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 'TWIXTLAND 
 
 AND_SEA 
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
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University of California • Berkeley 
 From the Library of 
 ERMA ARNSTEIN 
 
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*TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Life is a tragic folly 
 Let iM laugh and be jolly 
 Away with melancholy 
 Bring me a branch of holly 
 Life ie a tragic folly 
 
 A, Stkoks. 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1912 
 By George H. Doran Company 
 
TO 
 CAPTAIN C. M. HARRIS 
 
 LATE MASTER AND OWNER 
 
 OP THE 
 
 JLnA.BY MAID: ARCHIPELAGO TRADER 
 
 IN MEMORY OP THOSE 
 
 OLD DAYS OP ADVENTURE 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Smile op Fortune 9 
 
 The Secret Sharer . . . . . .., . . . 113 
 
 Freya of the Seven Islhs . . . .; :. . . 179 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 
 HARBOUR STORY 
 
A SMILE OP FOETUNE 
 
 EVEK since the sun rose I had been looking 
 ahead. The ship glided gently in smooth water. 
 After a sixty days' passage I was anxious to make my 
 landfall, a fertile and beautiful island of the tropics. 
 The more enthusiastic of its inhabitants delight in 
 describing it as the " Pearl of the Ocean." Well, let us 
 call it the " Pearl." It's a good name. A pearl dis- 
 tilling much sweetness upon the world. 
 
 This is only a way of telling you that first-rate 
 sugar-cane is grown there. All the population of the 
 Pearl lives for it and by it. Sugar is their daily 
 bread, as it were. And I was coming to them for a 
 cargo of sugar in the hope of the crop having been good 
 and of the freights being high. 
 
 Mr. Burns, my chief mate, made out the land first; 
 and very soon I became entranced by this blue, 
 pinnacled apparition, almost transparent against the 
 light of the sky, a mere emanation, the astral body of 
 an island risen to greet me from afar. It is a rare 
 phenomenon, such a sight of the Pearl at sixty miles 
 off. And I wondered half seriously whether it was a 
 good omen, whether what would meet me in that 
 island would be as luckily exceptional as this beautiful, 
 dreamlike vision so very few seamen have been 
 privileged to behold. 
 
 9 
 
10 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 But horrid thoughts of business interfered with my 
 enjoyment of an accomplished passage. I was anxious 
 for success and I wished, too, to do justice to the flat- 
 tering latitude of my owners' instructions contained in 
 one noble phrase : " We leave it to you to do the best 
 you can with the ship." . . . All the world being thus 
 given me for a stage, my abilities appeared to me no 
 bigger than a pinhead. 
 
 Meantime the wind dropped, and Mr. Bums began 
 to make disagreeable remarks about my usual bad luck. 
 I believe it was his devotion for me which made him 
 critically outspoken on every occasion. All the same, 
 I would not have put up with his humours if it had not 
 been my lot at one time to nurse him through a desperate 
 illness at sea. After snatching him out of the jaws of 
 death, so to speak, it would have been absurd to throw 
 away such an efficient officer. But sometimes I wished 
 he would dismiss himself. 
 
 We were late in closing in with the land, and had to 
 anchor outside the harbour till next day. An unpleas- 
 ant and unrestful night followed. In this roadstead, 
 strange to us both. Bums and I remained on deck almost 
 all the time. Clouds swirled down the porphyry crags 
 under which we lay. The rising wind made a great 
 bullying noise amongst the naked spars, with interludes 
 of sad moaning. I remarked that we had been in luck 
 to fetch the anchorage before dark. It would have been 
 a nasty, anxious night to hang off a harbour under can- 
 vas. But my chief mate was uncompromising in his 
 attitude. 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 11 
 
 " Luck, you call it, sir ! Ay — our usual luck. The 
 sort of luck to thank God it's no worse ! " 
 
 And so he fretted through the dark hours, while I 
 drew on my fund of philosophy. Ah, but it was an 
 exasperating, weary, endless night, to be lying at anchor 
 close under that black coast ! The agitated water made 
 snarling sounds all round the ship. At times a wild 
 gust of wind out of a gully high up on the cliiffs struck 
 on our rigging a harsh and plaintive note like the wail 
 of a forsaken souL 
 
 By half-past seven in the morning, the ship being 
 then inside the harbour at last and mobred within a 
 long stone's-throw from the quay, my stock of philosophy 
 was nearly exhausted. I was dressing hurriedly in my 
 cabin when the steward came tripping in with a morn- 
 ing suit over his arm. 
 
 Hungry, tired, and depressed, with my head engaged 
 inside a white shirt irritatingly stuck together by too 
 much starch, I desired him peevishly to " heave round 
 with that breakfast." I wanted to get ashore as soon 
 ?as possible. 
 
 " Yes, sir. Ready at eight, sir. There's a gentle- 
 man from the shore waiting to speak to you, sir." 
 
 This statement was curiously slurred over. I dragged 
 the shirt violently over my head and emerged staring. 
 
 " So early ! " I cried. " Who's he ? What does he 
 want?" 
 
12 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 On coming in from sea one has to pick up the condi- 
 tions of an utterly unrelated existence. Every little 
 event at first has the peculiar emphasis of novelty. I 
 was greatly surprised by that early caller ; but there was 
 no reason for my steward to look so particularly foolish. 
 
 " Didn't you ask for the name ? " I inquired in a 
 stem tone. 
 
 " His name's Jacobus, I believe," he mumbled 
 shamefacedly. 
 
 " Mr. Jacobus ! " I exclaimed loudly, more surprised 
 than ever, but with a total change of feeling. " Why 
 couldn't you say so at once ? " 
 
 But the fellow had scuttled out of my room. 
 Through the momentarily opened door I had a glimpse 
 of a tall, stout man standing in the cuddy by the table 
 on which the cloth was already laid ; a " harbour " 
 tablecloth, stainless and dazzlingly white. So far 
 good. 
 
 I shouted courteously through the closed door, that 
 I was dressing and would be with him in a moment. 
 In return the assurance that there was no hurry reached 
 me in the visitor's deep, quiet undertone. His time 
 was my own. He dared say I would give him a cup 
 of coffee presently. 
 
 " I am afraid you will have a poor breakfast," I 
 cried apologetically. " We have been sixty-one days 
 at sea, you know." 
 
 A quiet little laugh, with a " That'll be all right, 
 Captain," was his answer. All this, words, intonation, 
 the glimpsed attitude of the man in the cuddy, had 
 
A SMILE OE FOETUNE 13 
 
 an unexpected character, a something friendly in it — 
 propitiatory. And my surprise was not diminished 
 thereby. What did this call mean? Was it the sign 
 of some dark design against my commercial inno- 
 cence ? 
 
 Ah ! These conmiercial interests — spoiling the finest 
 life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for 
 trade — and for war as well ? Why kill and traffic on 
 it, pursuing selfish aims of no great importance after 
 all? It would have been so much nicer just to sail 
 about with here and there a port and a bit of land to 
 stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change 
 of cooking for a while. But, living in a world more 
 or less homicidal and desperately mercantile, it was 
 plainly my duty to make the best of its opportunities. 
 
 My owners' letter had left it to me, as I have said 
 before, to do my best for the ship, according to my 
 own judgment. But it contained also a postscript 
 worded somewhat as follows: 
 
 " Without meaning to interfere with your liberty of 
 action we are writing by the outgoing mail to some of 
 our business friends there who may be of assistance 
 to you. We desire you particularly to call on Mr. 
 Jacobus, a prominent merchant and charterer. Should 
 you hit it off with him he may be able to put you in 
 the way of profitable employment for the ship." 
 
 Hit it off! Here was the prominent creature abso- 
 lutely on board asking for the favour of a cup of 
 coffee! And life not being a fairy-tale the improba- 
 bility of the event almost shocked me. Had I dis- 
 
14 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 covered an enchanted nook of the earth where wealthy 
 merchants rush fasting on hoard ships before they are 
 fairly moored ? Was this white magic or merely some 
 black trick of trade ? I came in the end (while making 
 the bow of my tie) to suspect that perhaps I did not 
 get the name right. I had been thinking of the 
 prominent Mr. Jacobus pretty frequently during the 
 passage and my hearing might have been deceived by 
 some remote similarity of sound. . . . The steward 
 might have said Antrobus — or maybe Jackson. 
 
 But coming out of my stateroom with an inter- 
 rogative " Mr. Jacobus ? " I was met by a quiet 
 " Yes," uttered with a gentle smile. The " yes " was 
 rather perfunctory. He did not seem to make much 
 of the fact that he was Mr. Jacobus. I took stock of 
 a big, pale face, hair thin on the top, whiskers also 
 thin, of a faded nondescript colour, heavy eyelids. 
 The thick, smooth lips in repose looked as if glued 
 together. The smile was faint. A heavy, tranquil 
 man. I named my two oflficers, who just then came 
 down to breakfast; but why Mr. Bums's silent de- 
 meanour should suggest suppressed indignation I could 
 not understand. 
 
 While we were taking our seats round the table 
 some disconnected words of an altercation going on in 
 the companionway reached my ear. A stranger appar- 
 ently wanted to come down to interview me, and the 
 steward was opposing him. 
 
 " You can't see him." 
 
 "Why can't I?" 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 15 
 
 " The Captain is at breakfast, I tell you. He'll be 
 going on shore presently, and you can speak to him on 
 deck." 
 
 " That's not fair. You let " 
 
 " I've had nothing to do with that." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you have. Everybody ought to have the 
 same chance. You let that fellow " 
 
 The rest I lost. The person having been repulsed 
 successfully, the steward came down. I can't say he 
 looked flushed — he was a mulatto — but he looked 
 flustered. After putting the dishes on the table he 
 remained by the sideboard with that lackadaisical air 
 of indifference he used to assume when he had done 
 something too clever by half and was afraid of getting 
 into a scrape over it. The contemptuous expression of 
 Mr. Bums's face as he looked from him to me was 
 really extraordinary. I couldn't imagine what new 
 bee had stung the mate now. 
 
 The Captain being silent, nobody else cared to speak, 
 as is the way in ships. And I was saying nothing 
 simply because I had been made dumb by the splendour 
 of the entertainment. I had expected the usual sea- 
 breakfast, whereas I beheld spread before us a veritable 
 feast of shore provisions: eggs, sausages, butter which 
 plainly did not come from a Danish tin, cutlets, and 
 even a dish of potatoes. It was three weeks since I 
 had seen a real, live potato. I contemplated them with 
 interest, and Mr. Jacobus disclosed himself as a man 
 of human, homely sympathies, and something of a 
 thought-reader. 
 
16 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " Try them, Captain," he encouraged me in a 
 friendly undertone. " They are excellent." 
 
 "They look that," I admitted. "Grown on the 
 island, I suppose." 
 
 " Oh, no, imported. Those grown here would be 
 more expensive." 
 
 I was grieved at the ineptitude of the conversation. 
 Were these the topics for a prominent and wealthy 
 merchant to discuss ? I thought the simplicity with 
 which he made himself at home rather attractive; but 
 what is one to talk about to a man who comes on one 
 suddenly, after sixty-one days at sea, out of a totally 
 unknown little town in an island one has never seen 
 before ? What were (besides sugar) the interests of that 
 crumb of the earth, its gossip, its topics of conversation ? 
 To draw him on business at once would have been al- 
 most indecent — or even worse : impolitic. All I could 
 do at the moment was to keep on in the old groove. 
 
 " Are the provisions generally dear here ? " I asked, 
 fretting inwardly at my inanity. 
 
 " I wouldn't say that," he answered placidly, with 
 that appearance of saving his breath his restrained 
 manner of speaking suggested. 
 
 He would not be more explicit, yet he did not evade 
 the subject. Eyeing the table in a spirit of complete 
 abstemiousness (he wouldn't let me help him to any 
 eatables) he went into details of supply. The beef was 
 for the most part imported from Madagascar; mutton 
 of course was rare and somewhat expensive, but good 
 goat's flesh 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 17 
 
 " Are these goat's cutlets ? " I exclaimed hastily, 
 pointing at one of the dishes. 
 
 Posed sentimentally by the sideboard, the steward 
 gave a start. 
 
 " Lor', no, sir ! It's real mutton ! " 
 
 Mr. Burns got through his breakfast impatiently, as 
 if exasperated by being made a party to some mon- 
 strous foolishness, muttered a curt excuse, and went on 
 deck. Shortly afterwards the second mate took his 
 smooth red countenance out of the cabin. With the 
 appetite of a schoolboy, and after two months of sea- 
 fare, he appreciated the generous spread. But I did 
 not. It smacked of extravagance. All the same, it 
 was a remarkable feat to have produced it so quickly, 
 and I congratulated the steward on his smartness in a 
 somewhat ominous tone. He gave me a deprecatory 
 smile and, in a way I didn't know what to make of, 
 blinked his fine dark eyes in the direction of the guest. 
 
 The latter asked under his breath for another cup 
 of coffee, and nibbled ascetically at a piece of very 
 hard ship's biscuit. I don't think he consumed a 
 square inch in the end; but meantime he gave me, 
 casually as it were, a complete account of the sugar 
 crop, of the local business houses, of the state of the 
 freight market. All that talk was interspersed with 
 hints as to personalities, amounting to veiled warnings, 
 but his pale, fleshy face remained equable, without a 
 gleam, as if ignorant of his voice. As you may imagine 
 I opened my ears very wide. Every word was precious. 
 My ideas as to the value of business friendship were 
 
18 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 being favourably modified. Ho gave me the names of 
 all the disponible ships together with their tonnage and 
 the names of their commanders. From that, which 
 was still commercial information, he condescended to 
 mere harbour gossip. The Hilda had unaccountably 
 lost her figurehead in the Bay of Bengal, and her 
 captain was greatly affected by this. He and the ship 
 had been getting on in years together and the old 
 gentleman imagined this strange event to be the fore- 
 runner of his own early dissolution. The Stella had 
 experienced awful weather off the Cape — had her 
 decks swept, and the chief officer washed overboard. 
 And only a few hours before reaching port the baby 
 
 died. Poor Captain H and his wife were terribly 
 
 cut up. If they had only been able to bring it into 
 port alive it could have been probably saved; but the 
 wind failed them for the last week or so, light breezes, 
 and . . . the baby was going to be buried this after- 
 noon. He supposed I would attend 
 
 " Do you think I ought to ? " I asked, shrinkingly. 
 
 He thought so, decidedly. It would be greatly 
 appreciated. All the captains in the harbour were 
 going to attend. Poor Mrs. H was quite pros- 
 trated. Pretty hard on H altogether. 
 
 " And you. Captain — you are not married J 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " No, I am not married," I said. *' Neither mar- 
 ried nor even engaged. '^ 
 
 Mentally I thanked my stars; and while he smiled 
 in a musing, dreamy fashion, I expressed my ac- 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE 19 
 
 knowledgments for his visit and for the interesting 
 business information he had been good enough to im- 
 part to me. But I said nothing of my wonder thereat. 
 
 " Of course, I would have made a point of calling 
 on you in a day or two," I concluded. 
 
 He raised his eyelids distinctly at me, and somehow 
 managed to look rather more sleepy than before. 
 
 " In accordance with my owners' instructions," I 
 explained. " You have had their letter, of course ? " 
 
 By that time he had raised his eyebrows too but 
 without any particular emotion. On the contrary he 
 struck me then as absolutely imperturbable. 
 
 " Oh ! You must be thinking of my brother." 
 
 It was for me, then, to say " Oh ! " But I hope 
 that no more than civil surprise appeared in my voice 
 when I asked him to what, then, I owed the pleasure. 
 . . . He was reaching for an inside pocket leisurely. 
 
 "My brother's a very different person. But I am 
 well known in this part of the world. You've probably 
 heard " 
 
 I took a card he extended to me. A thick business 
 card, as I lived! Alfred Jacobus — the other was 
 Ernest — dealer in every description of ship's stores ! 
 Provisions salt and fresh, oils, paints, rope, canvas, 
 etc., etc Ships in harbour victualled by contract on 
 moderate terms 
 
 " I've never heard of you," I said brusquely. 
 
 His low-pitched assurance did not abandon him. 
 
 " You will be very well satisfied," he breathed out 
 quietly. 
 
20 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 I was not placated. I had the sense of having been 
 circumvented somehow. Yet I had deceived myself — 
 if there was any deception. But the confounded cheek 
 of inviting himself to breakfast was enough to deceive 
 any one. And the thought struck me: Why! The 
 fellow had provided all these eatables himself in the 
 way of business. I said: 
 
 " You must have got up mighty early this mom- 
 ing." 
 
 He admitted with simplicity that he was on the quay 
 before six o'clock waiting for my ship to come in. He 
 gave me the impression that it would be impossible to 
 get rid of him now. 
 
 " If you think we are going to live on that scale/* 
 I said, looking at the table with an irritated eye, " you 
 are jolly well mistaken." 
 
 " You'll find it all right, Captain. I quite under- 
 stand." 
 
 Nothing could disturb his equanimity. I felt dis- 
 satisfied, but I could not very well fly out at him. He 
 had told me many useful things — and besides he was 
 the brother of that wealthy merchant. That seemed 
 queer enough. 
 
 I rose and told him curtly that I must now go 
 ashore. At once he offered the use of his boat for all 
 the time of my stay in port. 
 
 " I only make a nominal charge," he continued 
 equably. " My man remains all day at the landing- 
 steps. You have only to blow a whistle when you 
 want the boat." 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 21 
 
 And, standing aside at every doorway to let me go 
 through first, he carried me off in his custody after all. 
 As we crossed the quarter-deck two shabby individuals 
 stepped forward and in mournful silence offered me 
 business cards which I took from them without a word 
 under his heavy eye. It was a useless and gloomy 
 ceremony. They were the touts of the other ship- 
 chandlers, and he, placid at my back, ignored their 
 existence. 
 
 We parted on the quay, after he had expressed qui- 
 etly the hope of seeing me often " at the store." He 
 had a smoking-room for captains there, with newspa- 
 pers and a box of " rather decent cigars." I left him 
 very unceremoniously. 
 
 My consignees received me with the usual business 
 heartiness, but their account of the state of the freight- 
 market was by no means so favourable as the talk of 
 the wrong Jacobus had led me to expect. N^aturally I 
 became inclined now to put my trust in his version, 
 rather. As I closed the door of the private office be- 
 hind me I thought to myself ; " H'm. A lot of lies. 
 Commercial diplomacy. That's the sort of thing a 
 man coming from sea has got to expect. They would 
 try to charter the ship under the market rate." 
 
 In the big, outer room, full of desks, the chief clerk, 
 a tall, lean, shaved person in immaculate white clothes 
 and with a shiny, closely-cropped black head on which 
 silvery gleams came and went, rose from his place and 
 detained me affably. Anything they could do for me, 
 they would be most happy. Was I likely to call again 
 
80 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 in the afternoon ? What ? Qoing to a funeral ? Oh, 
 yes, poor Captain H . 
 
 He pulled a long, sympathetic face for a moment, 
 then, dismissing from this workaday world the baby, 
 which had got ill in a tempest and had died from too 
 much calm at sea, he asked me with a dental, shark- 
 like smile — if sharks had false teeth — whether I had 
 yet made my little arrangements for the ship's stay in 
 port 
 
 " Yes, with Jacobus," I answered carelessly. " I 
 understand he's the brother of Mr. Ernest Jacobus to 
 whom I have an introduction from my owners." 
 
 I was not sorry to let him know I was not altogether 
 helpless in the hands of his firm. He screwed his thin 
 lips dubiously. 
 
 " Why," I cried, " isn't he the brother? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. . . . They haven't spoken to each other 
 for eighteen years," he added impressively after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Indeed ! What's the quarrel about ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! Nothing that one would care to 
 mention," he protested primly. " He's got quite a 
 large business. The best ship-chandler here, without a 
 doubt. Business is all very well, but there is such 
 a thing as personal character, too, isn't there? Good- 
 morning, Captain." 
 
 He went away mincingly to his desk. He amused 
 me. He resembled an old maid, a commercial old 
 maid, shocked by some impropriety. Was it a com- 
 mercial impropriety? Commercial impropriety is a 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 28 
 
 serious matter, for it aims at one's pocket. Or was he 
 only a purist in conduct who disapproved of Jacobus 
 doing his own touting? It was certainly undignified. 
 I wondered how the merchant brother liked it. But 
 then different countries, different customs. In a 
 community so isolated and so exclusively " trading " 
 social standards have their own scale. 
 
 II 
 
 I WOUI.D have gladly dispensed with the mournful 
 opportunity of becoming acquainted by sight with all 
 my fellow-captains at once. However I found my way 
 to the cemetery. We made a considerable group of 
 bareheaded men in sombre garments. I noticed that 
 those of our company most approaching to the now 
 obsolete sea-dog type were the most moved — perhaps 
 because they had less " manner " than the new gen- 
 eration. The old sea-dog, away from his natural ele- 
 ment, was a simple and sentimental animal. I noticed 
 one — he was facing me across the grave — who was 
 dropping tears. They trickled down his weather- 
 beaten face like drops of rain on an old rugged wall. 
 I learned afterwards that he was looked upon as the 
 terror of sailors, a hard man; that he had never had 
 wife or chick of his own, and that, engaged from his 
 tenderest years in deep-sea voyages, he knew women 
 and children merely by sight. 
 
 Perhaps he was dropping those tears over his lost 
 opportunities, from sheer envy of paternity and in 
 
24 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 strange jealousy of a sorrow which he could never 
 know. Man, and even the sea-man, is a capricious an- 
 imal, the creature and the victim of lost opportunities. 
 But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I 
 had no tears. 
 
 I listened with horribly critical detachment to that 
 service I had had to read myself, once or twice, over 
 childlike men who had died at sea. The words of hope 
 and defiance, tKe winged words so inspiring in the free 
 immensity of water and sky, seemed to fall wearily 
 into the little grave. What was the use of asking 
 Death where her sting was, before that small, dark 
 hole in the ground? And then my thoughts escaped 
 me altogether — away into matters of life — and no 
 very high matters at that — ships, freights, business. 
 In the instability of his emotions man resembles 
 deplorably a monkey. I was disgusted with my 
 thoughts — and I thought : Shall I be able to get a 
 charter soon? Timers money. . . . Will that Ja- 
 cobus really put good business in my way? ... I 
 must go and see him in a day or two. 
 
 Don't imagine that I pursued these thoughts with 
 any precision. They pursued me rather: vague, shad- 
 owy, restless, shamefaced. Theirs was a callous, 
 abominable, almost revolting, pertinacity. And it was 
 the presence of that pertinacious ship-chandler which 
 had started them. He stood mournfully amongst our 
 little band of men from the sea, and I was angry at 
 his presence, which, suggesting his brother the mer- 
 chant, had caused me to become outrageous to myself. 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUITE 26 
 
 For indeed I had preserved some decency of feeling. 
 It was only the mind which 
 
 It was oyer at last. The poor father — a man of 
 forty with black, bushy side-whiskers and a pathetic 
 gash on his freshly-shaved chin — thanked ns all, 
 swallowing his tears. But for some reason, either be- 
 cause I lingered at the gate of the cemetery being 
 somewhat hazy as to my way back, or because I was 
 the youngest, or ascribing my moodiness caused by re- 
 morse to some more worthy and appropriate sentiment, 
 or simply because I was even more of a stranger to 
 him than the others — he singled me out. Keeping at 
 my side, he renewed his thanks, which I listened to in 
 a gloomy, conscience-stricken silence. Suddenly he 
 slipped one hand under my arm and waved the other 
 after a tall, stout figure walking away by itself down 
 a street in a flutter of thin, grey garments: 
 
 "That's a good fellow — a real good fellow" — he 
 swallowed down a belated sob — "this Jacobus." 
 
 And he told me in a low voice that Jacobus was 
 the first man to board his ship on arrival, and, learn- 
 ing of their misfortune, had taken charge of every- 
 thing, volunteered to attend to all routine business, 
 carried off the ship's papers on shore, arranged for the 
 funeral 
 
 " A good fellow. I was knocked over. I had been 
 looking at my wife for ten days. And helpless. Just 
 you think of that ! The dear little chap died the very 
 day we made the land. How I managed to take the 
 ship in God alone knows! I couldn't see anything; 
 
26 TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 I couldn't speak; I couldn't. . . . You've heard, 
 perhaps, that we lost our mate overboard on the pas- 
 sage? There was no one to do it for me. And the 
 poor woman nearly crazy down below there all alone 
 with the . . . By the Lord ! It isn't fair." 
 
 We walked in silence together. I did not know how 
 to part from him. On the way he let go my arm and 
 struck fiercely his fist into the palm of his other hand. 
 
 "By God, it isn't fair!" he cried again. "Don't 
 you ever marry unless you can chuck the sea first. . . . 
 It isn't fair." 
 
 I had no intention to " chuck the sea," and when he 
 left me to go aboard his ship I felt convinced that I 
 would never marry. While I was waiting at the steps 
 for Jacobus's boatman, who had gone off somewhere, 
 the captain of the Hilda joined me, a slender silk um- 
 brella in his hand and the sharp points of his archaic, 
 Gladstonian shirt-collar framing a small, clean- 
 shaved, ruddy face. It was wonderfully fresh for his 
 age, beautifully modelled and lit up by remarkably 
 clear blue eyes. A lot of white hair, glossy like spun 
 glass, curled upwards slightly under the brim of his 
 valuable, ancient, panama hat with a broad black rib- 
 bon. In the aspect of that vivacious, neat, little old 
 man there was something quaintly angelic and also 
 boyish. 
 
 He accosted me as though he had been in the habit 
 of seeing me every day of his life from my earliest 
 childhood, with a whimsical remark on the appearance 
 of a stout negro woman who was sitting upon a stool 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE 27 
 
 near the edge of the quay. Presently he observed 
 amiably that I had a very pretty little barque. 
 
 I returned this civil speech by saying readily : 
 
 " N'ot so pretty as the Hilda/* 
 
 At once the comers of his clear-cut, sensitive mouth 
 dropped dismally. 
 
 " Oh, dear! I can hardly bear to look at her now." 
 
 Did I know, he asked anxiously, that he had lost 
 the figurehead of his ship; a woman in a blue tunic 
 edged with gold, the face perhaps not so very, very 
 pretty, but her bare white arms beautifully shaped and 
 extended as if she were swimming? Did I? Who 
 would have expected such a thing! . . . After twenty 
 years too! 
 
 ]!Tobody could have guessed from his tone that the 
 woman was made of wood; his trembling voice, his 
 agitated manner gave to his lamentations a ludicrously 
 scandalous flavour. . . . Disappeared at night — a 
 clear fine night with just a slight swell — in the gulf 
 of Bengal. Went off without a splash; no one in the 
 ship could tell why, how, at what hour — after twenty 
 years last October. . . . Did I ever hear! . . . 
 
 I assured him sympathetically that I had never 
 heard — and he became very doleful. This meant no 
 good he was sure. There was something in it which 
 looked like a warning. But when I remarked that 
 surely another figure of a woman could be procured 
 I found myself being soundly rated for my levity. 
 The old boy flushed pink under his clear tan as if I 
 had proposed something improper. One could replace 
 
2S 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 masts, I was told, or a lost rudder — any working part 
 of a ship ; but where was the use of sticking up a new 
 figurehead? What satisfaction? How could one care 
 for it? It was as easy to see that I had never been 
 shipmates with a figurehead for over twenty years. 
 
 " A new figurehead ! " he scolded in unquenchable in- 
 dignation. " Why ! I've been a widower now for 
 eight-and-twenty years come next May and I would just 
 as soon think of getting a new wife. You're as bad as 
 that fellow Jacobus." 
 
 I was highly amused. 
 
 "What has Jacobus done? Did he want you to 
 marry again. Captain ? " I inquired in a deferential 
 tone. But he was launched now and only grinned 
 fiercely. 
 
 " Procure — indeed ! He's the sort of chap to pro- 
 cure you anything you like for a price. I hadn't been 
 moored here for an hour when he got on board and at 
 once offered to sell me a figurehead he happens to have 
 in his yard somewhere. He got Smith, my mate, to 
 talk to me about it. * Mr. Smith,' says I, * don't you 
 know me better than that? Am I the sort that would 
 pick up with another man's cast-off figurehead ? ' And 
 after all these years too ! The way some of you young 
 fellows talk " 
 
 I affected great compunction, and as I stepped into 
 the boat I said soberly: 
 
 " Then I see nothing for it but to fit in a neat fiddle- 
 head — perhaps. You know, carved scrollwork, nicely 
 gilt." 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 29 
 
 He became very dejected after his outburst. 
 
 " Yes. Scrollwork. Maybe. Jacobus hinted at 
 that too. ' He's never at a loss when there's any money 
 to be extracted from a sailorman. He would make me 
 pay through the nose for that carving. A gilt fiddle- 
 head did you say — eh ? I dare say it would do for 
 you. You young fellows don't seem to have any feel- 
 ing for what's proper." 
 
 He made a convulsive gesture with his right arm. 
 
 " Never mind. Nothing can make much difference. 
 I would just as soon let the old thing go about the 
 world with a bare cutwater," he cried sadly. Then as 
 the boat got away from the steps he raised his voice 
 on the edge of the quay with comical animosity : 
 «. " I would ! If only to spite that figurehead- 
 procuring bloodsucker. I am an old bird here and 
 don't you forget it. Come and see me on board some 
 day!" 
 
 I spent my first evening in port quietly in my ship's 
 cuddy; and glad enough was I to think that the shore 
 life which strikes one as so prettily complex, discordant, 
 and so full of new faces on first coming from sea, 
 could be kept off for a few hours longer. I was how- 
 ever fated to hear the Jacobus note once more before 
 I slept. 
 
 Mr. Burns had gone ashore after the evening meal 
 to have, as he said, " a look round." As it was quite 
 dark when he announced his intention I didn't ask 
 him what it was he expected to see. Some time about 
 midnight, while sitting with a book in the saloon, I 
 
30 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 heard cautious movements in the lobby and hailed him 
 by name. 
 
 Bums came in, stick and hat in hand, incredibly 
 vulgarised by his smart shore togs, with a jaunty air 
 and an odious twinkle in his eye. Being asked to sit 
 down he laid his hat and stick on the table and after 
 we had talked of ship affairs for a little while : 
 
 " I've been hearing pretty tales on shore about that 
 ship-chandler fellow who snatched the job from you 
 so neatly, sir." 
 
 I remonstrated with my late patient for his manner 
 of expressing himself. But he only tossed his head 
 disdainfully. A pretty dodge indeed: boarding a 
 strange ship with breakfast in two baskets for all hands 
 and calmly inviting himself to the captain's table! 
 Never heard of anything so crafty and so impudent in 
 his life. 
 
 I found myself defending Jacobus's unusual meth- 
 ods. 
 
 " He's the brother of one of the wealthiest merchants 
 in the port." The mate's eyes fairly snapped green 
 sparks. 
 
 " His grand brother hasn't spoken to him for eight- 
 een or twenty years," he declared triumphantly. " So 
 there!" 
 
 " I know all about that," I interrupted loftily. 
 
 " Do you, sir ? H'm ! " His mind was still run- 
 ning on the ethics of commercial competition. " I 
 don't like to see your good nature taken advantage of. 
 He's bribed that steward of ours with a five-rupee note 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 31 
 
 to let him come down — or ten for that matter. He 
 don't care. He will shove that and more into the bill 
 presently.'' 
 
 " Is that one of the tales you have heard ashore ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 He assured me that his own sense could tell him 
 that much. No ; what he had heard on shore was that 
 no respectable person in the whole town would come 
 near Jacobus. He lived in a large old-fashioned house 
 in one of the quiet streets with a big garden. After 
 telling me this Burns put on a mysterious air. " He 
 keeps a girl shut up there who, they say " 
 
 " I suppose you've heard all this gossip in some emi- 
 nently respectable place ? " I snapped at him in a most 
 sarcastic tone. 
 
 The shaft told, because Mr. Bums, like many other 
 disagreeable people, was very sensitive himself. He 
 remained as if thunderstruck, with his mouth open for 
 some further communication, but I did not give him 
 the chance. "And, anyhow, what the deuce do 1 
 care ? " I added, retiring into my room. 
 
 And this was a natural thing to say. Yet somehow 
 I was not indifferent. I admit it is absurd to be 
 concerned with the morals of one's ship-chandler, if 
 ever so well connected ; but his personality had stamped 
 itself upon my first day in harbour, in the way you 
 know. 
 
 After this initial exploit Jacobus showed himself 
 anything but intrusive. He was out in a boat early 
 every morning going round the ships he served, and 
 
32 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 occasionally remaining on board one of them for break- 
 fast with the captain. 
 
 As I discovered that this practice was generally ac- 
 cepted, I just nodded to him familiarly when one morn- 
 ing, on coming out of my room, I found him in the 
 cabin. Glancing over the table I saw that his place 
 was already laid. He stood awaiting my appearance, 
 very bulky and placid, holding a beautiful bunch of 
 flowers in his thick hand. He offered them to my 
 notice with a faint, sleepy smile. From his own 
 garden; had a very fine old garden; picked them him- 
 self that morning before going out to business ; thought 
 I would like. . . . He turned away. " Steward, can 
 you oblige me with some water in a large jar, please." 
 
 I assured him jocularly, as I took my place at the 
 table, that he made me feel as if I were a pretty girl, 
 and that he mustn't be surprised if I blushed. But 
 he was busy arranging his floral tribute at the side- 
 board. " Stand it before the Captain's plate, steward, 
 please." He made this request in his usual undertone. 
 
 The offering was so pointed that I could do no less 
 than to raise it to my nose, and as he sat down noise- 
 lessly he breathed out the opinion that a few flowers 
 improved notably the appearance of a ship's saloon. 
 He wondered why I did not have a shelf fitted all 
 round the skylight for flowers in pots to take with me 
 to sea. He had a skilled workman able to fit up 
 shelves in a day, and he could procure me two or three 
 dozen good plants 
 
 The tips of his thick, round fingers rested composedly 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 33 
 
 on the edge of the table on each side of his cup of 
 coffee. His face remained immovable. Mr. Bums 
 was smiling maliciously to himself. I declared that I 
 hadn^t the slightest intention of turning my skylight 
 into a conservatory only to keep the cabin-table in a 
 perpetual mess of mould and dead vegetable matter. 
 
 " Rear most beautiful flowers," he insisted with an 
 upward glance. " It's no trouble really." 
 
 " Oh, yes, it is. Lots of trouble," I contradicted. 
 " And in the end some fool leaves the skylight open 
 in a fresh breeze, a flick of salt water gets at them and 
 the whole lot is dead in a week." 
 
 Mr. Bums snorted a contemptuous approval. 
 Jacobus gave up the subject passively. After a time 
 he unglued his thick lips to ask me if I had seen his 
 brother yet. I was very curt in my answer. 
 
 " No, not yet." 
 
 "A very different person," he remarked dreamily 
 and got up. His movements were particularly noise- 
 less. " Well — thank you, Captain. If anything is' 
 not to your liking please mention it to your steward. 
 I suppose you will be giving a dinner to the office-clerks 
 presently." 
 
 " What for ? " I cried with some warmth. " If I 
 were a steady trader to the port I could understand it. 
 But a complete stranger! ... I may not turn up 
 again here for years. I don't see why I ... Do you 
 mean to say it is customary ? " 
 
 " It will be expected from a man like you," he 
 breathed out placidly. " Eight of the principal clerks. 
 
34 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 the manager, that's nine, you three gentlemen, that's 
 twelve. It needn't be very expensive. If you tell 
 your steward to give me a day's notice " 
 
 " It will be expected of me ! Why should it be ex- 
 pected of me? Is it because I look particularly soft 
 — or what ? " 
 
 His immobility struck me as dignified suddenly, his 
 imperturbable quality as dangerous. " There's plenty 
 of time to think about that," I concluded weakly with 
 a gesture that tried to wave him away. But before 
 he departed he took time to mention regretfully that 
 he had not yet had the pleasure of seeing me at his 
 " store " to sample those cigars. He had a parcel of 
 six thousand to dispose of, very cheap. 
 
 " I think it would be worth your while to secure 
 some," he added with a fat, melancholy smile and left 
 the cabin. 
 
 Mr. Burns struck his fist on the table excitedly. 
 
 " Did you ever see such impudence ! He's made up 
 his mind to get something out of you one way or an- 
 other, sir." 
 
 At once feeling inclined to defend Jacobus, I ob- 
 served philosophically that all this was business, I sup- 
 posed. But my absurd mate, muttering broken 
 disjointed sentences, such as : "I cannot bear ! . . . 
 Mark my words! . . ." and so on, flung out of the 
 cabin. If I hadn't nursed him through that deadly 
 fever I wouldn't have suffered such manners for a 
 single day. 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE U 
 
 III 
 
 Jacobus having put me in mind of his wealthy brother 
 I concluded I would pay that business call at once. 
 I had by that time heard a little more of him. He was 
 a member of the Council, where he made himself ob- 
 jectionable to the authorities. He exercised a consid- 
 erable influence on public opinion. Lots of people 
 owed him money. He was an importer on a great 
 scale of all sorts of goods. For instance, the whole 
 supply of bags for sugar was practically in his hands. 
 This last fact I did not learn till afterwards. The 
 general impression conveyed to me was that of a local 
 personage. He was a bachelor and gave weekly card- 
 parties in his house out of town, which were attended 
 by the best people in the colony. 
 
 The greater, then, was my surprise to discover his 
 office in shabby surroundings, quite away from the 
 business quarter, amongst a lot of hovels. Guided by 
 a black board with white lettering, I climbed a narrow 
 wooden staircase and entered a room with a bare floor 
 of planks littered with bits of brown paper and wisps 
 of packing straw. A great number of what looked 
 like wine-cases were piled up against one of the walls. 
 A lanky, inky, light-yellow, mulatto youth, miserably 
 long-necked and generally recalling a sick chicken, got 
 off a three-legged stool behind a cheap deal desk and 
 faced me as if gone dumb with fright. I had some 
 difliculty in persuading him to take in my name, 
 though I could not get from him the nature of his 
 
36 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 objection. He did it at last with an almost agonised 
 reluctance which ceased to be mysterious to me when 
 I heard him being sworn at menacingly with savage, 
 suppressed growls, then audibly cuffed and finally 
 kicked out without any concealment whatever; because 
 he came back flying head foremost through the door 
 Avith a stifled shriek. 
 
 To say I was startled would not express it I re- 
 mained still, like a man lost in a dream. Clapping 
 both his hands to that part of his frail anatomy which 
 had received the shock, the poor wretch said to me 
 simply : 
 
 " Will you go in, please." 
 
 His lamentable self-possession was wonderful; but 
 it did not do away with the incredibility of the ex- 
 perience. A preposterous notion that I had seen this 
 boy somewhere before, a thing obviously impossible, 
 was like a delicate finishing touch of weirdness added 
 to a scene fit to raise doubts as to one^s sanity. I stared 
 anxiously about me like an awakened somnambulist. 
 
 " I say," I cried loudly, " there isn't a mistake, is 
 there? This is Mr. Jacobus's office." 
 
 The boy gazed at me with a pained expression — 
 and somehow so familiar ! A voice within growled of- 
 fensively : 
 
 " Come in, come in, since you are there. ... I 
 didn't know." 
 
 I crossed the outer room as one approaches the den 
 of some unknown wild beast; with intrepidity but in 
 some excitement. Only no wild beast that ever lived 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 37 
 
 would rouse one's indignation; the power to do that 
 belongs to the odiousness of the human brute. And I 
 was very indignant, which did not prevent me from be- 
 ing at once struck by the extraordinary resemblance of 
 the two brothers. 
 
 This one was dark instead of being fair like the 
 other; but he was as big. He was without his coat 
 and waistcoat; he had been doubtless snoozing in the 
 rocking-chair which stood in a comer furthest from 
 the window. Above the great bulk of his crumpled 
 white shirt, buttoned with three diamond studs, his 
 round face looked swarthy. It was moist; his brown 
 moustache hung limp and ragged. He pushed a com- 
 mon, cane-bottomed chair towards me with his foot. 
 
 " Sit down." 
 
 I glanced at it casually, then, turning my indignant 
 eyes full upon him, I declared in precise and incisive 
 tones that I had called in obedience to my owners' in- 
 structions. 
 
 " Oh ! Yes. H'm ! I didn't understand what that 
 fool was saying. . . . But never mind! It will teach 
 the scoundrel to disturb me at this time of the day," 
 he added, grinning at me with savage cynicism. 
 
 I looked at my watch. It was past three o'clock — 
 quite the full swing of afternoon office work in the 
 port. He snarled imperiously : " Sit down, Captain." 
 
 I acknowledged the gracious invitation by saying 
 deliberately : 
 
 " I can listen to all you may have to say without 
 sitting down." 
 
38 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Emitting a loud and vehement ^^ Pshaw ! " he glared 
 for a moment, very round-eyed and fierce. It was like 
 a gigantic tomcat spitting at one suddenly. " Look at 
 him! . . . What do you fancy yourself to be? What 
 did you come here for? If you won't sit down and 
 talk business you had better go to the devil." 
 
 " I don't know him personally," I said. " But after 
 this I wouldn't mind calling on him. It would be 
 refreshing to meet a gentleman." 
 
 He followed me, growling behind my back : 
 
 " The impudence ! I've a good mind to ^vrite to 
 your owners what I think of you." 
 
 I turned on him for a moment : 
 
 " As it happens I don't care. Eor my part I assure 
 you I won't even take the trouble to mention you to 
 them." 
 
 He stopped at the door of his office while I traversed 
 the littered anteroom. I think he was somewhat taken 
 aback. 
 
 " I will break every bone in your body," he roared 
 suddenly at the miserable mulatto laa, " if you ever 
 dare to disturb me before half -past three for anybody. 
 D'ye hear? For anybody! . . . Let alone any 
 damned skipper," he added, in a lower growl. 
 
 The frail youngster, swaying like a reed, made a low 
 moaning sound. I stopped short and addressed this 
 sufferer with advice. It was prompted by the sight of 
 a hammer (used for opening the wine-cases, I suppose) 
 which was lying on the floor. 
 
 " If I were you, my boy, I would have that thing up 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 39 
 
 my sleeve when I went in next and at the first occa- 
 sion I would " 
 
 Wliat was there so familiar in that lad's yellow face ? 
 Entrenched and quaking behind the flimsy desk, he 
 never looked up. His heavy, lowered eyelids gave me 
 suddenly the clue of the puzzle. He resembled — yes, 
 those thick glued lips — he resembled the brothers 
 Jacobus. He resembled both, the wealthy merchant 
 and the pushing shopkeeper (who resembled each 
 other) ; he resembled them as much as a thin, light- 
 yellow mulatto lad may resemble a big, stout, middle- 
 aged white man. It was the exotic complexion and 
 the slightness of his build which had put me off so 
 completely. 'Now I saw in him unmistakably the 
 Jacobus strain, weakened, attenuated, diluted as it 
 were in a bucket of water — and I refrained from fin- 
 ishing my speech. I had intended to say: "Crack 
 this brute's head for him." I still felt the conclusion 
 to be sound. But it is no trifling responsibility to 
 counsel parricide to any one, however deeply injured. 
 
 " Beggarly — cheeky — skippers." 
 
 I despised the emphatic growl at my back; only, 
 being much vexed and upset, I regret to say that I 
 slammed the door behind me in a most undignified 
 manner. 
 
 It may not appear altogether absurd if I say that 
 I brought out from that interview a kindlier view of 
 the other Jacobus. It was with a feeling resembling 
 partisanship that, a few days later, I called at his 
 " store." That long, cavern-like place of business, 
 
40 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 very dim at the back and stuffed full of all sorts of 
 goods, was entered from the street by a lofty archway. 
 At the far end I saw my Jacobus exerting himself in 
 his shirt-sleeves among his assistants. The captains' 
 room was a small, vaulted apartment with a stone floor 
 and heavy iron bars in its windows like a dungeon 
 converted to hospitable purposes. A couple of cheerful 
 bottles and several gleaming glasses made a brilliant 
 cluster round a tall, cool red earthenware pitcher on 
 the centre table which was littered with newspapers 
 from all parts of the world. A well-groomed stranger 
 in a smart grey check suit, sitting with one leg flung 
 over his knee, put down one of these sheets briskly and 
 nodded to me. 
 
 I guessed him to be a steamer-captain. It was im- 
 possible to get to know these men. They came and 
 went too quickly and their ships lay moored far out, 
 at the very entrance of the harbour. Theirs was an- 
 other life altogether. He yawned slightly. 
 
 "Dull hole, isn't it?" 
 
 I understood this to allude to the town. 
 
 " Do you find it so ? " I murmured. 
 
 " Don't you ? But I'm off to-morrow, thank good- 
 ness." 
 
 He was a very gentlemanly person, good-natured and 
 superior. I watched him draw the open box of cigars 
 to his side of the table, take a big cigar-case out of his 
 pocket and begin to fill it very methodically. Pres- 
 ently, on our eyes meeting, he winked like a common 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 41 
 
 mortal and invited me to follow his example. " They 
 are really decent smokes." I shook my head. 
 
 " I am not off to-morrow." 
 
 " What of that ? Think I am abusing old Jacobus's 
 hospitality ? Heavens ! It goes into the bill, of course. 
 He spreads such little matters all over his account. 
 He can take care of himself ! Why, it's business " 
 
 I noted a shadow fall over his well-satisfied expres- 
 sion, a momentary hesitation in closing his cigar-case. 
 But he ended by putting it in his pocket jauntily. A 
 placid voice uttered in the doorway : " That's quite 
 correct, Captain." 
 
 The large noiseless Jacobus advanced into the room. 
 His quietness, in the circumstances, amounted to 
 cordiality. He had put on his jacket before joining 
 us, and he sat down in the chair vacated by the steamer- 
 man, who nodded again to me and went out with a 
 short, jarring laugh. A profound silence reigned. 
 With his drowsy stare Jacobus seemed to be slumber- 
 ing open-eyed. Yet, somehow, I was aware of being 
 profoundly scrutinised by those heavy eyes. In the 
 enormous cavern of the store somebody began to nail 
 down a case, expertly: tap-tap . . . tap-tap-tap. Two 
 other experts, one slow and nasal, the other shrill and 
 snappy, started checking an invoice. 
 
 "A half -coil of three-inch manilla rope." 
 
 "Right!" 
 
 " Six assorted shackles." 
 
 "Right!" 
 
42 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 " Six tins assorted soups, three of pate, two aspara- 
 gus, fourteen pounds tobacco, cabin." 
 
 "Right!" 
 
 " It's for the captain who was here just now," 
 breathed out the immovable Jacobus. " These steamer 
 orders are very small. They pick up what they want 
 as they go along. That man will be in Samarang in 
 less than a fortnight. Very small orders indeed." 
 
