The Beach of Dreams Part 32

And now came the last call of Kerguelen, the voice of the kittiwakes:

"Get-away--get-away--get-away."

Raft, as they stood and watched, put his arm over the shoulder of the girl and as she held the great hand that had saved her and brought her so far towards safety her mind, miles away, kept travelling the long road from the caves.

"I'm thinking of the bundle and all the poor things in it," said she, "it will lie there forever on the beach, waiting to be picked up--it's strange."

"I was thinkin' the same thing myself," said Raft, "and the old harpoon I licked that chap across the head with."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE CARCa.s.sONNE

Raft had found other things than arms and ammunition in the cabin, he had found a box containing nearly three thousand five hundred dollars, partly in American money and partly in English gold coin. Chang had stowed it in his chest, a big cedar-wood affair containing all sorts of oddments, including a can of blue label Canton opium, cigars, a couple of suits of fine silk and a woman's gold bracelet.

Chang had evidently been well-to-do in his way and a man of refinement.

His bunk bedding was of the finest quality and on a shelf near the bunk lay piled new-washed sheets and pillow cases. The girl took his cabin and slept in his bunk. Long ago, in the world that was slowly coming back to her, the idea of sleeping in the bunk of a Chinaman she had seen killed would have revolted her, now, it did not trouble her at all. She only knew that a mattress and clean sheets were heaven, even if she had to sleep with a revolver under her pillow. Then in a day or two she only put the revolver there as a matter of routine. The "c.h.i.n.ks" gave evidence that so far from making trouble they were extremely anxious to propitiate and please, and the man who had evidently served Chang appeared in the cabin tidying things and laying out the food, whilst the man who had evidently been mate worked the ship in his own weird way seeming scarcely ever to sleep. He had laid the course almost due north, taking the sun with a back-stick that might have come out of the Ark, working out his calculations in the fo'c'sle in his own head. Raft did not know, he knew nothing of navigation as a science, nor did he care, they were going north and day by day drawing into the track of ships, that was enough for him.

One day the girl said to him: "Suppose these men make trouble over that man you killed--and those others."

"Let them," said Raft, "I'll tell my yarn--it's plain enough--I'm not going to tell no lies. The chap tried to drive us off, and we lost and near done for, and he hit me a welt on top of all. He got his gruel."

She had played with the idea of making up a story for the sake of Raft; she felt ashamed of the idea when she heard his words.

"I'm thinking of that money down below," said he, "it belonged by rights to that big chap. If a ship takes us off we'd better hand it over to the mate or just leave it there for him to take."

"Yes, we don't want the money," she replied, "I have plenty."

"You! Where have you got it?" asked he, looking her over.

"In France," she replied. Then she laughed. It was the first time she had laughed since that day when the sea-bulls had driven the penguins off, and Raft, as though her mirth were infectious, laughed also.

It seemed a joke to him, somehow, the idea of her having money in France.

The idea of her being one of the Rich People had never worked its way into his head. She was just herself, different it is true in some indefinable way from anyone he had ever met, speaking differently, acting differently, but made used to his mind by struggle and adversity.

He scarcely thought of her as a woman, yet he was hugely fond of her, a fondness that had begun in pity and had been strengthened and made to grow by her pluck. He liked to have her near him and when she was out of sight he felt a bit astray. He never bothered about the future, so the idea of parting with her had not come to him.

And she? When Raft was out of her sight she felt astray. Her mind had spun between them a tie, of a new sort in a world grown cynical and old and cold; an affection permanent as the hills, warm as summer.

Everything good in her loved Raft, it was the affection of a mother for a child, of a child for a mother.

He had nursed her back to life, he had brought her life, and never once since that day had he chilled her with a littleness or broken a thread of what was spinning in her heart. He was illiterate, he was rough, but he was Raft. He was the great beach of Kerguelen and the sea-bulls and the distant islands, he was the hand that had destroyed Loneliness and driven away Death, the child who had listened to Jack and the Bean Stalk, the Lion that had destroyed Chang, the companion in a loneliness ringed with despair.

