CHAPTER XIII
It was only a moment or two later when Erica opened her eyes again, but to the still dazed girl it seemed impossible that she was not asleep and dreaming what she saw about her.
Vaguely she recalled having had some kind of a fall and hearing her father and Lis cry out in alarm. She could even remember, quite too vividly for comfort, the following contact of her head with that sharp wooden corner at the stairfoot.
But this—certainly she had never seen this small but splendid room in which she was lying. There appeared to be no windows in it, or if there were they must be hidden by the heavy gold-embroidered curtains of a deep plum color that lined the walls on all sides. Light was supplied by several hanging lamps of what looked like beaten silver, with amber glass, and the room was full of that smell of incense she had noticed on the companion stairs. She herself was lying on a low divan, with a pile of softest silk and down pillows propping her up in a slightly raised position.
For an instant Erica thought she was alone in this strange, gorgeous room, but when she turned her head on its mound of pillows some one moved behind her and came around to stand at the side of the divan where she could see him.
This was the oddest, oldest, most leathery-faced and wrinkled little Chinaman Erica had ever imagined, who bent over her with a gentle air of solicitude, and taking one of her hands in his, felt her pulse, nodding his head slowly as if in time to its beat.
“All is well,” he announced after a moment or two of silence, replacing Erica’s hand on the couch and standing back a step to regard her solemnly. “The fall had no consequences of a serious nature, so rest assured.” His English was perfect in accent and pronunciation, but it was spoken in a curious sing-song that made it difficult to follow.
In spite of his apparent age, his hair, which he wore in a long queue, was quite black, and that with his piercing black eyes, and the stiff, coat-like garment of dark silk which he wore, gave Erica the impression of something rather severe and gloomy, though not exactly forbidding, for his glance at her was kindly enough.
Then she caught the sound of footsteps crossing soft carpets, evidently from some door beyond, and to her vast relief Captain Eric’s merry blue eyes looked over the solemn little Chinaman’s shoulder.
“All right, daughter?” he asked, quickly, and came over to sit on the side of the divan, holding both her cold little hands in his big warm ones. “That was a nasty tumble, my dear. Thank God it was no worse. But I was sure the good doctor, here, would know what should be done for you.”
“But where am I, father?” Erica asked, weakly. “And—and who is—he?” She essayed a smile at the wrinkled, yellow old face still staring kindly down at her, beside her father’s sunburnt and ruddy countenance.
“Why, you are on the Sea Gull, Rick,” Captain Eric said, reassuringly. “And this is the very wise and celebrated physician to His Excellency the Governor of Canton. The Governor, I ought to add, is otherwise known to you, my dear, as your Chinese godfather, Sun Li.” He patted the hands he held very tenderly, while he shook his bushy red head at her in mock reproof. “Still my tomboy Rick, I see,” he sighed. “A nice way to present yourself to so eminent a personage as His Excellency the Governor.”
“You mean, father,” Erica gasped, sitting up straight in the shock of those last words, “that Sun Li is actually on board the Sea Gull? That he came back with you from China?”
“Exactly that,” Captain Eric assured her, smiling at her breathless excitement. “As perhaps Lis told you, he has been in poor health for several years, and was finally persuaded by his physician to take a long sea voyage. He agreed at last, provided he could sail on the Sea Gull with his old friend—meaning your father, Rick. So after some discussion with the Canton office of our company it was arranged that His Excellency should charter the Sea Gull for the period of one year, and sail her whither he chose as his own private yacht. He offered a price, by the way, that was worth considerably more than the finest cargoes of tea we could have carried during the same time, and the company agreed to his doing over the saloon and cabins according to Chinese ideas of luxury and beauty. So behold the reason for all the gorgeousness that sent you head first down my companionway, poor little dazzled Ricky!”
Even the solemn Chinese doctor smiled at that; but Erica pushed her father’s hand aside and sprang determinedly to her feet.
“Where is Sun Li?” she cried, eagerly. “Oh, father, I just must see him, quick!”
The plum-colored hangings were pushed aside at the far end of the cabin, and Lis stood there, grinning at her with a comical mingling of real relief and teasing in his eyes.
“Trust Rick to make a graceful entrance,” he observed. “Say, Miss Folger, if you’re able to walk, His Excellency wants to see you in his cabin. He asked me to explain that he would have come to you, but he’s not allowed to leave his chair by the doctor, here. You know,” he added, taking a swift step into the room and letting the heavy portières drop into place behind him, “he’s been pretty seriously ill. This trip is a—a sort of forlorn hope. He looks a bit better, though, to me, than when I saw him in his palace in Canton.”
The little Chinese doctor looked up at the boy eagerly.
“You think so, young sir? That is of great encouragement to hear. To me, who am always with him, he seems to change but little. I cannot trust my own vision.”
Lis nodded emphatically.
“Looks much less tired to me, sir,” he declared. “His face seems a bit fuller, too. Shouldn’t be surprised if he’d gained a few pounds in this long sea trip.”
“That’s what I was telling you, Doctor,” Captain Eric corroborated his nephew cheerily. “And we’re not through with our rest cure yet, not by a jugful. Run along with Lis, Ricky, and don’t keep His Excellency waiting.”
“I—suppose he speaks English, too?” Erica whispered shyly to Lis, hesitating for a second with her hand on the curtain Lis was about to pull back for her entrance.
He nodded. “No trouble about that,” he said, and gave his cousin a little push forward, but gently, for Lis had an almost feminine knack of understanding, and he guessed how tremendous the moment seemed to her.
He had felt a good deal the same himself when he was first taken before Sun Li in the Governor’s palace in Canton.
Then he saw Erica draw a deep breath and lift her chin in the old familiar fashion. Without a word, Lis drew the curtain aside for her and gave her a little encouraging, approving smile, which Erica failed entirely to see. All her thoughts were concentrated on what she would see on the other side of the heavily embroidered portière.
She entered a second room almost as large as the main saloon, and hung with heavy silken curtains like the latter, only in this case the hangings were a warm orange with vividly colored embroidery. Later, Erica learned that the partitions between three of the passenger cabins had been removed, to make one fair-sized apartment.
This cabin, too, was lighted by hanging lamps instead of daylight, and in a deep, reclining chair beside a table heaped with books in rich bindings, Erica beheld for the first time her much-discussed Chinese godfather. At the first timid glance she sent him, he seemed to the girl to be all eyes—great, liquid, brilliant black eyes alive with kindness and a keen intelligence, looking out of a thin face with prominent cheek bones, and tautly drawn skin the color of old ivory.
“Enter, little Sea Blossom,” said a deep, not unmusical voice, and a finely modeled, but painfully thin hand was lifted from the gorgeous brocaded robes that enveloped him, and held out to her in welcome. Sun Li’s hand, like his face, was not yellow at all, but a warm cream, and on it the delicate veining stood out clearly.
Erica drew nearer, still timidly, and slipped a confiding hand into the one stretched toward her. She was conscious of a great rush of pity for anyone so obviously ill, and with it a most strange and pleasant sense of having known the owner of the hand long and affectionately. Meeting her Chinese godfather was like coming home to a near and dear member of her family. She entirely forgot to be afraid of his strangeness and his grandeur. But no words came to her for the moment, and she merely stood there holding the fragile ivory-colored hand in hers, and smiling rather wistfully down at the thin, tired old face that smiled so valiantly back at her.
