Bonanza

Akshelah looked very handsome as she sat on a clean brown coil of rope, with all the colours of the evening playing round her head. I had been silent for so long that my maid at last sought to learn the cause. I told her that I had been thinking of home, and I was sure that Antoine would allow the thistles to take possession of my clearing. Then Akshelah told me a secret.

“After you had gone away my father called the people together,” she said, with startling gravity. “The new factor lent axes, and the men were cutting the logs along Split Leaf Creek when I came away in my canoe.”

The girl looked at me and laughed, and I had to ask what she meant.

“The chief promised that your new home should be ready before the ending of Nepin; and when my father says a thing, it is done. But Antoine said you would never come back.”

These were the people who had sworn to give me their friendship! Akshelah went on regarding me with her fawn-like eyes.

“Ah, I know,” she said quickly, delighted at having caught the impression. “You see no owls.”

She meant I was suffering from home-sickness. When a camp moves to new ground there are no owl visitors at first, and the people think of their late home where the birds came each night.

“I am glad,” said the girl; but when I asked why, she only said again, “I am glad,” and laughed and sang until MacCaskill came up, large and hot.

Now Akshelah was not overwhelmed with affection for MacCaskill, whom she considered too serious a being for her world; so she went on singing, by way of protest at his having added himself to our company, and called down upon herself the rebuff, “Quit your noise, gal!” Then she said petulantly:

“It is the song of the god of the green mantles.”

“Well, quit it,” said the factor. “I’ve no use for it. Gals are always a-worryin’ ye,” he muttered morosely. “They’ll worry on the Day of Judgment, an’ after that if they ain’t stopped. Don’t matter where ye go, there they are, a-waitin’ to worry ye, first chance, or no chance at all.”

The old fellow was upset. He had been scouting below, and had encountered Olaffson, resting after a spell of stoking. The Icelander had answered every question with astonishing readiness. He had owned that he was following the fortunes of Father Lacombe, but having no money, was working his passage. Men were not plentiful, and the great majority preferred the well-paid labour of the lumber and fishing stations to the poor pay and hard life upon the dangerous sea. The unprincipled Olaffson had reiterated his willingness to devote himself, body and soul, to our service, and finally had sworn entire ignorance as to the whereabouts of Redpath.

“I thought the little skunk was a fool,” MacCaskill burst forth, “guessin’ Redpath supplied the brains of the business. It ain’t so, Rupe. Olaffson swore how Redpath had left him before they got to Gull, promising to meet him there, but never came to time. Swore he hadn’t set eyes on him since.”

“He’s lying,” I said.

“Course he’s lyin’. It’s the way he does it that worries me.”

A party came to join us, Lennie, the mate, Dave second engineer, and the steward, old and greasy, with fish scales clinging to his bare arms. Before the convivial plug of tobacco had finished its first round, the mock priest himself appeared, holding the skirt of his cassock in a long white hand. The officers of the ship obsequiously made space.

“What a magnificent evening!” murmured the adventurer, as he took his place among us.

What was his plan?

I was too well accustomed to the radiant atmosphere of my country to give particular notice to the sunset. The warmth was perfect; the ship slipped freely through the tinted water; there were scarcely any insects; over the west blazed the red, the gold, and the blue.

Lennie extended awkwardly the ragged plug torn by many teeth, with the invitation:

“Will ye chew, father?”

“I never chew,” came the answer. “But I am not prohibited from smoking.”

MacCaskill peered across, and grunted audibly.

Beside the starboard beam behind me some sailors were coiling ropes, and I heard a hoarse voice exclaim, “Gimme a match!” so I knew that Jim Morrison was near.

The presence of the supposed priest stopped conversation. Having lighted his pipe, Redpath looked over the silent group in his gracious manner, then, clasping his fingers together, leaning forward, looking at the sunset, he said:

“Let me hear the experiences of some of you. The mind is necessarily active at evening time. Having lived much in the solitude, each one of you must have felt, at some time or another, the power exerted by solitude upon the imagination.”

The men looked unhappy, because this kind of talk was far beyond them. Dave slewed his head round, and whispered to me:

“If the father would curse a bit, I’d make him out, maybe.”

Then Lennie stirred, and spoke for the credit of his position and his ship.

“I ain’t used to company wi’ priests, father,” he said apologetically, “but I did run agin a reg’lar boss one time, and I guess it’s the sort of experience you’re after. ’Twas away down Grande Marais, time they struck that find of copper. One evening I walked around to take a look at the place, an’ struck an oldish chap, a-settin’ on a heap of wash, an’ a-rubbin’ his leg. He was in long leggings, an’ a soft hat, an’ a flannel shirt, an’ a strap ’bout his middle, an’ I made out he was a miner, though I allow he didn’t talk like one. We give each other the nod and the good weather, an’ I said to him, ‘What’s your line, stranger?’ an’ he said, sort o’ bashful, ‘Well, I’m a bishop come to visit the miners.’ I got a-laughin’ at that, an’ course I wasn’t a-goin’ to be beat, so I spoke up. ‘Ye don’t want to talk about it, ole boy, but I’m jest a crowned head come around to patronise the circuses.’ Then he set a-laughin’ fit to choke. But I tell ye, anyone could have folded me up small, an’ stuffed me away inter a hand-grip, when the boys come to tell me that same night how the ole chap was a bishop.”

A short laugh went up, but evidently the men belonging to the ship had heard the story before.

“You have not altogether grasped my meaning,” went on the soft voice, in mild reproof. “It was my idea to learn how solitude affects your minds individually. Let me give you a personal illustration.”

