II
A fortnight later the Suwannee was steaming across the sapphire Gulf. Before her bow flying-fish skittered and splashed like flights of shrapnel bullets, on deck sailors were stretching awnings fore and aft, and wind-sails bellied in the open hatches. Men in flannels and women in trim, white freshness leaned along the rail and watched the sparkling play of color overside. There was the air of a yachting cruise in these pleasant aspects of the day's routine, yet the season was the dead of winter, and the Suwannee was hurrying as fast as twin screws could drive her toward bitter latitudes.
On the bridge walked to and fro, with a slightly limping gait, a man of an unusual presence. Those who looked up at him from the deck noted his uncommon height and breadth, and the white beard that swept almost to his waist. Nearer vision was needed to know the seamed yet mobile face, and the gray eye that held an eager light as of strong emotions continually burning. When he halted to speak to his first officer, his voice was sweet and vibrant:
"I am going below for a little while, Mr. Parlin. Call me when you've run down your course."
Captain Kendrick went into his room just abaft the wheelhouse, and picked up from his desk a typewritten letter that showed marks of much handling. He read it slowly, and his lip quivered as it had done with each of many previous readings. Seating himself upon the edge of the couch, he said aloud little fragments of the letter, taken here and there without sequence:
"Astonishing behavior ... guilty of annoyance ... serious complaints ... ridiculous religious display ... prime of usefulness past ... evidently ripe for retirement...."
The letter fell to the floor unheeded, as there came into his eyes a look of impassioned intensity that was focused ever so far beyond the walls of this little sea-cabin. He was on his knees and his head was in his hands as he murmured:
"Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.... Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters.... I said I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked are before me. But it is also written that evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and He shall hear my voice.... They have prepared a net for my steps, my heart is bowed down.... But Thou hast a mighty arm, strong is Thy hand and high is Thy right hand...."
While Captain Kendrick was voicing his troubles and his consolations in words wondrously framed by another strong man long ago, the purser of the Suwannee was sought out by Arthur Valentine, whose manner held a trace of uneasiness. He would not have confessed it, but far back in the young ship-owner's head was the glimmering notion that a terrier might be snapping at a mastiff. Was this imposing figure on the bridge the "dottering ass" to whom he had smartly dashed off his first official reprimand, gloating in the chance to test the sweep of his new authority? But this suspicion now shaped itself only in a growing fear lest he be discovered in such uncomfortably close quarters with Captain Jesse Kendrick. Mr. Valentine closed the door of the purser's room and set that worthy officer's teeth on edge by remarking:
"Fine morning. I say, you needn't bother to make any special point of seating me at the captain's table. Fact is, I don't want to be bored. Just put me over at your table, will you? And please tell nobody who I am. I want to look around a bit. The captain doesn't know that I'm on board, I take it, or he would have been showing me some troublesome attentions. So you need say nothing to him about it. Just see that my name is rubbed off his copy of the passenger list."
The purser disentangled himself from a staggering heap of cargo manifests, and emphasized his reply with a wave of an inky finger:
"All right, Mr. Valentine, if those are your orders, but you miss your guess if you think our skipper is going to run after you or any other passenger. He ain't that kind. But sub rosy you go and as far as you like, till further notice."
Slightly ruffled, Mr. Valentine sauntered on deck, where he fell in with Second-Officer Peter Carr, who proved to be contrastingly voluble and cheerful. Before the passenger could ask certain questions that were in his mind, Mr. Carr flourished an arm seaward, and began:
"Passin' that bark yonder reminds me of a voyage I sailed as bos'n in the old packet Guiding Star, out o' Liverpool for Sydney. We was carryin' two hundred Irish girls as immygrants, an' soon after we crossed the Line they mutinied 'cause we refused to give 'em curlin' irons, an' let 'em waltz with the sailors every night an' twice on Sunday. 'Bout four bells of the middle watch pourin' out o' the hatches they come like a consolidated female explosion. I was in th' waist, an' fust I knowed them millions of infuriated young angels surged straight at poor Peter Carr. Sez I to myself, here's too much of a good thing for once, an' with that I makes a flyin' scoot an' scrambles aloft like a cat with a bunch o' firecrackers belayed to its spanker boom. Sw-o-o-o-s-h, the rustle of them billion o' skirts is like the sound of a nor'easter. Wh-e-e-e-e, them shrieks of disapp'inted rage is still ringin' in my ears. I seen the poor old skipper poke his head out o' the companionway, an' so help me, before he had time to say——"
Mr. Carr stopped abruptly and his animated countenance froze in horror as he saw Captain Kendrick wave a beckoning hand from far forward.
