“Small man-o’-war,” he reported in response to the unspoken question; “barquentine-rigged, buff funnel, white hull. Looks like a gun-boat.”
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “That will be the Widgeon. She was lying off Accra.”
The two looked at one another in silence for a while as they look who have heard bad tidings. At length Osmond said, grimly: “Well, this is the end of it, Betty. She has been sent out to search for you. It will be ‘good-bye’ in less than an hour.”
“Not ‘good-bye,’ Jim,” she urged. “You will come, too, won’t you?”
“No,” he replied; “I can’t leave the old man in this muddle.”
“But you’ll have to leave him sooner or later.”
“Yes; but I must give him the chance to get another mate, or at least to ship one or two native hands.”
“Oh, let him muddle on as he did before. My father will be wild to see you when he hears of all that has happened. Don’t forget, Jim, that you saved my life.”
“I saved my own,” said he, “and you chanced to benefit. But I couldn’t come with you in any case, Betty. You are forgetting that I have to keep out of sight. There may be men up at head-quarters who know me. There may be even on this gun-boat.”
She gazed at him despairingly and her eyes filled. “Oh, Jim,” she moaned, “how dreadful it is. Of course I must go. But I feel that we shall never see one another again.”
“It will be better if we don’t,” said he.
“Oh, don’t say that!” she pleaded. “Think of what we have been to one another and what we could still be for ever and ever if only you could forget what is past and done with. Think of what perfect chums we have been and how fond we are of one another. For we are, Jim. I love you with my whole heart and I know that you are just as devoted to me. It is a tragedy that we should have to part.”
“It is,” he agreed, gloomily, “and the tragedy is of my making.”
“It isn’t,” she dissented, indignantly; and then, softly and coaxingly, she continued: “But we won’t lose sight of each other altogether, Jim, will we? You will write to me as soon as you get ashore. Promise me that you will.”
“Much better not,” he replied; but with so little decision that she persisted until, in the end, and much against his judgment, he yielded and gave the required promise.
“That makes it a little easier,” she said, with a sigh. “It leaves me something to look forward to.”
She took the glasses from him and searched the rim of the horizon, over which the masts of the approaching ship had begun to appear.
“I suppose I ought to report to the old man,” said Osmond, and he was just turning towards the companion when Captain Hartup’s head emerged slowly and was in due course followed by the remainder of his person. His left arm was now emancipated from the sling and in his right hand he carried a sextant.
“Gun-boat in sight, sir,” said Osmond. “Seems to be coming our way.”
The captain nodded, and stepping to the taffrail, applied his eye to the eyepiece of the sextant.
“It has gone seven bells,” said he. “Isn’t it about time you got ready to take the latitude—you and the other officer?” he added, with a sour grin.
In the agitating circumstances, Osmond had nearly forgotten the daily ceremony—a source of perennial joy to the crew. He now ran below and presently returned with the two sextants, one of which he handed to ‘the other officer.’
“For the last time, little comrade,” he whispered.
“And we’ll work the reckoning together. Norie’s Navigation will be a sacred book to me after this.”
She took the instrument from him and advanced with him to the bulwark. But if the truth must be told, her observation was a mere matter of form, and twice before the skipper called “eight bells” she had furtively to wipe a tear from the eyepiece. But she went below to the cuddy and resolutely worked out the latitude (from the reading on Osmond’s sextant), and when the brief calculation was finished, she silently picked up the scrap of paper on which Osmond had worked out the reckoning and laid hers in its place. He took it up without a word and slipped it into his pocket.
“They are queer keepsakes,” she said in a half-whisper as the door of the captain’s cabin opened, “but they will tell us exactly when and where we parted. Who knows when and where we shall meet again—if we ever do?”
“If we ever do,” he repeated in the same tone; and then, as the captain came out and looked at them inquiringly, he reported the latitude that they had found, and followed him up the companion-steps.
