Major Vigoureux Part 14

"I am putting off to learn the particulars. And, by the way, Mr.

Tregaskis"--the Commandant paused--"I intended to call in upon you on my way back."

"Anything I can do for you, sir, and at any time," responded Mr.

Tregaskis. "I suppose, now," he added, "you'd take it as a liberty if I was to ask for a seat in your boat?"

"Not in the least. There she is, waiting off the quay steps: so if you have business on board, put on your hat, come along with me, and welcome!"

"Thanking you kindly, sir. Which I was reckoning that--she being from foreign parts and the Islands the first place she've touched at, I might pick up a bravish order in the way of fresh milk and eggs, not to mention that Job Clemow sold me half-a-hundredweight of plaice, with a cod or two, that he took on the spiller yesterday."

"Come along, by all means," repeated the Commandant, moving off towards the quay steps; and Tregaskis, having tucked his shop-ap.r.o.n around his waist and run into the back pa.s.sage for his billy-c.o.c.k hat, hurried in his wake.

Reuben Tregaskis--known throughout the Islands as The Bester--was a genial ruffian of familiar accost, red-faced, round in the stomach, utterly unscrupulous at a bargain. The Commandant did not like him, and particularly disliked the prospect of asking him a favour. Most of all he regretted, as they pushed off, that chance this morning had forced him to put such a man under a small obligation. He feared that, when it came to asking leave to open an account, he might seem to be using this advantage. (Such a fear, it scarcely needs saying, was groundless. In his business dealings, The Bester was superior alike to grat.i.tude and rancour, and would bargain with his own mother as with his worst enemy.)

The Commandant, oppressed with his own thoughts, bent his attention upon the steering, and punctuated with monosyllables only the exuberant flow of Mr. Tregaskis' conversation, which, bye-and-bye, as they neared the roadstead, resolved itself into offers of wagers on the length, tonnage, and actual carrying capacity of the liner.

She lay very nearly in the middle of the roadstead, broadside-on to the morning sunshine, and the more the Commandant studied her the more he wondered at last night's miracle. She had not yet begun to weigh, though he discerned a couple of St. Ann's pilots talking with an officer on the bridge. Presently the officer left them, and descended to the deck, where he stood in the gangway awaiting the boat.

"Major Vigoureux?" he asked, lifting the peak of his cap, as she fell alongside.

The Commandant, not a little astonished, returned the salutation. "That is my name, sir."

"I have been expecting you," said the officer. "I am Captain Whitaker, at your service--the skipper of this vessel, in fact, and thankful enough, I can tell you, to be alive this morning and in command of her.

Madame's boxes are on deck here, if you do me the favour to climb on board.... Ah, and here is Madame's maid, to give account of them!"

The Commandant, drawing breath at the head of the ladder, and glancing down the _Milo's_ majestic length of deck, was aware of four large trunks, and beside them a neat, foreign-looking woman, who curtsied in foreign fashion as she came forward.

"M'sieur will take my duty to Madame, and tell her that I have done my best to pack to her orders. The rest I am to report from Plymouth, when we arrive."

"And I daresay," put in Captain Whitaker, with an amused turn of the eye towards the trunks, then back at the Commandant, "Madame would call these 'just a few necessaries.' Though I say to you, sir," he went on gravely, "that all the _Milo's_ hold--and the _Milo_ will carry close on four thousand tons--hasn't room enough to stow what Madame deserves, be it in clothes or jewels."

"I--I beg your pardon?"

"She hasn't told you? No; I bet she wouldn't," said Captain Whitaker.

"Come down to my cabin, sir, and let me offer you a brandy-and-soda?

No? Then, perhaps, you'll do me the honour to join me at breakfast--which must be ready at this moment," he added, as eight strokes sounded on the ship's bell forward. "Never mind the size of the trunks, sir; one of my men shall help you ash.o.r.e with 'em."

In the Captain's cabin, which had a floor of parquet and panels of teak set in mahogany, stood a table with a white cloth upon it, and a breakfast array of blue-and-white china. A steward, in a blue suit with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, brought the meats in dishes of polished electro-plate, and on a small sideboard stood other dishes with small spirit lamps burning beneath. The Commandant seated himself; ate, drank, and marvelled.

"You know Madame?" asked Captain Whitaker, helping himself to a dish of kidneys and bacon. He nodded, intercepting the Commandant's gaze. "We keep them in ice, if you're not above trying our fare. You'll find they are not bad. My other meals I take with the pa.s.sengers, but I breakfast alone, as a rule."

The Commandant's mind ran on the breakfast yet to be extracted from Mr.

Tregaskis' shop.

"You know her?" asked Captain Whitaker.

