Wide Courses Part 9

"I did. And that time I grabbed for him and missed and he went by me, he half-turned and looked at me, and I thought he said, 'I never meant it.'

Just that I heard, when the sea washed over him, and when he came up again he must've thought that I didn't understand, and he waved one arm.

It was like he was saying 'Good-by!'--the way he did it. Yes, he was all right--Harty."

"You betcher he was all right. An' more than all right. As for that, it's a d.a.m.n poor specimen' that ain't all right when it comes to a show-down. I've known Bud--I can't remember when I didn't know Bud Harty. And, Bowen, he was a better man than you or me. Bud always let you see the worst of himself, but you had to guess at the best of him.

Bud, he sure could hate a man--but, son, he could like you a lot better than ever he hated you."

The two men sat and looked out to sea in silence. At last Baldwin, with a heavy sigh? stood up, and, reaching into a locker, brought forth a bottle and two gla.s.ses. "I s'pose we oughter try to forget it for awhile. This stuff here, it's against regulations havin' it aboard, but lots of things against regulations never hurt anybody. It was against regulations our takin' out the _Whist_ last night. And when the commandant's back from leave I reckon I'll get mine. For you"--he laid a forefinger against the big rating badge on his coat sleeve--"that I've been shipmates with for fifteen years--off and on--I reckon will be detached. But I've been disrated before and we'll let that pa.s.s. But you an' me and Bud, we ain't been the best of friends we used to be since--well, you know when, but you're goin' to drink for him now the toast he wouldn't drink last night, but the toast that if he was here I know he'd drink now, for it's a sure thing that when he went into the breakers he didn't go out of hate. So you drink for Bud, and I'll drink for myself. Here's to you and yours, Bowen, your wife and the baby that's comin'--"

"And that baby--if it's a boy, Baldwin, I'll name after him."

"Will you? G.o.d, but he'll like that--Bud'll sure like that. And now, here you go--

"May the wind be always fair for you Whatever the course you sail!

"An' you an' me and all of us we'll be like we used to be, an' Bud'll like it, I know. An' now one to Bud himself. I know 'twill please him to see us doin' it. Here's to Buddie, Bowen. Is it a go?"

"Let her run!"

"Run it is, and a gale behind her--Christmas to Bud!"

Captain Blaise

Two years now since Mr. Villard had come home, and not a soul on the plantation but believed that at last the new master had given up his mysterious voyages and was home to stay. But one day I had business in Savannah, and while there, hearing that the bark _Nereid_ was in from the West African coast, I strolled down to the river front; and presently I was approached and addressed by the master of the _Nereid_, a seaman-like and rather shrewd-looking man who had a message for Mr.

Villard, he said--from the West Coast.

"I am charged to ask him to pa.s.s the word to Captain Blaise," said the _Nereid's_ master, "that an old friend of his lies low of fever into Momba. Captain Blaise would know who. We were putting out of Momba lagoon and I was standing by the rail, when a n.i.g.g.e.r came paddling up and whispered it. Like a breath of night air it was. 'Tell Master Captain that Ubbo bring the word,' said the n.i.g.g.e.r, and like another breath of wind he pa.s.sed on. No more than that. A short, very stout, and very black n.i.g.g.e.r. And I was to pa.s.s the word to Mr. Villard, a gentleman of estate near Savannah, Georgia, and if you, sir, will attend to that, my part's done."

After my dinner in town was through with, I rode hard; but it was late night by the time I reached the manor-house. I found him sitting out under the moon, smoking a cheroot as usual, and he continued to smoke immovably for some minutes after I had delivered the message; but by and by he stood up and took to pacing the veranda, and presently, after his fashion, to speak his thoughts aloud.

"A hundred thousand acres and a thousand slaves, good, bad, and indifferent--surely a man does owe a little something to his manorial duties. At least, so all my highly respectable and well-established neighbors tell me. What do you say, Guy?"

"I never gave much thought to the matter, sir."

"No? Well, doubtless you will--some day. But d'y' remember Kingston Harbor, where the black boys dive through the green waters for the silver sixpenny pieces, and Kingston port, where the white roads and the white walls throw back the tropic sun so that it seems twice as hot as it really is--Kingston, Guy--in Jamaica, where the sun sets like a blood-orange salad in a purple dish? D'y' remember, Guy, and the day we were lying into Kingston in the _Bess_ and the word came that my uncle was dead? Aye, you do; but don't you remember how he used to rail against me? To be sure--you were too young. And yet a good old uncle, who gave me never a mild word in his life but left me his all at death."