 The calling over of the items went on in the shop; 
 an extraordinary jumble of varied articles, paint- 
 brushes, Yorkshire Relish, etc., etc. ..." Three 
 sacks of best potatoes," read out the nasal voice. 
 
 At this Jacobus blinked like a sleeping man roused 
 by a shake, and displayed some animation. At his 
 order, shouted into the shop, a smirking half-caste clerk 
 with his ringlets much oiled and with a pen stuck be- 
 hind his ear, brought in a sample of six potatoes which 
 he paraded in a row on the table. 
 
 Being urged to look at their beauty I gave them a 
 cold and hostile glance. Calmly, Jacobus proposed 
 that I should order ten or fifteen tons — tons! I 
 couldn't believe my ears. My crew could not have 
 eaten such a lot in a year; and potatoes (excuse these 
 practical remarks) are a highly perishable commodity. 
 I thought he was joking — or else trying to find out 
 whether I was an unutterable idiot. But his purpose 
 was not so simple. I discovered that he meant me to 
 buy them on my own account. 
 
 " I am proposing you a bit of business, Captain. I 
 wouldn't charge you a great price." 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUIsrE 48 
 
 I told him that I did not go in for trade. I even 
 added grimly that I knew only too well how that sort 
 of spec, generally ended. 
 
 He sighed and clasped his hands on his stomach 
 with exemplary resignation. I admired the placidity 
 of his impudence. Then waking up somewhat : 
 
 " Won't you try a cigar, Captain ? " 
 
 " !N'o, thanks. I don't smoke cigars." 
 
 " For once ! " he exclaimed, in a patient whisper. 
 A melancholy silence ensued. You know how some- 
 times a person discloses a certain unsuspected depth 
 and acuteness of thought ; that is, in other words, utters 
 something unexpected. It was unexpected enough to 
 hear Jacohus say: 
 
 " The man who just went out was right enough. 
 You might take one. Captain. Here everything is 
 bound to be in the way of business." 
 
 I felt a little ashamed of myself. The remembrance 
 of his horrid brother made him appear quite a decent 
 sort of fellow. It was with some compunction that I 
 said a few words to the effect that I could have no 
 possible objection to his hospitality. 
 
 Before I was a minute older I saw where this ad- 
 mission was leading me. As if changing the subject, 
 Jacobus mentioned that his private house was about ten 
 minutes' walk away. It had a beautiful old walled 
 garden. Something really remarkable. I ought to 
 come round some day and have a look at it. 
 
 He seemed to be a lover of gardens. I too take 
 extreme delight in them ; but I did not mean my com- 
 
44 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 punction to carry me as far as Jacobus's flower-beds, 
 however beautiful and old. He added, with a certain 
 homeliness of tone : 
 
 " There's only my girl there." 
 
 It is diflBcult to set everything down in due order; 
 so I must revert here to what happened a week or two 
 before. The medical officer of the port had come on 
 board my ship to have a look at one of my crew who 
 was ailing, and naturally enough he was asked to step 
 into the cabin. A fellow-shipmaster of mine was there 
 too; and in the conversation, somehow or other, the 
 name of Jacobus came to be mentioned. It was pro- 
 nounced with no particular reverence by the other 
 man, I believe. I don't remember now what I was 
 going to say. The doctor — a pleasant, cultivated fel- 
 low, with an assured manner — prevented me by strik- 
 ing in, in a sour tone : 
 
 " Ah ! You're talking about my respected papa-in- 
 law." 
 
 Of course, that sally silenced us at the time. But I 
 remembered the episode, and at this juncture, pushed 
 for something non-committal to say, I inquired with 
 polite surprise : 
 
 " You have your married daughter living with you, 
 Mr. Jacobus?" 
 
 He moved his big hand from right to left quietly. 
 No ! That was another of his girls, he stated, ponder- 
 ously and under his breath as usual. She . . . He 
 seemed in a pause to be ransacking his mind for some 
 kind of descriptive phrase. But my hopes were dis- 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE 45 
 
 appointed. He merely produced his stereotyped defi- 
 nition. 
 
 " She's a very different sort of person." 
 
 " Indeed. . . . And by the by, Jacobus, I called on 
 your brother the other day. It's no great compliment 
 if I say that I found him a very different sort of person 
 from you." 
 
 He had an air of profound reflection, then remarked 
 quaintly : 
 
 " He's a man of regular habits." 
 
 He might have been alluding to the habit of late 
 siesta ; but I mumbled something about " beastly habits 
 anyhow " — and left the store abruptly. 
 
 IV 
 
 My little passage with Jacobus the merchant be- 
 came known generally. One or two of my ac- 
 quaintances made distant allusions to it. Perhaps the 
 mulatto boy had talked. I must confess that people 
 appeared rather scandalised, but not with Jacobus's 
 brutality. A man I knew remonstrated with me for 
 my hastiness. 
 
 I gave him the whole story of my visit, not forget- 
 ting the tell-tale resemblance of the wretched mulatto 
 boy to his tormentor. He was not surprised. No 
 doubt, no doubt. "What of that? In a jovial tone he 
 assured me that there must be many of that sort. The 
 elder Jacobus had been a bachelor all his life. A 
 highly respectable bachelor. But there had never 
 
46 'TWIJT LAND AND SEA 
 
 been open scandal in that connection. His life had 
 been quite regular. It could cause no offence to any 
 one. 
 
 I said that I had been offended considerably. My 
 interlocutor opened very wide eyes. Why? Because 
 a mulatto lad got a few knocks ? That was not a great 
 affair, surely. I had no idea how insolent and un- 
 truthful these half-castes were. In fact he seemed to 
 think Mr. Jacobus rather kind than otherwise to em- 
 ploy that youth at all ; a sort of amiable weakness which 
 could be forgiven. 
 
 This acquaintance of mine belonged to one of the 
 old French families, descendants of the old colonists; 
 all noble, all impoverished, and living a narrow domes- 
 tic life in dull, dignified decay. The men, as a rule, 
 occupy inferior posts in Government offices or in busi- 
 ness houses. The girls are almost always pretty, igno- 
 rant of the world, kind and agreeable and generally 
 bilingual; they prattle innocently both in French and 
 English. The emptiness of their existence passes be- 
 lief. 
 
 I obtained my entry into a couple of such house- 
 holds because some years before, in Bombay, I had 
 occasion to be of use to a pleasant, ineffectual young 
 man who was rather stranded there, not knowing what 
 to do with himself or even how to get home to 
 his island again. It was a matter of two hundred 
 rupees or so, but, when I turned up, the family made 
 a point of showing their gratitude by admitting me to 
 their intimacy. My knowledge of the French Ian- 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 47 
 
 guage made me specially acceptable. They had mean- 
 time managed to marry the fellow to a woman nearly 
 twice his age, comparatively well off: the only profes- 
 sion he was really fit for. But it was not all cakes and 
 ale. The first time I called on the couple she spied 
 a little spot of grease on the poor devil's pantaloons 
 and made him a screaming scene of reproaches so full 
 of sincere passion that I sat terrified as at a tragedy of 
 Racine. 
 
 Of course there was never question of the money I 
 had advanced him; but his sisters, Miss Angele and 
 Miss Mary, and the aunts of both families, who spoke 
 quaint archaic French of pre-Revolution period, and 
 a host of distant relations adopted me for a friend 
 outright in a manner which was almost embarrassing. 
 
 It was vdth the eldest brother (he was employed at 
 a desk in my consignee's office) that I was having this 
 talk about the merchant Jacobus. He regretted my 
 attitude and nodded his head sagely. An influential 
 man. One never knew when one would need him. I 
 expressed my immense preference for the shopkeeper 
 of the two. At that my friend looked grave. 
 
 " What on earth are you pulling that long face 
 about ? " I cried impatiently. " He asked me to see 
 his garden and I have a good mind to go some day." 
 
 "Don't do that," he said, so earnestly that I burst 
 into a fit of laughter; but he looked at me without a 
 smile. 
 
 This was another matter altogether. At one time 
 the public conscience of the island had been mightily 
 
48 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 troubled by my Jacobus. The two brothers had been 
 partners for years in great harmony, when a wandering 
 circus came to the island and my Jacobus became 
 suddenly infatuated with one of the lady-riders. What 
 made it worse was that he was married. He had not 
 even the grace to conceal his passion. It must have 
 been strong indeed to carry away such a large placid 
 creature. His behaviour was perfectly scandalous. 
 He followed that woman to the Cape, and apparently 
 travelled at the tail of that beastly circus to other 
 parts of the world, in a most degrading position. The 
 woman soon ceased to care for him, and treated him 
 worse than a dog. Most extraordinary stories of moral 
 degradation were reaching the island at that time. He 
 had not the strength of mind to shake himself free. . . . 
 
 The grotesque image of a fat, pushing ship-chandler, 
 enslaved by an unholy love-spell, fascinated me; and 
 I listened rather open-mouthed to the tale as old as the 
 world, a tale which had been the subject of legend, of 
 moral fables, of poems, but which so ludicrously failed 
 to fit the personality. What a strange victim for the 
 gods! 
 
 Meantime his deserted wife had died. His daughter 
 was taken care of by his brother, who married her as 
 advantageously as was possible in the circumstances. 
 
 " Oh ! The Mrs. Doctor ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " You know that ? Yes. A very able man. He 
 wanted a lift in the world, and there was a good bit 
 of money from her mother, besides the expectations. 
 ... Of course, they don't know him," he added. 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 49 
 
 " The doctor nods in the street, I believe, but he avoids 
 speaking to him when they meet on board a ship, as 
 must happen sometimes." 
 
 I remarked that this surely was an old story by now. 
 
 My friend assented. But it was Jacobus's own fault 
 that it was neither forgiven nor forgotten. He came 
 back ultimately. But how? Not in a spirit of con- 
 trition, in a way to propitiate his scandalised fellow- 
 citizens. He must needs drag along with him a child 
 — a girl. . . . 
 
 " He spoke to me of a daughter who lives with him," 
 I observed, very much interested. 
 
 " She's certainly the daughter of the circus-woman," 
 said my friend. " She may be his daughter too ; I am 
 willing to admit that she is. In fact I have no 
 doubt " 
 
 But he did not see why she should have been 
 brought into a respectable community to perpetuate the 
 memory of the scandal. And that was not the worst. 
 Presently something much more distressing happened. 
 That abandoned woman turned up. Landed from a 
 mail-boat. . . . 
 
 "What! Here? To claim the child perhaps," I 
 suggested. 
 
 " Not she ! " My friendly informant was very 
 scornful. " Imagine a painted, haggard, agitated, 
 desperate hag. Been cast off in Mozambique by some- 
 body who paid her passage here. She had been in- 
 jured internally by a kick from a horse; she hadn't 
 a cent on her when she got ashcre; I don't think she 
 
60 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 even asked to see the child. At any rate, not till the 
 last day of her life. Jacobus hired for her a bunga- 
 low to die in. He got a couple of Sisters from the 
 hospital to nurse her through these few months. If he 
 didn't marry her in extremis as the good Sisters tried 
 to bring about, it's because she wouldn't even hear of it. 
 As the nuns said : * The woman died impenitent.' It 
 was reported that she ordered Jacobus out of the room 
 with her last breath. This may be the real reason why 
 he didn't go into mourning himself; he only put the 
 child into black. While she was little she was to be 
 seen, sometimes about the streets attended by a negro 
 woman, but since she became of age to put her hair 
 up I don't think she has set foot outside that garden 
 once. She must be over eighteen now." 
 
 Thus my friend, with some added details; such as, 
 that he didn't think the girl had spoken to three peo- 
 ple of any position in the island; that an elderly 
 female relative of the brothers Jacobus had been in- 
 duced by extreme poverty to accept the position of 
 gouvemante to the girl. As to Jacobus's business 
 (which certainly annoyed his brother) it was a wise 
 choice on his part. It brought him in contact only 
 with strangers of passage; whereas any other would 
 have given rise to all sorts of awkwardness with his 
 social equals. The man was not wanting in a certain 
 tact — only he was naturally shameless. For why did 
 he want to keep that girl with him ? It was most pain- 
 ful for everybody. 
 
 I thought suddenly (and with profound disgust) of 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 51 
 
 the other Jacobus, and I could not refrain from saying 
 slily: 
 
 *^ I suppose if he employed her, say as a scullion in 
 his household and occasionally pulled her hair or boxed 
 her ears, the position would have been more regular 
 — less shocking to the respectable class to which he 
 
 He was not so stupid as to miss my intention, and 
 shrugged his shoulders impatiently. 
 
 " You don't understand. To begin with, she's not 
 a mulatto. And a scandal is a scandal. People 
 should be given a chance to forget. I dare say it 
 would have been better for her if she had been turned 
 into a scullion or something of that kind. Of course 
 he's trying to make money in every sort of petty way, 
 but in such a business there'll never be enough for 
 anybody to come forward." 
 
 When my friend left me I had a conception of 
 Jacobus and his daughter existing, a lonely pair of 
 castaways, on a desert island ; the girl sheltering in the 
 house as if it were a cavern in a cliff, and Jacobus go- 
 ing out to pick up a living for both on the beach — 
 exactly like two shipwrecked people who always hope 
 for some rescuer to bring them back at last into touch 
 with the rest of mankind. 
 
 But Jacobus's bodily reality did not fit in with this 
 romantic view. When he turned up on board in the 
 usual course, he sipped the cup of coffee placidly, asked 
 me if I was satisfied — and I hardly listened to the 
 harbour gossip he dropped slowly in his low, voice- 
 
52 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 saving enunciation. I had then troubles of my own. 
 My ship chartered, my thoughts dwelling on the success 
 of a quick round voyage, I had been suddenly con- 
 fronted by a shortage of bags. A catastrophe! The 
 stock of one especial kind, called pockets, seemed to 
 be totally exhausted. A consignment was shortly ex- 
 pected — it was afloat, on its way, but, meantime, the 
 loading of my ship dead stopped, I had enough to 
 worry about. My consignees, who had received me 
 with such heartiness on my arrival, now, in the char- 
 acter of my charterers, listened to my complaints with 
 polite helplessness. Their manager, the old-maidish, 
 thin man, who so prudishly didn't even like to speak 
 about the impure Jacobus, gave me the correct com- 
 mercial view of the position. 
 
 " My dear Captain " — he was retracting his 
 leathery cheeks into a condescending, shark-like smile 
 — " we were not morally obliged to tell you of a pos- 
 sible shortage before you signed the charter-party. It 
 was for you to guard against the contingency of a de- 
 lay — strictly speaking. But of course we shouldn't 
 have taken any advantage. This is no one's fault 
 really. We ourselves have been taken imawares," he 
 concluded primly, with an obvious lie. 
 
 This lecture I confess had made me thirsty. Sup- 
 pressed rage generally produces that effect; and as I 
 strolled on aimlessly I bethought myself of the tall 
 earthenware pitcher in the captains' room of the 
 Jacobus " store." 
 
 With no more than a nod to the men I found as- 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUISrE 53 
 
 sembled there, I poured down a deep, cool draught 
 on mv indignation, then another, and then, becoming 
 dejected, I sat plunged in cheerless reflections. The 
 others read, talked, smoked, bandied over my head 
 some imsubtle chaff. But my abstraction was re- 
 spected. And it was without a word to any one that I 
 rose and went out, only to be quite unexpectedly ac- 
 costed in the bustle of the store by Jacobus the outcast. 
 
 " Glad to see you. Captain. What ? Going away ? 
 You haven't been looking so well these last few days, 
 I notice. Eun down, eh ? " 
 
 He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his words were m 
 the usual course of business, but they had a human 
 note. It was commercial amenity, but I had been a 
 stranger to amenity in that connection. I do verily 
 believe (from the direction of his heavy glance towards 
 a certain shelf) that he was going to suggest the pur- 
 chase of Clarkson's ^erve Tonic, which he kept in 
 stock, when I said impulsively: 
 
 " I am rather in trouble with my loading." 
 
 Wide awake under his sleepy, broad mask with glued 
 lips, he understood at once, had a movement of the 
 head so appreciative that I relieved my exasperation 
 by exclaiming: 
 
 " Surely there must be eleven hundred quarter-bags 
 to be found in the colony. It's only a matter of look- 
 ing for them." 
 
 Again that slight movement of the big head, and in 
 the noise and activity of the store that tranquil 
 murmur : 
 
54 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 "To be sure. But then people likely to have a re- 
 serve of quarter-bags wouldn't want to sell. They'd 
 need that size themselves." 
 
 " That's exactly what my consignees are telling me. 
 Impossible to buy. Bosh I They don't want to. It 
 suits them to have the ship hung up. But if I were to 
 
 discover the lot they would have to Look here 
 
 Jacobus? You are the man to have such a thing up 
 your sleeve." 
 
 He protested with a ponderous swing of his big 
 head. I stood before him helplessly, being looked at 
 by those heavy eyes with a veiled expression as of a 
 man after some soul-shaking crisis. Then, suddenly: 
 
 " It's impossible to talk quietly here," he whispered. 
 " I am very busy. But if you could go and wait for 
 me in my house. It's less than ten minutes' walk. 
 Oh, yes, you don't know the way." 
 
 He called for his coat and offered to take me there 
 himself. He would have to return to the store at once 
 for an hour or so to finish his business, and then he 
 would be at liberty to talk over with me that matter 
 of quarter-bags. This programme was breathed out at 
 me through slightly parted, still lips; his heavy, mo- 
 tionless glance rested upon me, placid as ever, the 
 glance of a tired man — but I felt that it was search- 
 ing, too. I could not imagine what he was looking for 
 in me and kept silent, wondering. 
 
 " I am asking you to wait for me in my house till 
 I am at liberty to talk this matter over. You will ? " 
 
 " Why, of course ! " I cried. 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 66 
 
 " But I cannot promise " 
 
 " I dare say not," I said. " I don't expect a 
 promise." 
 
 " I mean I can't even promise to try the move I've 
 in my mind. One must see first . . . h'm ! " 
 
 " All right. I'll take the chance. I'll wait for you 
 as long as you like. What else have I to do in this in- 
 fernal hole of a port ! " 
 
 Before I had uttered my last words we had set off 
 at a swinging pace. We turned a couple of corners 
 and entered a street completely empty of traffic, of 
 semi-rural aspect, paved with cohblestones nestling in 
 grass tufts. The house came to the line of the road- 
 way; a single story on an elevated basement of rough- 
 stones, so that our heads were below the level of the 
 windows as we went along. All the jalousies were 
 tightly shut, like eyes, and the house seemed fast 
 asleep in the afternoon sunshine. The entrance was 
 at the side, in an alley even more grass-grown than the 
 street: a small door, simply on the latch. 
 
 With a word of apology as to showing me the way, 
 Jacobus preceded me up a dark passage and led me 
 across the naked parquet floor of what I supposed to 
 be the dining-room. It was lighted by three glass 
 doors which stood wide open on to a verandah or 
 rather loggia running its brick arches along the garden 
 side of the house. It was really a magnificent garden : 
 smooth green lawns and a gorgeous maze of flower- 
 beds in the foreground, displayed around a basin of 
 dark water framed in a marble rim, and in the distance 
 
56 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 the massed foliage of varied trees concealing the roofs 
 of other houses. The town might have been miles 
 awaj. It was a brilliantly coloured solitude, drowsing 
 in a warm, voluptuous silence. Where the long, still 
 shadows fell across the beds, and in shady nooks, the 
 massed colours of the flowers had an extraordinary 
 magnificence of effect. I stood entranced. Jacobus 
 grasped me delicately above the elbow, impelling me to 
 a half-turn to the left. 
 
 I had not noticed the girl before. She occupied a 
 low, deep, wickerwork arm-chair, and I saw her in 
 exact profile like a figure in a tapestry, and as motion- 
 less. Jacobus released my arm. 
 
 " This is Alice,'^ he annoimced tranquilly ; and his 
 subdued manner of speaking made it sound so much 
 like a confidential communication that I fancied my- 
 seK nodding under standingly and whispering : " I see, 
 I see." ... Of course, I did nothing of the kind. 
 Neither of us did anything; we stood side by side 
 looking down at the girl. For quite a time she did not 
 stir, staring straight before her as if watching the vi- 
 sion of some pageant passing through the garden in the 
 deep, rich glow of light and the splendour of flowers. 
 
 Then, coming to the end of her reverie, she looked 
 round and up. If I had not at first noticed her, I 
 am certain that she too had been unaware of my pres- 
 ence till she actually perceived me by her father's side. 
 The quickened upward movement of the heavy eyelids, 
 the widening of the languid glance, passing into a fixed 
 stare, put that beyond doubt. 
 
A SMILE OF rORTUJ^TE 67 
 
 Under her amazement there was a hint of fear, and 
 then came a flash as of anger. Jacobus, after uttering 
 my name fairly loud, said : " Make yourself at home, 
 Captain — I won't be gone long," and went away 
 rapidly. Before I had time to make a bow I was left 
 alone with the girl — who, I remembered suddenly, had 
 not been seen by any man or woman of that town since 
 she had found it necessary to put up her hair. 
 It looked as though it had not been touched again 
 since that distant time of first putting up; it was a 
 mass of black, lustrous locks, twisted anyhow high on 
 her head, with long, untidy wisps hanging down on 
 each side of the clear sallow face; a mass so thick and 
 strong and abundant that, nothing but to look at, it 
 gave you a sensation of heavy pressure on the top of 
 your head and an impression of magnificently cyni- 
 cal untidiness. She leaned forward, hugging herself 
 with crossed legs; a dingy, amber-coloured, flounced 
 wrapper of some thin stuff revealed the young supple 
 body drawn together tensely in the deep low seat as 
 if crouching for a spring. I detected a slight, quiver- 
 ing start or two, which looked uncommonly like bound- 
 ing away. They were followed by the most absolute 
 immobility. 
 
 The absurd impulse to run out after Jacobus (for 
 I had been startled, too) once repressed, I took a chair, 
 placed it not very far from her, sat down deliberately, 
 and began to talk about the garden, caring not what 
 I said, but using a gentle caressing intonation as one 
 talks to soothe a startled wild animal. I could not 
 
58 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 even be certain that she understood me. She never 
 raised her face nor attempted to look my way. I kept 
 on talking only to prevent her from taking flight. She 
 had another of those quivering, repressed starts which 
 made me catch my breath with apprehension. 
 
 Ultimately I formed a notion that what prevented 
 her perhaps from going off in one great, nervous leap, 
 was the scantiness of her attire. The wicker arm-chair 
 was the most substantial thing about her person. What 
 she had on under that dingy, loose, amber wrapper must 
 have been of the most flimsy and airy character. One 
 could not help being aware of it. It was obvious. I 
 felt it actually embarrassing at first; but that sort of 
 embarrassment is got over easily by a mind not en- 
 slaved by narrow prejudices. I did not avert my gaze 
 from Alice. I went on talking with ingratiating soft- 
 ness, the recollection that, most likely, she had never 
 before been spoken to by a strange man adding to my 
 assurance. I don't know why an emotional tenseness 
 should have crept into the situation. But it did. And 
 just as I was becoming aware of it a slight scream cut 
 short my flow of urbane speech. 
 
 The scream did not proceed from the girl. It was 
 emitted behind me, and caused me to turn my head 
 sharply. I understood at once that the apparition in 
 the doorway was the elderly relation of Jacobus, the 
 companion, the gouvemante. While she remained 
 thunderstruck, I got up and made her a low bow. 
 
 The ladies of Jacobus's household evidently spent 
 their days in light attire. This stumpy old woman 
 
A SMILE OF rOKTUNE 59 
 
 with a face like a large wrinkled lemon, beady eyes, 
 and a shock of iron-grey hair, was dressed in a garment 
 of some ash-coloured, silky, light stuff. It fell from 
 her thick neck down to her toes with the simplicity of 
 an unadorned nightgown. It made her appear truly 
 cylindrical. She exclaimed : " How did you get here ? " 
 
 Before I could say a word she vanished and presently 
 I heard a confusion of shrill protestations in a distant 
 part of the house. Obviously no one could tell her how 
 I got there. In a moment, with great outcries from 
 two negro women following her, she waddled back to 
 the doorway, infuriated. 
 
 " What do you want here ? " 
 
 I turned to the girl. She was sitting straight up 
 now, her hands posed on the arms of the chair. I ap- 
 pealed to her. 
 
 " Surely, Miss Alice, you will not let them drive me 
 out into the street ? " 
 
 Her magnificent black eyes, narrowed, long in shape, 
 swept over me with an indefinable expression, then in 
 a harsh, contemptuous voice she let fall in French a 
 sort of explanation: 
 
 " C'est papa/' 
 
 I made another low bow to the old woman. 
 
 She turned her back on me in order to drive away 
 her black henchwomen, then surveying my person in a 
 peculiar manner with one small eye nearly closed and 
 her face all drawn up on that side as if with a twinge 
 of toothache, she stepped out on the verandah, sat down 
 in a rocking-chair some distance away, and took up her 
 
60 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 knitting from a little table. Before she started at it 
 she plunged one of the needles into the mop of her grey 
 hair and stirred it vigorously. 
 
 Her elementary nightgown-sort of frock clung to her 
 ancient, stumpy, and floating form. She wore white 
 cotton stockings and flat brown velvet slippers. Her 
 feet and ankles were obtrusively visible on the foot- 
 rest. She began to rock herself slightly, while she 
 knitted. I had resumed my seat and kept quiet, for 
 I mistrusted that old woman. What if she ordered 
 me to depart? She seemed capable of any outrage. 
 She had snorted once or twice; she was knitting 
 violently. Suddenly she piped at the young girl in 
 French a question which I translate colloquially: 
 
 " What's your father up to, now ? " 
 
 The young creature shrugged her shoulders so com- 
 prehensively that her whole body swayed within the 
 loose wrapper; and in that unexpectedly harsh voice 
 which yet had a seductive quality to the senses, like 
 certain kinds of natural rough wines one drinks with 
 pleasure : 
 
 " It's some captain. Leave me alone -- will you ! " 
 
 The chair rocked quicker, the old, thin voice was like 
 a whistle. 
 
 " You and your father make a pair. He would stick 
 at nothing — that's well known. But I didn't expect 
 this." 
 
 I thought it high time to air some of my own French. 
 I remarked modestly, but firmly, that this was business. 
 I had some matters to talk over with Mr. Jacobus. 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 61 
 
 At once she piped out a derisive " Poor innocent ! '' 
 Then, with a change of tone : " The shop's for busi- 
 ness. Why don't you go to the shop to talk with him ? " 
 
 The furious speed of her fingers and knitting- 
 needles made one dizzy ; and with squeaky indignation : 
 
 " Sitting here staring at that girl — is that what you 
 call business ? " 
 
 " No," I said suavely. " I call this pleasure — an 
 unexpected pleasure. And unless Miss Alice ob- 
 jects " 
 
 I half turned to her. She flung at me an angry and 
 contemptuous " Don't care ! " and leaning her elbow 
 on her knees took her chin in her hand — a Jacobus 
 chin undoubtedly. And those heavy eyelids, this black 
 irritated stare reminded me of Jacobus, too — the 
 wealthy merchant, the respected one. The design of 
 her eyebrows also was the same, rigid and ill-omened. 
 Yes! I traced in her a resemblance to both of them. 
 It came to me as a sort of surprising remote inference 
 that both these Jacobuses were rather handsome men 
 after all. I said: 
 
 " Oh ! Then I shall stare at you till you smile." 
 
 She favoured me again with an even more viciously 
 scornful " Don't care ! " 
 
 The old woman broke in blunt and shrill : 
 
 " Hear his impudence ! And you too ! Don't care ! 
 Go at least and put some more clothes on. Sitting 
 there like this before this sailor riff-raff." 
 
 The sun was about to leave the Pearl of the Ocean 
 for other seas, for other lands. The walled garden full 
 
62 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 of shadows blazed with colour as if the flowers were 
 giving up the light absorbed during the day. The 
 amazing old woman became very explicit. She sug- 
 gested to the girl a corset and a petticoat with a cynical 
 unreserve which humiliated me. Was I of no more ac- 
 count than a wooden dummy? The girl snapped out: 
 "Shan't!" 
 
 It was not the naughty retort of a vulgar child; 
 it had a note of desperation. Clearly my intrusion 
 had somehow upset the balance of their established 
 relations. The old woman knitted with furious ac- 
 curacy, her eyes fastened down on her work. 
 
 " Oh, you are the true child of your father ! And 
 that talks of entering a convent! Letting herself be 
 stared at by a fellow." 
 
 " Leave off." 
 
 " Shameless thing ! " 
 
 " Old sorceress," the girl uttered distinctly, preserv- 
 ing her meditative pose, chin in hand, and a far-away 
 stare over the garden. 
 
 It was like the quarrel of the kettle and the pot. The 
 old woman flew out of the chair, banged down her 
 work, and with a great play of thick limb perfectly 
 visible in that weird, clinging garment of hers, strode 
 at the girl — who never stirred. I was experiencing 
 a sort of trepidation when, as if awed by that uncon- 
 scious attitude, the aged relative of Jacobus turned 
 short upon me. 
 
 She was, I perceived, armed with a knitting-needle; 
 and as she raised her hand her intention seemed to be to 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 63 
 
 throw it at me like a dart. But she only used it to 
 scratch her head with, examining me the while at close 
 range, one eye nearly shut and her face distorted by a 
 whimsical, one-sided grimace. 
 
 " My dear man," she asked abruptly, " do you ex- 
 pect any good to come of this ? " 
 
 " I do hope so indeed. Miss Jacobus." I tried to 
 speak in the easy tone of an afternoon caller. " You 
 see, I am here after some bags." 
 
 " Bags ! Look at that now ! Didn't I hear you 
 holding forth to that graceless wretch ? " 
 
 " You would like to see me in my grave," uttered the 
 motionless girl hoarsely. 
 
 " Grave ! What about me ? Buried alive before I 
 am dead for the sake of a thing blessed with such a 
 pretty father ! " she cried ; and turning to me : " You're 
 one of these men he does business with. Well — why 
 don't you leave us in peace, my good fellow ? " 
 
 It was said in a tone — this " leave us in peace ! " 
 There was a sort of ruffianly familiarity, a superiority, 
 a scorn in it. I was to hear it more than once, for you 
 would show an imperfect knowledge of human nature 
 if you thought that this was my last visit to that house 
 — where no respectable person had put foot for ever 
 so many years. No, you would be very much mistaken 
 if you imagined that this reception had scared me away. 
 First of all I was not going to run before a grotesque 
 and ruffianly old woman. 
 
 And then you mustn't forget these necessary bags. 
 That first evening Jacobus made me stay to dinner; 
 
64 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 after, however, telling me loyally that he didn^t know 
 whether he could do anything at all for me. He had 
 heen thinking it over. It was too difficult, he feared. 
 . . . But he did not give it up in so many words. 
 
 We were only three at table; the girl by means of 
 repeated "Won't" "Shan't!" and "Don't care!" 
 having conveyed and affirmed her intention not to come 
 to the table, not to have any dinner, not to move from 
 the verandah. The old relative hopped about in her 
 flat slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered 
 "*over her and murmured placidly in his throat ; I joined 
 jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, 
 for which under the cover of the night I received 
 secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old 
 woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. 
 And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to 
 raise her head to look at any of us. All this may 
 sound childish — and yet that stony, petulant suUen- 
 ness had an obscurely tragic flavour. 
 
 And so we sat down to the food around the light of 
 a good many candles while she remained crouching 
 out there, staring in the dark as if feeding her bad 
 temper on the heavily scented air of the admirable 
 garden. 
 
 Before leaving I said to Jacobus that I would come 
 next day to hear if the bag affair had made any prog- 
 ress. He shook his head slightly at that. 
 
 " I'll haunt your house daily till you pull it off. 
 You'll be always finding me here." 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 65 
 
 His faint, melancholy smile did not part his thick 
 lips. 
 
 " That will be all right, Captain." 
 
 Then seeing me to the door, very tranquil, he mur- 
 mured earnestly the recommendation : " Make your- 
 self at home," and also the hospitable hint about there 
 being always " a plate of soup." It was only on my 
 way to the quay, down the ill-lighted streets, that I re- 
 membered I had been engaged to dine that every even- 
 ing with the S family. Though vexed with my 
 
 forgetfulness (it would be rather awkward to explain) 
 I couldn't help thinking that it had procured me a 
 more amusing evening. And besides — business. The 
 sacred business . 
 
 In a barefooted negro who overtook me at a run and 
 bolted down the landing-steps I recognized Jacobus's 
 boatman, who must have been feeding in the kitchen. 
 His usual " Good-night, sah ! " as I went up my ship's 
 ladder had a more cordial sound than on previous 
 occasions. 
 
 V 
 
 I KEPT my word to Jacobus. I haunted his home. 
 He was perpetually finding me there of an after- 
 noon when he popped in for a moment from the 
 " store." The sound of my voice talking to his Alice 
 greeted him on his doorstep ; and when he returned for 
 good in the evening, ten to one he would hear it still 
 going on in the verandah. I just nodded to him; he 
 would sit down heavily and gently, and watch with a 
 
66 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 sort of approving anxiety my efforts to make his 
 daughter smile. 
 
 I called her often " Alice," right before him ; some- 
 times I would address her as Miss " Don't Care," and 
 I exhausted myself in nonsensical chatter without 
 succeeding once in taking her out of her peevish and 
 tragic self. There were moments when I felt I must 
 break out and start swearing at her till all was blue. 
 And I fancied that had I done so Jacobus would not 
 have moved a muscle. A sort of shady, intimate under- 
 standing seemed to have been established between us. 
 
 I must say the girl treated her father exactly in the 
 same way she treated me. 
 
 And how could it have been otherwise ? She treated 
 me as she treated her father. She had never seen a 
 visitor. She did not know* how men behaved. I 
 belonged to the low lot with whom her father did busi- 
 ness at the port. I was of no account. So was her 
 father. The only decent people in the world were 
 the people of the island, who would have nothing to 
 do with him because of something wicked he had done. 
 This was apparently the explanation Miss Jacobus had 
 given her of the household's isolated position. For she 
 had to be told something! And I feel convinced that 
 this version had been assented to by Jacobus. I must 
 say the old woman was putting it forward with con- 
 siderable gusto. It was on her lips the universal ex- 
 planation, the universal allusion, the universal taunt. 
 
 One day Jacobus came in early and, beckoning me 
 into the dining-room, wiped his brow with a weary 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE 07 
 
 gesture and told me that he had managed to unearth 
 a supply of quarter-bags. 
 
 " It's fourteen hundred your ship wanted, did you 
 say, Captain ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " I replied eagerly ; but he remained 
 calm. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him 
 before. 
 
 " Well, Captain, you may go and tell your people 
 that they can get that lot from my brother." 
 
 As I remained open-mouthed at this, he added his 
 usual placid formula of assurance : 
 
 " You'U find it correct. Captain." 
 
 " You spoke to your brother about it ? " I was 
 distinctly awed. " And for me ? Because he must 
 have known that my ship's the only one hung up for 
 bags. How on earth " 
 
 He wiped his brow again. I noticed that he was 
 dressed with unusual care, in clothes in which I had 
 never seen him before. He avoided my eye. 
 
 " You've heard people talk, of course. . . . That's 
 true enough. He . . . I . . . We certainly . . . for 
 several years . . ." His voice declined to a mere 
 sleepy murmur. " You see I had something to tell 
 him of, something which " 
 
 His murmur stopped. He was not going to tell me 
 what this something was. And I didn't care. Anx- 
 ious to carry the news to my charterers, I ran back on 
 the verandah to get my hat. 
 
 At the bustle I made the girl turned her eyes slowly 
 in my direction, and even the old woman was checked 
 
68 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 in her knitting. I stopped a moment to exclaim 
 excitedly : 
 
 "Your father's a brick, Miss Don't Care. That's 
 what he is." 
 
 She beheld my elation in scornful surprise. Jacobus 
 with unwonted familiarity seized my arm as I flew 
 through the dining-room, and breathed heavily at me a 
 proposal about " A plate of soup " that evening. I 
 answered distractedly: "Eh? What? Oh, thanks! 
 Certainly. With pleasure," and tore myself away. 
 Dine with him? Of course. The merest grati- 
 tude 
 
 But some three hours afterwards, in the dusky, silent 
 street, paved with cobble-stones, I became aware that it 
 was not mere gratitude which was guiding my steps 
 towards the house with the old garden, where for years 
 no guest other than joajseli had ever dined. Mere 
 gratitude does not gnaw at one's interior economy in 
 that particular way. Hunger might; but I was not 
 feeling particularly hungry for Jacobus's food. 
 
 On that occasion, too, the girl refused to come to the 
 table. 
 
 My exasperation grew. The old woman cast mali- 
 cious glances at me. I said suddenly to Jacobus: 
 " Here ! Put some chicken and salad on that plate." 
 He obeyed without raising his eyes. I carried it with 
 a knife and fork and a serviette out on the verandah. 
 The garden was one mass of gloom, like a cemetery of 
 flowers buried in the darkness, and she, in the chair, 
 seemed to muse mournfully over the extinction of 
 
A SMILE OF FOETimE 69 
 
 light and colour. Only whiffs of heavy scent passed 
 like wandering, fragrant souls of that departed multi- 
 tude of blossoms. I talked volubly, jocularly, per- 
 suasively, tenderly; I talked in a subdued tone. To 
 a listener it would have sounded like the murmur of a 
 pleading lover. Whenever I paused expectantly there 
 was only a deep silence. It was like offering food to 
 a seated statute. 
 
 " I haven't been able to swallow a single morsel 
 thinking of you out here starving yourself in the dark. 
 It's positively cruel to be so obstinate. Think of my 
 sufferings." 
 
 " Don't care." 
 
 I felt as if I could have done her some violence — 
 shaken her, beaten her maybe. I said : 
 
 " Your absurd behaviour will prevent me coming 
 here any more." 
 
 "What's that to me?" 
 
 " You like it." 
 
 " It's false," she snarled. 
 
 My hand fell on her shoulder ; and if she had flinched 
 I verily believe I would have shaken her. But there 
 was no movement and this immobility disarmed my 
 anger. 
 
 " You do. Or you wouldn't be found on the 
 verandah every day. Why are you here, then? 
 There are plenty of rooms in the house. You have 
 your own room to stay in — if you did not want to 
 see me. But you do. You know you do." 
 
 I felt a slight shudder under my hand and released 
 
YO 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 my grip as if frightened by that sign of animation in 
 her body. The scented air of the garden came to us 
 in a warm wave like a voluptuous and perfumed sigh. 
 
 " Go back to them," she whispered, almost pitifully. 
 
 As I re-entered the dining-room I saw Jacobus cast 
 down his eyes. I banged the plate on the table. At 
 this demonstration of ill-humour he murmured some- 
 thing in an apologetic tone, and I turned on him 
 viciously as if he were accountable to me for these 
 " abominable eccentricities," I believe I called them. 
 
 " But I dare say Miss Jacobus here is responsible 
 for most of this offensive manner," I added loftily. 
 
 She piped out at once in her brazen, ruffianly 
 manner : 
 
 " Eh ? Why don't you leave us in peace, my good 
 fellow?" 
 
 I was astonished that she should dare before Jacobus. 
 Yet what could he have done to repress her? He 
 needed her too much. He raised a heavy, drowsy 
 glance for an instant, then looked down again. She 
 insisted with shrill finality : 
 
 " Haven't you done your business, you two ? Well, 
 then " 
 
 She had the true Jacobus impudence, that old 
 woman. Her mop of iron-grey hair was parted on the 
 side like a man's, raffishly, and she made as if to 
 plunge her fork into it, as she used to do with the 
 knitting-needle, but refrained. Her little black eyes 
 sparkled venomously. T turned to my host at the head 
 of the table — menacingly as it were. 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 11 
 
 " Well, and what do you say to that, Jacobus ? Am 
 I to take it that we have done with each other ? " 
 
 I had to wait a little. The answer when it came was 
 rather unexpected, and in quite another spirit than 
 the question. 
 
 *^ I certainly think we might do some business yet 
 with those potatoes of mine, Captain. You will find 
 that " 
 
 I cut him short. 
 
 " I've told you before that I don't trade." 
 
 His broad chest heaved without a sound in a noise- 
 less sigh. 
 
 " Think it over, Captain," he murmured, tenacious 
 and tranquil; and I burst into a jarring laugh, re- 
 membering how he had stuck to the circus-rider 
 woman — the depth of passion under that placid 
 surface, which even cuts with a riding-whip (so the 
 legend had it) could never ruffle into the semblance of 
 a storm; something like the passion of a fish would 
 be if one could imagine such a thing as a passionate fish. 
 
 That evening I experienced more distinctly than 
 ever the sense of moral discomfort which always 
 attended me in that house lying under the ban of all 
 " decent " people, I refused to stay on and smoke 
 after dinner ; and when I put my hand into the thickly- 
 cushioned palm of Jacobus, I said to myself that it 
 would be for the last time under his roof. I pressed 
 his bulky paw heartily nevertheless. Hadn't he got 
 me out of a serious difficulty? To the few words of 
 acknowledgment I was bound, and indeed quite will- 
 
72 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 ing, to utter, he answered by stretching his closed lips 
 in his melancholy, glued-together smile. 
 
 " That will be all right, I hope, Captain," he 
 breathed out weightily. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I asked, alarmed. " That 
 your brother might yet " 
 
 " Oh, no," he reassured me. " He . . . he's a man 
 of his word, Captain." 
 
 My self-communion as I walked away from his door, 
 trying to believe that this was for the last time, was 
 not satisfactory. I was aware myself that I was not 
 sincere in my reflections as to Jacobus's motives, and, 
 of course, the very next day I went back again. 
 
 How weak, irrational, and absurd we are! How 
 easily carried away whenever our awakened imagina- 
 tion brings us the irritating hint of a desire ! I cared 
 for the girl in a particular way, seduced by the moody 
 expression of her face, by her obstinate silences, her 
 rare, scornful words; by the perpetual pout of her 
 closed lips, the black depths of her fixed gaze turned 
 slowly upon me as if in contemptuous provocation, 
 only to be averted next moment with an exasperating 
 indifference. 
 
 Of course the news of my assiduity had spread all 
 over the little town. I noticed a change in the manner 
 of my acquaintances and even something different in 
 the nods of the other captains, when meeting them at 
 the landing-steps or in the offices where business called 
 me. The old-maidish head clerk treated me with 
 distant punctiliousness and, as it were, gathered his 
 
A SMILE OF FOKTUNE 73 
 
 skirts round him for fear of contamination. It seemed 
 to me that the very niggers on the quays turned to 
 look after me as I passed; and as to Jacobus's boat- 
 man his " Good-night, sah ! " when he put me on board 
 was no longer merely cordial — it had a familiar, con- 
 fidential sound as though we had been partners in some 
 villainy. 
 
 My friend S the elder passed me on the other 
 
 side of the street with a wave of the hand and an 
 ironic smile. The younger brother, the one they had 
 married to an elderly shrew, he, on the strength of an 
 older friendship and as if paying a debt of gratitude, 
 took the liberty to utter a word of warning. 
 
 " You're doing yourself no good by your choice of 
 friends, my dear chap," he said with infantile gravity. 
 
 As I knew that the meeting of the brothers Jacobus 
 was the subject of excited comment in the whole of 
 the sugary Pearl of the Ocean I wanted to know why 
 I was blamed. 
 
 " I have been the occasion of a move which may 
 end in a reconciliation surely desirable from the point 
 of view of the proprieties — don't you know ? " 
 
 " Of course, if that girl were disposed of it would 
 certainly facilitate " he mused sagely, then, in- 
 consequential creature, gave me a light tap on the 
 lower part of my waistcoat. " You old sinner," he 
 cried jovially, " much you care for proprieties. But 
 you had better look out for yourself, you know, with 
 a personage like Jacobus who has no sort of reputation 
 to lose." 
 
74 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 He had recovered his gravity of a respectable citizen 
 by that time and added regretfully: 
 
 ^' All the women of our family are perfectly 
 scandalised." 
 
 But by that time I had given up visiting the S 
 
 family and the D family. The elder ladies pulled 
 
 such faces when I showed myself, and the multitude 
 of related young ladies received me with such a variety 
 of looks: wondering, awed, mocking (except Miss 
 Mary, who spoke to me and looked at me with hushed, 
 pained compassion as though I had been ill), that I 
 had no difficulty in giving them all up. I would have 
 given up the society of the whole town, for the sake 
 of sitting near that girl, snarling and superb and barely 
 clad in that flimsy, dingy, amber wrapper, open low 
 at the throat. She looked, with the wild wisps of hair 
 hanging down her tense face, as though she had just 
 jumped out of bed in the panic of a fire. 
 
 She sat leaning on her elbow, looking at nothing. 
 Why did she stay listening to my absurd chatter? 
 And not only that; but why did she powder her face 
 in preparation for my arrival? It seemed to be her 
 idea of making a toilette, and in her untidy negligence 
 a sign of great effort towards personal adornment. 
 
 But I might have been mistaken. The powdering 
 might have been her daily practice and her presence 
 in the verandah a sign of an indifference so complete 
 as to take no account of my existence. Well, it was 
 all one to me. 
 
 I loved to watch her slow changes of pose, to look 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 76 
 
 at her long immobilities composed in the graceful lines 
 of her body, to observe the mysterious narrow stare 
 of her splendid black eyes, somewhat long in shape, 
 half closed, contemplating the void. She was like a 
 spellbound creature with the forehead of a goddess 
 crowned by the dishevelled magnificent hair of a gipsy 
 tramp. Even her indijfference was seductive. I felt 
 myself growing attached to her by the bond of an 
 irrealisable desire, for I kept my head — quite. And 
 I put up with the moral discomfort of Jacobus's sleepy 
 watchfulness, tranquil, and yet so expressive; as if 
 there had been a tacit pact between us two. I put 
 up with the insolence of the old woman's : " Aren't 
 you ever going to leave us in peace, my good 
 fellow ? " with her taunts ; with her brazen and sinister 
 scolding. She was of the true Jacobus stock, and no 
 mistake. 
 
 Directly I got away from the girl I called myself 
 many hard names. What folly was this ? I would 
 ask myself. It was like being the slave of some 
 depraved habit. And I returned to her with my 
 head clear, my heart certainly free, not even moved 
 by pity for that castaway (she was as much of a cast- 
 away as any one ever wrecked on a desert island), but 
 as if beguiled by some extraordinary promise. iNToth- 
 ing more unworthy could be imagined. The recollec- 
 tion of that tremulous whisper when I gripped her 
 shoulder with one hand and held a plate of chicken 
 with the other was enough to make me break all my 
 good resolutions. 
 
16 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Her insulting taciturnity was enough sometimes to 
 make one gnash one's teeth with rage. When she 
 opened her mouth it was only to be abominably rude 
 in harsh tones to the associate of her reprobate 
 father; and the full approval of her aged relative was 
 conveyed to her by offensive chuckles. If not that, 
 then her remarks, always uttered in the tone of scath- 
 ing contempt, were of the most appalling inanity. 
 