One morning beyond the 40th parallel, and some two hundred miles to the nor'west of St. Paul, the Chinese mate plucked Raft by the sleeve and pointed into the west.

The day was clear with a wind just enough to fill the sails of the barque and a long blue leisurely swell running from the south. Away in the east was a trace of smoke as though a grimy finger had stained the sky just above the sea-line.

"Ship," said the mate.

It was the one word of English that he knew. Raft was about to shout and run to the cabin hatch to call the girl. Then he held himself back. It might be a false hope. Yet if he had thought he might have known that a ship in the east meant a ship right across their course, here, where there were no trade tracks north and south.

Then above the sea-line and clear of smoke he saw her hull.

He pointed to the halyards and the mate understood. The mate was evidently desperately anxious to be quit for good of his self-invited pa.s.sengers, for when Raft came on deck again with the girl they found the barque under bare poles rolling to the swell and a Chinese flag half-masted flicking in the wind.

Also, away across the sea, sheering towards them and making to cross their bows a mile away a two funnelled steamer whose funnels closed to one as she shifted her helm to get within speaking distance of them.

She was the _Carca.s.sonne_, a seven thousand ton freighter carrying pa.s.sengers, a French boat, bound from Sydney to Cape Town and Ma.r.s.eilles.

Raft, the day before, had taken the Chinese mate down to the cabin and shewed him Chang's money and had presented it to him and the crew in pantomime.

It was honesty. It was also a good stroke. There was no trouble when the _Carca.s.sonne_, her huge bulk rolling gently to the swell, dropped a boat, though indeed had the companions of Chang wished to raise trouble they would have found themselves seriously handicapped, dumb as they were in every language but their own.

Chang had been their linguist as well as their leader. They had literally lost their tongue.

PART VI

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Ma.r.s.eILLES

On board the _Carca.s.sonne_ the girl had broken down as though all the exhaustion she had defied had waited for that moment to fall upon her.

But the energy that had held her above defeat and had given her hope when things seemed hopeless was there, undestroyed, and when the turning point came she rallied swiftly. She came on deck one morning where Bathurst lay a point invisible beyond the blue sea to starboard and sitting in a deck chair made friends with the other pa.s.sengers.

It seemed to her almost impossible that the same world should hold Kerguelen and at the same time this paradise of azure blue sky and tepid wind.

Raft had told her story before reaching Cape Town and the loss of the _Gaston de Paris_ was now old news in Europe, and the fact that of all the _Gaston's_ crowd only the beautiful Cleo de Bromsart had been saved.

Raft had joined the crew of the _Carca.s.sonne_, sleeping in the foc's'le, where there were several English speaking sailors, and as much out of his element as a man used only to masts and spars can be on a steamboat. However, he swabbed decks and did odd jobs without a grumble and he was swabbing the deck on the morning she came up; he dropped the business for a moment to take the two hands she held out to him.

All through that time below she had been wanting Raft and his big hand to pull her through. Satisfied, knowing he was on board and all right, but wanting him all the same.

On the old barque once or twice had come the stray thought of how Raft's figure would accommodate itself against the background of the world she knew.

Well, here was the world she knew, or part of it; a deck, clean as a ball-room floor and as s.p.a.cious, pa.s.sengers in deck chairs, reading novels, and a manicured French surgeon ready to talk art or philosophy to her, polished, but rather narrow of shoulder.

And against all that stood Raft, rough and in the clothes he had worn on the beach, for there was not a man on board whose clothes would have fitted him comfortably.

Well, he was not incongruous with this background, simply because he destroyed it. In a ball-room it would have been the same. He carried with him his background of high black cliffs and miles of beach and flying gulls and breaking sea, and in a flash came to her the fact that he dwarfed and belittled the other people around just as nature dwarfs and belittles art.

She held both his hands for a moment, managing to pat them, somehow, as she held them, asking him what on earth he was doing with the swab he had just dropped. She had an idea that the ship people had put him to work, but before the idea had risen to indignation heat he rea.s.sured her.