When they arrived on deck they found the crew ranged along the bulwark watching the gun-boat, which was now fully in view, end-on to the brigantine, and approaching rapidly, her bare masts swinging like pendulums as she rolled along over the big swell.
“I suppose we shall make our number, sir,” said Osmond; and as the skipper vouchsafed no reply beyond an unintelligible grunt, he added: “The flag locker is in your cabin, isn’t it?
“Never you mind about the flag locker,” was the sour reply. “Our name is painted legibly on the bows and the counter, and I suppose they’ve got glasses if they want to know who we are.” He took the binocular from Osmond, and after a leisurely inspection of the gun-boat, continued: “Looks like the Widgeon. Coming to pick up a passenger, I reckon. About time, too. I suppose you are both going—if they’ll take you?”
“I am not,” said Osmond. “I am going to stay and see you into port.”
The skipper nodded and emitted an ambiguous grunt, which he amplified with the addition: “Well, you can please yourself,” and resumed his inspection of the approaching stranger.
His forecast turned out to be correct, for the gunboat made no signal, but, sweeping past the Speedwell’s stern at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile, slowed down and brought-to on the port side, when she proceeded to lower a boat; whereupon Captain Hartup ordered a rope ladder to be dropped over the port quarter. These preparations Miss Burleigh watched anxiously and with an assumption of cheerful interest, and when the boat ran alongside, she joined the skipper at the head of the ladder, while Osmond, lurking discreetly in the background, kept a watchful eye on the officer who sat in the stern-sheets until the lessening distance rendered him distinguishable as an undoubted stranger, when he also joined the skipper.
As the newcomer—a pleasant-faced, clean-shaved man in a lieutenant’s uniform—reached the top of the ladder, he exchanged salutes with the skipper and the lady, who advanced and held out her hand.
“Well, Miss Burleigh,” said the lieutenant as he shook her hand, heartily, “this is a relief to find you safe and sound and looking in the very pink of health. But you have given us all a rare fright. We were afraid the ship had been lost.”
“So she was,” replied Betty. “Lost and found. I think I have earned a fatted calf, don’t you, Captain Darley?”
“I don’t know,” rejoined the lieutenant (the honorary rank was in acknowledgment of his position as commander of the gun-boat); “we must leave that to His Excellency. But it doesn’t sound very complimentary to your shipmates or to your recent diet. I needn’t ask if you are coming back with us. My cabin has been made ready for you.”
“But how kind of you, Captain Darley. Yes, I suppose I must come with you, though I have been having quite a good time here; mutinies, fishing, and all sorts of entertainments.”
“Mutinies, hey!” exclaimed Darley, with a quick glance at the captain. “Well, I am sorry to tear you away from these entertainments, but orders are orders. Perhaps you will get your traps packed up while I have a few words with the captain. I shall have to make a report of what has happened.”
On this there was a general move towards the companion. Betty retired—somewhat precipitately—to her berth and the lieutenant followed Captain Hartup to his cabin.
Both parties were absent for some time. The first to reappear was Betty, slightly red about the eyes and carrying a small handbag. Havin
g dispatched Sam Winter below to fetch up her portmanteau, she drew Osmond away to the starboard side.
“Jack,” she said, in a low, earnest tone—“I may call you by your own name just for once, mayn’t I?—you have made me a promise. You won’t go back on it, will you, Jack?”
“Of course I shan’t, Betty,” he replied.
“I want you to have my cabin when I’ve gone,” she continued. “It is a better one than yours and it has a tiny port-hole. And if you open the locker, you will find a little note for you. That is all. Here they come. Good-bye, Jack, darling!”
She turned away abruptly as he murmured a husky farewell, and having shaken hands with Captain Hartup and thanked him for his hospitality, was stepping on to the ladder when she paused suddenly and turned back.
“I had nearly forgotten,” said she. “I haven’t paid my passage.”
