Attwater — that
was the point. Attwater had food and a treasure
of pearls ; escape made possible in the present,
riches in the future. They must come to grips
with Attwater; the man must die. A smoky
heat went over his face as he recalled the impo-
tent figure he had made last night, and the con-
temptuous speeches he must bear in silence. Rage,
shame, and the love of life all pointed the one
way ; and only invention halted. How to reach
him ? Had he strength enough ? Was there any
help in that misbegotten packet of bones against
the house ?

His eyes dwelled upon him with a strange
avidity, as though he would read into his soul;
and presently the sleeper moved, stirred uneasily,
turned suddenly round, and threw him a blinking
look. Davis maintained the same dark stare, and
Huish looked away again and sat up.

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

177

" Lord, I Ve an 'eadache on me ! " said he. " I
believe I was a bit swipey last night. Were 's
that cry-byby, 'Errick ? "

" Gone,11 said the captain.

"Ashore?" cried Huish. "Oh, I say, I'd 'a'
gone, too."

" Would you ? " said the captain.

" Yes, I would," replied Huish. " I like Att-
water ; 'e 's all right ; we got on like one o'clock
when you were gone. And ain't his sherry in it,
rather ? It 's like Spiers and Pond's Amontillado !
I wish I 'ad a drain of it now," he sighed.

" Well, you '11 never get no more of it, that 's
one thing," said Davis, gravely.

" 'Ere ! wot 's wrong with you, Dyvis ? Coppers
'ot? Well, look at me/ I ain't grumpy," said
Huish. " I 'm as plyful as a canyry-bird, I am."

" Yes," said Davis, " you 're playful, I own that ;
and you were playful last night, I believe, and a
damned fine performance you made of it."

"'Alio!" said Huish. "'Ow's this? Wot
performance ? "

" Wrell, I '11 tell you," said the captain, getting
slowly off the rail.

And he did, at full length, with every wounding
epithet and absurd detail repeated and empha-
sized ; he had his own vanity and Huish's upon
the grill and roasted them ; and as he spoke he in-
flicted and endured agonies of humiliation. It was
a plain man's master-piece of the sardonic.

M What do you think of it ? " said he, when he
12

178

THE EBB TIDE.

had done, and looked down at Huish, flushed and
serious, and yet jeering.

" I '11 tell you wot it is," was the reply, "you and
me cut a pretty dicky figure."

" That 's so," said Davis ; " a pretty measly
figure, by God ! And, by God ! I want to see that
man at my knees."

" Ah ! " said Huish. " 'Ow to get him there ? "

" That 's it ! " cried Davis. M How to get hold to
him ! They 're four to two, though there 's only
one man among them to count, and that's Att-
water. Get a bead on Attwater, and the others
would cut and run and sing out like frightened
poultry, and old man Herrick would come round
with his hat for a share of the pearls. No, sir !
It 's how to get hold of Attwater ! And we dare n't
even go ashore. He would shoot us in the boat
like dogs."

" Are you particular about having him dead or
alive ? " asked Huish.

rt I want to see him dead," said the captain.
Ah, well," said Huish. " Then I believe I '11
do a bit of breakfast."

And he turned into the house.

The captain doggedly followed him.

" What 's this ? " he asked. " What 's your idea,
anyway? M

" Oh, you let me alone, will you? " said Huish,
opening a bottle of champagne. "You'll 'ear my
idea soon enough. Wyte till I pour some cham on
my 'ot coppers." He drank a glass off, and affected

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

179

to listen. " 'Ark ! " said he, " 'ear it fizz. Like
'am fryin', I declare. 'Ave a glass, do, and look
sociable."

" No," said the captain, with emphasis. " No, I
will not. There 's business."

" You p'ys your money and you tykes your
choice, my little man," returned Huish. " Seems
rather a shyme to me to spoil your breakfast for
wot 's really ancient 'istory."

He finished three parts of a bottle of champagne
and nibbled a corner of biscuit with extreme de-
liberation, the captain sitting opposite and champ-
ing the bit like an impatient horse. Then Huish
leaned his arms on the table and looked Davis in
the face.

" W 'en you 're ready," said he.

"Well, now, what'§ your idea?" said Davis,
with a sigh.

" Fair play ! " said Huish. " What 's yours ? "

w The trouble is that I 've got none," replied
Davis ; and wandered for some time in aimless
discussion of the difficulties in their path, and
useless explanations of his own fiasco.

" About done ? " said Huish.

" I '11 dry up right here," replied Davis.

"Well, then," said Huish, "you give me your
'and across the table, and say : 1 Gawd strike me
dead if I don't back you up.' "

His voice was hardly raised, yet it thrilled the
hearer. His face seemed the epitome of cunning,
and the captain recoiled from it as from a blow.