But such unwonted shyness on Erica’s part did not last long, and by the time her father and Lis had joined them in the orange-hung cabin her tongue was wagging busily as she described, in answer to quiet, amused questions from the old Chinese, her home life, the various members of her family, and her bubbling gratitude for the accumulated gifts that had come to her during the past fifteen years, on each return voyage of the Sea Gull.
Sun Li—he quickly forbade all attempts at the formal Your Excellency, on either Lis’s or Erica’s part—seemed so well entertained by his new visitors, that the elderly physician, creeping in softly after half an hour’s time, to see how his master did, crept out as softly, his leathery old face wreathed in smiles, and allowed the racing chatter to proceed unchecked.
Lis sat silently listening, for the most part, and after a while Captain Eric followed the old doctor out of the cabin, and was gone for quite a time, on business of his own, leaving his daughter’s tongue still wagging in lively fashion, and Sun Li hearing her with obvious amusement and pleasure showing on his usually impassive countenance.
When the Captain did return, it was to announce that he had sent a boat ashore with a message to Mrs. Folger, stating that he was planning to keep both children on board all night and would bring them ashore with him early the following morning.
“I also told her that the Governor would accompany us, and that I hoped she would have a worthy Nantucket dinner ready for him,” he added, smiling at the intent group before him. “A change of cooking may tempt your appetite, my friend, and that is what we want to happen just now. Ricky, supper will be served in the saloon in twenty minutes. Better go to your cabin and wash your hands. I’ll show you where you are to bunk tonight. Lis is to share my quarters. By the way,” he added, his smile broadening, “I fancy, from something Sun Li told me before you arrived that you will find a chest in your cabin, with some things in it that may interest you. Only don’t lose track of time, you flighty child, and keep us waiting.”
Erica sprang eagerly to her feet, and flashed the invalid a glance of ecstatic delight. “You—you’re the most wonderful person, godfather,” she cried, clasping her hands over her heart with a gesture that set them all laughing. “Aunt Charity never would let me wear the beautiful gifts you sent me—not till I’m grown up. But while you’re here, I guess I can dress up all I want to. That’s only polite to Sun Li, father, isn’t it?” she questioned, anxiously, and went off to explore, much relieved, when Captain Eric nodded indulgent acquiescence.
The minute she was inside the tiny cabin that had been allotted to her, Erica saw that it must have been planned for her when Sun Li had refitted the Sea Gull for the present voyage, way on the other side of the world. The walls were hung with palest peach-blossom silk, heavily embroidered with wistaria and tender green leaves. The built-in bunk had been upholstered in cream and gold satin, and was heaped with pillows of all colors of the rainbow, most of them shaped like flowers. The carpet on the floor was pale gold, with cherry blossoms running riot across it, and there were two marvelous hanging lamps of silver and jade that matched the pattern of the key Sun Li had sent her by Lis months ago.
Erica stood in the middle of the room, and drew a breath of sheer unbelief and protest. She must be asleep. She was dreaming of some scene in the Arabian Nights, not standing in a cabin on her father’s ship anchored in Nantucket Harbor. Only—only, if it were actually a dream, that meant she would have to wake up.
She experienced an impulse to tiptoe softly, to avert such a catastrophe, and then her attention was switched rapidly to a fresh surprise, as her eye fell for the first time on a small oblong chest of carved teakwood, bound in hammered silver, that stood at the foot of the white-and-gold bunk. It was about two and a half feet long by a foot wide, and two feet high, and sticking out of its beaten silver padlock was a key so evidently the twin of the one she wore about her neck, that Erica gave a funny little squeak of astonishment and fell on her knees beside it, worshipfully.
Inside, when the heavy lid had been impatiently flung back, she found rolls of uncut silks, some in plain colors, some heavily embroidered in delicate blossom designs, and on top of these the full straight trousers of heavy silk, the knee-length tunic coat, and a pair of small silken, heel-less slippers, such as a Chinese girl would wear. The lovely, exotic garments were a cool jade-green in color, embroidered in silver and rose, and there were cunning green silk tassels on the slippers, with a string of jade beads tucked into one small slipper-toe, and a similar string of rose agate in the other.
Erica uttered a regular war whoop of ecstasy, and caught the slippers, necklaces and all, up in two suddenly trembling hands to cuddle them against her soft, flushed cheek. Then, her mood veering, without waiting for further exploration she began to undress with business-like haste.
Ten minutes later the door of her cabin opened rather hesitantly and a strange, slim little Chinese figure, with an incongruous crop of short red curls dancing excitedly above its jade-green silks, stepped out into the narrow passageway leading to the saloon. And at the same moment a startled cry broke from Lis, who had just emerged from the captain’s cabin, a door or two farther away.
”For Pete’s sake, Ricky!” Lis gasped, and fell silent for lack of adequate words.
CHAPTER XIV
Erica pirouetted slowly on her toes to show off her new splendor, and Lis, drawing nearer and emerging from his first amazement at the sight of her, began to laugh.
“But it’s mighty pretty, at that,” he conceded, generously. “I suppose that was in the chest Uncle Eric spoke of.”
“Yes, and pieces and pieces of the loveliest silks you ever saw,” Erica said. “And these two necklaces.” She touched the strings of jade and agate she was wearing, with a reverent finger tip.
They went into the saloon together, to find the long table in the center set for the evening meal, with Sun Li in his deep chair already seated at the head, smiling at his latest guests. Captain Eric was at the foot of the table, and Erica was placed between the little Chinese doctor and Sun Li, while Lis had the opposite side all to himself.
The Governor had brought with him in the Sea Gull not only his coolie bearers for the gorgeous sedan chair in which he went ashore on occasions, but his Chinese cook as well, so the supper was a curious but delicious mixture of Chinese and American dishes which set the young Nantucketers off into a prolonged series of “ohs” and “ahs” of appreciation and delight.
In spite of the exalted rank of their host, and the usual rigidity of Chinese etiquette, it was an informal meal, with much chattering on both Erica’s and Lister’s part, and a constant, amused plying them with questions on that of Sun Li. Erica, in her Chinese garments, evoked stately compliments from the Governor and his physician, though they smiled, too, at the obvious unfitness of the little red-headed, tomboy American to play a demure Chinese maiden.
“Am I like your Chinese girls at home, godfather?” she demanded, eagerly, seeing their quietly exchanged glances.
Sun Li spread out his hands in a regretful gesture, and bowed.
“I fear me you are all American, Blossom,” he admitted. “But I have seen many Chinese maidens. It is interesting now to study the ways of the daughters of my old friend’s race. Do they all wear their hair short like their brothers, over here?”
Captain Eric sat up suddenly, and stared at his daughter with a puzzled expression.
“I’ve been vaguely wondering what was different,” he declared. “Ricky, what on earth——”
“Oh, please, don’t say you don’t like it, like all the others,” Erica wailed, putting both hands consciously up to her bobbed head. “I cut it off last fall—all in a minute. I had so much hair, and it was so long and hot and hard to keep neat. So one day, without telling anyone, I cut it off. Aunt Charity almost wept over it, and the boys have teased, of course. But I’m not a bit sorry—that is, unless you are, father. But if you only knew how comfortable it feels——” She stopped with a choke, and studied his face anxiously.
“Well, I’m a bit taken aback,” her father confessed. “Still, the deed’s done, isn’t it, and as it’s your hair, my dear, I don’t see that I can have much to say. It looks rather—well, boyish, but I expect I’ll get used to it after a bit, and perhaps”—he looked at her again—”I may even end by approving it. It does seem a sensible idea, after all,” he concluded, unexpectedly.
