Trinidad—January.
WHAT a world! What a woman!
From the way in which Mrs. Mink collected you and me, it was clear that she had a knack, a genius, nay, even let us say, a tendency toward collecting people. In point of fact, no sooner were you gone than she collected a Professor of Logic.
His name was Simpson, Professor Simpson. It was at San Juan. Why did she collect him? Now you speak of it, I reckon it was for a sort of a breakwater to me. Gracious heavens! It wasn't for want of logic. Never! But it is just possible that she found me, at the time,—I suspected it—that she found me rather—shall I say?—overflowing, rather a deluge.
Professor Simpson was a man whose presence I should ordinarily have welcomed for the educational value of his company, but I didn't welcome him. He was small in person, dry of face, categorical in manner, testy in temper, Presbyterian in religion, pedantic in language, undoubtedly learned. But did he understand his function to be merely a breakwater to me? He did not. Let that pass for the present. Mrs. Mink collected him at San Juan, and we steamed away to Martinique. Here, one day, on or about the tenth of December, we lay in the roadstead of St. Pierre.
We were intending to go on that day, but about two-thirds of the Violetta's crew were in St. Pierre on shore leave. Captain Jansen came aboard some time after noon, and finding the men had not returned, became excited, took all the boats, and the remainder of the crew, even down to the cook, to help him collect delinquent mariners the faster, and went ashore again. We four were left on the Violetta: Mrs. Mink, Norah, Professor Simpson, and I.
The weather was calm to the point of deadness. Mont Pelée, that smouldering volcano, that suppressed Titan, was asleep. Not a cloud in the sky, not a ripple in the bay. Jansen appeared to be having trouble, for an hour passed, and the missing crew had not returned.
Between you and me, as man and man, the delinquent mariners were in the lockup, but Mrs. Mink does not know that, as yet. You can't rivet a nail in a boiled potato, nor temperance in the tempestuous seaman, but Mrs. Mink doesn't know that, as yet.
We were just commenting upon a dark, small, condensed looking cloud which had appeared above the shoulder of Mont Pelée, questioning whether it was an exhalation of the volcano, Pelée in eruption. Was Mont Pelée about to overwhelm St. Pierre, a Vesuvius to Pompeii? Was I, like the elder Pliny, to perish, a suffocated naturalist, a philosopher in cinder?
But it grew with enormous rapidity. It seemed to have an uncommon knack of taking in nourishment, a terrifying appetite. I saw a house on the mountain side rise up and vanish, swallowed at a gulp. Professor Simpson got out his note-book and took notes. He described the cloud in his notebook as “bulbous, or bulging in form, in colour a bluish black, and unfolding centrifugally toward the edges.”
“In my opinion,” he said, “we are ourselves in some personal danger. I believe this is what is commonly called a tornado. Do you differ from me, Dr. Uls-water?”
I said: “Not there, professor, though it's late in the year for West-Indian hurricanes. The most pointed opinion I've got is that this deck is going to be a wet place in a minute.”
We'd hardly got to the cabin before the roar was audible, and grew till we could not hear ourselves. One minute more and the Violetta gave a jerk that threw us on the floor, Norah on Professor Simpson and Mrs. Mink on Norah. Between them they obscured him, on the whole, very well. I got up and looked through the port-hole, and saw only spray and splashing water. The ship was engaged in a sort of circular high-kicking dance, something between a waltz and a cancan. The professor remained obscure. Neither Mrs. Mink nor Norah saw their way clearly to getting off him, and for myself,—seeing that he kicked but vaguely, harmlessly,—I thought Mrs. Mink and Norah might as well suit themselves about it.
At the end of four minutes, perhaps five or ten, the tumult had subsided to a strong wind and heavy sea. I went on deck, and discovered that the Violetta had been torn loose from her anchor, and was drifting rapidly. The mist, however, was too thick to see far in any direction. By the point from which the tornado had come, I judged that we had been driven out of the roadstead and were moving perhaps west, or northwest, on the open sea. A broken spar hung from the short rigging and beat against the mast, and the deck was awash with water. I went back to the cabin, and mentioned my inferences. Mrs. Mink jumped up and said:
“Nonsense! It's impossible.”
“But, my dear Mrs. Mink,” said the professor, rising, “surely a situation that is in esse, in actual existence, cannot be described as 'impossible.' It is, as you mean to imply, however, most distressing.”