“There is no passage-money to pay,” the skipper said, gruffly. “My contract was to deliver you at Accra, and I haven’t done it. Besides,” he added, with a sour grin, “you’ve worked your passage.”
“Worked her passage!” exclaimed the lieutenant. What do you mean?”
“She has been taking the second mate’s duties,” the skipper explained.
Darley stared open-mouthed from the skipper to the lady. Then, with a fine, hearty British guffaw, he assisted the latter down to the boat.
CHAPTER VII
The Mate Takes His Discharge
As an instance of the malicious perversity which the forces of nature often appear to display, the calm which had for so many days cut off Miss Betty from any communication with the world at large seemed unable to survive her departure. Before the gun-boat was fairly hull down on the horizon, a dark line on the glassy sea announced the approach of a breeze, and a few minutes later the brigantine’s sails filled, her wallowings subsided, and a visible wake began to stream out astern.
The change in the vessel’s motion brought the captain promptly on deck, and Osmond listened somewhat anxiously for the orders as to the course which was to be set. But he knew his commander too well to make any suggestions.
“Breeze seems to be about sou’-sou’-west,” the skipper remarked with one eye on the compass-dial and the other on the upper sails. “Looks as if it was going to hold, too. Put her head west-nor’-west.”
“Did the lieutenant give you our position?” Osmond inquired.
“No, he didn’t,” the skipper snapped. “He wasn’t asked. I don’t want any of your brass-bound dandies teaching me my business. The continent of Africa is big enough for me to find without their help.”
Osmond smothered a grin as he thought of the chronometer, re-started and ticking away aimlessly in the captain’s cabin, its error and rate alike unknown. But again he made no comment, and presently the skipper resumed: “I suppose you will be wanting to get back to Adaffia?”
“I’m not going to leave you in the lurch.”
“Well, you can’t stay with me for good excepting as a seaman, as you haven’t got a ticket—at least, I suppose you haven’t.”
“No. I hold a master’s certificate entitling me to navigate my own yacht, but, of course, that is no use on a merchant vessel, excepting in an emergency. But I don’t quite see what you are going to do.”
“It is a bit of a problem,” the skipper admitted. “I shall take on one or two native hands to help while we are on the Coast, and appoint Winter and Simmons to act as mates. Then perhaps I shall he able to pick up an officer from one of the steamers for the homeward trip.”
“I will stay with you until you are fixed up, if you like,” said Osmond; but the captain shook his head.
“No,” he replied. “I shall put you ashore at Adaffia. I can manage all right on the Coast, and I must have a regular mate for the homeward voyage.”
Thus the programme was settled, and, on the whole, satisfactorily to Osmond. It is true that, if there had been no such person as Elizabeth Burleigh, he would have held on to his position, even with the rating of ordinary seaman, for the homeward voyage, on the chance of transferring later to some ship bound for South America or the Pacific Islands. But although he had renounced all claim to her and all hope of any future connected with her, he still clung to the ill omened land that was made glorious to him by her beloved presence.
The captain’s forecast was justified by the event. The breeze held steadily and seemed inclined to freshen rather than to fail. The old brigantine heeled over gently and forged ahead with a pleasant murmur in her sails and quite a fine wake trailing astern. It was a great relief to everybody after the long calm, with its monotony and inaction and the incessant rolling of the ship and flapping of the sails. The captain was almost pleasant and the crew were cheerful and contented, though they had little to do, for when once the course was set there was no need to touch sheet or brace, and the trick at the wheel was the only active duty apart from the cook’s activities.
To Osmond alone the change brought no obvious satisfaction. All that had recently happened had been, as he could not but recognize, for the best. The parting had to come, and every day that it was delayed forged his fetters only the more firmly. But this reflection offered little consolation. He loved this sweet, frank, open-hearted girl with an intensity possible only to a man of his strength of will and constancy of purpose. And now she was gone; gone out of his life for ever. It was a final parting. There was no future to look forward to; not even the most distant and shadowy. The vision of a great happiness had floated before him and had passed, leaving him to take up again the burden of his joyless life, haunted for ever by the ghost of the might-have-been.
