Dead Men Tell No Tales | Page 6

can get
out another word.
"I am not dear, and I'm not yours," she cries. "I'm only a school-girl -
you have all but told me so before to-day! If I were a man - if I were

you - I should tell Captain Harris what I thought of him!"
"Why? What has he done now?"
"Now? You know how rude he was to poor Mr. Ready this very
afternoon!"
It was true. He had been very rude indeed. But Ready also had been at
fault. It may be that I was always inclined to take an opposite view, but
I felt bound to point this out, and at any cost.
"You mean when Ready asked him if we were out of our course? I
must say I thought it was a silly question to put. It was the same the
other evening about the cargo. If the skipper says we're in ballast why
not believe him? Why repeat steerage gossip, about mysterious cargoes,
at the cuddy table? Captains are always touchy about that sort of thing.
I wasn't surprised at his letting out."
My poor love stares at me in the starlight. Her great eyes flash their
scorn. Then she gives a little smile - and then a little nod - more
scornful than all the rest.
"You never are surprised, are you, Mr. Cole?" says she. "You were not
surprised when the wretch used horrible language in front of me! You
were not surprised when it was a - dying man - whom he abused!"
I try to soothe her. I agree heartily with her disgust at the epithets
employed in her hearing, and towards an invalid, by the irate skipper.
But I ask her to make allowances for a rough, uneducated man, rather
clumsily touched upon his tender spot. I shall conciliate her presently;
the divine pout (so childish it was!) is fading from her lips; the starlight
is on the tulle and lace and roses of her pretty evening dress, with its
festooned skirts and obsolete flounces; and I am watching her, ay, and
worshipping her, though I do not know it yet. And as we stand there
comes another snatch from the forecastle: -
"What will you do, love, when I am going. With white sail flowing,
The seas beyond? What will you do, love - "

"They may make the most of that song," says Miss Denison grimly;
"it's the last they'll have from me. Get up as many more concerts as you
like. I won't sing at another unless it's in the fo'c'sle. I'll sing to the men,
but not to Captain Harris. He didn't put in an appearance tonight. He
shall not have another chance of insulting me."
Was it her vanity that was wounded after all? "You forget," said I, "that
you would not answer when he addressed you at dinner."
"I should think I wouldn't, after the way he spoke to Mr. Ready; and he
too agitated to come to table, poor fellow!"
"Still, the captain felt the open slight."
"Then he shouldn't have used such language in front of me."
"Your father felt it, too, Miss Denison."
I hear nothing plainer than her low but quick reply:
"Mr. Cole, my father has been dead many; many years; he died before I
can remember. That man only married my poor mother. He
sympathizes with Captain Harris - against me; no father would do that.
Look at them together now! And you take his side, too; oh! I have no
patience with any of you - except poor Mr. Ready in his berth."
"But you are not going."
"Indeed I am. I am tired of you all."
And she was gone with angry tears for which I blamed myself as I fell
to pacing the weather side of the poop - and so often afterwards! So
often, and with such unavailing bittertness !
Senhor Santos and the captain were in conversation by the weather rail.
I fancied poor old Harris eyed me with suspicion, and I wished he had
better cause. The Portuguese, however, saluted me with his customary
courtesy, and I thought there was a grave twinkle in his steady eye.

"Are you in deesgrace also, friend Cole?" he inquired in his all but
perfect English.
"More or less," said I ruefully.
He gave the shrug of his country - that delicate gesture which is done
almost entirely with the back - a subtlety beyond the power of British
shoulders.
"The senhora is both weelful and pivish," said he, mixing the two
vowels which (with the aspirate) were his only trouble with our tongue.
"It is great grif to me to see her growing so unlike her sainted mother!"
He sighed, and I saw his delicate fingers forsake the cigarette they were
rolling