“Don’t you be thinking that sort of thing,” said the other, taking his seat in a chair close by. “There’s no manner of use forecastin’ the weather a month ahead. Now we’re in warm latitoods, your glass will rise steady, and you’ll be as right and spry as any one of us, before we fetch the Golden Gates.”
“I’m thinking about the children,” said Lestrange, seeming not to hear the captain’s words. “Should anything happen to me before we reach port, I should like you to do something for me. It’s only this: dispose of my body without—without the children knowing. It has been in my mind to ask you this for some days. Captain, those children know nothing of death.”
Le Farge moved uneasily in his chair.
“Little Emmeline’s mother died when she was two. Her father—my brother—died before she was born. Dicky never knew a mother; she died giving him birth. My God, Captain, death has laid a heavy hand on my family; can you wonder that I have hid his very name from those two creatures that I love!”
“Ay, ay,” said Le Farge, “it’s sad! it’s sad!”
“When I was quite a child,” went on Lestrange, “a child no older than Dicky, my nurse used to terrify me with tales about dead people. I was told I’d go to hell when I died if I wasn’t a good child. I cannot tell you how much that has poisoned my life, for the thoughts we think in childhood, Captain, are the fathers of the thoughts we think when we are grown up. And can a diseased father—have healthy children?”
“I guess not.”
“So I just said, when these two tiny creatures came into my care, that I would do all in my power to protect them from the terrors of life—or rather, I should say, from the terror of death. I don’t know whether I have done right, but I have done it for the best. They had a cat, and one day Dicky came in to me and said: ‘Father, pussy’s in the garden asleep, and I can’t wake her.’ So I just took him out for a walk; there was a circus in the town, and I took him to it. It so filled his mind that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he asked for her. I did not tell him she was buried in the garden, I just said she must have run away. In a week he had forgotten all about her—children soon forget.”
“Ay, that’s true,” said the sea captain. “But ’pears to me they must learn some time they’ve got to die.”
“Should I pay the penalty before we reach land, and be cast into that great, vast sea, I would not wish the children’s dreams to be haunted by the thought: just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship. You will take them back to Boston; I have here, in a letter, the name of a lady who will care for them. Dicky will be well off, as far as worldly goods are concerned, and so will Emmeline. Just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship—children soon forget.”
“I’ll do what you ask,” said the seaman.
The moon was over the horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift in a river of silver. Every spar was distinct, every reef point on the great sails, and the decks lay like spaces of frost cut by shadows black as ebony.
As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own thoughts, a little white figure emerged from the saloon hatch. It was Emmeline. She was a professed sleepwalker—a past mistress of the art.
Scarcely had she stepped into dreamland than she had lost her precious box, and now she was hunting for it on the decks of the Northumberland.
Mr. Lestrange put his finger to his lips, took off his shoes and silently followed her. She searched behind a coil of rope, she tried to open the galley door; hither and thither she wandered, wide-eyed and troubled of face, till at last, in the shadow of the hencoop, she found her visionary treasure. Then back she came, holding up her little nightdress with one hand, so as not to trip, and vanished down the saloon companion very hurriedly, as if anxious to get back to bed, her uncle close behind, with one hand outstretched so as to catch her in case she stumbled.
III
The Shadow and the Fire
It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been rigged up on the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to read, and the children trying to play. The heat and monotony had reduced even Dicky to just a surly mass, languid in movement as a grub. As for Emmeline, she seemed dazed. The rag-doll lay a yard away from her on the poop deck unnursed; even the wretched box and its whereabouts she seemed to have quite forgotten.
“Daddy!” suddenly cried Dick, who had clambered up, and was looking over the after-rail.
“What?”
“Fish!”
Lestrange rose to his feet, came aft and looked over the rail.
Down in the vague green of the water something moved, something pale and long—a ghastly form. It vanished; and yet another came, neared the surface, and displayed itself more fully. Lestrange saw its eyes, he saw the dark fin, and the whole hideous length of the creature; a shudder ran through him as he clasped Dicky.
“Ain’t he fine?” said the child. “I guess, daddy, I’d pull him aboard if I had a hook. Why haven’t I a hook, daddy?—why haven’t I a hook, daddy?—Ow, you’re squeezin’ me!”
Something plucked at Lestrange’s coat: it was Emmeline—she also wanted to look. He lifted her up in his arms; her little pale face peeped over the rail, but there was nothing to see: the forms of terror had vanished, leaving the green depths untroubled and unstained.
“What’s they called, daddy?” persisted Dick, as his father took