“Fiddlesticks! What shall we do?”
The professor reflected. On reflection, he said he thought it needed reflection. I thought we might as well remain where we were. He objected that, being in motion with the ship, it was not in our power to remain where we were, but, as regards our relations to the ship, I was perhaps right.
What a man!
Mrs. Mink said we'd better have supper.
The mist was turning to rain, the violence of the waves gradually subsiding, and the wind growing more moderate. Norah and I went to the galley. She cooked and I carried. After supper it was dark. A pitch-black and rainy night came down on the troubled sea. The professor and I agreed to watch alternately. He went to bed and I lay down on the cabin sofa. I listened to the creak and thump of the loose spar, the murmur of the rain, the splash of waves against the Violetta's sides. I reflected that our situation was perhaps more unusual than perilous; that we were likely to be seen by somebody if the weather cleared; that after all the sea is in reality a less eventful element than the land; that a philosophic mind is better than a feather bed; that with reasonable good luck and a philosophic mind I might have the credit of a nightlong watch over Mrs. Mink's slumbers, along with the benefit of a night's rest. So reflecting, I went to sleep.
WHEN I awoke the sun was shining in at the port-holes, and the ship appeared to be quiet, but slanting. It was the slant that had rolled me off the sofa and awakened me. Hence it must have just happened. I went up the companionway, and saw—the boundless blue expanse of dimpled sea? Not at all! Nothing of the kind! On the contrary, a towering green wall of forest trees almost overhung the ship.
Talk not to me of the ruthless chain of causes whereby all things are bound, of nature's dismal obedience to law! As a scientist, I admit it with reservation—as a man, with tears. But what I really like about things is their fresh and genial inconsequence. Among all worlds, give me one compact of improbability. Among all women, give me one of invincible good sense.
The Violetta lay something over fifty feet from a high wooded bank. The tide was out, but the shelve of the bottom must be steep, for her list to landward was not very great. We were on the eastern side of a semicircular bay, which opened toward the south. It was still early morning. No wind stirred, and the ripples flowed gently among the stones beneath the high banks. Bright-coloured birds flitted between the tall stems of the palm trees. A place so calm, so halcyon, so appropriate to the purposes of my suit! In fact,—Bless my soul!—nothing could be better.
Professor Simpson and Mrs. Mink appeared on deck.
“Oh!” she said; “Where's this, doctor?”
She looked as if she thought I had omnipotently arranged the climax. I passed the question on to the professor.
“Tentatively,” he said, “I should conjecture it was an outlying island somewhat to the north or east of Martinique.”
“But does any one live on it?”
“That Dr. Ulswater and myself will take upon us to discover.”
“Well, I think it's a nice island, anyway. But there aren't any boats. How are we going to get on it?”
“Precisely!” said the professor. “A problem! I would suggest, perhaps, a bridge of—of palm trees, felled—” he kindled with light inflammable ideas—“felled in such a manner as to fall forward upon the ship, thus, being fastened, to form a secure connection with the shore.”
“I don't see how you can chop them from here,” said Mrs. Mink.
“True. That is a difficulty.”
There was a pause. A green and scarlet parrot was swearing at us from where he swung on a vine above the bank. I leaned on the rail and listened to the parrot and considered his point of view.
“Professor,” I said at last; “this is a world of compensations. There's compensation in your not understanding the dialect of that parrot. His clothes are handsome, but his language is bad. You are religious and ascetic, and he's a worldling. I'm a worldling, too, but I can swim, and I see compensations.”
“Let's have breakfast,” said Mrs. Mink.
After breakfast I swam ashore with an axe, climbed the bank, selected four tall slender palms that leaned in the direction of the Violetta's after-deck, and hacked them down. Two of them fell on the Violetta and damaged her rail, but stuck where they fell. The professor roped the ends to a capstan, and crossed that sagging bridge, respectably calm, dragging after him the long end of the rope, which we fastened to a tree. The Violetta was moored.
Mrs. Mink came, too, nervous but firm.
What a woman! Practical, foreseeing, sagacious, she will walk the tight-rope of any catastrophe. In fact, she brought a hammock and a cushion with her. Norah's method of crossing somewhat resembled shinning a pole. ON recollection, I should say that she yelled.
