Wide Courses Part 14

I showed her a volume, one of Captain Blaise's, an anthology of the Elizabethan and Restoration poets. "I was trying to write like one of 'em," I explained. "And I thought it was pretty good."

"I don't--a poor girl believing that Heaven made her kind for the high people's pleasure. No, I don't like that. And 'hair as silk as ta.s.selled corn!' Do you like ta.s.selled corn hair?"

"Why, no--in a man. But my own being black--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Black's best. No, you're not intended for that kind of writing."

"But here--listen:

"'True love can neither hate nor scorn, And ne'er will true love pa.s.s away.'

"Don't you like that?"

"Something like it's been said so often. Why don't you put it in your own words?" She took up another sheet. "What's this about?"

"That's about a day and night at sea--a fine day in the Trades, such a day as to-day--and last night."

"It _was_ a beautiful moon last night, wasn't it?" And she read to herself. Coming to the last stanza, she read aloud, unconsciously I think:

"The stars gleamed out of a purple light, The moon trembled wide on the sea; The Western Ocean smiled that night-- Sweetheart, 'twas a dream of thee!"

She paused. "But the ocean doesn't smile." "But it does. Smiles and frowns, and roars and coos, and coaxes and threatens, and strikes and caresses, and leaps and rolls--and so many other things. I've seen it.

And Captain Blaise will tell you the same."

She looked strangely at me. In the deep sea I had seen, at times, that deep dark blue of her eyes--ultramarine, they call it; but hers softer.

I almost told her so, but I was afraid.

She looked away and repeated softly:

"'The Western Ocean smiled that night--Sweetheart, 'twas a dream of thee!'"

It's pretty, but more like what men who cruise for pleasure would write.

You're a sailor--have taken a sailor's chances. Why don't you write like a sailor? It is a sad sea, a terrible sea, despite all your beautiful blue Trades. Why don't you write of the tragic sea?"

"I knew that some time you would say something like that. I've seen it in your eyes before."

"You have?"

"Why, many times. And so, here." And from between the pages of Captain Blaise's book of verse I drew another sheet. At that time I would have been ashamed to let anybody else see these things, but I did not mind her. "Here," I said, "is one I felt. One night in the Caribbean we were caught in a tornado, and we thought--Captain Blaise said afterward he thought so too--that we had stood our last watch. And at the height of it--we could do nothing but stand by--one of the crew, a young fellow--I was only sixteen years old myself then--said to me, 'Oh, Master Guy, what will she say when she hears?' He meant his young wife. He'd been married just before we put out, and she'd come down to the s.h.i.+p to see him off. So listen:

"'The spray, most-like, was in my eyes, He waved his hand to me-- The wind it blew a gale that day When he sailed out to sea.'"

"Ah-h!" She leaned closer.

"It _was_ a gale the day we put out. We had to get out--in Charleston Harbor it was--and they were hot after us--gale or no gale, Captain Blaise put out. I'm trying to imagine what she would think when she heard.

"'And now no spray is in my eyes, No hand is waved to me-- But all the gales of time shall blow Ere he comes back from sea!'"

"And she a bride! Oh-h, the poor girl!" She had leaned over my shoulder to read it for herself, and her breath was on my cheek.

"That is why, if I had--a wife, I should dread the sea."

"And that is why a woman--But how long have you been writing poetry?"

"Poetry? Or rhyme? Never before the day I saw you."

"But when did such ideas before take hold of you?"

"The other night I was lying here looking up, and after a time the moon shone through onto my cot, and you crossed its path--you had given me my night cup and I had pretended to be asleep; and I thought of you looking out on the moonlit sea and I got to wondering what you were thinking of.

And I remembered a thousand such moonlit nights when you were not there.

And I thought what a difference it would have made had you been there, and so when I say

"'The Western Ocean smiled that night--Sweetheart, 'twas a dream of thee!'

"you must not smile. I meant it; for if the ocean smiles and whispers and makes men dream of--"

"Oh-h!" her head had settled and now her cheek was against mine. "Go on," she said softly.

"It made me dream of her that was never more than a dream-woman until I saw you. No longer a dream--not after you stepped out onto the veranda of the Governor's house that night in Momba. I knew it again when, looking out from the shrubbery in the garden, you looked at me and said, 'And who is this?' And I knew it when with you in the long-boat, when I wanted to reach out and take your hand--"

"And why didn't you? I knew you were weak from your wound, and it would have been a charity in me to cheer you up."

"Divine charity--but I was not weak--not from any wound. I had not the courage. A sailor may shape his course by a star, but that does not mean that he ever thinks of reaching up and trying to grasp it."

"And you've heard the sea whisper, too, Guy?"

"Many a time. In the night mostly--in the mid-watch, when it's quietest.

I've leant over the rail and heard it whisper up to me. People laugh at that, but they know nothing of the sea. And the day, or the night, comes to some men, when she whispers up to him and beckons with her wide arms and on her deep bosom offers to pillow him, and weary of the wrong-doing, mostly it's wrong-doing, or despair, when men hear it--weary, weary to death, they are glad to--"

"No, no--no, Guy--you must never go like that!"

"But when a man's alone?"

She rested her chin on my shoulder, she reached a hand down to mine.

"You will not be alone, dear--never, never again."

A voice from above recalled me. "Guy! O Guy! If you can make s.h.i.+ft to come on deck, you would do well. We are in close quarters and like to be yet closer."

I looked up, not in full time, but in time to catch a glint of his eyes.

Pain in his voice, suffering in his eyes--never till that moment did it come to me that this whole cruise had been but a wooing of s.h.i.+ela Cunningham. And I, who owed him everything in life, I had stood in his way. And even with s.h.i.+ela there my heart ached for him.

VI

When I made the deck I saw that off each beam was an American frigate, and ahead was the land--the coast of Georgia.

No doubt of what they were after. The _Bess_ was a much-desired prize, and known as far as a long gla.s.s could shape her lines or pick her rig.

"But there is yet time, sir," I suggested, "to put about, run between them, and escape to the open sea."