Erica clapped her hands in vehement applause of this sentiment, and a laugh went round the table. Altogether it was a pleasant meal, and the evening they spent afterward in Sun Li’s orange-hung cabin was equally interesting, for then the Governor, at Erica’s pleading, undertook the rôle of answerer-of-questions, and under her endless catechism talked of China and its customs, both ancient and of his own day. It seemed to the absorbed boy and girl that scarcely half an hour had slipped away when the tales were brought to a close, regretfully but firmly, by the little Chinese doctor, who decreed that his master had talked all that his physical endurance permitted of for one evening.
They went ashore about the middle of the following morning, in the largest of the Sea Gull’s boats, Sun Li in his very gorgeous palanquin with two coolie bearers in native costume. The little doctor accompanied them, walking tranquilly up Main Street in his stiff, dark-colored Chinese robes, as interested in the novelty of the scenes about him as the Nantucketers they passed quite obviously were in him.
Erica walked beside Sun Li’s sedan chair, her expression demure, but her heart thumping riotously and proudly over the commotion the procession was causing. And it was causing a most unprecedented flutter in the quiet island streets.
People ran to windows to peer out curiously, and congregated on the corners to stare after them when they had gone by.
The clever, tired old eyes of the Governor read behind Erica’s forced quiet to the seething excitement she was valiantly trying to repress, and once or twice the stolidity of his own countenance was touched with the faint beginnings of a smile.
And so, in the due course of time, the procession arrived in front of Mrs. Folger’s gate on Orange Street, and turned in to the already open front door. In the hall, within, stood Mrs. Folger, with Milly close beside her, and Baby Barbee peering out timidly between their full skirts.
Sun Li’s sedan chair was got through the doorway with some difficulty, and carried into the parlor, where his bearers lifted him forth and sat him down carefully in one of the deep, comfortable chairs by the hearth. The little doctor was induced, with many bows on his part of deprecation, to accept the opposite armchair, and then the rest of the party found seats where and as they chose.
Mrs. Folger and Milly, after the first polite greetings were over, disappeared into the kitchen to finish the culinary labors already under way, and Erica—who had dutifully offered to help them—was reassured by being told she was to remain behind and play hostess.
On hearing that Sun Li’s physician was to be one of the dinner guests, Mrs. Folger dispatched Lis to Dr. Spencer’s house, farther up the street, to invite the latter to join them at the midday meal. And it was odd and rather amusing, yet very pleasant, too, to see how these two elderly doctors from such widely divergent races and schools took to one another, and at once plunged into an animated discussion—each exhibiting much amazement over what the other had to relate of his own practise and interpretation of their common profession. Before long they had the whole room interested, too, and had effectually broken up any possible stiffness that might have resulted from the strange assortment of guests gathered under Mrs. Callie Folger’s roof that day.
Aunt Charity, who had improved most encouragingly under her new rest cure, was carried downstairs by Captain Eric and Lis in time to sit in a big armchair at the table, between the Governor and Dr. Spencer, where she talked, ate, and smiled like her former hale and hearty self.
Altogether the dinner was a decided success. Mrs. Folger and Milly had fairly outdone themselves in the excellence and variety of the dishes they had prepared, and both Sun Li and Dr. Wu (which was the little Chinese physician’s name, they learned) seemed highly appreciative of their introduction to Western cookery. Sun Li, in fact, so far surpassed his former attempts at an appetite that both Captain Eric and the little doctor were openly delighted and triumphant.
It was not until the long, bountiful meal was nearly over that Erica’s father leaned back in his chair, and—with an inquiring glance at the Governor, who responded with a nod of approval—broached abruptly a most astounding and breath-taking plan.
“Before consenting to take this voyage in the Sea Gull,” Captain Eric began, smiling about the circle of intent faces, “His Excellency stipulated the present call at Nantucket and the delivery of a certain invitation to a number of people present. We have planned, on leaving here, to continue south and visit several of the southern coast cities, as well as the West Indian islands. In spite of the time of the year, and the greater heat in those latitudes, Sun Li is anxious to make the trip—and we can usually count on ocean breezes to keep us comfortable as long as we’re at sea. It’s only the ports that will be hot, and I guess we can bear that.” He stopped and looked teasingly from face to face fixed on him with such eager attention.
“Well, the upshot of a long preamble,” he went on then, “is that in the Governor’s name I am instructed to invite my sister, Miss Charity Folger (who will find a sea trip the final step in her rest cure, I feel sure); my sister-in-law, Mrs. Callie Folger; these two new nieces of mine, Miss Milly Thorne and little Barbee; my nephew, Lister Folger; and last but perhaps not least, my spoiled tomboy daughter, His Excellency’s ‘Little Sea Girl’—to join us on the southern cruise. We expect to be gone about two months in all, and will return to Nantucket to drop our guests before sailing for China. How many are going to accept, I wonder?”
A regular babel of voices answered him, in which the excited exclamations of the younger members of the party predominated. Mrs. Callie Folger demurred a little about being able to leave her home, and Miss Charity’s half-hearted protests that perhaps she was not strong enough yet, were cut decisively short by Dr. Spencer’s declaration that the trip was exactly what he would have ordered for her in the first place if he had supposed it at all possible.
Through all the laughing discussion Sun Li sat looking on, silent but evidently enjoying to the full the sensation his wholesale invitation had created. Several times his impassive Chinese calm was broken with a smile that broadened almost to a real laugh as he listened. It was evident that he was both highly entertained and pleased.
It was late in the afternoon when the party broke up, Sun Li, Dr. Wu, and the coolie bearers returning with Captain Eric to the Sea Gull, and the rest of the family plunging, immediately upon their departure, into a frenzy of planning and packing. There was but short time for either, since His Excellency wanted to be on his way to southern waters by the following afternoon, and under the circumstances, naturally, his wish was as effective as his commands were at home in his native province.
The rest of that day and the next were a sort of dreamlike confusion to Erica, who went about with her red head in the clouds, and her feet stumbling, in consequence, into all kinds of absurd blunders when she tried to help. She was so excited over the impending trip that she was quite as little to be counted on for practical assistance as Baby Barbee. Fortunately, however, Milly kept her head, and between Aunt Callie and herself, with some aid from Lis’s strong young arms, the necessary packing of clothes, and the removal of baggage and family on board the Sea Gull, were duly and efficiently accomplished before sundown of the second day.
Erica never was to forget, in all the years to come, the hushed, thrilling sense of expectancy that seemed to hang over the moment when the Sea Gull’s white wings were finally flung free to the winds and the soft slap of little waves against her graceful sides began, as the clipper drew away from her moorings and set her sharp nose toward the open sea.
The sun was sinking in a great red ball behind the little gray town, and a faint bluish mist hung over the roofs and the high church steeples. Here and there wisps of trailing clouds caught fire from the afterglow, and burned in a gold and scarlet flame against the blue of the sky. The quiet harbor waters in their turn reflected the bright tints, and as Erica leaned against the rail, gazing down, she saw in the red and gold reflections the white sails of the clipper also mirrored. It was so beautiful it made the breath catch in her throat, and a film of unshed tears softened everything about her like the dropping of a fine gauze curtain over the evening’s glory.
Then, as the town, and finally the island itself, faded more and more dimly into the gathering twilight behind them, Erica abruptly left her post on deck, and hurried below to her cabin—which she must share now with Milly Thorne.
When she came on deck half an hour later she was once more wearing her new Chinese costume of jade green, with the cunning betasseled silk slippers, and the jade and agate necklaces.