When Professor Simpson and I set out to explore the island, Norah was throwing stones at the green and red parrot, and Mrs. Mink lay in the hammock, not understanding that parrot's dialect, which I didn't understand altogether myself, but it appeared to me he was blistering the foliage with it.
The island was some three to five miles around by the coast, and no other land was in sight from it, barring a slight bump on the southeastern horizon which might be another small island, or might be Mont Pelée. It appeared we had been blown some distance during the night. There were no inhabitants at the time, or we found none, though there were two groups of sorry huts not far from the beach, and frequent paths through the woods, showing occasional occupancy.
We came back by the northern shore of the bay, and saw that the Violetta was safe. We stood some moments in silence. The wind had risen again and now blew hard from the west, so that the Violetta was protected on a lee shore, though where we stood the waves rolled in tumultuously. Professor Simpson broke the silence. He suddenly planted himself before me, his hands on his hips, and frowned.
Now, a frown that is directed upward has the law of gravitation against it. Professor Simpson's shortness incommoded him in that respect.
“It is not my habit, Dr. Ulswater,” he began, “to brook impertinent opposition or light-minded interference. In, therefore, announcing my intention to invite Mrs. Mink to the alliance of marriage, I consider that no more need be said. I wish to be relieved of this undignified rivalry, and to avail myself of this situation to fulfil my purpose in peace. I demand that your too noticeable attentions shall cease. Your attitude toward Mrs. Mink is offensive to me. I repeat, sir, they must cease.”
Extraordinary professor! Never was another like him. He was a species.
“But,” I said, feebly; “look here. I've already been at Mrs. Mink on that subject myself. I was thinking it was a good time to work up to it again.”
“I object to your giving Mrs. Mink that annoyance. Her preference for me is perfectly plain. You are without personal attractions.”
“What!”
“You are too fat.”
“But, professor! On the other hand, ought not the fact of your being a contemptible little dried-up molecule, with the temper of a mosquito and the humour of a codfish ball, oughtn't that—now really, oughtn't that fact to be given some weight in the discussion? I appeal to you, professor?”
“Sir!”
He clenched his fists. It was a critical and perilous moment. Did he or did he not intend an attack on my diaphragm? Should I or should I not be presently seated on top of him like a bolster on a crab?
There is a Haitian proverb which says, “It's when the wind blows that you see the skin of a hen.”
Professor Simpson drew a long breath, and suddenly laid himself flat on the ground, extended his arms and legs and closed his eyes.
“I was somewhat heated,” he murmured. “To allay any mental strain, such as vexation or anger, extend the body, relax the muscles, and endeavour to abstract the mind from surroundings. The effect is invariable. Let me recommend it to you. There!” he said, after a moment, getting to his feet. “I am quite calm. And now, clearly, Dr. Ulswater, clearly, we must submit it to Mrs. Mink. I suggest, then, that we ask her for a half-hour's interview each. Subsequently, she will announce her decision, and thus we will conclude our dispute.”
I agreed. We went amicably along the shore of the bay toward the Violetta.
Norah was in the hammock, but Mrs. Mink had gone aboard again, and stood by the rail looking toward us. The yacht lay on a lee shore, and there the water was fairly calm; but the force of the wind, in spite of the protection of the trees, was such now as to put some strain on the rope which stretched taut to the bank.
“In half an hour, then,” said Professor Simpson, “you will be at liberty to interrupt me.”
He was over the bridge while I was figuring on the discrepancy,—the something not quite predestined,—in his having the first shot,—that is to say, the first opportunity,—of presenting his case to Mrs. Mink. I was going to propose we should flip a coin for it. He was a wonder, a wonder! I called out to Mrs. Mink, asking for an interview in half an hour. She looked surprised. I went back among the trees, and wished I were a Presbyterian, and watched, during that long half-hour, the minutes slowly passing on the cold unfeeling face of my watch. I allowed the full time and went back.
Professor Simpson was still arguing. I concluded, comfortably, that his argument had not, as yet, convinced Mrs. Mink. They stood by the rail, near the straining rope that fastened the yacht to the bank.
“Professor,” I called, “your time's up. I'm coming aboard.”
He raised his hands. He was excited. He cried:
“I have not concluded! Mrs. Mink! A few moments more! No, no! I refuse to be interrupted.”
Mrs. Mink said nothing. Her expression of face was the expression of an interested spectator. It seemed to say: “Which of you is going to do something?” I went toward the bridge. He wrung his hands. His excitement became intense.
