La Guaira, Sep. 1.

The Juno (brig) of London, Beecher, from this for Barbadoes, foundered N of Margarita. Total loss. All crew saved except first mate. Master and crew landed Margarita.

CHAPTER XVI

STEPHEN'S TALE

I cannot remember how I reached Grandfather Nat. I must have climbed the stairs, and I fancy I ran into him on the landing; but I only remember his grim face, oddly grey under the eyes, as he sat on his bed and took the paper in his hand. I do not know even what I said, and I doubt if I knew then; the only words present to my mind were "all crew saved except first mate"; and very likely that was what I said.

My grandfather drew me between his knees, and I stood with his arm about me and his bowed head against my cheek. I noticed bemusedly that with his hair fresh-brushed the line between the grey and the brown at the back was more distinct than common; and when there was a sudden clatter in the bar below I wondered if Joe had smashed something, or if it were only a tumble of the pewters. So we were for a little; and then Grandfather Nat stood up with a sound between a sigh and a gulp, looking strangely askant at me, as though it surprised him to find I was not crying. For my part I was dimly perplexed to see that neither was he; though the grey was still under his eyes, and his face seemed pinched and older. "Come, Stevy," he said, and his voice was like a groan; "we'll have the house shut again."

I cannot remember that he spoke to me any more for an hour, except to ask if I would eat any breakfast, which I did with no great loss of appetite; though indeed I was trying very hard to think, hindered by an odd vacancy of mind that made a little machine of me.

Breakfast done, my grandfather sent Joe for a cab to take us to Blackwall. I was a little surprised at the unaccustomed conveyance, and rather pleased. When we were ready to go, we found Mr. Cripps and two other regular frequenters of the bar waiting outside. I think Mr. Cripps meant to have come forward with some prepared condolence; but he stopped short when he saw my grandfather's face, and stood back with the others. The four-wheeler was a wretched vehicle, reeking of strong tobacco and stale drink; for half the employment of such cabs as the neighbourhood possessed was to carry drunken sailors, flush of money, who took bottles and pipes with them everywhere.

Whether it was the jolting of the cab—Wapping streets were paved with cobbles—that shook my faculties into place; whether it was the association of the cab and the journey to Blackwall that reminded me of my mother's funeral; or whether it was the mere lapse of a little time, I cannot tell. But as we went, the meaning of the morning's news grew on me, and I realised that my father was actually dead, drowned in the sea, and that I was wholly an orphan; and it struck me with a sense of self-reproach that the fact afflicted me no more than it did. When my mother and my little brother had died I had cried myself sodden and faint; but now, heavy of heart as I was, I felt curiously ashamed that Grandfather Nat should see me tearless. True, I had seen very little of my father, but when he was at home he was always as kind to me as Grandfather Nat himself, and led me about with him everywhere; and last voyage he had brought me a little boomerang, and only laughed when I hove it through a window that cost him three shillings. Thus I pondered blinkingly in the cab; and I set down my calmness to the reflection that my mother would have him always with her now, and be all the happier in heaven for it; for she always cried when he went to sea.

So at last we came in sight of the old quay, and had to wait till the bridge should swing behind a sea-beaten ship, with her bulwarks patched with white plank, and the salt crust thick on her spars. I could see across the lock the three little front windows of our house, shut close and dumb; and I could hear the quick chanty from the quay, where the capstan turned:—