The Island of Gold Part 18

"James was a strange man in some ways. This was one: he thanked Heaven for every comfort, even the slightest, and did nothing without, in a word or two, asking a blessing thereon.

"In three days' time we were staggering southwards, and away across Biscay's blue bay, with every inch of canvas set. And a pretty sight we were--our white sails flowing in the sunshine--the sea as blue as the sky, and the waves sparkling around us as if every drop of water contained a diamond.

"All the way to the Cape, and farther, James treated me as tenderly and compa.s.sionately as if I had been an invalid brother. He never contradicted me even once. He used to keep me talking and yarning on the quarterdeck, when he wasn't on watch, for whole hours at a stretch; and in the evenings, when tired spinning me yarns, he would take his banjo and sing to me old sea-songs in his bold and thrilling voice. And James could sing too; there were the brine, and the breeze, and the billows' roll in every bar of the grand old songs he sang, and indeed I was never tired of listening to them. Sometimes I closed my eyes as I sat in my easy-chair; then James's banjo notes grew softer and softer, and ever so much farther away like, till at last it was ghostly music, and I was in the land of dreams.

"When I awoke, perhaps it would be four bells or even six, and there would be James, with his specs athwart his great jibboom of a nose, poring earnestly over his mother's Bible.

"'You've had a nice little nap,' he would say cheerfully. 'Now you'll toddle off to your bunk, and when you're safe between the sheets I'll bring you a tiny little drop of rum and treacle.'

"Poor James! Rum and treacle was his panacea for every ill; and yet I don't believe any one in the wide world ever saw James the worse of even rum and treacle.

"When we got as far as to Madeira, he proposed we should anchor here for a few days and dispose of some of our notions. Notions formed our cargo; and notions must be understood to mean, Captain Weathereye, all kinds of jewellery and knick-knacks, including table-knives and forks, watches, strings of bright beads, cotton cloths, parasols, and guns.

Now I knew very well that we could easily dispose of all our cargo at the Cape and other parts; but I also knew very well that James's main object in stopping at Madeira was to give me a few delightful days on sh.o.r.e.

"This was part of the cure, and I had to submit with the best grace I could.

"We had, at that time, as handy and good a second mate as any one could wish on the weather side of a quarterdeck. So it was easy enough for myself and James to leave the ship both at the same time, though this had very seldom been our custom, except when in dock or in harbour.

"To put it in plain language, James did not seem to know how good to be to me, nor how much to amuse me. The honest, simple soul kept talking and yarning to me all the while, and pointing out this, that, and the other strange thing to me, until I was obliged to laugh in his face.

But James was not offended; not he. He was working according to some plan he had formulated in his own mind, and nothing was going to turn him aside from his purpose.

"About midday we entered the veranda of a cool and delightful hotel, and seating ourselves at a little marble table, James called for cigars and iced drinks. Then he proposed we should luncheon. No, he would pay, he said; it was not often he had the honour or pleasure of lunching with his captain, in a marble palace like this. So he pulled out an old sock tied round with a morsel of blue ribbon, and thrusting his big brown paw into it, brought forth money in abundance.

"'Never been here before?' he asked me quietly.

"'No,' I said; 'strange to say I've touched at nearly every port in the world except this place.'

"'Well, I have,' said James, 'and I'm going to put you up to the ropes.'

"'Now,' he continued, when we stood once more under the greenery of the trees that bordered the broad pavement, 'will you have a hammock or a horse?'

"Not knowing quite what he meant, I replied that I would leave it to him.

"'Well,' he said, 'this must be considered a kind of picnic, them's my notions, and as you're far from well yet, I'll have a horse and you a hammock.'

"Both horse and hammock were soon brought round to the door. The hammock was borne by two perspiring half-caste Portuguese, and was attached to a pole, and on board I swung, while James got on board the horse. The saddle was a hard and horrid contrivance of leather and wood, the stirrups a pair of old slippers, and the horse himself--well, he was a beautiful study in equine osteology, and I really did not know which to pity most, James or his Rosinante. But in my hammock I felt comfortably, dreamily happy.

"We pa.s.sed through the quaint old town of Funchal, then upwards, and away towards the mountains. The day was warm and delightful--hot indeed James must have found it, for he soon divested himself of coat and waistcoat, and even then he had to pause at times to wipe his streaming brow. The peeps at the beautiful gardens I caught while being carried along were charming in the extreme; the verandaed and trellised villas, canopied with flowers of every hue and shape, the bright green lawns where fairy-like children played, and the flowering trees--the whole forming ever-changing scenes of enchantment--I shall never forget. Then the soft and balmy air was laden with perfume.

"'How nice,' I thought, 'to be an invalid! How kind of James to treat me as one! And he jogging along there on that bony horse's back, with the boy holding fast by the tail! Dear, unselfish, but somewhat silly fellow!'

"Upwards still, steeper and steeper the hill. And now we seemed to have mounted into the very sky itself, and were far away from the tropics and tropical flora.