THE EBB TIDE.

" What for ? " said he.

" Luck," said Huish. " Substantial guarantee
demanded."

And he continued to hold out his hand.

" 1 don't see the good of any such tomfoolery,"
said the other.

" I do, though," returned Huish. "Gimme
your 'and and say the words, then you '11 'ear my
view of it. Don't, and you don't."

The captain went through the required form,
breathing short, and gazing on the clerk with an-
guish. What to fear he knew not ; yet he feared
slavishly what was to fall from these pale lips.

" Now, if you '11 excuse me 'alf a second," said
Huish, " I '11 go and fetch the byby."

" The baby ? " said Davis. " What 's that ? "

" Fragile. With care. This side up," replied
the clerk, with a wink, as he disappeared.

He returned, smiling to himself, and carrying in
his hand a silk handkerchief. The long, stupid
wrinkles ran up Davis's brow as he saw it. What
should it contain? He could think of nothing
more recondite than a revolver.

Huish resumed his seat.

" Now," said he, " are you man enough to take
charge of 'Errick and the niggers ? Because I '11
take care of Hattwater."

" How ? " cried Davis. " You can't ! "

"Tut, tut," said the clerk. "You gimme time.
Wot's the first point? The first point is, that we
can't get ashore ; and I '11 make you a present of

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

181

that for a 'ard one. But 'ow about a flag of truce ?
Would that do the trick, d 'ye think, or would
Attwater simply blyze aw'y at us in the bloomin'
boat like dawgs ? "

" No," said Davis, " I don't believe he would."

41 No more do I," said Huish. " I don't believe
he would, either; and I'm sure I 'ope he won't.
So then you can call us ashore. Next point is to
get near the managin' direction. And for that I 'm
going to 'ave you write a letter, in w'ich you s'y
you're ashymed to meet his eye, and that the
bearer, Mr. J. L. 'Uish, is empowered to represent
you ; armed with w'ich seemin'ly simple expedient,
Mr. J. L. 'Uish will proceed to business."

He paused, like one who had finished, but still
held Davis with his eye.

44 How ? " said Davis. " Why ? "

11 Well, you see, you 're big," returned Huish ; " 'e
knows you 'ave a gun in your pocket, and anybody
can see with 'alf an eye that you ain't the man to
'esitate about usin' it. So it 's no go with you, and
never was ; you 're out of the runnin', Dyvis. But
he won't be afryde of me, I 'm such a little un.
I 'm unarmed — no kid about that — and I '11 'old
my 'ands up right enough." He paused. " If I
can manage to sneak up nearer to him as we talk,"
he resumed, " you look out and back me up smart.
If I don't, we go aw'y again, and nothink to 'urt.
See?"

The captain's face was contorted by the frenzied
effort to comprehend.

182

THE EBB TIDE.

" No, I don t see," he cried. " I can't see. What
do you mean ? "

" I mean to do for the Beast ! " cried Huish, in a
burst of venomous triumph. " I '11 bring the 'ulkin'
bully to grass. He 's 'ad his larks out of me : I 'm
goin' to 'ave my lark out of 'im ; and a good lark,
too!''

"What is it?" said the captain, almost in a
whisper.

" Sure you want to know ? " asked Huish.
Davis rose and took a turn in the house.
"Yes, I want to know," he said at last, with an
effort.

" W'en your back 's at the wall, you do the best
you can, don't you ? " began the clerk. " I s'y
that, because I 'appen to know there 's a prejudice
against it; it's considered vulgar, awf'ly vulgar."
He unrolled the handkerchief and showed a four-
ounce jar. " This 'ere 's vitriol, this is," said he.

The captain stared upon him with a whitening
face.

" This is the stuff ! " he pursued, holding it up.
" This '11 burn to the bone ; you '11 see it smoke
upon 'im like 'ell fire. One drop upon 'is bloomin'
heyesight, and I '11 trouble you for Attwater ! "

" No, no, by God ! " exclaimed the captain.

"Now, see 'ere, ducky," said Huish, this is my
bean-feast, I believe ? I 'm goin' up to that man
single-'anded, I am. 'E 's about seven foot high
and I 'm five foot one. 'E 's a rifle in his 'and, "e *s
on the look-out ; 'e was n't born yesterday. This is

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

I83

Dyvid and Goliar, I tell you. If I 'ad ast you to
walk up and face the music I could understand.
But I don't. I on'y ast you to stand by and spiffli-
cate the niggers. It'll all come in quite natural;
you '11 see, else. Fust thing you know you '11 see
him running round and 'owling like a good un — "

" Don't ! " said Davis. " Don't talk of it ! "

"Well, you are a juggins!" exclaimed Huish.
"What did you want? You wanted to kill him,
and tried to last night. You wanted to kill the 'ole
lot of them, and tried to, and 'ere I show you 'ow ;
and because there 's some medicine in a bottle, you
kick up this fuss ! "

" I suppose that 's so," said Davis. " It don't
seem someways reasonable, only there it is."