“This,” she informed her astonished aunts and Milly, bowing low in what she fondly imagined must be true Chinese style, “is my seagoing costume. Sun Li likes me in it, and it’s certainly heaps more comfortable than anything I’ve ever worn before. I feel so—so free and light, somehow—something the way cutting off my hair made me feel. Now, please don’t say I mustn’t, Aunt Charity,” she pleaded, coming over to the low deck chair where Miss Charity was reclining luxuriously. “Just look at the lovely silk, and see all the wee, tiny, patient stitches in the embroidery! And look at my beads! I’ll hurt Sun Li’s feelings if I don’t wear them—and, besides, here on board, who’s to see and disapprove, except just us?”
With a little laugh of mingled amusement and defeat, Miss Charity nodded acquiescence, glancing apologetically at her sister-in-law as she did so. But Mrs. Folger, too, was smiling indulgently, and made no protest.
“Oh, why not, sister?” she asked. “Let the child have her fun dressing up—all children love that. It will please the poor Governor, too, and there seems so little we can do to thank him properly for this fine trip he is giving us.”
“Besides, of course,” Miss Charity agreed, further, finding evident comfort in the thought, “this is his idea of what a proper, well-brought-up little Chinese girl ought to wear, so really I suppose Erica might as well be happy.”
Late that night, when she and Milly were getting ready for bed, Erica drew out the teakwood chest Sun Li had had placed in her cabin, and unlocking it, showed the other the dazzling array of silks, crêpes, and heavy embroidered materials that filled it.
“You sew so wonderfully, Milly,” she offered, “that if you would like to have a real Chinese costume like mine to wear on board, just pick out the silk you like and make it.”
But Milly, breathless with admiration of the lovely shimmering fabrics, only shook her head at the suggestion.
“I’m not——daring, like you, Ricky,” she said. (Since the night of the reconciliation between the two girls when Milly’s secret had come out, the latter had taken to using the twins’ name for her of “Ricky,” instead of the rather stately “Erica.”) “I couldn’t wear such clothes, though they’re awfully pretty. They look, somehow—well, just right on you. But”—she hesitated and drew a wistful sigh, her black eyes anxious and a little shy—”but, I’d love cutting into some of that beautiful silk and sewing on it. Oh-h, Ricky, I’ve never even handled such stuff before in my life! Couldn’t—couldn’t I make some of it up into a dress for you on this trip?”
Erica considered thoughtfully. “I don’t believe Aunt Charity would let me wear a dress of such gorgeous silk. I’m afraid it really wouldn’t—fit into Nantucket.” She, too, sighed wistfully. Then a quick glance at her jade-green trousers and long tunic-coat brought the smile back.
“But if you really want the fun of sewing on some of this—do you suppose you could copy this Chinese costume for me—so I can have two? I’d be crazy about this pale-gold color. Feel the silk—it’s so heavy, and yet so soft! Think you—could, Milly? I know it would please Sun Li, too.”
Milly’s face lighted with professional enthusiasm. She felt of the chosen piece of silk with critical, expert fingers, and then turned to study the jade-green model Erica was wearing.
“I know I could,” she said, with great earnestness, “if you’ll lend me those other things to cut the pattern by. And, oh, I’d rather do this than anything you could possibly offer!” she wound up in a great outburst of excitement. “Let’s—let’s start in right now, cutting out,” she pleaded. “Then I won’t have to have your clothes tomorrow, when you’ll want to be wearing them.”
Erica’s answer was to slip out of her long green coat with business-like promptness and lay it on the bunk, while Milly, wild with delight, her fingers actually trembling with excitement, unrolled the heavy bolt of silk.
When Aunt Callie opened the cabin door to see if they were safely in bed, an hour later, she was almost struck dumb with astonishment to see the two seated side by side on the soft golden carpet Sun Li had had laid in the cabin for his goddaughter, the black and red heads bent absorbedly over yards and yards of golden silk that swirled about them like a bit of leftover sunset from that evening.
“My stars!” she gasped, and then burst into a little, understanding chuckle. “We shall probably all be Chinese before the ship touches at Nantucket again, two months from now!”
CHAPTER XV
Sun Li preferred the open sea to long calls at the various ports outlined on their itinerary, so they spent very little of the time on land, after all. They stopped at Charleston, down in South Carolina, and all went ashore to walk along the beautiful Battery, and later through the picturesque old city—creating not a little comment and excitement with their decidedly exotic procession, and the fact of the big tea clipper putting in at a port where clippers did not usually call. But they did not stay, returning on board within a few hours, and setting sail for Savannah that same afternoon.
The latter city, with its wide, tree-lined streets, and flower-filled parks delighted them all; it was here Erica saw her first great trees hung with the long, trailing gray moss. But His Excellency was restless to be back on the Sea Gull, and as they had done at their first stop, they sailed again the day of their arrival.
From Savannah, Captain Eric set a course for Cuba, and on the second day out from the Georgia coast, abruptly and out of a smiling summer sky, their first bad weather descended upon the voyagers.
Summer is the time in the West Indies for hurricanes, and at the sudden dropping of the barometer, Captain Eric became instantly anxious. As far as the rest of the party could see, though, there had been no visible change in the weather. The skies were still brightly and vividly blue, and the waves no higher than a long, lazy swell. Even the wind had not freshened. Instead it had dropped to an almost dead calm.
Then, little by little, the sky began to cloud over—clouds seeming to leap into sight quite suddenly, where only a short while before there had been nothing but blue. The Sea Gull, in spite of her enormous spread of canvas, designed for speed (for the tea clippers were racing ships, each seeking to outdistance all rivals in her hurry to land a cargo first in the market), could make little headway. But presently all on board were conscious that she was rolling noticeably. The swells were higher now, and seemed to increase in size endlessly; they were oily-looking, without crests or foam, and came on in regular undulations, lifting the ship with a queer, sinister effect of upheaval that grew to have more and more of a threat of violence behind it.
And then, all in a minute, the wind arrived—a mighty, moving wall of wind that had an impact like a solid substance when it struck the clipper. Accompanying it there came darkness, and a great pandemonium of sound: shriekings and moanings, and strange growling, hissing noises like nothing Erica had ever heard before, or imagined.
The crew were in a frenzy of ordered activity on deck, lowering the huge sails and making everything fast. Even Lis had duties, and Erica, finding no one of whom she could ask questions, retired disconsolately to her own little cabin, where she found Milly, pale as a little black-garbed ghost, on her knees before her bunk.
“Oh, Ricky,” the girl cried, thankfully, on her entrance, “if someone hadn’t come soon I guess I’d have died! Cousin Callie’s looking after Cousin Charity in their cabin, and they have Barbee with them. There wasn’t any room for me, so I—Do you think the ship can possibly stand up against such a wind? It’s—it’s like one of those dreadful things you dream in nightmares. Oooh! Listen to that awful shrieking! It sounds—Ricky, I’m—scared.” She whispered the last in a shamed little half-voice, but with obvious sincerity, and Erica, clinging to the door-jamb to keep her feet in the heavy rolling, tried to smile reassuringly.
“Trust father, Milly. He’s been in some pretty bad storms, and the Sea Gull and he have always come through safely,” she said, bravely. “Probably it seems worse to us because it’s our first experience with a hurricane.”
“Oh—is it that?” Poor Milly wailed, sliding across the small cabin with the next lurch of the ship, and clutching desperately at Erica’s outstretched hand just in time to save herself from a head-on collision with Sun Li’s teakwood chest.
