The days passed,
and Tudor seemed loath to leave
the hospitality
of Berande. Everything was ready
for the start, but he lingered
on, spending much time in Joan's
company and thereby increasing
the dislike Sheldon had taken
to him. He went swimming with
her, in point of rashness exceeding
her; and dynamited fish with
her, diving among the hungry
ground-sharks and contesting
with them for possession of the
stunned prey, until he earned
the approval of the whole Tahitian
crew. Arahu challenged him to
tear a fish from a shark's jaws,
leaving half to the shark and
bringing the other half himself
to the surface; and Tudor performed
the feat, a flip from the sandpaper
hide of the astonished shark
scraping several inches of skin
from his shoulder. And Joan was
delighted, while Sheldon, looking
on, realized that here was the
hero of her adventure-dreams
coming true. She did not care
for love, but he felt that if
ever she did love it would be
that sort of a man--"a man who
exhibited," was his way of putting
it.
He felt himself handicapped
in the presence of Tudor, who
had the gift of making a show
of all his qualities. Sheldon
knew himself for a brave man,
wherefore he made no advertisement
of the fact. He knew that just
as readily as the other would
he dive among ground-sharks to
save a life, but in that fact
he could find no sanction for
the foolhardy act of diving among
sharks for the half of a fish.
The difference between them was
that he kept the curtain of his
shop window down. Life pulsed
steadily and deep in him, and
it was not his nature needlessly
to agitate the surface so that
the world could see the splash
he was making. And the effect
of the other's amazing exhibitions
was to make him retreat more
deeply within himself and wrap
himself more thickly than ever
in the nerveless, stoical calm
of his race.
"You are so stupid the last
few days," Joan complained to
him. "One would think you were
sick, or bilious, or something.
You don't seem to have an idea
in your head above black labour
and cocoanuts. What is the matter?"
Sheldon smiled and beat a further
retreat within himself, listening
the while to Joan and Tudor propounding
the theory of the strong arm
by which the white man ordered
life among the lesser breeds.
As he listened Sheldon realized,
as by revelation, that that was
precisely what he was doing.
While they philosophized about
it he was living it, placing
the strong hand of his race firmly
on the shoulders of the lesser
breeds that laboured on Berande
or menaced it from afar. But
why talk about it? he asked himself.
It was sufficient to do it and
be done with it.
He said as much, dryly and
quietly, and found himself involved
in a discussion, with Joan and
Tudor siding against him, in
which a more astounding charge
than ever he had dreamed of was
made against the very English
control and reserve of which
he was secretly proud.
"The Yankees talk a lot about
what they do and have done," Tudor
said, "and are looked down upon
by the English as braggarts.
But the Yankee is only a child.
He does not know effectually
how to brag. He talks about it,
you see. But the Englishman goes
him one better by not talking
about it. The Englishman's proverbial
lack of bragging is a subtler
form of brag after all. It is
really clever, as you will agree."
"I never thought of it before," Joan
cried. "Of course. An Englishman
performs some terrifically heroic
exploit, and is very modest and
reserved--refuses to talk about
it at all--and the effect is
that by his silence he as much
as says, 'I do things like this
every day. It is as easy as rolling
off a log. You ought to see the
really heroic things I could
do if they ever came my way.
But this little thing, this little
episode--really, don't you know,
I fail to see anything in it
remarkable or unusual.' As for
me, if I went up in a powder
explosion, or saved a hundred
lives, I'd want all my friends
to hear about it, and their friends
as well. I'd be prouder than
Lucifer over the affair. Confess,
Mr. Sheldon, don't you feel proud
down inside when you've done
something daring or courageous?"
Sheldon nodded.
"Then," she pressed home the
point, "isn't disguising that
pride under a mask of careless
indifference equivalent to telling
a lie?"
"Yes, it is," he admitted. "But
we tell similar lies every day.
It is a matter of training, and
the English are better trained,
that is all. Your countrymen
will be trained as well in time.
As Mr. Tudor said, the Yankees
are young."
"Thank goodness we haven't
begun to tell such lies yet!" was
Joan's ejaculation.
"Oh, but you have," Sheldon
said quickly. "You were telling
me a lie of that order only the
other day. You remember when
you were going up the lantern-halyards
hand over hand? Your face was
the personification of duplicity."
"It was no
such thing."
"Pardon me a moment," he went
on. "Your face was as calm and
peaceful as though you were reclining
in a steamer-chair. To look at
your face one would have inferred
that carrying the weight of your
body up a rope hand over hand
was a very commonplace accomplishment--as
easy as rolling off a log. And
you needn't tell me, Miss Lackland,
that you didn't make faces the
first time you tried to climb
a rope. But, like any circus
athlete, you trained yourself
out of the face-making period.
You trained your face to hide
your feelings, to hide the exhausting
effort your muscles were making.
It was, to quote Mr. Tudor, a
subtler exhibition of physical
prowess. And that is all our
English reserve is--a mere matter
of training. Certainly we are
proud inside of the things we
do and have done, proud as Lucifer--yes,
and prouder. But we have grown
up, and no longer talk about
such things."
"I surrender," Joan cried. "You
are not so stupid after all."
"Yes, you have us there," Tudor
admitted. "But you wouldn't have
had us if you hadn't broken your
training rules."
"How do you
mean?"
"By talking
about it."
Joan clapped her hands in approval.
