On the second week out from Yucata, the Chinese passenger died, and the ivory idol and the withered, yellowish hand disappeared from the porthole; the chanting was over for ever. But strange enough, Sestrina felt terribly lonely when she heard that the Celestial was dead. The skipper, seeing her nervous state, had the grace to attempt to keep the Chinaman’s death from her. But Sestrina knew what had happened at once, for she saw two of the crew go into the silent cabin and pull in yards of sailcloth. Then she saw the crew collect on deck at sunset, ready to commit the body to the deep. The Mexican captain, for all his villainy, became religious in the presence of death.
Whether it was carelessness, or had been done deliberately, she did not know, but the hammock-shroud was sewn down so that the skinny, yellow hands were still visible, protruding about four inches through the canvas. In a few moments the skipper had murmured the solemn sea burial service as the crew stood in a row, their strange tasselled caps held respectfully in their hands. The sight of it all fascinated Sestrina. And as the weighted shroud softly splashed, alighted on the waters, she half fancied she saw the yellow fingers move, as though they, at that last moment in the world of the sun, sought to clutch the ivory idol. Then she saw the coffin-shroud slowly sink, and, like some sad symbol of all the universe of mortal desire, one bubble came to the calm surface—and burst!
After seeing that sight Sestrina hurried into the cuddy, in some strange fright seeking to hide from the memory of that sorrow which she had just seen. But, in the great irony of accidental things, the first thing that caught her eyes was the ivory idol lying on the cuddy’s table. She stared on it, fascinated, picked it up, and then dropped it in fright. Little did Sestrina dream that a day would come when she too would kneel in humble pagan faith before that tiny carven ivory god.
On the third week out from Yucata, the barometer began to fall.
“Señorita, ze wind is gwing to blow, big waves come over deck, savvy?” said the skipper.
“I don’t mind,” replied Sestrina as she gazed up at the deep blue of the tropic sky and noticed flocks of strange birds travelling out of the dim horizons. On, on they came, speeding across the sky, travelling south-west on their migrating flight from some distant land, outbound for another continent. Those winged travellers of the sky, voyaging onward, had read their wonderful compass, instinct, and so had unerring knowledge of the coming hurricane. Many of them had long necks and peculiar loose hanging legs, and as they passed swiftly over the lonely Belle Isle, Sestrina heard the faint rattle and whir of their ungainly wings and legs rushing through space.
“Big winds blow, birds they know, and so fly fast,” said the captain as he too followed Sestrina’s gaze and watched the flight of those migrating birds.
“No, Señorita,” said the skipper when Sestrina attempted to pass out of the cuddy and go on deck that night.
Perhaps it was as well that Sestrina obeyed the Mexican skipper, for the first stars had hardly pierced the velvet blue of the evening skies when the typhoon struck the Belle Isle. The sound of the storm’s first breath came like the massed trampling of infinite cavalry and low mutterings of mighty guns that fired the thunders and lightnings of the heavens.
Sestrina, who had never been to sea in real bad weather, thought the schooner was sinking.