Part 118 (1/2)

”Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge. Strike with the hangers, messmates, but do not cut with the edge.” Cries Charnock, ”Scatter the f.a.ggots, double that Brahmin in two, The tall pale widow for me, Joe, the little brown girl for you!”

”Young Joe (you're nearing sixty), why is your hide so dark? Katie has soft fair blue eyes, who blackened yours?--Why, hark!”

They were all singing now, d.i.c.k with the roar of the wind of the open sea about his ears as the deep ba.s.s voice let itself go.

”The morning gun--Ho, steady! the arquebuses to me! I ha' sounded the Dutch High Admiral's heart as my lead doth sound the sea.

”Sounding, sounding the Ganges, floating down with the tide, Moore me close to Charnock, next to my nut-brown bride. My blessing to Kate at Fairlight--Holwell, my thanks to you; Steady! We steer for heaven, through sand-drifts cold and blue.”

”Now what is there in that nonsense to make a man restless?” said d.i.c.k, hauling Binkie from his feet to his chest.

”It depends on the man,” said Torpenhow.

”The man who has been down to look at the sea,” said the Nilghai.

”I didn't know she was going to upset me in this fas.h.i.+on.”

”That's what men say when they go to say good-bye to a woman. It's more easy though to get rid of three women than a piece of one's life and surroundings.”

”But a woman can be----” began d.i.c.k, unguardedly.

”A piece of one's life,” continued Torpenhow. ”No, she can't.” His face darkened for a moment. ”She says she wants to sympathise with you and help you in your work, and everything else that clearly a man must do for himself. Then she sends round five notes a day to ask why the d.i.c.kens you haven't been wasting your time with her.”

”Don't generalise,” said the Nilghai. ”By the time you arrive at five notes a day you must have gone through a good deal and behaved accordingly. Shouldn't begin these things, my son.”

”I shouldn't have gone down to the sea,” said d.i.c.k, just a little anxious to change the conversation. ”And you shouldn't have sung.”

”The sea isn't sending you five notes a day,” said the Nilghai.

”No, but I'm fatally compromised. She's an enduring old hag, and I'm sorry I ever met her. Why wasn't I born and bred and dead in a three-pair back?”

”Hear him blaspheming his first love! Why in the world shouldn't you listen to her?” said Torpenhow.

Before d.i.c.k could reply the Nilghai lifted up his voice with a shout that shook the windows, in ”The Men of the Sea,” that begins, as all know, ”The sea is a wicked old woman,” and after wading through eight lines whose imagery is truthful, ends in a refrain, slow as the clacking of a capstan when the boat comes unwillingly up to the bars where the men sweat and tramp in the s.h.i.+ngle.

”'Ye that bore us, O restore us! She is kinder than ye; For the call is on our heart-strings!' Said The Men of the Sea.”

The Nilghai sang that verse twice, with simple cunning, intending that d.i.c.k should hear. But d.i.c.k was waiting for the farewell of the men to their wives.

”'Ye that love us, can ye move us? She is dearer than ye; And your sleep will be the sweeter,' Said The Men of the Sea.”

The rough words beat like the blows of the waves on the bows of the rickety boat from Lima in the days when d.i.c.k was mixing paints, making love, drawing devils and angels in the half dark, and wondering whether the next minute would put the Italian captain's knife between his shoulder-blades. And the go-fever which is more real than many doctors'

diseases, waked and raged, urging him who loved Maisie beyond anything in the world, to go away and taste the old hot, unregenerate life again,--to scuffle, swear, gamble, and love light loves with his fellows; to take s.h.i.+p and know the sea once more, and by her beget pictures; to talk to Binat among the sands of Port Said while Yellow Tina mixed the drinks; to hear the crackle of musketry, and see the smoke roll outward, thin and thicken again till the s.h.i.+ning black faces came through, and in that h.e.l.l every man was strictly responsible for his own head, and his own alone, and struck with an unfettered arm. It was impossible, utterly impossible, but--

”'Oh, our fathers in the churchyard, She is older than ye, And our graves will be the greener,' Said The Men of the Sea.”

”What is there to hinder?” said Torpenhow, in the long hush that followed the song.

”You said a little time since that you wouldn't come for a walk round the world, Torp.”