 How could it have been otherwise? That plump, 
 ruffianly Jacobus old maid in the tight grey frock had 
 never taught her any manners. Manners I suppose 
 are not necessary for born castaways. No educational 
 establishment could ever be induced to accept her 
 as a pupil — on account of the proprieties, I imagine. 
 And Jacobus had not been able to send her away any- 
 where. How could he have done it? Who with? 
 Where to? He himself was not enough of an adven- 
 turer to think of settling down anywhere else. His 
 passion had tossed him at the tail of a circus up and 
 down strange coasts, but, the storm over, he had drifted 
 back shamelessly where, social outcast as he was, he 
 remained still a Jacobus — one of the oldest families 
 on the island, older than the French even. There must 
 have been a Jacobus in at the death of the last 
 Dodo. . . . The girl had learned nothing, she had 
 never listened to a general conversation, she knew 
 nothing, she had heard of nothing. She could read 
 certainly ; but all the reading matter that ever came in 
 her way were the newspapers provided for the cap- 
 tains' room of the " store." Jacobus had the habit of 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 77 
 
 taking these sheets home now and then in a very 
 stained and ragged condition. 
 
 As her mind could not grasp the meaning of any 
 matters treated there except police-conrt reports and 
 accounts of crimes, she had formed for herself a notion 
 of the civilised world as a scene of murders, abductions, 
 burglaries, stabbing affrays, and every sort of desperate 
 violence. England and France, Paris and London 
 (the only two towns of which she seemed to have 
 heard), appeared to her sinks of abomination, reeking 
 with blood, in contrast to her little island where petty 
 larceny was about the standard of current misdeeds, 
 with, now and then, some more pronounced crime — 
 and that only amongst the imported coolie labourers 
 on sugar estates or the negroes of the town. But in 
 Europe these things were being done daily by a wicked 
 population of white men amongst whom, as that 
 ruffianly, aristocratic old Miss Jacobus pointed out, 
 the wandering sailors, the associates of her precious 
 papa, were the lowest of the low. 
 
 It was impossible to give her a sense of proportion. 
 I suppose she figured England to herself as about the 
 size of the Pearl of the Ocean; in which case it would 
 certainly have been reeking with gore and a mere 
 wreck of burgled houses from end to end. One could 
 not make her understand that these horrors on which 
 she fed her imagination were lost in the mass of orderly 
 life like a few drops of blood in the ocean. She directed 
 upon me for a moment the uncomprehending glance 
 of her narrowed eyes and then would turn her scornful 
 
78 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 powdered face away without a word. She would not 
 even take the trouble to shrug her shoulders. 
 
 At that time the batches of papers brought by the 
 last mail reported a series of crimes in the East End 
 of London, there was a sensational case of abduction 
 in France and a fine display of armed robbery in 
 Australia. One afternoon crossing the dining-room I 
 heard Miss Jacobus piping in the verandah with 
 venomous animosity : "I don't know what your 
 precious papa is plotting with that fellow. But he's 
 just the sort of man who's capable of carrying you off 
 far away somewhere and then cutting your throat some 
 day for your money." 
 
 There was a good half of the length of the verandah 
 between their chairs. I came out and sat down fiercely 
 midway between them. 
 
 " Yes, that's what we do with girls in Europe," I 
 began in a grimly matter-of-fact tone. I think Miss 
 Jacobus was disconcerted by my sudden appearance. I 
 turned upon her with cold ferocity: 
 
 "As to the objectionable old women, they are first 
 strangled quietly, then cut up into small pieces and 
 thrown away, a bit here and a bit there. They van- 
 ish " 
 
 I cannot go so far as to say I had terrified her. But 
 she was troubled by my truculence, the more so because 
 I had been always addressing her with a politeness she 
 did not deserve. Her plump, knitting hands fell 
 slowly on her knees. She said not a word while I fixed 
 her with severe determination. Then as I turned away 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE Y9 
 
 from her at last, she laid down her work gently and, 
 with noiseless movements, retreated from the verandah. 
 In fact, she vanished. 
 
 But I was not thinking of her. I was looking at 
 the girl. It was what I was coming for daily; trou- 
 bled, ashamed, eager; finding in my nearness to her a 
 imique sensation which I indulged with dread, self- 
 contempt, and deep pleasure, as if it were a secret vice 
 bound to end in my undoing, like the habit of some drug 
 or other which niins and degrades its slave. 
 
 I looked her over, from the top of her dishevelled 
 head, down the lovely line of the shoulder, following 
 the curve of the hip, the draped form of the long limb, 
 right down to her fine ankle below a torn, soiled 
 flounce; and as far as the point of the shabby, high- 
 heeled, blue slipper, dangling from her well-shaped 
 foot, which she moved slightly, with quick, nervous 
 jerks, as if impatient of my presence. And in the 
 scent of the massed flowers I seemed to breathe her 
 special and inexplicable charm, the heady perfume of 
 the everlastingly irritated captive of the garden. 
 
 I looked at her rounded chin, the Jacobus chin; at 
 the full, red lips pouting in the powdered, sallow face ; 
 at the firm modelling of the cheek, the grains of white 
 in the hairs of the straight sombre eyebrows; at the 
 long eyes, a narrowed gleam of liquid white and in- 
 tense motionless black, with their gaze so empty of 
 thought, and so absorbed in their fixity that she seemed 
 to be staring at her own lonely image, in some far-off 
 mirror hidden from my sight amongst the trees. 
 
80 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 And suddenly, without looking at me, with the ap- 
 pearance of a person speaking to herself, she asked, 
 in that voice slightly harsh yet mellow and always ir- 
 ritated : 
 
 " Why do you keep on coming here ? " 
 
 " Why do I keep on coming here ? " I repeated, 
 taken hy surprise. I could not have told her. I could 
 not even tell myself with sincerity why I was coming 
 there. "What's the good of you asking a question 
 like that?" 
 
 " Nothing is any good," she observed scornfully to 
 the empty air, her chin propped on her hand, that 
 hand never extended to any man, that no one had ever 
 grasped — for I had only grasped her shoulder once 
 — that generous, fine, somewhat masculine hand. I 
 knew well the peculiarly efficient shape — broad at the 
 base, tapering at the fingers — of that hand, for which 
 there was nothing in the world to lay hold of. I pre- 
 tended to be playfuL 
 
 " No ! But do you really care to know ? " 
 
 She shrugged indolently her magnificent shoulders, 
 from which the dingy thin wrapper was slipping a 
 little. 
 
 " Oh — never mind — never mind ! " 
 
 There was something smouldering under those airs 
 of lassitude. She exasperated me by the provocation 
 of her nonchalance, by something elusive and defiant 
 in her very form which I wanted to seiza I said 
 roughly : 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE 81 
 
 "Why? Don't you think I should tell you the 
 truth?" 
 
 Her eyes glided my way for a sidelong look, and 
 she murmured, moving only her full, pouting lips : 
 
 " I think you would not dare." 
 
 " Do you imagine I am afraid of you ? What on 
 earth. . . . Well, it's possible, after all, that I don't 
 know exactly why I am coming here. Let us say, 
 with Miss Jacobus, that it is for no good. You seem 
 to believe the outrageous things she says, if you do 
 have a row with her now and then." 
 
 She snapped out viciously: 
 
 " Who else am I to believe ? " 
 
 " I don't know," I had to own, seeing her suddenly 
 very helpless and condemned to moral solitude by the 
 verdict of a respectable community. " You might be- 
 lieve me, if you chose." 
 
 She made a slight movement and asked me at once, 
 with an effort as if making an experiment: 
 
 " What is the business between you and papa ? " 
 
 " Don't you know the nature of your father's bus- 
 iness? Come! He sells provisions to ships." 
 
 She became rigid again in her crouching pose. 
 
 "!N'ot that. What brings you here — to this 
 house?" 
 
 " And suppose it's you ? You would not call that 
 business? Would you? And now let us drop the 
 subject. It's no use. My ship wiU be ready for sea 
 the day after to-inorrow." 
 
82 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 She murmured a distinctly scared " So soon," and 
 getting up quickly, went to the little table and poured 
 herself a glass of water. She walked with rapid steps 
 and with an indolent swaying of her whole young figure 
 above the hips; when she passed near me I felt with 
 tenfold force the charm of the peculiar, promising sen- 
 sation I had formed the habit to seek near her. I 
 thought with sudden dismay that this was the end of 
 it; that after one more day I would be no longer able 
 to come into this verandah, sit on this chair, and taste 
 perversely the flavour of contempt in her indolent 
 poses, drink in the provocation of her scornful looks, 
 and listen to the curt, insolent remarks uttered in that 
 harsh and seductive voice. As if my innermost nature 
 had been altered by the action of some moral poison, I 
 felt an abject dread of going to sea. 
 
 I had to exercise a sudden self-control, as one puts 
 on a brake, to prevent myself jumping up to stride 
 about, shout, gesticulate, make her a scene. What for ? 
 What about ? I had no idea. It was just the relief of 
 violence that I wanted ; and I lolled ba k in my chair, 
 trying to keep my lips formed in a smile; that half- 
 indulgent, half-mocking smile which was my shield 
 against the shafts of her contempt and the insulting 
 sallies flung at me by the old woman. 
 
 She drank the water at a draught, with the avidity 
 of raging thirst,^ and let herself fall on the nearest 
 chair, as if utterly overcome. Her attitude, like cer- 
 tain tones of her voice, had in it something masculine: 
 the knees apart in the ample wrapper, the clasped 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 83 
 
 hands hanging between them, her body leaning for- 
 ward, with drooping head. I stared at the heavy 
 black coil of twisted hair. It was enormous, crowning 
 the bowed head with a crushing and disdained glory. 
 The escaped wisps hung straight down. And sud- 
 denly I perceived that the girl was trembling from 
 head to foot, as though that glass of iced water had 
 chilled her to the bone. 
 
 "What's the matter now?" I said, startled, but in 
 no very sympathetic mood. 
 
 She shook her bowed, overweighted head and cried 
 in a stifled voice but with a rising inflection : 
 
 " Go away ! Go away ! Go away ! " 
 
 I got up then and approached her, with a strange 
 sort of anxiety. I looked down at her round, strong 
 neck, then stooped low enough to peep at her face. 
 And I began to tremble a little myself. 
 
 "What on earth are you gone wild about, Miss 
 Don't Care?" 
 
 She flung herself backwards violently, her head go- 
 ing over the back of the chair. And now it was her 
 smooth, full, palpitating throat that lay exposed to my 
 bewildered stare. Her eyes were nearly closed, with 
 only a horrible white gleam under the lids as if she 
 were dead. 
 
 " What has come to you ? " I asked in awe. " What 
 are you terrifying yourself with ? " 
 
 She pulled herself together, her eyes open fright- 
 fully wide now. The tropical afternoon was length- 
 ening the shadows on the hot, weary earth, the abode of 
 
84: 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 obscure desires, of extravagant hopes, of unimaginable 
 terrors. 
 
 " Never mind ! Don't care ! " Then, after a gasp, 
 she spoke with such frightful rapidity that I could 
 hardly make out the amazing words : " For if you 
 were to shut me up in an empty place as smooth all 
 round as the palm of my hand, I could always strangle 
 myself with my hair." 
 
 For a moment, doubting my ears, I let this incon- 
 ceivable declaration sink into me. It is ever impos- 
 sible to guess at the wild thoughts that pass through 
 the heads of our fellow-creatures. What monstrous 
 imaginings of violence could have dwelt under the low 
 forehead of that girl who had been taught to regard 
 her father as " capable of anything " more in the light 
 of a misfortune than that of a disgrace; as, evidently, 
 something to be resented and feared rather than to 
 be ashamed of? She seemed, indeed, as unaware of 
 shame as of anything else in the world; but in her 
 ignorance, her resentment and fear took a childish and 
 violent shape. 
 
 Of course she spoke without knowing the value of 
 words. What could she know of death — she who 
 knew nothing of life? It was merely as the proof of 
 her being beside herself with some odious apprehension, 
 that this extraordinary speech had moved me, not to 
 pity, but to a fascinated, horrified wonder. I had no 
 idea what notion she had of her danger. Some sort 
 of abduction. It was quite possible with the talk of 
 that atrocious old woman. Perhaps- she thought she 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 85 
 
 could be carried off, bound hand and foot and even 
 gagged. At that surmise I felt as if the door of a 
 furnace had been opened in front of me. 
 
 " Upon my honour ! " I cried. " You shall end by 
 going crazy if you listen to that abominable old aunt 
 of yours " 
 
 I studied her haggard expression, her trembling 
 lips. Her cheeks even seemed sunk a little. But 
 how I, the associate of her disreputable father, the 
 " lowest of the low " from the criminal Europe, could 
 manage to reassure her I had no conception. She was 
 exasperating. 
 
 "Heavens and earth! What do you think I can 
 do?" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 Her chin certainly trembled. And she was looking 
 at me with extreme attention. I made a step nearer 
 to her chair. 
 
 " I shall do nothing. I promise you that. Will 
 that do? Do you understand? I shall do nothing 
 whatever, of any kind; and the day after to-morrow I 
 shall be gone." 
 
 What else could I have said? She seemed to drink 
 in my words with the thirsty avidity with which she 
 had emptied the glass of water. She whispered trem- 
 ulously, in that touching tone I had heard once be- 
 fore on her lips, and which thrilled me again with the 
 same emotion: 
 
 " I would believe you. But what about papa " 
 
 " He be hanged ! " My emotion betrayed itself by 
 
86 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 the brutality of my tone. " IVe had enough of your 
 papa. Are you so stupid as to imagine that I am 
 frightened of him? He can't make me do anything." 
 
 All that sounded feeble to me in the face of her 
 ignorance. But I must conclude that the " accent of 
 sincerity " has, as some people say, a really irresistible 
 power. The effect was far beyond my hopes — and 
 even beyond my conception. To watch the change in 
 the girl was like watching a miracle — the gradual 
 but swift relaxation of her tense glance, of her stiffened 
 muscles, of every fibre of her body. That black, fixed 
 stare into which I had read a tragic meaning more 
 than once, in which I had found a sombre seduction, 
 was perfectly empty now, void of all consciousness 
 whatever, and not even aware any longer of my pres- 
 ence; it had become a little sleepy, in the Jacobus 
 fashion. 
 
 But, man being a perverse animal, instead of re- 
 joicing at my complete success, I beheld it with as- 
 tounded and indignant eyes. There was something 
 cynical in that unconcealed alteration, the true Ja- 
 cobus shamelessness. I felt as though I had been 
 cheated in some rather complicated deal into which I 
 had entered against my better judgment. Yes, 
 cheated without any regard for, at least, the forms of 
 decency. 
 
 With an easy, indolent, and in its indolence supple, 
 feline movement, she rose from the chair, so provok- 
 ingly ignoring me now, that for very rage I held my 
 ground within less than a foot of her. Leisurely and 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 87 
 
 tranquil, behaving right before me with the ease of a 
 person alone in a room, she extended her beautiful 
 arms, with her hands clenched, her body swaying, her 
 head thrown back a little, revelling contemptuously in 
 a sense of relief, easing her limbs in freedom after all 
 these days of crouching, motionless poses when she 
 had been so furious and so afraid. 
 
 All this with supreme indifference, incredible, of- 
 fensive, exasperating, like ingratitude doubled with 
 treachery. 
 
 I ought to have been flattered, perhaps, but, on the 
 contrary, my anger grew ; her movement to pass by me 
 as if I were a wooden post or a piece of furniture, 
 that unconcerned movement brought it to a head. 
 
 I won't say I did not know what I was doing, but, 
 certainly, cool reflection had nothing to do with the 
 circumstance that next moment both my arms were 
 round her waist. It was an impulsive action, as one 
 snatches at something falling or escaping; and it had 
 no hypocritical gentleness about it either. She had 
 no time to make a sound, and the first kiss I planted 
 on her closed lips was vicious enough to have been a 
 bite. 
 
 She did not resist, and of course I did not stop at 
 one. She let me go on, not as if she were inanimate 
 — I felt her there, close against me, young, full of 
 vigour, of life, a strong desirable creature, but as if 
 she did not care in the least, in the absolute assurance 
 of her safety, what I did or left undone. Our faces 
 brought close together in this storm of haphazard 
 
88 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 caresses, her big, black, wide-open eyes looked into 
 mine without the girl appearing either angry or pleased 
 or moved in any way. In that steady gaze which 
 seemed impersonally to watch my madness I could de- 
 tect a slight surprise, perhaps — nothing more. I 
 showered kisses upon her face and there did not seem 
 to be any reason why this should not go on for ever. 
 
 That thought flashed through my head, and I was 
 on the point of desisting, when, all at once, she began 
 to struggle with a sudden violence which all but freed 
 her instantly, which revived my exasperation with her, 
 indeed a fierce desire never to let her go any more. 
 I tightened my embrace in time, gasping out : " No 
 ■ — you don't ! '' as if she were my mortal enemy. On 
 her part not a word was said. Putting her hands 
 against my chest, she pushed with all her might with- 
 out succeeding to break the circle of my arms. Except 
 that she seemed thoroughly awake now, her eyes gave 
 me no clue whatever. To meet her black stare was 
 like looking into a deep well, and I was totally unpre- 
 pared for her change of tactics. Instead of trying to 
 tear my hands apart, she flung herself upon my breast 
 and with a downward, undulating, serpentine motion, 
 a quick sliding dive, she got away from me smoothly. 
 It w^as all very swift ; I saw her pick up the tail of her 
 wrapper and run for the door at the end of the veran- 
 dah not very gracefully. She appeared to be limping 
 a little — and then she vanished ; the door swung be- 
 hind her so noiselessly that I could not believe it was 
 completely closed. I had a distinct suspicion of her 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 89 
 
 black eye being at the crack to watch what I would do. 
 I could not make up my mind whether to shake my fist 
 in that direction or blow a kiss. 
 
 VI 
 
 Either would have been perfectly consistent with my 
 feelings. I gazed at the door, hestitating, but in the 
 end I did neither. The monition of some sixth sense 
 — the sense of guilt, maybe, that sense which always 
 acts too late, alas ! — warned me to look round ; and 
 at once I became aware that the conclusion of this 
 tumultuous episode was likely to be a matter of lively 
 anxiety. Jacobus was standing in the doorway of the 
 dining-room. How long he had been there it was 
 impossible to guess; and remembering my struggle 
 with the girl I thought he must have been its mute 
 witness from beginning to end. But this supposition 
 seemed almost incredible. Perhaps that impenetra- 
 ble girl had heard him come in and had got away in 
 time. 
 
 He stepped on to the verandah in his usual manner, 
 heavy-eyed, with glued lips. I marvelled at the girFs 
 resemblance 1> this man. Those long, Egyptian eyes, 
 that low forehead of a stupid goddess, she had foimd 
 in the sawdust of the circus ; but all the rest of the face, 
 the design and the modelling, the rounded chin, the 
 very lips — all that was Jacobus, fined down, more 
 finished, more expressive. 
 
 His thick hand fell on and grasped with force the 
 
90 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 back of a light chair (there were several standing 
 about) and I perceived the chance of a broken head at 
 the end of all this — most likely. My mortification 
 was extreme. The scandal would be horrible; that 
 was unavoidable But how to act so as to satisfy my- 
 self I did not know. I stood on my guard and at any 
 rate faced him. There was nothing else for it. Of 
 one thing I was certain, that, however brazen my atti- 
 tude, it could never equal the characteristic Jacobus 
 impudence. 
 
 He gave me his melancholy, glued smile and sat 
 down. I own I was relieved. The perspective of 
 passing from kisses to blows had nothing particularly 
 attractive in it. Perhaps — perhaps he had seen 
 nothing? He behaved as usual, but he had never be- 
 fore found me alone on the verandah. If he had 
 alluded to it, if he had asked : " Where's Alice ? " or 
 something of the sort, I would have been able to judge 
 from the tone. He would give me no opportunity. 
 The striking peculiarity was that he had never looked 
 up at me yet. " He knows," I said to myself con- 
 fidently. And my contempt for him relieved my dis- 
 gust with myself. 
 
 " You are early home," I remarked. 
 
 " Things are very quiet ; nothing doing at the store 
 to-day," he explained with a cast-down air. 
 
 " Oh, well, you know, I am off," I said, feeling that 
 this, perhaps, was the best thing to do. 
 
 " Yes," he breathed out. " Day after to-morrow." 
 
 This was not what I had meant; but as he gazed 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 91 
 
 persistently on the floor, I followed the direction of 
 his glance. In the absolute stillness of the house we 
 stared at the high-heeled slipper the girl had lost in 
 her flight. We stared. It lay overturned. 
 
 After what seemed a very long time to me, Jacobus 
 hitched his chair forward, stooped with extended arm 
 and picked it up. It looked a slender thing in his big, 
 thick hands. It was not really a slipper, but a low 
 shoe of blue, glazed kid, rubbed and shabby. It had 
 straps to go over the instep, but the girl only thrust her 
 feet in, after her slovenly manner. Jacobus raised 
 his eyes from the shoe to look at me. 
 
 " Sit down, Captain," he said at last, in his subdued 
 tone. 
 
 As if the sight of that shoe had renewed the spell, I 
 gave up suddenly the idea of leaving the house there 
 and then. It had become impossible. I sat down, 
 keeping my eyes on the fascinating object. Jacobus 
 turned his daughter's shoe over and over in his cush- 
 ioned paws as if studying the way the thing was made. 
 He contemplated the thin sole for a time; then glan- 
 cing inside with an absorbed air: 
 
 " I am glad I found you here, Captain." 
 
 I answered this by some sort of grunt, watching him 
 covertly. Then I added: "You won't have much 
 more of me now." 
 
 He was still deep in the interior of that shoe on 
 which my eyes too were resting. 
 
 " Have you thought any more of this deal in pota- 
 toes I spoke to you about the other day ? " 
 
»2 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " No, I haven't," I answered curtly. He checked 
 my movement to rise hy an austere, commanding 
 gesture of the hand holding that fatal shoe. I re- 
 mained seated and glared at him. " You know I 
 don't trade." 
 
 " You ought to, Captain. You ought to." 
 
 I reflected. If I left that house now I would never 
 see the girl again. And I felt I must see her once 
 more, if only for an instant. It was a need, not to be 
 reasoned with, not to be disregarded. No, I did not 
 want to go away. I wanted to stay for one more ex- 
 perience of that strange provoking sensation and of 
 indefinite desire, the habit of which had made me — 
 me of all people ! — dread the prospect of going to sea. 
 
 " Mr. Jacobus," I pronounced slowly. " Do you 
 really think that upon the whole and taking various 
 matters into consideration — I mean everything, do 
 you understand? — it would be a good thing for me 
 to trade, let us say, with you ? " 
 
 I waited for a while. He went on looking at the 
 shoe which he held now crushed in the middle, the 
 worn point of the toe and the high heel protruding on 
 each side of his heavy fist. 
 
 " That will be all right," he said, facing me squarely 
 at last. 
 
 " Are you sure ? " 
 
 " You'll find it quite correct. Captain." He had 
 uttered his habitual phrases in his usual placid, breath- 
 saving voice and stood my hard, inquisitive stare sleep- 
 ily without as much as a wink. 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 93 
 
 " Then let us trade," I said, turning my shoulder to 
 him. " I see you are hent on it." 
 
 I did not want an open scandal, but I thought that 
 outward decency may be bought too dearly at times. 
 I included Jacobus, myself, the whole population of the 
 island, in the same contemptuous disgust as though 
 we had been partners in an ignoble transaction. And 
 the remembered vision at sea, diaphanous and blue, of 
 the Pearl of the Ocean at sixty miles off; the unsub- 
 stantial, clear marvel of it as if evoked by the art of a 
 beautiful and pure magic, turned into a thing of hor- 
 rors too. Was this the fortune this vaporous and rare 
 apparition had held for me in its hard heart, hidden 
 within the shape as of fair dreams and mist? Was 
 this my luck ? 
 
 '* I think " — Jacobus became suddenly audible after 
 what seemed the silence of vile meditation — " that 
 you might conveniently take some thirty tons. That 
 would be about the lot, Captain." 
 
 " Would it ? The lot ! I dare say it would be con- 
 venient, but I haven't got enough money for that." 
 
 I had never seen him so animated. 
 
 " 'No ! " he exclaimed with what I took for the accent 
 of grim menace. *^ That's a pity." He paused, then, 
 unrelenting : " How much money have you got. Cap- 
 tain?" he inquired with awful directness. 
 
 It was my turn to face him squarely. I did so and 
 mentioned the amount I could dispose of. And I per- 
 ceived that he was disappointed. He thought it over, 
 his calculating gaze lost in mine, for quite a long time 
 
94 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 before lie came out in a thoughtful tone with the ra- 
 pacious suggestion: 
 
 " You could draw some more from your charterers. 
 That would be quite easy, Captain." 
 
 " "No, I couldn't," I retorted brusquely. " I've 
 drawn my salary up to date, and besides, the ship's 
 accounts are closed." 
 
 I was growing furious. I pursued : " And I'll tell 
 you what: if I could do it I wouldn't." Then throw- 
 ing off all restraint, I added : " You are a bit too 
 much of a Jacobus, Mr. Jacobus." 
 
 The tone alone was insulting enough, but he remained 
 tranquil, only a little puzzled, till something seemed 
 to dawn upon him; but the unwonted light in his 
 eyes died out instantly. As a Jacobus on his native 
 heath, what a mere skipper chose to say could not 
 touch him, outcast as he was. As a ship-chandler he 
 could stand anything. All I caught of his mumble was 
 a vague — " quite correct," than which nothing could 
 have been more egregiously false at bottom — to my 
 view, at least. But I remembered — I had never for- 
 gotten — that I must see the girl. I did not mean 
 to go. I meant to stay in the house till I had seen her 
 once more. 
 
 "Look here!" I said finally. "I'll tell you what 
 I'll do. I'll take as many of your confounded potatoes 
 as my money will buy, on condition that you go off 
 at once down to the wharf to see them loaded in the 
 lighter and sent alongside . the ship straight away. 
 Take the invoice and a signed receipt with you. Here's 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 95 
 
 the key of my desk. Give it to Bums. He will pay 
 
 you." 
 
 He got up from his chair before I had finished speak- 
 ing, but he refused to take the key. Bums would 
 never do it. He wouldn't like to ask him even. 
 
 " Well, then," I said, eyeing him slightingly, 
 " there's nothing for it, Mr. Jacobus, but you must wait 
 on board till I come off to settle with you." 
 
 " That will be all right. Captain. I will go at once." 
 
 He seemed at a loss what to do with the girl's shoe 
 he was still holding in his fist. Finally, looking dully 
 at me, he put it down on the chair from which he had 
 risen. 
 
 " And you, Captain ? Won't you come along, too, 
 just to see " 
 
 " Don't bother about me. I'll take care of myself." 
 
 He remained perplexed for a moment, as if trying 
 to understand ; and then his weighty : " Certainly, 
 certainly. Captain," seemed to be the outcome of some 
 sudden thought. His big chest heaved. Was it a 
 sigh? As he went out to hurry off those potatoes he 
 never looked back at me. 
 
 I waited till the noise of his footsteps had died out 
 of the dining-room, and I waited a little longer. Then 
 turning towards the distant door I raised my voice 
 along the verandah : 
 
 "Alice!" 
 
 Nothing answered me, not even a stir behind the 
 door. Jacobus's house might have been made empty 
 for me to make myself at home in. I did not call 
 
96 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 again. I had become aware of a great discouragement. 
 I was mentally jaded, morally dejected. I turned to 
 the garden again, sitting down with my elbows spread 
 on the low balustrade, and took my head in my hands. 
 
 The evening closed upon me. The shadows length- 
 ened, deepened, mingled together into a pool of twi- 
 light in which the flower-beds glowed like coloured 
 embers; whiffs of heavy scent came to me as if the 
 dusk of this hemisphere were but the dimness of a 
 temple and the garden an enormous censer swinging 
 before the altar of the stars. The colours of the blos- 
 soms deepened, losing their glow one by one. 
 
 The girl, when I turned my head at a slight noise, 
 appeared to me very tall and slender, advancing with 
 a swaying limp, a floating and uneven motion which 
 ended in the sinking of her shadowy form into the 
 deep low chair. And I don't know why or whence I 
 received the impression that she had come too late. 
 She ought to have appeared at my call. She ought to 
 have ... It was as if a supreme opportunity had 
 been missed. 
 
 I rose and took a seat close to her, nearly opposite 
 her arm-chair. Her ever discontented voice addressed 
 me at once, contemptuously: 
 
 " You are still here." 
 
 I pitched mine low. 
 
 " You have come out at last." 
 
 " I came to look for my shoe — before they bring in 
 the lights." 
 
 It was her harsh, enticing whisper, subdued, not 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 97 
 
 very steady, but its low tremulousness gave me no thrill 
 now. I could only make out the oval of her face, 
 her uncovered throat, the long, white gleam of her 
 eyes. She was mysterious enough. Her hands were 
 resting on the arms of the chair. But where was the 
 mysterious and provoking sensation which was like 
 the perfume of her flower-like youth ? I said quietly : 
 
 " I have got your shoe here." She made no sound 
 and I continued : " You had better give me your foot 
 and I will put it on for you." 
 
 She made no movement. I bent low down and 
 groped for her foot under the flounces of the wrapper. 
 She did not withdraw it and I put on the shoe, button- 
 ing the instep-strap. It was an inanimate foot. I 
 lowered it gently to the floor. 
 
 " If you buttoned the strap you would not be losing 
 your shoe. Miss Don't Care," I said, trying to be play- 
 ful without conviction. I felt more like wailing over 
 the lost illusion of vague desire, over the sudden con- 
 viction that I would never find again near her the 
 strange, half-evil, half-tender sensation which had 
 given its acrid flavour to so many days, which had 
 made her appear tragic and promising, pitiful and 
 provoking. That was all over. 
 
 " Your father picked it up," I said, thinking she 
 may just as well be told of the fact. 
 
 " I am not afraid of papa — by himself," she de- 
 clared scornfully. 
 
 " Oh ! It's only in conjunction with his disrepu- 
 table associates, strangers, the ' riff-raff of Europe ' as 
 
98 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 your charming aunt or great-aunt says — men like me, 
 for instance — that you " 
 
 " I am not afraid of you," she snapped out. 
 
 " That's because you don't know that I am now 
 doing business with your father. Yes, I am in fact 
 doing exactly what he wants me to do. IVe broken 
 my promise to you. That's the sort of man I am. 
 And now — aren't you afraid ? If you believe what 
 that dear, kind, truthful old lady says you ought to 
 be." 
 
 It was with unexpected modulated softness that she 
 affirmed: 
 
 " No. I'm not afraid." She hesitated. ..." Not 
 now." 
 
 " Quite right. You needn't be. I shall not see 
 you again before I go to sea." I rose and stood near 
 her chair. " But I shall often think of you in this old 
 garden, passing under the trees over there, walking 
 between these gorgeous flower-beds. You must love 
 this garden " 
 
 " I love nothing." 
 
 I heard in her sullen tone the faint echo of that 
 resentfully tragic note which I had found once so pro- 
 voking. But it left me unmoved except for a sudden 
 and weary conviction of the emptiness of all things 
 under Heaven. 
 
 " Good-bye, Alice," I said. 
 
 She did not answer, she did not move. To merely 
 take her hand, shake it, and go away seemed impossi- 
 ble, almost improper. I stooped without haste and 
 
A SMILE OF FOETUNE 99 
 
 pressed my lips to her smooth forehead. This was the 
 moment when I realised clearly with a sort of terror 
 my complete detachment from that unfortunate crea- 
 ture. And as I lingered in that cruel seK-knowledge 
 I felt the light touch of her arms falling languidly on 
 my neck and received a hasty, awkward, haphazard kiss 
 which missed my lips. "No I She was not afraid ; but 
 I was no longer moved. Her arms slipped off my neck 
 slowly, she made no sound, the deep wicker arm-chair 
 creaked slightly ; only a sense of my dignity prevented 
 me fleeing headlong from that catastrophic revelation. 
 
 I traversed the dining-room slowly. I thought: 
 She's listening to my footsteps ; she can't help it ; she'll 
 hear me open and shut that door. And I closed it as 
 gently behind me as if I had been a thief retreating 
 with his ill-gotten booty. During that stealthy act I 
 experienced the last touch of emotion in that house, at 
 the thought of a girl I had left sitting there in the ob- 
 scurity, with her heavy hair and empty eyes as black 
 as the night itseK, staring into the walled garden, 
 silent, warm, odorous with the perfume of imprisoned 
 flowers, which, like herself, were lost to sight in a world 
 buried in darkness. 
 
 The narrow, ill-lighted, rustic streets I knew so well 
 on my way to the harbour were extremely quiet. I 
 felt in my heart that the further one ventures the bet- 
 ter one understands how everything in our life is com- 
 mon, short, and empty; that it is in seeking the 
 unknown in our sensations that we discover how medi- 
 ocre are our attempts and how soon defeated! Ja- 
 
100 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 cobus's boatman was waiting at the steps with an un- 
 usual air of readiness. He put me alongside the ship, 
 but did not give me his confidential " Good-evening, 
 sah," and, instead of shoving off at once, remained 
 holding by the ladder. 
 
 I was a thousand miles from commercial affairs, 
 when on the dark quarter-deck Mr. Bums positively 
 rushed at me, stammering with excitement. He had 
 been pacing the deck distractedly for hours awaiting 
 my arrival. Just before sunset a lighter loaded with 
 potatoes had come alongside with that fat ship-chandler 
 himself sitting on the pile of sacks. He was now stuck 
 immovable in the cabin. What was the meaning of it 
 all ? Surely I did not 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Burns, I did," I cut him short. He was 
 beginning to make gestures of despair when I stopped 
 that, too, by giving him the key of my desk and desir- 
 ing him, in a tone which admitted of no argument, to 
 go below at once, pay Mr. Jacobus's bill, and send him 
 out of the ship. 
 
 " I don't want to see him," I confessed frankly, 
 climbing the poop-ladder. I felt extremely tired. 
 Dropping on the seat of the skylight, I gave myself up 
 to idle gazing at the lights about the quay and at the 
 black mass of the mountain on the south side of the 
 harbour. I never heard Jacobus leave the ship with 
 every single sovereign of my ready cash in his pocket. 
 I never heard anything till, a long time afterwards, 
 Mr. Bums, unable to contain himself any longer, in- 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 101 
 
 traded upon me with his ridiculously angry lamenta- 
 tions at my weakness and good nature. 
 
 " Of course, there's plenty of room in the after- 
 hatch. But they are sure to go rotten down there. 
 Well! I never heard . . . seventeen tons! I sup- 
 pose I must hoist in that lot first thing to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " I suppose you must. Unless you drop them over- 
 board. But I'm afraid you can't do that. I wouldn't 
 mind myself, but it's forbidden to throw rubbish into 
 the harbour, you know." 
 
 " That is the truest word you have said for many a 
 day, sir — rubbish. That's just what I expect they 
 are. N^early eighty good gold sovereigns gone; a pei^ 
 fectly clean sweep of your drawer, sir. Bless me if I 
 understand ! " 
 
 As it was impossible to throw the right light on this 
 commercial transaction I left him to his lamentations 
 and under the impression that I was a hopeless fool. 
 !N'ext day I did not go ashore. For one thing, I had 
 no money to go ashore with — no, not enough to buy 
 a cigarette. Jacobus had made a clean sweep. But 
 that was not the only reason. The Pearl of the Ocean 
 had in a few short hours grown odious to me. And I 
 did not want to meet any one. My reputation had 
 suffered. I knew I was the object of unkind and sar- 
 castic comments. 
 
 The following morning at sunrise, just as our stern- 
 fasts had been let go and the tug plucked us out from 
 
102 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 between the buoys, I saw Jacobus standing up in his 
 boat. The nigger was pulling hard; several baskets 
 of provisions for ships were stowed between the 
 thwarts. The father of Alice was going his morning 
 round. His countenance was tranquil and friendly. 
 He raised his arm and shouted something with great 
 heartiness. But his voice was of the sort that doesn't 
 carry any distance ; all I could catch faintly, or rather 
 guess at, were the words " next time " and " quite cor- 
 rect." And it was only of these last that I was cer- 
 tain. Eaising my arm perfunctorily for all response, 
 I turned away. I rather resented the familiarity of 
 the thing. Hadn't I settled accounts finally with him 
 by means of that potato bargain ? 
 
 This being a harbour story it is not my purpose to 
 speak of our passage. I was glad enough to be at sea, 
 but not with the gladness of old days. Formerly I 
 had no memories to take away with me. I shared in 
 the blessed forgetfulness of sailors, that forgetfulness 
 natural and invincible, which resembles innocence in 
 so far that it prevents self-examination. Now how- 
 ever I remembered the girl. During the first few days 
 I was for ever questioning myself as to the nature of 
 facts and sensations connected with her person and 
 with my conduct. 
 
 And I must say also that Mr. Bums' intolerable 
 fussing with those potatoes was not calculated to make 
 me forget the part which I had played. He looked 
 upon it as a purely commercial transaction of a par- 
 ticularly foolish kind, and his devotion — if it was 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 103 
 
 devotion and not mere cussedness as I came to regard 
 it before long — inspired him with a zeal to minimise 
 my loss as much as possible. Oh, yes! He took care 
 of those infamous potatoes with a vengeance, as the 
 saying goes. 
 
 Everlastingly, there was a tackle over the after- 
 hatch and everlastingly the watch on deck were pulling 
 up, spreading out, picking over, rebagging, and lower- 
 ing down again, some part of that lot of potatoes. My 
 bargain with all its remotest associations, mental and 
 visual — the garden of flowers and scents, the girl with 
 her provoking contempt and her tragic loneliness of a 
 hopeless castaway — was everlastingly dangled before 
 my eyes, for thousands of miles along the open sea. 
 And as if by a satanic refinement of irony it was ac- 
 companied by a most awful smell. Whiffs from de- 
 caying potatoes pursued me on the poop, they mingled 
 with my thoughts, with my food, poisoned my very 
 dreams. They made an atmosphere of corruption for 
 the ship. 
 
 I remonstrated with Mr. Burns about this excessive 
 care. I would have been well content to batten the 
 hatch down and let them perish under the deck. 
 
 That perhaps would have been unsafe. The horrid 
 emanations might have flavoured the cargo of sugar. 
 They seemed strong enough to taint the very ironwork. 
 In addition Mr. Bums made it a personal matter. He 
 assured me he knew how to treat a cargo of potatoes 
 at sea — had been in the trade as a boy, he said. He 
 meant to make my loss as small as possible. What 
 
104 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 between his devotion — it must have been devotion — 
 and his vanity, I positively dared not give him the 
 order to throw my commercial venture overboard. I 
 believe he would have refused point blank to obey my 
 lawful command. An unprecedented and comical sit- 
 uation would have been created with which I did not 
 feel equal to deal. 
 
 I welcomed the coming of bad weather as no sailor 
 had ever done. When at last I hove the ship to, to 
 pick up the pilot outside of Port Philip Heads, the 
 after-hatch had not been opened for more than a week 
 and I might have believed that no such thing a€ a 
 potato had ever been on board. 
 
 It was an abominable day, raw, blustering, with 
 great squalls of wind and rain ; the pilot, a cheery per- 
 son, looked after the ship and chatted to me, streaming 
 from head to foot; and the heavier the lash of the 
 downpour the more pleased with himself and every- 
 thing around him he seemed to be. He rubbed his wet 
 hands with a satisfaction, which to me, who had stood 
 that kind of thing for several days and nights, seemed 
 inconceivable in any non-aquatic creature. 
 
 *^ You seem to enjoy getting wet, Pilot," I remarked. 
 
 He had a bit of land round his house in the suburbs 
 and it was of his garden he was thinking. At the 
 sound of the word garden, unheard, unspoken for so 
 many days, I had a vision of gorgeous colour, of sweet 
 scents, of a girlish figure crouching in a chair. Yes. 
 That was a distinct emotion breaking into the peace I 
 had found in the sleepless anxieties of my responsi- 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 105 
 
 bility during a week of dangerous bad weather. The 
 Colony, the pilot explained, had suffered from unparal- 
 leled drought. This was the first decent drop of water 
 they had had for seven months. The root crops were 
 lost. And, trying to be casual, but with visible inter- 
 est, he asked me if I had perchance any potatoes to 
 spare. 
 
 Potatoes! I had managed to forget them. In a 
 moment I felt plunged into corruption up to my neck. 
 Mr. Bums was making eyes at me behind the pilot's 
 back. 
 
 Finally, he obtained a ton, and paid ten pounds for 
 it. This was twice the price of my bargain with Ja- 
 cobus. The spirit of covetousness woke up in me. 
 That night, in harbour, before I slept, the Custom 
 House galley came alongside. While his underlings 
 were putting seals on the store-rooms, the officer in 
 charge took me aside confidentially. " I say. Captain, 
 you don't happen to have any potatoes to sell." 
 
 Clearly there was a potato famine in the land. I 
 let him have a ton for twelve pounds and he went away 
 joyfully. That night I dreamt of a pile of gold in the 
 form of a grave in which a girl was buried, and woke 
 up callous with greed. On calling at my ship-brok- 
 er's office, that man, after the usual business had been 
 transacted, pushed his spectacles up on his forehead. 
 
 " I was thinking, Captain, that coming from the 
 Pearl of the Ocean you may have some potatoes to sell." 
 
 I said negligently : " Oh, yes, I could spare you a 
 ton. Fifteen pounds." 
 
106 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 He exclaimed : " I say ! " But after studying my 
 face for awhile accepted my terms with a faint grimace. 
 It seems that these people could not exist without po- 
 tatoes. I could. I didn't want to see a potato as long 
 as I lived ; but the demon of lucre had taken possession 
 of me. How the news got about I don't know, but, 
 returning on board rather late, I found a small group 
 of men of the coster type hanging about the waist, 
 while Mr. Bums walked to and fro the quarterdeck 
 loftily, keeping a triumphant eye on them. They had 
 come to buy potatoes. 
 
 " These chaps have been waiting here in the sun for 
 hours," Bums whispered to me excitedly. " They 
 have drunk the water-cask dry. Don't you throw away 
 your chances, sir. You are too good-natured." 
 
 I selected a man with thick legs and a man with a 
 cast in his eye to negotiate with; simply because they 
 were easily distinguishable from the rest. " You have 
 the money on you?" I inquired, before taking them 
 down into the cabin. 
 
 " Yes, sir," they answered in one voice, slapping 
 their pockets. I liked their air of quiet determination. 
 Long before the end of the day all the potatoes were 
 sold at about three times the price I had paid for them. 
 Mr. Burns, feverish and exulting, congratulated him- 
 self on his skilful care of my commercial venture, but 
 hinted plainly that I ought to have made more of it. 
 
 That night I did not sleep very well. I thought of 
 Jacobus by fits and starts, between snatches of dreams 
 
A SMILE or FOETUNE 107 
 
 concerned with castaways starving on a desert island 
 covered with flowers. It was extremely unpleasant. 
 In the morning, tired and nnrefreshed, I sat down and 
 wrote a long letter to my owners, giving them a care- 
 fully-thought-out scheme for the ship's employment in 
 the East and about the China Seas for the next two 
 years. I spent the day at that task and felt somewhat 
 more at peace when it was done. 
 
 Their reply came in due course. They were greatly 
 struck with my project ; hut considering that, notwith- 
 standing the unfortunate difficulty with the bags 
 (which they trusted I would know how to guard 
 against in the future), the voyage showed a very fair 
 profit, they thought it would be better to keep the ship 
 in the sugar trade — at least for the present. 
 
 I turned over the page and read on : 
 
 " We have had a letter from our good friend Mr. 
 Jacobus. We are pleased to see how well you have 
 .hit it off with him; for, not to speak of his assistance 
 in the unfortunate matter of the bags, he writes us 
 that should you, by using all possible dispatch, manage 
 to bring the ship back early in the season he would be 
 able to give us a good rate of freight. We have no 
 doubt that your best endeavours . . . etc. . . . etc." 
 
 I dropped the letter and sat motionless for a long 
 time. Then I wrote my answer (it was a short one) 
 and went ashore myself to post it. But I passed one 
 letter-box, then another, and in the end found myself 
 going up Collins Street with the letter still in my 
 
108 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 pocket — against my heart. Collins Street at four 
 o'clock in the afternoon is not exactly a desert solitude ; 
 but I had never felt more isolated from the rest of 
 mankind as when I walked that day its crowded pave- 
 ment, battling desperately with my thoughts and feel- 
 ing already vanquished. 
 
 There came a moment when the awful tenacity of 
 Jacobus, the man of one passion and of one idea, ap- 
 peared to me almost heroic. He had not given me 
 up. He had gone again to his odious brother. And 
 then he appeared to me odious himself. Was it for 
 his own sake or for the sake of the poor girl ? And on 
 that last supposition the memory of the kiss which 
 missed my lips appalled me ; for whatever he had seen, 
 or guessed at, or risked, he knew nothing of that. Un- 
 less the girl had told him. How could I go back to 
 fan that fatal spark with my cold breath? No, no, 
 that unexpected kiss had to be paid for at its full price. 
 
 At the first letter-box I came to I stopped and reach- 
 ing into my breast-pocket I took out the letter — it 
 was as if I were plucking out my very heart — and 
 dropped it through the slit. Then I went straight on 
 board. 
 
 I wondered what dreams I would have that night; 
 but as it turned out I did not sleep at all. At break- 
 fast I informed Mr. Bums that I had resigned my 
 command. 
 
 He dropped his knife and fork and looked at me 
 with indignation. 
 
 " You have, sir ! I thought you loved the ship." 
 
A SMILE OF FORTUNE 109 
 
 " So I do, Burns," I said. " But the fact is that the 
 Indian Ocean and everything that is in it has lost its 
 charm for me. I am going home as passenger by the 
 Suez Canal." 
 
 " Everything that is in it," he repeated angrily. 
 " I've never heard anybody talk like this. And to tell 
 you the truth, sir, all the time we have been together 
 I've never quite made you out. What's one ocean 
 more than another ? Charm, indeed ! " 
 
 He was really devoted to me, I believe. But he 
 cheered up when I told him that I had recommended 
 him for my successor. 
 
 " Anyhow," he remarked, " let people say what they 
 like, this Jacobus has served your turn. I must ad- 
 mit that this potato business has paid extremely well. 
 Of course, if only you had " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Bums," I interrupted. " Quite a smile 
 of fortune." 
 
 But I could not tell him that it was driving me out 
 of the ship I had learned to love. And as I sat heavy- 
 hearted at that parting, seeing all my plans destroyed, 
 my modest future endangered — for this command was 
 like a foot in the stirrup for a young man — he gave up 
 completely for the first time his critical attitude. 
 