“I—guess so,” Erica said, briefly. “I heard Mr. Peterson, the mate, call it that to Lis a moment ago.” She sat down on the floor, one arm about Milly, bracing both of them with her knees against the door-jamb and her back pressed against the low side of the bunk.
“Hold on to me,” she advised, “or we’ll both be black and blue tomorrow.”
“If we’re not at the bottom of the sea, you mean,” Milly said, bitterly.
They remained on the floor, clinging to each other for what seemed to both girls endless ages. The terrifying violence of the wind seemed to be increasing, and the plunging of the ship grew worse as the hours passed. They did not attempt to leave the cabin to go in search of any of the rest of their party, since it was all they could do to keep themselves from being knocked about, with the chance of serious injury, where they were. For the same reason, probably, no one else came to them.
There was no thought of the usual evening meal. No one had any appetite for it, even if it could have been prepared and served. To the unnatural darkness of the storm was gradually added the natural darkness of approaching night. In the tiny, redecorated cabin, neither Erica nor Milly could see their surroundings. Each knew that the other was there, close—comfortingly close—by the feel of their arms holding and bracing each other against the incessant rolling and pitching of the clipper.
And then, at the very height of the storm, there came a sudden lull, a mystifying dying down of the wind that was somehow even more alarming than its former violence. The Sea Gull still pitched on the huge waves, but it seemed as if the hurricane had blown itself out, with the uncanny instantaneousness of magic.
Erica released her protecting hold on Milly, and sat up, breathing unevenly, and stretching cramped arms and legs.
“Perhaps this is the storm center,” she offered, doubtfully. “I’ve heard there’s always a spot of dead calm, right at the heart of a hurricane or cyclone. It lasts only a little while, and then you come out into the opposite side, where the wind’s even worse than before.”
“Oh—oh, Ricky!” Milly said, in consternation. “You mean—all—that has to start right up again? Let’s see if we can’t get to Cousin Callie,” she suggested, eagerly, jumping to her feet, “before it begins.”
“All right,” Erica agreed, and was preparing to rise to her feet also, when there was a loud, grating, scraping noise that seemed to come from underneath the ship herself; a slithering, rumbling sound as if the keel were being forced across an uneven, rocky surface.
The two girls had time for no more than an instinctive clutch at each other, and two frightened gasps, before the grating underneath them was followed by a rending crash that rocked the Sea Gull more cruelly than either wind or waves had yet done.
The suddenness of it flung them back helplessly on the cabin floor.
It couldn’t have been much over five minutes before they heard hurrying steps in the corridor, and Lis, a lighted lantern in his hand, stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the blackness behind him.
He lifted his lantern so its light should shine farther into the cabin, and uttered an alarmed ejaculation at sight of the two girls huddled on the floor against the bunk.
”Rick!” he cried out sharply, then, “Milly! Are you hurt?”
The clipper was not rolling at all now—a fact which seemed suddenly more ominous than all that had gone before. The girls scrambled hurriedly to their feet and caught at Lister’s arm, one on each side of him.
“What’s happened?” Erica cried. “Did we hit something?”
Lis nodded soberly. “Ran on a reef, they say. We don’t know what the damage to the ship is yet, of course. Uncle Eric sent me down to get you all on deck. It’s too dark to see anything, but he seems to think we’ve hit on some outstanding coral reef of one of these islands.”
He had turned back along the corridor as he spoke, Erica and Milly following closely at his heels. The same thought was in both girls’ minds—did the summons to come at once on deck mean taking to the lifeboats? Was the Sea Gull in as bad a case as that?
Up on deck there was no confusion. Mrs. Folger was already there, standing by Captain Eric, with little Barbee hanging to her skirts. Miss Charity had been carried up by two of the sailors, and sat on a coil of rope, her face set and white in the light of a near-by lantern, but quite calm. Sun Li’s gorgeous sedan chair with its coolie bearers behind and before had been placed beside Miss Charity’s rope-seat, but the Governor himself was standing at the captain’s side, leaning on the arm of little Dr. Wu and observing placidly the scene about them.
Erica ran to her father and slipped her arm through his, grateful for the comforting strength of the big, whipcord muscles under his blue cloth sleeve.
“Are we—wrecked, father?” she asked in a small, not-too-steady voice, pressing closer.
“No, no,” he returned, quickly and reassuringly. “We’ve run on a reef, sure enough, but the old clipper’s not taking in any water—we’ve not even strained her seams, praise the Lord! We’ll just have to wait for morning to find out where we are and how we’re to get afloat again.”
The mate had come up on deck now, and drew near the captain to say something in a lowered voice. Captain Eric listened gravely, and then nodded.
“You can all go below and turn in with easy minds,” he addressed the anxious little group about him. “A second, more thorough examination shows no water coming in. We’ve escaped by a miracle, no less. We certainly drove aground hard enough to have ripped her open, by the feel of it.”
“But the wind—it’s beginning again,” Erica whispered, drawing his ear down to her lips, for she did not want the others to hear. “Aren’t we in the storm center of a hurricane, and won’t the wind be just as bad again in a few minutes?”
“Probably, my wise little daughter,” Captain Eric said, with a tender smile for her worried face. “But as well as we can make out in the darkness, we have been blown into some sort of harbor—where, I’ve no means of telling till daybreak. There are small, scattered islands all about us, and we’ve doubtless been driven aground on one of them—in the lee of some promontory, I should judge, or into a natural, protected harbor. We are safe enough for tonight. The hand of the Lord has piloted us, in our need, and it will become us all to give Him due thanks before we sleep.”
The wind was once more howling and shrieking in all its former violence, but evidently the Sea Gull had, as her captain declared, found sanctuary in some sheltered inlet or harbor, for the full force of the storm seemed to pass high overhead as if deflected from her by an intervening barrier. The waves washed over her decks from time to time, but did not succeed in dislodging her from the rocky ledge she had run on. She did not even rock or bump against the reef, but rested in her new-found berth as securely as if built on a strong and safe foundation.
After a little, rather anxious lingering on deck, ready for any new surprises that might come, the passengers of the Sea Gull finally accepted her captain’s verdict and retired below to their several cabins, reassured as to the immediate future.
The younger members of the party slept soundly, because even in the face of danger youth can sleep the clock around if left undisturbed. Erica’s last waking memory of that night was the continued shrilling whistle of the wind through her porthole, and the intermittent crash of waves along the ship’s side. The next thing she knew was a flood of early morning sunshine pouring in that same porthole and lying in a pool of bright gold on the golden Chinese carpet. The world outside was as peaceful and newly-washed and brilliant as if no noisy, murderous wind and battering waves had waged a losing battle the night before for the Sea Gull and her human cargo.
Milly Thorne was still asleep, and Erica, without waking her, slipped out of her bunk and padded across the soft, velvet pile of the carpet to the porthole and peered eagerly out. The sea had gone down in the night, and now lay spread out in gentle heaving bright-green swells from the porthole through which Erica was looking to the still greener shore of a low forest-clad hillside only a few hundred yards away.
Erica stared, fascinated by the suddenness of the land’s appearance, and the dense, strange jungle growth of trees, underbrush, and creepers that matted the hill almost to the water’s edge.
“Father was right,” Erica told herself, excitedly. “That must be an island—a real tropical island.” She stared a moment longer, then whirled on her bare heel, crossed the tiny cabin in two tomboy strides, and, snatching at her clothes, began to dress with fumbling, hurrying fingers.
CHAPTER XVI
Erica ran into Lis at the head of the companionway, just preparing to descend.
