CHAPTER II.
ANOTHER PORTENT.
The saloon of the Excelsior was spacious for the size of the vessel, andwas furnished in a style superior to most passenger-ships of that epoch.The sun was shining through the sliding windows upon the fresh andneatly arranged breakfast-table, but the presence of the ominous"storm-racks," and partitions for glass and china, and the absence ofthe more delicate passengers, still testified to the potency of the Gulfof California. Even those present wore an air of fatigued discontent,and the conversation had that jerky interjectional quality whichbelonged to people with a common grievance, but a different individualexperience. Mr. Winslow had been unable to shave. Mrs. Markham,incautiously and surreptitiously opening a port-hole in her state-roomfor a whiff of fresh air while dressing, had been shocked by theintrusion of the Pacific Ocean, and was obliged to summon assistanceand change her dress. Jack Crosby, who had attired himself for tropicalshore-going in white ducks and patent leathers, shivered in the keennorthwest Trades, and bewailed the cheap cigars he had expected to buyat Mazatlan. The entrance of Miss Keene, who seemed to bring with herthe freshness and purity of the dazzling outer air, stirred the youngermen into some gallant attention, embarrassed, however, by a sense ofself-reproach.
Senor Perkins alone retained his normal serenity. Already seated atthe table between the two fair-headed children of Mrs. Brimmer, hewas benevolently performing parental duties in her absence, and gentlysupervising and preparing their victuals even while he carried on anethnological and political discussion with Mrs. Markham.
"Ah, my dear lady," continued the Senor, as he spread a hot biscuit withbutter and currant jelly for the youngest Miss Brimmer, "I am afraidthat, with the fastidiousness of your sex, you allow your refinedinstincts against a race who only mix with ours in a menial capacity toprejudice your views of their ability for enlightened self-government.That may be true of the aborigines of the Old World--like our friendsthe Lascars among the crew"--
"They're so snaky, dark, and deceitful-looking," interrupted Mrs.Markham.
"I might differ from you there, and say that the higher blonde typeslike the Anglo-Saxon--to say nothing of the wily Greeks--were thedeceitful races: it might be difficult for any of us to say what a slyand deceitful man should be like"--
"Oor not detheitful--oor a dood man," interpolated the youngest MissBrimmer, fondly regarding the biscuit.
"Thank you, Missie," beamed the Senor; "but to return: our Lascarfriends, Mrs. Markham, belong to an earlier Asiatic type of civilizationalready decayed or relapsed to barbarism, while the aborigines of theNew World now existing have never known it--or, like the Aztecs, haveperished with it. The modern North American aborigine has not yet gotbeyond the tribal condition; mingled with Caucasian blood as he is inMexico and Central America, he is perfectly capable of self-government."
"Then why has he never obtained it?" asked Mrs. Markham.
"He has always been oppressed and kept down by colonists of the Latinraces; he has been little better than a slave to his oppressor for thelast two centuries," said Senor Perkins, with a slight darkening of hissoft eyes.
"Injins is pizen," whispered Mr. Winslow to Miss Keene.
"Who would be free, you know, the poet says, ought themselves to lightout from the shoulder, and all that sort of thing," suggested Crosby,with cheerful vagueness.
"True; but a little assistance and encouragement from mankind generallywould help them," continued the Senor. "Ah! my dear Mrs. Markham,if they could even count on the intelligent sympathy of women likeyourself, their independence would be assured. And think what a proudprivilege to have contributed to such a result, to have assisted at thebirth of the ideal American Republic, for such it would be--a Republicof one blood, one faith, one history."
"What on earth, or sea, ever set the old man off again?" inquiredCrosby, in an aggrieved whisper. "It's two weeks since he's given us anyCentral American independent flapdoodle--long enough for those niggerinjins to have had half a dozen revolutions. You know that the vesselsthat put into San Juan have saluted one flag in the morning, and havebeen fired at under another in the afternoon."
"Hush!" said Miss Keene. "He's so kind! Look at him now, taking off thepinafores of those children and tidying them. He is kinder to them thantheir nurse, and more judicious than their mother. And half his talkwith Mrs. Markham now is only to please her, because she thinks sheknows politics. He's always trying to do good to somebody."
