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Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer - Romance

J >> Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer >> Romance




The horror of my position was very great. Must I kill the man? must I
die myself in this miserable and senseless manner? I tried to shout,
"Drag this maniac off me."

He was pinning my arms to my body. I saw the furious faces bending over
me, the many hands murderously uplifted. They, of course, couldn't tell
that I wasn't one of the men who had boarded them, and my life had never
been in such jeopardy. I felt all the fury of rage and mortification.
Was I to die like this, villainously trodden underfoot, on the threshold
of safety, of liberty, of love? And, in those moments of violent
struggle I saw, as one sees in moments of wisdom and meditation, my
soul--all life, lying under the shadow of a perfidious destiny. And
Seraphina was there in the boat, waiting for me. The sea! The boat! They
were in another land, and I, I should no more.... never any more....
A sharp voice called, "Back there, men. Steady. Take him alive." They
dragged me up.

I needn't relate by what steps, from being terribly handled as a
captive, I was promoted to having my arms shaken off in the character of
a saviour. But I got any amount of praise at last, though I was
terribly out of breath--at the very last gasp, as you might say. A man,
smooth-faced, well-knit, very elated and buoyant, began talking to me
endlessly. He was mighty happy, and anyhow he could talk to me, because
I was past doing anything but taking a moment's rest. He said I had come
in the nick of time, and was quite the best of fellows.

"If you had a fancy to be called the Archbishop of Canterbury, we'd
'your Grace' you. I am the mate, Sebright. The captain's gone in to
show himself to the missus; she wouldn't like to have him too much
chipped.... Wonderful is the love of woman. She sat up a bit later
to-night with her fancy-sewing to see what might turn up. I told her at
tea-time she had better go in early and shut her stateroom door, because
if any of the Dagos chanced to come aboard, I couldn't be responsible
for the language of my crowd. We are supposed to keep clear of profanity
this trip, she being a niece of Mr. Perkins of Bristol, our owner, and
a Methodist. But, hang it all, there's reason in all things. You can't
have a ship like a chapel--though _she_ would. Oh, bless you, she would,
even when we're beating off these picaroons."

I was sitting on the afterhatch, and leaning my head on my arms.

"Feel bad? Do you? Handled you like a bag of shavings. Well, the boys
got their monkey up, hammering the Dagos. Here you, Mike, go look along
the deck, for a double-barrelled pistol. Move yourself a bit. Feel along
under the spars."

There was something authoritative and knowing in his personality;
boyishly elated and full of business.

"We must put the ship to rights. You don't think they'd come back for
another taste? The blessed old deck's afloat. That's my little dodge,
boiling water for these Dagos, if they come. So I got the cook to fire
up, and we put the suction-hose of the fire pump into the boiler, and we
filled the coppers and the kettles. Not a bad notion, eh? But ten times
as much wouldn't have been enough, and the hose burst at the third
stroke, so that only one boat got anything to speak of. But Lord, _she_
dropped out of the ruck as if she'd been swept with langridge. Squealed
like a litter of pigs, didn't they?"

What I had taken for blood had been the water from the burst hose. I
must say I was relieved. My new friend babbled any amount of joyous
information into me before I quite got my wind back. He rubbed his hands
and clapped me on the shoulder. But his heart was kind, and he became
concerned at my collapsed state.

"I say, you don't think my chaps broke some of your ribs, do you? Let me
feel."

And then I managed to tell him something of Seraphina that he would
listen to.

"What, what?" he said. "Oh, heavens and earth! there's your girl. Of
course.... Hey, bo'sun, rig a whip and chair on the yardarm to take a
lady on board. Bear a hand. A lady! yes, a lady. Confound it, don't lose
your wits, man. Look over the starboard rail, and you will see a lady
alongside with a Dago in a small boat. Let the Dago come on board, too;
the gentleman here says he's a good sort. Now, do you understand?"

He talked to me a good deal more; told me that they had made a
prisoner--"a tall, comical chap; wears his hair like an old aunt of
mine, a bunch of curls flapping on each side of his face"--and then said
that he must go and report to Captain Williams, who had gone into his
wife's stateroom. The name struck me. I said:

"Is this ship the _Lion?_"

"Aye, aye. That's her. She is," several seamen answered together,
casting curious glances from their work.

"Tell your captain my name is Kemp," I shouted after Sebright with what
strength of lung I had.

What luck! Williams was the jolly little ship's captain I was to have
dined with on the day of execution on Kingston Point--the day I had been
kidnapped. It seemed ages ago. I wanted to get to the side to look after
Seraphina, but I simply couldn't remember how to stand. I sat on the
hatch, looking at the seamen.

