“I didn’t say nuthin’ of the sort,” said Jim. “I said Gord A’mighty had given it teeth to chaw with, and you fillin’ it up with pap like that, that’s what I said and that’s what I sticks to.”
“Then what were you sayin’ about goats?” fired Bowers. “Where’s the chawin’ to be done with goat’s milk—”
“Goats, nuthin’! I was talkin’ of Kanakas feedin’ their young uns on goat’s milk. Can’t a man talk without bein’ took up and havin’ his words shoved down his throat?”
“I ain’t shovin’ no words down no throats,” replied the bo’sun, lighting his pipe, “and we’ll leave it there. Bill, ain’t you goin’ to get that ridin’ light fixed?” He stumped forward and the discussion dropped, but the tension remained. Then, as the anchor light cast its amber on the waving lagoon water and the moon was raising her forehead across the reef, a hail came from the shore.
Lestrange and Stanistreet had returned, taking their way along the lagoon bank. The boat put off to their hail, and they came on board.
After supper, and on the moonlit deck, the captain of the Ranatonga went back to the subject they had been discussing on their way to the ship.
“No, sir,” said he. “I don’t like it and nothing will make me like it, sailing off like that and leaving you here. I’m talking as man to man, and you’re not as young as you were. Well, I’ve said my say, and as I was saying on the beach there, I’m willing to take your orders up to a point, and that point is leaving some one with you. Bowers I can’t part with, so it must be one of the others. Question is, which?”
“But what is to harm me?” said Lestrange. “You see a man who only craves for solitude. It is true I am not as young as I was, but I am active and, as you know, I have the simplest tastes. I can get my food without trouble here where there is food on every hand. Before going on that voyage years ago, when the consumption first threatened me, I camped out all alone away in the Adirondacks and kept myself with a gun and a rod. I am more vigorous now than then.”
“Well, sir,” said the sailor, “it’s just myself I’m thinking of. You say I’m to come back in a year, but I wouldn’t have any peace of mind till then, and a year’s a long time.”
“Well, be it so,” said the other, “leave me one of your sailors; after all, these honest fellows are more like children than men, and I would prefer one of them to any other companion—if companion I must have.”
Stanistreet smiled as he mentally reviewed “those honest fellows.” All the same, it was a fo’c’sle tough or nothing, and he had gained his point. Besides, in the depths of his mind he felt that the innocence of Lestrange had touched something of the truth; the worst of those rascals had the salt of the sea on him, and the question was, would any of them remain? Bowers would—he felt that—but he could not run the schooner without him.
He let the question be whilst they discussed other matters. Lestrange, knowing his man and trusting him implicitly, was giving him very wide powers over his affairs. Most of his money was in real estate, and his bankers and lawyers had things in hand, but Stanistreet would have power to draw what money he wanted for the return trip, and he was to receive a salary for the year, or until he left Lestrange’s service, twice the amount of what he was now receiving.
They talked till the moon far above them was preparing to cross the hill-top. The wind had fallen dead and the lagoon water lay still as glass. Under the moonlight the trooping trees, the salt-white beach and the far reef lay clearly visible, as by day, yet ghostly, bathed in the light of dreamland—which is the light of memory.
Stanistreet, when the other had gone below, leaned on the rail, looking at the picture before him. The Garden of God. Yes, if any spot on earth deserved that sacred name, it was this, where sin was not, nor cruelty, nor visible sign of death.
As he gazed, his eyes were drawn to something pale and phosphorescent moving swiftly through the water astern; it vanished, and then across the moon track hinted of itself again in the form of something dark and rapidly moving that passed, leaving a ripple on the glittering surface.
CHAPTER VIII
SUNSET
Morning was coming into the lagoon, where a nautilus fleet was putting out on the land wind that breezed the sea to broken gold.
The tide was at half-full and the Ranatonga, swinging to it, showed a ripple at her stern and a ripple where the anchor chain broke the luminous blue of the water.
On the sunlit deck Stanistreet, with his back to some fellows who were cleaning brass-work, was talking to Bowers. He had explained the position, and the bo’sun, as he had expected, was ready, though not very willing, to stay.
“I’m not botherin’ about myself so much as the gentleman,” said Bowers. “If he’s fixed on staying, well, there’s no more to be said, but supposin’ he took sick—and it isn’t as if his mind was as right as it might be—then there’s the kid.”
“I know—I know—” replied the other. “It’s crazy—but there’s some sense in it all the same. His mind is sick, but he’s happy here; if he went back to Frisco wouldn’t he always be troubling over these children? He doesn’t trouble here—I’ve lain awake half the night thinking it out. I can’t leave you, can’t run the old hooker without you, unless”—he paused for a moment and looked over the water—“unless none of the others will take the job on—which is the most likely of them, do you think?”
“Well, sir,” said the bo’sun, “they’re a tough lot, but there’s no harm among them. Jim’s the ablest and he’s took a fancy to the kid, but God help it if he ever had the handlin’ of it; wanted to give it a chunk of beef when you were off the ship yesterday—no sense in his head. But, whether or no, he wouldn’t stop, he’s a long sight too fond of his pleasures ashore.”
“Well, I’ll get the chaps aft and put it to them,” said Stanistreet. “Tell Jenkins to hurry along with the breakfast, and we’ll muster them then.”
An hour later, led by Bowers, they came trooping aft, a coloured crowd in striped shirts or plain, open at the chest, canvas breeches, and not a shoe amongst them. One fellow had a red handkerchief tied round his head, Spanish fashion, and several wore the big buckled belts seen now only in the pictures adorning pirate stories and in melodrama.
They shuffled along, halted, swayed uneasily and then stood whilst Bowers ran them over with his eye as if counting them.
The fellow by the starboard rail sent a squirt of tobacco juice overside and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand apologetically whilst Stanistreet, who had been standing talking to Lestrange, wheeled on them.
“Got them all here, Bowers?” said the captain of the Ranatonga. “Good. Now, you chaps, I’ve called you aft just to have a word with you. It’s soon said. Mr. Lestrange here is staying behind on the island for his health, him and the child. I’m taking the ship back to port, and I want a man to stick here with him till my return.
“I want a chap to sign up for a year on this job, double pay and fifty dollars bonus when the time’s up. That’s good pay, but I’m not deceiving you; there’ll be no drink or strikes for the fellow that takes the job on, but he’ll have a good time. You all know Mr. Lestrange, and you can see for yourself what the island is like, plenty of grub, fishing, and nothing to do. Now then, step aft, one of you.”
Dead silence, and eyes cast everywhere but at the after-guard.
“Lots of time,” said Stanistreet. “Get a bit more forward and talk