“I was looking for you, Ricky,” he said, excitedly. “Uncle Eric’s going ashore, and he told me we could go along if we wanted to. He says this island’s not on any of his charts, and he thinks it must be uninhabited. It seems there’s nothing we can do to get the Sea Gull off her reef till the tide’s high—and then maybe we can’t. Nice prospect, huh?”
“It’s—it’s gorgeous!” Erica retorted. “A real desert island—like those in the story books! I don’t care if the ship stays on the reef till next winter. Come on, Lis, let’s hurry so father won’t get away without us.”
They found one of the clipper’s boats already in the water, manned by several sailors. As soon as the two appeared on deck, Captain Eric spied them and beckoned them to him.
“So the early birds think they’ll catch a nice fat worm this morning,” he challenged them gayly. “What do you two youngsters expect to find, I wonder, on this pretty little green island we’ve bumped into in the night?”
Erica made a gesture, arms flung wide, and shining eyes laughing up into his twinkling blue ones. “Adventure,” she announced, dramatically.
Lis chuckled with his uncle, but by his eagerness to reach the boat, Erica knew his real thoughts were much the same as her own. A desert island sounded quite as thrilling to Lis as it did to her more impulsive self.
Neither of the children wasted any time in clambering into the boat and taking their places in the stern. The sailors bent to their oars, and the little craft drove across the gently heaving green water toward the near-by land.
The clipper had come to grief on a submerged reef in the very center of a small, partially landlocked bay. This natural harbor was long and narrow, widening at the ocean end, and with jungle-grown hillsides sloping down to the water’s edge on its other three sides. Evidently a strong current set inshore from the open sea beyond, and it was doubtless due to this that the Sea Gull had been able to ride in safely on the breast of the storm, without dashing herself on either of the high headlands at the bay’s mouth.
It was the hill on their right which had cut off the full force of the hurricane after they had entered the harbor. Even the waves in here were merely long, green, undulating swells that rolled gently against the narrow strip of beach and splashed a light pearly spray over the pinkish sand. There was no real surf, and the men had no difficulty in beaching the boat without shipping a drop of water.
Captain Eric stepped ashore, and lifted his daughter from the boat to a dry patch of sand. Lis climbed hurriedly after them, and the three stood there a moment, looking out at the stranded Sea Gull, before turning to their proposed exploring of the island. And it was just at this moment, with all the dramatic effect of a scene on the stage, that the jungle bushes at their right parted suddenly and a man stepped into view.
The little group of would-be explorers turned, as one, and stared in startled surprise at the newcomer. He was a white man undeniably by his features, but so sunburnt by a tropical sun, and so browned by sea winds, that he might otherwise have been mistaken for an Indian or native at first glance. His clothes were remarkable, too. Originally they must have been ordinary sea-going clothes, but they had been so patched and overlaid with extraneous substances such as bits of sailcloth, tarpaulin, and other unrecognizable materials that they presented a strange spectacle, to say the least. His feet were bare, and his hair and beard had grown long and matted, and were, in addition, bleached to a dull tow color. Yet, as he approached them, they could see that his eyes were a bright, piercing blue, and to Lis and Erica there was something puzzling and oddly familiar in his face that grew stronger the longer they stared at him.
Then Lis uttered a shout of, “Captain Joy!” and flung himself at the man, grasping both calloused, leathery hands in excited recognition.
Captain Eric was not a second behind his nephew. Putting Lis aside gently, he grasped, in his turn, the hands of this astonishing tatterdemalion creature from the jungle, and pumped them up and down in vigorous greeting. “Caleb Joy, as I live!” he fairly roared at the man. “What under the shining sun are you doing here, and in that get-up?”
Erica, too surprised to move or speak, stood at her father’s side, her breath coming faster, and her sea-blue eyes suddenly seeing another picture—a moonlight October night eight months ago, and Tommy, Lis, and herself dancing down Main Street, home in Nantucket, arms linked, whistling a gay tune for sheer, exuberant joy in the crisp night air, the sea smells the wind brought them from the ocean, and the general, thrilling exultation of being young and alive in a beautiful world. She saw them swing out on the wharf, and stop to gaze out at the sharp black and silver of the harbor water, and the masts of a whaler etched starkly against the rising moon. She remembered how they had stood and gazed, filled with the beauty of the scene, inarticulate as young things usually are, but deeply moved inwardly with an emotion they would have been ashamed to avow even to one another.
Then had come that cry for help from the dark waters off the wharf’s end, and Tommy’s reckless dive over the high wooden side, to rescue a drowning sailor. As was to be expected, Tommy had needed help himself, before he was safely ashore again with his unconscious burden, and the man who had come running at Lis’s and her frightened cries was the very man who now stood before them in his tattered garb, and bushy, matted hair and beard—Captain Caleb Joy of the Narwhal, who had set sail the following morning on a three-year whaling cruise to the Pacific. Yet now, here—Erica rubbed her eyes dazedly and looked again. Here was that same Captain Joy shaking hands fervently with her father, on this deserted, island beach, and certainly appearing quite as dumfounded as themselves over the unexpected meeting.
She moved nearer and held out her own small hand warmly.
“It took me two or three good long looks to know you,” she admitted, frankly. “But”—she broke off as a new thought struck her with a blaze of illumination. “Why—why, Captain Joy, I believe you’ve been shipwrecked, too!” she gasped.
Captain Joy closed his horny fingers very gently over the slim, eager ones thrust into them, and nodded emphatically.
“So it’s little Ricky Folger!” he said. “Well, well, missy! But you’ve hit it square on the head. Shipwrecked I’ve been here on this blessed island, with eight o’ my crew, these past eight months.” He turned back to Captain Eric and continued his tale, the rest of the group crowding nearer to listen. “We sailed, as Lister here and Ricky will remember, in October of last year, on a whalin’ v’yage that we cal’lated would last for ‘bout a three-year stretch. Well, we run head-on into a storm a hundred or so miles off this place—storms and hurricanes are plenty in these waters, as you found out for yourselves, sir, last night.” He nodded wisely toward the Sea Gull across the little bay, and Captain Eric nodded agreement.
“We had worse luck than what you had, howsomever, Captain,” Caleb Joy resumed his story, his great booming voice all at once a trifle unsteady, as though even after these months the memories it called up were hard to face. “I lost my ship, sir. We drove before the gale all night, and in the morning, just as light came, we discovered fire in the hold. You can guess the rest—she went like a tinder box. We took to the boats, but in that sea, and with the gale still blowin’, it was impossible to keep together. The other two boats I’ve never seen nor heard of from that mornin’ to this. My boat kept afloat, by some miracle, and when the sun come out I managed to lay a rough course, meaning to head for one of the West Indian islands—Cuba, by my reckonin’, was the nearest. O’ course, not havin’ means for takin’ a reg’lar sight, I had no sure way of knowin’ just how far off our course we’d driven. We rowed for two days and a night, and—well, to make a long story short—and it ain’t an easy tale, as you may imagine, to tell, sir—we finally sighted land. It warn’t Cuba, nor none o’ the islands I know by the charts, but it were land, at any rate, and mighty welcome to our eyes. We rowed halfway round her ‘fore we could find this little inlet, or bay as you might call it. We pulled in then, and landed right where you’ve come ashore today. And here we’ve remained ever since. The men are over on the other side o’ the island, where we’ve built ourselves some huts,” he added, explanatorily. “I just happened to walk over this way—I usually take a stroll ‘fore breakfast, like it’s always been my custom when ashore. And maybe I wasn’t struck all of a heap when I saw a clipper layin’ out in the bay, an’ a boat puttin’ into the beach. Naturally, I hurried as fast as I could, and come to meet you—not knowin’ I’d be meetin’ old friends,” he wound up, smiling.