They were clearing the ropes, collecting the lamps, picking up
knives, handspikes, crowbars, swabbing the decks with squashy flaps.
A bare-footed, bare-armed fellow, holding a bundle of brass-hilted
cutlasses under his arm, had lost himself in the contemplation of my
person.

"Where are you bound to?" I inquired at large, and everybody showed a
friendly alacrity in answer.

"Havana." "Havana, sir." "Havana's our next port. Aye, Havana."

The deck rang with modulations of the name.

I heard a loud, "Alas," sighed out behind me. A distracted, stricken
voice repeated twice in Spanish, "Oh, my greatness; oh, my greatness."
Then, shiveringly, in a tone of profound self-communion, "I have a
greatly parched throat," it said. Harshly jovial voices answered:

"Stow your lingo and come before the captain. Step along."

A prisoner, conducted aft, stalked reluctantly into the light between
two short, bustling sailors. Dishevelled black hair like a damaged
peruke, mournful, yellow face, enormous stag's eyes straining down on
me. I recognized Manuel-del-Popolo. At the same moment he sprang back,
shrieking, "This is a miracle of the devil--of the devil."

The sailors fell to tugging at his arms savagely, asking, "What's come
to you?" and, after a short struggle that shook his tatters and his
raven locks tempestuously like a gust of wind, he submitted to be walked
up repeating:

"Is it you, Senor? Is it you? Is it _you?_"

One of his shoulders was bare from neck to elbow; at every step one of
his knees and part of a lean thigh protruded their nakedness through a
large rent; a strip of grimy, blood-stained linen, torn right down to
the waist, dangled solemnly in front of his legs. There was a horrible
raw patch amongst the roots of his hair just above his temple; there was
blood in his nostrils, the stamp of excessive anguish on his features, a
sort of guarded despair in his eye. His voice sank while he said again,
twice:

"Is it you? Is it you?" And then, for the last time, "Is it you?" he
repeated in a whisper.

The seamen formed a wide ring, and, looking at me, he talked to himself
confidentially.

"Escaped--the _Inglez!_ Then thou art doomed, Domingo. Domingo, thou art
doomed. Dom... Senor!"

The change of tone, his effort to extend his hands towards me, surprised
us all. I looked away.

"Hold hard! Hold him, mate!"

"Senor, condescend to behold my downfall. I am led here to the
slaughter, Senor! To the slaughter, Senor! Pity! Grace! Mercy! And
only a short while ago--behold. Slaughter... I... Manuel. Senor, I am
universally admired--with a parched throat, Senor. I could compose
a song that would make a priest weep.... A greatly parched throat,
Senor," he added piteously.

I could not help turning my head. I had not been used half as hard
as he. It was enough to look at him to believe in the dryness of his
throat. Under the matted mass of his hair, he was grinning in amiable
agony, and his globular eyes yearned upon me with a motionless and
glassy lustre.

"You have not forgotten me, Senor? Forget Manuel! Impossible! Manuel,
Senor. For the love of God. Manuel. Manuel-del-Popolo. I did sing, deign
to remember. I offered you my fidelity, Senor. As you are a _caballero_,
I charge you to remember. Save me, Senor. Speak to those men.... For the
sake of your honour, Senor."

His voice was extraordinarily harsh--not his own. Apparently, he
believed that he was going to be cut to pieces there and then by the
sailors. He seemed to read it in their faces, shuddering and shrinking
whenever he raised his eyes. But all these faces gaped with good-natured
wonder, except the faces of his two guardians, and these expressed a
state of conscientious worry. They were ridiculously anxious to suppress
his sudden contortions, as one would some gross indecency. In the
scuffle they hissed and swore under their breath. They were scandalized
and made unhappy by his behaviour.

"Are you ready down there?" roared the bo'sun in the waist.

"Olla raight! Olla raight! Waita a leetle," I heard Castro's voice
coming, as if from under the ship. I said coldly a few words about the
certain punishment awaiting a pirate in Havana, and got on to my feet
stiffly. But Manuel was too terrified to understand what I meant. He
attempted to snatch at me with his imprisoned hands, and got for his
pains a severe jerking, which made his head roll about his shoulders
weirdly.

"Pity, Senor!" he screamed. And then, with low fervour, "Don't go away.
Listen! I am profound. Perhaps the Senor did not know that? Mercy! I
am a man of intrigue. A _politico_. You have escaped, and I rejoice at
it."... He bared his fangs, and frothed like a mad dog.... "Senor, I am
made happy because of the love I bore you from the first--and Domingo,
who let you slip out of the Casa, is doomed. He is doomed. Thou art
doomed, Domingo! But the excessive affection for your noble person
inspires my intellect with a salutary combination. Wait, Senor! A
moment! An instant!... A combination!..."