 " A wonderful piece of luck ! " he said. 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 
 AN EPISODE FROM THE COAST 
 
 111 
 
THE SECRET SHAEER 
 
 ON" my right hand there were lines of fishing-stakes 
 resembling a mysterious system of half-sub- 
 merged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division 
 of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as 
 if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fisher- 
 men now gone to the other end of the ocean ; for there 
 was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye 
 could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, sug- 
 gesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, 
 had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked 
 solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even 
 the track of light from the westering sun shone 
 smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of 
 an imperceptible ripple. And when I turned my head 
 to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left 
 us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line 
 of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, 
 with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one levelled 
 floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome 
 of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to 
 the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one 
 on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, 
 
 marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just 
 
 113 
 
114 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward 
 journey ; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and 
 loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknara 
 pagoda, v^^as the only thing on which the eye could rest 
 from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep 
 of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few 
 scattered pieces of silver marked the windings of the 
 great river; and on the nearest of them, just within 
 the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became 
 lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though 
 the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an 
 effort, without a tremor. My eye followed the light 
 cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the 
 plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, 
 but always fainter and farther away, till I lost it at last 
 behind the mitre-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And 
 then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the 
 head of the Gulf of Siam. 
 
 She floated at the starting-point of a long journey, 
 very still in an immense stillness, the shadows of her 
 spars flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At 
 that moment I was alone on her decks. There was 
 not a sound in her — and around us nothing moved, 
 nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in 
 the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless 
 pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed 
 to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous en- 
 terprise, the appointed task of both our existences to 
 be carried out, far from all human eyes, with only sky 
 and sea for spectators and for judges. 
 
THE SECEET SHAEER 115 
 
 There must have been some glare in the air to inter- 
 fere with one's sight, because it was only just before the 
 sun left us that my roaming eyes made out beyond the 
 highest ridge of the principal islet of the group some- 
 thing which did away with the solemnity of perfect 
 solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and 
 with tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out 
 above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet, my hand 
 resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder 
 of a trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of 
 celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of 
 quiet communion with her was gone for good. And 
 there were also disturbing sounds by this time — 
 voices, footsteps forward; the steward flitted along the 
 main-deck, a busily ministering spirit; a hand-bell 
 tinkled urgently under the poop-deck. . . . 
 
 I found my two officers waiting for me near the 
 supper table, in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at 
 once, and as I helped the chief mate, I said : 
 
 " Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside 
 the islands? I saw her mastheads above the ridge as 
 the sun went down." 
 
 He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a 
 terrible growth of whisker, and emitted his usual 
 ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You don't say 
 so!" 
 
 My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young 
 man, grave beyond his years, I thought; iDut as our 
 eyes happened to meet I detected a slight quiver on 
 his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part 
 
116 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 to encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be 
 said, too, that I knew very little of my oflScers. In 
 consequence of certain events of no particular signifi- 
 cance, except to myself, I had been appointed to the 
 command only a fortnight before. Neither did I 
 know much of the hands forw^ard. All these people 
 had been together for eighteen months or so, and my 
 position was that of the only stranger on board. I 
 mention this because it has some bearing on what is to 
 follow. But what I felt most was my being a stranger 
 to the ship; and if all the truth must be told, I was 
 somewhat of a stranger to myself. The youngest man 
 on board (barring the second mate), and untried as 
 yet by a position of the fullest responsibility, I was 
 willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted. 
 They had simply to be equal to their tasks ; but I won- 
 dered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal 
 conception of one's own personality every man sets up 
 for himself secretly. 
 
 Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible 
 effect of collaboration on the part of his round eyes 
 and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve a theory of 
 the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take all 
 things into earnest consideration. He was of a pains- 
 taking turn of mind. As he used to say, he " liked to 
 account to himself" for practically everything that 
 came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had 
 found in his cabin a week before. The why and the 
 wherefore of that scorpion — how it got on board and 
 
THE SECEET SHAEEK 117 
 
 came to select his room rather than the pantry (which 
 was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be 
 partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown 
 itself in the inkwell of his writing-desk — had exer- 
 cised him infinitely. The ship within the islands was 
 much more easily accounted for; and just as we were 
 about to rise from table he made his pronouncement. 
 She was, he doubted not, a ship from home lately ar- 
 rived. Probably she drew too much water to cross the 
 bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore she 
 went into that natural harbour to wait for a few days 
 in preference to remaining in an open roadstead. 
 
 " That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly, 
 in his slightly hoarse voice. " She draws over twenty 
 feet. She's the Liverpool ship Sephora with a cargo 
 of coal. Hundred and twenty-three days from 
 Cardiff." 
 
 We looked at him in surprise. 
 
 " The tugboat skipper told me when he came on 
 board for your letters, sir," explained the young man. 
 " He expects to take her up the river the day after 
 to-morrow." 
 
 After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his 
 information he slipped out of the cabin. The mate 
 observed regretfully that he " could not account for 
 that young fellow's whims." What prevented him tell- 
 ing us all about it at once, he wanted fo know. 
 
 I detained him as he was making a move. For the 
 last two days the crew had had plenty of hard work, 
 and the night before they had very little sleep. I felt 
 
118 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 painfully that I — a stranger — was doing something 
 unusual when I directed him to let all hands turn in 
 without setting an anchor-watch. I proposed to keep 
 on deck myself till one o'clock or thereabouts. I 
 would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour. 
 
 " He will turn out the cook and the steward at four," 
 I concluded, " and then give you a call. Of course at 
 the slightest sign of any sort of wind we'll have the 
 hands up and make a start at once." 
 
 He concealed his astonishment. " Very well, sir." 
 Outside the cuddy he put his head in the second mate's 
 door to inform him of my unheard-of caprice to take 
 a five hours' anchor-watch on myself. I heard the 
 other raise his voice incredulously — " What ? The 
 captain himself ? " Then a few more murmurs, a door 
 closed, then another. A few moments later I went on 
 deck. 
 
 My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had 
 prompted that unconventional arrangement, as if I had 
 expected in those solitary hours of the night to get on 
 terms with the ship of which I knew nothing, manned 
 by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast along- 
 side a wharf, littered like any ship in port with a 
 tangle of unrelated things, invaded by unrelated shore 
 people, I had hardly seen her yet properly. Now, as 
 she lay cleared for sea, the stretch of her main-deck 
 seemed to me very fine under the stars. Very fine, 
 very roomy for her size, and very inviting. I de- 
 scended the poop and paced the waist, my mind pictur- 
 ing to myself the coming passage through the Malay 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 119 
 
 Archipelago, down the Indian Ocean, and up the At- 
 lantic. All its phases were familiar enough to me, 
 every characteristic, all the alternatives which were 
 likely to face me on the high seas — everything ! . . . 
 except the novel responsibility of command. But I 
 took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship 
 was like other ships, the men like other men, and that 
 the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises ex- 
 pressly for my discomfiture. 
 
 Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought 
 myself of a cigar and went below to get it. All was 
 still down there. Everybody at the after end of the 
 ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on 
 the quarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping-suit 
 on that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing 
 cigar in my teeth, and, going forward, I was met by 
 the profound silence of the fore end of the ship. Only 
 as I passed the door of the forecastle I heard a deep, 
 quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper inside. And 
 suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as 
 compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of 
 that untempted life presenting no disquieting prob- 
 lems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the 
 absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the 
 singleness of its purpose. 
 
 The riding-light in the fore-rigging burned with a 
 clear, untroubled, as if symbolic, flame, confident and 
 bright in the mysterious shades of the night. Passing 
 on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I ob- 
 served that the rope side-ladder, put over, no doubt, 
 
120 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away 
 our letters, had not heen hauled in as it should have 
 been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in 
 small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I 
 reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my 
 ofiicers from duty, and by my own act had prevented 
 the anchor-watch being formally set and things prop- 
 erly attended to. I asked myself whether it was wise 
 ever to interfere with the established routine of duties 
 even from the kindest of motives. My action might 
 have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew 
 how that absurdly whiskered mate would " account " 
 for my conduct, and what the whole ship thought of 
 that informality of their new captain. I was vexed 
 with myself. 
 
 Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were 
 mechanically, I proceeded to get the ladder in myself. 
 Now a side-ladder of that sort is a light affair and 
 comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should have 
 brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon my 
 body in a totally rmexpected jerk. What the devil! 
 ... I was so astounded by the immovableness of that 
 ladder that I remained stock-still, trying to account 
 for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine. In 
 the end, of course, I put my head over the rail. 
 
 The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow 
 on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I 
 saw at once something elongated and pale floating 
 very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess 
 a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed 
 
THE SECRET SHAEER 121 
 
 to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, 
 flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent 
 play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a 
 gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long 
 legs, a broad livid back immersed right up to the neck 
 in a greenish cadaverous glow. One hand, awash, 
 clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was com* 
 plete but for the head. A headless corpse ! The cigar 
 dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and 
 a short hiss quite audible in the absolute stillness of all 
 things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up 
 his face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's 
 side. But even then I could only barely make out 
 down there the shape of his black-haired head. How- 
 ever, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensa- 
 tion which had gripped me about the chest to pass off. 
 The moment of vain exclamations was past, too. I 
 only climbed on the spare spar and leaned over the 
 rail as far as I could, to bring: my eyes nearer to that 
 mystery floating alongside. 
 
 As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, 
 the sea-lightning played about his limbs at every stir; 
 and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fish-like. He 
 remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion 
 to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable 
 that he should not attempt to come on board, and 
 strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not 
 want to. And my first words were prompted by just 
 that troubled incertitude. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " I asked in my ordinary tone, 
 
122 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 speaking down to the face upturned exactly under 
 mine. 
 
 " Cramp/^ it answered, no louder. Then slightly 
 anxious, " I say, no need to call any one." 
 
 " I was not going to," I said. 
 
 " Are you alone on deck ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 I had somehow the impression that he was on the 
 point of letting go the ladder to swim away beyond 
 my ken — mysterious as he came. But, for the mo- 
 ment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the 
 bottom of the sea (it was certainly the nearest land to 
 the ship) wanted only to know the time. I told him. 
 And he, down there, tentatively: 
 
 " I suppose your captain's turned in ? " 
 
 " I am sure he isn't," I said. 
 
 He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard 
 something like the low, bitter murmur of doubt, 
 " What's the good ? " His next words came out with 
 a hesitating effort. 
 
 " Look here, my man. Could you call him out 
 quietly ? " 
 
 1 thought the time had come to declare myself. 
 
 ** I am the captain." 
 
 I heard a " By Jove ! " whispered at the level of the 
 water. The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of 
 the water all about his limbs, his other hand seized the 
 ladder. 
 
 " My name's Leggatt." 
 
 The voice was calm and resolute. A good voice. 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 123 
 
 The self-possession of that man had somehow induced 
 a corresponding state in myself. It was very quietly 
 that I remarked: 
 
 " You must be a good swimmer." 
 
 " Yes. I've been in the water practically since nine 
 o'clock. The question for me now is whether I am 
 to let go this ladder and go on swimming till I sink 
 from exhaustion, or — to come on board here." 
 
 I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech, 
 but a real alternative in the view of a strong soul. I 
 should have gathered from this that he was young; 
 indeed, it is only the young who are ever confronted 
 by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure in- 
 tuition on my part. A mysterious communication 
 was established already between us two — in the face 
 of that silent, darkened tropical sea. I was young, 
 too; young enough to make no comment. The man 
 in the water began suddenly to climb up the ladder, and 
 I hastened away from the rail to fetch some clothes. 
 
 Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in 
 the lobby at the foot of the stairs. A faint snore came 
 through the closed door of the chief mate's room. The 
 second mate's door was on the hook, but the darkness 
 in there was absolutely soundless. He, too, was 
 young and could sleep like a stona Remained the stew- 
 ard, but he was not likely to wake up before he was 
 called. I got a sleeping-suit out of my room and, 
 <joming back on deck, saw the naked man from the 
 sea sitting on the main-hatch, glimmering white in the 
 darkness, his elbows on his knees and his head in his 
 
124 'TWIXT LAND A^D SEA 
 
 hands. In a moment he had concealed his damp body 
 in a sleeping-suit of the same grey-stripe pattern as the 
 one I was wearing and followed me like my double on 
 the poop. Together we moved right aft, barefooted, 
 silent. 
 
 " What is it ? " I asked in a deadened voice, taking 
 the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it to 
 his face. 
 
 " An ugly business." 
 
 He had rather regular features ; a good mouth ; light 
 eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, 
 square forehead; no growth on his cheeks; a small, 
 brown moustache, and a well-shaped, round chin. 
 His expression was concentrated, meditative, under 
 the inspetcing light of the lamp I held up to his face ; 
 such as a man thinking hard in solitude might wear. 
 My sleeping-suit was just right for his size. A well- 
 knit young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught 
 his lower lip with the edge of white, even teeth. 
 
 " Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. 
 The warm, heavy tropical night closed upon his head 
 again. 
 
 " There's a ship over there," he murmured. 
 
 " Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of 
 us?" 
 
 " Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her 
 
 " He paused and corrected himself. " I 
 
 should say I was/' 
 
 " Aha ! Something wrong ? " 
 
 " Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man." 
 
THE SECRET SHAEER 125 
 
 "What do you mean? Just now?" 
 
 "No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine 
 south. When I say a man " 
 
 " Fit of temper/' I suggested, confidently. 
 
 The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod 
 imperceptibly above the ghostly grey of my sleeping- 
 suit. It was, in the night, as though I had been faced 
 by my own reflection in the depths of a sombre and 
 immense mirror. 
 
 " A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Con- 
 way boy," murmured my double, distinctly. 
 
 " You're a Conway boy ? " 
 
 *^ I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly . . . 
 " Perhaps you too ^" 
 
 It was so; but being a couple of years older I had 
 left before he joined. After a quick interchange of 
 dates a silence fell; and I thought suddenly of my 
 absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the " Bless 
 my soul — you don't say so " type of intellect. My 
 double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying: 
 
 " My father's a parson in E'orfolk. Do you see me 
 before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself 
 I can't see the necessity. There are fellows that an 
 
 angel from heaven And I am not that. He was 
 
 one of those creatures that are just simmering all the 
 time with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils 
 that have no business to live at all. He wouldn't do 
 his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do theirs. But 
 what's the good of talking! You know well enough 
 the sort of ill-conditioned snarling cur " 
 
126 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as 
 identical as our clothes. And I knew well enough the 
 pestiferous danger of such a character where there are 
 no means of legal repression. And I knew well 
 enough also that my double there was no homicidal 
 ruffian. I did not think of asking him for details, 
 and he told me the story roughly in brusque, discon- 
 nected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all go- 
 ing on as though I were myself inside that other sleep- 
 ing-suit. 
 
 " It happened while we were setting a reefed fore- 
 sail, at dusk. Reefed foresail! You understand the 
 sort of weather. The only sail we had left to keep the 
 ship running; so you may guess what it had been like 
 for days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me 
 some of his cursed insolence at the sheet. I tell you 
 I was overdone with this terrific weather that seemed 
 to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you — and a deep 
 ship. I believe the fellow himself was half crazed 
 with funk. It was no time for gentlemanly reproof, 
 so I turned round and felled him like an ox. He up 
 and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for 
 the ship. All hands saw it coming and took to the 
 rigging, but I had him by the throat, and went on 
 shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling, 
 * Look out ! look out ! ' Then a crash as if the sky 
 had fallen on my head. They say that for over ten 
 minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the ship — 
 just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head 
 and of the poop all awash driving along in a smother 
 
THE SECKET SHAEER 127 
 
 of foam. It was a miracle that they found us, 
 jammed together behind the forebits. It's clear that 
 I meant business, because I was holding him by the 
 throat still when they picked us up. He was black in 
 the face. It was too much for them. It seems they 
 rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming 
 ^ Murder ! ' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the 
 cuddy. And the ship running for her life, touch and 
 go all the time, any minute her last in a sea fit to turn 
 your hair grey only a-looking at it. I understand that 
 the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. 
 The man had been deprived of sleep for more than a 
 week, and to have this sprung on him at the height of 
 a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I 
 wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting 
 the carcass of their precious ship-mate out of my fingers. 
 They had rather a job to separate us, IVe been told. 
 A sufficiently fierce story to make an old judge and a 
 respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard 
 when I came to myself was the maddening howling of 
 that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man. 
 He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face 
 out of his sou'wester. 
 
 " ' Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can 
 act no longer as chief mate of this ship.' " 
 
 His care to subdue his voice made it sound monot- 
 onous. He rested a hand on the end of the skylight 
 to steady himself with, and all that time did not stir 
 a limb, so far as I could see. " Nice little tale for a 
 quiet tea-party," he concluded in the same tone. 
 
128 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the 
 skylight; neither did I stir a limb, so far as I knew. 
 We stood less than a foot from each other. It oc- 
 curred to me that if old " Bless my soul — you don't 
 say so " were to put his head up the companion and 
 catch sight of us, he would think he was seeing double, 
 or imagine himself come upon a scene of weird witch- 
 craft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation 
 by the wheel with his own grey ghost. I became very 
 much concerned to prevent anything of the sort. I 
 heard the other's soothing undertone. 
 
 " My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said. Evi- 
 dently he had forgotten he had told me this important 
 fact before. Truly a nice little tale. 
 
 " You had better slip down into my stateroom now," 
 I said, moving off stealthily. My double followed my 
 movements ; our bare feet made no sound ; I let him in, 
 closed the door with care, and, after giving a call to 
 the second mate, returned on deck for my relief. 
 
 " Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when 
 he approached. 
 
 " No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his 
 hoarse voice, with just enough deference, no more, 
 and barely suppressing a yawn. 
 
 "Well, that's all you have to look out for. You 
 have got your orders." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take 
 up his position face forward with his elbow in the rat- 
 lines of the mizzen-rigging before I went below. The 
 
THE SECEET SHAEEE 129 
 
 mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully. 
 The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which 
 stood a vase with flowers, a polite attention from the 
 ships' provision merchant — the last flowers we should 
 see for the next three months at the very least. Two 
 bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetric- 
 ally, one on each side of the rudder-casing. Every- 
 thing was as before in the ship — except that two of 
 her captain's sleeping-suits were simultaneously in use, 
 one motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very 
 still in the captain's stateroom. 
 
 It must be explained here that my cabin had the 
 form of the capital letter L the door being within the 
 angle and opening into the short part of the letter. A 
 couch was to the left, the bed-place to the right; my 
 writing-desk and the chronometers' table faced the door. 
 But any one opening it, unless he stepped right inside, 
 had no view of what I call the long (or vertical) part 
 of the letter. It contained some lockers surmounted 
 by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two, 
 caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There 
 was at the bottom of that part a door opening into my 
 bath-room, whicli could be entered also directly from 
 the saloon. But that way was never used. 
 
 The mysterious arrival had discovered the advan- 
 tage of this particular shape. Entering my room, 
 lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung on 
 gimbals above my writing-desk, I did not see him any- 
 where till he stepped out quietly from behind the coats 
 hung in the recessed part. 
 
130 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " I heard somebody moving about, and went in there 
 at once," he whispered. 
 
 I, too, spoke under my breath. 
 
 " Nobody is likely to come in here without knock- 
 ing and getting permission." 
 
 He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn 
 faded, as though he had been ill. And no wonder. 
 He had been, I heard presently, kept under arrest in 
 his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was 
 nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression. He 
 was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning 
 over my bed-place, whispering side by side, with our 
 dark heads together and our backs to the door, any- 
 body bold enough to open it stealthily would have 
 been treated to the uncanny sight of a double captain 
 busy talking in whispers with his other self. 
 
 " But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang 
 on to our side-ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audi- 
 ble murmurs we used, after he had told me something 
 more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the 
 bad weather was over. 
 
 " When we sighted Java Head I had had time to 
 think all those matters out several times over. I had 
 six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only an hour 
 or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck." 
 
 He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my 
 bed-place, staring through the open port. And I could 
 imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out — 
 a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of 
 which I should have been perfectly incapable. 
 
THE SECRET SHAEER 131 
 
 " I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with 
 the land," he continued, so low that I had to strain 
 my hearing, near as we were to each other, shoulder 
 touching shoulder almost. " So I asked to speak to 
 the old man. He always seemed very sick when he 
 came to see me — as if he could not look me in the face. 
 You know, that foresail saved the ship. She was too 
 deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was 
 I that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. 
 When I had him in my cabin — he stood by the door 
 looking at me as if I had the halter around my neck 
 already — I asked him right away to leave my cabin 
 door unlocked at night while the ship was going 
 through Sunda Straits. There would be the Java 
 coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I 
 wanted nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming 
 my second year in the Conway." 
 
 "I can believe it," I breathed out. 
 
 " God only knows why they locked me in every 
 night. To see some of their faces you'd have thought 
 they were afraid I'd go about at night strangling peo- 
 ple. Am I a murdering brute ? Do I look it ? By 
 Jove! if I had been he wouldn't have trusted himself 
 like that into my room. You'll say I might have 
 chucked him aside and bolted out, there and then — it 
 was dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason 
 I wouldn't think of trying to smash the door. There 
 would have been a rush to stop me at the noise, and 
 I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage. 
 Somebody else might have got killed — for I would 
 
132 'TWIXT LAKD AISTD SEA 
 
 not have broken out only to get chucked back, and I did 
 not want any more of that work. He refused, looking 
 more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and 
 also of that old second mate of his who had been sail- 
 ing with him for years — a grey-headed old humbug; 
 and his steward, too, had been with him devil knows 
 how long — seventeen years or more — a dogmatic 
 sort of loafer who hated me like poison, just because 
 I was the chief mate. No chief mate ever made more 
 than one voyage in the Sephora, you know. Those two 
 old chaps ran the ship. Devil only knows what the 
 skipper wasn't afraid of (all his nerve went to pieces 
 altogether in that hellish spell of bad weather we had) 
 — of what the law would do to him — of his wife, per- 
 haps. Oh, yes ! she's on board. Though I don't think 
 she would have meddled. She would have been only 
 too glad to have me out of the ship in any way. The 
 ' brand of Cain ' business, don't you see. That's all 
 right. I was ready enough to go off wandering on 
 the face of the earth — and that was price enough to 
 pay for an Abel of that sort. Anyhow, he wouldn't 
 listen to me. ^ This thing must take its course. I 
 represent the law here.' He was shaking like a leaf. 
 ' So you won't ? ' ' No ! ' * Then I hope you will be 
 able to sleep on that,' I said, and turned my back on 
 him. * I wonder that you can,' cries he, and locks the 
 door. 
 
 " Well, after that, I couldn't. Not very well. That 
 was three weeks ago. We have had a slow passage 
 through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata for ten 
 
THE SECKET SHAKER 133 
 
 days. When we anchored here they thought, I sup- 
 pose, it was all right. The nearest land (and that's 
 ^ve miles) is the ship's destination; the consul would 
 soon set about catching me ; and there would have been 
 no object in bolting to these islets there. I don't sup- 
 pose there's a drop of water on them. I don't know 
 how it was, but to-night that steward, after bringing 
 me my supper, went out to let me eat it, and left the 
 door unlocked. And I ate it — all there was, too. 
 After I had finished I strolled out on the quarter-deck. 
 I don't know that I meant to do anything. A breath 
 of fresh air was all I wanted, I believe. Then a sud- 
 den temptation came over me. I kicked off my slip- 
 pers and was in the water before I had made up my 
 mind fairly. Somebody heard the splash and they 
 raised an awful hullabaloo. ' He's gone ! Lower the 
 boats! He's committed suicide! 'No, he's swim- 
 ming.' Certainly I was swimming. It's not so easy 
 for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by drowning. 
 I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the 
 ship's side. I heard them pulling about in the dark, 
 hailing, and so on, but after a bit they gave up. 
 Everything quieted down and the anchorage became 
 as still as death. I sat down on a stone and began to 
 think. I felt certain they would start searching for 
 me at daylight. There was no place to hide on those 
 stony things — and if there had been, what would have 
 been the good ? But now I was clear of that ship, I 
 was not going back. So after a while I took off all 
 my clothes, tied them up in a bundle with a stone 
 
134 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the 
 outer side of that islet. That was suicide enough for 
 me. Let them think what they liked, but I didn't 
 mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank — 
 but that's not the same thing. I struck out for another 
 of these little islands, and it was from that one that I 
 first saw your riding-light. Something to swim for. 
 I went on easily, and on the way I came upon a flat 
 rock a foot or two above water. In the daytime, I 
 dare say, you might make it out with a glass from your 
 poop. I scrambled up on it and rested myself for a 
 bit. Then I made another start. That last spell must 
 have been over a mile." 
 
 His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all 
 the time he stared straight out through the port-hole, 
 in which there was not even a star to be seen. I had 
 not interrupted him. There was something that made 
 comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in 
 himself ; a sort of feeling, a quality, which I can't find 
 a name for. And when he ceased, all I found was a 
 futile whisper : " So you swam for our light ? " 
 
 " Yes — straight for it. It was something to swim 
 for. I couldn't see any stars low down because the 
 coast was in the way, and I couldn't see the land, either. 
 The water was like glass. One might have been swim- 
 ming in a confounded thousand-feet deep cistern with 
 no place for scrambling out anywhere; but what I 
 didn't like was the notion of swimming round and 
 round like a crazed bullock before I gave out; and as 
 I didn't mean to go back ... No. Do you see me 
 
THE SECEET SHAEER 135 
 
 being hauled back, stark naked, off one of these little 
 islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a 
 wild beast? Somebody would have got killed for cer- 
 tain, and I did not want any of that. So I went on. 
 Then your ladder " 
 
 " Why didn't you hail the ship ? " I asked, a little 
 louder. 
 
 He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps 
 came right over our heads and stopped. The second 
 mate had crossed from the other side of the poop and 
 might have been hanging over the rail, for all we 
 knew. 
 
 " He couldn't hear us talking — could he ? " My 
 double breathed into my very ear, anxiously. 
 
 His anxiety was an answer, a sufficient answer, to 
 the question I had put to him. An answer containing 
 all the difficulty of that situation. I closed the port- 
 hole quietly, to make sure. A louder word might have 
 been overheard. 
 
 " Who's that ? " he whispered then. 
 
 ^' My second mate. But I don't know much more of 
 the fellow than you do." 
 
 And I told him a little about myself. I had been 
 appointed to take charge while I least expected any- 
 thing of the sort, not quite a fortnight ago. I didn't 
 know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had the 
 time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And 
 as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed 
 to take the ship home. Eor the rest, I was almost as 
 much of a stranger on board as himself, I said. And 
 
136 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 at the moment I felt it most acutely. I felt that it 
 would take very little to make me a suspect person in 
 the eyes of the ship's company. 
 
 He had turned about meantime; and we, the two 
 strangers in the ship, faced each other in identical at- 
 titudes. 
 
 " Your ladder " he murmured, after a silence. 
 
 " Who'd have thought of finding a ladder hanging over 
 at night in a ship anchored out here ! I felt just then 
 a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been 
 leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out 
 of condition. I wasn't capable of swimming round as 
 far as your rudder-chains. And, lo and behold ! there 
 was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I said 
 to myself, ' What's the good ? ' When I saw a man's 
 head looking over I thought I would swim away pres- 
 ently and leave him shouting — in whatever language 
 it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I — I liked 
 it. And then you speaking to me so quietly — as if 
 you had expected me — made me hold on a little longer. 
 It had been a confounded lonely time — I don't mean 
 while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to some- 
 body that didn't belong to the Sephora, As to asking 
 for the captain, that was a mere impulse. It could 
 have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me 
 and the other people pretty certain to be round here in 
 the morning. I don't know — I wanted to be seen, to 
 talk with somebody, before I went on. I don't know 
 what I would have said. ... * Fine night, isn't it ? ' 
 or something of the sort" 
 
THE SECEET SHAKEK 13Y 
 
 " Do you think they will be round here presently ? " 
 I asked with some incredulity. 
 
 " Quite likely," he said, faintly. 
 
 He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His 
 head rolled on his shoulders. 
 
 " H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that 
 bed," I whispered. "Want help? There." 
 
 It was a rather high bed-place with a set of drawers 
 underneath. This amazing swimmer really needed the 
 lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He tumbled in, 
 rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his 
 eyes. And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must 
 have looked exactly as I used to look in that bed. I 
 gazed upon my other self for a while before drawing 
 across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran 
 on a brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning 
 them together for greater safety, but I sat down on 
 the couch, and once there I felt unwilling to rise and 
 hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was 
 extremely tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the 
 strain of stealthiness, by the effort of whispering and 
 the general secrecy of this excitement. It was three 
 o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine, 
 but I was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. 
 I sat there, fagged out, looking at the curtains, trying 
 to clear my mind of the confused sensation of being 
 in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an 
 exasperating knocking in my head. It was a relief 
 to discover suddenly that it was not in my head at all, 
 but on the outside of the door. Before I could collect 
 
138 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 myself the words " Come in " were out of my mouth, 
 and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my 
 morning coffee. I had slept, after all, and I was so 
 frightened that I shouted, " This way ! I am here, 
 steward," as though he had been miles away. He put 
 down the tray on the table next the couch and only 
 then said, very quietly, " I can see you are here, sir." 
 I felt him give me a keen look, but I dared not meet 
 his eyes just then. He must have wondered why I 
 had drawn the curtains of my bed before going to sleep 
 on the couch. He went out, hooking the door open as 
 usual. 
 
 I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew 
 I would have been told at once if there had been any 
 wind. Calm, I thought, and I was doubly vexed. 
 Indeed, I felt dual more than ever. The steward re- 
 appeared suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up 
 from the couch so quickly that he gave a start. 
 
 " What do you want here ? " 
 
 " Close your port, sir — they are washing decks." 
 
 " It is closed," I said, reddening. 
 
 " Very well, sir." But he did not move from the 
 doorway and returned my stare in an extraordinary, 
 equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes wavered, 
 all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually 
 gentle, almost coaxingly: 
 
 " May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir ? " 
 
 " Of course I " I turned my back on him while he 
 popped in and out. Then I unhooked and closed the 
 door and even pushed the bolt. This sort of thing 
 
THE SECKET SHAEER 139 
 
 could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an 
 oven, too. I took a peep at my double, and discovered 
 that he had not moved, his arm was still over his eyes ; 
 but his chest heaved; his hair was wet; his chin 
 glistened with perspiration. I reached over him and 
 opened the port. 
 
 " I must show myself on deck," I reflected. 
 
 Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, 
 with no one to say nay to me within the whole circle 
 of the horizon; but to lock my cabin door and take 
 the key away I did not dare. Directly I put my head 
 out of the companion I saw the group of my two 
 ojBBcers, the second mate barefooted, the chief mate in 
 long india-rubber boots, near the break of the poop, 
 and the steward half-way down the poop-ladder talk- 
 ing to them eagerly. He happened to catch sight of 
 me and dived, the second ran down on the main-deck 
 shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came 
 to meet me, touching his cap. 
 
 There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did 
 not like. I don't know whether the steward had told 
 them that I was " queer " only, or downright drunk, 
 but I know the man meant to have a good look at me. 
 I watched him coming with a smile which, as he got 
 into point-blank range, took effect and froze his very 
 whiskers. I did not give him time to open his lips. 
 
 " Square the yards by lifts and braces before the 
 hands go to breakfast." 
 
 It was the first particular order I had given on board 
 that ship; and I stayed on deck to see it executed, 
 
140 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 too. I had felt the need of asserting myself without 
 loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken 
 down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized 
 the opportunity of having a good look at the face of 
 every foremast man as they filed past me to go to the 
 aft^r braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, 
 I presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates 
 were only too glad to escape from the cabin as soon as 
 decency permitted; and all the time the dual working 
 of my mind distracted me almost to the point of 
 insanity. I was constantly watching myself, my secret 
 self, as dependent on my actions as my own per- 
 sonality, sleeping in that bed, behind that door which 
 faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was 
 very much like being mad, only it was worse because 
 one was aware of it. 
 
 I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at 
 last he opened his eyes it was in the full possession of 
 his senses, with an inquiring look. 
 
 " Alps well so far," I whispered. " Now you must 
 vanish into the bath-room." 
 
 He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and I then rang 
 for the steward, and facing him boldly, directed him 
 to tidy up my stateroom while I was having my bath 
 — " and be quick about it." As my tone admitted of 
 no excuses, he said, " Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch 
 his dust-pan and brushes. I took a bath and did most 
 of my dressing, splashing, and whistling softly for the 
 steward's edification, while the secret sharer of my life 
 stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 141 
 
 face looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids 
 lowered under the stern, dark line of his eyebrows 
 drawn together by a slight frown. 
 
 When I left him there to go back to my room the 
 steward was finishing dusting. I sent for the mate 
 and engaged him in some insignificant conversation. 
 It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character 
 of his whiskers; but my object was to give him an 
 opportunity for a good look at my cabin. And then 
 I could at last shut, with a clear conscience, the door 
 of my stateroom and get my double back into the 
 recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had 
 to sit still on a small folding stool, half smothered by 
 the heavy coats hanging there. We listened to the 
 steward going into the bath-room out of the saloon, 
 filling the water-bottles there, scrubbing the bath, 
 setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter — out 
 again into the saloon — turn the key — click. Such 
 was my scheme for keeping my second self invisible. 
 ]N"othing better could be contrived under the circum- 
 stances. And there we sat; I at my writing-desk 
 ready to appear busy with some papers, he behind me, 
 out of sight of the door. It would not have been 
 prudent to talk in daytime ; and I could not have stood 
 the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to 
 myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder, I 
 saw him far back there, sitting rigidly on the low 
 stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded, his 
 head hanging on his breast — and perfectly still. 
 Anybody would have taken him for me. 
 
142 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had 
 to glance over my shoulder. I was looking at him 
 when a voice outside the door said: 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir." 
 
 " Well ! "... I kept my eyes on him, and so, when 
 the voice outside the door announced, " There's a 
 ship's boat coming our way, sir," I saw him give a 
 start — the first movement he had made for hours. 
 But he did not raise his bowed head. 
 
 " All right. Get the ladder over." 
 
 I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him? 
 But what? His immobility seemed to have been 
 never disturbed. What could I tell him he did not 
 know already? . . . Finally I went on decL 
 
 II 
 
 The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker all 
 round his face, and the sort of complexion that goes 
 with hair of that colour; also the particular, rather 
 smeary shade of blue in the eyes. He was not exactly 
 a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature 
 but middling — one leg slightly more bandy than the 
 other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A 
 spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. 
 I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert 
 him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as if 
 he were ashamed of what he was saying ; gave his name 
 (it was something like Archbold — but at this distance 
 of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few 
 
THE SECKET SHAEEK 143 
 
 other particulars of that sort, in the manner of a 
 criminal making a reluctant and doleful confession. 
 He had had terrible weather on the passage out — 
 terrible — terrible — wife aboard, too. 
 
 By this time we were seated in the cabin and the 
 steward brought in a tray with a bottle and glasses. 
 " Thanks ! No." Never took liquor. Would have 
 some water, though. He drank two tumblerfuls. 
 Terrible thirsty work. Ever since daylight had been 
 exploring the islands round his ship. 
 
 " What was that for — fun ? " I asked, with an ap- 
 pearance of polite interest. 
 
 " No ! " He sighed. " Painful duty." 
 
 As he persisted in his mumbling and I wanted my 
 double to hear every word, I hit upon the notion of 
 informing him that I regretted to say I was hard of 
 hearing. 
 
 " Such a young man, too ! " he nodded, keeping his 
 smeary blue, unintelligent eyes fastened upon me. 
 What was the cause of it — some disease ? he inquired, 
 without the least sympathy and as if he thought that, 
 if so, I^d got no more than I deserved. 
 
 " Yes ; disease," I admitted in a cheerful tone which 
 seemed to shock him. But my point was gained, 
 because he had to raise his voice to give me his tale. 
 It is not worth while to record that version. It was 
 just over two months since all this had happened, and 
 he had thought so much about it that he seemed 
 completely muddled as to its bearings, but still 
 immensely impressed. 
 
144 'TWIXT LAND AT^D SEA 
 
 " What would you think of such a thing happening 
 on board your own ship ? Vwe had the Sephora for 
 these fifteen years. I am a well-known shipmaster." 
 
 He was densely distressed — and perhaps I should 
 have sympathised with him if I had been able to detach 
 my mental vision from the unsuspected sharer of my 
 cabin as though he were my second self. There he 
 was on the other side of the bulkhead, four or ^ve feet 
 from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon. I looked 
 politely at Captain Archbold (if that was his name), 
 but it was the other I saw, in a grey sleeping-suit, 
 seated on a low stool, his bare feet close together, his 
 arms folded, and every word said between us falling 
 into the ears of his dark head bowed on his chest. 
 
 " I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven- 
 and-thirty years, and IVe never heard of such a thing 
 happening in an English ship. And that it should be 
 my ship. Wife on board, too." 
 
 I was hardly listening to him. 
 
 " Don't you think," I said, " that the heavy sea 
 which, you told me, came aboard just then might have 
 killed the man ? I have seen the sheer weight of a sea 
 kill a man very neatly, by simply breaking his neck." 
 
 " Good God ! " he uttered, impressively, fixing his 
 smeary blue eyes on me. " The sea ! No man killed 
 by the sea ever looked like that." He seemed posi- 
 tively scandalised at my suggestion. And as I gazed 
 at him, certainly not prepared for anything original 
 on his part, he advanced his head close to mine and 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 145 
 
 thrust his tongue out at me so suddenly that I couldn't 
 help starting hack. 
 
 After scoring over my calmness in this graphic way 
 he nodded wisely. If I had seen the sight, he assured 
 me, I would never forget it as long as I lived. The 
 weather was too bad to give the corpse a proper sea 
 burial. So next day at dawn they took it up on the 
 poop, covering its face with a bit of bunting; he read 
 a short prayer, and then, just as it was, in its oilskins 
 and long boots, they launched it amongst those moun- 
 tainous seas' that seemed ready every moment to 
 swallow up the ship herself and the terrified lives on 
 board of her. 
 
 " That reefed foresail saved you," I threw in. 
 
 " Under God — it did," he exclaimed fervently. 
 " It was by a special mercy, I firmly believe, that it 
 stood some of those hurricane squalls." 
 
 " It was the setting of that sail which " I began. 
 
 " God's own hand in it," he interrupted me. 
 " ^Nothing less could have done it. I don't mind 
 telling you that I hardly dared give the order. It 
 seemed impossible that we coujd touch anything with- 
 out losing it, and then our last hope would have been 
 gone." 
 
 The terror of that gale was on him yet. I let him 
 go on for a bit, then said, casually — as if returning to 
 a minor subject : 
 
 " You were very anxious to give up your mate to 
 the shore people, I believe ? " 
 
146 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 He was. To the law. His obscure tenacity on 
 that point had in it something incomprehensible and 
 a little awful; something, as it were, mystical, quite 
 apart from his anxiety that he should not be suspected 
 of " countenancing any doings of that sort." Seven- 
 and-thirty virtuous years at sea, of which over twenty 
 of immaculate command, and the last fifteen in the 
 Sephora, seemed to have laid him under some pitiless 
 obligation. 
 
 " And you know," he went on, groping shamefacedly 
 amongst his feelings, " I did not engage that young 
 fellow. His people had some interest with my owners. 
 I was in a way forced to take him on. He looked very 
 smart, very gentlemanly, and all that. But do you 
 know — I never liked him, somehow. I am a plain 
 man. You see, he wasn't exactly the sort for the chief 
 mate of a ship like the Sephora." 
 
 I had become so connected in thoughts and im- 
 pressions with the secret sharer of my cabin that I 
 felt as if I, personally, were being given to understand 
 that I, too, was not the sort that would have done for 
 the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora. I had no 
 doubt of it in my mind. 
 
 " Not at all the style of man. You understand," he 
 insisted, superfluously, looking hard at me. 
 
 I smiled urbanely. He seemed at a loss for a while. 
 
 " I suppose I must report a suicide." 
 
 " Beg pardon ? " 
 
 " Sui-cide ! That's what I'll have to write to my 
 owners directly I get in." 
 
THE SECEET- SHAKER 147 
 
 " Unless jou manage to recover him before to- 
 morrow," I assented, dispassionately. . . . "I mean, 
 alive." 
 
 He mumbled something which I really did not catch, 
 and I turned my ear to him in a puzzled manner. He 
 fairly bawled: 
 
 " The land — I say, the mainland is at least seven 
 miles off my anchorage." 
 
 " About that." 
 
 My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of 
 any sort of pronounced interest, began to arouse his 
 distrust. But except for the felicitous pretence of 
 deafness I had not tried to pretend anything. I 
 had felt utterly incapable of playing the part of 
 ignorance properly, and therefore was afraid to try. 
 It is also certain that he had brought some ready- 
 made suspicions with him, and that he viewed my 
 politeness as a strange and unnatural phenomenon. 
 And yet how else could I have received him? Not 
 heartily! That was impossible for psychological rea- 
 sons, which I need not state here. My only object was 
 to keep off his inquiries. Surlily ? Yes, but surliness 
 might have provoked a point-blank question. From 
 its novelty to him and from its nature, punctilious 
 courtesy was the manner best calculated to restrain 
 the man. But there was the danger of his breaking 
 through my defence bluntly. I could not, I think, 
 have met him by a direct lie, also for psychological 
 (not moral) reasons. If he had only known how afraid 
 I was of his putting my feeling of identity with the 
 
148 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 other to the test ! But, strangely enough — (I thought 
 of it only afterward) — I believe that he was not a 
 little disconcerted by the reverse side of that weird 
 situation, by something in me that reminded him 
 of the man he was seeking — suggested a mysterious 
 similitude to the young fellow he had distrusted and 
 disliked from the first. 
 
 However that might have been, the silence was not 
 very prolonged. He took another oblique step. 
 
 " I reckon I had no more than a two-mile pull to 
 your ship. Not a bit more." 
 
 " And quite enough, too, in this awful heat," I 
 said. 
 
 Another pause full of mistrust followed. Necessity, 
 they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not 
 barren of ingenious suggestions. And I was afraid he 
 would ask me point-blank for news of my other self. 
 
 " Nice little saloon, isn't it ? " I remarked, as if 
 noticing for the first time the way his eyes roamed 
 from one closed door to the other. " And very well 
 fitted out, too. Here, for instance," I continued, 
 reaching over the back of my seat negligently and 
 flinging the door open, " is my bath-room." 
 
 He made an eager movement, but hardly gave it a 
 glance. I got up, shut the door of the bath-room, and 
 invited him to have a look round, as if I were very 
 proud of my accommodation. He had to rise and be 
 shown round, but he went through the business without 
 any raptures whatever. 
 
 "And now we'll have a look at my stateroom," I 
 
THE SECEET SHARER 149' 
 
 declared, in a voice as loud as I dared to make it, 
 crossing the cabin to the starboard side with purposely 
 heavy steps. 
 
 He followed me in and gazed around. My intelli- 
 gent double had vanished. I played my part. 
 
 *' Very convenient — isn't it ? " 
 
 " Very nice. Very comf . . ." He didn't finish, 
 and went out brusquely as if to escape from some un- 
 righteous wiles of mine. But it was not to be. I had 
 been too frightened not to feel vengeful; I felt I had 
 him on the run, and I meant to keep him on the run. 
 My polite insistence must have had something menac- 
 ing in it, because he gave in suddenly. And I did not 
 let him off a single item; mate's room, pantry, store- 
 rooms, the very sail-locker which was also under the 
 poop — he had to look into them all. When at last I 
 showed him out on the quarter-deck he drew a long, 
 spiritless sigh, and mumbled dismally that he must 
 really be going back to his ship now. I desired my 
 mate, who had joined us, to see to the captain's boat. 
 
 The man of whiskers gave a blast on the whistle 
 which he used to wear hanging round his neck, and 
 yelled, '' Sephoras away ! " My double down there in 
 my cabin must have heard, and certainly could not 
 feel more relieved than I. Eour fellows came running 
 out from somewhere forward and went over the side, 
 while my own men, appearing on deck too, lined the 
 rail. I escorted my visitor to the gangway ceremoni- 
 ously, and nearly overdid it. He was a tenacious 
 beast. On the very ladder he lingered, and in that 
 
150 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 unique, guiltily conscientious manner of sticking to the 
 point : 
 
 " I say . . . you . . . you don't think that " 
 
 I covered his voice loudly: 
 
 " Certainly not. ... I am delighted. Good-bye." 
 
 I had an idea of what he meant to say, and just 
 saved myself by the privilege of defective hearing. He 
 was too shaken generally to insist, but my mate, close 
 witness of that parting, looked mystified and his face 
 took on a thoughtful cast. As I did not want to appear 
 as if I wished to avoid all communication with my 
 officers, he had the opportunity to address me. 
 
 " Seems a very nice man. His boat's crew told our 
 chaps a very extraordinary story, if what I am told by 
 the steward is true. I suppose you had it from the 
 captain, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes. I had a story from the captain." 
 
 " A very horrible affair — isn't it, sir ? " 
 
 " It is." 
 
 " Beats all these tales we hear about murders in 
 Yankee ships." 
 
 " I don't think it beats them. I don't think it re- 
 sembles them in the least." 
 
 " Bless my soul — you don't say so ! But of course 
 I've no acquaintance whatever with American ships, 
 not I, so I couldn't go against your knowledge. It's 
 horrible enough for me. . . . But the queerest part is 
 that those fellows seemed to have some idea the man 
 was hidden aboard here. They had really. Did you 
 ever hear of such a thing ? " 
 
THE SECKET SHAKEE 151 
 
 " Preposterous — isn't it ? " 
 
 We were walking to and fro athwart the quarter- 
 deck. No one of the crew forward could be seen (the 
 day was Sunday), and the mate pursued: 
 
 " There was some little dispute about it. Our chaps 
 took offence. ' As if we would harbour a thing like 
 that/ they said. ' Wouldn't you like to look for him 
 in our coal-hole ? ' Quite a tiff. But they made it up 
 in the end. I suppose he did drown himself. Don't 
 you, sir?" 
 
 " I don't suppose anything." 
 
 " You have no doubt in the matter, sir ? " 
 
 ^' None whatever." 
 
 I left him suddenly. I felt I was producing a bad 
 impression, but with my double down there it was most 
 trying to be on deck. And it was almost as trying to 
 be below. Altogether a nerve-trying situation. But 
 on the whole I felt less torn in two when I was with 
 him. There was no one in the whole ship whom I 
 dared take into my confidence. Since the hands had 
 got to know his story, it would have been impossible 
 to pass him off for any one else, and an accidental dis- 
 covery was to be dreaded now more than ever. . . . 
 
