Alligators are utterly untamable.
IV
From the deck of the schooner, Jonsen and Otto watched the children climb onto the steamer: watched their boat return, and the steamer get under way.
So: it had all gone without a hitch. No one had suspected his story—a story so simple as to be very nearly the truth.
They were gone.
Jonsen could feel the difference at once: and it seemed almost as if the schooner could. A schooner, after all, is a place for men. He stretched himself, and took a deep breath, feeling that a cloying, enervating influence was lifted. José was industriously sweeping up some of Rachel’s abandoned babies. He swept them into the lee-scuppers. He drew a bucket of water, and dashed it at them over the deck. The trap swung open—whew, it was gone, all that truck!
“Batten down that fore-hatch!” ordered Jonsen.
The men all seemed lighter of heart than they had been for many months: as if the weight they were relieved of had been enormous. They sang as they worked, and two friends playfully pummelled each other in passing—hard. The lean, masculine schooner shivered and plunged in the freshening evening breeze. A shower of spray for no particular reason suddenly burst over the bows, swept aft and dashed full in Jonsen’s face. He shook his head like a wet dog, and grinned.
Rum appeared: and for the first time since the encounter with the Dutch steamer all the sailors got bestially drunk, and lay about the deck, and were sick in the scuppers. José was belching like a bassoon.
It was dark by then. The breeze dropped away again. The gaffs clanked aimlessly in the calm, with the motion of the sea: the empty sails flapped with reports like cannon, a hearty applause. Jonsen and Otto themselves remained sober, but they had not the heart to discipline the crew.
The steamer had long since disappeared into the dark. The foreboding which had oppressed Jonsen all the night before was gone. No intuition told him of Emily’s whispering to the stewardess: of the steamer, shortly after, meeting with a British gunboat: of the long series of lights flickering between them. The gunboat, even now, was fast overhauling him: but no premonition disturbed his peace.
He was tired—as tired as a sailor ever lets himself be. The last twenty-four hours had been hard. He went below as soon as his watch was over, and climbed into his bunk.
But he did not, at once, sleep. He lay for a while conning over the step he had taken. It was really very astute. He had returned the children, undoubtedly safe and sound: Marpole would be altogether discredited. Even to have landed them at Santa Lucia, his first intention, could never have closed the Clorinda episode so completely, since the world at large would not have heard of it: and it would have been difficult to produce them, should need arise.
Indeed, it had seemed to be a choice of evils: either he must carry them about always, as a proof that they were alive, or he must land them and lose control of them. In the first case, their presence would certainly connect him with the Clorinda piracy of which he might otherwise go unsuspected: in the second, he might be convicted of their murder if he could not produce them.
But this wonderful idea of his, now that he had carried it out successfully, solved both difficulties.
It had been a near thing with that little bitch Margaret, though … lucky the second boat had picked her up. …
The light from the cabin lamp shone into the bunk, illuminating part of the wall defaced with Emily’s puerile drawings. As they caught his eye a frown gathered on his forehead: but as well a sudden twinge affected his heart. He remembered the way she had lain there, ill and helpless. He suddenly found himself remembering at least forty things about her—an overwhelming flood of memories.
The pencil she had used was still among the bedding, and his fingers happened on it. There were still some white spaces not drawn on.
Jonsen could only draw two things: ships, and naked women. He could draw any type of ship he liked, down to the least detail—any particular ship he had sailed in, even. In the same way he could draw voluptuous, buxom women, also down to the least detail: in any position, and from any point of view: from the front, from the back, from the side, from above, from below: his foreshortening faultless. But set him to draw any third thing—even a woman with her clothes on—and he could not have produced a scribble that would have been even recognisable.
He took the pencil: and before long there began to appear between Emily’s crude uncertain lines round thighs, rounder bellies, high swelling bosoms, all somewhat in the manner of Rubens.
At the same time his mind was still occupied with reflections on his own astuteness. Yes, it had been a near thing with Margaret—it would have been awkward if, when he returned the party, there had been one missing.
A recollection descended on his mind like a cold douche, something he had completely forgotten about till then. His heart sank—as well it might:
“Hey!” he called to Otto on the deck above. “What was the name of that boy who broke his neck at Santa? Jim—Sam—what was he called?”
Otto did not answer, except by a long-drawn-out whistle.
X
I
Emily grew quite a lot during the passage to England on the steamer: suddenly shot up, as children will at that age. But she did it without any gawkiness: instead, an actual increase of grace. Her legs and arms, though longer, did not lose any