Captain Eric had begun looking very grave as the other neared the end of his narrative, and his expression did not lighten when it was finished.
“I take it the island’s not inhabited,” he remarked. “But you never saw any ships passing in all these months?”
Captain Joy shook his grizzled head. “Never a one,” he said, quietly. “Oh, there’s no doubt but what we’re well off the reg’lar lane of ship’s travel. It’s a mighty little island—no more’n a half-mile across and maybe a mile in length. She’s not on any of the charts, either, I’m pretty sure.”
“No, you’re right about that,” Erica’s father agreed. “I looked this morning, before coming ashore, to make certain. Well-ll——” He frowned out at the Sea Gull, and fell silent.
Erica knew he was wondering whether—in the tragic event that high tide should not float the clipper from her reef, how long they, too, might stay here and search the blue horizon for passing ships, as Captain Joy and his men had done for eight long months.
Probably it was because of her youth and her romantic dreams of sea adventures that the prospect did not seem as appalling to Erica as it did to her elders. She had been born and brought up on one little sea island, and it could not be any great hardship, she reasoned, to spend even quite a long time on another more southern island, learning new ways of living, and the hitherto unknown thrill of exploring new country.
“Your ship’s aground on a reef out there,” Captain Joy was saying to her father, when she listened to their conversation once more. “It’s a narrow shelf of coral that runs parallelin’ this shore o’ the bay. I’ve traced its course. But if the tide rises high enough to float her she’s only got to move a few feet to be in deep water again. O’ course my men and I will do all we can to help. Count on us as if we were part of your crew. And if she didn’t float at high tide this noon,” he added, thoughtfully, “there’s always flood tide at full moon, which will be in about ten days. There’ll be a pretty good chance o’ makin’ it then.”
To all this Captain Eric could only assent, and keep his fears and worries to himself like the good seaman he was. He also accepted Captain Joy’s invitation to return to his camp on the other side of the island and share his breakfast. Erica and Lis, who pleaded anxiously to be allowed to go, too, were finally included in the party, while the sailors were sent back to the ship, to report to the mate, and to Sun Li, the morning’s astonishing discoveries.
The eight men who had been saved from the wreck of the Narwhal were all Nantucketers, most of them personally known to the Folgers, and their wondering delight and amazement when Captain Joy brought his guests through the jungle, by a path cleared from bay to ocean shore, can be more easily imagined than put into words.
These shipwrecked mariners had almost given up hope of ever seeing their own island far to the north again, and here were old neighbors and a ship dropped right into their deserted bay from out of last night’s storm; and even though that ship was temporarily in difficulties, too, hope blazed once more brightly in their hearts. In excited voices, interrupting one another and crowding about Captain Eric and the younger Folgers, they promised their utmost in service and willing hands to do all that was humanly possible toward getting the Sea Gull afloat.
It was certainly a regular Odyssey of adventure that Erica and Lis poured into Sun Li’s interested and attentive ear later in the day, when they had returned to the clipper. Whereupon, roused surprisingly from his former indolent acceptance of his semi-invalid state, Sun Li suddenly demanded to be rowed ashore and carried over the jungle trail in his gorgeous sedan chair to visit the little encampment of the marooned sailors, and see for himself all that the excited boy and girl had so vividly described.
Little Dr. Wu, after one startled glance at his august master’s smiling, newly alert countenance, smiled broadly himself, and hurried off to order the sedan chair to be in readiness as soon as the Sea Gull’s biggest boat could be manned.
“I have not seen His Excellency so like his old, healthful self in months,” he confided, beamingly, to Captain Eric, when proffering his request for the boat. “This sea voyage is surely doing for him all that we hoped—that, and his interest in your honorable daughter, sir. He is centering on her all that affection and pride he would have given his own son. My hopes are high that he will effect an entire recovery in the immediate future.” Bowing ceremoniously, he hurried away as fast as he had come, followed by the coolie bearers and the big, gold-and-crimson-lacquer sedan chair.
Both Lis and Erica accompanied this second expedition ashore, and experienced all the thrills of old explorers conducting a novice, in exhibiting the island and the camp of the Narwhal’s crew to the smiling appreciation of His Excellency Sun Li, Governor of Canton.
The astonishment of the sailors and Captain Joy himself at sight of their splendid procession fed the children’s inward satisfaction to the point where it could no longer be repressed, but simply had to break out in giggles, which in turn brought answering smiles from the older and more staid beholders. Altogether it was a highly satisfying and eventful day, and it is doubtful whether Erica could have slept at all that night, tucked snugly into her berth in the lovely little cabin Sun Li had had fitted up for her, if she hadn’t also been so utterly weary mentally and physically that sleep was upon her before she had had time to marshal her memories of the past hours for reconsideration.
Captain Eric, however, lay awake a longer time than his daughter, occupied with much less pleasant reflections. That noon’s high tide had not floated the Sea Gull, so now there was nothing for it but to settle down to a ten days’ wait for the flood tide at full moon. If that failed—— He turned over restlessly in his bunk and refused to allow his thoughts to dwell on that eventuality. There was no use in crossing bridges before one reached them.
CHAPTER XVII
Captain Eric’s philosophy about not crossing bridges ahead of time proved to have been well founded in this particular case. Full moon, when it came, not only ushered in a flood tide, but was accompanied with a heavy blow out of the northwest which drove a great volume of water before it through the narrow mouth of Shipwreck Bay—which was the name by which Erica and Lis had christened the harbor where the Sea Gull lay on her reef. This extra pressure of wind and water made that tide a memorable one in the island’s history, and the clipper floated clear, on its crest, to the deep side of the coral bar.
It was an anxious time for all on board, as well as for the little colony in the huts on the ocean shore of the islet. And when the tide had reached its height, and the great clipper, with all her canvas set to utilize the wind’s force as well as that of the sea, finally rose, literally inch by inch, until her keel rode the long swells without scraping or bumping, a rousing cheer burst from dozens of throats. Then, the reef well astern, there sounded the creaking of the capstan as the anchor chain was paid out, and the clipper came to rest again quietly, a hundred or more yards from the scene of her imprisonment.
All preparations had been made for leaving the island on the following day, if the ship should succeed in freeing herself from the reef, and by sunrise of the next morning her sails were once more set, and the capstan busily winding in the anchor.
Early as it was, Erica was up on deck, leaning against the rail on the port side, to watch the green jungle growth of the hillside slip smoothly and silently into their wake.
In the midst of all the jubilation about her, she was conscious of a vague regret. Of course she didn’t want to have to spend the rest of her life on this island, but she had only had ten days of it, and she had enjoyed to the full every moment of every one of those days. In all probability she would never see those steeply-sloping green shores again; never explore strange and beautiful jungle paths such as she had known till then only in the pages of story books; never swim in a brilliantly blue lagoon inside the reef, and watch, down—down—down through its clear depths, the antics of strange fish and other exotically colored little sea creatures for which she had no names, disporting themselves gayly in the routine of their every-day marine existences. It had been a very wonderful experience, that ten days’ stay on the island—Hurricane Island, they had unanimously decided to name it, for obvious reasons.
However, there would be exciting tales to tell her friends at home on Nantucket, which was, in a measure at least, consolatory. There was, also, the tragic story of the lost Narwhal, and the finding of those of her crew who had survived. All Nantucket would want to hear that tale over and over in the days to come.