“It is critical, sir, critical! Your conduct is inconsiderate, offensive! I insist!”
Suddenly he disappeared below the rail.
He rose again. An axe was aloft in both his hands. He rushed at the rope. He struck! The miserable little pirate! He chopped the rope, the infinitesimal assassin!
The yacht keeled over, under pressure of the gale, and Mrs. Mink and Professor Simpson disappeared. Probably they slid to the other side. The bridge was dragged after the yacht. I was nearly on it, and all but pitched from the bank into the water. Norah sat up and yelled. The green parrot climbed down and swore. The Violetta regained her level and drifted rapidly away.
I picked up the axe that had been used to fell the palm trees, and ran along the shore. It was an action not suited to my physique. I had to stop and take breath.
“However,” I reflected, “he's done for himself. Mrs. Mink won't stand for it. Or—or, will she?”
At the same time I did not like a rival so fertile in expedients, nor the fact that he and Mrs. Mink were both Presbyterians.
The yacht was not driving in the direction of the open sea, but across the bay, nearly toward the spot where Professor Simpson and I had had our first altercation.
WHEN I reached the place, the prow of the Violetta had already run aground, and the stern had swung about, dragging the attached tree trunks after it, so that the yacht lay in something like its former position, parallel to the shore, but further off, the shelve being here more gradual. Moreover, she was now on a windward shore, the waves of considerable height and force, and, being balanced, so to speak, on her keel, she oscillated, descending now on this side toward the shore, now on that side away from me, through an arc of some forty degrees. The situation I beheld with mingled emotions, both soothed and lacerated, soothed on account of Professor Simpson's condign punishment, lacerated on account of Mrs. Mink. Their cries were heard above the tumult. They clung to the landward rail, which went up and down like a teeter, or a ducking stool, regular as a pendulum, terrific, but distressing.
“For goodness' sake, doctor, do something!” cried Mrs. Mink; and Professor Simpson shrieked: “Can you not assist? I entreat! I adjure! Do not——”
He was interrupted.
Something had to be done.
The two tree trunks attached to the stern had been driven about, so that the butts rested on the bottom, in the midst of the surf. Being dragged back and forth by the motion of the yacht, and at the same time tossed by the surf, the result was a somewhat complicated motion. To get through the surf was no great difficulty, for two hundred and odd pounds of determination. But to draw the butts together, to climb them beyond reach of the surf, to maintain the uneasy position so gained, astride those two insane, rotatory, and indecorous poles,—wabbled, danced, dandled, jerked about in the air by that eccentric and careening-viaduct, whose leaps, halts, and rebounds resembled the kicking of a restive mule or a series of railroad collisions—this was achievement, this was a goal and effort worthy of a man!
I succeeded. Clinging to the logs with hands and knees, I looked up. Mrs. Mink and the professor hung over the shattered rail above me. I shouted:
“Come on! I'll meet you.”
“But I can't walk that!” she called back. “It doesn't keep still.”
“Walk it! No!” I roared. “Creep it, madam! Shin it! Roll it! Come anyway, and don't fall off.”
She laughed.
Admirable woman! For self-possession, spirit, and sense, where is her equal? She mounted, clung, approached. I clasped her, slid back to the edge of the surf, lifted her, rushed, waded, forced my way to land. She was wet. I was winded. I admit both. Stretched on the ground I felt particularly indifferent to any accident, to anything whatever, that might happen to Professor Simpson. Suddenly I was aware of him. Cast up by an ebullient wave, he sprawled on the shore and sprang to his feet, crying,
“A miraculous escape! I would not have believed myself so agile.”
Mrs. Mink looked from one to the other of us, and began to laugh.
“I am delighted,” he said, shaking himself, “my dear Rebecca, to see you in such composure.”
I got up. I spoke with dignity.
“Do I understand, sir, that you've profited by your treachery?”
He looked disturbed.
“Mrs. Mink has—nevertheless I am not without——”
I interrupted and turned to Mrs. Mink.
“You approved of this gentleman's behaviour?”
“What behaviour? Well! It was bright of him, anyway.”
“You knew of the agreement between us?”
“Of course, you were going to propose to me next. Fiddlesticks! You've done that before? What made you let him come first? You shouldn't let people run over you.”
“You were to reserve your decision, madam.”
“Humph! I didn't agree to that. Perhaps he's willing to begin over again.”