"And why shouldn't he, sir?"

"Why not? Aye, that is so. Why not? And yet he could have left it to anybody--to you, say."

"Why to me? Who am I?"

"What? Who are you?" He ceased his pacing. "That is so, Guy--who are you? You with the strange, quick blood writ so plain in your countenance that there--"

"Isn't it good blood, sir?"

"Aye, Guy, be sure it is good blood. But often have I thought how he would have stormed if--" He gazed curiously at me.

"If--"

"Aye, if--but no matter." He resumed his nervous pacing back and forth, back and forth, hands in pockets, head up, chin out, and face turned always toward the river, past the moss-hung cypress trees to the yellow Savannah flowing swiftly beyond. The salt tide-water made as far as Villard Landing, and when it was in full flood, as now, it brought the smell of the sea strongly with it.

"No matter that now, Guy. A good old soul, my uncle, d'y' see; but the blood was everything to him. And he put it in the bond and I am bound by it: that only the lawful issue, a son of the house, shall inherit. 'I'll have no strange derelict child inherit my estate.' His own words. So this fair estate, lacking lawful issue of my body or my old uncle's son--and he is dead--it goes out of the family. Oh, a stormy, intolerant, but well-meaning old uncle, who would have none of his property left to--Oh, but not that, Guy--no, no, lad." He laid a restraining hand on my shoulder. "No, no, lad, you must not take that to yourself; for you are, no fear, honest born."

"I've waited long for you to tell me even that. Won't you tell me more, sir?"

"Enough for now. But whatever my uncle thought or wished, here, Guy, is an estate to your hand to enjoy. What d'y' say, eh, to the life of a Southern gentleman on his plantation? A hundred thousand acres, a thousand slaves, a stable of the horses you love so, upland and river bottom to hunt, dancing, riding, b.a.l.l.s, the city in winter. Is not that something better than the hard, uncertain sea, Guy?"

He had paused for my answer, but I made none. He was standing motionless, except for the backward toss of his head and the deep inhalation, three or four times, of the briny air from the flooding river. There was disappointment in his voice when he took up the talk again.

"Oh, Guy, between us two what a difference! I was born ash.o.r.e, you at sea, and yet

"'It's you for the back of a charging barb, And me for the deck of a heaving brig!'"

In a lower voice he repeated the couplet, and was plainly vastly pleased with it. "Faith, and I wonder is that my own, or something I read somewhere. Something of the lilt of a Scotch strathspey to 't, shouldn't you say? You know more of such things. What d'y' say--shall I claim that for my own, Guy?"

"You do, sir, and it's not Homer, nor Dante, nor Keats who will rise up to accuse you of plagiarism."

"Bah! You would no more allow me the merit of a poetic vein than--"

"Poetry, sir?"

"Poetry--why not?" and suddenly bending sidewise and forward, he essayed to obtain a fuller view of my face. And it is true that I was thinking of anything but poetry.

His face darkened as he gazed. "A hundred estates and plantations were nothing to me against--" he burst out pa.s.sionately, but no further than that. He checked himself and went inside, and with no good-night going.

In the morning he was gone. I waited--one, two, three days, and then I went also--to Savannah, where I saw the _Bess_, but so altered that it needed a lifetime's intimacy to hail her in the stream. Her spars had been sent down and her name was now the _Triton_, and to her bow and stern was clamped the false work which left her with no more outward grace than any clumsy coaster; and by these signs I knew that Mr.

Villard of Villard Manor would once more disappear and that Captain Blaise would soon again be sailing the _Dancing Bess_ overseas.

Captain Blaise had not yet come aboard; but whatever ship he sailed the full run of that ship was mine, and I went into his cabin to wait for him.

It was after dark when he came over the side. It was always after dark when he boarded the _Bess_ in home ports. His words were colder than his expression when he addressed me. "And where are you bound?"

"I don't know yet, sir."

"And why not?"

"You have not yet told me, sir, where you are going."

"Suppose it should be the West Coast and the old trade?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but even so I go."

"And leave all that good life you love so at the Manor?"

On his face was still the stern look. I could not stand it longer and I stepped closer to him. "You have not turned against me, sir?"