He gasped as though his heart had burst. The seamen, open-mouthed, were
slowly narrowing their circle.

"Can't he gabble!" remarked someone patiently.

His eyes were starting out of his head. He spoke with fearful rapidity.

"... There's no refuge from the anger of the _Juez_ but the grave--the
grave--the grave!... Ha! ha! Go into thy grave, Domingo. But you,
Senor--listen to my supplications--where will you go? To Havana. The
_Juez_ is there, and I call the malediction of the priests on my head if
you, too, are not doomed. Life! Liberty! Senor, let me go, and I shall
run--I shall ride, Senor--I shall throw myself at the feet of the
_Juez_, and say... I shall say I killed you. I am greatly trusted by
the reason of my superior intelligence. I shall say, 'Domingo let
him go--but he is dead. Think of him no more--of that _Inglez_ who
escaped--from Domingo. Do not look for him. I, your own Manuel, have
killed him.' Give me my life for yours, Senor. I shall swear I had
killed you with this right hand! Ah!"

He hung on my lips breathless, with a face so distorted that, though it
might have been death alone he hated, he looked, indeed, as if impatient
to set to and tear me to pieces with his long teeth. Men clutching at
straws must have faces thus convulsed by an eager and despairing hope.
His silence removed the spell--the spell of his incredible loquacity. I
heard the boatswain's hoarse tones:

"Hold on well, ma'am. Right! Walk away steady with that whip!"

I ran limping forward.

"High enough," he rumbled; and I received Seraphina into my arms.




CHAPTER FOUR

I said, "This is home, at last. It is all over"; and she stood by me on
the deck. She pushed the heavy black cloak from over her head, and her
white face appeared above the dim black shadow of her mourning. She
looked silently round her on the mist, the groups of rough men, the
spatterings of light that were like violence, too. She said nothing, but
rested her hand on my arm.

She had her immense griefs, and this was the home I offered her. She
looked back at the side. I thought she would have liked to be in the
boat again. I said:

"The people in this ship are my old friends. You can trust them--and
me."

Tomas Castro, clambering leisurely over the side, followed. As soon as
his feet touched the deck, he threw the corner of his cloak across
his left shoulder, bent down half the rim of his hat, and assumed the
appearance of a short, dark conspirator, overtopped by the stalwart
sailors, who had abandoned Manuel to crowd, bare-armed, bare-chested,
pushing, and craning their necks, round us.

She said, "I can trust you; it is my duty to trust you, and this is now
my home."

It was like a definite pronouncement of faith--and of a line of policy.
She seemed, for that moment, quite apart from my love, a thing very
much above me and mine; closed up in an immense grief, but quite
whole-souledly determined to go unflinchingly into a new life, breaking
quietly with all her past for the sake of the traditions of all that
past.

The sailors fell back to make way for us. It was only by the touch
of her hand on my arm that I had any hope that she trusted me, me
personally, and apart from the commands of the dead Carlos; the dead
father, and the great weight of her dead traditions that could be never
anything any more for her--except a memory. Ah, she stood it very well;
her head was erect and proud. The cabin door opened, and a rigid female
figure with dry outlines, and a smooth head, stood out with severe
simplicity against the light of the cabin door. The light falling on
Seraphina seemed to show her for the first time. A lamentable voice
bellowed:

"Senorita!... Senorita!" and then, in an insinuating, heart-breaking
tone, "Senorita!..."

She walked quietly past the figure of the woman, and disappeared in
the brilliant light of the cabin. The door closed. I remained standing
there. Manuel, at her disappearance, raised his voice to a tremendous,
incessant yell of despair, as if he expected to make her hear.

"_Senorita... proteccion del opprimido; oh, hija de piedad...
Senorita_."

His lamentable noise brought half the ship round us; the sailors fell
back before the mate, Sebright, walking at the elbow of a stout man in
loose trousers and jacket. They stopped.

"An unexpected meeting, Captain Williams," was all I found to say to
him. He had a constrained air, and shook hands in awkward silence.

"How do you do?" he said hurriedly. After a moment he added, with a
sort of confused, as if official air, "I hope, Kemp, you'll be able to
explain satisfactorily..."

I said, rather off-handedly, "Why, the two men I killed ought to be
credentials enough for all immediate purposes!"