Professor Simpson started.
“Mrs. Mink speaks in jest. It would be unprecedented, impossible.” We paused.
“Well?” said Mrs. Mink.
“Well, madam?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I see you like men of strenuous action, Mrs. Mink,” I said. “Would it, do you think? would it insinuate me somewhat into your favour if I were to take this axe and strenuously chop Professor Simpson's head in two symmetrical but characteristic parts?”
Professor Simpson looked aghast.
“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Mink.
“Not feasible, you think? Perhaps not. Suppose, then, I were to cut a switch and apply it to Professor Simpson's attenuated legs. Could you candidily recommend that, Mrs. Mink?”
“I will not submit, sir!” he cried. “I will not submit!”
Mrs. Mink turned and walked rapidly away.
“Professor,” I said, taking out my waterproof match-safe and extracting several matches, “you will take these matches and see that Mrs. Mink is comfortable. Our rescuers will find us in time, no doubt. Until then you will respect my privacy. I seek no revenge and offer no congratulations. I don't inquire into your standards of integrity. I don't see, unless your system of ethics is fundamentally unsound, how you can reconcile to morality this reward of victorious evil. But I leave it to your casuistry.”
It seemed to me this was a poisoned arrow well planted. I had set him a problem likely to irritate his exact mind. I picked up the axe and walked up the shore in the opposite direction.
The afternoon was growing late. I kindled a fire to dry my clothes, felled a banana tree, and ate bananas. Across the bay I could make out the smoke of the other camp fire. The Violetta still swayed back and forth, but not so violently, on her keel. The wind still blew, but the air was warm. I sat by the fire and took inventory of things in general.
AEQUAM memento,” I reflected, “rebus in arduis.”
After all, marriage would disturb my pursuits. A man with a liquid and non-resistant name like “Ulswater,” with a fleshy and floating physique, with a mind as full of refuse as a sargasso sea, and whiskers resembling sargasso,—when he proposes to ally himself in marriage to a woman like Mrs. Mink, whose rational instincts—as a capable and neat housekeeper—would be to trim his whiskers and rearrange his nature, to tidy up his mind and sweep it, hang antimacassars over its chairs, polish its andirons, fling the cuspidor out of the window, and can the tropical fruitage of his character into jellies and jams in glass jars with screw tops and rubber bands,—when such a man has in mind such an alliance, if fate prevents, if an agile Presbyterian professor is one too many for him, what should he do but remark, “Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem,” that is, “In trouble take it easy,” and then immediately proceed to swear himself black in the face, and wish for a green and red parrot to take up the job after him?
Precisely. Also I dried my clothes and whistled. Time passed on, and it was perhaps six o'clock. Suddenly, as I looked up, Professor Simpson stood before me, alone.
“Professor,” I said, “you intrude.”
He seated himself on the fallen trunk of the banana tree.
“I am compelled to do so,” he said. “Mrs. Mink objects to the present arrangement; whether on the score of propriety, or because she regards my protection as inadequate, I cannot say, I refuse to discuss. It is a matter, in either case, humiliating to myself. She demands the return of Dr. Uls-water.”
“I am sorry for Mrs. Mink's feelings,” I said, “but I seem to see a lack of consideration for mine.”
“I have stated Mrs. Mink's attitude without commenting upon it,” he went on. “As regards my own, there is much more to be said. I cannot conceal from myself that the terms you have applied to my late ill-regulated conduct would, if properly qualified and defined, in the main be just. I am, further, upon Mrs. Mink's own declaration, forced to believe that her consent not for the present to decline my suit, but to consider it, perhaps favourably, was entirely due to that very action which my conscience compels me to deplore. She was attracted by that very deviation from rectitude into which I was tempted and fell. She states that she was about to decline my proposal absolutely, finally, when my action revealed to her my character, as she says, in a new light. Not to my position in the scientific world, my well-earned repute, not to my worthier qualities of mind and heart, not to her conviction of these claims, can her capitulation—if such it was—be attributed. You will understand my distress at this admission made by Mrs. Mink. I fear to infer, and yet I must infer, a want of seriousness, of strict conscience, on the part of Mrs. Mink. I showed her my distress, I intimated my fear, I begged her to allay it, to consider, to recollect the facts more carefully. She became angry and asked if I repented cutting the rope. I defined my position. She interrupted, refused to listen, and said that my proposal was now declined. I endeavoured to reason, to supplement argument by argument. She prevented me; she commanded me to go and insist on Dr. Ulswater's return. Such has been my recent painful conversation with Mrs. Mink, concluding with the command which has caused this intrusion upon you.”
