Part 6 (2/2)

”Now listen. I looked up then into the Lascar's face. I was surprised to find he was taller. Much taller. He put his face forward and down, so that I wanted to step back.

”He had an ugly look. He was smiling; the sweep was smiling, as though he knew he was a lot cleverer than I. Another thing. The place was suddenly quiet, and the houses and shops seemed to have fallen far back. The pavement was wider.

”There was something else, I noticed. The bobby had left the street corner, and was walking our way. The curious thing was, though, the more he walked the farther off he got, as though the road was being stretched under his feet.

”Mind you, I was still awake and critical. You know there is a substratum of your mind which is critical, when you are dreaming, standing looking on outside you, like a spectator.

”Then the stick touched my hand. I shouted. I must have yelled jolly loud, I think. I couldn't help it. That horrible thing seemed to wriggle in my fingers.

”It was the shout which brought the crowd. There was the policeman. I can't make out how he got there. 'Now, what's your little game?' he said. That brought the buildings up with a rush, and broke the road into the usual clatter.

”It was all quite simple. There was nothing in it then out of the ordinary. Just a usual Lascar, very frightened, waving a cheap cane with a handle like a snake's head. Then another policeman came up in a hurry, and pushed through the crowd. The crowd was on my side, maudlin and sympathetic. They knew all about it. The coolie had tried to stab me. An eager young lady in an ap.r.o.n asked a boy in front--he had just forced through--what was the matter. He knew all about it.

”'The Indian tried to bite the copper.'

”'Tried to bite him?'

”'Not 'arf he didn't.'

”The Hindoo was now nearly hysterical, and the kiddies were picking up his language fast. 'Now then, old Jabberjee,' said one nipper in spectacles. The crowd was laughing, and surging towards the police. I managed to edge out of it.

”'What's the trouble?' I asked a carman.

”'You see that P. and O. Johnny?' he said. 'Well, he knocked down that kid'--indicating the boy in spectacles--'and took tuppence from him.'

”I thought a lot about the whole thing on the way home,” said Hammond.

”I tell you the yarn for you to explain to the chaps who like to base their beliefs on the sure ground of what they can understand.”

XIII. The Extra Hand

Old George Galsworthy and I sat on the headland above the estuary, looking into the vacancy which was the Atlantic on an entranced silver evening. The sky was overcast. There was no wind, and no direct sun.

The light was refined and diffused through a thin veiling of pearl. Sea and sky were one. As though they were suspended in s.p.a.ce we saw a tug, having a barque in tow, far but distinct, in the light of the bay, tiny models of ebony set in a vast brightness. They were poised in the illumination, and seemed to be motionless, but we knew they were moving down on us. ”Here she comes,” said the seaman, ”and a fine evening it is for the end of her last voyage.” s.h.i.+pbreakers had bought that barque. She was coming in to be destroyed.

The stillness of the world, and its l.u.s.tre in which that fine black shape was centred and was moving to her end, made me feel that headlands, sea, and sky knew what was known to the two watchers on the hill. She was condemned. The s.h.i.+p was central, and the regarding world stood about her in silence. Sombre and stately she came, in the manner of the tragic proud, superior to the compelling fussiness of little men, making no resistance. The spring tide was near full. It had flooded the marsh lands below us, but not with water, for those irregular pools resplendent as mirrors were deeps of light. The hedgerows were strips of the earth's rind remaining above a profound.

The light below the lines of black hedges was antipodean. The barque moved in slowly. She did not go past the lighthouse, and past our hill, into the harbour beyond, like a s.h.i.+p about the business of her life.

She turned into the shallows below us, and stood towards the foot of the hill.

”She's altered a little,” meditated Galsworthy. ”They've shortened her sticks, those Norwegians, and painted her their beastly mustard colour and white. She's hogbacked, too. Well, she's old.” The old man continued his quiet meditation. He was really talking to himself, I think, and I was listening to his thoughts.

”Look!” cried Galsworthy, suddenly rising, his hand gripping my shoulder. The tug had cast off and was going about. The s.h.i.+p came right on. There was an interval of time between her and the sh.o.r.e which was breathless and prolonged.

”She's aground!” exclaimed the old man to himself, and the hand on my shoulder gripped harder. He stood regarding her for some time. ”She's done,” he said, and presently released me, sitting down beside me again, still looking at her moodily, smoking his pipe. He was silent for a time. Perhaps he had in his mind that he too had taken the ground. It was sunset, and there she was, and there was he, and no more sparkling morning tides out of port for them any more.

Presently he turned to me. ”There's a queer story about her. She carried an extra hand. I'll tell you. It's a queer yarn. She had one man at a muster more than signed for her. At night, you couldn't get into the rigging ahead of that chap. There you'd find him just too much ahead of the first lad who had jumped at the call to be properly seen, you know. You could see him, but you couldn't make him out. So the chap behind him was in no hurry, after the first rush. Well, it made it pretty hard for her old man to round up a crew. He had to find men who didn't know her. Men in Poplar who didn't know her, those days, were scarce. She was a London clipper and she carried a famous flag.

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