"We came at last to a table-land. For the life of me I could not help thinking of the story of 'Jack and the Bean-stalk.' Here gorgeous heaths and heather bloomed and grew; here birds of sweet song flitted hither and thither among the scented and the yellow-ta.s.selled broom; and here solemn weird-like pine-trees waved dark against the far-off ocean's blue.

"Under some of these trees, and close to the cliff, we disembarked to rest. We were fully half a mile above the level of the sea. Yet not a stone's throw from where we sat was the edge of the awful cliff that led downwards without a break to that white line far beneath where the waves frothed and fumed against the rocks.

"But far as the eye could reach, till lost in distance and merged into the blue of the sky, lay the azure sea, with here and there a sail, the largest of which looked no bigger than a white b.u.t.terfly with folded wings.

"A delicious sense of happiness stole over me, and for the first time, perhaps, since leaving England I forgot the sweet young face that had so completely bewitched me.

"I think I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I was sensible of was James tuning a broad guitar.

"Then his voice was raised in song, and I closed my eyes again, the better to listen.

"Poor James, he played and sang for over an hour; no wild, wailing sea-songs this time, however, but verses sweet and plaintive, and far more in harmony with the notes of the sad guitar. The romance of our situation, the stillness of our surroundings, unbroken save in the intervals of song by the flitting of a wild bird among the broom, and the low whisper of the wind through the pine-trees overhead, with the balmy ozonic air from the blue ocean, continued to instil into my soul a feeling of calm and perfect joy to which I had hitherto been a stranger.

"Just as the sun was sinking like a great blood orange through a purple haze that lay along the western horizon, James laughingly handed the guitar to the boy who had carried it. Then laughing still--he was so strange and good this James of mine--he pulled out a silver-mounted flask and poured me out a portion of its contents.

"It was a little rum and treacle.

"'The dews of night isn't going to harm you after that,' said James.

"Lights were glimmering here and there on the hills like glow-worms, and far beneath us in the town, long before we reached the streets of Funchal.

"We went straight to the hotel and discharged both horse and hammock.

"Then we dined.

"I thought I should be allowed to go on board after this. Not that there was the slightest hurry.

"However, I was mistaken for once. James had not yet done with me for the night. I had still another prescription of his to use; and as I knew it was part and parcel of James's love cure, I could not demur. He had given me so much pleasure on that day already, that when he asked me to get up and follow him I did so as obediently as the little lamb followed Mary.

"But that he, James Malone, who feared womankind, if he did not positively hate them, should lead me to a Portuguese ballroom of all places in the world, surprised me more than anything.

"I could hear the tinkling of guitars, the shuffling of feet, and the music of merry, laughing voices, long before we came near the door.

"I stopped short.

"'James,' I said, 'haven't you made some mistake?'

"His only answer was a roguish laugh.

"I repeated the question.

"'Not a bit of it,' he answered gaily.

"'Charlie Halcott,' he added, 'if you were simply suffering from Yellow Jack I'd hand you over to a doctor, but, Charles Halcott, it takes a _man_ to cure love. And you've been sorely hit.'

"This had been a day of surprises, but when I entered that ballroom there came the greatest surprise of all. Those here a.s.sembled were not so-called gentle-folks. They were the sons and daughters of the ordinary working cla.s.ses; but the taste displayed, the banks of flowers around the orchestra, the gay bouquets and coloured lights along the walls, the polished and not overcrowded floor, the romantic dresses of the gallants that transported one back to the middle ages, the snow-white costumes of the ladies, and, above all, their innocent, ravishing beauty, formed a scene that reminded me strongly of stories I had read in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

"I was almost ashamed of my humble attire, but the courtesy of the master of ceremonies was charming. Would the strangers dance? Surely the stranger sailors would dance? He would get us, as partners, the loveliest senoritas in all the room.

"So he did.

"I forgot everything in that soft, dreamy waltz--everything save the thrilling music and the sylph-like form of my dark-eyed partner, who floated with me through the perfumed air, for surely our feet never touched the floor.

"But the drollest thing of all was this--James was dancing too. James with his--well, I must not say aversion to, but fear and shyness of womankind, was dancing; and I knew he was only doing so to encourage me.

A handsome fellow he looked, too, almost head and shoulders taller than any man there, and broad and well-knit in proportion. The master of ceremonies had got him a partner 'for to match,' as he expressed it; certainly a beautiful girl, with a wealth of raven hair that I had never seen equalled, far less surpa.s.sed. I daresay she could dance lightly; but James's waltzing was of a very solid brand indeed, and he swung his pretty partner round the room in a way that seemed to indicate business rather than pleasure. Several couples cannoned off James and went ricochetting to the farther end of the room, and one went down. James swung past me a moment after, apparently under a heavy press of canvas, and as he did so I heard him say to his partner, referring to the couple he had brought to deck,--