"I once had the pleasure--years ago----"

"If that's so"--Captain Whitaker nodded--"we'll take her praises for granted. She's great; you can sum it up at that. By the way, did she happen to tell you why she is leaving the ship here?"

"Yes; she went ash.o.r.e in a hurry, she said, to avoid being thanked----"

"Then I guessed right."

"--though," confessed the Commandant, "I haven't a notion what she meant."

Captain Whitaker set down his breakfast-cup and b.u.t.tered himself a piece of toast, gazing the while long and earnestly at his companion.

"No? Then I'll tell you. The pa.s.sengers don't know it as yet, though I've caught a guess or two flying around; but the truth is sure to come out, sooner or later. Man, it was she that saved the _Milo_ last night, in that ghastly twenty minutes before we picked up the pilot.... Oh, I see by your face you don't believe me!--but you must take it or leave it. Shall I go on?"

"Go on," said the Commandant.

"We were due out of New York on the 27th, but missed our tide in clearing and didn't pa.s.s the bar till early next morning. We carried fifty-nine saloon pa.s.sengers, seventy-five second, and a hundred and twenty-five steerage, with a crew of a hundred exactly. Besides these we had the mails--two hundred and twenty bags--and a fair amount of dollars in specie (I needn't tell how much.) The weather was thick from the first with a heavy sea running on the other side. We met it full just outside Sandy Hook, and for three days I pitied the pa.s.sengers.

The third night out the mischief happened. I had left the bridge soon after four bells and was just turning in for my beauty-sleep when I heard an unholy racket below in the engine-room, and felt the ship slow down of a sudden. One of the rods had kicked loose from its gib and started to flail around death and destruction. Thanks to Crosbie, our first engineer, she was brought up before kicking our insides out, and we hove to; but the repairs cost us close on eighteen hours. By daybreak the weather was thickening worse than ever, though with no great amount of wind, and we started again in a fog so thick that from the bridge you could see her bows, and only just. Well, that's how it was with us, all the way across. We seemed to carry the fog; and though it lifted a bit, off and on, it never looked like giving us a chance of an observation. All yesterday afternoon I was worried by the thought that we'd overrun our reckoning and must be somewhere near the Islands, and about two o'clock--though the soundings were good--I ordered the engines to be reduced below the half-speed at which she was running.

"To ease the pa.s.sengers' minds I had arranged for a concert in the saloon after dinner, and Madame--she had booked with us under a name that wasn't her own to dodge the New York newspaper men, but the pa.s.sengers recognized her--had promised me to sing to them. (You have heard her, eh?--it makes you cry, and not mind, either, who sees you.) I remember now that she looked at me pretty straight when she gave the promise, but seeing me not minded to speak, she asked no questions.

"Well, the concert came off. At any other time I'd have given pounds to be sitting there and listening; but the worry on my mind kept me to the bridge, and from there I heard her, the notes lifting up through the saloon sky-light as if heaven and earth had somehow got capsized or else an angel had come aboard to sing us clear of the fog. There were three of us on the bridge--myself, and the third officer, Mr.

Francillon, and a seaman called Petersen; and when the song ended--it was a little Italian something-or-other, very bright and gay--and the clapping began and the calls for an encore, I couldn't stand it any longer, and I was afraid she'd be starting on 'Home, Sweet Home,' or something of that sort, and I didn't want Mr. Francillon to see my face. So I made up an excuse and sent him off to the chart-house for a pair of dividers (which I didn't want), and away he went.

"When he was gone I stood by the wheel for a bit listening as the clapping died down. It stopped at last, and I braced myself up and waited to have my feelings wrung, when just behind me I heard a step on the ladder. Of course, I took it for Mr. Francillon returning, and I wheeled about, short-tempered like, to tell him he needn't be tip-toeing--we weren't on the bridge to listen to grand opera--when what do I see but Madame! 'You needn't look so cross, Captain,' she says; 'for I know well enough I'm breaking all rules, and I'll go away quietly and sing to them again. But we're somewhere near the Islands, and the call came on me to warn you!' 'Why, truly, ma'am,' I answered, 'I believe we're not far off them.' 'We're close to them,' she answered me, nodding her head. 'I'm Island-born, Captain, and I feel 'em in my blood.' I put this down to craziness--hysterics--or whatever you choose to call it; but just to soothe her mind and get her down quietly off the bridge I sang out to the leadsman to know if he had found soundings. I was bending over the rail when I felt a touch on my arm, and heard her cry out 'Starboard! Hard a-starboard--hard!'--just like that." Captain Whitaker dropped his voice to a low, fierce whisper as he imitated her. "It took the helmsman sharp and sudden, so that he had begun to put the wheel down before he realised that the order didn't come from me; and the next moment Madame had flung herself upon it and was helping with both hands. 'Hullo!' says I, stepping after her smartly, and as good as asking if she or I commanded the _Milo_. The pa.s.sengers below had started to sing 'D'ye ken John Peel?' and were yelling out a lot of silly hunting-cries with the chorus. I could hear nothing above the racket. But, sure enough, looking to port over my shoulder as I laid hand on the wheel to check it, I saw a whitish smear that meant breakers; and the smear no sooner showed than above it a great black cliff stood out as if 'twere a moving thing and meant to carve into us right amidships--a great cliff with a rock on it like the Duke of Wellington's nose. A man from the top of it could have jumped onto our bulwarks, and I shut my eyes as it overhung, waiting for the crash; but it slid by and was gone like a slide you pa.s.s through a magic lantern.

