“To my mind, the most interesting persons on the ship,” said Clovelly at last, “are the bookmaker, Miss Treherne, and the lady with whom you have just been talking—an exceptional type.”
“An unusual woman, I fancy,” was my reply. “But which is Miss Treherne? I am afraid I am not quite sure.”
He described her and her father, with whom I had talked—a London Q.C., travelling for his health, a notable man with a taste for science, who spent his idle hours in reading astronomy and the plays of Euripides.
“Why not include the father in the list of the most interesting persons?” I questioned.
“Because I have met many men like him, but no one quite like his daughter, or Mrs.—what is her name?”
“Mrs. Falchion.”
“Or Mrs. Falchion or the bookmaker.”
“What is there so uncommon about Miss Treherne? She had not struck me as being remarkable.”
“No? Well, of course, she is not striking after the fashion of Mrs. Falchion. But watch her, study her, and you will find her to be the perfection of a type—the finest expression of a decorous convention, a perfect product of social conservatism; unaffected, cheerful, sensitive, composed, very talented, altogether companionable.”
“Excuse me,” I said, laughing, though I was impressed; “that sounds as if you had been writing about her, and applying to her the novelist’s system of analysis, which makes an imperfect individual a perfect type. Now, frankly, are you speaking of Miss Treherne, or of some one of whom she is the outline, as it were?”
Clovelly turned and looked at me steadily. “When you consider a patient,” he said, “do you arrange a diagnosis of a type or of a person?—And, by the way, ‘type’ is a priggish word.”
“I consider the type in connection with the person.”
“Exactly. The person is the thing. That clears up the matter of business and art. But now, as to Miss Treherne: I want to say that, having been admitted to her acquaintance and that of her father, I have thought of them only as friends, and not as ‘characters’ or ‘copy.’ ”
“I beg your pardon, Clovelly,” said I. “I might have known.”
“Now, to prove how magnanimous I am, I shall introduce you to Miss Treherne, if you will let me. You’ve met her father, I suppose?” he added, and tossed his cigar overboard.
“Yes, I have talked with him. He is a courteous and able man, I should think.”
We rose. Presently he continued: “See, Miss Treherne is sitting there with the Tasmanian widow—what is HER name?”
“Mrs. Callendar,” I replied. “Blackburn, the Queenslander, is joining them.”
“So much the better,” he said. “Come on.”
As we passed the music saloon, we paused for an instant to look through the port-hole at a pale-faced girl with big eyes and a wonderful bright red dress, singing “The Angels’ Serenade,” while an excitable bear-leader turned her music for her. Near her stood a lanky girl who adored actors and tenors, and lived in the hope of meeting some of those gentlemen of the footlights, who plough their way so calmly through the hearts of maidens fresh from school.
We drew back to go on towards Miss Treherne, when Hungerford touched me on the arm, and said: “I want to see you for a little while, Marmion, if Mr. Clovelly will excuse you.”
I saw by Hungerford’s face that he had something of importance to say, and, linking my arm in his, I went with him to his cabin, which was near those of the intermediate passengers.
CHAPTER III. A TALE OF NO MAN’S SEA
Inside the cabin Hungerford closed the door, gripped me by the arm, and then handed me a cheroot, with the remark: “My pater gave them to me last voyage home. Have kept ’em in tea.” And then he added, with no appearance of consecutiveness: “Hang the bally ship, anyhow!”
I shall not attempt to tone down the crudeness of Hungerford’s language. It contents me to think that the solidity of his character and his worth will appear even through the crust of free-and-easy idioms, as they will certainly be seen in his acts;—he was sound at heart and true as steel.
“What is the matter, Hungerford?” I asked lighting the cheroot.
“Everything’s the matter. Captain, with his nose in the air, and trusting all round to his officers. First officer, no good—never any use since they poured the coal on him. Purser, ought to be on a Chinese junk. Second, third, fourth officers, first-rate chaps, but so-so sailors. Doctor, frivolling with a lovely filly, pedigree not known. Why, confound it! nobody takes this business seriously except the captain, and he sits on a golden throne. He doesn’t know that in any real danger this swagger craft would be filled with foolishness. There isn’t more than one good boat’s crew on board—sailors, lascars, stewards, and all. As for the officers, if the surgeon would leave the lovely ladies to themselves, he’d find cases worth treating, and duties worth doing. He should keep himself fit for shocks. And he can take my word for it—for I’ve been at sea since I was a kid, worse luck!—that a man with anything to do on a ship ought to travel every day nose out for shipwreck next day, and so on, port to port. Ship-surgeons, as well as all other officers, weren’t ordained to follow after cambric skirts and lace handkerchiefs at sea. Believe me or not as you like, but, for a man having work to do, woman, lovely woman, is rocks. Now, I suppose you’ll think I’m insolent, for I’m younger than you are, Marmion, but you know what a rough-and-tumble fellow I am, and you’ll not mind.”
“Well, Hungerford,” I said, “to what does this lead?”
“To Number 116 Intermediate, for one thing. It’s letting off steam for another. I tell you, Marmion, these big ships are too big. There are those canvas boats. They won’t work; you can’t get them together. You couldn’t launch one in an hour. And as for the use of the others, the lascars would melt like snow in any real danger. There’s about one decent boat’s crew on the ship, that’s all. There! I’ve unburdened myself; I feel better.”
Presently he added, with a shake of the head: “See here: now-a-days we trust too much to machinery and chance, and not enough to skill of hand and brain stuff. I’d like to show you some of the crews I’ve had in the Pacific and the China Sea—but I’m at it again! I’ll now come, Marmion, to the real reason why I brought you here. … Number 116 Intermediate is under the weather; I found him fainting in the passage. I helped him into his cabin. He said he’d been to you to get medicine, and you’d given him some. Now, the strange part of the business is, I know him. He didn’t remember me, however—perhaps because he didn’t get a good look at me. Coincidence is a strange thing. I can point to a dozen in my short life, every one as remarkable, if not as startling, as this. Here, I’ll spin you a yarn:
“It happened four years ago. I had no moustache then, was fat like a whale, and first mate on the ‘Dancing Kate’, a pearler in the Indian Ocean, between Java and Australia. That was sailing, mind you—real seamanship, no bally nonsense; a fight every weather, interesting all round. If it wasn’t a deadly calm, it was a typhoon; if it wasn’t either, it was want of food and water. I’ve seen us with pearls on board worth a thousand quid, and not a drop of water nor three square meals in the caboose. But that was life for men and not Miss Nancys. If they weren’t saints, they were sailors, afraid of nothing but God Almighty—and they do respect Him, even when they curse