"It's the happlication of science, I suppose?"
sneered Huish.

" I don't know what it is," cried Davis, pacing
the floor. " It 's there ; I draw the line at it. I
can't put a finger to no such piggishness ; it 's too
damned hateful ! "

" And I suppose it 's all your fancy pynted it,"
said Huish, "w'en you take a pistol and a bit o'
lead, and copse a man's brains all over him ? No
accountin' for tystes."

"I'm not denying it," said Davis; "it's some-
thing here, inside of me. It 's foolishness ; I dare-
say it's damn foolishness. I don't argue, I just
draw the line. Is n't there no other way ? "

" Look for yourself," said Huish. " I ain't wedded
to this, if you think I am. I ain't ambitious. I

THE EBB TIDE.

don't make a point of playin' the lead. I offer to,
that 's all ; and if you can't show me better, by
Gawd, I 'm goin' to \n

" Then the risk ! " cried Davis.

u If you ast me stryte, I should say it was a
case of seven to one and no tykers," said Huish.
" But that 's my lookout, ducky, and I 'm gyme.
Look at me, Dyvis; there ain't any shilly-shally
about me. I 'm gyme, that 's what I am ; gyme all
through."

The captain looked at him. Huish sat there,
preening his sinister vanity, glorying in his pre-
cedency in evil ; and the villanous courage and
readiness of the creature shone out of him like a
candle from a lantern. Dismay and a kind of
respect seized hold on Davis in his own despite.
Until that moment he had seen the clerk always
hanging back, always listless, uninterested, and
openly grumbling at a word of anything to do ; and
now, by the touch of an enchanter's wand, he be-
held him sitting girt and resolved, and his face
radiant. He had raised the devil, he thought,
and asked who was to control him, and his spirits
quailed.

" Look as long as you like," Huish was going on.
" You don't see any green in my eye. I ain't afryde
of Attwater, I ain't afryde of you, and I ain't afryde
of words. You want to kill people, that 's wot you
want ; but you want to do it in kid gloves, and it
can't be done that w'y. Murder ain't genteel, it
ain't easy, it ain't safe, and it tykes a man to do it*
'Ere 's the man."

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

"Huish!" began the captain with energy, and
then stopped, and remained staring at him with
corrugated brows.

"Well, hout with it," said Huish. " 'Ave you
anythink else to put up ? Is there any other chanst
to try ? "

The captain held his peace.

" There you are, then," said Huish, with a shrug.

Davis fell again to his pacing.

" Oh, you may do sentry-go till you 're blue in
the mug; you won't find anythink else," said
Huish.

There was a little silence, — the captain, like a
man launched on a swing, flying dizzily among
extremes of conjecture and refusal.

" But see," he said, suddenly pausing. " Can
you? Can the thing be done? It — it can't be
easy."

" If I get within twenty foot of 'im it '11 be done;
so you look out," said Huish, and his tone of cer-
tainty was absolute.

" How can you know that ? " broke from the
captain in a choked cry. "You beast, I believe
you 've done it before ! "

"Oh, that's private affyres," returned Huish.
" I ain't a talking man."

A shock of repulsion struck and shook the cap-
tain. A scream rose almost to his lips; had he
uttered it, he might have cast himself at the same
moment on the debile body of Huish, might have
picked him up, and flung him down, and wiped the

THE EBB TIDE.

cabin with him in a frenzy of cruelty that seemed
half moral ; but the moment passed, and the abor-
tive crisis left the man weaker. The stakes were
so high, — the pearls on the one hand, starvation
and shame on the other. Ten years of pearls !
The imagination of Davis translated them into a
new, glorified existence for himself and his family.
The seat of this new life must be in London, — there
were deadly reasons against Portland, Maine, — and
the pictures that came to him were of English man-
ners. He saw his boys marching in the procession
of a school, with gowns on, an usher marshalling
them, and reading, as he walked, in a great book.
He was installed in a villa, semi-detached, the
name, ' Rosemore,' on the gate-posts. In a chair
on the gravel walk he seemed to sit smoking a
cigar, a blue ribbon in his buttonhole, victor over
himself and circumstances and the malignity of
bankers. He saw the parlor with red curtains, and
shells on the mantel-piece ; and, with the fine in-
consistency of visions, mixed a grog at the mahog-
any table ere he turned in. With that the
' Farallone ' gave one of the aimless and name-
less movements which (even in an anchored ship
and even in the most profound calm) remind one
of the mobility of fluids ; and he was back again
under the cover of the house, the fierce daylight
besieging it all round and glaring in the chinks,
and the clerk, in a rather airy attitude, awaiting
his decision.

