Major Vigoureux

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She declined the Commandant's arm. Mrs. Pope, however, took it almost
eagerly, and on the way down the hill he obtained from her a voluble if
somewhat incoherent account of the night's adventures. He did his best
now to make light of them. Accidents even more extraordinary had
happened in fogs before now. He related how two companies of the Naval
Brigade, under Sevastopol, had come within an ace of firing on each
other.... He told of the _Milo_, and her wonderful escape, but said
nothing of Vashti. In the midst of his narrative he found himself
wondering what answer he could make if they questioned him again upon
the apparition.

But neither Mrs. Pope nor Miss Gabriel made further allusion to it.
Their silence, for which at first he was merely thankful, began to
puzzle him after a while.

Could it be possible that he, too, had been cheated by an apparition?

He took leave of the ladies at their respective gates, retiring
delicately as soon as, waiting in the road, he had assured himself that
they were within doors. Miss Gabriel admitted herself with a latch-key.
Mrs. Pope's timid knock was answered by her astonished husband, who,
having just returned from the harbour, and assuming his spouse to be
long since in bed and asleep, had lit a candle to explore the
dining-room cellaret.

The front door was shut on their reciprocal surprise, and the
Commandant withdrew. He had sighed, before now, as he had shut Mr. and
Mrs. Pope's front gate after an evening's whist. Doubtless they were a
stupid couple.

* * * * *

A light shone from the Barracks--from the office window to the right of
the door. Within the office Vashti had dragged the sofa across the room
and sat, with her fur cloak thrown back, toasting her shoes before a
warm fire. In the dancing flame of it her diamonds sparkled as she
turned to him.

"Mrs. Treacher is upstairs," she said, "hunting out sheets to air for
me. Now fill your pipe, please, and sit down and tell me all about it."

Major Vigoureux found an old pipe on the mantel-shelf, dived in the
tobacco jar for a few dry crumbs, filled, and lit and stamped out a
spark that had dropped on the hearth-rug.

"It isn't a creditable story," said he, puffing slowly, and blinking at
the flash of jewels below her white throat. "In fact, I behaved like a
brute."

"Tell me about it," she repeated.

So he told her; and found himself smoking and watching her, while she
laughed softly, leaning forward to the fire, and gazing into the heart
of it.

CHAPTER IX

THE SALVING OF S.S. MILO

Major Vigoreux awoke at daybreak with a vague sense that something
important had happened or was going to happen--a feeling he had not
known for years. It was so strange that he sat up wondering, rubbing
the back of his head.

Then he remembered, and called out to Sergeant Archelaus.

Sergeant Archelaus appeared, a moment later, ready dressed, and on more
than usually good terms with himself. He had indued his master's
trousers, and, save for an unfashionable bagginess at the hips, they
fitted him surprisingly well.

"Good morning, Archelaus. Did you happen to hear, last night, at what
time the _Milo_ weighs anchor?"

"I heard the captain, sir, tell the pilots to be aboard at
half-after-seven. But with a vessel of her size you may count on their
waiting till high-water or thereabouts."

"In any case"--the Commandant consulted his watch--"we have not too
much time. Where is Treacher?"

"Downstairs, sir, along with his missus, stoking the kitchen fire, with
mattresses built up before it like a sandbag battery. Seems to me the
woman's been spending half the night airing one thing and another. She
says the place is like a vault. Not," added Archelaus, magnanimously,
"that I mind her talk."

"Quite right, Archelaus. I particularly hope you won't quarrel with
Mrs. Treacher while she is here waiting on Miss--er--on the lady."

"If," said Archelaus, darkly, "as how I wanted to quarrel with a
female, I should have taken and married one long ago. As 'tis, when the
woman's tongue becomes afflicting, I turns round and pities Treacher.
There's more ways of doing that than in so many words, and you'd be
astonished how they both dislikes it."

"At any rate," said the Commandant, mildly, "they have saved you the
trouble of being late with the fire this morning. So you may fetch me
my shaving-water at once, please."

He sprang out of bed and reached for his dressing-gown, astonished at
his own good spirits. "It does make a difference," said he aloud,
though the remark was addressed to himself.

"It do," said Archelaus, turning in the doorway.

"I--I beg your pardon?" The Commandant turned about, a trifle confused.

"It may seem a little thing; but it gives a man self-respect, and I'm
glad you noticed 'em." Archelaus looked down at his legs, complacently.
"Always supposin'," he added, "they don't take me for a Frenchman,
owing to the fulness hereabouts."