And much good had come to the whole company on board the clipper. Sun Li was unmistakably better; so was Aunt Charity. As for the rest of them, their sunburnt, wind-tanned faces and glowing eyes fairly radiated health. The only cloud that overshadowed their skies in the week of their passage north was the realization of the sad news they carried to the families of the mate and those other sailors of the Narwhal who had not come home.
But they tried not to think of this any more than they could help. At least they had rescued Captain Joy and eight sailors, which would mean happiness in nine island families. That was pleasanter to consider than the other side of the picture.
As if to make up for the storm which had so nearly stolen their ship, the weather all the way from Hurricane Island to Nantucket was as perfect as the most timid of ocean travelers could desire. Blue skies smiled down on a calm blue sea day after day; and a well-behaved sailing wind blew them steadily on their way, without the interference of gales or calms.
The Sea Gull skimmed the waters like a wild thing in flight, graceful as the bird for which she had been named, and as tireless. The white cutwater churning up before her slim, sharp prow was a never-ending delight to Erica perched in the bow, with the up-flung spray wetting her flushed face and leaving the taste of salt on her parted lips. Or, just before twilight fell, when the afterglow still painted the ocean rose and purple and gold, the stern was an equally wonderful place to lean against the rail and stare at the rainbow-tinted wake they left behind them, as they raced gallantly to meet the oncoming, misty dusk and the star-pointed darkness that came after.
The call of the sea was in Erica Folger’s blood; always, in each generation, some of the men in her family had been sea captains. It was her earliest grievance against life that she had not been a boy and free to follow in their footsteps. It had been the one, certain, enraging taunt with which the twins could retaliate in their recurrent differences of opinion as children—their superiority in this respect.
But anyhow, Erica told herself, this was the next best thing. A passenger may be an insignificant person when compared with a captain of one of these stately clippers; but a passenger can at least feel the beauty and the wonder of the sea just as keenly. Never, no matter if she lived to be an old, old lady, would the memory of this voyage in the Sea Gull be dimmed by the passing years. Besides, if fate were kind, there would be other voyages. For instance, there was China, and a vague half-promise she had already wrung from her father on the subject. Erica’s fingers stole to a knotted Chinese cord she wore around her neck, on which hung a small, exquisitely carved jade-and-silver key….
She begrudged each shining day as it went by, and yet as the time arrived when any minute the low, gray outline of her native island would loom over the horizon line where sky and water met, she found herself watching for it as eagerly as Miss Charity, or the shipwrecked sailors from the lost Narwhal. After all, home was home; and no matter how beautiful and romantic desert islands might be to explore, Nantucket was the nicest place in the world to come back to.
She was up in the bow with Lis when they first caught sight of the dim, far-off speck—a mere gray smudge on the low sky line—for which they were waiting. It was Lis who spied it first and touched her arm, pointing.
”Nantucket!” he said.
They sent word below to Sun Li, who had asked to be notified as soon as the island was in sight, and he came up on deck, carried as usual in his sedan chair by the stolid coolie bearers. Erica ran to him at once, and directed his eyes to the little gray smudge which as yet required super-eyesight to discern against the equally gray water.
It was not one of those brilliant days of blue skies and sunshine which are never more beautiful than on Nantucket, but overcast and sunless. Mists drove in ahead of them from the sea, occasionally blotting out even that tiny speck Lis’s quick eyes had been the first to see.
The wind had died to a faint breeze that was scarcely strong enough to fill the clipper’s big sails. She moved through the gray water lazily, as if she, like Erica, regretted the end of the voyage.
Later the mists parted, and with a change in the wind’s direction, eddied off to the south of the island. The ship was near enough now for the watchers on deck to make out a hint of slender church steeples, a vague outline of roofs, and the higher ground behind them.
They rounded Great Point and stood in toward the harbor. Miss Charity and Mrs. Folger came on deck, bringing Milly and little Barbee with them, and they all grouped against the rail, straining eager eyes to catch sight of familiar landmarks.
Yet, queerly enough, there seemed to be nothing familiar in the long gray shore line; only the steeples and the higher ground behind the town. Something was strange and different here which they could not quite make out. They might have been approaching a totally unknown port for all they were able to recognize. They turned and eyed each other with a questioning, half-formed apprehension, but no one spoke until Lis broke out in a shaken voice:
“Ricky, look! There—isn’t—any—town—”
And then the others saw too. Down by the water’s edge, and as far inland as they could see, there were no houses standing; only a blackened and twisted tangle of charred wood, fantastically leaning chimneys, and sagging roof-beams….
Miss Charity, unlike her usually calm self, cried out in a frightened whisper, a soft little protesting ghost of a cry, “No—no——” and fell silent again, one thin hand clutching at her heart. Captain Eric, who had come up unnoticed behind them, slipped his arm about her shoulders, and held her up, strongly, offering neither comfort nor attempted explanations. As a matter of fact, he was as stunned and bewildered as she. What terrible catastrophe had overtaken the old gray town during their absence? It was incredible, like something seen in a nightmare from which one confidently expects to wake. Only—there it was before their eyes. Blackened wood, torn and twisted roofs, fallen chimneys—— Not the aftermath of a fire, but of a holocaust.
The nearer they came, the more plainly did the desolation show. In the few weeks they had been gone, the whole town had been swept out of existence by fire; that much they were aware of. But how, when, and why this thing had happened they had of course no possible means as yet of knowing.
The Sea Gull anchored in the harbor entrance, for once again, as on her former visit, the tide was wrong for a ship of her size to clear the bar. The largest of her boats was lowered and manned, and Captain Eric, Miss Charity, Mrs. Folger, Milly, Baby Barbee, Erica, and Lis crowded into it. No matter if they overloaded it a bit; the harbor was calm, and the need to learn the extent of the catastrophe at once made them all reckless.
The approach of the clipper had drawn a little crowd to the burnt and blackened wreck of the wharf. The sailors had to beach the boat, and help the two ladies and Milly ashore, lifting them over the wet sand. Erica tumbled over the side in Lister’s wake, heedless of wet feet and bedraggled dress hem.
The thrilling tale of their sea adventures which she had looked forward to relating was forgotten. It was she who fell eagerly into the rôle of listener now, as, grouped together on the sand, the passengers from the Sea Gull heard the story of the tragedy as related by old friends and neighbors who had come down to welcome them home.
Bad as the news was, however, it was not quite so hopeless as a first glimpse of the wreckage alongshore had led them to believe. More than half the town had been saved, owing to a blessed veering of the wind, and the heroic work of the fire-fighters who had not stopped even at dynamiting untouched buildings in the fire’s path, and checking its progress. Trinity Church had gone in the flames, as had the Atheneum, the fine library of which the townspeople were so justly proud. The museum had been destroyed, too, and every store in the town but one. In all, about four hundred houses had been demolished, so ran the appalling summing-up.
Miss Charity, white-faced, her eyes full of tears, touched the arm of one of the men in the crowd, a retired sea captain who had been a friend of her father’s.
“Captain Jem, no one has said—our houses—Callie’s and mine——” she managed to ask between dry lips.
The old man put a fatherly hand on her arm.
“Untouched, thank the good Lord, Miss Charity,” he said, quickly. “The fire didn’t get to Orange Street—turned off and went north just a few hundred feet from there. But I’m afraid you’ll find uninvited guests crowding both houses, my dear. We had to find shelter for so many, we took the liberty of putting two families in your closed house,” he spoke to Mrs. Folger, across her sister-in-law. “Mrs. Joy, next door, said you’d left the key with her, and it didn’t seem any time to hesitate——”