“Don't apologise,” I said, gaily, getting up. “You repent and withdraw, I forgive and forget.”
“I have admitted repentance but not withdrawal,” he said, angrily, “and I refuse your impertinent forgiveness.”
“Come along, professor,” I said. “Refuse and admit what you like till the crack of doom. I've got business on hand.”
He followed after dejectedly.
As we drew near, we saw Mrs. Mink, with Norah, standing on the high bank and looking seaward. She saw us, cried out, pointed, and waved her handkerchief. A small steam vessel was entering the bay. It was Captain Jansen and the crew looking for us and for the vagrant Violetta.
THE Violetta was towed out into deep water. Captain Jansen used some badly broken English on the condition of his starboard rail. Not but that he had expected more damage than he found, but damaging a ship by chopping a tree down upon her, hurt him in a sensitive point of seamanship.
There seemed to be no leakage, for all that war-dance with the elements, and mad teetering on a windward shore. Still he preferred to pass the night in the bay—the weather being uncertain—and tow the Violetta on the morrow to St. Pierre for repairs.
It was evening, and I stood watching the moon rise peacefully and look down on the gleaming but troubled waters of the little bay. Placid and poetic she went up among her attendant stars. The wooded shore lay about us dark and mysterious.
“Let me,” I said to myself, “recapitulate. Presbyterianism is insufficient. Scientific celebrity is insufficient. The precise conscience and balance of rectitude are to the lover as a wire twitchup to the hungry rabbit. Action, sharp decision, the habit, so to speak, of getting there, these are what appeal to Mrs. Mink.”
Now, along those lines Professor Simpson was no slouch of a rival. In point of character he was hard as nails; in decision and action he was energetic and exact. Yet he had failed. He had speared himself, as it were, on the angle of an impractical conscience. But where did I come in? I, who in point of character was a semiliquid jelly fish, an invertebrate protozoan, whose nature was to float on the heaving and uncertain sea of humour, bathed in the moonlight of poetry, devouring the chance drift of knowledge, sucking philosophy out of rock; whose centre of personality was loose; whose mind was as untidy as a cuttlefish; how could I appeal to Mrs. Mink? On the evidence so far, I had but one strong point, namely a practical conscience, a conscience which, having always treated me with a great deal of—shall I say, with a great deal of tact?—was a conscience that——
At this point in my reflection Mrs. Mink came on deck.
When doubtful in whist, play trumps. When doubtful in any other situation, ask Mrs. Mink. Her counsel is always trumps.
“Mrs. Mink,” I said, as she came and stood beside me at the rail, “I am in doubt.”
“What about?”
“The question is this: If a disorderly cuttlefish has proposed marriage to one of those small neat birds who yet have the knack of making themselves at home in a wilderness of waves, and by sailors are called 'Mother Carey's chickens'; if so far as the cuttlefish can see he has only succeeded in producing in Mother Carey's chicken a state of unconvinced reflection; if he knows his structure to be floppy and his nature sloppy, what, in fact, do you think he should do?”
“I don't think you're a cuttlefish.”
“Ha! I don't insist on the figure.”
“You're dreadfully untidy.”
“I am.”
Mrs. Mink was silent.
“Should I imitate Professor Simpson to the summit of Presbyterianism, or a green parrot to the bottom of reprobation? Should I——”
“I don't like Professor Simpson, or the green parrot either.”
“Well, then, what do you think we had better do next?”
Mrs. Mink was long silent. At last she said, thoughtfully:
“I think we'd better go to Trinidad.”
“What for?”
“Why, they're English in Trinidad, aren't they?”
“Good God, madam! what if they are?”
“You mustn't talk that way!” she said, sharply. “Of course Catholics may be good men, but, still, I shouldn't like it in French.”
“Like what?”
“We'd better be married in Trinidad.”
There you are, satisfactory, inclusive, concise! I ask: “How shall I attain my soul's desire?” She answers: “Be married in Trinidad.”