He began to walk again. He aspired after the

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

I87

realization of these dreams, like a horse nickering
for water ; the lust of them burned in his inside ;
and the only obstacle was Attwater, who had in-
sulted him from the first. He gave Herrick a full
share of the pearls ; he insisted on it. Huish op-
posed him, and he trod the opposition down, and
praised himself exceedingly. He was not going to
use vitriol himself. Was he Huish's keeper? It
was a pity he had asked, but after all — He saw
the boys again in the school procession, with the
gowns he had thought to be so " tony " long since —
And at the same time the incomparable shame of
the last evening blazed up in his mind.

41 Have it your own way," he said hoarsely.

41 Oh, I knew you would walk up," said Huish.
" Now for the letter. There 's paper, pens, and
ink. Sit down, and I '11 dictyte."

The captain took a seat and the pen, looked
awhile helplessly at the paper, then at Huish. The
swing had gone the other way; there was a blur
upon his eyes. "It's a dreadful business," he
said, with a strong twitch of his shoulders.

" It 's rather a start, no doubt," said Huish.
44 Tyke a dip of ink. That 's it. William John
Hattwater, Esq., Sir : " he dictated.

" How do you know his name is William John ? "
asked Davis.

" Saw it on a packing-case," said Huish. 14 Got
that?"

" No," said Davis. 11 But there 's another thing
What are we to write ? "

THE EBB TIDE.

" Oh, my golly ! " cried the exasperated Huish.
"Wot kind of man do you call yourself? I'm
goin' to tell you wot to write — that's my pitch —
if you '11 just be so bloomin' condescendin' as to
write it down ! William John Hattwater, Esq.,
Sir : " he reiterated. And the captain at last begin-
ning half mechanically to move his pen, the dictation
proceeded : " // is with feelin's of shyme and ''art-
felt contritio7i that I approach you after the yumil-
iatifC events of last night. Our Mr. 'Errick has
left the ship, and will have doubtless commwiicated
to you the 7iature of our ''opes. Needless to s'y,
these are no longer possible. Fate 'as declyred
against us, and we bow the 'ead. Well awyre as
I a7n of the just suspicions with vfich I am re-
garded, I do not venture to solicit the fyvour of an
interview for myself; but in order to put an e?id
to a situytion w'ich must be equally pyneful to all,
I 'ave deputed 77iy frie7id a7id part7ier, Mr. J. L.
Huish, to Vy before you 77iy proposals, and w'ich
by their moderytio7i will, I trust, be foimd to 7nerit
your atte7itio7i. Mr. J. L. Huish is e7itirely un-
armed, I swear to Gawd! a7id will 'old 'is 'a7ids
over 'is 'ead fro7n the 7no7ne7it he begi7is to approach
you. I a77i your fythful serva7it, foJi7i Dyvis."

Huish read the letter with the innocent joy of
amateurs, chuckled gustfully to himself, and re-
opened it more than once after it was folded, to
repeat the pleasure, — Davis meanwhile sitting inert
and heavily frowning.

Of a sudden he rose ; he seemed all abroad

DAVID AND GOLIATH

"No!" he cried. "No! It can't be! It's too
much ! It 's damnation ! God would never for-
give it."

" Well, and 'oo wants him to ? " returned Huish,
shrill with fury. " You were damned years ago for
the 1 Sea Rynger,' and said so yourself. Well,
then, be damned for something else, and 'old your
tongue."

The captain looked at him mistily. " No," he
pleaded, " no5 old man, don't do it."

"'Ere now," said Huish, " I '11 give you my ulti-
mytum. Go or st'y w'ere you are; I don't mind ;
I 'm goin' to see that man and chuck this vitriol in
his eyes. If you st'y I '11 go alone ; the niggers
will likely knock me on the 'ead, and a fat lot
you '11 be the better ! But there 's one thing sure :
I '11 'ear no more of your moonin', mullygrubbin'
rot, and tyke it stryte."

The captain took it with a blink and a gulp.
Memory, with phantom voices, repeated in his ears
something similar, something he had once said to
Herrick, years ago, it seemed.

" Now, gimme over your pistol," said Huish.
" I 'ave to see all clear. Six shots, and mind you
don't wyste them."

The captain, like a man in a nightmare, laid
down his revolver on the table, and Huish wiped
the cartridges and oiled the works.