"That isn't what I meant," he said. He spoke rather with a mumble,
and apologetically. It was difficult to see in him any trace of the
roystering Williams who had roared toasts to my health in Jamaica, after
the episode at the Ferry Inn with the admiral. It was as if, now, he had
a weight on his mind. I was tired. I said:

"Two dead men is more than you or any of your crew can show. And, as far
as I can judge, you did no more than hold your own till I came."

He positively stuttered, "Yes, yes. But..."

I got angry with what seemed stupid obstinacy.

"You'd be having a rope twisted tight round your head, or red-hot irons
at the soles of your feet, at this very moment, if it had not been for
us," I said indignantly.

He wiped his forehead perplexedly. "Phew, how you do talk!" he
remonstrated. "What I mean is that my wife..." He stopped again, then
went on. "She took it into her head to come with me this voyage. For the
first time.... And you two coming alone in an open boat like this! It's
what she isn't used to."

I simply couldn't get at what he meant; I couldn't even hear him very
well, because Manuel-del-Popolo was still calling out to Seraphina in
the cabin. Williams and I looked at each other--he embarrassed, and I
utterly confounded.

"Mrs. Williams thinks it's irregular," Sebright broke in, "you and
your young lady being alone--in an open boat at night, and that sort of
thing. It isn't what they approve of at Bristol."

Manuel suddenly bellowed out, "Senorita--save me from their barbarity.
I am a victim. Behold their bloody knives ready--and their eyes which
gloat."

He shrank convulsively from the fellow with the bundle of cutlasses
under his arm, who innocently pushed his way close to him; he threw
himself forward, the two sailors hung back on his arms, nearly sitting
on the deck, and he strained dog-like in his intense fear of immediate
death. Williams, however, really seemed to want an answer to his
absurdity that I could not take very seriously. I said:

"What do you expect us to do? Go back to our boat, or what?"

It seemed to affect him a good deal. "Wait till you are caught by a good
woman yourself," he mumbled wretchedly.

Was this the roystering Williams? The jolly good fellow? I wanted to
laugh, a little hysterically, because of the worry after great fatigue.
Was his wife such a terrifying virago? "A good woman," Williams insisted.
I turned my eyes to Sebright, who looked on amusedly.

"It's all right," he answered my questioning look. "She's a good soul,
but she doesn't see fellows like us in the congregation she worships
with at home." Then he whispered in my ear, "Owner's niece. Older than
the skipper. Married him for love. Suspects every woman--every man,
too, by George, except me, perhaps. She's learned life in some back
chapel in Bristol. What can you expect? You go straight into the cabin,"
he added.

At that moment the cabin door opened again, and the figure of the woman
I had seen before reappeared against the light.

"I was allowed to stand under the gate of the Casa, Excellency, I was
in very truth. Oh, turn not the light of your face from me." Manuel, who
had been silent for a minute, immediately recommenced his clamour in the
hope, I suppose, that it would reach Seraphina's ears, now the door was
opened.

"What is to be done, Owen?" the woman asked, with a serenity I thought
very merciless.

She had precisely the air of having someone "in the house," someone
rather questionable that you want, at home, to get rid of, as soon as a
very small charity permitted.

"Madam," I said rather coldly, "I appeal to your woman's compassion...."

"Even thus the arch-enemy sets his snares," she retorted on me a little
tremulously.

"Senorita, I have seen you grow," Manuel called again. "Your father,
who is with the saints, gave me alms when I was a boy. Will you let them
kill a man to whom your father..."

"Snares. All snares. Can she be blessed in going away from her natural
guardians at night, alone, with a young man? How can we, consistently
with our duty..."

Her voice was cold and gentle. Even in the imperfect light her
appearance suggested something cold and monachal. The thought of what
she might have been saying, or, in the subtle way of women, making
Seraphina feel, in there, made me violently angry, but lucid, too.

"She comes straight from the fresh grave of her father," I said. "I am
her only guardian."

Manuel rose to the height of his appeal. "Senorita, I worshipped your
childhood, I threw my hat in the air many times before your coach, when
you drove out all in white, smiling, an angel from paradise. Excellency,
help me. Excel..."

A hand was clapped on his mouth then, and we heard only a great scuffle
going on behind us. The way to the cozy cabin remained barred. My heart
was kindled by resentment, but by the power of love my soul was made
tranquil, for come what absurdity might, I had Sera-phina safe for the
time. The woman in the doorway guarded the respectable ship's cuddy from
the un-wedded vagabondage of romance.

"What's to be done, Owen?" she asked again, but this time a little
irresolutely, I thought. "You know something of this--but I...."

"My dear, what an idea," began Williams; and I heard his helpless
mutters, "Like a hero--one evening--admiral--old Topnambo--nothing of
her--on my soul--Lord's son..."