He kept his eyes upon the ever-changing colours on the water, and the men looked at one another in distress.

“Experience in a lonely mission, even with much to occupy my thoughts, has shown me that solitude makes a man dream. They are strange things these dreams, and harmful if allowed to dominate the mind, but the unhappy part of it is that they pass rapidly, leaving merely a sense of melancholy, which, I am ashamed to say, will sometimes interfere with duty.”

The adventurer bent his head, coughed, then proceeded:

“One cannot hold and retain these fancies, any more than one can detain and fasten down a shadow. The entire charm of a dream is for the dreamer. He can think over it and enjoy it, but if he be rash enough to undertake a description he will find he can neither begin, nor continue, nor end. He has, in short, nothing to talk about. We have this dream-like picture of Nature around us now.” He threw his two hands away from him. “Let us suppose that the most graphic writer the world knows should pen a description of this scene, and that the same should be given us to read. We should find it wanting, and although we may be comparatively illiterate, our imagination, quickened by living long in the solitude, would be able to supply all the deficiencies in this description, so long as we kept to our thoughts.”

“Say!” exclaimed Dave miserably; “what language is it, anyhow?”

Was there anything going on in another part of the ship?

The pleasant voice made me sleepy, despite my suspicions.

“I may say that my own temperament is artistically affected by, firstly, such a coloured evening as this; secondly, by moonlight upon the water; and thirdly, by music. How often have we watched the burning pathway of the moon! How often have we longed to take our boat along that road, which we have thought may lead to some unknown land of happiness! You follow my meaning?”

MacCaskill was laughing behind his hand.

“Quite a priest!” muttered Dave admiringly.

“I kin understand a young feller a-settin’ out in the moon,” said the steward ponderously. “Did it meself one time, when I was worryin’ ’bout me little gal, though it only come to her marryin’ a feller wi’ a tidier face than mine.”

The adventurer resumed his high-flown talk. What he said might be nonsense, but it succeeded in producing the impression he desired, and in bringing the majority of his listeners under his influence. Had I not known the real identity of the speaker, his musical voice and delightful manner would have captured me with the spell that held the others.

I closed my ears and used my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that Akshelah had gone fast asleep. My second discovery showed me that the mate was standing behind me, his face perfectly vacant. Redpath still talked, and his sentences became more elaborate. MacCaskill was smoking heavily, his hat tilted over his eyes.

Suddenly an extraordinary impulse caused me to exclaim loudly:

“Who’s at the wheel?”

An ominous silence followed, during which I became conscious that my voice had not been untouched with suspicion. Redpath stopped in the middle of a parenthesis, and his head came round. I felt small and weak when his eyes met mine.

Sandy woke up, and Lennie opened his mouth in indignation:

“You’re runnin’ this ship since when? What you want rattlin’ the father when he’s preachin’? Ship’s all right, ain’t it?”

“The young man is excitable,” said Father Lacombe magnificently.

“The Icelander we took on at Gull’s at the wheel,” said Sandy, addressing the captain. “I gave it up to him for a spell. He steers good enough.”

MacCaskill shifted himself sharply, and I was sure the idea of treachery entered his mind also.

I had not lived with Nature all my life without learning how to interpret her moods. The silence had become unnatural; the throb of the screw was intensely loud; the atmosphere was as motionless as a sheet of glass; the water had become stagnant; a single mosquito hovered overhead, and gave out a noise like a trumpet. My glance went to the south, where trouble arises. A livid cloud, shaped like a snake, ascended slowly from the water-line, its “tail” wriggling madly. It was the time of my triumph, and I pointed with a warning cry.

The colours of the sunset settled into a uniform haze of a deep red so intense as to be almost black.

Lennie was up in an instant.

“Dave!” he shouted, his voice pealing fearfully into the hollow silence, “slow her down.” He turned to Sandy. “I’ll take the wheel.”

Only a minute back we had been in daylight, but already gloom had begun to settle, and the air was full of insects.

“A bad night to follow,” said Redpath resignedly. It was the night he had looked for. “There will be neither moon nor stars to cheer us on our way.”

A crash sounded from the wheel-house, the smash of shivered glass, the thud of a weighty body upon deck, an awful commotion in the overwhelming silence, and the ship swerved off her course like a tired horse.

Lennie ran forward, and almost collided with Olaffson, whose white face looked horrid in the gloom. He carried a big stone, shapeless and water-marked.

“Fell from heaven!” he gasped, “outer the clouds, an’ near fixed me. Fell right inter the compass and smashed it up.”

The adventurer put out his long hands and took the stone.

“A meteorite,” he said slowly. “Such accidents have occurred before.”

He turned, and heaved the fragment overboard. I had seen plenty like it upon the beach at Gull.

Lennie was shivering with superstition as he spun the wheel round.

“Stone from heaven above beats all,” he muttered. Then he called: “Sandy, bring the spare compass outer my cabin! Get a move on.”

The mate went, and was soon back. The compass was not to be found.

Lennie swore desperately, resigned his charge of the wheel, and searched himself, but with the same result.

“You must have mislaid it, captain,” suggested Sandy, while the great silence before the wind was heavy upon us.

Then Father Lacombe stepped forward, and extended a small, toy-like thing with his unfailing courtesy.

“I have here, captain, a little compass, which I carry to guide me in my journeys through the forest,” he said, anxious for the safety of the ship. “If it will be of any service to you in determining your course, consider it entirely at your service.”