It was close on noon : there was no breath of
wind, and the heat was scarce bearable when the
two men came on deck, had the boat manned, and

THE EBB TIDE.

passed down, one after another, into the stern-
sheets. A white shirt at the end of an oar served
as a flag of truce ; and the men, by direction, and
to give it the better chance to be observed, pulled
with extreme slowness. The isle shook before
them like a place incandescent ; on the face of the
lagoon blinding copper suns, no bigger than six-
pences, danced and stabbed them in the eyeball.
There went up from sand and sea, and even from
the boat, a glare of scathing brightness; and as
they could only peer abroad from between closed
lashes, the excess of light seemed to be changed
into a sinister darkness, comparable to that of a
thunder-cloud before it bursts.

The captain had come upon this errand for any
one of a dozen reasons, the last of which was de-
sire for its success. Superstition rules all men;
semi-ignorant and gross natures, like that of Davis,
it rules utterly. For murder he had been prepared ;
but this horror of the medicine in the bottle went
beyond him, and he seemed to himself to be part-
ing the last strands that united him to God. The
boat carried him on to reprobation, to damnation ;
and he suffered himself to be carried, passively
consenting, silently bidding farewell to his better
self and his hopes.

Huish sat by his side in towering spirits that
were not wholly genuine. Perhaps as brave a
man as ever lived, brave as a weasel, he must still
reassure himself with the tones of his own voice ;
he must play his part to exaggeration, he must out-

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

191

Herod Herod, insult all that was respectable, and
brave all that was formidable, in a kind of despe-
rate wager with himself. So the young soldier may-
jest as he goes into the battle ; so perhaps, of old,
the highwaymen blasphemed on the scaffold.

" Golly, but it 's 'ot ! " said he. " Cruel 'ot, I call
it. Nice d'y to get your gruel in ! I s'y, you know,
it must feel awf'ly peculiar to get bowled over on a
d'y like this. I 'd rather have it on a cowld and
frusty morning, would n't you ? [Singing.] "Ere
we go round the mulberry bush on a cowld and
frosty mornin\ [Spoken.] Give you my word,
I 'ave n't thought o' that in ten years ; used to sing
it at a hinfant school in 'Ackney — 'Ackney Wick it
was. [Singing.] This is the way the tyler does, the
tylerdoes. [Spoken.] Bloomin"umbug. 'Oware
you off now, for the notion of a future styte ? Do
you cotton to the tea-fight view, or the old red-'ot
Boguey business ? "

" Oh, dry up ! " said the captain.

"No, but I want to know," said Huish. " It 's
within the sp'ere of practical politics for you and
me, my boy; we may both be bowled over, one up,
t' other down, within the next ten minutes. It
would be rather a lark, now, if you only skipped
across, came up smilin' t' other side, and a hangel
met you with a B. and S. under his wing. 'Ullo,
you 'd s'y : 'come ! I tyke this kind."

The captain groaned. While Huish was thus
airing and exercising his bravado, the man at his
side was actually engaged in prayer. Prayer,

192

THE EBB TIDE.

what for ? God knows. But out of his inconsist-
ent, illogical, agitated spirit, a stream of suppli-
cation was poured forth, inarticulate as himself*
earnest as death and judgment.

" Thou Gawd seest me ! " continued Huish. " I
remember I had that written in my Bible. I re-
member the Bible, too, all about Abinadab and
parties. Well, Gawd ! " said he, apostrophizing
the meridian, " you 're goin' to see a rum start
presently, I promise you that ! "

The captain bounded.

" 1 '11 have no blasphemy ! " he cried, " no blas-
phemy in my boat."

"All right, cap," said Huish. "Anything to
oblige. Any other topic you would like to sug-
gest, the ryne-gyge, the lightnin' rod, Shykespeare,
or the musical glasses ? 'Ere 's conversytion on
tap. Put a penny in the slot, and — 'ullo ! 'ere
they are ! " he cried. " Now or never ! Is 'e goin'
to shoot?"

And the little man straightened himself into an
alert and dashing attitude, and looked steadily at
the enemy.

But the captain rose half up in the boat, with
eyes protruding.

" What 's that ? " he cried.

" Wot 's wot ? " said Huish.

" Those blamed things," said the captain.

And indeed it was something strange. Herrick
and Attwater, both armed with Winchesters, had
appeared out of the grove behind the figure-head ;

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

'93

and to either hand of them, the sun glistened upon
two metallic objects, locomotory like men, and
occupying in the economy of these creatures the
places of heads, — only the heads were faceless.
To Davis, hit between wind and water, his mythol-
ogy appeared to have come alive, and Tophet to
be vomiting demons. But Huish was not mystified
a moment.

" Divers' 'elmets, you ninny ! Can't you see ? "
he said.

" So they are," said Davis, with a gasp. " And
why ? Oh, I see, it 's for armor."