"'Port now! Port for your life!' she called out; and I saw first of all her hand go out to push Petersen off, and then the little sparks flickering on her rings as she gripped the spokes, and checking 'em, dragged the wheel back hand over hand. A man's strength she must have had. 'Help me,' was all she said, in a kind of panting voice, and as I caught hold to help it over, 'That was the Head! Hard up, now! and ring down for full speed!' 'Full speed!' I grunted, yet pressing on the wheel all the time--'It's stop her you mean, and anchor.' 'What, here?

with h.e.l.l-deeps on your starboard bow and a five-knot tide running!

Full speed ahead--there's no room to swing--no, nor half.' She stopped my hand on the bell and rang down herself, 'full speed ahead'; and the pa.s.sengers whooping away at 'John Peel!' all the while.

"Then, as the engines began to run, she looked at me, still holding on by the wheel. 'They may do it,' she said, 'they may do it. At half speed she'd never point off, against a five-knot tide.' 'G.o.d have mercy on us!' was all I could say. 'If you know--?' 'Know?' she caught me up.

'I was brought up to know. But she'll never do it if she don't pick up way.... Ah, that's better!' she said with a kind of sigh staring over the starboard bow into the fog. 'Now!'--and we held our breath, all of us; for Mr. Francillon was back on the bridge standing close behind her and wondering what the devil was up. She let thirty seconds pa.s.s, and then turned to him as if he'd been there all the while and she knew it.

"'Look astern,' she said, 'and maybe, if you're clever, you can see the Monk.'

"'The Monk!' We cried this out together; for that we had pa.s.sed the Monk without sighting her or catching sound of her fog-horns was a thing incredible.

"'But so it is,' said she. 'We have pa.s.sed the Monk; pa.s.sed it close.

Don't I know the Pope's Head on Lesser Teague? Now hard-a-port still--for we've the Gunnel Dogs somewhere there to leeward, and they're worse almost than h.e.l.l-deeps.'

"We were racing by this time. There was nothing in the world to see--only the fog, which had turned, within the last minute, to dusk; and nothing to feel except that we were racing down between the walls of it like a stick caught in a mill heat. Worse it was; we were driving down full tilt with a five-knot tide under us. If we struck there was one consolation; the end would come soon. As 'John Peel' ended we could hear the tide race take up the tune and hum it on the wind of our pa.s.sage; and above it I heard the third officer call out that he had glimpsed a light astern.

"'The Monk!' said Madame, nodding her head to me to help her in easing off the wheel.

"And I don't know, sir, if you have ever been through a gale at sea; a really tight gale, I mean; with a while in it--maybe an hour only, maybe twenty-four--when the odds are slowly turning against you. Then there comes a point when, with nothing to show for it, you feel that you are holding your own; and another point when you feel that, bar accidents, the worst is over. The sea seems to break just as savage as ever, and you can't swear that the wind has lessened. You have nothing to point to, but, all the same, you know, and can thank the Lord.

"That's how it was with the _Milo_. I couldn't say when the danger ceased; but I found myself looking at Madame across the binnacle lamp and she was looking at me. My hand went out and I rang down for half-speed, then for dead slow. We stood there and listened while the engines changed their beat from one to the other. In the saloon they had started a comic song with a chorus. Said she, after a bit, 'You can bring up now and wait for morning. North of the Gunnel here there's an eddy slack where the tides meet, and you may count on thirty fathoms.'

"I called down to know what the lead reported. I felt my voice shaking and the leadsman's voice shook a bit too as he called back that he had found the bottom with the red seventeen fathom mark. Half a minute later he sang out that his line had lost it. I was just about calling to let go anchor when away on our starboard bow we heard the pilots hailing. We sent up a flare, and at sight of it the lighthous.e.m.e.n, away on the Monk, began banging, and small blame to them!"