"He's got me again," muttered the mate, as he obeyed the summons and was seen to follow the cause of his panic into the captain's room.
"Sit down, Mr. Carr," said Captain Kendrick, with a menacing note in his voice. "You have broken your solemn promise made to me last voyage. Those same old gestures told me you were climbing the shrouds of the Guiding Star again. How often have I got to tell you that the Guiding Star packet foundered a dozen years before you went to sea? You soft-shelled coaster, you wouldn't know the equator if it flew up and hit you in the nose. 'When you were crossing the Line'—lies, all lies!"
Peter Carr rubbed his red head and looked sheepish. "Right you are, sir. I forgot, sir," he stammered. "But I'm improvin'. I can feel it workin'."
"It isn't only your speech and conduct that need overhauling," commented Captain Kendrick severely, as he dug his two fists into his beard and towered over the contrite mate. "These things are signs of an inward state of spiritual rottenness, and I intend to hammer the blessed truth into you as long as we are shipmates. Look at me. Am I a worse sailor for trying to be what your mother on Cape Cod prayed you might grow into, when she used to tuck you up in bed?"
Mr. Carr was as earnest as ever in his turbulent career as he responded:
"I'll keep in mind what you say, sir. If all the people that flies church colors was like you, a —— —— sight more of 'em 'ud practice what they preach. Whoa, Bill, I didn't mean to rip out them naughty words. I swear I didn't, sir."
The old man sighed:
"You're still in the mire. But I'm not done with you. I'll have you on your knees yet, Peter Carr."
As the mate rolled forward he muttered:
"He's sometimes kind of wearin', but he means well. An' he's gettin' me so tame I'll be eatin' out of his hand before long."
Arthur Valentine was hovering within ear-shot, and he halted the solemn-faced officer with:
"Sorry you couldn't finish that bully yarn of the Guiding Star. Anything the matter? How did you escape from the two hundred angry ladies?"
Mr. Carr beamed with animation as he hastened to reply: "Well, as I was sayin', the poor old skipper of her stuck his head on deck, an' before he could— Oh, d— Ouch, excuse me. I bit my tongue. I mean, well, I never did get down out of that riggin', and that's the end of the yarn. Can't explain. No time to talk now."
Valentine was puzzled, and laid a hand on the sleeve of the fleeing mate:
"What the dickens ails you? Why can't you finish that yarn?"
Mr. Carr whipped round and shouted with a noble impulse:
"I ain't goin' to lie again, so help me. The captain's been laborin' with my poor sin-streaked soul, and I passed the word to steer by his sailin' chart. I've suffered enough without bein' keel-hauled any more about it."
"Beg pardon," smiled Valentine. "Now I see the joke. The good old man and the wandering boy. How nice of him. Perhaps he will pray for me if I send up a card. Is he often taken that way?"
"Pretty regular," grinned the mate as he made good his retreat.
"Was I right? Well, rather," thought Valentine. "It's time I took hold of things. If we should run into a storm, the old duffer would be on his knees praying for good weather and let the ship go to pot."
Later in the day a notice posted in the "social hall" caught his roving eye:
"To-morrow (Sunday) divine service will be held in the main saloon at ten o'clock. As is customary in steamers of this line when there is no clergyman among the passengers, the captain will be in charge of this service."