Dead Men Tell No Tales | Page 8

me now. Besides, even from the poop I could see
no flames. But the night was as beautiful as it had been an hour or two
back; the stars as brilliant, the breeze even more balmy, the sea even
more calm; and we were hove-to already, against the worst.
In this hour of peril the poop was very properly invaded by all classes
of passengers, in all manner of incongruous apparel, in all stages of fear,
rage, grief and hysteria; as we made our way among this motley
nightmare throng, I took Ready by the arm.
"The skipper's a brute," said I, "but he's the right brute in the right place
to-night, Ready !"
"I hope he may be," was the reply. "But we were off our course this

afternoon; and we were off it again during the concert, as sure as we're
not on it now."
His tone made me draw him to the rail.
"But how do you know? You didn't have another look, did you?"
"Lots of looks-at the stars. He couldn't keep me from consulting them;
and I'm just as certain of it as I'm certain that we've a cargo aboard
which we're none of us supposed to know anything about."
The latter piece of gossip was, indeed, all over the ship; but this
allusion to it struck me as foolishly irrelevant and frivolous. As to the
other matter, I suggested that the officers would have had more to say
about it than Ready, if there had been anything in it.
"Officers be damned!" cried our consumptive, with a sound man's vigor.
"They're ordinary seamen dressed up; I don't believe they've a second
mate's certificate between them, and they're frightened out of their
souls."
"Well, anyhow, the skipper isn't that."
"No; he's drunk; he can shout straight, but you should hear him try to
speak."
I made my way aft without rejoinder. "Invalid's pessimism," was my
private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being;
the virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it
was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing almost
unconcernedly beside the binnacle.
My little friend was, indeed, pale enough, and her eyes great with
dismay; but she stood splendidly calm, in her travelling cloak and
bonnet, and with all my soul I hailed the hardihood with which I had
rightly credited my love. Yes! I loved her then. It had come home to me
at last, and I no longer denied it in my heart. In my innocence and my
joy I rather blessed the fire for showing me her true self and my own;

and there I stood, loving her openly with my eyes (not to lose another
instant), and bursting to tell her so with my lips.
But there also stood Senhor Santos, almost precisely as I had seen him
last, cigarette, tie-pin, and all. He wore an overcoat, however, and
leaned upon a massive ebony cane, while he carried his daughter's
guitar in its case, exactly as though they were waiting for a train.
Moreover, I thought that for the first time he was regarding me with no
very favoring glance.
"You don't think it serious?" I asked him abruptly, my heart still
bounding with the most incongruous joy.
He gave me his ambiguous shrug; and then, "A fire at sea is surely
sirrious," said he.
"Where did it break out ?"
"No one knows; it may have come of your concert."
"But they are getting the better of it?"
"They are working wonders so far, senhor."
"You see, Miss Denison," I continued ecstatically, "our rough old
diamond of a skipper is the right man in the right place after all. A tight
man in a tight place, eh?" and I laughed like an idiot in their calm grave
faces.
"Senhor Cole is right," said Santos, "although his 'ilarity sims a leetle
out of place. But you must never spik against Captain 'Arrees again,
menma."
"I never will," the poor child said; yet I saw her wince whenever the
captain raised that hoarse voice of his in more and more blasphemous
exhortation; and I began to fear with Ready that the man was drunk.
My eyes were still upon my darling, devouring her, revelling in her,
when suddenly I saw her hand twitch within her step-father's arm. It

was an answering start to one on his part. The cigarette was snatched
from his lips. There was a commotion forward, and a cry came aft,
from mouth to mouth:
"The flames! The flames !"
I turned, and caught their reflection on the white column of smoke and
steam. I ran forward, and saw them curling and leaping in the
hell-mouth of the hold.
The quarter-deck now staged a lurid scene: that