" Wot did I tell you ? 99 said Huish. " Dyvid and
Goliar all the w'y and back."

The two natives (for they it was that were equipped
in this unusual panoply of war) spread out to right
and left, and at last lay down in the shade, on the
extreme flank of the position. Even now that the
mystery was explained, Davis was hatefully pre-
occupied, stared at the flame on their crests, and
forgot, and then remembered with a smile, the ex-
planation.

Attwater withdrew again into the grove, and
Herrick, with his gun under his arm, came down
the pier alone. About half way down he halted
and hailed the boat.

" What do you want ? " he cried.

" I '11 tell that to Mr. Attwater," replied Huish,
stepping briskly on the ladder. " I don't tell it
to you, because you plyed the trucklin' sneak.
Here 's a letter for him ; tyke it, and give it, and
be 'anged to you ! "

13

194

THE EBB TIDE.

" Davis, is this all right ? " said Herrick.

Davis raised his chin, glanced swiftly at Herrick
and away again, and held his peace. The glance
was charged with some deep emotion, but whether
of hatred or fear, it was beyond Herrick to divine.

" Well," he said, " I '11 give the letter." He drew
a score with his foot on the boards of the gangway.
" Till I bring the answer, don't move a step past
this."

And he returned to where Attwater leaned against
a tree, and gave him the letter. Attwater glanced
it through.

" What does that mean ? " he asked, passing it to
Herrick. " Treachery ? "

" Oh, I suppose so," said Herrick.

" Well, tell him to come on," said Attwater.
11 One is n't a fatalist for nothing. Tell him to
come on and to look out."

Herrick returned to the figure-head. Half way
down the pier the clerk was waiting, with Davis
by his side.

" You are to come along, Huish," said Herrick.
" He bids you look out, no tricks."

Huish walked briskly up the pier, and paused
face to face with the young man.

" Were is 'e ? " said he, and to Herrick's sur-
prise, the low-bred, insignificant face before him
flushed suddenly crimson and went white again.

" Right forward," said Herrick, pointing. " Now,
your hands above your head."

The clerk turned away from him and toward the

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

195

figure head, as though he were about to address to
it his devotions — he was seen to heave a deep
breath — and raised his arms. In common with
many men of his unhappy physical endowments,
Huish's hands were disproportionately long and
broad, and the palms in particular enormous ; a
four-ounce jar was nothing in that capacious fist.
The next moment he was plodding steadily forward
on his mission.

Herrick at first followed. Then a noise in his
rear startled him, and he turned about, to find
Davis already advanced as far as the figure-head.
He came, crouching and open-mouthed, as the
mesmerized may follow the mesmerizer; all human
considerations, and even the care of his own life,
swallowed up in one abominable and burning
curiosity.

" Halt ! " cried Herrick, covering him with his
rifle. " Davis, what are you doing, man ? You are
not to come."

Davis instinctively paused, and regarded him
with a dreadful vacancy of eye.

44 Put your back to that figure-head, do you hear
me ? and stand fast ! " said Herrick.

The captain fetched a breath, stepped back
against the figure-head, and instantly redirected
his glances after Huish.

There was a hollow place of the sand in that
part, and as it were a glade among the cocoa-
palms, in which the direct noonday sun blazed
intolerably. At the far end, in the shadow, the

196

THE EBB TIDE.

tall figure of Attwater was to be seen leaning on
a tree. Toward him, with his hands over his
head, and his steps smothered in the sand, the
clerk painfully waded. The surrounding glare
threw out and exaggerated the man's smallness ;
it seemed no less perilous an enterprise, this
that he was gone upon, than for a whelp to
besiege a citadel.

" There, Mr. Whish. That will do," cried Att-
water. " From that distance, and keeping your
hands up like a good boy, you can very well put
me in possession of the skipper's views."

The interval betwixt them was perhaps forty
feet; and Huish measured it with his eye, and
breathed a curse. He was already distressed with
laboring in the loose sand, and his arms ached
bitterly from their unnatural position. In the
palm of his right hand, the jar was ready; and his
heart thrilled, and his voice choked, as he began to
speak.

" Mr. Hattwater," said he, " I don't know if ever
you 'ad a mother — "

" I can set your mind at rest : I had," returned
Attwater. " And henceforth, if I might venture to
suggest it, her name need not recur in our com-
munications. I should perhaps tell you that I am
not amenable to the pathetic."

M I am sorry, sir, if I 'ave seemed to tresparse on
your private feelin's," said the clerk, cringing and
stealing a step. " At least, sir, you will never
pe'suade me that you are not a perfec' gentleman.

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

*97

I know a gentleman when I see him ; and as such,
I 'ave no 'esitation in throwin' myself on your mer-
ciful consideration. It is 'ard lines, no doubt; it's
'ard lines to have to hown yourself beat ; it 's 'ard
lines to 'ave to come and beg to you for charity."