 The steward being engaged in laying the table for 
 dinner, we could talk only with our eyes when I first 
 went down. Later in the afternoon we had a cautious 
 try at whispering. The Sunday quietness of the ship 
 was against us; the stillness of air and water around 
 her was against us ; the elements, the men were against 
 us — everything was against us in our secret partner- 
 
152 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 ship ; time itself — for this could not go on forever. 
 The very trust in Providence was, I suppose, denied to 
 his guilt. Shall I confess that this thought cast me 
 down very much? And as to the chapter of accidents 
 which counts for so much in the book of success, I could 
 only hope that it was closed. For what favourable ac- 
 cident could be expected ? 
 
 " Did you hear everything ? " were my first words as 
 soon as we took up our position side by side, leaning 
 over my bed-place. 
 
 He had. And the proof of it was his earnest whis- 
 per, " The man told you he hardly dared to give the 
 order." 
 
 I understood the reference to be to that saving fore- 
 saiL 
 
 " Yes. He was afraid of it being lost in the set- 
 ting." 
 
 " I assure you he never gave the order. He may 
 think he did, but he never gave it. He stood there 
 with me on the break of the poop after the maintopsail 
 blew away, and whimpered about our last hope — 
 positively whimpered about it and nothing else — and 
 the night coming on ! To hear one's skipper go on like 
 that in such weather was enough to drive any fellow 
 out of his mind. It worked me up into a sort of 
 desperation. I just took it into my own hands and 
 
 went away from him, boiling, and But what's 
 
 the use telling you? You know! ... Do you think 
 that if I had not been pretty fierce with them I should 
 have got the men to do anything ? Not it I The bo's'n 
 
THE SECEET SHAKER 163 
 
 perhaps ? Perhaps ! It wasn't a heavy sea — it was a 
 sea gone mad ! I suppose the end of the world will be 
 something like that; and a man may have the heart 
 to see it coming once and he done with it — but to have 
 
 to face it day after day I don't blame anybody. 
 
 I was precious little better than the rest. Only — I 
 was an officer of that old coal-waggon, anyhow " 
 
 " I quite understand," I conveyed that sincere 
 assurance into his ear. He was out of breath with 
 whispering ; I could hear him pant slightly. It was all 
 very simple. The same strung-up force which had 
 given twenty-four men a chance, at least, for their lives, 
 had, in a sort of recoil, crushed an unworthy mutinous 
 existence. 
 
 But I had no leisure to weigh the merits of the 
 matter — footsteps in the saloon, a heavy knock. 
 " There's enough wind to get under way with, sir." 
 Here was the call of a new claim upon my thoughts and 
 even upon my feelings. 
 
 " Turn the hands up," I cried through the door. 
 " I'll be on deck directly." 
 
 I was going out to make the acquaintance of my 
 ship. Before I left the cabin our eyes met — the eyes 
 of the only two strangers on board. I pointed to the 
 recessed part where the little camp-stool awaited him 
 and laid my finger on my lips. He made a gesture — 
 somewhat vague — a little mysterious, accompanied by 
 a faint smile, as if of regret. 
 
 This is not the place to enlarge upon the sensations 
 of a man who feels for the first time a ship move under 
 
164 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 his feet to his own independent word. In my case they 
 were not unalloyed. I was not wholly alone with my 
 command; for there was that stranger in my cabin. 
 Or rather, I was not completely and wholly with her. 
 Part of me was absent. That mental feeling of being 
 in two places at once affected me physically as if the 
 mood of secrecy had penetrated my very soul. Before 
 an hour had elapsed since the ship had begun to move, 
 having occasion to ask the mate (he stood by my side) 
 to take a compass bearing of the Pagoda, I caught my- 
 self reaching up to his ear in whispers. I say I caught 
 myself, but enough had escaped to startle the man. I 
 can't describe it otherwise than by saying that he shied. 
 A grave, preoccupied manner, as though he were in 
 possession of some perplexing intelligence, did not leave 
 him henceforth. A little later I moved away from the 
 rail to look at the compass with such a stealthy gait 
 that the helmsman noticed it — and I could not help 
 noticing the unusual roundness of his eyes. These are 
 trifling instances, though it's to no commander's ad- 
 vantage to be suspected of ludicrous eccentricities. 
 But I was also more seriously affected. There are to 
 a seaman certain words, gestures, that should in given 
 conditions come as naturally, as instinctively as the 
 winking of a menaced eya A certain order should 
 spring on to his lips without thinking; a certain sign 
 should get itself made, so to speak, without reflection. 
 But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me. I 
 had to make an effort of will to recall myself back 
 (from the cabin) to the conditions of the moment. I 
 
THE SECEET SHAKEE 155 
 
 felt that I was appearing an irresolute commander to 
 those people who were watching me more or less critic- 
 ally. 
 
 And, besides, there were the scares. On the second 
 day out, for instance, coming off the deck in the after- 
 noon (I had straw slippers on my bare feet) I stopped 
 at the open pantry door and spoke to the steward. He 
 was doing something there with his back to me. At 
 the sound of my voice he nearly jumped out of his skin, 
 as the saying is, and incidentally broke a cup. 
 
 " What on earth's the matter with you ? " I asked, 
 astonished. 
 
 He was extremely confused. "Beg your pardon, 
 sir. I made sure you were in your cabin." 
 
 " You see I wasn't." 
 
 " 'No, sir. I could have sworn I had heard you mov- 
 ing in there not a moment ago. It's most extraor- 
 dinary . . . very sorry, sir." 
 
 I passed on with an inward shudder. I was so 
 identified with my secret double that I did not even 
 mention the fact in those scanty, fearful whispers we 
 exchanged. I suppose he had made some slight noise 
 of some kind or other. It would have been miraculous 
 if he hadn't at one time or another. And yet, hag- 
 gard as he appeared, he looked always perfectly self- 
 controlled, more than calm — almost invulnerable. 
 On my suggestion he remained almost entirely in the 
 bath-room, which, upon the whole, was the safest place. 
 There could be really no shadow of an excuse for any 
 one ever wanting to go in there, once the steward had 
 
156 ^TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 done with it. It was a very tiny place. Sometimes 
 lie reclined on the floor, his legs bent, his head sustained 
 on one elbow. At others I would find him on the camp- 
 stool, sitting in his grey sleeping-suit and with his 
 cropped dark hair like a patient, unmoved convict. At 
 night I would smuggle him into my bed-place, and we 
 would whisper together, with the regular footfalls of 
 the officer of the watch passing and repassing over our 
 heads. It was an infinitely miserable time. It was 
 lucky that some tins of fine preserves were stowed in 
 a locker in my stateroom; hard bread I could always 
 get hold of; and so he lived on stewed chicken, pate 
 de foie gras, asparagus, cooked oysters, sardines — on 
 all sorts of abominable sham delicacies out of tins. 
 My early morning coffee he always drank; and it was 
 all I dared do for him in that respect. 
 
 Every day there was the horrible manoeuvring to go 
 through so that my room and then the bath-room should 
 be done in the usual way. I came to hate the sight of 
 the steward, to abhor the voice of that harmless man. 
 I felt that it was he who would bring on the disaster of 
 discovery. It hung like a sword over our heads. 
 
 The fourth day out, I think (we were then working 
 down the east side of the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, 
 in light winds and smooth water) — the fourth day, I 
 say, of this miserable juggling with the unavoidable, 
 as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose slight- 
 est movement I dreaded, after putting do^vn the dishes 
 ran up on deck busily. This could not be dangerous. 
 Presently he came down again; and then it appeared 
 
THE SECKET SHAEER 157 
 
 that he had remembered a coat of mine which I had 
 thrown over a rail to dry after having been wetted in 
 a shower which had passed over the ship in the after- 
 noon. Sitting stolidly at the head of the table I be- 
 came terrified at the sight of the garment on his arm. 
 Of course he made for my door. There was no time to 
 lose. 
 
 " Steward," I thundered. My nerves were so 
 shaken that I could not govern my voice and conceal my 
 agitation. This was the sort of thing that made my 
 terrifically whiskered mate tap his forehead with his 
 forefinger. I had detected him using that gesture 
 while talking on deck with a confidential air to the car- 
 penter. It was too far to hear a word, but I had no 
 doubt that this pantomime could only refer to the 
 strange new captain. 
 
 " Yes, sir,'' the pale-faced steward turned resignedly 
 to me. It was this maddening course of being shouted 
 at, checked without rhyme or reason, arbitrarily chased 
 out of my cabin, suddenly called into it, sent flying 
 out of his pantry on incomprehensible errands, that 
 accounted for the growing wretchedness of his expres- 
 sion. 
 
 " Where are you going with that coat ? " 
 
 " To your room, sir." 
 
 " Is there another shower coming ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know, sir. Shall I go up again 
 and see, sir ? " 
 
 " jN'o ! never mind." 
 
 My object was attained, as of course my other self 
 
168 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 in there would have heard everything that passed. 
 During this interlude my two officers never raised their 
 eyes off their respective plates ; but the lip of that con- 
 founded cub, the second mate, quivered visibly. 
 
 I expected the steward to hook my coat on and come 
 out at once. He was very slow about it; but I domi- 
 nated my nervousness sufficiently not to shout after 
 him. Suddenly I became aware (it could be heard 
 plainly enough) that the fellow for some reason or 
 other was opening the door of the bath-room. It was 
 the end. The place was literally not big enough to 
 swing a cat in. My voice died in my throat and I went 
 stony all over. I expected to hear a yell of surprise 
 and terror, and made a movement, but had not the 
 strength to get on my legs. Everything remained still. 
 Had my second self taken the poor wretch by the 
 throat? I don't know what I would have done next 
 moment if I had not seen the steward come out of my 
 room, close the door, and then stand quietly by the 
 sideboard. 
 
 "Saved," I thought. "But, no! Lost! Gone! 
 He was gone ! " 
 
 I laid my knife and fork down and leaned back in 
 my chair. My head swam. After a while, when 
 sufficiently recovered to speak in a steady voice, I in- 
 structed my mate to put the ship round at eight o^clock 
 himself. 
 
 " I won't come on deck," I went on. " I think I'll 
 turn in, and unless the wind shifts I don't want to be 
 disturbed before midnight. I feel a bit seedy." 
 
THE SECKET SHAKEK 159 
 
 " You did look middling bad a little while ago," the 
 chief mate remarked without showing any great con- 
 cern. 
 
 They both went out, and I stared at the steward 
 clearing the table. There was nothing to be read on 
 that wretched man's face. But why did he avoid my 
 eyes I asked myself. Then I thought I should like to 
 hear the sound of his voice. 
 
 "Steward!" 
 
 "Sir!" Startled as usual. 
 
 " Where did you hang up that coat ? " 
 
 " In the bath-room, sir." The usual anxious tone. 
 " It's not quite dry yet, sir." 
 
 For some time longer I sat in the cuddy. Had my 
 double vanished as he had come? But of his coming 
 there was an explanation, whereas his disappearance 
 would be inexplicable. ... I went slowly into my 
 dark room, shut the door, lighted the lamp, and for a 
 time dared not turn round. When at last I did I saw 
 him standing bolt-upright in the narrow recessed part. 
 It would not be true to say I had a shock, but an 
 irresistible doubt of his bodily existence flitted through 
 my mind. Can it be, I asked myself, that he is not 
 visible to other eyes than mine? It was like being 
 haunted. Motionless, with a grave face, he raised his 
 hands slightly at me in a gesture which meant clearly, 
 " Heavens ! what a narrow escape ! " l^arrow indeed. 
 I think I had come creeping quietly as near insanity 
 as any man who has not actually gone over the border. 
 That gesture restrained me, so to speak. 
 
160 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 The mate with the terrific whiskers was now putting 
 the ship on the other tack. In the moment of pro- 
 found silence which follows upon the hands going to 
 their stations I heard on the poop his raised voice: 
 " Hard alee ! " and the distant shout of the order re- 
 peated on the maindeck. The sails, in that light 
 breeze, made but a faint fluttering noise. It ceased. 
 The ship was coming round slowly; I held my breath 
 in the renewed stillness of expectation; one wouldn't 
 have thought that there was a single living soul on her 
 decks. A sudden brisk shout, " Mainsail haul ! " 
 broke the spell, and in the noisy cries and rush over- 
 head of the men running away with the main-brace 
 we two, down in my cabin, came together in our usual 
 position by the bed-place. 
 
 He did not wait for my question. " I heard him 
 fumbling here and just managed to squat myself dowTi 
 in the bath," he whispered to me. " The fellow only 
 opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat 
 up. All the same " 
 
 " I never thought of that," I whispered back, even 
 more appalled than before at the closeness of the shave, 
 and marvelling at that something unyielding in his 
 character which was carrying him through so finely. 
 There was no agitation in his whisper. Whoever was 
 being driven distract od, it was not he. He was sane. 
 And the proof of his sanity was continued when he 
 took up the whispering again. 
 
 " It would never do for me to come to life again." 
 
 It was something that a ghost might have said. But 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 161 
 
 what he was alluding to was his old captain's reluctant 
 admission of the theory of suicide. It would obviously 
 serve his turn — if I had understood at all the view 
 which seemed to govern the unalterable purpose of his 
 action. 
 
 " You must maroon me as soon as ever you can get 
 amongst these islands off the Cambodje shore," he 
 went on. 
 
 " Maroon you ! We are not living in a boy's ad- 
 venture tale," I protested. His scornful whispering 
 took me up. 
 
 " We aren't indeed ! There's nothing of a boy's tale 
 in this. But there's nothing else for it. I want no 
 more. You don't suppose I am afraid of what can be 
 done to me ? Prison or gallows or whatever they may 
 please. But you don't see me coming back to explain 
 such things to an old fellow in a wig and twelve re- 
 spectable tradesmen, do you? What can they know 
 whether I am guilty or not — or of what I am guilty, 
 either? That's my affair. What does the Bible say? 
 ^ Driven off the face of the earth.' Very well. I am 
 off the face of the earth now. As I came at night so 
 I shall go." 
 
 " Impossible ! " I murmured. " You can't." 
 
 " Can't ? . . . 'Not naked like a soul on the Day of 
 Judgment. I shall freeze on to this sleeping-suit. 
 The Last Day is not yet — and . . . you have under- 
 stood thoroughly. Didn't you ? " 
 
 I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly 
 that I understood — and my hesitation in letting that 
 
162 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 man swim away from my ship's side had been a mere 
 sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice. 
 
 " It can't be done now till next night," I breathed 
 out. " The ship is on the off-shore tack and the wind 
 may fail us." 
 
 " As long as I know that you understand," he 
 whispered. " But of course you do. It's a great sat- 
 isfaction to have got somebody to understand. You 
 seem to have been there on purpose." And in the 
 same whisper, as if we two whenever we talked had to 
 say things to each other which were not fit for the 
 world to hear, he added, " It's very wonderful." 
 
 We remained side by side talking in our secret way 
 — but sometimes silent or just exchanging a whispered 
 word or two at long intervals. And as usual he stared 
 through the port. A breath of wind came now and 
 again into our faces. The ship might have been 
 moored in dock, so gently and on an even keel she 
 slipped through the water, that did not murmur even 
 at our passage, shadowy and silent like a phantom sea. 
 
 At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great 
 surprise put the ship round on the other tack. His 
 terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criticism. 
 I certainly should not have done it if it had been only 
 a question of getting out of that sleepy gulf as quickly 
 as possible. I believe he told the second mate, who 
 relieved him, that it was a great want of judgment. 
 The other only yawned. That intolerable cub shuffled 
 about so sleepily and lolled against the rails in such a 
 
THE SECKET SHAKEE 168 
 
 slack, improper fashion that I came down on him 
 sharply. 
 
 "Aren't you properly awake yet?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ! I am awake." 
 
 " Well, then, be good enough to hold yourself as if 
 you were. And keep a look-out. If there's any cur- 
 rent we'll be closing with some islands before day- 
 light." 
 
 The east side of the gulf is fringed with islands, 
 some solitary, others in groups. On the blue back- 
 ground of the high coast they seem to float on silvery 
 patches of calm water, arid and grey, or dark green 
 and rounded like clumps of evergreen bushes, with the 
 larger ones, a mile or two long, showing the outlines 
 of ridges, ribs of grey rock under the dark mantle of 
 matted leafage. Unknown to trade, to travel, almost 
 to geography, the manner of life they harbour is an 
 unsolved secret. There must be villages — settlements 
 of fishermen at least — on the largest of them, and 
 some communication with the world is probably kept 
 up by native craft. But all that forenoon, as we 
 headed for them, fanned along by the faintest of 
 breezes, I saw no sign of man or canoe in the field of 
 the telescope I kept on pointing at the scattered group. 
 
 At noon I gave no orders for a change of course, 
 and the mate's whiskers became much concerned and 
 seemed to be offering themselves unduly to my notice. 
 At last I said: 
 
 " I am going to stand right in. Quite in — as far 
 as I can take her." 
 
164 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 The stare of extreme surprise imparted an air of 
 ferocity also to his eyes, and he looked truly terrific 
 for a moment. 
 
 " We're not doing well in the middle of the gulf," 
 I continued, casually. " I am going to look for the 
 land breezes to-night." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! Do you mean, sir, in the dark 
 amongst the lot of all them islands and reefs and 
 shoals ? " 
 
 " Well — if there are any regular land breezes at all 
 on this coast one must get close inshore to find them, 
 mustn't one?" 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " he exclaimed again under his 
 breath. All that afternoon he wore a dreamy, con- 
 templative appearance which in him was a mark of 
 perplexity. After dinner I went into my stateroom 
 as if I meant to take some rest. There we two bent 
 our dark heads over a half-unrolled chart lying on my 
 bed. 
 
 " There," I said. " It's got to be Koh-ring. I've 
 been looking at it ever since sunrise. It has got two 
 hills and a low point. It must be inhabited. And 
 on the coast opposite there is what looks like the mouth 
 of a biggish river — with some town, no doubt, not 
 far up. It's the best chance for you that I can see." 
 
 " Anything. Koh-ring let it be." 
 
 He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying 
 chances and distances from a lofty height — and fol- 
 lowing with his eyes his own figure wandering on the 
 blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing off that 
 
THE SECEET SHAKER 165 
 
 piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted re- 
 gions. And it was as if the ship had two captains to 
 plan her course for her. I had been so worried and 
 restless running up and down that I had not had the 
 patience to dress that day. I had remained in my 
 sleeping-suit, with straw slippers and a soft floppy hat. 
 The closeness of the heat in the gulf had been most 
 oppressive, and the crew were used to see me wander- 
 ing in that airy attire. 
 
 " She will clear the south point as she heads now," 
 I whispered into his ear. " Goodness only knows 
 when, though, but certainly after dark. I'll edge her 
 in to half a mile, as far as I may be able to judge in 
 the dark " 
 
 " Be careful," he murmured, wamingly — and I 
 realised suddenly that all my future, the only future 
 for which I was fit, would perhaps go irretrievably to 
 pieces in any mishap to my first command. 
 
 I could not stop a moment longer in the room. I 
 motioned him to get out of sight and made my way 
 on the poop. That unplayful cub had the watch. I 
 walked up and down for a while thinking things out, 
 then beckoned him over. 
 
 " Send a couple of hands to open the two quarter- 
 deck ports," I said, mildly. 
 
 He actually had the impudence, or else so forgot 
 himself in his wonder at such an incomprehensible 
 order, as to repeat : 
 
 " Open the quarter-deck ports ! What for, sir ? " 
 
 " The only reason you need concern yourself about 
 
166 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 is because I tell you to do so. Have them open wide 
 and fastened properly." 
 
 He reddened and went off, but I believe made some 
 jeering remark to the carpenter as to the sensible prac- 
 tice of ventilating a ship^s quarter-deck. I know he 
 popped into the mate's cabin to impart the fact to him 
 because the whiskers came on deck, as it were by 
 chance, and stole glances at me from below — for 
 signs of lunacy or drunkenness, I suppose. 
 
 A little before supper, feeling more restless than 
 ever, I rejoined, for a moment, my second self. And 
 to find him sitting so quietly was surprising, like some- 
 thing against nature, inhuman. 
 
 I developed my plan in a hurried whisper. 
 
 " I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her 
 round. I shall presently find means to smuggle you 
 out of here into the sail-locker, which communicates 
 with the lobby. But there is an opening, a sort of 
 square for hauling the sails out, which gives straight 
 on the quarter-deck and which is never closed in fine 
 weather, so as to give air to the sails. When the ship's 
 way is deadened in stays and all the hands are aft at 
 the main-braces you shall have a clear road to slip out 
 and get overboard through the open quarter-deck port. 
 I've had them both fastened up. Use a rope's end to 
 lower yourself into the water so as to avoid a splash — 
 you know. It could be heard and cause some beastly 
 complication." 
 
 He kept silent for a while, then whispered, " I un- 
 derstand." 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 167 
 
 " I won't be there to see you go," I began with an 
 effort. " The rest ... I only hope I have under- 
 stood, too.'' 
 
 " You have. Erom first to last " — and for the first 
 time there seemed to be a faltering, something strained 
 in his whisper. He caught hold of my arm, but the 
 ringing of the supper bell made me start. He didn't, 
 though ; he only released his grip. 
 
 After supper I didn't come below again till well past 
 eight o'clock. The faint, steady breeze was loaded 
 with dew; and the wet, darkened sails held all there 
 was of propelling power in it. The night, clear and 
 starry, sparkled darkly, and the opaque, lightless 
 patches shifting slowly against the low stars were the 
 drifting islets. On the port bow there was a big one 
 more distant and shade wily imposing by the great 
 space of sky it eclipsed. 
 
 On opening the door I had a back view of my very 
 own self looking at a chart. He had come out of the 
 recess and was standing near the table. 
 
 " Quite dark enough," I whispered. 
 
 He stepped back and leaned against my bed with a 
 level, quiet glance. I sat on the couch. We had 
 nothing to say to each other. Over our heads the of- 
 ficer of the watch moved here and there. Then I heard 
 him move quickly. I knew what that meant. He was 
 making for the companion; and presentlv his voice 
 ^ was outside my door. 
 
 " We are drawing in pretty fast, sir. Land looks 
 rather close." 
 
168 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " Very well," I answered. " I am coming on deck 
 directly." 
 
 I waited till he was gone out of the cuddy, then rose. 
 My double moved too. The time had come to ex- 
 change our last whispers, for neither of us was ever to 
 hear each other's natural voice. 
 
 " Look here ! " I opened a drawer and took out 
 three sovereigns. " Take this, anyhow. I've got six 
 and I'd give you the lot, only I must keep a little money 
 to buy some fruit and vegetables for the crew from na- 
 tive boats as we go through Sunda Straits." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Take it," I urged him, whispering desperately. 
 " No one can tell what " 
 
 He smiled and slapped meaningly the only pocket of 
 the sleeping-]' acket. It was not safe, certainly. But 
 I produced a large old silk handkerchief of mine, and 
 tying the three pieces of gold in a comer, pressed it on 
 him. He was touched, I suppose, because he took it 
 at last and tied it quickly round his waist under the 
 jacket, on his bare skin. 
 
 Our eyes met; several seconds elapsed, till, our 
 glances still mingled, I extended my hand and turned 
 the lamp out. Then I passed through the cuddy, leav- 
 ing the door of my room wide open. ..." Steward ! " 
 
 He was still lingering in the pantry in the greatness 
 of his zeal, giving a rub-up to a plated cruet stand the 
 last thing before going to bed. Being careful not to 
 wake up the mate, whose room was opposite, I spoke in 
 an undertone. 
 
THE SECRET SHAEER 169 
 
 yy 
 
 He looked round anxiously. " Sir ! 
 
 " Can you get me a little hot water from the galley ? " 
 
 " I am afraid, sir, the galley fire's been out for some 
 time now." 
 
 " Go and see." 
 
 He fled up the stairs. 
 
 " ]^ow," I whispered, loudly, into the saloon — too 
 loudly, perhaps, but I was afraid I couldn't make a 
 sound. He was by my side in an instant — the double 
 captain slipped past the stairs — through the tiny dark 
 passage ... a sliding door. We were in the sail- 
 locker, scrambling on our knees over the sails. A sud- 
 den thought struck me. I saw myself wandering 
 barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark 
 poll. I snatched off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly 
 in the dark to ram it on my other self. He dodged 
 and fended off silently. I wonder what he thought 
 had come to me before he understood and suddenly 
 desisted. Our hands met gropingly, lingered united 
 in a steady, motionless clasp for a second. . . . 'No 
 word was breathed by either of us when they separated. 
 
 I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the 
 steward returned. 
 
 " Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light 
 the spirit-lamp ? " 
 
 " ISTever mind." 
 
 I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of 
 conscience to shave the land as close as possible — for 
 now he must go overboard whenever the ship was put 
 in stays. Must! There could be no going back for 
 
170 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 him. After a moment I walked over to leeward and 
 my heart flew into my mouth at the nearness of the 
 land on the bow. Under any other circumstances I 
 would not have held on a minute longer. The second 
 mate had followed me anxiously. 
 
 I looked on till I felt I could command my voice. 
 
 " She will weather," I said then in a quiet tone. 
 
 " Are you going to try that, sir ? " he stammered out 
 incredulously. 
 
 I took no notice of him and raised my tone just 
 enough to be heard by the helmsman. 
 
 " Keep her good full." 
 
 " Good full, sir." 
 
 The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world 
 was silent. The strain of watching the dark loom of 
 the land grow bigger and denser was too much for me. 
 I had shut my eyes — because the ship must go closer. 
 She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we 
 standing still ? 
 
 When I opened my eyes the second view started my 
 heart with a thump. The black southern hill of Koh- 
 ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a towering 
 fragment of the everlasting night. On that enormous 
 mass of blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not 
 a sound to be heard. It was gliding irresistibly to- 
 ward us and yet seemed already within reach of the 
 hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped 
 in the waist, gazing in awed silence. 
 
 " Are you going on, sir," inquired an imsteady voice 
 at my elbow. 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 171 
 
 I ignored it. I had to go on. 
 
 " Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't 
 do now," I said wamingly. 
 
 " I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman an- 
 swered me, in strange, quavering tones. 
 
 Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't 
 say in the shadow of the land, but in the very blackness 
 of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too close 
 to be recalled, gone from me altogether. 
 
 " Give the mate a call," I said to the young man 
 who stood at my elbow as still as death. " And turn 
 all hands up." 
 
 My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from 
 the height of the land. Several voices cried out to- 
 gether : " We are all on deck, sir." 
 
 Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding 
 closer, towering higher, without a light, without a 
 sound. Such a hush had fallen on the ship that she 
 might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly 
 under the very gate of Erebus. 
 
 " My God ! Where are we ? " 
 
 It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was 
 thunderstruck, and as it were deprived of the moral 
 support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands and 
 absolutely cried out, " Lost ! " 
 
 " Be quiet," I said sternly. 
 
 He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture 
 of his despair. " What are we doing here ? " 
 
 " Looking for the land wind." 
 
172 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me 
 recklessly. 
 
 " She will never get out. You have done it, sir. 
 I knew it'd end in something like this. She will never 
 weather, and you are too close now to stay. She'll 
 drift ashore before she's round. O my God ! " 
 
 I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his 
 poor devoted head, and shook it violently. 
 
 " She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear 
 himself away. 
 
 " Is she ? . . . Keep good full there ! " 
 
 " Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a fright- 
 ened, thin, child-like voice. 
 
 I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking 
 it. " Keady about, do you hear ? You go forward " 
 — shake — " and stop there " — shake — " and hold 
 your noise " — shake — " and see these head-sheets 
 properly overhauled " — shake, shake — shake. 
 
 And all the time I dared not look toward the land 
 lest my heart should fail me. I released my grip at 
 last and he ran forward as if fleeing for dear life. 
 
 I wondered what my double there in the sail-locker 
 thought of this commotion. He was able to hear 
 everything — and perhaps he was able to understand 
 why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close — no 
 less. My first order " Hard alee ! " re-echoed omi- 
 nously under the towering shadow of Koh-ring as if I 
 had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I watched 
 the land intently. In that smooth water and light 
 wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to. No ! 
 
THE SECEET SHAEEK 173 
 
 I could not feel her. And my second self was making 
 now ready to slip out and lower himself orerboard. 
 Perhaps he was gone already . . . ? 
 
 The great black mass brooding over our very mast- 
 heads began to pivot away from the ship's side silently. 
 And now I forgot the secret stranger ready to depart, 
 and remembered only that I was a total stranger to 
 the ship. I did not know her. Would she do it ? 
 How was she to be handled ? 
 
 I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She 
 was perhaps stopped, and her very fate hung in the 
 balance, with the black mass of Koh-ring like the gate 
 of the everlasting night towering over her taffrail. 
 What would she do now ? Had she way on her yet ? I 
 stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water 
 I could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash 
 revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping surface. 
 It was impossible to tell — and I had not learned yet 
 the feel of my ship. Was she moving? What I 
 needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper, 
 which I could throw overboard and watch. I had 
 nothing on me. To run down for it I didn't dare. 
 There was no time. All at once my strained, yearning 
 stare distinguished a white object floating within a 
 yard of the ship's side. White on the black water. A 
 phosphorescent flash passed under it. What was that 
 thing ? . . . I recognised my own floppy hat. It must 
 have fallen off his head . . , and he didn't bother. 
 Xow I had what I wanted — the saving mark for my 
 eyes. But I hardly thought of my other self, now gone 
 
174 'TWIXT LAISTD AND SEA 
 
 from the ship, to he hidden forever from all friendly- 
 faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, 
 with no brand of the curse on his sane forehead to stay 
 a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain. 
 
 And I watched the hat — the expression of my sud- 
 den pity for his mere flesh. It had been meant to save 
 his homeless head from the dangers of the sun. And 
 now — behold — it was saving the ship, by serving me 
 for a mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness. 
 Ha ! It was drifting forward, warning me just in time 
 that the ship had gathered stemway. 
 
 " Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the flea- 
 man standing still like a statue. 
 
 The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light 
 as he jumped round to the other side and spun round 
 the wheel. 
 
 I walked to the break of the poop. On the over- 
 shadowed deck all hands stood by the forebraces wait- 
 ing for my order. The stars ahead seemed to be glid' 
 ing from right to left. And all was so still in the 
 world that I heard the quiet remark " She's round," 
 passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen. 
 
 " Let go and haul." 
 
 The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst 
 cheery cries. And now the frightful whiskers made 
 themselves heard giving various orders. Already the 
 ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. 
 Nothing ! no one in the world should stand now between 
 us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge 
 
THE SECRET SHARER 175 
 
 and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman 
 with his first command. 
 
 Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, 
 on the very edge of a darkness thrown by a towering 
 black mass like the very gateway of Erebus — yes, I 
 was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white 
 hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer 
 of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my 
 second self, had lowered himself into the water to take 
 his punishment : a free man, a proud swimmer striking 
 out for a new destiny. 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 
 A STOEY OP SHALLOW WATEES 
 
 m 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 
 
 ONE day — and that day was many years ago now 
 — I received a long, chatty letter from one of 
 my old chums and fellow-wanderers in Eastern waters. 
 He was still out there, but settled down, and middle- 
 aged; I imagined him grown portly in figure and do- 
 mestic in his habits; in short, overtaken by the fate 
 common to all except to those who, being specially be- 
 loved by the gods, get knocked on the head early. The 
 letter was of the reminiscent " do you remember " 
 kind — a wistful letter of backward glances. And, 
 amongst other things, " surely you remember old Nel- 
 son," he wrote. 
 
 Remember old Nelson! Certainly. And to begin 
 with, his name was not Nelson. The Englishmen in 
 the Archipelago called him Nelson because it was more 
 convenient, I suppose, and he never protested. It 
 would have been mere pedantry. The true form of 
 his name was Nielsen. He had come out East long 
 before the advent of telegraph cables, had served Eng- 
 lish firms, had married an English girl, had been one 
 of us for years, trading and sailing in all directions 
 
 through the Eastern Archipelago, across and around, 
 
 179 
 
180 'TWIXT LAOTD AND SEA 
 
 transversely, diagonally, perpendicularly, in semi- 
 circles, and zigzags, and figures of eights, for years and 
 years. 
 
 There was no nook or cranny of these tropical waters 
 that the enterprise of old Nelson (or Nielsen) had not 
 penetrated in an eminently pacific way. His tracks, 
 if plotted out, would have covered the map of the 
 Archipelago like a cobweb — all of it, with the sole 
 exception of the Philippines. He would never ap- 
 proach that part, from a strange dread of Spaniards, 
 or, to be exact, of the Spanish authorities. What he 
 imagined they could do to him it is impossible to say. 
 Perhaps at some time in his life he had read some 
 stories of the Inquisition. 
 
 But he was in general afraid of what he called " au- 
 thorities " ; not the English authorities, which he 
 trusted and respected, but the other two of that part 
 of the world. He was not so horrified at the Dutch 
 as he was at the Spaniards, but he was even more mis- 
 trustful of them. Very mistrustful indeed. The 
 Dutch, in his view, were capable of " playing any ugly 
 trick on a man'' who had the misfortune to displease 
 them. There were their laws and regulations, but 
 they had no notion of fair play in applying them. It 
 was really pitiable to see the anxious circumspection 
 of his dealings with some official or other, and remem- 
 ber that this man had been known to stroll up to a vil- 
 lage of cannibals in New Guinea in a quiet, fearless 
 manner (and note that he was always fleshy all his life, 
 and, if I may say so, an appetising morsel) on some 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 181 
 
 matter of barter that did not amount perhaps to fifty 
 pounds in the end. 
 
 Eemember old Nelson! Kather! Truly, none of 
 us in my generation had known him in his active days. 
 He was " retired " in our time. He had bought, or 
 else leased, part of a small island from the Sultan of 
 a little group called the Seven Isles, not far north from 
 Banka. It was, I suppose, a legitimate transaction, 
 but I have no doubt that had he been an Englishman 
 the Dutch would have discovered a reason to fire him 
 out without ceremony. In this connection the real 
 form of his name stood him in good stead. In the 
 character of an omassuming Dane whose conduct was 
 most correct, they let him be. With all his money en- 
 gaged in cultivation he was naturally careful not to 
 give even the shadow of offence, and it was mostly for 
 prudential reasons of that sort that he did not look 
 with a favourable eye on Jasper Allen. But of that 
 later. Yes! One remembered well enough old Nel- 
 son's big, hospitable bungalow erected on a shelving 
 point of land, his portly form, costumed generally in 
 a white shirt and trousers (he had a confirmed habit of 
 taking off his alpaca jacket on the slightest provoca- 
 tion), his round blue eyes, his straggly, sandy-white 
 moustache sticking out all ways like the quills of the 
 fretful porcupine, his propensity to sit down suddenly 
 and fan himself with his hat. But there's no use con- 
 cealing the fact that what one remembered really was 
 his daughter, who at that time came out to live with 
 him — and be a sort of Lady of the Isles. 
 
182 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Freya Nelson (or Nielsen) was the kind of girl one 
 remembers. The oval of her face was perfect; and 
 within that fascinating frame the most happy dispo- 
 sition of line and feature, with an admirable complex- 
 ion, gave an impression of health, strength, and what 
 I might call unconscious self-confidence — a most 
 pleasant and, as it were, whimsical determination. I 
 will not compare her eyes to violets, because the real 
 shade of their colour was peculiar, not so dark and more 
 lustrous. They were of the wide-open kind, and 
 looked at one frankly in every mood. I never did see 
 the long, dark eyelashes lowered — I dare say Jasper 
 Allen did, being a privileged person — but I have no 
 doubt that the expression must have been charming in 
 a complex way. She could — Jasper told me once 
 with a touchingly imbecile exultation — sit on her 
 hair. I dare say, I dare say. It was not for me to 
 behold these wonders ; I was content to admire the neat 
 and becoming way she used to do it up so as not to 
 conceal the good shape of her head. And this wealth 
 of hair was so glossy that when the screens of the west 
 verandah were down, making a pleasant twilight there, 
 or in the shade of the grove of fruit-trees near the 
 house, it seemed to give out a golden light of its own. 
 
 She dressed generally in a white frock, with a skirt 
 of walking length, showing her neat, laced, brown boots. 
 If there was any colour about her costume it was just 
 a bit of blue perhaps. No exertion seemed to distress 
 her. I have seen her land from the dinghy after a long 
 pull in the sun (she rowed herself about a good deal) 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 183 
 
 with no quickened breath and not a single hair out of 
 its place. In the morning when she came out on the 
 verandah for the first look westward, Sumatra way, 
 over the sea, she seemed as fresh and sparkling as a 
 dewdrop. But a dewdrop is evanescent, and there was 
 nothing evanescent about Freja. I remember her 
 round, solid arms with the fine wrists, and her broad, 
 capable hands with tapering fingers. 
 
 I don't know whether she was actually born at sea, 
 but I do know that up to twelve years of age she sailed 
 about with her parents in various ships. After old 
 !N^elson lost his wife it became a matter of serious con- 
 cern for him what to do with the girl. A kind lady 
 in Singapore, touched by his dumb grief and deplor- 
 able perplexity, offered to take charge of Freya. This 
 arrangement lasted some six years, during which old 
 !N'elson (or Melsen) " retired '' and established him- 
 self on his island, and then it was settled (the kind 
 lady going away to Europe) that his daughter should 
 join him. 
 
 As the first and most important preparation for that 
 event the old fellow ordered from his Singapore agent 
 a Steyn and Ebhart's " upright grand." I was then 
 commanding a little steamer in the island trade, and 
 it fell to my lot to take it out to him, so I know some- 
 thing of Freya's "upright grand." We landed the 
 enormous packing-case with difficulty on a flat piece 
 of rock amongst some bushes, nearly knocking the bot- 
 tom out of one of my boats in the course of that nauti- 
 cal operation. Then, all my crew assisting, engineers 
 
184 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 and firemen included, by the exercise of much anxious 
 ingenuity, and by means of rollers, levers, tackles, 
 and inclined planes of soaped planks, toiling in the 
 sun like ancient Egyptians at the building of a pyra- 
 mid, we got it as far as the house and up on to the 
 edge of the west verandah — which was the actual 
 drawing-room of the bungalow. There, the case being 
 ripped off cautiously, the beautiful rosewood monster 
 stood revealed at last. In reverent excitement we 
 coaxed it against the wall and drew the first free breath 
 of the day. It was certainly the heaviest movable 
 object on that islet since the creation of the world. 
 The volume of sound it gave out in that bimgalow 
 (which acted as a sounding-board) was really astonish- 
 ing. It thundered sweetly right over the sea. Jasper 
 Allen told me that early of a morning on the deck of 
 the Bonito (his wonderfully fast and pretty brig) he 
 could hear Freya playing her scales quite distinctly. 
 But the fellow always anchored foolishly close to the 
 point, as I told him more than once. Of course, these 
 seas are almost uniformly serene, and the Seven Isles 
 is a particularly calm and cloudless spot as a rule. 
 But still, now and again, an afternoon thunderstorm 
 over Banka, or even one of these vicious thick squalls, 
 from the distant Sumatra coast, would make a sudden 
 sally upon the group, enveloping it for a couple of 
 hours in whirlwinds and bluish-black murk of a particu- 
 larly sinister aspect. Then, with the lowered rattan- 
 screens rattling desperately in the wind and the bunga- 
 low shaking all over, Freya would sit down to the piano 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 185 
 
 and play fierce Wagner music in the flicker of blind- 
 ing flashes, with thunderbolts falling all round, enough 
 to make your hair stand on end ; and Jasper would re- 
 main stock still on the verandah, adoring the back view 
 of her supple, swaying figure, the miraculous sheen of 
 her fair head, the rapid hands on the keys, the white 
 nape of her neck — while the brig, down at the point 
 there, surged at her cables within a hundred yards of the 
 nasty, shiny, black rock-heads. Ugh! 
 
 And this, if you please, for no reason but that, when 
 he went on board at night and laid his head on the 
 pillow, he should feel that he was as near as he could 
 conveniently get to his Ereya slumbering in the bunga- 
 low. Did you ever! And, mind, this brig was the 
 home to be — their home — the floating paradise 
 which he was gradually fitting out like a yacht to sail 
 his life blissfully away in with Ereya. Imbecile! 
 But the fellow was always taking chances. 
 
 One day, I remember I watched with Ereya on the 
 verandah the brig approaching the point from the 
 northward. I suppose Jasper made the girl out with 
 his long glass. What does he do? Instead of stand- 
 ing on for another mile and a half along the shoals 
 and then tacking for the anchorage in a proper and 
 seamanlike manner, he spies a gap between two dis- 
 gusting old jagged reefs, puts the hehn down suddenly, 
 and shoots the brig through, with all her sails shaking 
 and rattling, so that we could hear the racket on the 
 verandah. I drew my breath through my teeth, I can 
 tell you, and Ereya swore. Yes! She clenched her 
 
186 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 capable fists and stamped with her pretty brown boot 
 and said " Damn I " Then, looking at me with a little 
 heightened colour — not much — she remarked, " I 
 forgot you were there," and laughed. To be sure, to 
 be sure. When Jasper was in sight she was not likely 
 to remember that anybody else in the world was there. 
 In my concern at this mad trick I couldn't help appeal- 
 ing to her sympathetic common sense. 
 
 " Isn't he a fool ? " I said with feeling. 
 
 ** Perfect idiot," she agreed warmly, looking at me 
 straight with her wide-open, earnest eyes and the dim- 
 ple of a smile on her cheek. 
 
 " And that," I pointed out to her, " just to save 
 twenty minutes or so in meeting you." 
 
 We heard the anchor go down, and then she became 
 very resolute and threatening. 
 
 " Wait a bit. I'll teach him." 
 
 She went into her own room and shut the door, 
 leaving me alone on the verandah with my instructions. 
 Long before the brig's sails were furled, Jasper came 
 up three steps at a time, forgetting to say how d'ye do, 
 and looking right and left eagerly. 
 
 " Where's Freya ? Wasn't she here just now ? " 
 
 When I explained to him that he was to be deprived 
 of Miss Freya's presence for a whole hour, " just to 
 teach him," he said I had put her up to it, no doubt, 
 and that he feared he would have yet to shoot me some 
 day. She and I were getting too thick together. Then 
 he flung himself into a chair, and tried to talk to me 
 about his trip. But the funny thing was that the fel- 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 187 
 
 low actually suffered. I could see it. His voice failed 
 him, and lie sat there dumb, looking at the door with 
 the face of a man in pain. Fact. . . . And the next 
 still funnier thing was that the girl calmly walked out 
 of her room in less than ten minutes. And then I left. 
 I mean to say that I went away to seek old Nelson (or 
 Nielsen) on the back verandah, which was his own spe- 
 cial nook in the distribution of that house, with the kind 
 purpose of engaging him in conversation lest he should 
 start roaming about and intrude unwittingly where he 
 was not wanted just then. 
 
 He knew that the brig had arrived, though he did 
 not know that Jasper was already with his daughter. 
 I suppose he didn't think it was possible in the time. 
 A father naturally wouldn't. He suspected that Allen 
 was sweet on his girl; the fowls of the air and the 
 fishes of the sea, most of the traders in the Archipelago, 
 and all sorts and conditions of men in the town of 
 Singapore were aware of it. But he was not capable 
 of appreciating how far the girl was gone on the fellow. 
 He had an idea that Freya was too sensible to ever be 
 gone on anybody — I mean to an unmanageable ex- 
 tent. No; it was not that which made him sit on the 
 back verandah and worry himself in his unassuming 
 manner during Jasper's visits. What he worried 
 about were the Dutch " authorities." For it is a fact 
 that the Dutch looked askance at the doings of Jasper 
 Allen, owner and master of the brig Bonito. They 
 considered him much too enterprising in his trading. 
 I don't know that he ever did anything illegal; but it 
 
188 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 seems to me that his immense activity was repulsive to 
 their stolid character and slow-going methods. Any- 
 way, in old Nelson's opinion, the captain of the Bonito 
 was a smart sailor, and a nice young man, but not a 
 desirable acquaintance upon the whole. Somewhat 
 compromising, you understand. On the other hand, 
 he did not like to tell Jasper in so many words to keep 
 away. Poor old Nelson himself was a nice fellow. I 
 believe he would have shrunk from hurting the feel- 
 ings even of a mop-headed cannibal, unless, perhaps, 
 under very strong provocation. I mean the feelings, 
 not the bodies. As against spears, knives, hatchets, 
 clubs, or arrows, old Nelson had proved himself capable 
 of taking his own part. In every other respect he had 
 a timorous soul. So he sat on the back verandah with 
 a concerned expression, and whenever the voices of his 
 daughter and Jasper Allen reached him, he would blow 
 out his cheeks and let the air escape with a dismal 
 sound, like a much tried man. 
 
 Naturally I derided his fears which he, more or less, 
 confided to me. He had a certain regard for my 
 judgment, and a certain respect, not for my moral 
 qualities, however, but for the good terms I was sup- 
 posed to be on with the Dutch " authorities." I knew 
 for a fact that his greatest bugbear, the Governor of 
 Banka — a charming, peppery, hearty, retired rear- 
 admiral — had a distinct liking for him. This con- 
 soling assurance which I used always to put forward, 
 made old Nelson (or Nielsen) brighten up for a mo- 
 ment; but in the end he would shake his head doubt- 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEIST ISLES 189 
 
 fully, as much as to say that this was all rery well, but 
 that there were depths in the Dutch official nature 
 which no one but himself had ever fathomed. Per- 
 fectly ridiculous. 
 
 On this occasion I am speaking of, old ^tsTelson was 
 even fretty; for while I was trying to entertain him 
 with a very funny and somewhat scandalous adventure 
 which happened to a certain acquaintance of ours in 
 Saigon, he exclaimed suddenly: 
 
 " What the devil he wants to turn up here for ! " 
 
 Clearly he had not heard a word of the anecdote. 
 And this annoyed me^ because the anecdote was really 
 good. I stared at him. 
 
 " Come, come ! " I cried. " Don't you know what 
 Jasper Allen is turning up here for ? " 
 
 This was the first open allusion I had ever made to 
 the true state of affairs between Jasper and his daugh- 
 ter. He took it very calmly. 
 
 " Oh, Freya is a sensible girl I " he murmured ab- 
 sently, his mind's eye obviously fixed on the " author- 
 ities." No; Freya was no fool. He was not con- 
 cerned about that. He didn't mind it in the least. 
 The fellow was just company for her; he amused the 
 girl; nothing more. 
 
 When the perspicacious old chap left off mumbling, 
 all was still in the house. The other two were amusing 
 themselves very quietly, and no doubt very heartily. 
 What more absorbing and less noisy amusement could 
 they have found than to plan their future? Side by 
 side on the verandah they must have been looking at 
 
190 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 the brig, the third party in that fascinating game. 
 Without her there would have been no future. She 
 was the fortune and the home, and the great free world 
 for them. Who was it that likened a ship to a prison ? 
 May I be ignominiously hanged at a yardarm if that's 
 true. The white sails of that craft were the white 
 wings — pinions, I believe, would be the more poetical 
 style — well, the white pinions, of their soaring love. 
 Soaring as regards Jasper. Freya, being a woman, 
 kept a better hold of the mundane connections of this 
 affair. 
 
