Mrs Falchion | Page 9

"Pretty well," she replied. "I can manage a sail; I know the argot, I
could tell the shrouds from the bulwarks, and I've rowed a boat in a
choppy sea."
"It is not an accomplishment usual to your sex."
"It was ordinary enough where I spent the early part of my life," was
the idle reply; and she settled herself more comfortably in her chair.
"Yes? May I ask where that was?" and as I said this, it occurred to me
that she was, perhaps, leading me on, instead of my leading her; to
betray me as to anything I knew about her.
"In the South Seas," she replied. "My father was a British consul in the
Islands."
"You have not come from the Islands now, I suppose?"
"No," she said a little more softly; "it is years since I was in Samoa. . . .
My father is buried there."
"You must have found it a romantic life in those half-barbaric places?"
She shifted in her chair. "Romantic!" Her tone conveyed a very slight
uneasiness and vagueness. "I am afraid you must ask some one else
about that sort of thing. I did not see much romance, but I saw plenty
that was half-barbaric." Here she laughed slightly.

Just then I saw the lights of a vessel far off. "See--a vessel!" I said; and
I watched the lights in silence, but thinking. I saw that she too was
watching idly.
At length, as if continuing the conversation, I said: "Yes, I suppose life
must be somewhat adventurous and dangerous among savage people
like the Samoans, Tongans, and Fijians?"
"Indeed, then," she replied decisively, "you are not to suppose anything
of the kind. The danger is not alone for the white people."
At this I appeared, as I really was, interested, and begged her to explain
what she meant. She thought a moment, and then briefly, but clearly,
sketched the life of those islands, showing how, in spite of missionary
labour selfish and unselfish, the native became the victim of civilisation,
the prey of the white trader and beachcomber, who were protected by
men-of-war with convincing Nordenfeldt and Hotchkiss guns; how the
stalwart force of barbaric existence declined, and with it the crude
sense of justice, the practice of communism at its simplest and purest,
the valour of nationality. These phrases are my own--the substance, not
the fashion, of her speech.
"You do not, then," I said, "believe wholly in the unselfishness of
missionaries, the fair dealing of traders, the perfect impartiality of
justice, as shown through steel-clad cruisers?"
"I have seen too much to be quite fair in judgment, I fear, even to men-
of-war's men;" and she paused, listening to a song which came from the
after-part of the ship. The air was very still, and a few of the words of
the droll, plaintive ditty came to us.
Quartermaster Stone, as he passed us, hummed it, and some voices of
the first-class passengers near joined in the refrain:
"Sing, hey, for a rover on the sea, And the old world!"
Some days later I got all of the song from one of the intermediate
passengers, and the last verse of it I give here:

"I'm a-sailing, I'm a-sailing on the sea, To a harbour where the wind is
still; Oh, my dearie, do you wait for me? Oh, my dearie, do you love
me still? Sing, hey, for a rover on the sea, And the old world!"
I noticed that Mrs. Falchion's brow contracted as the song proceeded,
making a deep vertical line between the eyes, and that the fingers of the
hand nearest me closed on the chair-arm firmly. The hand attracted me.
It was long, the fingers were shapely, but not markedly tapering, and
suggested firmness. I remarked afterward, when I chanced to shake
hands with her, that her fingers enclosed one's hand; it was not a mere
touch or pressure, but an unemotional and possessive clasp. I felt sure
that she had heard the song before, else it had not produced even this so
slight effect on her nerves. I said: "It is a quaint song. I suppose you are
familiar with it and all of its kind?"
"I fancy I have heard it somewhere," she answered in a cold voice.
I am aware that my next question was not justified by our very short
acquaintance; but this acquaintance had been singular from its
beginning, and it did not seem at that moment as it looks on paper;
besides, I had the Intermediate Passenger in my mind. "Perhaps your
husband is a naval man?" I asked.
A faint flush passed over her face, and then, looking at me with a
neutral expression and some reserve of manner, she replied: "My
husband was not a naval man."