Sebright spoke up from the side. "We could drive them overboard
together, certainly, Mrs. Williams, but that wouldn't be quite proper,
perhaps. Put them each in a bag, separately, and drown them one on each
side of the ship, decently...."

"You will not put me off with your ungodly levity, Mr. Sebright."

"But I am perfectly serious, Mrs. Williams. It may raise a mutiny
amongst these horrid, profane sailors, but I really don't see how we are
to get rid of them else. The bo'sun has cut adrift their ramshackle, old
sieve of a boat, and she's now a quarter of a mile astern, half-full
of water. And we can't give them one of the ship's boats to go and get
their throats cut ashore. J. Perkins, Esquire, wouldn't like it. He
would swear something awful, if the boat got lost. Now, don't say no,
Mrs. Williams. I've heard him myself swear a pound's worth of oaths for
a matter of tenpence. You know very well what your uncle is. A perfect
Turk in that way."

"Don't be scandalous, Mr. Sebright."

"But I didn't begin, Mrs. Williams. It's you who are raising all this
trouble for nothing; because, as a matter of fact, they did not come
alone. They had a man with them. An elderly, most respectable man. There
he stands yonder, with a feather in his hat. Hey! You! _Senor caballero_,
hidalgo, Pedro--Miguel--Jose--what's your particular saint? Step this
way a bit..."

Manuel managed to jerk a half-choked "Excellency," and Castro, muffled
up to the eyes, began to walk slowly aft, pausing after each solemn
stride. The dark woman in the doorway was as effectual as an angel with
a flaming sword. She paralyzed me completely.

Sebright dropped his voice a little. "I don't see that's much worse than
going off at six o'clock in the morning to get married on the quiet; all
alone with a man in a hackney coach--you know you did--and being given
away by a perfect stranger."

"Mr. Sebright! Be quiet! How dare you?... Owen!"

Williams made a vague, growling noise, but Sebright, after muttering
hurriedly, "It's all right, sir," proceeded with the utmost coolness:

"Why, all Bristol knows it! There are those who said that you got out of
the scullery window into the back street. I am only telling you..."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to believe such tales," she cried
in great agitation. "I walked out at the gate!"

"Yes. And the gardener's wife said you must have sneaked the key off the
nail by the side of the cradle--coming to the lodge the evening before,
to see her poor, ailing baby. You ought to know what love brings the
best of us to. And your uncle isn't a bloody-handed pirate either.
He's only a good-hearted, hard-swearing old heathen. And you, too, are
good-hearted. Come, Mrs. Williams. I know you're just longing to tuck
this young lady up in bed--poor thing. Think what she has gone through!
You ought to be fussing with sherry and biscuits and what not--making
that good-for-nothing steward fly round. The beggar is hiding in the
lazarette, I bet. Now then--allow me."

I got hold of the matter there again. I said--because I felt that the
matter only needed making clear:

"This young lady is the daughter of a great Spanish noble. Her father
was killed by these pirates. I am myself of noble family, and I am
her appointed guardian, and am trying to save her from a very horrible
fate."

She looked at me apprehensively.

"You would be committing a wicked act to try to interfere with this," I
said.

I suppose I carried conviction.

"I must believe what you say," she said. She added suddenly, with a sort
of tremulous, warm feeling, "There, there. I don't mean to be unkind. I
knew nothing, and a married woman can't be too careful. For all I could
have told, you might have been a--a libertine; one of the poor lost
souls that Satan..."

Manuel, as if struggling with the waves, managed to free his lips.

"Excellency, help!" he spluttered, like a drowning man.

"I will give the young lady every care," Mrs. Williams said, "until
light shall be vouchsafed."

She shut the door.

"You will go too far, Sebright," Williams remonstrated; "and I'll have
to give you the sack."

"It's all right, captain. I can turn her round my little finger," said
the young man cheerily. "Somebody has to do it if you won't--or can't.
What shall we do with that yelping Dago? He's a distressful beast to
have about the decks."

"Put him in the coal-hole, I suppose, as far as Havana. I won't rest
till I see him on his way to the gallows. The Captain-General shall
be made sick of this business, or my name isn't Williams. I'll make a
breeze over it at home. You shall help in that, Kemp. You ain't afraid
of big-wigs. Not you. You ain't afraid of anything...."

"He's a devil of a fellow, and a dead shot," threw in Sebright. "And
jolly lucky for us, too, sir. It's simply marvellous that you should
turn up like this, Mr. Kemp. We hadn't a grain of powder that wasn't
caked solid in the canisters. Nothing'll take it out of my head that
somebody had got at the magazine while we lay in Kingston...."

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