Yes, certainly, it made a difference--to rise in the morning with a
sense of something waiting to be done. So the Commandant put it to
himself while he shaved, standing at his dressing-table under the
barrack window. The window was set high in the wall: too high to afford
him a view of the Islands, even though he stood on tip-toe. But through
it and above the open pane he caught a glimpse of blue sky and
lilac-coloured cloud, touched with gold by the risen sun. He could
guess the rest. A perfect morning!--clean and crisp, with the sea a
translucent blue, and sunlight glittering on the Island beaches; the
air still, yet bracing, and withal ineffably pure--a morning mysterious
with the sense of autumn, but of autumn rarified by its passage over
the salt strait, deodorised, made pure of marsh fog and the rotting
leaf.

The Commandant hummed to himself in the intervals of his shaving, which
nevertheless he performed meticulously by force of habit. It was his
custom to shave, and very carefully, before taking his bath. For years
he had made a ritual of his morning toilet: so many passes of his razor
across the strop (to be precise, one hundred and fifty, neither more
nor less), so many douches with the sponge, so many petitions
afterwards on his knees. Yes, it is to be feared that his prayers, no
less than his shaving, had become a drill, though one may plead for him
that he always went through it conscientiously. A stroke too few across
the strop--a petition to the Almighty missed--either would have worried
him with a feeling that the day had been begun amiss. He was poor, but
with the never-failing well on Garrison Hill he could come clean as the
richest to his prayers. Even Miss Gabriel had to admit that the poor
man (as she put it) knew how to take care of his person.

"We shall be in good time, Archelaus," said the Commandant, with a side
glance at his watch; "that is, if you'll step down the hill and get the
boat ready."

Archelaus, whose hearing had not improved of late, checked himself in
the act of filling his master's tub.

"I didn't clearly catch what you said, for the splashing.... Boat? If
you want the boat, I put her off to the moorings last night. Found her
tied up and bumping against the quay steps, quite as if money was no
object to any of us."

"Thank you. Yes, I relied on your finding and mooring her properly.
Well, now, when you are ready I want you to unmoor her again. We are
going off to the liner to fetch Miss--that is to say--the lady's
boxes."

Sergeant Archelaus faced about slowly, cap in hand.

"Oh--oh!" said he slowly. "Relative of yours, sir?--making so bold."

"Dear me, no; nothing of the sort."

"Paying lodger, perhaps.... Or else we've come into a fortune all of a
sudden, an' that accounts for Treacher's playing ad lib. with the
coals--begging your pardon again."

The Commandant winced, and came within an ace of gashing himself
severely. He had forgotten the penny in his pocket, the gulf between
this and pay-day ... and Vashti, no doubt, was used to fare daintily,
luxuriously!

"I really think"--he turned on Archelaus in sudden anger--"you might
know better than to stare into the glass when I am shaving. Moreover,
you forget your place, and inexcusably, even for an old servant."

Archelaus resumed his filling of the bath, and, having filled it,
withdrew without another word.

Yes; but while the manner of Archelaus' speech had deserved rebuke, in
the matter of it Archelaus was right. The matter of it was urgent, too,
and not to be played with. In an hour or so Vashti would be awake....
She must delay dressing until her boxes arrived; but, once dressed, she
would expect breakfast. The larder, to his knowledge, contained but the
rusty end of a flitch of green bacon--that, and perhaps a couple of
rusty eggs, a loaf, and some salt butter. Fool that he was! And a
minute ago he had greeted the day so light-heartedly!

What was to be done? In the pauses of sponging and towelling himself,
the Commandant asked the question again and again. Could he go to Mrs.
Treacher and borrow back the four shillings he had given her last
night? Fish, new-laid eggs, fresh butter, marmalade, the best tea
procurable in the Islands.... Yes, undoubtedly four shillings would go
a long way towards providing breakfast. But after breakfast would come
luncheon, and after luncheon--

There was Mr. Tregaskis, of the Shop. Mr. Tregaskis sold almost
everything "advantageous to life"--as Shakespeare's exiles said upon
another island: everything from bacon and pickles to boots,
iron-mongery, and sun-bonnets. For twelve years the Commandant had
dealt with Mr. Tregaskis, paying whatever Mr. Tregaskis charged him,
and always in ready money. He knew, moreover, that Mr. Tregaskis gave
credit: and yet, after twelve years of ready-money dealing, he winced
as he saw himself entering the shop and proposing to open an account.
He foresaw himself inexorably driven to it. But he foresaw himself also
stammering out the suggestion with every sign of conscious rascality.
And, after all, was it honest to enter a shop and open an account with
one penny in pocket? Suppose that, next pay-day, no pay were
forthcoming!