"When, if things had only gone right, the whole
place was as good as your own ? " suggested Att-
water. " I can understand the feeling."

"You are judging me, Mr. Attwater," said the
clerk, " and Gawd knows how unjustly ! 1 Thou
Gawd seest me] was the tex 1 I 'ad in my Bible,
w'ich my father wrote it in with 'is own 'and upon
the fly leaft "

11 1 am sorry I have to beg your pardon once
more," said Attwater; "but do you know, you
seem to me to be a trifle nearer, which is entirely
outside of our bargain. And I would venture to
suggest that you take one — two — three — steps
back ; and stay there."

The devil, at this staggering disappointment,
looked out of Huish's face, and Attwater was swift
to suspect. He frowned, he stared on the little
man, and considered. Why should he be creep-
ing nearer ? The next moment his gun was at his
shoulder.

" Kindly oblige me by opening your hands.
Open your hands wide — let me see the fingers
spread, you dog — throw down that thing you're
holding ! " he roared, his rage and certitude in-
creasing together.

And then, at almost the same moment, the in-

THE EBB TIDE.

domitable Huish decided to throw, and Attwater
pulled the trigger. There was scarce the differ-
ence of a second between the two resolves, but it
was in favor of the man with the rifle ; and the jar
had not yet left the clerk's hand, before the ball
shattered both. For the twinkling of an eye, the
wretch was in hell's agonies, bathed in liquid
flames, a screaming bedlamite ; and then a second
and more merciful bullet stretched him dead.

The whole thing was come and gone in a breath.
Before Herrick could turn about, before Davis
could complete his cry of horror, the clerk lay in
the sand, sprawling and convulsed.

Attwater ran to the body ; he stooped and viewed
it; he put his finger in the vitriol, and his face
whitened and hardened with anger.

Davis had not yet moved ; he stood astonished,
with his back to the figure-head, his hands clutch-
ing it behind him, his body inclined forward from
the waist. Attwater turned deliberately and covered
him with his rifle.

u Davis," he cried, in a voice like a trumpet, " I
give you sixty seconds to make your peace with
God."

Davis looked, and his mind awoke. He did not
dream of self-defence, he did not reach for his pistol.
He drew himself up instead to face death, with a
quivering nostril.

" I guess I 'U not trouble the Old Man," he said.
" Considering the job 1 was on, I guess it 's better
business to just shut my face."

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

I99

Attwater fired ; there came a spasmodic move-
ment of the victim, and immediately above the
middle of his forehead, a black hole marred the
whiteness of the figure-head. A dreadful pause ;
then again the report, and the solid sound and jar
of the bullet in the wood ; and this time the captain
had felt the wind of it along his cheek. A third
shot, and he was bleeding from one ear ; and along
the levelled rifle, Attwater smiled like a red Indian.

The cruel game of which he was the puppet was
now clear to Davis; three times he had drunk of
death, and he must look to drink of it seven times
more before he was despatched. He held up his
hand.

" Steady ! " he cried, " I '11 take your sixty
seconds."

" Good ! " said Attwater.

The captain shut his eyes tight, like a child ; he
held his hands up at last with a tragic and ridiculous
gesture.

" My God, for Christ's sake, look after my two
kids," he said ; and then after a pause and a falter,
"for Christ's sake. Amen."

And he opened his eyes and looked down the
rifle with a quivering mouth.

" But don't keep fooling me long ! " he pleaded.

" That all your prayer ? " asked Attwater, with a
singular ring in his voice.

" Guess so," said Davis.

" So ? " said Attwater, resting the butt of his rifle
on the ground, " is that done ? Is your peace made

200

THE EBB TIDE.

with Heaven? Because it is with me. Go, and
sin no more, sinful father. And remember that
whatever you do to others, God shall visit it again
a thousand fold upon your innocents."

The wretched Davis came staggering forward
from his place against the figure-head, fell upon his
knees, and waved his hands and fainted.

When he came to himself again, his head was on
Attwater's arm, and close by stood one of the men
in divers' helmets, holding a bucket of water, from
which his late executioner now laved his face. The
memory of that dreadful passage returned upon
him in a clap ; again he saw Huish lying dead,
again he seemed to himself to totter on the brink of
an unplumbed eternity. With trembling hands he
seized hold of the man whom he had come to slay ;
and his voice broke from him like that of a child
among the nightmares of fever : " Oh ! is n't there
no mercy ? Oh ! what must I do to be saved ? "

" Ah ! " thought Attwater, " here is the true
penitent."

CHAPTER XII.

A TAIL-PIECE.