 But Jasper was elevated in the true sense of the 
 word ever since the day when, after they had been 
 gazing at the brig in one of those decisive silences 
 that alone establish a perfect communion between 
 creatures gifted with speech, he proposed that she 
 should share the ownership of that treasure with him. 
 Indeed, he presented the brig to her altogether. But 
 then his heart was in the brig since the day he bought 
 her in Manilla from a certain middle-aged Peruvian, 
 in a sober suit of black broadcloth, enigmatic and 
 sententious, who, for all I know, might have stolen 
 her on the South American coast, whence he said he 
 had come over to the Philippines " for family rea- 
 sons." This " for family reasons " was distinctly 
 good. No true cdballero would care to push on in- 
 quiries after such a statement. 
 
 Indeed, Jasper was quite the cdballero. The brig 
 herself was then all black and enigmatical, and very 
 dirty; a tarnished gem of the sea, or, rather, a neg- 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 191 
 
 lected work of art. For he must have been an artist, 
 the obscure builder who had put her body together on 
 lovely lines out of the hardest tropical timber fastened 
 with the purest copper. Goodness only knows in what 
 part of the world she was built. Jasper himself had 
 not been able to ascertain much of her history from 
 his sententious, saturnine Peruvian — if the fellow was 
 a Peruvian, and not the devil himself in disguise, as 
 Jasper jocularly pretended to believe. My opinion is 
 that she was old enough to have been one of the last 
 pirates, a slaver perhaps, or else an opium clipper of 
 the early days, if not an opium smuggler. 
 
 However that may be, she was as sound as on the 
 day she first took the water, sailed like a witch, steered 
 like a little boat, and, like some fair women of ad- 
 venturous life famous in history, seemed to have the 
 secret of perpetual youth; so that there was nothing 
 unnatural in Jasper Allen treating her like a lover. 
 And that treatment restored the lustre of her beauty. 
 He clothed her in many coats of the very best white 
 paint so skilfully, carefully, artistically put on and kept 
 clean by his badgered crew of picked Malays, that no 
 costly enamel such as jewellers use for their work 
 could have looked better and felt smoother to the touch. 
 A narrow gilt moulding defined her elegant sheer as 
 she sat on the water, eclipsing easily the professional 
 good looks of any pleasure yacht that ever came to the 
 East in those days. For myself, I must say I prefer a 
 moulding of deep crimson colour on a white hull. It 
 gives a stronger relief besides being less expensive ; and 
 
192 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 I told Jasper so. But no, nothing less than the best 
 gold-leaf would do, because no decoration could be gor- 
 geous enough for the future abode of his Ereya. 
 
 His feelings for the brig and for the girl were as in- 
 dissolubly united in his heart as you may fuse two 
 precious metals together in one crucible. And the 
 flame was pretty hot, I can assure you. It induced 
 in him a fierce inward restlessness both of activity and 
 desire. Too fine in face, with a lateral wave in his 
 chestnut hair, spare, long-limbed, with an eager glint 
 in his steely eyes and quick, brusque movements, he 
 made me think sometimes of a flashing sword-blade 
 perpetually leaping out of the scabbard. It was only 
 when he was near the girl, when he had her there to 
 look at, that this peculiarly tense attitude was replaced 
 by a grave devout watchfulness of her slightest move- 
 ments and utterances. Her cool, resolute, capable, 
 good-humoured self-possession seemed to steady his 
 heart. Was it the magic of her face, of her voice, of 
 her glances which calmed him so ? Yet these were the 
 very things one must believe which had set his imagina- 
 tion ablaze — if love begins in imagination. But I am 
 no man to discuss such mysteries, and it strikes me 
 that we have neglected poor old ^N'elson inflating his 
 cheeks in a state of worry on the back verandah. 
 
 I pointed out to him that, after all, Jasper was not a 
 very frequent visitor. He and his brig worked hard 
 all over the Archipelago. But all old ISTelson said, and 
 he said it uneasily, was : 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 103 
 
 " I hope Heemskirk won't turn up here while the 
 brig's about." 
 
 Getting up a scare about Heemskirk now! Heems- 
 kirk ! . . . Really, one hadn't the patience 
 
 II 
 
 FoB^ pray, who was Heemskirk? You shall see at 
 once how unreasonable this dread of Heemskirk. . . . 
 Certainly, his nature was malevolent enough. That 
 was obvious, directly you heard him laugh. Nothing 
 gives away more a man's secret disposition than the 
 unguarded ring of his laugh. But, bless my soul! if 
 we were to start at every evil guffaw like a hare at 
 every sound, we shouldn't be fit for anything but the 
 solitude of the desert, or the seclusion of a hermitage. 
 And even there we should have to put up with the un- 
 avoidable company of the devil. 
 
 However, the devil is a considerable personage, who 
 has known better days and has moved high up in the 
 hierarchy of Celestial Host; but in the hierarchy of 
 mere earthly Dutchmen, Heemskirk, whose early days 
 could not have been very splendid, was merely a naval 
 officer forty years of age, of no particular connections 
 or ability to boast of. He was commanding the 
 Neptun, a little gunboat employed on dreary patrol 
 duty up and down the Archipelago, to look after the 
 traders. Not a very exalted position truly. I tell 
 you, just a common middle-aged lieutenant of some 
 
194 'TWIXT LAND AISTD SEA 
 
 twenty-five years' service and sure to be retired before 
 long — that's all. 
 
 He never bothered his head very much as to what 
 was going on in the Seven Isles group till he learned 
 from some talk in Mintok or Palembang, I suppose, 
 that there was a pretty girl living there. Curiosity, I 
 presume, caused him to go poking around that way, and 
 then, after he had once seen Freya, he made a practice 
 of calling at the group whenever he found himself 
 within half a day's steaming from it, 
 
 I don't mean to say that Heemskirk was a typical 
 Dutch naval officer. I have seen enough of them not 
 to fall into that absurd mistake. He had a big, clean- 
 shaven face; great flat, brown cheeks, with a thin, 
 hooked nose and a small, pursy mouth squeezed in be- 
 tween. There were a few silver threads in his black 
 hair, and his unpleasant eyes were nearly black, too. 
 He had a surly way of casting side glances without 
 moving his head, which was set low on a short, round 
 neck. A thick, round trunk in a dark undress jacket 
 with gold shoulder-straps, was sustained by a straddly 
 pair of thick, round legs, in white drill trousers. His 
 round skull under a white cap looked as if it were im- 
 mensely thick too, but there were brains enough in it 
 to discover and take advantage maliciously of poor old 
 "Nelson's nervousness before everything that was in- 
 vested with the merest shred of authority. 
 
 Heemskirk would land on the point and perambulate 
 silently every part of the plantation as if the whole 
 place belonged to him, before he went to the house. 
 
TEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 195 
 
 On the verandah he would take the best chair, and 
 would stay for tiffin or dinner, just simply stay on, 
 without taking the trouble to invite himself by so much 
 as a word. 
 
 He ought to have been kicked, if only for his manner 
 to Miss Freya. Had he been a naked savage, armed 
 with spears and poisoned arrows, old Nelson (or Niel- 
 sen) would have gone for him with his bare fists. But 
 these gold shoulder-straps — Dutch shoulder-straps at 
 that — were enough to terrify the old fellow ; so he let 
 the beggar treat him with heavy contempt, devour his 
 daughter with his eyes, and drink the best part of his 
 little stock of wine. 
 
 I saw something of this, and on one occasion I tried 
 to pass a remark on the subject. It was pitiable to 
 see the trouble in old Nelson^s round eyes. At first 
 he cried out that the lieutenant was a good friend of 
 his; a very good fellow. I went on staring at him 
 pretty hard, so that at last he faltered, and had to 
 own that, of course, Heemskirk was not a very genial 
 person outwardly, but all the same at bottom. . . . 
 
 " I haven't yet met a genial Dutchman out here," 
 I interrupted. " Geniality, after all, is not of much 
 consequence, but don't you see " 
 
 Nelson looked suddenly so frightened at what I was 
 going to say that I hadn't the heart to go on. Of 
 course, I was going to tell him that the fellow was 
 after his girl. That just describes it exactly. What 
 Heemskirk might have expected or what he thought 
 he could do, I don't know. For all I can tell, he might 
 
196 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 have imagined himself irresistible, or have taken Freya 
 for what she was not, on account of her lively, as- 
 sured, unconstrained manner. But there it is. He 
 was after that girl. Nelson could see it well enough. 
 Only he preferred to ignore it. He did not want to be 
 told of it. 
 
 "All I want is to live in peace and quietness with 
 the Dutch authorities," he mumbled shamefacedly. 
 
 He was incurable. I was sorry for him, and I really 
 think Miss Freya was sorry for her father, too. She 
 restrained herself for his sake, and as everything she 
 did she did it simply, unaffectedly, and even good 
 humouredly. No small effort that, because in Heems- 
 kirk's attentions there was an insolent touch of scorn, 
 hard to put up with. Dutchmen of that sort are over- 
 bearing to their inferiors, and that officer of the king 
 looked upon old Nelson and Freya as quite beneath 
 him in every way. 
 
 I can't say I felt sorry for Freya. She was not the 
 sort of girl to take anything tragically. One could feel 
 for her and sympathise with her difficulty, but she 
 seemed equal to any situation. It was rather admira- 
 tion she extorted by her competent serenity. It was 
 only when Jasper and Heemskirk were together at the 
 bungalow, as it happened now and then, that she felt 
 the strain, and even then it was not for everybody to 
 see. My eyes alone could detect a faint shadow on 
 the radiance of her personality. Once I could not 
 help saying to her appreciatively : 
 
 " Upon my word you are wonderfuL'' 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVE:^ ISLES 197 
 
 She let it pass with a faint smile. 
 
 " The great thing is to prevent Jasper becoming un- 
 reasonable," she said; and I could see real concern 
 lurking in the quiet depths of her frank ejes gazing 
 straight at me. " You will help to keep him quiet, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 " Of course, we must keep him quiet," I declared, 
 understanding very well the nature of her anxiety. 
 " He's such a lunatic, too, when he's roused." 
 
 " He is ! " she assented, in a soft tone ; for it was 
 our joke to speak of Jasper abusively. " But I have 
 tamed him a bit. He's quite a good boy now." 
 
 " He would squash Heemskirk like a blackbeetle all 
 the same," I remarked. 
 
 " Rather ! " she murmured. " And that wouldn't 
 do," she added quickly. " Imagine the state poor 
 papa would get into. Besides, I mean to be mistress of 
 the dear brig and sail about these seas, not go off 
 wandering ten thousand miles away from here." 
 
 " The sooner you are on board to look after the man 
 and the brig the better," I said seriously. " They 
 need you to steady them both a bit. I don't think 
 Jasper will ever get sobered do%vn till he has carried 
 you off from this island. You don't see him when he 
 is away from you, as I do. He's in a state of perpetual 
 elation which almost frightens me." 
 
 At this she smiled again, and then looked serious. 
 For it could not be unpleasant to her to be told of 
 her power, and she had some sense of her responsibility. 
 She slipped away from me suddenly, because Heems- 
 
198 'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 kirk, with old N^elson in attendance at his elbow, was 
 coming np the steps of the verandah. Directly his 
 head came above the level of the floor his ill-natured 
 black eyes shot glances here and there. 
 
 " Where's your girl, Nelson ? " he asked, in a tone 
 as if every soul in the world belonged to him. And 
 then to me : " The goddess has flown, eh ? " 
 
 Nelson's Cove — as we used to call it — was 
 crowded with shipping that day. There was first my 
 steamer, then the Neptun gunboat further out, and the 
 Bonito, brig, anchored as usual so close inshore that it 
 looked as if, with a little skill and judgment, one 
 could shy a hat from the verandah on to her scrupu- 
 lously holystoned quarter-deck. Her brasses flashed 
 like gold, her white body-paint had a sheen like a satin 
 robe. The rake of her varnished spars and the big 
 yards, squared to a hair, gave her a sort of martial ele- 
 gance. She was a beauty. No wonder that in pos- 
 session of a craft like that and the promise of a girl 
 like Freya, Jasper lived in a state of perpetual elation 
 fit, perhaps, for the seventh heaven, but not exactly 
 safe in a world like ours. 
 
 I remarked politely to Heemskirk that, with three 
 guests in the house. Miss Freya had no doubt domestic 
 matters to attend to. I knew, of course, that she had 
 gone to meet Jasper at a certain cleared spot on the 
 banks of the only stream on Nelson's little island. 
 The commander of the Neptun gave me a dubious 
 black look, and began to make himself at home, fling- 
 ing his thick, cylindrical carcass into a rocking-chair, 
 
 i 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 199 
 
 and unbuttoning his coat. Old Nelson sat down op- 
 posite him in a most unassuming manner, staring anx- 
 iously with his round eyes and fanning himself wdth 
 his hat. I tried to make conversation to while the 
 time away ; not an easy task with a morose, enamoured 
 Dutchman constantly looking from one door to an- 
 other and answering one's advances either with a jeer 
 or a grunt. 
 
 However, the evening passed off all right. Luckily, 
 there is a degree of bliss too intense for elation. Jasper 
 was quiet and concentrated silently in watching Freya. 
 As we went on board our respective ships I offered to 
 give his brig a tow out next morning. I did it on pur- 
 pose to get him away at the earliest possible moment. 
 So in the first cold light of the dawn we passed by 
 the gunboat lying black and still without a sound in 
 her at the mouth of the glassy cove. But with tropical 
 swiftness the sun had climbed twice its diameter 
 above the horizon before we had rounded the reef and 
 got abreast of the point. On the biggest boulder there 
 stood Freya, all in white and, in her helmet, like a 
 feminine and martial statue with a rosy face, as I could 
 see very well with my glasses. She fluttered an ex- 
 pressive handkerchief, and Jasper, running up the 
 main rigging of the white and warlike brig, waved his 
 hat in response. Shortly afterwards we parted, I to 
 the northward and Jasper heading east with a light 
 wind on the quarter, for Banjermassin and two other 
 ports, I believe it was, that trip. 
 
 This peaceful occasion was the last on which I saw 
 
200 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 all these people assembled together; the charmingly 
 fresh and resolute Freya, the innocently round-eyed old 
 Nelson, Jasper, keen, long limbed, lean faced, ad- 
 mirably self-contained, in his manner, because incon- 
 ceivably happy under the eyes of his Freya; all three 
 tall, fair, and blue-eyed in varied shades, and amongst 
 them the swarthy, arrogant, black-haired Dutchman, 
 shorter nearly by a head, and so much thicker than 
 any of them that he seemed to be a creature capable of 
 inflating itself, a grotesque specimen of mankind from 
 some other planet. 
 
 The contrast struck me all at once as we stood in the 
 lighted verandah, after rising from the dinner-table. 
 I was fascinated by it for the rest of the evening, and 
 I remember the impression of something funny and ill- 
 omened at the same time in it to this day. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A FEW weeks later, coming early one morning into 
 Singapore, from a journey to the southward, I saw the 
 brig lying at anchor in all her usual symmetry and 
 splendour of aspect as though she had been taken out 
 of a glass case and put delicately into the water that 
 very moment. 
 
 She was well out in the roadstead, but I steamed in 
 and took up my habitual berth close in front of the 
 town. Before we had finished breakfast a quarter- 
 master came to tell me that Captain Allen's boat was 
 coming our way. 
 
FEEYA or THE SEVEN ISLES 201 
 
 His smart gig dashed alongside, and in two bounds 
 he was up our accommodation-ladder and shaking me 
 by the hand with his nervous grip, his eyes snapping 
 inquisitively, for he supposed I had called at the Seven 
 Isles group on my way. I reached into my pocket for 
 a nicely folded little note, which he grabbed out of my 
 hand without ceremony and carried off on the bridge 
 to read by himself. After a decent interval I fol- 
 lowed him up there, and f oimd him pacing to and fro ; 
 for the nature of his emotions made him restless even 
 in his most thoughtful moments. 
 
 He shook his head at me triumphantly. 
 
 " Well, my dear boy," he said, " I shall be counting 
 the days now." 
 
 I understood what he meant. I knew that those 
 young people had settled already on a runaway match 
 without official preliminaries. This was really a 
 logical decision. Old Nelson (or Neilsen) would 
 never have agreed to give up Freya peaceably to this 
 compromising Jasper. Heavens! What would the 
 Dutch authorities say to such a match ! It sounds too 
 ridiculous for words. But there's nothing in the world 
 more selfishly hard than a timorous man in a fright 
 about his " little estate," as old Nelson used to call it 
 in apologetic accents. A heart permeated by a par- 
 ticular sort of funk is proof against sense, feeling, and 
 ridicule. It's a flint. 
 
 Jasper would have made his request all the same 
 and then taken his own way; but it was Freya who 
 decided that nothing should be said, on the ground that, 
 
202 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " Papa would only worry himself to distraction." He 
 was capable of making himself ill, and then she 
 wouldn't have the heart to leave him. Here you have 
 the sanity of feminine outlook and the frankness of 
 feminine reasoning. And for the rest, Miss Freya 
 could read " poor dear papa " in the way a woman 
 reads a man — like an open book. His daughter once 
 gone, old Nelson would not worry himself. He would 
 raise a great outcry, and make no end of lamentable 
 fuss, but that's not the same thing. The real agonies 
 of indecision, the anguish of conflicting feelings would 
 be spared to him. And as he was too unassuming to 
 rage, he would, after a period of lamentation, devote 
 himself to his " little estate," and to keeping on good 
 terms with the authorities. 
 
 Time would do the rest. And Freya thought she 
 could afford to wait, while ruling over her own home 
 in the beautiful brig and over the man who loved her. 
 This was the life for her who had learned to walk on a 
 ship's deck. She was a ship-child, a sea-girl if ever 
 there was one. And of course she loved Jasper and 
 trusted him; but there was a shade of anxiety in her 
 pride. It is very fine and romantic to possess for your 
 very own a finely tempered and trusty sword-blade, but 
 whether it is the best weapon to counter with the 
 common cudgel-play of Fate — that's another question. 
 
 She knew that she had the more substance of the 
 two — you needn't try any cheap jokes, I am not talk- 
 ing of their weights. She was just a little anxious 
 while he was away, and she had me who, being a tried 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 203 
 
 confidant, took the liberty to whisper frequently " The 
 sooner the better." But there was a peculiar vein of 
 obstinacy in Miss Freya, and her reason for delay was 
 characteristic. " Not before my twenty-first birthday ; 
 so that there shall be no mistake in people^s minds as 
 to me being old enough to know what I am doing." 
 
 Jasper's feelings were in such subjection that he had 
 never even remonstrated against the decree. She was 
 just splendid, whatever she did or said, and there was 
 an end of it for him. I believe that he was subtle 
 enough to be even flattered at bottom — at times. And 
 then to console him he had the brig which seemed per- 
 vaded by the spirit of Freya, since whatever he did on 
 board was always done under the supreme sanction of 
 his love. 
 
 " Yes. I'll soon begin to count the days," he re- 
 peated. " Eleven months more. I'll have to crowd 
 three trips into that." 
 
 " Mind you don't come to grief trying to do too 
 much," I admonished him. But he dismissed my 
 caution with a laugh and an elated gesture. Pooh I 
 Nothing, nothing could happen to the brig, he cried, 
 as if the flame of his heart could light up the dark 
 nights of uncharted seas, and the image of Freya serve 
 for an unerring beacon amongst hidden shoals ; as if the 
 winds had to wait on his future, the stars fight for it 
 in their courses ; as if the magic of his passion had the 
 power to float a ship on a drop of dew or sail her 
 through the eye of a needle — simply because it was 
 her magnificent lot to be the servant of a love so full 
 
204 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 of grace as to make all the ways of the earth safe, re- 
 splendent, and easy. 
 
 " I suppose," I said, after he had finished laughing 
 at my innocent enough remark, " I suppose you will be 
 off to-day." 
 
 That was what he meant to do. He had not gone 
 at daylight only because he expected me to come in. 
 
 " And only fancy what has happened yesterday," 
 he went on. " My mate left me suddenly. Had to. 
 And as there's nobody to be found at a short notice I 
 am going to take Schultz with me. The notorious 
 Schultz! Why don't you jump out of your skin? I 
 tell you I went and unearthed Schultz late last even- 
 ing, after no end of trouble. ' I am your man, cap- 
 tain,' he says, in that wonderful voice of his, ' but I am 
 sorry to confess I have practically no clothes to my 
 back. I have had to sell all my wardrobe to get a 
 little food from day to day.' What a voice that man 
 has got. Talk about moving stones ! But people seem 
 to get used to it. I had never seen him before, and, 
 upon my word, I felt suddenly tears rising to my eyes. 
 Luckily it Was dusk. He was sitting very quiet under 
 a tree in a native compound as thin as a lath, and when 
 1 peered down at him all he had on was an old cotton 
 singlet and a pair of ragged pyjamas. I bought him 
 six white suits and two pairs of canvas shoes. Can't 
 clear the ship without a mate. Must have somebody. 
 I am going on shore presently to sign him on, and I 
 shall take him with me as I go back on board to get 
 under way. Now, I am a lunatic — am I not ? Mad, 
 
 \ 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 205 
 
 of course. Come on! Lay it on thick. Let yourself 
 go. I like to see you get excited." 
 
 He so evidently expected me to scold that I took 
 especial pleasure in exaggerating the calmness of my 
 attitude. 
 
 " The worst that can be brought up against Schultz," 
 I began, folding my arms and speaking dispassionately, 
 " is an awkward habit of stealing the stores of every 
 ship he has ever been in. He will do it. That^s really 
 all that's wrong. I don't credit absolutely that story 
 Captain Robinson tells of Schultz conspiring in 
 Chantabun with some ruffians in a Chinese junk to 
 steal the anchor off the starboard bow of the Bohemian 
 Oirl schooner. Robinson's story is too ingenious al- 
 together. That other tale of the engineers of the Nan- 
 Shan finding Schultz at midnight in the engine-room 
 busy hammering at the brass bearings to carry them off 
 for sale on shore seems to me more authentic. Apart 
 from this little weakness, let me tell you that Schultz 
 is a smarter sailor than many who never took a drop 
 of drink in their lives, and perhaps no worse morally 
 than some men you and I know who have never stolen 
 the value of a penny. He may not be a desirable per- 
 son to have on board one's ship, but since you have no 
 choice he may be made to do, I believe. The impor- 
 tant thing is to understand his psychology. Don't give 
 him any money till you have done with him. Not a 
 cent, if he begs you ever so. For as sure as Fate the 
 moment you give him any money he will begin to steal. 
 Just remember that." 
 
'TWIXT LAKD AND SEA 
 
 I enjoyed Jasper's incredulous surprise. 
 
 " The devil lie will ! '' he cried. " What on earth 
 for ? Aren't you trying to pull my leg, old boy ? " 
 
 "No. I'm not. You must understand Schultz's 
 psychology. He's neither a loafer nor a cadger. He's 
 not likely to wander about looking for somebody to 
 stand him drinks. But suppose he goes on shore with 
 ^ve dollars, or fifty for that matter, in his pocket? 
 After the third or fourth glass he becomes fuddled and 
 charitable. He either drops his money all over the 
 place, or else distributes the lot around ; gives it to any 
 one who will take it. Then it occurs to him that the 
 night is young yet, and that he may require a good 
 many more drinks for himself and his friends before 
 morning. So he starts off cheerfully for his ship. 
 His legs never get affected nor his head either in the 
 usual way. He gets aboard and simply grabs the 
 first thing that seems to him suitable — the cabin lamp, 
 a coil of rope, a bag of biscuits, a drum of oil — 
 and converts it into money without thinking twice 
 about it. This is the process and no other. You have 
 only to look out that he doesn't get a start. That's 
 all." 
 
 " Confound his psychology," muttered Jasper. 
 " But a man with a voice like his is fit to talk to the 
 angels. Is he incurable do you think ? " 
 
 I said that I thought so. Nobody had prosecuted 
 him yet, but no one would employ him any longer. 
 His end would be, I feared, to starve in some hole or 
 other. 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 207 
 
 " Ah, well," reflected Jasper. " The Bonito isn't 
 trading to any ports of civilisation. That'll make it 
 easier for him to keep straight." 
 
 That was true. The brig's business was on un- 
 civilised coasts, with obscure rajahs dwelling in nearly 
 unknown bays; with native settlements up myterious 
 rivers opening their sombre, forest-lined estuaries 
 among a welter of pale green reefs and dazzling sand- 
 banks, in lonely straits of calm blue water all aglitter 
 with sunshine. Alone, far from the beaten tracks, she 
 glided, all white, round dark, frowning headlands, stole 
 out, silent like a ghost, from behind points of land 
 stretching out all black in the moonlight; or lay hove- 
 to, like a sleeping sea-bird, under the shadow of some 
 nameless mountain waiting for a signal. She would 
 be glimpsed suddenly on misty, squally days dashing 
 disdainfully aside the short aggressive waves of the 
 Java Sea; or be seen far, far away, a tiny dazzling 
 white speck flying across the brooding purple masses 
 of thunderclouds piled up on the horizon. Sometimes, 
 on the rare mail tracks, where civilisation brushes 
 against wild mystery, when the naive passengers crowd- 
 ing along the rail exclaimed, pointing at her with 
 interest : " Oh, here's a yacht ! " the Dutch captain, 
 with a hostile glance, would grunt contemptuously: 
 "Yacht! No! That's only English Jasper. A 
 pedlar " 
 
 " A good seaman you say," ejaculated Jasper, still 
 in the matter of the hopeless Schultz with the wonder- 
 fully touching voice. 
 
208 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " First rate. Ask any one. Quite worth having — 
 only impossible," I declared. 
 
 " He shall have his chance to reform in the brig," 
 said Jasper, with a laugh. ^^ There will be no tempta- 
 tions either to drink or steal where I am going to this 
 time." 
 
 I didn't press him for anything more definite on that 
 point. In fact, intimate as we were, I had a pretty 
 clear notion of the general run of his business. 
 
 But as we are going ashore in his gig he asked sud- 
 denly : " By the way, do you know where Heemskirk 
 is?" 
 
 I eyed him covertly, and was reassured. He had 
 asked the question, not as a lover, but as a trader. I 
 told him that I had heard in Palembang that the 
 Neptun was on duty down about Flores and Sumbawa. 
 Quite out of his way. He expressed his satisfaction. 
 
 " You know," he went on, " that fellow, when he gets 
 on the Borneo coast, amuses himself by knocking down 
 my beacons. I have had to put up a few to help me 
 in and out of the rivers. Early this year a Celebes 
 trader becalmed in a prau was watching him at it. He 
 steamed the gunboat full tilt at two of them, one after 
 another, smashing them to pieces, and then lowered 
 a boat on purpose to pull out a third, which I had a 
 lot of trouble six months ago to stick up in the middle 
 of a mudflat for a tide mark. Did you ever hear 
 of anything more provoking — eh ? " 
 
 " I wouldn't quarrel with the beggar," I observed 
 
FEEYA or THE SEVEN ISLES 209 
 
 casually, yet disliking that piece of news strongly. 
 " It isn't worth while." 
 
 " I quarrel ? " cried Jasper. " I don't want to 
 quarrel. I don't want to hurt a single hair of his 
 ugly head. My dear fellow, when I think of Freya's 
 twenty-first birthday, all the world's my friend, Heems- 
 kirk included. It's a nasty, spiteful amusement, all 
 the same." 
 
 We parted rather hurriedly on the quay, each of us 
 having his own pressing business to attend to. I would 
 have been very much cut up had I known that this 
 hurried grasp of the hand with " So long, old boy. 
 Good luck to you ! " was the last of our partings. 
 
 On his return to the Straits I was away, and he 
 was gone again before I got back. He was trying to 
 achieve three trips before Ereya's twenty-first birth- 
 day. At Nelson's Cove I missed him again by only a 
 couple of days. Freya and I talked of " that lunatic " 
 and " perfect idiot " with great delight and infinite ap- 
 preciation. She was very radiant, with a more pro- 
 nounced gaiety, notwithstanding that she had just 
 parted from Jasper. But this was to be their last 
 separation. 
 
 " Do get aboard as soon as you can, Miss Freya," I 
 entreated. 
 
 She looked me straight in the face, her colour a little 
 heightened and with a sort of solemn ardour — if there 
 was a little catch in her voice. 
 
 " The very next day." 
 
210 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Ah, yes ! The very next day after her twenty-first 
 birthday. I was pleased at this hint of deep feeling. 
 It was as if she had grown impatient at last of the 
 self-imposed delay. I supposed that Jasper's recent 
 visit had told heavily. 
 
 " That's right," I said approvingly. " I shall be 
 much easier in my mind when I know you have taken 
 charge of that lunatic. Don't you lose a minute. He, 
 of course, will be on time — unless heavens fall." 
 
 " Yes. Unless " she repeated in a thoughtful 
 
 whisper, raising her eyes to the evening sky without 
 a speck of cloud anywhere. Silent for a time, we let 
 our eyes wander over the waters below, looking mys- 
 teriously still in the twilight, as if trustfully composed 
 for a long, long dream in the warm, tropical night. 
 And the peace all round us seemed without limits and 
 without end. 
 
 And then we began again to talk Jasper over in our 
 usual strain. We agreed that he was too reckless in 
 many ways. Luckily, the brig was equal to the situa- 
 tion. Nothing apparently was too much for her. A 
 perfect darling of a ship, said Miss Freya. She and 
 her father had spent an afternoon on board. Jasper 
 had given them some tea. Papa was grumpy. . . . 
 I had a vision of old Nelson under the brig's snowy 
 awnings, nursing his unassuming vexation, and fanning 
 himself with his hat. A comedy father. ... As a 
 new instance of Jasper's lunacy, I was told that he was 
 distressed at his inability to have solid silver handles 
 fitted to all the cabin doors. "As if I would have 
 
PBEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 211 
 
 let him ! " commented Miss Freya, with amused in- 
 dignation. Incidentally, I learned also that Schultz, 
 the nautical kleptomaniac with the pathetic voice, was 
 still hanging on to his job, with Miss Ereya's approval. 
 Jasper had confided to the lady of his heart his purpose 
 of straightening out the fellow's psychology. Yes, in- 
 deed. All the world was his friend because it breathed 
 the same air with Ereya. 
 
 Somehow or other, I brought Heemskirk's name into 
 conversation, and, to my great surprise, startled Miss 
 Ereya. Her eyes expressed something like distress, 
 while she bit her lip as if to contain an explosion of 
 laughter. Oh! Yes. Heemskirk was at the bungalow 
 at the same time with Jasper, but he arrived the day 
 after. He left the same day as the brig, but a few 
 hours later. 
 
 " What a nuisance he must have been to you two," 
 I said feelingly. 
 
 Her eyes flashed at me a sort of frightened merri- 
 ment, and suddenly she exploded into a clear burst of 
 laughter, " Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 I echoed it heartily, but not with the same charming 
 tone : " Ha, ha, ha ! . . . Isn't he grotesque ? Ha, ha, 
 ha ! " And the ludicrousness of old Nelson's inanely 
 fierce round eyes in association with his conciliatory 
 manner to the lieutenant presenting itself to my mind 
 brought on another fit. 
 
 " He looks," I spluttered, " he looks — Ha, ha, ha ! 
 — amongst you three . . . like an unhappy black- 
 beetle. Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
212 'TwixT la:n^d a:^d sea 
 
 She gave out another ringing peal, ran off into her 
 own room, and slammed the door behind her, leaving 
 me profoundly astounded. I stopped laughing at once. 
 
 "What's the joke?" asked old ^NTelson's voice, half 
 way down the steps. 
 
 He came up, sat down, and blew out his cheeks, look- 
 ing inexpressibly fatuous. But I didn't want to laugh 
 any more. And what on earth, I asked myself, have we 
 been laughing at in this uncontrollable fashion. I felt 
 suddenly depressed. 
 
 Oh, yes. Freya had started it. The girl's over- 
 wrought, I thought. And really one couldn't wonder 
 at it 
 
 I had no answer to old Nelson's question, but he was 
 too aggrieved at Jasper's visit to think of anything 
 else. He as good as asked me whether I wouldn't 
 undertake to hint to Jasper that he was not wanted at 
 the Seven Isles group. I declared that it was not nec- 
 essary. From certain circumstances which had come to 
 my knowledge lately, I had reason to think that he would 
 not be much troubled by Jasper Allen in the future. 
 
 He emitted an earnest " Thank God ! " which nearly 
 set me laughing again, but he did not brighten up 
 proportionately. It seemed Heemskirk had taken spe- 
 cial pains to make himself disagreeable. The lieuten- 
 ant had frightened old Nelson very much by expressing 
 a sinister wonder at the Government permitting a white 
 man to settle down in that part at all. " It is against 
 our declared policy," he had remarked. He had also 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 213 
 
 charged him with being in reality no better than an 
 Englishman. He had even tried to pick a quarrel with 
 him for not learning to speak Dutch. 
 
 " I told him I was too old to learn now/' sighed out 
 old l^elson (or Nielsen) dismally. " He said I ought 
 to have learned Dutch long before. I had been making 
 my living in Dutch dependencies. It was disgraceful 
 of me not to speak Dutch, he said. He was as savage 
 with me as if I had been a Chinaman." 
 
 It was plain he had been viciously badgered. He did 
 not mention how many bottles of his best claret he had 
 offered up on the altar of conciliation. It must have 
 been a generous libation. But old Nelson (or Neilsen) 
 was really hospitable. He didn't mind that; and 
 I only regretted that this virtue should be lavished on 
 the lieutenant-commander of the Neptun. I longed 
 to tell him that in all probability he would be relieved 
 from Heemskirk's visitations also. I did not do so 
 only from the fear (absurd, I admit) of arousing some 
 sort of suspicion in his mind. As if with this guileless 
 comedy father such a thing were possible ! 
 
 Strangely enough, the last words on the subject of 
 Heemskirk were spoken by Freya, and in that very 
 sense. The lieutenant was turning up persistently in 
 old Nelson's conversation at dinner. At last I inut- 
 tered a half audible " Damn the lieutenant." I could 
 see that the girl was getting exasperated, too. 
 
 " And he wasn't well at all — was he, Freya ? " old 
 Nelson went on moaning. " Perhaps it was that which 
 
214 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 made him so snappish, hey, Freya? He looked very 
 bad when he left us so suddenly. His liver must be in 
 a bad state, too." 
 
 " Oh, he will end by getting over it," said Freya im- 
 patiently. " And do leave off worrying about him, 
 papa. Very likely you won't see much of him for a 
 long time to come." 
 
 The look she gave me in exchange for my discreet 
 smile had no hidden mirth in it. Her eyes seemed 
 hollowed, her face gone wan in a couple of hours. We 
 had been laughing too much. Overwrought! Over- 
 wrought by the approach of the decisive moment. 
 After all, sincere, courageous, and self-reliant as she 
 was, she must have felt both the passion and the com- 
 punction of her resolve. The very strength of love 
 which had carried her up to that point must have put 
 her under a great moral strain, in which there might 
 have been a little simple remorse, too. For she was 
 honest — and there, across the table, sat poor old Nelson 
 (or Nielsen) staring at her, round-eyed and so pathetic- 
 ally comic in his fierce aspect as to touch the most light- 
 some heart. 
 
 He retired early to his room to soothe himself for a 
 night's rest by perusing his account-books. We two 
 remained on the verandah for another hour or so, but 
 we exchanged only languid phrases on things without 
 importance, as though we had been emotionally jaded 
 by our long day's talk on the only momentous subject. 
 And yet there was something she might have told a 
 friend. But she didn't. We parted silently. She 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 215 
 
 distrusted my masculine lack of common sense, perhaps. 
 . . . O ! Freya ! 
 
 Going down the precipitous path to the landing-stage, 
 I was confronted in the shadows of boulders and bushes 
 by a draped feminine figure whose appearance startled 
 me at first. It glided into my way suddenly from be- 
 hind a piece of rock. But in a moment it occurred to 
 me that it could be no one else but Ereya's maid, a half- 
 caste Malacca Portuguese. One caught fleeting 
 glimpses of her olive face and dazzling white teeth 
 about the house. I had also observed her at times from 
 a distance, as she sat within call under the shade of 
 some fruit trees, brushing and plaiting her long raven 
 locks. It seemed to be the principal occupation of her 
 leisure hours. We had often exchanged nods and smiles 
 — and a few words, too. She was a pretty creature. 
 And once I had watched her approvingly make funny 
 and expressive grimaces behind Heemskirk's back. I 
 understood (from Jasper) that she was in the secret, 
 like a comedy camerista. She was to accompany Ereya 
 on her irregular way to matrimony and " ever after " 
 happiness. Why should she be roaming by night near 
 the cove — unless on some love affair of her own — I 
 asked myself. But there was nobody suitable within 
 the Seven Isles group, as far as I knew. It flashed 
 upon me that it was myself she had been lying in wait 
 for. 
 
 She hesitated, mufiled from head to foot, shadowy 
 and bashful. I advanced another pace, and how I felt 
 is nobody's business. 
 
216 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " What is it ? " I asked, very low. 
 
 " Nobody knows I am here," she whispered. 
 
 " And nobody can see us," I whispered back. 
 
 The murmur of words " IVe been so frightened " 
 reached me. Just then forty feet above our head, from 
 the yet lighted verandah, unexpected and startling, 
 Freya's voice rang out in a clear, imperious call: 
 
 "Antonia!" 
 
 With a stifled exclamation, the hesitating girl van- 
 ished out of the path. A bush near by rustled; then 
 silence. I waited wondering. The lights on the 
 verandah went out. I waited a while longer then con- 
 tinued down the path to my boat, wondering more than 
 ever. 
 
 I remember the occurrences of that visit especially, 
 because this was the last tim6 I saw the Nelson bunga- 
 low. On arriving at the Straits I found cable mes- 
 sages which made it necessary for me to throw up my 
 employment at a moment's notice and go home at once. 
 I had a desperate scramble to catch the mail-boat which 
 was due to leave next day, but I found time to write two 
 short notes, one to Freya, the other to Jasper. Later 
 on I wrote at length, this time to Allen alone. I got no 
 answer. I hunted up then his brother, or, rather, half- 
 brother, a solicitor in the city, a sallow, calm, little man 
 who looked at me over his spectacles thoughtfully. 
 
 Jasper was the only child of his father's second mar- 
 riage, a transaction which had failed to commend itself 
 to the first, grown-up family. 
 
 "You haven't heard for ages," I repeated, with 
 
PEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 217 
 
 secret annoyance. " May I ask what ' for ages ' means 
 in this connection ? " 
 
 " It means that I don't care whether I ever hear 
 from him or not," retorted the little man of law, turn- 
 ing nasty suddenly. 
 
 I could not blame Jasper for not wasting his time 
 in correspondence with such an outrageous relative. 
 But why didn't he write to me — a decent sort of 
 friend, after all; enough of a friend to find for his 
 silence the excuse of forgetfulness natural to a state of 
 transcendental bliss? I waited indulgently, but noth- 
 ing ever came. And the East seemed to drop out of 
 my life without an echo, like a stone falling into a well 
 of prodigious depth. 
 
 IV 
 
 I SUPPOSE praiseworthy motives are a sufficient justifi- 
 cation almost for anything. What could be more com- 
 mendable in the abstract than a girl's determination 
 that " poor papa " should not be worried, and her 
 anxiety that the man of her choice should be kept by 
 any means from every occasion of doing something 
 rash, something which might endanger the whole 
 scheme of their happiness? 
 
 iJ^othing could be more tender and more prudent. 
 We must also remember the girl's self-reliant tempera- 
 ment, and the general unwillingness of women — I 
 mean women of sense —^ to make a fuss over matters of 
 that sort. 
 
218 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 As has been said already, Heemskirk turned up some 
 time after Jasper's arrival at Nelson's Cove. The 
 sight of the brig lying right under the bungalow was 
 very offensive to him. He did not fly ashore before 
 his anchor touched the ground as Jasper used to do. 
 On the contrary, he hung about his quarter-deck 
 mumbling to himself; and when he ordered his boat 
 to be manned it was in an angry voice. Freya's ex- 
 istence, which lifted Jasper out of himself into a bliss- 
 ful elation, was for Heemskirk a cause of secret 
 torment, of hours of exasperated brooding. 
 
 While passing the brig he hailed her harshly and 
 asked if the master was on board. Schultz, smart and 
 neat in a spotless white suit, leaned over the taff- 
 rail, finding the question somewhat amusing. He 
 looked humorously down into Heemskirk's boat, and 
 answered, in the most amiable modulations of his 
 beautiful voice : " Captain Allen is up at the house, 
 sir." But his expression changed suddenly at the 
 savage growl: "What the devil are you grinning 
 at ? " which acknowledged that information. 
 
 He watched Heemskirk land and, instead of going 
 to the house, stride away by another path into the 
 grounds. 
 
 The desire-tormented Dutchman found old Nelson 
 (or Nielsen) at his drying-sheds, very busy super- 
 intending the manipulation of his tobacco crop, which, 
 though small, was of excellent quality, and enjoying 
 himself thoroughly. But Heemskirk soon put a stop 
 to this simple happiness. He sat down by the old 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 219 
 
 chap, and by the sort of talk which he knew was best 
 calculated for the purpose, reduced him before long to 
 a state of concealed and perspiring nervousness. It 
 was a horrid talk of " authorities," and old !N"elson 
 tried to defend himself. If he dealt with English 
 traders it was because he had to dispose of his produce 
 somehow. He was as conciliatory as he knew how to 
 be, and this very thing seemed to excite Heemskirk, 
 who had worked himself up into a heavily breathing 
 state of passion. 
 
 "And the worst of them all is that Allen," he 
 growled. " Your particular friend — eh ? You have 
 let in a lot of these Englishmen into this part. You 
 ought never to have been allowed to settle here. 
 Never. What's he doing here now ? " 
 
 Old Nelson (or Nielsen), becoming very agitated, 
 declared that Jasper Allen was no particular friend 
 of his. No friend at all — at all. He had bought 
 three tons of rice from him to feed his workpeople on. 
 What sort of evidence of friendship was that ? Heems- 
 kirk burst out at last with the thought that had been 
 gnawing at his vitals: 
 
 - "Yes. Sell three tons of rice and flirt three days 
 with that girl of yours. I am speaking to you as a 
 friend, Nielsen. This won't do. You are only on suf- 
 ferance here." 
 
 Old Nelson was taken aback at first, but recovered 
 pretty quickly. Won't do ! Certainly ! Of course, it 
 wouldn't do! The last man in the world. But his 
 girl didn't care for the fellow, and was too sensible to 
 
220 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 fall in love with any one. He was very earnest in im- 
 pressing on Heemskirk his own feeling of absolute 
 security. And the lieutenant, casting doubting glances 
 sideways, was yet willing to believe him. 
 
 " Much you know about it," he grunted nevertheless. 
 
 "But I do know," insisted old Nelson, with the 
 greater desperation because he wanted to resist the 
 doubts arising in his own mind. " My own daughter ! 
 In my own house, and I not to know! Gomel It 
 would be a good joke, lieutenant." 
 
 " They seem to be carrying on considerably," re- 
 marked Heemskirk moodily. " I suppose they are 
 together now," he added, feeling a pang which changed 
 what he meant for a mocking smile into a strange 
 grimace. 
 
 The harassed Nelson shook his hand at him. He 
 was at bottom shocked at this insistence, and was even 
 beginning to feel annoyed at the absurdity of it. 
 
 " Pooh ! Pooh ! I'll tell you what, lieutenant : you 
 go to the house and have a drop of gin-and-bitters 
 before dinner. Ask for Freya. I must see the last 
 of this tobacco put away for the night, but I'll be 
 along presently." 
 
 Heemskirk was not insensible to this suggestion. It 
 answered to his secret longing, which was not a longing 
 for drink, however. Old Nelson shouted solicitously 
 after his broad back a recommendation to make himself 
 comfortable, and that there was a box of cheroots on 
 the verandah. 
 
 It was the west verandah that old Nelson meant, 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 221 
 
 the one which was the living-room of the house, and 
 had split-rattan screens of the very finest quality. The 
 east verandah, sacred to his own privacy, puflSng out 
 of cheeks, and other signs of perplexed thinking, was 
 fitted with stout blinds of sailcloth. The north 
 verandah was not a verandah at all, really. It was 
 more like a long balcony. It did not communicate 
 with the other two, and could only be approached by 
 a passage inside the house. Thus it had a privacy 
 which made it a convenient place for a maiden's 
 meditations without words, and also for the discourses, 
 apparently without sense, which, passing between a 
 young man and a maid, become pregnant with a 
 diversity of transcendental meanings. 
 
 This north verandah was embowered with climbing 
 plants. Ereya, whose room opened out on it, had 
 furnished it as a sort of boudoir for herself, with a 
 few cane chairs and a sofa of the same kind. On this 
 sofa she and Jasper sat as close together as is possible 
 in this imperfect world where neither can a body be 
 in two places at once nor yet two bodies can be in one 
 place at the same time. They had been sitting 
 together all the afternoon, and I won't say that their 
 talk had been without sense. Loving him with a little 
 judicious anxiety lest in his elation he should break 
 his heart over some mishap, Ereya naturally would 
 talk to him soberly. He, nervous and brusque when 
 away from her, appeared always as if overcome by her 
 visibility, by the great wonder of being palpably loved. 
 An old man's child, having lost his mother early, 
 
'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 thrown out to sea out of the way while very young, 
 he had not much experience of tenderness of any kind. 
 
 In this private, foliage-embowered verandah, and at 
 this late hour of the afternoon, he bent down a little, 
 and, possessing himself of Freya's hands, was kissing 
 them one after another, while she smiled and looked 
 down at his head with the eyes of approving compas- 
 sion. At that same moment Heemskirk was approach- 
 ing the house from the north. 
 
 Antonia was on the watch on that side. But she 
 did not keep a very good watch. The sun was setting ; 
 she knew that her young mistress and the captain of 
 the Bonito were about to separate. She was walking 
 to and fro in the dusky grove with a flower in her hair, 
 and singing softly to herself, when suddenly, within a 
 foot of her, the lieutenant appeared from behind a tree. 
 She bounded aside like a startled fawn, but Heems- 
 kirk, with a lucid comprehension of what she was there 
 for, pounced upon her, and, catching her arm, clapped 
 his other thick hand over her mouth. 
 
 " If you try to make a noise 1^11 twist your neck ! " 
 
 This ferocious figure of speech terrified the girl 
 sufficiently. Heemskirk had seen plainly enough on 
 the verandah Freya's golden head with another head 
 very close to it. He dragged the unresisting maid with 
 him by a circuitous way into the compound, where he 
 dismissed her with a vicious push in the direction of 
 the cluster of bamboo huts for the servants. 
 