He must approach Mr. Tregaskis: there was no help for it. Yet the
prospect pleased him so little that, as he walked down the hill to the
quay, he decided to put off the interview, and was almost running past
the shop (which had just been unshuttered) when Mr. Tregaskis himself
appeared, framed of a sudden in the upper and open half of his shop
doorway.

"Eh? Is it you, sir? Good morning!" he called.

"Good morning! And a fine morning, too, Mr. Tregaskis."

"After a night of marvels. You've heard about the liner, sir, out in
the Roads?... 'Tis all a mystery to me how she ever found her way in."

"I am putting off to learn the particulars. And, by the way, Mr.
Tregaskis"--the Commandant paused--"I intended to call in upon you on
my way back."

"Anything I can do for you, sir, and at any time," responded Mr.
Tregaskis. "I suppose, now," he added, "you'd take it as a liberty if I
was to ask for a seat in your boat?"

"Not in the least. There she is, waiting off the quay steps: so if you
have business on board, put on your hat, come along with me, and
welcome!"

"Thanking you kindly, sir. Which I was reckoning that--she being from
foreign parts and the Islands the first place she've touched at, I
might pick up a bravish order in the way of fresh milk and eggs, not to
mention that Job Clemow sold me half-a-hundredweight of plaice, with a
cod or two, that he took on the spiller yesterday."

"Come along, by all means," repeated the Commandant, moving off towards
the quay steps; and Tregaskis, having tucked his shop-apron around his
waist and run into the back passage for his billy-cock hat, hurried in
his wake.

Reuben Tregaskis--known throughout the Islands as The Bester--was a
genial ruffian of familiar accost, red-faced, round in the stomach,
utterly unscrupulous at a bargain. The Commandant did not like him, and
particularly disliked the prospect of asking him a favour. Most of all
he regretted, as they pushed off, that chance this morning had forced
him to put such a man under a small obligation. He feared that, when it
came to asking leave to open an account, he might seem to be using this
advantage. (Such a fear, it scarcely needs saying, was groundless. In
his business dealings, The Bester was superior alike to gratitude and
rancour, and would bargain with his own mother as with his worst
enemy.)

The Commandant, oppressed with his own thoughts, bent his attention
upon the steering, and punctuated with monosyllables only the exuberant
flow of Mr. Tregaskis' conversation, which, bye-and-bye, as they neared
the roadstead, resolved itself into offers of wagers on the length,
tonnage, and actual carrying capacity of the liner.

She lay very nearly in the middle of the roadstead, broadside-on to the
morning sunshine, and the more the Commandant studied her the more he
wondered at last night's miracle. She had not yet begun to weigh,
though he discerned a couple of St. Ann's pilots talking with an
officer on the bridge. Presently the officer left them, and descended
to the deck, where he stood in the gangway awaiting the boat.

"Major Vigoureux?" he asked, lifting the peak of his cap, as she fell
alongside.

The Commandant, not a little astonished, returned the salutation. "That
is my name, sir."

"I have been expecting you," said the officer. "I am Captain Whitaker,
at your service--the skipper of this vessel, in fact, and thankful
enough, I can tell you, to be alive this morning and in command of her.
Madame's boxes are on deck here, if you do me the favour to climb on
board.... Ah, and here is Madame's maid, to give account of them!"

The Commandant, drawing breath at the head of the ladder, and glancing
down the _Milo's_ majestic length of deck, was aware of four large
trunks, and beside them a neat, foreign-looking woman, who curtsied in
foreign fashion as she came forward.

"M'sieur will take my duty to Madame, and tell her that I have done my
best to pack to her orders. The rest I am to report from Plymouth, when
we arrive."

"And I daresay," put in Captain Whitaker, with an amused turn of the
eye towards the trunks, then back at the Commandant, "Madame would call
these 'just a few necessaries.' Though I say to you, sir," he went on
gravely, "that all the _Milo's_ hold--and the _Milo_ will carry close
on four thousand tons--hasn't room enough to stow what Madame deserves,
be it in clothes or jewels."

"I--I beg your pardon?"

"She hasn't told you? No; I bet she wouldn't," said Captain Whitaker.
"Come down to my cabin, sir, and let me offer you a brandy-and-soda?
No? Then, perhaps, you'll do me the honour to join me at
breakfast--which must be ready at this moment," he added, as eight
strokes sounded on the ship's bell forward. "Never mind the size of the
trunks, sir; one of my men shall help you ashore with 'em."