On a very bright, hot, lusty, strongly blowing
noon, a fortnight after the events recorded, and a
month since the curtain rose upon this episode, a
man might have been spied praying on the sand
by the lagoon beach. A point of palm-trees iso-
lated him from the settlement ; and from the place
where he knelt, the only work of man's hand that
interrupted the expanse was the schooner 'Far-
allone,' her berth quite changed, and rocking at
anchor some two miles to windward in the midst of
the lagoon. The noise of the Trade ran very bois-
terous in all parts of the island ; the nearer palm-
trees crashed and whistled in the gusts, those far-
ther off contributed a humming bass, like the roar
of cities ; and yet, to any man less absorbed, there
must have risen at times over this turmoil of the
winds the sharper note of the human voice from the
settlement. There all was activity. Attwater,
stripped to his trousers and lending a strong hand
of help, was directing and encouraging five Kana-
kas; from his lively voice, and their more lively
efforts, it was to be gathered that some sudden and

202

THE EBB TIDE.

joyful emergency had set them in this bustle ; and
the " Union Jack " floated once more on its staff.
But the suppliant on the beach, unconscious of
their voices, prayed on with instancy and fervor,
and the sound of his voice rose and fell again, and
his countenance brightened and was deformed with
changing moods of piety and terror.

Before his closed eyes, the skiff had been for
some time tacking towards the distant and deserted
' Farallone ; ' and presently the figure of Herrick
might have been observed to board her, to pass for
a while into the house, thence forward to the fore-
castle, and at last to plunge into the main hatch.
In all these quarters, his visit was followed by a
coil of smoke ; and he had scarce entered his boat
again and shoved off, before flames broke forth
upon the schooner. They burned gayly; kero-
sene had not been spared, and the bellows of the
Trade incited the conflagration. About half-
way on the return voyage, when Herrick looked
back, he beheld the 1 Farallone ' wrapped to the
topmasts in leaping arms of fire, and the volumi-
nous smoke pursuing him along the face of the la-
goon. In one hour's time, he computed, the waters
would have closed over the stolen ship.

It so chanced that, as his boat flew before the
wind with much vivacity, and his eyes were con-
tinually busy in the wake, measuring the progress
of the flames, he found himself embayed to the
northward of the point of palms, and here became
aware at the same time of the figure of Davis im-

A TAIL-PIECE.

203

mersed in his devotion. An exclamation, part of
annoyance, part of amusement, broke from him,
and he touched the helm and ran the prow upon
the beach not twenty feet from the unconscious
devotee. Taking the painter in his hand, he
landed, drew near, and stood over him. And still
the voluble and incoherent stream of prayer con-
tinued unabated. It was not possible for him
to overhear the suppliant's petitions, which he
listened to some while in a very mingled mood of
humor and pity, and it was only when his own
name began to occur and to be conjoined with
epithets, that he at last laid his hand on the cap-
tain's shoulder.

" Sorry to interrupt the exercise," said he, "but
I want you to look at the '-Farallone. ' "

The captain scrambled to his feet, and stood
gasping and staring. " Mr. Herrick, don't startle
a man like that ! " he said. " I don't seem some-
ways rightly myself since — " he broke off. " What
did you say, anyway ? Oh, the 1 Farallone,' " and
he looked languidly out.

" Yes," said Herrick, " there she burns ; and you
may guess from that what the news is."

" The 'Trinity Hall,' I guess," said the captain.

" The same," said Herrick, " sighted half an hour
ago, and coming up hand over fist."

" Well, it don't amount to a hill of beans," said
the captain, with a sigh.

" Oh, come, that's rank ingratitude!" cried
Herrick.

204

THE EBB TIDE.

" Well," replied the captain, meditatively, " you
may n't just see the way that I view it in, but I 'd
'most rather stay here upon this island. I found
peace here, peace in believing. Yes, I guess this
island is about good enough for John Davis."

" I never heard such nonsense ! " cried Herrick.
" What ! with all turning out in your favor the way
it does, — the 1 Farallone ' wiped out, the crew dis-
posed of, a sure thing for your wife and family, and
you yourself Attwater's spoiled darling and pet
penitent ! "

" Now, Mr. Herrick, don't say that," said the cap-
tain, gently, " when you know he don't make no
difference between us. But, oh, why not be one
of us ? Why not come to Jesus right away, and
let 's meet in yon beautiful land ? That 's just the
one thing wanted ; just say 4 Lord, I believe, help
Thou mine unbelief!' and He'll fold you in His
arms. You see, I know ; I been a sinner myself."

THE END.

THE PRINTING WAS DONE AT THE
UNIVERSITY PRESS AT CAMBRIDGE
FOR STONE AND KIMBALL
. MAY 1894 •

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