 She was very much like the faithful camerista of 
 Italian comedy, but in her terror she bolted away 
 
EEEYA OF THE SEVE:N^ ISLES 223 
 
 without a sound from that thick, short, hlack-ejed 
 man with a cruel grip of fingers like a vice. Quaking 
 all over at a distance, extremely scared and half in- 
 clined to laugh, she saw him enter the house at the 
 back. 
 
 The interior of the bungalow was divided by two 
 passages crossing each other in the middle. At that 
 point Heemskirk, by turning his head slightly to the 
 left as he passed, secured the evidence of " carrying 
 on " so irreconcilable with old Nelson's assurances 
 that it made him stagger, with a rush of blood to his 
 head. Two white figures, distinct against the light, 
 stood in an unmistakable attitude. Freya's arms were 
 round Jasper's neck. Their faces were characteristic- 
 ally superimposed on each other, and Heemskirk went 
 on, his throat choked with a sudden rising of curses, till 
 on the west verandah he stumbled blindly against a 
 chair and then dropped into another as though his legs 
 had been swept from under him. He had indulged too 
 long in the habit of appropriating Freya to himself in 
 his thoughts. " Is that how you entertain your visitors 
 — you . . ." he thought, so outraged that he could not 
 find a sufficiently degrading epithet. 
 
 Freya struggled a little and threw her head back. 
 
 " Somebody has come in," she whispered. Jasper, 
 holding her clasped closely to his breast, and looking 
 down into her face, suggested casually: 
 
 " Your father." 
 
 Freya tried to disengage herself, but she had not the 
 heart absolutely to push him away with her hands. 
 
224 'TWIXT LAISTD AND SEA 
 
 " I believe it's Ileemskirk," she breathed out at him. 
 
 He, plunging into her eyes in a quiet rapture, was 
 provoked to a vague smile bj the sound of the name. 
 
 " The ass is always knocking down my beacons out- 
 side the river," he murmured. He attached no other 
 meaning to Heemskirk's existence; but Freya was ask- 
 ing herself whether the lieutenant had seen them. 
 
 " Let me go, kid," she ordered in a peremptory whis- 
 per. Jasper obeyed, and, stepping back at once, con- 
 tinued his contemplation of her face under another 
 angle. " I must go and see," she said to herself 
 anxiously. 
 
 She instructed him hurriedly to wait a moment aftar 
 she was gone and then to slip on to the back verandah 
 and get a quiet smoke before he showed himself. 
 
 " Don't stay late this evening," was her last recom- 
 mendation before she left him. 
 
 Then Freya came out on the west verandah with her 
 light, rapid step. While going through the doorway 
 she managed to shake dovm the folds of the looped-up 
 curtains at the end of the passage so as to cover Jasper's 
 retreat from the bower. Directly she appeared Heems- 
 kirk jumped up as if to fly at her. She paused and he 
 made her an exaggerated low bow. 
 
 It irritated Freya. 
 
 " Oh ! It's you, Mr. Heemskirk. How do you 
 do?" 
 
 She spoke in her usual tone. Her face was not 
 plainly visible to him in the dusk of the deep verandah. 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 225 
 
 He dared not trust himself to speak, his rage at what 
 he had seen was so great. And when she added with 
 serenity : " Papa will be coming in before long/' he 
 called her horrid names silently, to himself, before he 
 spoke with contorted lips. 
 
 " I have seen your father already. We had a talk 
 in the sheds. He told me some very interesting 
 things. Oh, very " 
 
 Ereya sat down. She thought : " He has seen us, 
 for certain." She was not ashamed. What she was 
 afraid of was some foolish or awkward complication. 
 But she could not conceive how much her person had 
 been appropriated by Heemskirk (in his thoughts). 
 She tried to be conversational. 
 
 "You are coming now from Palembang, I sup- 
 pose ? " 
 
 " Eh ? What ? Oh, yes ! I come from Palembang. 
 Ha, ha, ha! You know what your father said? He 
 said he was afraid you were having a very dull time 
 of it here." 
 
 " And I suppose you are going to cruise in the 
 Moluccas," continued Freya, who wanted to impart 
 some useful information to Jasper if possible. At the 
 same time she was always glad to know that those two 
 men were a few hundred miles apart when not under 
 her eye. 
 
 Heemskirk growled angrily. 
 
 " Yes. Moluccas," glaring in the direction of her 
 shadowy figure. "Your father thinks it's very quiet 
 
226 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 for you, here. I tell you what, Miss Freya. There 
 isn't such a quiet spot on earth that a woman can't 
 find an opportunity of making a fool of somebody." 
 
 Freya thought : " I mustn't let him provoke me." 
 Presently the Tamil boy, who was Nelson's head 
 servant, came in with the lights. She addressed him 
 at once with voluble directions where to put the lamps, 
 told him to bring the tray with the gin and bitters, 
 and to send Antonia into the house. 
 
 " I will have to leave you to yourself, Mr. Heems- 
 kirk, for a while," she said. 
 
 And she went to her room to put on another frock. 
 She made a quick change of it because she wished to 
 be on the verandah before her father and the lieuten- 
 ant met again. She relied on herself to regulate that 
 evening'-s intercourse between these two. But Antonia, 
 still scared and hysterical, exhibited a bruise on her 
 arm which roused Freya's indignation. 
 
 " He jumped on me out of the bush like a tiger," said 
 the girl, laughing nervously with frightened eyes. 
 
 " The brute ! " thought Freya. " He meant to spy 
 on us, then." She was enraged, but the recollection 
 of the thick Dutchman in white trousers wide at the 
 hips and narrow at the ankles, with his shoulder-straps 
 and black bullet head, glaring at her in the light of 
 the lamps, was so repulsively comical that she could 
 not help a smiling grimace. Then she became anxious. 
 The absurdities of three men were forcing this anxiety 
 upon her: Jasper's impetuosity, her father's fears, 
 Heemskirk's infatuation. She was very tender to the 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 227 
 
 first two, and she made up her mind to display all her 
 feminine diplomacy. All this, she said to herself, will 
 be over and done with before very long now. 
 
 Heemskirk on the verandah, lolling in a chair, his 
 legs extended and his white cap reposing on his stomach, 
 was lashing himself into a fury of an atrocious char- 
 acter altogether incomprehensible to a girl like Ereya. 
 His chin was resting on his chest, his eyes gazed stonily 
 at his shoes. Ereya examined him from behind the 
 curtain. He didn't stir. He was ridiculous. But 
 this absolute stillness was impressive. She stole back 
 along the passage to the east verandah, where Jasper 
 was sitting quietly in the dark, doing what he was told, 
 like a good boy. 
 
 "Psst," she hissed. He was by her side in a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " Yes. What is it ? " he murmured. 
 
 " It's that beetle," she whispered uneasily. Under 
 the impression of Heemskirk's sinister immobility she 
 had half a mind to let Jasper know that they had been 
 seen. But she was by no means certain that Heems- 
 kirk would tell her father — and at any rate not that 
 evening. She concluded rapidly that the safest thing 
 would be to get Jasper out of the way as soon as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 " What has he been doing ? " asked Jasper in a calm 
 undertone. 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! Nothing. He sits there looking 
 cross. But you know how he's always worrying 
 papa." 
 
228 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " Your father's quite unreasonable," pronounced 
 Jasper judicially. 
 
 " I don't know," she said in a doubtful tone. Some- 
 thing of old Nelson's dread of the authorities had 
 rubbed off on the girl since she had to live with it day 
 after day. " I don't know. Papa's afraid of being 
 reduced to beggary, as he says, in his old days. Look 
 here, kid, you had better clear out to-morrow, first 
 thing." 
 
 Jasper had hoped for another afternoon with Freya, 
 an afternoon of quiet felicity with the girl by his side 
 and his eyes on his brig, anticipating a blissful future. 
 His silence was eloquent with disappointment, and 
 Freya understood it very well. She, too, was disap- 
 pointed. But it was her business to be sensible. 
 
 " We shan't have a moment to ourselves with that 
 beetle creeping round the house," she argued in a low, 
 hurried voice. " So what's the good of your staying ? 
 And he won't go while the brig's here. You know he 
 won't." 
 
 " He ought to be reported for loitering," murmured 
 Jasper with a vexed little laugh. 
 
 " Mind you get under way at daylight," recom- 
 mended Freya under her breath. 
 
 He detained her after the manner of lovers. She 
 expostulated without struggling because it was hard 
 for her to repulse him. He whispered into her ear 
 while he put his arms round her. 
 
 " Next time we two meet, next time I hold you like 
 this, it shall be on board. You and I, in the brig — 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 229 
 
 all the world, all the life ^" And then he flashed 
 
 out : " I wonder I can wait ! I feel as if I must carry 
 you off now, at once. I could run with you in my 
 hands — down the path — without stumbling — with- 
 out touching the earth ^" 
 
 She was still. She listened to the passion in his 
 voice. She was saying to herself that if she were to 
 whisper the faintest yes, if she were but to sigh lightly 
 her consent, he would do it. He was capable of doing 
 it — without touching the earth. She closed her eyes 
 and smiled in the dark, abandoning herself in a delight- 
 ful giddiness, for an instant, to his encircling arm. 
 But before he could be tempted to tighten his grasp 
 she was out of it, a foot away from him and in full pos- 
 session of herself. 
 
 That was the steady Freya. She was touched by 
 the deep sigh which floated up to her from the white 
 figure of Jasper, who did not stir. 
 
 " You are a mad kid," she said tremulously. Then 
 with a change of tone : " ]^o one could carry me off. 
 'Not even you. I am not the sort of girl that gets 
 carried off." His white form seemed to shrink a little 
 before the force of that assertion and she relented. 
 " Isn't it enough for you to know that you have — that 
 you have carried me away ? " she added in a tender 
 tone. 
 
 He murmured an endearing word, and she con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " I've promised you — I've said I would come — 
 and I shall come of my own free will. You shall wait 
 
230 TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 for me on board. I shall get up the side — by myself, 
 and walk up to you on the deck and say : ' Here I am, 
 kid.' And then — and then I shall be carried off. 
 But it will be no man who will carry me off — it 
 will be the brig, your brig — our brig. ... I love the 
 beauty ! " 
 
 She heard an inarticulate sound, something like a 
 moan wrung out by pain or delight, and glided away. 
 There was that other man on the other verandah, that 
 dark, surly Dutchman who could make trouble between 
 Jasper and her father, bring about a quarrel, ugly 
 words, and perhaps a physical collision. What a hor- 
 rible situation ! But, even putting aside that awful 
 extremity, she shrank from having to live for some 
 three months with a wretched, tormented, angry, dis- 
 tracted, absurd man. And when the day came, the 
 day and the hour, what should she do if her father 
 tried to detain her by main force — as was, after all, 
 possible? Could she actually struggle with him hand 
 to hand ? But it was of lamentations and entreaties 
 that she was really afraid. Could she withstand them ? 
 What an odious, cruel, ridiculous position would that 
 be! 
 
 " But it won't be. He'll say nothing," she thought 
 as she came out quickly on the west verandah, and, 
 seeing that Heemskirk did not move, sat down on a 
 chair near the doorway and kept her eyes on him. The 
 outraged lieutenant had not changed his attitude; only 
 his cap had fallen off his stomach and was lying on the 
 floor. His thick black eyebrows were knitted by a 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVE:N^ ISLES 231 
 
 frown, while he looked at her out of the corners of his 
 ejes. And their sideways glance in conjunction with 
 the hooked nose, the whole bulky, ungainly, sprawling 
 person, struck Ereya as so comically moody that, in- 
 wardly discomposed as she was, she could not help 
 smiling. She did her best to give that smile a concil- 
 iatory character. She did not want to provoke Heems- 
 kirk needlessly. 
 
 And the lieutenant, perceiving that smile, was 
 mollified. It never entered his head that his outward 
 appearance, a naval officer, in uniform, could appear 
 ridiculous to that girl of no position — the daughter of 
 old ISTielsen. The recollection of her arms round 
 Jasper's neck still irritated and excited him. " The 
 hussy!" he thought. "Smiling — eh? That's how 
 you are amusing yourself. Fooling your father finely, 
 aren't you ? You have a taste for that sort of fun — 
 
 have you ? Well, we shall see " He did not alter 
 
 his position, but on his pursed-up lips there also ap- 
 peared a smile of surly and ill-omened amusement, 
 while his eyes returned to the contemplation of his 
 boots. 
 
 Freya felt hot with indignation. She sat radiantly 
 fair in the lamplight, her strong, well-shaped hands 
 lying one on top of the other in her lap. ..." Odious 
 creature," she thought. Her face coloured with sud- 
 den anger. " You have scared my maid out of her 
 senses," she said aloud. " What possessed you ? " 
 
 He was thinking so deeply of her that the sound of 
 her voice, pronouncing these unexpected words, startled 
 
232 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 him extremely. He jerked up his head and looked so 
 bewildered that Freya insisted impatiently: 
 
 " I mean Antonia. You have bruised her arm. 
 What did you do it for?" 
 
 " Do you want to quarrel with me ? " he asked 
 thickly, with a sort of amazement. He blinked like 
 an owl. He was funny. Freya, like all women, had 
 a keen sense of the ridiculous in outward appearance. 
 
 '' Well, no ; I don't think I do." She could not help 
 herself. She laughed outright, a clear, nervous laugh 
 in which Heemskirk joined suddenly with a harsh " Ha, 
 ha, ha!" 
 
 Voices and footsteps were heard in the passage, and 
 Jasper, with old Nelson, came out. Old Nelson looked 
 at his daughter approvingly, for he liked the lieutenant 
 to be kept in good humour. And he also joined 
 sympathetically in the laugh. " Now, lieutenant, we 
 shall have some dinner," he said, rubbing his hands 
 cheerily. Jasper had gone straight to the balustrade. 
 The sky was full of stars, and in the blue velvety night 
 the cove below had a denser blackness, in which the 
 riding-lights of the brig and of the gunboat glimmered 
 redly, like suspended sparks. " Next time this riding- 
 light glimmers down there, I'll be waiting for her on the 
 quarter-deck to come and say ' Here I am,' " Jasper 
 thought; and his heart seemed to grow bigger in his 
 chest, dilated by an oppressive happiness that nearly 
 wrung out a cry from him. There was no wind. Not 
 a leaf below him stirred, and even the sea was but a 
 still uncomplaining shadow. Far away on the un- 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 233 
 
 clouded sky the pale lightning, the heat-lightning of 
 the tropics, played tremulously amongst the low stars 
 in short, faint, mysteriously consecutive flashes, like 
 incomprehensible signals from some distant planet. 
 
 The dinner passed off quietly. Ereya sat facing her 
 father, calm but pale. Heemskirk affected to talk only 
 to old Nelson. Jasper's behaviour was exemplary. 
 He kept his eyes under control, basking in the sense 
 of Freya's nearness, as people bask in the sun without 
 looking up to heaven. And very soon after dinner was 
 over, mindful of his instructions, he declared that it 
 was time for him to go on board his ship. 
 
 Heemskirk did not look up. Ensconced in the 
 rocking-chair, and puffing at a cheroot, he had the air 
 of meditating surlily over some odious outbreak. So 
 at least it seemed to Freya. Old Nelson said at once: 
 " I'll stroll down with you." He had begun a pro- 
 fessional conversation about the dangers of the New 
 Guinea coast, and wanted to relate to Jasper some ex- 
 perience of his own " over there." Jasper was such a 
 good listener! Freya made as if to accompany them, 
 but her father frowned, shook his head, and nodded 
 significantly towards the immovable Heemskirk blow- 
 ing out smoke with half-closed eyes and protruded lips. 
 The lieutenant must not be left alone. Take offence, 
 perhaps. 
 
 Freya obeyed these signs. "Perhaps it is better for 
 me to stay," she thought. Women are not generally 
 prone to review their own conduct, still less to condemn 
 it. The embarrassing masculine absurdities are in the 
 
234 'TWIXT LANE) AND SEA 
 
 main responsible for its ethics. But, looking at Heems- 
 kirk, Freja felt regret and even remorse. His thick 
 bulk in repose suggested the idea of repletion, but as 
 a matter of fact he had eaten very little. He had 
 drunk a great deal, however. The fleshy lobes of his 
 unpleasant big ears with deeply folded rims were 
 crimson. They quite flamed in the neighbourhood of 
 the flat, sallow cheeks. For a considerable time he 
 did not raise his heavy brown eyelids. To be at the 
 mercy of such a creature was humiliating; and Freya, 
 who always ended by being frank with herself, thought 
 regretfully : " If only I had been open with papa from 
 the first ! But then what an impossible life he would 
 have led me ! " Yes. Men were absurd in many 
 ways; lovably like Jasper, impracticably like her 
 father, odiously like that grotesquely supine creature 
 in the chair. Was it possible to talk him over? 
 Perhaps it was not necessary ? " Oh ! I can't talk to 
 him," she thought. And when Heemskirk, still with- 
 out looking at her, began resolutely to crush his half- 
 smoked cheroot on the coffee-tray, she took alarm, 
 glided towards the piano, opened it in tremendous 
 haste, and struck the keys before she sat down. 
 
 In an instant the verandah, the whole carpetless 
 wooden bungalow raised on piles, became filled with 
 an uproarious, confused resonance. But through it all 
 she heard, she felt on the floor the heavy, prowling 
 footsteps of the lieutenant moving to and fro at her 
 back. He was not exactly drunk, but he was suffi- 
 ciently primed to make the suggestions of his excited 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 235 
 
 imagination seem perfectly feasible and even clever; 
 beautifully, unscrupulously clever. Freya, aware that 
 he had stopped just behind her, went on playing with- 
 out turning her head. She played with spirit, bril- 
 liantly, a fierce piece of music, but when his voice 
 reached her she went cold all over. It was the voice, 
 not the words. The insolent familiarity of tone dis- 
 mayed her to such an extent that she could not under- 
 stand at first what he was saying. His utterance was 
 thick, too. 
 
 " I suspected. ... Of course I suspected something 
 of your little goings on. I am not a child. But 
 from suspecting to seeing — seeing, you understand — 
 there's an enormous difference. That sort of thing. 
 . . . Come! One isn't made of stone. And when a 
 man has been worried by a girl as I have been worried 
 by you, Miss Freya — sleeping and waking, then, of 
 course. . . . But I am a man of the world. It must 
 be dull for you here ... I say, won't you leave off 
 this confounded playing . . . ? " 
 
 This last was the only sentence really which she 
 made out. She shook her head negatively, and in 
 desperation put on the loud pedal, but she could not 
 make the sound of the piano cover his raised voice. 
 
 " Only, I am surprised that you should. . . . An 
 English trading skipper, a common fellow. Low, 
 cheeky lot, infesting these islands. I would make 
 short work of such trash ! While you have here a good 
 friend, a gentleman ready to worship at your feet — 
 your pretty feet — an officer, a man of family. 
 
236 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Strange, isn't it? But what of that! You are fit for 
 a prince." 
 
 Freja did not turn her head. Her face went stiff 
 with horror and indignation. This adventure was al- 
 together beyond her conception of what was possible. 
 It was not in her character to jump up and run away. 
 It seemed to her, too, that if she did move there was 
 no saying what might happen. Presently her father 
 would be back, and then the other would have to leave 
 off. It was best to ignore — to ignore. She went on 
 playing loudly and correctly, as though she were alone, 
 as if Heemskirk did not exist. That proceeding irri- 
 tated him. 
 
 " Come ! You may deceive your father," he bawled 
 angrily, " but I am not to be made a fool of ! Stop 
 this infernal noise . . . Freya . . . Hey! You Scan- 
 dinavian Goddess of Love! Stop! Do you hear? 
 That's what you are — of love. But the heathen gods 
 are only devils in disguise, and that's what you are, 
 too — a deep little devil. Stop it, I say, or I will lift 
 you off that stool ! " 
 
 Standing behind her, he devoured her with his 
 eyes, from the golden crown of her rigidly motionless 
 head to the heels of her shoes, the line of her shapely 
 shoulders, the curves of her fine figure swaying a little 
 before the keyboard. She had on a light dress; the 
 sleeves stopped short at the elbows in an edging of 
 lace. A satin ribbon encircled her waist. In an access 
 of irresistible, reckless hopefulness he clapped both his 
 hands on that waist — and then the irritating music 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 237 
 
 stopped at last. But, quick as she was in springing 
 away from the contact (the round music-stool going 
 over with a crash), Heemskirk's lips, aiming at her 
 neck, landed a hungry, smacking kiss just under her 
 ear. A deep silence reigned for a time. And then he 
 laughed rather feebly. 
 
 He was disconcerted somewhat by her white, still 
 face, the big light violet eyes resting on him stonily. 
 She had not uttered a sound. She faced him, steady- 
 ing herself on the comer of the piano with one ex- 
 tended hand. The other went on rubbing with me- 
 chanical persistency the place his lips had touched. 
 
 "What's the trouble?" he said, offended. "Star- 
 tled you? Look here: don't let us have any of that 
 nonsense. You don't mean to say a kiss frightens you 
 so much as all that. ... I know better. ... I don't 
 mean to be left out in the cold." 
 
 He had been gazing into her face with such strained 
 intentness that he could no longer see it distinctly. 
 Everything round him was rather misty. He forgot 
 the overturned stool, caught his foot against it, and 
 lurched forward slightly, saying in an ingratiating tone : 
 
 " I'm not bad fun, really. You try a few kisses to 
 begin with " 
 
 He said no more, because his head received a terrific 
 concussion, accompanied by an explosive sound. Freya 
 had swung her round, strong arm with such force that 
 the impact of her open palm on his flat cheek turned 
 him half round. Uttering a faint, hoarse yell, the 
 lieutenant clapped both his hands to the left side of 
 
238 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 his face, which had taken on suddenly a dusky hrick-red 
 tinge. Freya, very erect, her violet eyes darkened, 
 her palm still tingling from the blow, a sort of restrained 
 determined smile showing a tiny gleam of her white 
 teeth, heard her father's rapid, heavy tread on the 
 path below the verandah. Her expression lost its 
 pugnacity and became sincerely concerned. She was 
 sorry for her father. She stooped quickly to pick up 
 the music-stool, as if anxious to obliterate the traces. 
 . . . But that was no good. She had resumed her 
 attitude, one hand resting lightly on the piano, before 
 old Nelson got up to the top of the stairs. 
 
 Poor father ! How furious he will be — how upset ! 
 And afterwards, what tremors, what unhappiness! 
 Why had she not been open with him from the first? 
 His round, innocent stare of amazement cut her to the 
 quick. But he was not looking at her. His stare was 
 directed to Heemskirk, who, with his back to him and 
 with his hands still up to his face, was hissing curses 
 through his teeth, and (she saw him in profile) glaring 
 at her balefuUy with one black, evil eye. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " asked old Nelson, very much 
 bewildered. 
 
 She did not answer him. She thought of Jasper on 
 the deck of the brig, gazing up at the lighted bungalow, 
 and she felt frightened. It was a mercy that one of 
 them at least was on board out of the way. She only 
 wished he were a hundred miles off. And yet she was 
 not certain that she did. Had Jasper been mysteri- 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 239 
 
 ously moved that moment to reappear on the verandah 
 she would have thrown her consistency, her firmness, her 
 self-possession, to the winds, and flown into his arms. 
 
 " What is it ? What is it ? " insisted the unsuspect- 
 ing Kelson, getting quite excited. " Only this minute 
 you were playing a tune, and " 
 
 Freya, unahle to speak in her apprehension of what 
 was coming (she was also fascinated by that black, 
 evil, glaring eye), only nodded slightly at the lieuten- 
 ant, as much as to say : " Just look at him ! " 
 
 " Why, yes ! " exclaimed old Nelson. " I see. What 
 on earth " 
 
 Meantime he had cautiously approached Heemskirk, 
 who, bursting into incoherent imprecations, was stamp- 
 ing with both feet where he stood. The indignity of 
 the blow, the rage of baffled purpose, the ridicule of 
 the exposure, and the impossibility of revenge mad- 
 dened him to a point when he simply felt he must 
 howl with fury. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh ! " he howled, stamping across the 
 verandah as though he meant to drive his foot through 
 the floor at every step. 
 
 " Why, is his face hurt ? " asked the astounded old 
 Nelson. The truth dawned suddenly upon his inno- 
 cent mind. " Dear me ! " he cried, enlightened. 
 " Get some brandy, quick, Ereya. . . . You are sub- 
 ject to it, lieutenant? Fiendish, eh? I know, I 
 know! Used to go crazy all of a sudden myself in 
 the time. . . . And the little bottle of laudanum from 
 
240 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 the medicine-chest, too, Freya. Look sharp. . . . 
 Don't you see he's got a toothache ? " 
 
 And, indeed, what other explanation could have 
 presented itself to the guileless old Nelson, beholding 
 this cheek nursed with both hands, these wild glances, 
 these stampings, this distracted swaying of the body? 
 It would have demanded a preternatural acuteness to 
 hit upon the true cause. Freya had not moved. She 
 watched Heemskirk's savagely inquiring, black stare 
 directed stealthily upon herself. " Aha, you would 
 like to be let off ! " she said to herself. She looked at 
 him unflinchingly, thinking it out. The temptation 
 of making an end of it all without further trouble was 
 irresistible. She gave an almost imperceptible nod of 
 assent, and glided away. 
 
 " Hurry up that brandy ! " old Nelson shouted, as 
 she disappeared in the passage. 
 
 Heemskirk relieved his deeper feelings by a sudden 
 string of curses in Dutch and English which he sent 
 after her. He raved to his heart's content, flinging 
 to and fro the verandah and kicking chairs out of his 
 way; while Nelson (or Nielsen), whose sympathy was 
 profoundly stirred by these evidences of agonising 
 pain, hovered round his dear (and dreaded) lieutenant, 
 fussing like an old hen. 
 
 *^ Dear me, dear me ! Is it so bad ? I know well 
 what it is. I used to frighten my poor wife sometimes. 
 Do you get it often like this, lieutenant ? " 
 
 Heemskirk shouldered him viciously out of his way, 
 with a short, insane laugh. But his staggering host 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 241 
 
 took it in good part; a man beside himself witli ex- 
 cruciating toothache is not responsible. 
 
 " Go into mj room, lieutenant," he suggested 
 urgently. " Throw yourself on my bed. We will get 
 something to ease you in a minute." 
 
 He seized the poor sufferer by the arm and forced 
 him gently onwards to the very bed, on which Heems- 
 kirk, in a renewed access of rage, flung himself down 
 with such force that he rebounded from the mattress 
 to the height of quite a foot. 
 
 " Dear me ! " exclaimed the scared Nelson, and in- 
 continently ran off to hurry up the brandy and the 
 laudanum, very angry that so little alacrity was shown 
 in relieving the tortures of his precious guest. In the 
 end he got these things himself. 
 
 Half an* hour later he stood in the inner passage of 
 the house, surprised by faint, spasmodic sounds of a 
 mysterious nature, between laughter and sobs. He 
 frowned; then went straight towards his daughter's 
 room and knocked at the door. 
 
 Freya, her glorious fair hair framing her white face 
 and rippling down a dark-blue dressing-gown, opened 
 it partly. 
 
 The light in the room was dim. Antonia, crouching 
 in a corner, rocked herself backwards and forwards, 
 uttering feeble moans. Old Nelson had not much ex- 
 perience in various kinds of feminine laughter, but he 
 was certain there had been laughter there. 
 
 " Very unfeeling, very unfeeling ! " he said, with 
 weighty displeasure. "What is there so amusing in 
 
242 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 a man being in pain ? I should have thought a woman 
 
 — a young girl " 
 
 " He was so funny," murmured Freya, whose eyes 
 glistened strangely in the semi-obscurity of the passage. 
 " And then, you know, I don't like him," she added, 
 in an unsteady voice. 
 
 " Funny ! " repeated old Nelson, amazed at this 
 evidence of callousness in one so young. *^ You don't 
 like him ! Do you mean to say that, because you don't 
 
 like him, you Why, it's simply cruel! Don't 
 
 you know it's about the worst sort of pain there is? 
 Dogs have been known to go mad with it." 
 
 " He certainly seemed to have gone mad," Freya 
 said with an effort, as if she were struggling with some 
 hidden feeling. 
 
 But her father was launched. 
 
 " And you know how he is. He notices everything. 
 He is a fellow to take offence for the least little thing 
 
 — regular Dutchman — and I want to keep friendly 
 with him. It's like this, my girl: if that rajah of ours 
 were to do something silly — and you know he is a 
 sulky, rebellious beggar — and the authorities took into 
 their heads that my influence over him wasn't good, 
 you would find yourself without a roof over your 
 head " 
 
 She cried : " What nonsense, father ! " in a not very 
 assured tone, and discovered that he was angry, angry 
 enough to achieve irony; yes, old Nelson (or Nielsen), 
 irony! Just a gleam of it. 
 
 " Oh, of course, if you have means of your own — a 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 243 
 
 mansion, a plantation that I know nothing of " 
 
 But he was not capable of sustained irony. " I tell 
 you they would bundle me out of here," he whispered 
 forcibly; "without compensation, of course. I know 
 these Dutch. And the lieutenant's just the fellow to 
 start the trouble going. ^ He has the ear of influential 
 officials. I wouldn't offend him for anything — for 
 anything — on no consideration whatever. . . . What 
 did you say ? " 
 
 It was only an inarticulate exclamation. If she ever 
 had a half -formed intention of telling him everything she 
 had given it up now. It was impossible, both out of re- 
 gard for his dignity and for the peace of his poor mind. 
 
 " I don't care for him myself very much," old Nel- 
 son's subdued undertone confessed in a sigh. " He's 
 easier now," he went on, after a silence. " I've given 
 him up my bed for the night. I shall sleep on my 
 verandah, in the hammock. No ; I can't say I like him 
 either, but from that to laugh at a man because he's 
 driven crazy with pain is a long way. You've sur- 
 prised me, Ereya. That side of his face is quite 
 flushed." 
 
 Her shoulders shook convulsively under his hands, 
 which he laid on her paternally. His straggly, wiry 
 moustache brushed her forehead in a good-night kiss. 
 She closed the door, and went away from it to the 
 middle of the room before she allowed herself a tired- 
 out sort of laugh, without buoyancy. 
 
 " Flushed ! A little flushed ! " she repeated to her- 
 self. " I hope so, indeed ! A little " 
 
244 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 Her eyelashes were wet. Antonia, in her comer, 
 moaned and giggled, and it was impossible to tell where 
 the moans ended and the giggles began. 
 
 The mistress and the maid had been somewhat 
 hysterical, for Freya, on fleeing into her room, had 
 found Antonia there, and had told her everything. 
 
 " I have avenged you, my girl," she exclaimed. 
 
 And then they had laughingly cried and cryingly 
 laughed with admonitions — " Ssh, not so loud ! Be 
 quiet ! " on one part, and interludes of " I am so 
 frightened. . . . He's an evil man," on the other. 
 
 Antonia was very much afraid of Heemskirk. She 
 was afraid of him because of his personal appearance: 
 because of his eyes and his eyebrows, and his mouth 
 and his nose and his limbs. Nothing could be more 
 rational. And she thought him an evil man, because, 
 to her eyes, he looked evil. No ground for an opinion 
 could be sounder. In the dimness of the room, with 
 only a nightlight burning at the head of Freya's bed, 
 the camerista crept out of her comer to crouch at the 
 feet of her mistress, supplicating in whispers: 
 
 " There's the brig. Captain Allen. Let us run 
 away at once — oh, let us run away ! I am so fright- 
 ened. Let us ! Let us ! " 
 
 " 1 1 Eun away ! " thought Freya to herself, with- 
 out looking down at the scared girl. " Never." 
 
 Both the resolute mistress under the mosquito-net 
 and the frightened maid lying curled up on a mat at 
 the foot of the bed did not sleep very well that night. 
 The person that did not sleep at all was Lieutenant 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 245 
 
 Heemskirk. He laj on his back staring vindictively 
 in the darkness. Inflaming images and humiliating 
 reflections succeeded each other in his mind, keeping 
 up, augmenting his anger. A pretty tale this to get 
 about ! But it must not be allowed to get about. The 
 outrage had to be swallowed in silence. A pretty af- 
 fair! Fooled, led on, and struck by the girl — and 
 probably fooled by the father, too. But no. Nielsen 
 was but another victim of that shameless hussy, that 
 brazen minx, that sly, laughing, kissing, lying . . . 
 
 " No ; he did not deceive me on purpose," thought 
 the tormented lieutenant. " But I should like to pay 
 him off, all the same, for being such an imbecile " 
 
 Well, some day, perhaps. One thing he was firmly 
 resolved on : he had made up his mind to steal early out 
 of the house. He did not think he could face the girl 
 without going out of his mind with fury. 
 
 " Fire and predition ! Ten thousand devils ! I 
 shall choke here before the morning ! " he muttered 
 to himself, lying rigid on his back on old Nelson's bed, 
 his breast heaving for air. 
 
 He arose at daylight and started cautiously to 
 open the door. Faint sounds in the passage alarmed 
 him, and remaining concealed he saw Freya coming 
 out. This unexpected sight deprived him of all power 
 to move away from the crack of the door. It was 
 the narrowest crack possible, but commanding the view 
 of the end of the verandah. Freya made for that end 
 hastily to watch the brig passing the point. She wore 
 her dark dressing-gown; her feet were bare, because 
 
246 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 having fallen asleep towards the morning, she ran out 
 headlong in her fear of being too late. Heemskirk 
 had never seen her looking like this, with her hair 
 drawn back smoothly to the shape of her head, and 
 hanging in one heavy, fair tress down her back, and 
 with that air of extreme youth, intensity, and eager- 
 ness. And at first he was amazed, and then he gnashed 
 his teeth. He could not face her at all. He muttered 
 a curse, and kept still behind the door. 
 
 With a low, deep-breathed " Ah ! " when she first 
 saw the brig already under way, she reached for 
 Nelson's long glass reposing on brackets high up the 
 wall. The wide sleeve of the dressing-gown slipped 
 back, uncovering her white arm as far as the shoulder. 
 Heemskirk gripping the door-handle, as if to crush it, 
 felt like a man just risen to his feet from a drinking 
 bout. 
 
 And Freya knew that he was watching her. She 
 knew. She had seen the door move as she came out of 
 the passage. She was aware of his eyes being on her, 
 with scornful bitterness, with triumphant contempt. 
 
 "You are there,*' she thought, levelling the long 
 glass. " Oh, well, look on, then ! " 
 
 The green islets appeared like black shadows, the 
 ashen sea was smooth as glass, the clear robe of the 
 colourless dawn, in which even the brig appeared 
 shadowy, had a hem of light in the east. Directly 
 Freya had made out Jasper on deck, with his own long 
 glass directed to the bungalow, she laid hers down and 
 raised both her beautiful white arms above her head. 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 247 
 
 In that attitude of supreme cry she stood still, glowing 
 with the consciousness of Jasper's adoration going out 
 to her figure held in the field of his glass away there, 
 and w^armed, too, by the feeling of evil passion, the 
 burning, covetous eyes of the other, fastened on her 
 back. In the fervour of her love, in the caprice of her 
 mind, and with that mysterious knowledge of masculine 
 nature women seem to be bom to, she thought: 
 
 " You are looking on — you will — you must ! 
 Then you shall see something." 
 
 She brought both her hands to her lips, then flung 
 them out, sending a kiss over the sea, as if she wanted 
 to throw her heart along with it on the deck of the brig. 
 Her face was rosy, her eyes shone. Her repeated, pas- 
 sionate gesture seemed to fling kisses by the hundred 
 again and again and again, while the slowly ascending 
 sun brought the glory of colour to the world, turning 
 the islets green, the sea blue, the brig below her white 
 — dazzlingly white in the spread of her wings — with 
 the red ensign streaming like a tiny flame from the 
 peak. And each time she murmured with a rising in- 
 flexion : " Take this — and this — and this '' till 
 
 suddenly her arms fell. She had seen the ensign 
 dipped in response, and next moment the point below 
 hid the hull of the brig from her view. Then she 
 turned away from the balustrade, and, passing slowly 
 before the door vi her father's room with her eyelids 
 lowered, and an enigmatic expression on her face, she 
 disappeared behind the curtain. 
 
 But instead of going along the passage, she remained 
 
248 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 concealed and very still on the other side to watch 
 what would happen. For some time the broad, fur- 
 nished verandah remained empty. Then the door of 
 old Nelson's room came open suddenly, and Heems- 
 kirk staggered out. His hair was rumpled, his eyes 
 bloodshot, his unshaven face looked very dark. He 
 gazed wildly about, saw his cap on a table, snatched it 
 up, and made for the stairs, quietly, but with a strange, 
 tottering gait, like the last effort of waning strength. 
 
 Shortly after his head had sunk below the level of 
 the floor, Freya came out from behind the curtain, 
 with compressed, scheming lips, and no softness at all 
 in her luminous eyes. He could not be allowed to 
 sneak off scot free. Never — never I She was excited, 
 she tingled all over, she had tasted blood! He must 
 be made to understand that she had been aware of 
 having been watched; he must know that he had been 
 seen slinking off shamefully. But to run to the front 
 rail and shout after him would have been childish, 
 crude — undignified. And to shout — what ? What 
 word? What phrase? No; it was impossible. Then 
 how? . . . She frowned, discovered it, dashed at the 
 piano, which had stood open all night, and made Ihe 
 rosewood monster growl savagely in an irritated bass. 
 She struck chords as if firing shots after that straddling, 
 broad figure in ample white trousers and a dark 
 uniform jacket with gold shoulder-straps, and then 
 she pursued him with the same thing she had played 
 the evening before — a modern, fierce piece of love 
 music whicli had been tried more than once against 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVE:^ ISLES 249 
 
 the thunderstorms of the group. She accentuated its 
 rhythm with triumphant malice, so absorbed in her 
 purpose that she did not notice the presence of her 
 father, who, wearing an old threadbare ulster of a 
 check pattern over his sleeping suit, had run out from 
 the back verandah to inquire the reason of this untimely 
 performance. He stared at her. 
 
 " What on earth ? . . . Ereya ! " . . . His voice 
 was nearly drowned by the piano. " What's become 
 of the lieutenant ? " he shouted. 
 
 She looked up at him as if her soul were lost in her 
 music, with unseeing eyes. 
 
 " Gone." 
 
 "Wha-a-t? . . . Where?" 
 
 She shook her head slightly, and went on playing 
 louder than before. Old ISTelson's innocently anxious 
 gaze starting from the open door of his room, explored 
 the whole place high and low, as if the lieutenant were 
 something small which might have been crawling on 
 the floor or clinging to a wall. But a shrill whistle 
 coming somewhere from below pierced the ample 
 volume of sound rolling out of the piano in great, 
 vibrating waves. The lieutenant was down at the 
 cove, whistling for the boat to come and take him off 
 to his ship. And he seemed to be in a terrific hurry, 
 too, for he whistled again almost directly, waited for 
 a moment, and then sent out a long, interminable, shrill 
 call as distressful to hear as though he had shrieked 
 without drawing breath. Ereya ceased playing sud- 
 denly. 
 
250 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " Going on board," said old Nelson, perturbed by 
 the event. " What could have made him clear out 
 so early? Queer chap. Devilishly touchy, too! I 
 shouldn't wonder if it was your conduct last night that 
 hurt his feelings ? I noticed you, Freya. You as well 
 as laughed in his face, while he was suffering agonies 
 from neuralgia. It isn't the way to get yourself liked. 
 He's offended with you." 
 
 Freya's hands now reposed passive on the keys; 
 she bowed her fair head, feeling a sudden discontent, 
 a nervous lassitude, as though she had passed through 
 some exhausting crisis. Old Nelson (or Nielsen), look- 
 ing aggrieved, was revolving matters of policy in his 
 bald head. 
 
 " I think it would be right for me to go on board 
 just to inquire, some time this morning," he declared 
 fussily. " Why don't they bring me my morning tea ? 
 Do you hear, Freya ? You have astonished me, I must 
 say. I didn't think a young girl could be so unfeeling. 
 And the lieutenant thinks himself a friend of ours, too ! 
 What? No? Well, he calls himself a friend, and 
 that's something to a person in my position. Cer- 
 tainly! Oh, yes, I must go on board." 
 
 " Must you ? " murmured Freya listlessly ; then 
 added, in her thought : " Poor man I " 
 
 In respect of the next seven weeks, all that is necessary 
 to say is, first, that old Nelson (or Nielsen) failed in 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 251 
 
 paying his politic call. The Neptun gunboat of H.M. 
 the King of the Netherlands, commanded by an out- 
 raged and infuriated lieutenant, left the cove at an 
 unexpectedly early hour. When Freya's father came 
 down to the shore, after seeing his precious crop of 
 tobacco spread out properly in the sun, she was already 
 steaming round the point. Old Nelson regretted the 
 circumstance for many days. 
 
 " Now, I don't know in what disposition the man 
 went away," he lamented to his hard daughter. He 
 was amazed at her hardness. He was almost fright- 
 ened by her indifference. 
 
 Next, it must be recorded that the same day the 
 gunboat Neptun, steering east, passed the brig Bonito 
 becalmed in sight of Carimata, with her head to the 
 eastward, too. Her captain, Jasper Allen, giving him- 
 self up consciously to a tender, possessive reverie of his 
 Freya, did not get out of his long chair on the poop to 
 look at the Neptun which passed so close that the 
 smoke belching out suddenly from her short black 
 funnel rolled between the masts of the Bonito, obscuring 
 for a moment the sunlit whiteness of her sails, con- 
 secrated to the service of love. Jasper did not even 
 turn his head for a glance. But Heemskirk, on the 
 bridge, had gazed long and earnestly at the brig from 
 the distance, gripping hard the brass rail in front of 
 him, till, the two ships closing, he lost all confidence in 
 himself, and retreating to the chartroom, pulled the 
 door to with a crash. There, his brows knitted, his 
 mouth drawn on one side in sardonic meditation, he 
 
262 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 sat through many still hours — a sort of Prometheus in 
 the bonds of unholy desire, having his very vitals torn 
 by the beak and claws of humiliated passion. 
 
 That species of fowl is not to be shooed off as easily 
 as a chicken. Fooled, cheated, deceived, led on, out- 
 raged, mocked at — beak and claws ! A sinister bird I 
 The lieutenant had no mind to become the talk of the 
 Archipelago, as the naval oflficer who had had his face 
 slapped by a girl. Was it possible that she really 
 loved that rascally trader? He tried not to think, 
 but, worse than thoughts, definite impressions beset 
 him in his retreat. He saw her — a vision plain, close 
 to, detailed, plastic, coloured, lighted up — he saw her 
 hanging round the neck of that fellow. And he shut 
 his eyes, only to discover that this was no remedy. 
 Then a piano began to play near by, very plainly ; and 
 he put his fingers to his ears with no better effect. It 
 was not to be borne — not in solitude. He bolted out 
 of the chartroom, and talked of indifferent things some- 
 what wildly with the oflScer of the watch on the bridge, 
 to the mocking accompaniment of a ghostly piano. 
 
 The last thing to be recorded is that Lieutenant 
 Heemskirk instead of pursuing his course towards 
 Temate, where he was expected, went out of his way 
 to call at Makassar, where no one was looking for his 
 arrival. Once there, he gave certain explanations and 
 laid a certain proposal before the governor, or some 
 other authority, and obtained permission to do what 
 he thought fit in these matters. Thereupon the 
 Neptun, giving up Temate altogether, steamed north 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVE:^[ ISLES 253 
 
 in view of tlie mountainous coast of Celebes, and then 
 crossing the broad straits took up her station on the 
 low coast of virgin forests, inviolate and mute, in 
 waters phosphorescent at night, deep blue in daytime 
 with gleaming green patches over the submerged reefs. 
 For days the Neptun could be seen moving smoothly 
 up and down the sombre face of the shore, or hanging 
 about with a Watchful air near the silvery breaks of 
 broad estuaries, under the great luminous sky never 
 softened, never veiled, and flooding the earth with the 
 everlasting sunshine of the tropics — that sunshine 
 which, in its unbroken splendour, oppresses the soul 
 with an inexpressible melancholy more intimate, more 
 penetrating, more profound than the grey sadness of 
 the northern mists. 
 
 The trading brig Boniio appeared gliding round a 
 sombre forest-clad point of land on the silvery estuary 
 of a great river. The breath of air that gave her 
 motion would not have fluttered the flame of a torch. 
 She stole out into the open from behind a veil of un- 
 stirring leaves, mysteriously silent, ghostly white, and 
 solemnly stealthy in her imperceptible progress; and 
 Jasper, his elbow in the main rigging, and his head 
 leaning against his hand, thought of Freya. Every- 
 thing in the world reminded him of her. The beauty 
 3f the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature. 
 The swelling outlines of the hills, the curves of a coast, 
 the free sinuosities of a river are less suave than the 
 barmonious lines of her body, and when she moves. 
 
254 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 gliding lightly, the grace of her progress suggests the 
 power of occult forces which rule the fascinating as- 
 pects of the visible world. 
 
 Dependent on things as all men are, Jasper loved his 
 vessel — the house of his dreams. He lent to her some- 
 thing of Freya's soul. Her deck was the foothold of 
 their love. The possession of his brig appeased his 
 passion in a soothing certitude of happiness already 
 conquered. 
 
 The full moon was some way up, perfect and serene, 
 floating in air as calm and limpid as the glance of 
 Freya's eyes. There was not a sound in the brig. 
 
 " Here she shall stand, by my side, on evenings like 
 this," he thought, with rapture. 
 
 And it was at that moment, in this peace, in this 
 serenity, under the full, benign gaze of the moon pro- 
 pitious to lovers, on a sea without a wrinkle, under a 
 sky without a cloud, as if all Nature had assumed its 
 most clement mood in a spirit of mockery, that the 
 gunboat Neptun, detaching herself from the dark coast 
 under which she had been lying invisible, steamed out 
 to intercept the trading brig Bonito standing out to 
 sea. 
 
 Directly the gunboat had been made out emerging 
 from her ambush, Schultz, of the fascinating voice, had 
 given signs of strange agitation. All that day, ever 
 since leaving the Malay town up the river, he had 
 shown a haggard face, going about his duties like a 
 man with something weighing on his mind. Jasper 
 had noticed it, but the mate, turning away, as though 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 255 
 
 he had not liked being looked at, had muttered shame- 
 facedly of a headache and a touch of fever. He must 
 have had it very badly when, dodging behind his cap- 
 tain, he wondered aloud : " What can that fellow 
 want with us?" . . . A naked man standing in a 
 freezing blast and trying not to shiver could not have 
 spoken with a more harshly uncertain intonation. But 
 it might have been fever — a cold fit. 
 
 " He wants to make himself disagreeable, simply," 
 said Jasper, with perfect good humour. " He has tried 
 it on me before. However, we shall soon see." 
 