In the Captain's cabin, which had a floor of parquet and panels of teak
set in mahogany, stood a table with a white cloth upon it, and a
breakfast array of blue-and-white china. A steward, in a blue suit with
brass buttons, brought the meats in dishes of polished electro-plate,
and on a small sideboard stood other dishes with small spirit lamps
burning beneath. The Commandant seated himself; ate, drank, and
marvelled.

"You know Madame?" asked Captain Whitaker, helping himself to a dish of
kidneys and bacon. He nodded, intercepting the Commandant's gaze. "We
keep them in ice, if you're not above trying our fare. You'll find they
are not bad. My other meals I take with the passengers, but I breakfast
alone, as a rule."

The Commandant's mind ran on the breakfast yet to be extracted from Mr.
Tregaskis' shop.

"You know her?" asked Captain Whitaker.

"I once had the pleasure--years ago----"

"If that's so"--Captain Whitaker nodded--"we'll take her praises for
granted. She's great; you can sum it up at that. By the way, did she
happen to tell you why she is leaving the ship here?"

"Yes; she went ashore in a hurry, she said, to avoid being thanked----"

"Then I guessed right."

"--though," confessed the Commandant, "I haven't a notion what she
meant."

Captain Whitaker set down his breakfast-cup and buttered himself a
piece of toast, gazing the while long and earnestly at his companion.

"No? Then I'll tell you. The passengers don't know it as yet, though
I've caught a guess or two flying around; but the truth is sure to come
out, sooner or later. Man, it was she that saved the _Milo_ last night,
in that ghastly twenty minutes before we picked up the pilot.... Oh, I
see by your face you don't believe me!--but you must take it or leave
it. Shall I go on?"

"Go on," said the Commandant.

"We were due out of New York on the 27th, but missed our tide in
clearing and didn't pass the bar till early next morning. We carried
fifty-nine saloon passengers, seventy-five second, and a hundred and
twenty-five steerage, with a crew of a hundred exactly. Besides these
we had the mails--two hundred and twenty bags--and a fair amount of
dollars in specie (I needn't tell how much.) The weather was thick from
the first with a heavy sea running on the other side. We met it full
just outside Sandy Hook, and for three days I pitied the passengers.
The third night out the mischief happened. I had left the bridge soon
after four bells and was just turning in for my beauty-sleep when I
heard an unholy racket below in the engine-room, and felt the ship slow
down of a sudden. One of the rods had kicked loose from its gib and
started to flail around death and destruction. Thanks to Crosbie, our
first engineer, she was brought up before kicking our insides out, and
we hove to; but the repairs cost us close on eighteen hours. By
daybreak the weather was thickening worse than ever, though with no
great amount of wind, and we started again in a fog so thick that from
the bridge you could see her bows, and only just. Well, that's how it
was with us, all the way across. We seemed to carry the fog; and though
it lifted a bit, off and on, it never looked like giving us a chance of
an observation. All yesterday afternoon I was worried by the thought
that we'd overrun our reckoning and must be somewhere near the Islands,
and about two o'clock--though the soundings were good--I ordered the
engines to be reduced below the half-speed at which she was running.

"To ease the passengers' minds I had arranged for a concert in the
saloon after dinner, and Madame--she had booked with us under a name
that wasn't her own to dodge the New York newspaper men, but the
passengers recognized her--had promised me to sing to them. (You have
heard her, eh?--it makes you cry, and not mind, either, who sees you.)
I remember now that she looked at me pretty straight when she gave the
promise, but seeing me not minded to speak, she asked no questions.

"Well, the concert came off. At any other time I'd have given pounds to
be sitting there and listening; but the worry on my mind kept me to the
bridge, and from there I heard her, the notes lifting up through the
saloon sky-light as if heaven and earth had somehow got capsized or
else an angel had come aboard to sing us clear of the fog. There were
three of us on the bridge--myself, and the third officer, Mr.
Francillon, and a seaman called Petersen; and when the song ended--it
was a little Italian something-or-other, very bright and gay--and the
clapping began and the calls for an encore, I couldn't stand it any
longer, and I was afraid she'd be starting on 'Home, Sweet Home,' or
something of that sort, and I didn't want Mr. Francillon to see my
face. So I made up an excuse and sent him off to the chart-house for a
pair of dividers (which I didn't want), and away he went.