Tudor lighted a fresh cigarette,
while Sheldon sat on, imperturbably
silent.
"He got you there," Joan challenged. "Why
don't you crush him?"
"Really, I can't think of anything
to say," Sheldon said. "I know
my position is sound, and that
is satisfactory enough."
"You might retort," she suggested, "that
when an adult is with kindergarten
children he must descend to kindergarten
idioms in order to make himself
intelligible. That was why you
broke training rules. It was
the only way to make us children
understand."
"You've deserted in the heat
of the battle, Miss Lackland,
and gone over to the enemy," Tudor
said plaintively.
But she was not listening.
Instead, she was looking intently
across the compound and out to
sea. They followed her gaze,
and saw a green light and the
loom of a vessel's sails.
"I wonder if it's the Martha
come back," Tudor hazarded.
"No, the sidelight is too low," Joan
answered. "Besides, they've got
the sweeps out. Don't you hear
them? They wouldn't be sweeping
a big vessel like the Martha."
"Besides, the Martha has a
gasoline engine--twenty-five
horse- power," Tudor added.
"Just the sort of a craft for
us," Joan said wistfully to Sheldon. "I
really must see if I can't get
a schooner with an engine. I
might get a second-hand engine
put in."
"That would mean the additional
expense of an engineer's wages," he
objected.
"But it would pay for itself
by quicker passages," she argued; "and
it would be as good as insurance.
I know. I've knocked about amongst
reefs myself. Besides, if you
weren't so mediaeval, I could
be skipper and save more than
the engineer's wages."
He did not reply to her thrust,
and she glanced at him. He was
looking out over the water, and
in the lantern light she noted
the lines of his face--strong,
stern, dogged, the mouth almost
chaste but firmer and thinner-lipped
than Tudor's. For the first time
she realized the quality of his
strength, the calm and quiet
of it, its simple integrity and
reposeful determination. She
glanced quickly at Tudor on the
other side of her. It was a handsomer
face, one that was more immediately
pleasing. But she did not like
the mouth. It was made for kissing,
and she abhorred kisses. This
was not a deliberately achieved
concept; it came to her in the
form of a faint and vaguely intangible
repulsion. For the moment she
knew a fleeting doubt of the
man. Perhaps Sheldon was right
in his judgment of the other.
She did not know, and it concerned
her little; for boats, and the
sea, and the things and happenings
of the sea were of far more vital
interest to her than men, and
the next moment she was staring
through the warm tropic darkness
at the loom of the sails and
the steady green of the moving
sidelight, and listening eagerly
to the click of the sweeps in
the rowlocks. In her mind's eye
she could see the straining naked
forms of black men bending rhythmically
to the work, and somewhere on
that strange deck she knew was
the inevitable master-man, conning
the vessel in to its anchorage,
peering at the dim tree-line
of the shore, judging the deceitful
night-distances, feeling on his
cheek the first fans of the land
breeze that was even then beginning
to blow, weighing, thinking,
measuring, gauging the score
or more of ever- shifting forces,
through which, by which, and
in spite of which he directed
the steady equilibrium of his
course. She knew it because she
loved it, and she was alive to
it as only a sailor could be.
Twice she heard
the splash of the lead, and
listened intently
for the cry that followed. Once
a man's voice spoke, low, imperative,
issuing an order, and she thrilled
with the delight of it. It was
only a direction to the man at
the wheel to port his helm. She
watched the slight altering of
the course, and knew that it
was for the purpose of enabling
the flat-hauled sails to catch
those first fans of the land
breeze, and she waited for the
same low voice to utter the one
word "Steady!" And again she
thrilled when it did utter it.
Once more the lead splashed,
and "Eleven fadom" was the resulting
cry. "Let go!" the low voice
came to her through the darkness,
followed by the surging rumble
of the anchor-chain. The clicking
of the sheaves in the blocks
as the sails ran down, head-
sails first, was music to her;
and she detected on the instant
the jamming of a jib-downhaul,
and almost saw the impatient
jerk with which the sailor must
have cleared it. Nor did she
take interest in the two men
beside her till both lights,
red and green, came into view
as the anchor checked the onward
way.
Sheldon was wondering as to
the identity of the craft, while
Tudor persisted in believing
it might be the Martha.
"It's the Minerva," Joan
said decidedly.
"How do you know?" Sheldon
asked, sceptical of her certitude.
"It's a ketch
to begin with. And besides,
I could tell anywhere
the rattle of her main peak-blocks--they're
too large for the halyard."
A dark figure crossed the compound
diagonally from the beach gate,
where whoever it was had been
watching the vessel.
"Is that you, Utami?" Joan
called.
"No, Missie; me Matapuu," was
the answer.
"What vessel
is it?"
"Me t'ink Minerva."
Joan looked triumphantly at
Sheldon, who bowed.
"If Matapuu says so it must
be so," he murmured.
"But when Joan Lackland says
so, you doubt," she cried, "just
as you doubt her ability as a
skipper. But never mind, you'll
be sorry some day for all your
unkindness. There's the boat
lowering now, and in five minutes
we'll be shaking hands with Christian
Young."
Lalaperu brought out the glasses
and cigarettes and the eternal
whisky and soda, and before the
five minutes were past the gate
clicked and Christian Young,
tawny and golden, gentle of voice
and look and hand, came up the
bungalow steps and joined them.
|