 And, indeed, before long the two vessels lay abreast 
 within easy hail. The brig, with her fine lines and her 
 white sails, looked vaporous and sylph-like in the 
 moonlight. The gunboat, short, squat, with her 
 stumpy dark spars naked like dead trees, raised against 
 the luminous sky of that resplendent night, threw a 
 heavy shadow on the lane of water between the two 
 ships. 
 
 Freya haunted them both like an ubiquitous spirit, 
 and as if she were the only woman in the world, 
 Jasper remembered her earnest recommendation to be 
 guarded and cautious in all his acts and words while 
 he was away from her. In this quite unforeseen en- 
 counter he felt on his ear the very breath of these 
 hurried admonitions customary to the last moment of 
 their partings, heard the half-jesting final whisper of 
 the " Mind, kid, I'd never forgive you ! " with a quick 
 pressure on his arm, which he answered by a quiet, 
 confident smile. Heemskirk was haunted in another 
 
266 'TWIXT LAND A:^D SEA 
 
 fashion. There were no whispers in it, it was more 
 like visions. He saw that girl hanging round the neck 
 of a low vagabond — that vagabond, the vagabond who 
 had just answered his hail. He saw her stealing bare- 
 footed across a verandah with great, clear, wide-open, 
 eager eyes to look at a brig — that brig. If she had 
 shrieked, scolded, called names! . . . But she had 
 simply triumphed over him. That was all. Led on 
 (he firmly believed it), fooled, deceived, outraged, 
 struck, mocked at. . . . Beak and claws! The two 
 men, so differently haunted by Freya of the Seven 
 Isles, were not equally matched. 
 
 In the intense stillness, as of sleep, which had fallen 
 upon the two vessels, in a world that itself seemed but 
 a delicate dream, a boat pulled by Javanese sailors 
 crossing the dark lane of water came alongside the brig. 
 The white warrant officer in her, perhaps the gunner, 
 climbed aboard. He was a short man, with a rotund 
 stomach and a wheezy voice. His immovable fat face 
 looked lifeless in the moonlight, and he walked with his 
 thick arms hanging away from his body as though he 
 had been stuffed. His cunning little eyes glittered like 
 bits of mica. He conveyed to Jasper, in broken Eng- 
 lish, a request to come on board the Neptun, 
 
 Jasper had not expected anything so unusual. But 
 after a short reflection he decided to show neither an- 
 noyance, nor even surprise. The river from which 
 he had come had been politically disturbed for a couple 
 of years, and he was aware that his visits there were 
 looked upon with some suspicion. But he did not 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 257 
 
 mind mucli the displeasure of the authorities, so 
 terrifying to old Nelson. He prepared to leave the 
 brig, and Schultz followed him to the rail as if to say 
 something, but in the end stood by in silence. Jasper 
 getting over the side, noticed his ghastly face. The 
 eyes of the man who had found salvation in the brig 
 from the effects of his peculiar psychology looked at 
 him with a dumb, beseeching expression. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " Jasper asked. 
 
 " I wonder how this will end ? " said he of the beauti- 
 ful voice, which had even fascinated the steady Ereya 
 herself. But where was its charming timbre now? 
 These words had sounded like a raven's croak. 
 
 "You are ill," said Jasper positively. 
 
 " I wish I were dead ! " was the startling statement 
 uttered by Schultz talking to himself in the extremity 
 of some mysterious trouble. Jasper gave him a keen 
 glance, but this was not the time to investigate the 
 morbid outbreak of a feverish man. He did not look 
 as though he were actually delirious, and that for the 
 moment must suflSce. Schultz made a dart forward. 
 
 " That fellow means harm ! " he said desperately. 
 " He means harm to you, Captain Allen. I feel it, 
 and I " 
 
 He choked with inexplicable emotion. 
 
 " All right, Schultz. I won't give him an opening." 
 Jasper cut him short and swung himself into the boat. 
 
 On board the Neptun Heemskirk, standing straddle- 
 legs in the flood of moonlight, his inky shadow falling 
 right across the quarter-deck, made no sign at his ap- 
 
258 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 proach, but secretly he felt something like the heave 
 of the sea in his chest at the sight of that man. Jasper 
 waited before him in silenca 
 
 Brought face to face in direct personal contact, 
 they fell at once into the manner of their casual meet- 
 ings in old Nelson's bungalow. They ignored each 
 other's existence — Ileemskirk moodily ; Jasper, with a 
 perfectly colourless quietness. 
 
 " What's going on in that river you've just come out 
 of?" asked the lieutenant straight away. 
 
 " I know nothing of the troubles, if you mean that," 
 Jasper answered. " I've landed there half a cargo of 
 rice, for which I got nothing in exchange, and went 
 away. There's no trade there now, but they would 
 have been starving in another week if I hadn't turned 
 up." 
 
 " Meddling ! English meddling ! And suppose the 
 rascals don't deserve anything better than to starve, 
 eh?" 
 
 " There are women and children there, you know," 
 observed Jasper, in his even tone. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! When an Englishman talks of women 
 and children, you may be sure there's something fishy 
 about the business. Your doings will have to be in- 
 vestigated." 
 
 They spoke in turn, as though they had been dis- 
 embodied spirits — mere voices in empty air ; for they 
 looked at each other as if there had been nothing there, 
 or, at most, with as much recognition as one gives to 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 269 
 
 an inanimate object, and no more. But now a silence 
 fell. Heemskirk had thought, all at once : " She will 
 tell him all about it. She will tell him while she hangs 
 round his neck laughing." And the sudden desire to 
 annihilate Jasper on the spot almost deprived him of 
 his senses by its vehemence. He lost the power of 
 speech, of vision. Eor a moment he absolutely couldn't 
 see Jasper. But he heard him inquiring, as of the 
 world at large : 
 
 " Am I, then, to conclude that the brig is detained ? " 
 
 Heemskirk made a recovery in a flush of malignant 
 satisfaction. 
 
 ^' She is. I am going to take her to Makassar in 
 tow." 
 
 " The courts will have to decide on the legality of 
 this," said Jasper, aware that the matter was becoming 
 serious, but with assumed indifference. 
 
 " Oh, yes, the courts ! Certainly. And as to you, 
 I shall keep you on board here." 
 
 Jasper's dismay at being parted from his ship was 
 betrayed by a stony immobility. It lasted but an in- 
 stant. Then he turned away and hailed the brig. Mr. 
 Schultz answered: 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 *^ Get ready to receive a tow-rope from the gunboat ! 
 We are going to be taken to Makassar." 
 
 " Good God ! What's that for, sir ? " came an anx- 
 ious cry faintly. 
 
 " Kindness, I suppose," Jasper, ironical, shouted 
 
260 'TWIXT LAITB AND SEA 
 
 ■with great deliberation. "We might have been — be- 
 calmed in here — for days. And hospitality. I am 
 invited to stay — on board here." 
 
 The ansvrer to this information was a loud ejacula- 
 tion of distress. Jasper thought anxiously : " Why, 
 the fellow's nerve's gone to pieces ; " and with an 
 awkward uneasiness of a new sort, looked intently at 
 the brig. The thought that he was parted from her — 
 for the first time since they came together — shook the 
 apparently careless fortitude of his character to its very 
 foundations, which were deep. All that time neither 
 Heemskirk nor even his inky shadow had stirred in 
 the least. 
 
 " I am going to send a boat's crew and an officer 
 on board your vessel," he announced to no one in 
 particular. Jasper, tearing himself away from the 
 absorbed contemplation of the brig, turned round, and, 
 without passion, almost without expression in his voice, 
 entered his protest against the whole of the proceedings. 
 What he was thinking of was the delay. He counted 
 the days. Makassar was actually on his way; and to 
 be towed there really saved time. On the other hand, 
 there would be some vexing formalities to go through. 
 But the thing was too absurd. " The beetle's gone 
 mad," he thought. " I'll be released at once. And if 
 not, Mesman must enter into a bond for me." Mesman 
 was a Dutch merchant with whom Jasper had had 
 many dealings, a considerable person in Makassar. 
 
 " You protest ? H'm ! " Heemskirk muttered, and 
 for a little longer remained motionless, his legs planted 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 261 
 
 well part, and his head lowered as though he were 
 studying his own comical, deeply-split shadow. Then 
 he made a sign to the rotund gunner, who had kept at 
 hand, motionless, like a vilely-stuffed specimen of a 
 fat man, with a lifeless face and glittering little eyes. 
 The fellow approached, and stood at attention. 
 
 " You will board the brig with a boat's crew ! " 
 
 " Ya, mynherr ! " 
 
 " You will have one of your men to steer her all 
 the time," went on Heemskirk, giving his orders in 
 English, apparently for Jasper's edification. " You 
 hear?" 
 
 " Ya, mynherr." 
 
 " You will remain on deck and in charge all the 
 time." 
 
 " Ya, mynherr." 
 
 Jasper felt as if, together with the command of the 
 brig, his very heart were being taken out of his breast. 
 Heemskirk asked, with a change of tone : 
 
 " What weapons have you on board ? " 
 
 At one time all the ships trading in the China Seas 
 had a licence to carry a certain quantity of firearms for 
 purposes of defence. Jasper answered; 
 
 " Eighteen rifles with their bayonets, which were on 
 board when I bought her, four years ago. They have 
 been declared." 
 
 " Where are they kept ? " 
 
 " Fore-cabin. Mate has the key." 
 
 " You will take possession of them," said Heems- 
 kirk to the gunner. 
 
262 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 " Ya, mynherr." 
 
 " What is this for ? What do you mean to imply ? " 
 cried out Jasper ; then bit his lip. " It's monstrous ! " 
 he muttered. 
 
 Heemskirk raised for a moment a heavy, as if suffer- 
 ing, glance. 
 
 " You may go," he said to his gunner. The fat man 
 saluted, and departed. 
 
 During the next thirty hours the steady towing was 
 interrupted once. At a signal from the brig, made by 
 waving a flag on the forecastle, the gunboat was 
 stopped. The badly-stuffed specimen of a warrant- 
 oflBcer, getting into his boat, arrived on board the 
 Neptun and hurried straight into his commander's 
 cabin, his excitement at something he had to com- 
 municate being betrayed by the blinking of his small 
 eyes. These two were closeted together for some time, 
 while Jasper at the taffrail tried to make out if any- 
 thing out of the common had occurred on board the brig. 
 But nothing seemed to be amiss on board. However, 
 he kept a look-out for the gunner; and, though he had 
 avoided speaking to anybody since he had finished 
 with Heemskirk, he stopped that man when he came 
 out on deck again to ask how his mate was. 
 
 " He was feeling not very well when I left," he ex- 
 plained. 
 
 The fat warrant-officer, holding himself as though 
 the effort of carrying his big stomach in front of him 
 demanded a rigid carriage, understood with difficulty. 
 Not a single one of his features showed the slightest 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEYEN^ ISLES 263 
 
 animation, but his little eyes blinked rapidly at last. 
 
 " Oh, ya ! The mate. Ya, ya ! He is very well. 
 But, mein Gott, he is one very funny man ! " 
 
 Jasper could get no explanation of that remark, be- 
 cause the Dutchman got into the boat hurriedly, and 
 went back on board the brig. But he consoled him- 
 self with the thought that very soon all this unpleas- 
 ant and rather absurd experience would be over. The 
 roadstead of Makassar was in sight already. Heems- 
 kirk passed by him going on the bridge. For the first 
 time the lieutenant looked at Jasper with marked in- 
 tention; and the strange roll of his eyes was so funny 
 — it had been long agreed by Jasper and Freya that 
 the lieutenant was funny — so ecstatically gratified, 
 as though he were rolling a tasty morsel on his tongue, 
 that Jasper could not help a broad smile. And then 
 he turned to his brig again. 
 
 To see her, his cherished possession, animated by 
 something of his Freya's soul, the only foothold of two 
 lives on the wide earth, the security of his passion, the 
 companion of adventure, the power to snatch the calm, 
 adorable Freya to his breast, and carry her off to the 
 end of the world ; to see this beautiful thing embodying 
 worthily his pride and his love, to see her captive at 
 the end of a tow-rope was not indeed a pleasant ex- 
 perience. It had something nightmarish in it, as, for 
 instance, the dream of a wild sea-bird loaded with 
 chains. 
 
 Yet what else could he want to look at ? Her beauty 
 would sometimes come to his heart with the force of 
 
264 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 a spell, so that he would forget where he was. And, 
 besides, that sense of superiority which the certitude 
 of being loved gives to a young man, that illusion of 
 being set above the Fates by a tender look in a woman's 
 eyes, helped him, the first shock over, to go through 
 these experiences with an amused self-confidence. For 
 what evil could touch the elect of Freya? 
 
 It was now afternoon, the sun being behind the two 
 vessels as they headed for the harbour. " The beetle's 
 little joke shall soon be over," thought Jasper, without 
 any great animosity. As a seaman well acquainted 
 with that part of the world, a casual glance was enough 
 to tell him what was being done. " Hallo,'' he thought, 
 " he is going through Spermonde Passage. We shall 
 be rounding Tamissa reef presently." And again he 
 returned to the contemplation of his brig, that main- 
 stay of his material and emotional existence which 
 would be soon in his hands again. On a sea, calm like 
 a millpond, a heavy smooth ripple undulated and 
 streamed away from her bows, for the powerful Neptun 
 was towing at great speed, as if for a wager. The 
 Dutch gunner appeared on the forecastle of the Bonito, 
 and with him a couple of men. They stood looking at 
 the coast, and Jasper lost himself in a loverlike trance. 
 
 The deep-toned blast of the gunboat's steam-whistle 
 made him shudder by its unexpectedness. Slowly he 
 looked about. Swift as lightning he leaped from where 
 he stood, bounding forward along the deck. 
 
 " You will be on Tamissa reef ! " he yelled. 
 
 High up on the bridge Heemskirk looked back over 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 265 
 
 his shoulder heavily; two seamen were spinning the 
 wheel round, and the Neptun was already swinging 
 rapidly away from the edge of the pale water over the 
 danger. Ha ! Just in time. Jasper turned about in- 
 stantly to watch his brig; and, even before he realised 
 that — in obedience, it appears, to HeemskirFs or- 
 ders given beforehand to the gunner — the tow-rope 
 had been let go at the blast of the whistle, before he 
 had time to cry out or to move a limb, he saw her 
 cast adrift and shooting across the gunboat's stern 
 with the impetus of her speed. He followed her fine, 
 gliding form with eyes growing big with incredulity, 
 wild with horror. The cries on board of her came to 
 him only as a dreadful and confused murmur through 
 the loud thumping of blood in his ears, while she held 
 on. She ran upright in a terrible display of her gift 
 of speed, with an incomparable air of life and grace. 
 She ran on till the smooth level of water in front of 
 her bows seemed to sink down suddenly as if sucked 
 away; and, with a strange, violent tremor of her mast- 
 heads she stopped, inclined her lofty spars a little, and 
 lay still. She lay still on the reef, while the Neptun, 
 fetching a wide circle, continued at full speed up 
 Spermonde Passage, heading for the toT\Ti. She lay 
 still, perfectly still, with something ill-omened and un- 
 natural in her attitude. In an instant the subtle 
 melancholy of things touched by decay had fallen on 
 her in the sunshine ; she was but a speck in the brilliant 
 emptiness of space, already lonely, already desolate. 
 " Hold him ! '' yelled a voice from the bridge. 
 
266 'TWIXT LAN'D AND SEA 
 
 Jasper had started to run to his brig with a headlong 
 impulse, as a man dashes forward to pull away with 
 his hands a living, breathing, loved creature from the 
 brink of destruction. " Hold him I Stick to him ! " 
 vociferated the lieutenant at the top of the bridge- 
 ladder, while Jasper struggled madly without a word, 
 only his head emerging from the heaving crowd of the 
 Neptun's seamen, who had flung themselves upon him 
 obediently. " Hold I would not have that fel- 
 low drown himself for anything now ! " 
 
 Jasper ceased struggling. 
 
 One by one they let go of him ; they fell back gradu- 
 ally farther and farther, in attentive silence, leaving 
 him standing unsupported in a widened, clear space, 
 as if to give him plenty of room to fall after the strug- 
 gle. He did not even sway perceptibly. Half an 
 hour later, when the Neptun anchored in front of the 
 town, he had not stirred yet, had moved neither head 
 nor limb as much as a hair's breadth. Directly the 
 rumble of the gunboat's cable had ceased, Heemskirk 
 came down heavily from the bridge. 
 
 " Call a sampan," he said, in a gloomy tone, as he 
 passed the sentry at the gangway, and then moved on 
 slowly towards the spot where Jasper, the object of 
 many awed glances, stood looking at the deck, as if 
 lost in a brown study. Heemskirk came up close, and 
 stared at him thoughtfully, with his fingers over his 
 lips. Here he was, the favoured vagabond, the only 
 man to whom that infernal girl was likely to tell the 
 story. But he would not find it funny. The story how 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 267 
 
 Lieutenant Heemskirk No, he would not laugh 
 
 at it. He looked as though he would never laugh at 
 anything in his life. 
 
 Suddenly Jasper looked up. His eyes, without any 
 other expression but bewilderment, met those of Heems- 
 kirk, observant and sombre. 
 
 " Gone on the reef ! " he said, in a low, astounded 
 tone. " On — the — reef ! " he repeated still lower, 
 and as if attending inwardly to the birth of some awful 
 and amazing sensation. 
 
 " On the very top of high-water, spring tides," 
 Heemskirk struck in, with a vindictive, exulting vio- 
 lence which flashed and expired. He paused, as if 
 weary, fixing upon Jasper his arrogant eyes, over which 
 secret disenchantment, the unavoidable shadow of all 
 passion, seemed to pass like a saddening cloud. " On 
 the very top," he repeated, rousing himself in fierce 
 reaction to snatch his laced cap off his head with a 
 horizontal, derisive flourish towards the gangway. 
 " And now you may go ashore to the courts, you 
 damned Englishman ! " he said. 
 
 VI 
 
 The affair of the brig Bonito was bound to cause a 
 sensation in Makassar, the prettiest, and perhaps the 
 cleanest-looking of all the towns in the Islands; which 
 however knows few occasions for excitement. The 
 " front," with its special population, was soon aware 
 that something had happened. A steamer towing a 
 
268 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 sailing veseel had been observed far out to sea for some 
 time, and when the steamer came in alone, leaving the 
 other outside, attention was aroused. Why was that? 
 Her masts only could be seen — with furled sails 
 
 — remaining in the same place to the southward. And 
 soon the rumour ran all along the crowded seashore 
 street that there was a ship on Tamissa reef. That 
 crowd interpreted the appearance correctly. Its cause 
 was beyond their penetration, for who could associate 
 a girl nine hundred miles away with the stranding of a 
 ship on Tamissa reef, or look for the remote filiation 
 of that event in the psychology of at least three people, 
 even if one of them, Lieutenant Heemskirk, was at 
 that very moment passing amongst them on his way 
 to make his verbal report? 
 
 No ; the minds on the " front " were not competent 
 for that sort of investigation, but many hands there 
 
 — brown hands, yellow hands, white hands — were 
 raised to shade the eyes gazing out to sea. The 
 rumour spread quickly. Chinese shopkeepers came to 
 their doors, more than one white merchant, even, rose 
 from his desk to go to the window. After all, a ship 
 on Tamissa was not an everyday occurrence. And 
 presently the rumour took a more definite shape. An 
 English trader — detained on suspicion at sea by the 
 Neptun — Heemskirk was towing him in to test a case, 
 and by some strange accident 
 
 Later on the name came out. " The Bonito — what ! 
 Impossible! Yes — yes, the Bonito. Look! You 
 can see from here; only two masts. It's a brig. 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 269 
 
 Didn't think that man would ever let himself be 
 caught. Heemskirk's pretty smart, too. They say 
 she's fitted out in her cabin like a gentleman's yacht. 
 That Allen is a sort of gentleman too. An extravagant 
 beggar." 
 
 A young man entered smartly Messrs. Mesman 
 Brothers' office on the " front," bubbling vrith some 
 further information. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; that's the Bonito for certain ! But you 
 don't know the story I've heard just now. The fellow 
 must have been feeding that river with firearms for 
 the last year or two. Well, it seems he has grown so 
 reckless from long impunity that he has actually dared 
 to sell the very ship's rifles this time. It's a fact. The 
 rifles are not on board. What impudence! Only, he 
 didn't know that there was one of our warships on the 
 coast. But those Englishmen are so impudent that 
 perhaps he thought that nothing would be done to him 
 for it. Our courts do let off these fellows too often, 
 on some miserable excuse or other. But, at any rate, 
 there's an end of the famous Bonito. I have just heard 
 in the harbour-office that she must have gone on at the 
 very top of high-water; and she is in ballast, too. I^o 
 human power, they think, can move her from where 
 she is. I only hope it is so. It would be fine to have 
 the notorious Bonito stuck up there as a warning to 
 others." 
 
 Mr. J. Mesman, a colonial-born Dutchman, a kind, 
 paternal old fellow, with a clean-shaven, quiet, hand- 
 some face, and a head of fine iron-grey hair curling a 
 
270 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 little on his collar, did not say a word in defence of 
 Jasper and the Bonito, He rose from his arm-chair 
 suddenly. His face was visibly troubled. It had so 
 happened that once, from a business talk of ways and 
 means, island trade, money matters, and so on, Jasper 
 had been led to open himself to him on the subject of 
 Freya; and the excellent man, who had known old 
 Nelson years before and even remembered something 
 of Freya, was much astonished and amused by the un- 
 folding of the tale. 
 
 " Well, well, well ! Nelson ! Yes ; of course. A 
 very honest sort of man. And a little child with very 
 fair hair. Oh, yes] I have a distinct recollection. 
 And so she has grown into such a fine girl, so very 
 
 determined, so very '^ And he laughed almost 
 
 boisterously. " Mind, when you have happily eloped 
 with your future wife. Captain Allen, you must come 
 along this way, and we shall welcome her here. A 
 little fair-headed child! I remember. I remember." 
 
 It was that knowledge which had brought trouble to 
 his face at the first news of the wreck. He took up 
 his hat. 
 
 " Where are you going, Mr. Mesman ? " 
 
 " I am going to look for Allen. I think he must be 
 ashore. Does anybody know ? " 
 
 No one of those present knew. And Mr. Mesman 
 went out on the " front " to make inquiries. 
 
 The other part of the town, the part near the church 
 and the fort, got its information in another way. The 
 first thing disclosed to it was Jasper himself, walking 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 271 
 
 rapidly, as though he were pursued. And, as a matter 
 of fact, a Chinaman, obviously a sampan man, was 
 following him at the same headlong pace. Suddenly, 
 while passing Orange House, Jasper swerved and went 
 in, or, rather, rushed in, startling Gomez, the hotel 
 clerk, very much. But a Chinaman beginning to make 
 an unseemly noise at the door claimed the immediate 
 attention of Gomez. His grievance was that the white 
 man whom he had brought on shore from the gunboat 
 had not paid him his boat-fare. He had pursued him 
 so far, asking for it all the way. But the white man 
 had taken no notice whatever of his just claim. Gomez 
 satisfied the cooKe with a few coppers, and then went 
 to look for Jasper, whom he knew very well. He 
 found him standing stiffly by a little round table. At 
 the other end of the verandah a few men sitting there 
 had stopped talking, and were looking at him in silence. 
 Two billiard-players, with cues in their hands, had 
 come to the door of the billiard-room and stared, too. 
 
 On Gomez coming up to him, Jasper raised one hand 
 to point at his own throat. Gomez noted the some- 
 what soiled state of his white clothes, then took one 
 look at his face, and fled away to order the drink for 
 which Jasper seemed to be asking. 
 
 Where he wanted to go — for what purpose — where 
 he, perhaps, only imagined himself to be going, when 
 a sudden impulse or the sight of a familiar place had 
 made him turn into Orange House — it is impossible to 
 say. He was steadying himself lightly with the tips of 
 his fingers on the little table. There were on that 
 
272 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 verandah two men whom he knew well personally, but 
 his gaze roaming incessantly as though he were looking 
 for a way of escape, passed and repassed over them 
 without a sign of recognition. They, on their side, 
 looking at him, doubted the evidence of their own eyes. 
 It was not that his face was distorted. On the contrary, 
 it was still, it was set But its expression, somehow, 
 was unrecognisable. Can that be him ? they wondered 
 with awe. 
 
 In his head there was a wild chaos of clear thoughts. 
 Perfectly clear. It was this clearness which was so 
 terrible in conjunction with the utter inability to lay 
 hold of any single one of them all. He was saying to 
 himself, or to them : " Steady, steady.'' A China boy 
 appeared before him with a glass on a tray. He poured 
 the drink down his throat, and rushed out. His dis- 
 appearance removed the spell of wonder from the be- 
 holders. One of the men jumped up and moved 
 quickly to that side of the verandah from which almost 
 the whole of the roadstead could be seen. At the very 
 moment when Jasper, issuing from the door of the 
 Orange House, was passing under him in the street 
 below, he cried to the others excitedly: 
 
 " That was Allen right enough I But where is his 
 brig?" 
 
 Jasper heard these words with extraordinary loud- 
 ness. The heavens rang with them, as if calling him 
 to account ; for those were the very words Freya would 
 have to use. It was an annihilating question ; it struck 
 his consciousness like a thunderbolt and brought a 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 273 
 
 sudden night upon the chaos of his thoughts even as 
 he walked. He did not check his pace. He went on 
 in the darkness for another three strides, and then 
 fell. 
 
 The good Mesman had to push on as far as the 
 hospital before he found him. The doctor there talked 
 of a slight heatstroke. Nothing very much. Out in 
 three days. ... It must be admitted that the doctor 
 was right. In three days, Jasper Allen came out of 
 the hospital and became visible to the to\vn — very 
 visible indeed — and remained so for quite a long time ; 
 long enough to become almost one of the sights of the 
 place ; long enough to become disregarded at last ; long 
 enough for the tale of his haunting visibility to be re- 
 membered in the islands to this day. 
 
 The talk on the " front " and Jasper's appearance in 
 the Orange House stand at the beginning of the fa- 
 mous Bonito case, and give a view of its two aspects 
 — the practical and the psychological. The case for 
 the courts and the case for compassion; that last ter- 
 ribly evident and yet obscure. 
 
 It has, you must understand, remained obscure even 
 for that friend of mine who wrote me the letter men- 
 tioned in the very first lines of this narrative. He 
 was one of those in Mr. Mesman's office, and accom- 
 panied that gentleman in his search for Jasper. His 
 letter described to me the two aspects and some of the 
 episodes of the case. Heemskirk's attitude was that of 
 deep thankfulness for not having lost his own ship, and 
 that was all. Haze over the land was his explanation 
 
274 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 of having got so close to Tamissa reef. He saved his 
 ship, and for the rest he did not care. As to the fat 
 gunner, he deposed simply that he thought at the time 
 that he was acting for the best by letting go the tow- 
 rope, but admitted that he was greatly confused by 
 the suddenness of the emergency. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he had acted on very precise 
 instructions from Heemskirk, to whom through sev- 
 eral years' service together in the East he had become 
 a sort of devoted henchman. What was most amazing 
 in the detention of the BonUo was his story how, pro- 
 ceeding to take possession of the firearms as ordered, 
 he discovered that there were no firearms on board. 
 All he found in the fore-cabin was an empty rack for 
 the proper number of eighteen rifles, but of the rifles 
 themselves never a single one any^vhere in the ship. 
 The mate of the brig, who looked rather ill and behaved 
 excitedly, as though he were perhaps a lunatic, wanted 
 him to believe that Captain Allen knew nothing of 
 this; that it was he, the mate, who had recently sold 
 these rifles in the dead of night to a certain person up 
 the river. In proof of this story he produced a bag of 
 silver dollars and pressed it on his, the gunner's, 
 acceptance. Then, suddenly flinging it down on the 
 deck, he beat his own head with both his fists and 
 started heaping shocking curses upon his own soul for 
 an ungrateful wretch not fit to live. 
 
 All this the gunner reported at once to his com- 
 manding officer. 
 
 What Heemskirk intended by taking upon himself to 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 275 
 
 detain the Bonito it is difficult to say, except that he 
 meant to bring some trouble into the life of the man 
 favoured by Freya. He had been looking at Jasper 
 with a desire to strike that man of kisses and embraces 
 to the earth. The question was: How could he do it 
 without giving himself away? But the report of the 
 gunner created a serious case enough. Yet Allen had 
 friends — and who could tell whether he wouldn't some- 
 how succeed in wriggling out of it ? The idea of simply 
 towing the brig so much compromised on to the reef 
 came to him while he was listening to the fat gunner 
 in his cabin. There was but little risk of being dis- 
 approved now. And it should be made to appear an 
 accident. 
 
 Going out on deck he had gloated upon his un- 
 conscious victim with such a sinister roll of his eyes, 
 such a queerly pursed mouth, that Jasper could not 
 help smiling. And the lieutenant had gone on the 
 bridge, saying to himself: 
 
 " You wait ! I shall spoil the taste of those sweet 
 kisses for you. When you hear of Lieutenant Heems- 
 kirk in the future that name won't bring a smile on 
 your lips, I swear. You are delivered into my hands." 
 
 And this possibility had come about without any 
 planning, one could almost say naturally, as if events 
 had mysteriously shaped themselves to fit the purposes 
 of a dark passion. The most astute scheming could 
 not have served Heemskirk better. It was given to 
 him to taste a transcendental, an incredible perfection 
 of vengeance; to strike a deadly blow into that hated 
 
276 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 person's heart, and to watch him afterwards walking 
 about with the dagger in his breast. 
 
 For that is what the state of Jasper amounted to. 
 He moved, acted, weary-eyed, keen-faced, lank and 
 restless, with brusque movements and fierce gestures; 
 he talked incessantly in a frenzied and fatigued voice, 
 but within himself he knew that nothing would ever 
 give him back the brig, just as nothing can heal a 
 pierced heart. His soul, kept quiet in the stress of 
 love by the unflinching Freya's influence, was like a 
 still but overwound string. The shock had started 
 it vibrating, and the string had snapped. He had 
 waited for two years in a perfectly intoxicated con- 
 fidence for a day that now would never come to a 
 man disarmed for life by the loss of the brig, and, it 
 seemed to him, made unfit for love to which he had no 
 foothold to offer. 
 
 Day after day he would traverse the length of the 
 town, follow the coast, and, reaching the point of land 
 opposite that part of the reef on which his brig lay 
 stranded, look steadily across the water at her beloved 
 form, once the home of an exulting hope, and now, in 
 her inclined, desolated immobility, towering above the 
 lonely sea-horizon, a symbol of despair. 
 
 The crew had left her in due course in her own boats 
 which directly they reached the town were sequestrated 
 by the harbour authorities. The vessel, too, was 
 sequestrated pending proceedings; but these same au- 
 thorities did not take the trouble to set a guard on 
 board. For, indeed, what could move her from there? 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 277 
 
 Nothing, unless a miracle; nothing, unless Jasper's 
 eyes, fastened on her tensely for hours together, as 
 though he hoped by the mere power of vision to draw 
 her to his breast. 
 
 All this story, read in my friend's very chatty letter, 
 dismayed me not a little. But it was really appal- 
 ling to read his relation of how Schultz, the mate, 
 went about everywhere affirming with desperate per- 
 tinacity that it was he alone who had sold the rifles. 
 " I stole them/' he protested. Of course, no one would 
 believe him. My friend himself did not believe him, 
 though he, of course, admired this self-sacrifice. But a 
 good many people thought it was going too far to make 
 oneself out a thief for the sake of a friend. Only, it 
 was such an obvious lie, too, that it did not matter, 
 perhaps. 
 
 I, who, in view of Schultz's psychology, knew how 
 true that must be, admit that I was appalled. So this 
 was how a perfidious destiny took advantage of a gen- 
 erous impulse! And I felt as though I were an ac- 
 complice in this perfidy, since I did to a certain ex- 
 tent encourage Jasper. Yet I had warned him as 
 well. 
 
 " The man seemed to have gone crazy on this point," 
 wrote my friend. " He went to Mesman with his 
 story. He says that some rascally white man living 
 amongst the natives up that river made him drunk with 
 some gin one evening, and then jeered at him for never 
 having any money. Then he, protesting to us that he 
 was an honest man and must be believed, described 
 
278 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 himself as being a thief whenever he took a drop too 
 much, and told us that he went on board and passed the 
 rifles one by one without the slightest compunction to a 
 canoe which came alongside that night, receiving ten 
 dollars apiece for them. 
 
 " Next day he was ill with shame and grief, but 
 had not the courage to confess his lapse to his bene- 
 factor. When the gunboat stopped the brig he felt 
 ready to die with the apprehension of the consequences, 
 and w^ould have died happily, if he could have been 
 able to bring the rifles back by the sacrifice of his life. 
 He said nothing to Jasper, hoping that the brig would 
 be released presently. When it turned out otherwise 
 and his captain was detained on board the gunboat, 
 he was ready to commit suicide from despair; only he 
 thought it his duty to live in order to let the truth be 
 known. * I am an honest man ! I am an honest man ! ' 
 he repeated, in a voice that brought tears to our eyes. 
 * You must believe me when I tell you that I am a 
 thief — a vile, low, cunning, sneaking thief as soon as 
 I've had a glass or two. Take me somewhere where I 
 may tell the truth on oath.' 
 
 " When we had at last convinced him that his story 
 could be of no use to Jasper — for what Dutch court, 
 having once got hold of an English trader, would ac- 
 cept such an explanation; and, indeed, how, when, 
 where could one hope to find proofs of such a tale ? — 
 he made as if to tear his hair in handfuls, but, calming 
 down, said : ' Good-bye, then, gentlemen,' and went out 
 of the room so crushed that he seemed hardly able to 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVE:N^ ISLES 279 
 
 put one foot before the other. That very night he com- 
 mitted suicide by cutting his throat in the house of a 
 half-caste with whom he had been lodging since he came 
 ashore from the wreck." 
 
 That throat, I thought with a shudder, which could 
 produce the tender, persuasive, manly, but fascinating 
 voice which had aroused Jasper's ready compassion and 
 had secured Freya's sympathy! Who could ever have 
 supposed such an end in store for the impossible, gentle 
 Schultz, with his idosyncrasy of naive pilfering, so 
 absurdly straightforward that, even in the people who 
 had suffered from it, it aroused nothing more than a 
 sort of amused exasperation ? He was really impos- 
 sible. His lot evidently should have been a half- 
 starved, mysterious, but by no means tragic existence 
 as a mild-eyed, inoffensive beachcomber on the fringe 
 of native life. There are occasions when the irony of 
 fate, which some people profess to discover in the work- 
 ing out of our lives, wears the aspect of crude and sav- 
 age jesting. 
 
 I shook my head over the manes of Schultz, and went 
 on with my friend's letter. It told me how the brig 
 on the reef, looted by the natives from the coast vil- 
 lages, acquired gradually the lamentable aspect, the 
 grey ghostliness of a wreck ; while Jasper, fading daily 
 into a mere shadow of a man, strode brusquely all along 
 the " front " with horribly lively eyes and a faint, fixed 
 smile on his lips, to spend the day on a lonely spit of 
 sand looking eagerly at her, as though he had expected 
 some shape on board to rise up and make some sort of 
 
280 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 sign to him over the decaying bulwarks. The Mesmans 
 were taking care of him as far as it was possible. The 
 Bonito case had been referred to Batavia, where no 
 doubt it would fade away in a fog of official papers. 
 ... It was heartrending to read all this. That ac- 
 tive and zealous officer, Lieutenant Heemskirk, his air 
 of sullen, darkly-pained self-importance not lightened 
 by the approval of his action conveyed to him unoffi- 
 cially, had gone on to take up his station in the 
 Moluccas. ... 
 
 Then, at the end of the bulky, kindly-meant epistle, 
 dealing with the island news of half a year at least, my 
 friend wrote: "A couple of months ago old Nelson 
 turned up here, arriving by the mail-boat from Java. 
 Came to see Mesman, it seems. A rather mysterious 
 visit, and extraordinarily short, after coming all that 
 way. He stayed just four days at the Orange House, 
 with apparently nothing in particular to do, and then 
 caught the south-going steamer for the Straits. I re- 
 member people saying at one time that Allen was 
 rather sw^eet on old Nelson's daughter, the girl that 
 was brought up by Mrs. Harley and then went to live 
 with him at the Seven Isles group. Surely you remem- 
 ber old Nelson " 
 
 Eemember old Nelson! Rather I 
 
 The letter went on to inform me further that old 
 Nelson, at least, remembered me, since some time after 
 his flying visit to Makassar he had v^rritten to the Mes- 
 mans asking for my address in London. 
 
 That old Nelson (or Nielsen), the note of whose 
 
FREYA OF THE SEVEK ISLES 281 
 
 personality was a profound, echoless irresponsiveness 
 to everything around him, should wish to write, or find 
 anything to write about to anybody, was in itself a 
 cause for no small wonder. And to me, of all people ! 
 I waited with uneasy impatience for whatever dis- 
 closure could come from that naturally benighted in- 
 telligence, but my impatience had time to wear out 
 before my eyes beheld old IJTelson's trembling, pain- 
 fully-formed handwriting, senile and childish at the 
 same time, on an envelope bearing a penny stamp and 
 the postal mark of the ^N'otting Hill offica I delayed 
 opening it in order to pay the tribute of astonishment 
 due to the event by flinging my hands above my head. 
 So he had come home to England, to be definitely 
 Nelson; or else was on his way home to Denmark, 
 where he would revert for ever to his original Nielsen ! 
 But old Nelson (or Nielsen) out of the tropics seemed 
 unthinkable. And yet he was there, asking me to 
 call. 
 
 His address was at a boarding-house in one of those 
 Bayswater squares, once of leisure, which nowadays are 
 reduced to earning their living. Somebody had rec- 
 ommended him there. I started to call on him on one 
 of those January days in London, one of those wintry 
 days composed of the four devilisb elements, cold, wet, 
 mud, and grime, combined with a particular stickiness 
 of atmosphere that clings like an unclean garment to 
 one's very soul. Yet on approaching his abode I saw, 
 like a flicker far behind the soiled veil of the four ele- 
 ments, the wearisome and splendid glitter of a blue 
 
282 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 sea with the Seven Islets like minute specks swimming 
 in my eye, the high red roof of the bungalow crowning 
 the very smallest of them all. This visual reminis- 
 cence was profoundly disturbing. I knocked at the 
 door with a faltering hand. 
 
 Old Nelson (or Nielsen) got up from the table at 
 which he was sitting with a shabby pocket-book full 
 of papers before him. He took off his spectacles before 
 shaking hands. For a moment neither of us said a 
 word; then, noticing me looking round somewhat ex- 
 pectantly, he murmured some words, of which I caught 
 only " daughter " and " Hong Kong," cast his eyes 
 down, and sighed. 
 
 His moustache, sticking all ways out, as of yore, was 
 quite white now. His old cheeks were softly rounded, 
 with some colour in them ; strangely enough, that some- 
 thing childlike always noticeable in the general con- 
 tour of his physiognomy had become much more 
 marked. Like his handwriting, he looked childish and 
 senile. He showed his age most in his unintelligently 
 furrowed, anxious forehead and in his round, innocent 
 eyes, which appeared to me weak and blinking and 
 watery ; or was it that they were full of tears ? . . . 
 
 To discover old Nelson fully informed upon any 
 matter whatever was a new experience. And after the 
 first awkwardness had worn off he talked freely, with, 
 now and then, a question to start him going whenever he 
 lapsed into silence, which he would do suddenly, clasp- 
 ing his hands on his waistcoat in an attitude which 
 
TREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 283 
 
 would recall to me the east verandah, where he used 
 to sit talking quietly and puffing out his cheeks in what 
 seemed now old, very old days. He talked in a rea- 
 sonable, somewhat anxious tone. 
 
 " 'No, no. We did not know anything for weeks. 
 Out of the way like that, we couldn't, of course. No 
 mail service to the Seven Isles. But one day I ran 
 over to Banka in my big sailing-boat to see whether 
 there were any letters, and saw a Dutch paper. But it 
 looked only like a bit of marine news: English brig 
 Bonito gone ashore outside Makassar roads. That was 
 all. I took the paper home with me and showed it to 
 her. * I will never forgive him ! ' she cries with her 
 old spirit. ^ My dear,' I said, ' you are a sensible girl. 
 The best man may lose a ship. But what about your 
 health ? ' I was beginning to be frightened at her 
 looks. She would not let me talk even of going to 
 Singapore before. But, really, such a sensible girl 
 couldn't keep on objecting for ever. ^ Do what you 
 like, papa,' she says. Rather a job, that. Had to 
 catch a steamer at sea, but I got her over all right. 
 There, doctors, of course. Eever. Anaemia. Put her 
 to bed. Two or three women very kind to her. Nat- 
 urally in our papers the whole story came out before 
 long. She reads it to the end, lying on the couch; 
 then hands the newspaper back to me, whispers * Heems- 
 kirk,' and goes off into a faint." 
 
 He blinked at me for quite a long time, his eyes 
 running full of tears again. 
 
284 'TWIXT LAOT) AND SEA 
 
 " 'Rext day," he began, without any emotion in his 
 voice, "she felt stronger, and we had a long talk. 
 She told me everything." 
 
 Here old Nelson, with his eyes cast down, gave me 
 the whole story of the Heemskirk episode in Freya's 
 words; then went on in his rather jerky utterance, 
 and looking up innocently : 
 
 " ' My dear,' I said, ' you have behaved in the main 
 like a sensible girl.' * I have been horrid,' she cries, 
 * and he is breaking his heart over there.' Well, she 
 was too sensible not to see she wasn't in a state to 
 travel. But I went. She told me to go. She was 
 being looked after very well. Anaemia. Getting bet- 
 ter, they said." 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " You did see him ? " I murmured. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I did see him," he started again, talking 
 in that reasonable voice as though he were arguing a 
 point. " I did see him. I came upon him. Eyes 
 sunk an inch into his head; nothing but skin on the 
 bones of his face, a skeleton in dirty white clothes. 
 That's what he looked like. How Freya . . . But 
 she never did — not really. He was sitting there, the 
 only live thing for miles along that coast, on a drift- 
 log washed up on the shore. They had clipped his hair 
 in the hospital, and it had not grown again. He stared, 
 holding his chin in his hand, and with nothing on the 
 sea between him and the sky but that wreck. When 
 I came up to him he just moved his head a bit. ' Is 
 that you, old man ? ' says he — like that 
 
FKEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 285 
 
 " If you had seen him you would have understood 
 at once how impossible it was for Freya to have ever 
 loved that man. Well, well. I don't say. She might 
 have — something. She was lonely, you know. But 
 really to go away with him ! Kever ! Madness, She 
 was too sensible ... I began to reproach him gently. 
 And by and by he turns on me. ' Write to you ! What 
 about ? Come to her ! What with ? If I had been a 
 man I would have carried her off, but she made a child, 
 a happy child, of me. Tell her that the day the only 
 thing I had belonging to me in the world perished on 
 this reef I discovered that I had no power over her. 
 . . . Has she come here with you ? ' he shouts, blazing 
 at me suddenly with his hollow eyes. I shook my 
 head. Come with me, indeed ! Ansemia ! ' Aha ! 
 You see ? Go away, then, old man, and leave me alone 
 here with that ghost,' he says, jerking his head at the 
 wreck of his brig. 
 
 " Mad ! It was getting dusk. I did not care to 
 stop any longer all by myself with that man in that 
 lonely place. I was not going to tell him of Ereya's 
 illness. Anaemia ! What was the good ? Mad ! And 
 what sort of husband would he have made, anyhow, 
 for a sensible girl like Freya? Why, even my little 
 property I could not have left them. The Dutch au- 
 thorities would never have allowed an Englishman to 
 settle there. It was not sold then. My man Mahmat, 
 you know, was looking after it for me. Later on I let 
 it go for a tenth of its value to a Dutch half-caste. But 
 never mind. It was nothing to me then. Yes ; I went 
 
286 'TWIXT LAND AND SEA 
 
 away from him. I caught the return mail-boat. I 
 told everything to Freya. ' He's mad,' I said ; ^ and, 
 my dear, the only thing he loved was his brig.' 
 
 " ^ Perhaps/ she says to herself, looking straight 
 away — her eyes were nearly as hollow as his — ^ per- 
 haps it is true. Yes! I would never allow him any 
 power over me.' " 
 
 Old Nelson paused. I sat fascinated, and feeling a 
 little cold in that room with a blazing fire. 
 
 " So you see," he continued, " she never really cared 
 for him. Much too sensible. I took her away to 
 Hong Kong. Change of climate, they said. Oh, these 
 doctors! My God! Winter time! There came .ten 
 days of cold mists and wind and rain. Pneumonia. 
 But look here! We talked a lot together. Days and 
 evenings. Who else had she? . . . She talked a lot 
 to me, my own girl. Sometimes she would laugh a 
 little. Look at me and laugh a little " 
 
 I shuddered. He looked up vaguely, with a childish, 
 puzzled moodiness. 
 
 " She would say : * I did not really mean to be a bad 
 daughter to you, papa.' And I would say : * Of course, 
 my dear. You could not have meant it.' She would 
 lie quiet and then say : * I wonder ? ' And sometimes, 
 ' I've been really a coward,' she would tell me. You 
 know, sick people they say things. And so she would 
 say too ; * I've been conceited, headstrong, capricious. 
 I sought my own gratification. I was selfish or afraid.' 
 . . . But sick people, you know, they say anything. 
 And once, after lying silent almost all day, she said: 
 
FEEYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES 287 
 
 'Yes; perhaps, when the day came I would not have 
 gone. Perhaps ! I don't know/ she cried. * Draw 
 the curtain, papa. Shut the sea out. It reproaches me 
 with my folly.' " He gasped and paused. 
 
 " So you see," he went on in a murmur. " Very ill, 
 very ill indeed. Pneumonia. Very sudden." He 
 pointed his finger at the carpet, while the thought of 
 the poor girl, vanquished in her struggle with three 
 men's absurdities, and coming at last to doubt her own 
 self, held me in a very anguish of pity. 
 
 " You see yourself," he began again in a downcast 
 manner. " She could not have really . . . She men- 
 tioned you several times. Good friend. Sensible man. 
 So I wanted to tell you myself — let you know the 
 truth. A fellow like that! How could it be? She 
 was lonely. And perhaps for a while . . . Mere noth- 
 ing. There could never have been a question of love 
 for my Freya — such a sensible girl " 
 
 " Man ! " I cried, rising upon him wrathfully, " don't 
 you see that she died of it ? " 
 
 He got up too. " !N'o ! no ! " he stammered, as if 
 angry. " The doctors ! Pneumonia. Low state. 
 The inflammation of the . . . They told me. 
 Pneu " 
 
 He did not finish the word. It ended in a sob. He 
 flung his arms out in a gesture of despair, giving up 
 his ghastly pretence with a low, heartrending cry: 
 
 " And I thought that she was so sensible ! " 
 
 THE END