The Happy Venture/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
THE CELESTINE PLAYS HER PART
HE'S a deader," said one of the men, pulling off his watch-cap.
"No, he ain't," said another. "He's warm."
"But look at his eyes," said the first. "They ain't right."
"Where's the old man?" inquired one.
"Skipper's taking a watch below, arter the fog; don't yer go knockin' him up now, Joe."
"Wait till the mate comes. Thunder, why don't yer wrop somep'n round the kid, you loon?"
The big schooner was getting under way again. The mate's voice spoke sharply to the helmsman.
"Helm up—steady. Nothing off—stead-y."
Then he left the quarter-deck and strode rapidly down to the little group amidships. He was a tall man, with a brown, angular face, and deep-set, rather melancholy, blue eyes. His black hair was just beginning to gray above his temples, and several lines, caused more by thought than age, scored his lean face.
"What have we picked up, here, anyway?" he demanded. "Stand off, and let me look."
There was not much to see—a child in a green jersey, with blown, damp hair and a white face.
"You tink he's dead?" A big Swede asked the question.
The mate plunged a quick hand inside the green sweater.
"No, he's not. But he's blind. Get out with that stuff, Jolak, what d 'ye think this is? Get me some brandy, somebody."
Jolak retired with the pickled cabbage he had offered as a restorative. No one looked to see where the brandy came from on a ship where none was supposed to be but in the medicine chest. It came, however, without delay, and the mate opened the flask.
"Now," he said, when he had poured some of its contents down the child's throat, and lifted him from the deck, "let me through."
The first thing of which Kirk was conscious was a long, swinging motion, unlike the short roll of the Dutchman. There was also a complex creaking and sighing, a rustling and rattling. There was a most curious, half-disagreeable, half-fascinating smell. Kirk lay quietly on something which seemed much softer and warmer than the bottom of the Flying Dutchman, and presently he became aware of a soft strumming sound, and of a voice which sang murmurously:
"Off Cape de Gatte
I lost my hat,
And where d 'ye think I found it?
In Port Mahon
Under a stone
With all the girls around it."
"I like that," said Kirk, in a small voice. "Go on."
But the singing stopped immediately, and Kirk feared that he had only dreamed it, after all. However, a large, warm hand was laid quite substantially on his forehead, and the same voice that had been singing, said:
"H'm! Thought you'd have another go at the old world, after all?"
"Where is this?" Kirk asked.
"This is the four-mast schooner Celestine, returning from South America. I am Martin, mate of said schooner—at your service. Hungry?"
"That's funny," said Kirk; "the boat Ken gave me is called the Celestine. And she's a four-masted schooner. Where's Ken?"
"I'm sorry—I don't know. Hungry?"
"I think I am," said Kirk.
Certainly the mate of the Celestine had a most strong and comfortable arm wherewith to raise a person. He administered bread and hot condensed milk, and Kirk began to realize that he was very hungry indeed.
"Now you go to sleep," Mr. Martin advised, after his brief manner. "Warm, now?"
Yes, Kirk was quite warm and cozy, but very much bewildered, and desirous of asking a hundred questions. These the mate forbade.
"You go to sleep," he commanded.
"Then please sing another tune," Kirk said. "What was that you were playing on?"
"Violin," said Mr. Martin. "Fiddle. I was plunking it like a banjo. Now I'll play it, if you'll stop talking."
Kirk did, and the mate began to play. His music was untaught, and he himself had made up the strange airs he played. They sighed fitfully through the little cabin like the rush of wind and water without; blended with it, mingled with the hundred little voices of the ship. The Celestine slipped on up the coast, singing softly to herself, and Kirk fell asleep With the undulating wail of the violin and the whisper of water filling his half-awakened senses.
He woke abruptly, much later, and called for Felicia suddenly; then, recollecting hazily where he was, for Mr. Martin. Hearing no sound, he was frightened, and cried out in remembered terror.
"Steady!" said the mate's voice. "What's the trouble?"
"I don't know," said Kirk. "I—I think I need to talk to somebody. There hasn't been anybody for so long."
"Well, go ahead," said the mate. "I'm in my bunk. If you think there's room enough, I'll put you in here. More sociable, rather."
There was not much room, but Kirk was so thankful to clasp a human being once more, that he did not care how narrow the quarters might be. He put his cheek against the mate's arm, and they lay silent, the man very stiff and unyielding.
"The Maestro would like to hear you play," Kirk murmured. "He loves queer tunes like that. He even likes the ones I make up."
"Oh, you make up tunes, do you?"
"Little ones. But he makes wonderful ones,—and he plays wonderfully, too."
"Who?"
"The Maestro."
"Who's he?"
Kirk told him—at great length. He likewise unburdened his heart, which had been steeped so long in loneliness and terror, and recounted the wonder and beauty of Applegate Farm, and Felicia and Ken, and the model ship, and the Maestro's waiting garden, and all that went to make up his dear, familiar world, left so long ago, it seemed.