We left Professor Simpson at St. Pierre. He was intending to climb Mont Pelée and extract knowledge from its oracular mouth. If that solemn, grim, stony, and sometimes irascible sphinx of a volcano started in to talk to him, it's possible that the volcano had the last of the argument. Perhaps not. I haven't heard. He was a very persistent logician. Maybe he meant to cast himself forlornly into the crater. The idea is luminous, romantic. But I think, on the whole, that he did nothing of the kind.
Mrs. Mink says she would never have accepted him, and was merely vexed to see him outwit me, which it must be admitted he did. But my feelings are like those of a man who has succeeded by a narrow margin.
We lie now in harbour at Trinidad, whose green hills rise sumptuously out of the blue of the Caribbean. The future promises all happiness and varied interests; among which interests, I suspect, will be the coming Mrs. Ulswater's masterly reorganisation of me. Do I flatter myself, or does she, as it almost seems, look forward to that task with real enthusiasm? Wonderful woman!
Adieu—Ulswater.
P. S. The argument from analogy was the sound one—the tropics, the temperate zone, and the intentions of Providence. Convince her of your imperative need of her, and you have made the imperative appeal. So far I see.
Malay Peninsula, June.
FOREVER shall my voice bear testimony to Mrs. Ulswater. She has gathered the races about her knee. The races didn't all stay there, but it's just as well they didn't. She has faced the hoary wisdom of the East, and subdued it. At the present writing Wisdom still acts as if he felt subdued.
Mrs. Ulswater was impatient to reach the far eastern mission field. She wished to see in action the process by which people, whose souls were naturally darkened by the opaqueness of their skins, become enlightened. This opinion as to the origin of idolatry I drew from Mrs. Ulswater with some difficulty. She held the theory, indeed, dimly, subconsciously. It was new to me. It is a theory worth examining for its latent mysticism. To what does it logically lead? If intelligence tends to increase with the transparency of the fleshly integument, wouldn't I be cleverer if not so fat? C'est un grand peut-être. But I'm getting thinner. Bismillah!
I have in my life pursued many ideals. I have hitched my wagon to certain stars. Some of the blanked things were comets, and some of them went out as unregretted as a bad cigar. Now I cling henceforward to this domestic light and floating fireside of the Violetta. No man has so entire a footing in the universe as he whose stockings are darned by a woman with a logical mind. I am not myself a vertebrate. Mrs. Ulswater is my complement. I am complete. I am satisfied. I am at rest.
My family has increased. It now consists of Mrs. Ulswater, an orphan girl, and an orphan pundit. But I go too fast.
On the 13th of last April, we put in at the island of Clementina, which lies to the north of Mozambique Channel.
“Now,” said I to Mrs. Ulswater, “I am complete. I am satisfied. I am at rest. But why Clementina?”
I was presented with and referred to a pamphlet or periodical, in fact, a quarterly. It appeared to be devoted to the reports of missionary labours. It is a branch of literature never by me thoroughly investigated. Mrs. Ulswater has a remarkable series of these pamphlets, covering more than ten years. A veritable find!
Now, in this number of the periodical in question, about two years old, was an illustrated article by one Mr. Tupper, a missionary, describing an orphan-asylum in the island of Clementina, and ah! so feelingly, with such pleasant details of the names and prospects of individual orphans, that I quickly shared the interest of Mrs. Ulswater. We wished to make the acquaintance of the following orphans, to wit, the orphan named “Susannah,” the orphan named “Thaddeus,” and the orphan named “James,” and the orphans “Caleb,” “Zillah,” “Stephen,” and “Naomi,” these apparently being the seven beneficiaries of the establishment.
“Susannah,” wrote Mr. Tupper, “is characterised by great vigour of mind, and by astuteness, if not perhaps by invariable serenity. She is the daughter of the late Rev. Mr. Romney of Georgia, U. S. A., my predecessor at this mission, who with his devoted wife died of an epidemic fever some eight years ago. Upon my arrival I found the orphans in a state most distressingly uncivilised. There are perils in this remote corner of the world, but hunger and cold are not among them. Little shelter is necessary, and food is to be had for the taking. Physically, a child can grow up and thrive almost unregarded.”
And so on, most interesting remarks by Mr. Tupper.
Clementina looked like a comfortable island. We recognised the port, and the high green hill, which the illustrations pictured as the site of the mission.
The Violetta was anchored not far from the shore. Mrs. Ulswater and I were landed on the white beach under the hill. We climbed the hill. “On the very crest,” in the words of Mr. Tupper's description, stood “a cluster of bamboo cottages hidden in foliage.” The Asylum!