"When he was gone I stood by the wheel for a bit listening as the
clapping died down. It stopped at last, and I braced myself up and
waited to have my feelings wrung, when just behind me I heard a step on
the ladder. Of course, I took it for Mr. Francillon returning, and I
wheeled about, short-tempered like, to tell him he needn't be
tip-toeing--we weren't on the bridge to listen to grand opera--when
what do I see but Madame! 'You needn't look so cross, Captain,' she
says; 'for I know well enough I'm breaking all rules, and I'll go away
quietly and sing to them again. But we're somewhere near the Islands,
and the call came on me to warn you!' 'Why, truly, ma'am,' I answered,
'I believe we're not far off them.' 'We're close to them,' she answered
me, nodding her head. 'I'm Island-born, Captain, and I feel 'em in my
blood.' I put this down to craziness--hysterics--or whatever you choose
to call it; but just to soothe her mind and get her down quietly off
the bridge I sang out to the leadsman to know if he had found
soundings. I was bending over the rail when I felt a touch on my arm,
and heard her cry out 'Starboard! Hard a-starboard--hard!'--just like
that." Captain Whitaker dropped his voice to a low, fierce whisper as
he imitated her. "It took the helmsman sharp and sudden, so that he had
begun to put the wheel down before he realised that the order didn't
come from me; and the next moment Madame had flung herself upon it and
was helping with both hands. 'Hullo!' says I, stepping after her
smartly, and as good as asking if she or I commanded the _Milo_. The
passengers below had started to sing 'D'ye ken John Peel?' and were
yelling out a lot of silly hunting-cries with the chorus. I could hear
nothing above the racket. But, sure enough, looking to port over my
shoulder as I laid hand on the wheel to check it, I saw a whitish smear
that meant breakers; and the smear no sooner showed than above it a
great black cliff stood out as if 'twere a moving thing and meant to
carve into us right amidships--a great cliff with a rock on it like the
Duke of Wellington's nose. A man from the top of it could have jumped
onto our bulwarks, and I shut my eyes as it overhung, waiting for the
crash; but it slid by and was gone like a slide you pass through a
magic lantern.

"'Port now! Port for your life!' she called out; and I saw first of all
her hand go out to push Petersen off, and then the little sparks
flickering on her rings as she gripped the spokes, and checking 'em,
dragged the wheel back hand over hand. A man's strength she must have
had. 'Help me,' was all she said, in a kind of panting voice, and as I
caught hold to help it over, 'That was the Head! Hard up, now! and ring
down for full speed!' 'Full speed!' I grunted, yet pressing on the
wheel all the time--'It's stop her you mean, and anchor.' 'What, here?
with Hell-deeps on your starboard bow and a five-knot tide running!
Full speed ahead--there's no room to swing--no, nor half.' She stopped
my hand on the bell and rang down herself, 'full speed ahead'; and the
passengers whooping away at 'John Peel!' all the while.

"Then, as the engines began to run, she looked at me, still holding on
by the wheel. 'They may do it,' she said, 'they may do it. At half
speed she'd never point off, against a five-knot tide.' 'God have mercy
on us!' was all I could say. 'If you know--?' 'Know?' she caught me up.
'I was brought up to know. But she'll never do it if she don't pick up
way.... Ah, that's better!' she said with a kind of sigh staring over
the starboard bow into the fog. 'Now!'--and we held our breath, all of
us; for Mr. Francillon was back on the bridge standing close behind her
and wondering what the devil was up. She let thirty seconds pass, and
then turned to him as if he'd been there all the while and she knew it.

"'Look astern,' she said, 'and maybe, if you're clever, you can see the
Monk.'

"'The Monk!' We cried this out together; for that we had passed the
Monk without sighting her or catching sound of her fog-horns was a
thing incredible.

"'But so it is,' said she. 'We have passed the Monk; passed it close.
Don't I know the Pope's Head on Lesser Teague? Now hard-a-port
still--for we've the Gunnel Dogs somewhere there to leeward, and
they're worse almost than Hell-deeps.'

"We were racing by this time. There was nothing in the world to
see--only the fog, which had turned, within the last minute, to dusk;
and nothing to feel except that we were racing down between the walls
of it like a stick caught in a mill heat. Worse it was; we were driving
down full tilt with a five-knot tide under us. If we struck there was
one consolation; the end would come soon. As 'John Peel' ended we could
hear the tide race take up the tune and hum it on the wind of our
passage; and above it I heard the third officer call out that he had
glimpsed a light astern.

"'The Monk!' said Madame, nodding her head to me to help her in easing
off the wheel.

"And I don't know, sir, if you have ever been through a gale at sea; a
really tight gale, I mean; with a while in it--maybe an hour only,
maybe twenty-four--when the odds are slowly turning against you. Then
there comes a point when, with nothing to show for it, you feel that
you are holding your own; and another point when you feel that, bar
accidents, the worst is over. The sea seems to break just as savage as
ever, and you can't swear that the wind has lessened. You have nothing
to point to, but, all the same, you know, and can thank the Lord.

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