"But," he said rather mournfully, "I don't know whether I shall ever see any of them again, if we just keep on sailing and sailing. Are you going back to South America again?"
The mate laughed a little. "No," he said. "The Celestine's going to Bedford. We can't put her off her course to drop you at Asquam—harbor's no good, anyhow. My time's up when she docks. I'll take you home."
"Have you always been mate of the Celestine?" Kirk inquired.
"I have not," said Mr. Martin. "I signed aboard of her at Rio this trip, to get up into the Christian world again. I've been deckhand and seaman and mate on more vessels than I can count—in every part of the uncivilized world. I skippered one ship, even—pestilential tub that she was."
He fell silent after this speech, longer than any he had made so far.
"Then I'll get home," Kirk said. "Home. Can't we let 'em know, or anything? I suppose they've been worrying."
"I think it likely that they have," said the mate. "No, this ship's got no wireless. I'll send 'em a telegram when we dock to-morrow."
"Thank you," said Kirk. Then, after a long pause: "Oh, if you knew how awful it was out there."
"I know," said Mr. Martin.
The Celestine was bowling into Bedford Harbor with a fair wind. Kirk, in a reefer any number of sizes too large for him, sat on a hatch-coaming and drank in the flying wonder of the schooner's way. He was sailing on a great ship! How surprised Ken would be—and envious, too, for Ken had always longed to sail in a ship. The wind soughed in the sails and sang in the rigging, and the water flew past the Celestine and bubbled away behind her in a seething curve of foam. Mr. Martin stood looking up at the smooth, rounded shape of the main topsail, and whistling the song about the hat which he had lost and so miraculously found. He looked more than usually thoughtful and melancholy.
A fussy tug took the Celestine the last stage of her journey, and early afternoon found her warped in to the wharf where Ken had seen her on the eve of her departure. Then, she had been waking to action at the beginning of a long cruise; now, a battered gull with gray, folded wings, she lay at the dock, pointing her bow-sprit stiffly up to the dingy street where horses tramped endlessly over the cobblestones. The crew was jubilant. Some were leaving for other ships; some were going on shore leave, with months' pay unspent.
"I'm attending to this salvage, sir," said Mr. Martin, to the captain. "My folks live up Asquam way. I'll take him along with me."
Asquam's languid representative of the telegraph knocked upon the door of Applegate Farm, which was locked. Then he thrust the yellow envelope as far under the door as possible and went his way. An hour later, a tall man and a radiant small boy pushed open the gate on Winterbottom Road and walked across the yellow grass. Kirk broke away and ran toward the house, hands outflung.
"Phil! Ken!" he called jubilantly.
His face shadowed as his hands came against the unyielding door of the house.
"Phil—" he faltered.
"Perhaps they haven't the telegram," Mr. Martin said. "We'll have to wait around."
"They might be at the Maestro's," Kirk said suddenly. "Come—run quick—I'll show you the way. There's a hole in the hedge—are you too big to get through?"
"I think not," said the mate.
In the Maestro's library, Felicia leaned suddenly upon the piano.
"Ken," she said, breathing hard, "something's going to happen—something!"
"What more can happen?" Ken said gently.
"But—oh, please! Do something—I don't know—"
"Poor child!" murmured the Maestro. "Sit here, Felicia. Help her, Ken."
"I don't need help," said Phil. "Oh, you think I'm mad, I suppose. I'm not. Ken—please go and look out—go to the house. Oh, Kirk!"
The Maestro shook his head and put a hand on Felicia's shoulder.
"Better go, Ken," he said quietly.
Kenelm stepped upon the terrace. Through the long window, which he left open behind him, a joyous voice came quite clearly to the library.
"And this is the poor empty pool that I told you about, that never has had any water in it since then—and aren't we at the terrace steps now?"
Felicia vowed afterward that she didn't faint. Yet she had no clear recollection of seeing Kirk between the time when she saw him drop the hand of the tall, strange man and run up the steps, and when they all were standing around her in the library, looking a little grave.
"Phil—Phil!" Kirk was saying then. "Oh, aren't you glad to see me at all? It's me—oh, Phil!"
His eager hands sought her face, to be sure it was she, so strange and quiet.
"Just a minute, lamb," she heard Ken say, with a hand on Kirk's shoulder. "Phil doesn't feel quite right."
Then warm, delicious life rushed over her, and she could move again and fling her trembling arms around Kirk. She and Ken and the Maestro all managed to embrace Kirk at once, so that they embraced each other, too. And Ken was not ashamed of his tears, nor was the Maestro.
The ex-mate of the Celestine stood discreetly on the terrace, whistling to himself. But he was not whistling the song about his hat. No, it was a little plaintive air, dimly familiar, Ken thought. Where had he heard it before? And why was the Maestro straightening with a stricken face, from Kirk?
"Phil—Phil!" Kirk was saying then