Now and then he strolled on deck of an evening, a lean, abstracted figure in spotless white clothes, hands clasped behind him, eyeing the capers of frivolous humankind with a certain cynical tolerance. They were as God had made them, but it was a bungled job. He ate most of his meals in his room, a book propped behind the tray. In this manner he evaded the affliction of mingling with tired business men and vivacious ladies eager to visit the engine room.
Richard Cary drifted into this McClement’s quarters by invitation, found a chair strong enough to hold him, and filled a blackened pipe from a jar on the desk. As usual he had not a great deal to say, but was amiability itself. He was content to sit and smoke and speak when spoken to. This pleased his host who read aloud choice bits of things and made pungent comments. The visitor borrowed a book and came again. They got on famously together because in temperament they were so curiously unlike.
On a clear day the ship sighted the lofty mountain range of Jamaica and steered to make her landfall for the harbor of Kingston. She drew near to the coast in the late afternoon. The breeze brought the heavy scents of the tropical verdure, of lush mountain vales, and the wet jungle. Richard Cary was on watch. Instead of standing at the bridge railing, with his calm and solid composure, he walked to and fro in a mood oddly restless. Intently he stared at the lofty slopes all clothed in living green, the tiny waterfalls bedecking them like flashes of silver lace.
He snuffed the air, so very different from the sea winds. The tropic island of Jamaica was strange to him, and yet it seemed vaguely, elusively familiar, as though he had beheld it while asleep and dreaming. The chief officer relieved him, but he lingered on the boat deck to see the black pilot come aboard from a dugout canoe. The steamer forged ahead again and passed into the harbor. The mountains loomed beyond the huddled roofs of Kingston. On the starboard side was a low, sandy point upon which were the trim, red-tiled bungalows of the quarantine station. The Tarragona paused again, to wait for the British health officer.
McClement, the chief engineer, climbed to the boat deck and said, as he joined Richard Cary:
“Port Royal yonder! No more than a sandbank now. The old town was sunk by an earthquake long ago. If you poke about in a small boat, they say you can see the stone walls of the houses down under the clear water. It was a famous resort of pirates and such gentry in the roaring days of the Spanish Main. Rum and loot, women and sin! All that made life worth living.”
“Port Royal?” exclaimed Cary. “I’m sure I have heard something about Port Royal. All gone, eh, Mac? Scuppered for their crimes. Served ’em right. A bad lot.”
“Very rotten, Dick, but they had certain virtues which the modern buccaneers of industry lack. We have two or three of these aboard. They never risked their skins to bag their plunder.”
Second Officer Cary muttered something and walked to the edge of the deck to peer down into the bright green water as if expecting to see the flickering phantoms of the wild sea rovers of the lost Port Royal. His blue eyes were bright with an ardent interest. McClement remarked, with a quizzical grin:
“I haven’t seen you really awake before now. What touched you off? Pirate yarns you read when you were a kid?”