Nevertheless, he went about his duties briskly enough, finding jobs for the men and for himself, overhauling the cordage, doing small repairs on the rigging, and even, with his own hands, putting a patch on a weak spot on the bottom of the long-boat and lining it inside and out with scraps of sheet copper. And if he was a little grimmer and more silent than before, the men understood and in their rough way sympathized, merely remarking that “Pore old Cook do seem cut up along o’ losin’ his Judy.”
At dawn on the third day the land was in sight; that is to say to the north there was an appearance as if a number of small entomological pins had been stuck into the sea-horizon in irregular groups. Viewed from the fore-top, however, through Redford’s glasses, this phenomenon resolved itself into a narrow band of low-lying shore, dotted with coconut palms, the characteristic aspect of the Bight of Benin.
As the day wore on, the brigantine gradually closed in with the land. Before noon, the captain was able, through his telescope, to identify a group of white buildings as the German factories at the village of Bagidá. Then the neighbouring village of Lomé came in sight and slowly crept past; and as the Speedwell drew yet nearer to the land, Osmond was able to recognize, among a large grove of coconuts, the white-washed bungalow at Denu, and, a few miles ahead, the dark mass of palms that he knew to be Adaffia.
“Well, Mr. Cook,” said the captain, “you’ll soon be back by your own fireside. If the breeze holds, we ought to be in Adaffia roads by four at the latest. I suppose you have got all your portmanteaux packed?”
“I’m all ready to go ashore, if you are still of the same mind.”
“I never change my mind,” replied the skipper; and Osmond believed him.
“Are you making any stay at Adaffia?” he asked.
“I am going to put you ashore,” the captain answered. “What I shall do after that is my business.”
“I asked,” said Osmond, “because I thought I might be able to get you one or two native hands. However, you can let me know about that later. Now, as it is your watch on deck, I will go below and take a bit of a rest.”
He went down to the berth, into which he had moved when Betty departed, and, shutting the door, looked thoughtfully round the little apartment. Nothing had been altered since she left. All the little feminine tidinesses had been piously preserved. It was still, to the eye, a woman’s
cabin, and everything in its aspect spoke to him of the late tenant. Presently he lay down on the bunk—the bunk in which she had slept—and for the hundredth time drew from his pocket the letter which she had left in the locker. It was quite short—just a little note hastily written at the last moment when the boat was waiting. But to him it was inexhaustible; and though by now he knew it by heart, he read it again as eagerly as when he had first opened it.
“MY DEAREST JIM,” it ran. “I am writing you a few words of farewell (since we must say ‘good-bye’ in public) to tell you that when you read them I shall be thinking of you. I shall think of you, best and dearest comrade, every day of my life, and I shall go on hoping that somehow we shall meet again and be as we have been on this dear old ship. And Jim, dearest, I want you to understand that I am always yours. Whenever you want me—no, I don’t mean that; I know you want me now—but whenever you can cast away things that ought to be forgotten, remember that I am waiting for you. Try, dear, to forget every thing but your love and mine.
“Au revoir!
“Your faithful and loving
“BETTY.”
It was a sweet letter, written in all sincerity; and even though Osmond never wavered in the renunciation that honour demanded, still it told him in convincing terms that the door was not shut. The gate of Paradise was still ajar. If he could forget all justice and generosity; if he, who had nothing to give, could bring himself to accept the gift so generously held out to him, he still had the option to enter. He realized that—and never, for an instant, entertained the thought. Perhaps there were other ways out. But if there were, he dismissed them, too. Like Captain Hartup, he was not given to altering his mind. Free as he was from the captain’s petty obstinacy, he was a man of inflexible purpose, even though the purpose might have been ill-considered.
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 34