Horribile dicta!
“Well,” said Mrs. Ulswater, “I never!”
The cottages were empty! Nay, ruined, decadent, most of the roofs fallen! Eight decrepit bamboo structures in a row! The traces of a lawn, now faded into wilderness! Oh, neglect and desolation! What had we here? An orphaned orphanage! Most ridiculous of asylums!
A hen fled yelling across the open. In the wake of, in pursuit of, this hen, there rapidly wriggled out of the thicket seven scratched, and scarcely to be called clothed, individuals. My impression was immediate.
I said, “They are the orphans!”
They were. They sprang up in line. They bowed. They shouted with remarkable unison:
“Good morning, sir! Good morning, ma'am!”
We gasped. We were astounded. “Well,” said Mrs. Ulswater, “I never!”
They began to sing. They sang, in point of fact, as follows:
“ Pull for the shore, sailor!
Pull for the shore! ”
all except for one orphan, from whose rounded mouth detonated the statement, “I'm a pilgrim, I'm a stranger,” whose globular face was slapped with incredible rapidity by the girl who stood next him, at the head of the line, and who sang on imperiously, though the rest of the chorus broke down:
“ Heed not the rolling waves,
But bend to the oar.”
She had lank limbs, and the unmistakable features of an Aryan. I should have described her offhand as a “personage.”
“Susannah!” cried Mrs. Ulswater. “Don't tell me you're not!”
“Present!” said Susannah.
“Thaddeus?”
“Present!” from the globular pilgrim and stranger.
“James?”
“Present!”
James stood at the other end of the line. He was the smallest, Susannah the tallest, and Thaddeus the fattest of the orphans. “Caleb?”
“Present!”
“Naomi?”
“Present!”
“Zillah?”
“Present!”
“Stephen?”
“Present!”
Very good. There they were.
But alas! it was a run-down, abandoned asylum. Mr. Tupper, that talented descriptive author, had died some six months before, of the fever that seemed to be resident, or sporadic, in the island.
I discovered, at Port Clementina, a sort of governor or prefect, who seemed to be officially resident, and by nature sporadic, incidental. He was the calmest official in the Indian Ocean. There were vast vacant spaces in his mind. He did not know there were any orphans now at the asylum. He had understood there wasn't any asylum left. In any case, why not? In every conceivable case, why not? He had supposed they had all grown up, or disappeared, or fallen off something, or died of the fever, or snakes, or been adopted by natives, or something. Why not? In point of fact, now he came to think of it, he had not supposed anything about it whatever. Were they indeed still running around up there? Name of God! How amusing!
Mrs. Ulswater was indignant.
The population of Clementina is of extremely mixed blood. That Susannah was of Caucasian extraction—age fifteen or so; that Thaddeus also was of some northern ancestry, by his light hair, high cheek-bones, and slightly piggy eyes; that James was a diminutive Malayan—as I judged—age perhaps eight; and the rest miscellaneous African, Arab, French, and what not—all this argues a curious history for the island; which history I had no time to investigate, on account of Mrs. Ulswater's indignation.
Under the force of this indignation the orphans were swept swiftly aboard the Violetta. The hen, above mentioned, also came along with the current. The name of the hen is “Georgiana Tupper.” Mrs. Ulswater accomplished it in this way. She made an alliance with Susannah. The orphans were promptly aboard, Again, good! There they were.
The following morning they weren't. We found only Susannah still with us and Georgiana Tupper. The rest were gone, vanished forever. Captain Jansen approached us, and touched his cap.
“Yes'm. They yump; I hear 'em go yump, one, two, dree, four, six, un I get out dey boat, un dose gone swim ashore, un her don' yump. I don' know.”
Mrs. Ulswater turned on Susannah. “What made them jump?”
Said Susannah: “They ain't any good, those niggers. They're 'fraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Oh, they're just 'fraid to go. Their insides are all mush and dassent.”
“You're not afraid, Susannah?”
“Me!”
Singular, scornful maid!
We were unable to find the miscellaneous again. Apparently they hid, preferring the incidental or sporadic life of Clementina. With this diminished orphanage, we set over the Indian Ocean, seeking another asylum for Susannah.
I found at Clementina a curious variety of the Asteroidea or star fish.
You never saw the beat of Susannah.