"That's so," exclaimed Brace, eager to share Miss Keene's sentiments;"and he's so good to those outlandish niggers in the crew. I don't seehow the captain could get on with the crew without him; he's the onlyone who can talk their gibberish and keep them quiet. I've seen himmyself quietly drop down among them when they were wrangling. In myopinion," continued the young fellow, lowering his voice somewhatostentatiously, "you'll find out when we get to port that he's stoppedthe beginning of many a mutiny among them."
"I reckon they'd make short work of a man like him," said Winslow, whosesuperciliousness was by no means lessened by the community of sentimentbetween Miss Keene and Brace. "I reckon, his political reforms, and hispoetical high-falutin' wouldn't go as far in the forecastle among livemen as it does in the cabin with a lot of women. You'll more likelyfind that he's been some sort of steward on a steamer, and he'sworking his passage with us. That's where he gets that smooth,equally-attentive-to-anybody sort of style. The way he skirmished aroundMrs. Brimmer and Mrs. Markham with a basin the other day when it was sorough convinced ME. It was a little too professional to suit my style."
"I suppose that was the reason why you went below so suddenly," rejoinedBrace, whose too sensitive blood was beginning to burn in his cheeks andeyes.
"It's a shame to stay below this morning," said Miss Keene,instinctively recognizing the cause of the discord and its remedy. "I'mgoing on deck again--if I can manage to get there."
The three gentlemen sprang to accompany her; and, in their efforts tokeep their physical balance and hers equally, the social equilibrium wasrestored.
By noon, however, the heavy cross-sea had abated, and the Excelsior borewest. When she once more rose and fell regularly on the long rhythmicalswell of the Pacific, most of the passengers regained the deck. EvenMrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb ventured from their staterooms, and wereconveyed to and installed in some state on a temporary divan of cushionsand shawls on the lee side. For even in this small republic of equalcabin passengers the undemocratic and distinction-loving sex had managedto create a sham exclusiveness. Mrs. Brimmer, as the daughter of arich Bostonian, the sister of a prominent lawyer, and the wife of asuccessful San Francisco merchant, who was popularly supposed to bepart-owner of the Excelsior, was recognized, and alternately caressedand hated as their superior. A majority of the male passengers, owningno actual or prospective matrimonial subjection to those charmingtoad-eaters, I am afraid continued to enjoy a mild and debasing equalityamong themselves, mitigated only by the concessions of occasionalgallantry. To them, Mrs. Brimmer was a rather pretty, refined,well-dressed woman, whose languid pallor, aristocratic spareness,and utter fastidiousness did not, however, preclude a certain nervousintensity which occasionally lit up her weary eyes with a dangerousphosphorescence, under their brown fringes. Equally acceptable was MissChubb, her friend and traveling companion; a tall, well-bred girl, withfaint salmon-pink hair and complexion, that darkened to a fiery brown inher shortsighted eyes.
Between these ladies and Mrs. Markham and Miss Keene existed anenthusiastic tolerance, which, however, could never be mistaken fora generous rivalry. Of the greater popularity of Miss Keene as therecognized belle of the Excelsior there could be no question; nor wasthere any from Mrs. Brimmer and her friend. The intellectual preeminenceof Mrs. Markham was equally, and no less ostentatiously, granted. "Mrs.Markham is so clever; I delight to hear you converse together," Mrs.Brimmer would say to Senor Perkins, "though I'm sure I hardly dare talkto her myself. She might easily go into the lecture-field--perhaps sheexpects to do so
in California. My dear Clarissa"--to Miss Chubb--"don'tshe remind you a little of Aunt Jane Winthrop's governess, whom wecame so near taking to Paris with us, but couldn't on account of herdefective French?"
When "The Excelsior Banner and South Sea Bubble" was published in lat.15 N. and long. 105 W., to which Mrs. Markham contributed the editorialsand essays, and Senor Perkins three columns of sentimental poetry,Mrs. Brimmer did not withhold her praise of the fair editor. When theExcelsior "Recrossed the Line," with a suitable tableau vivant andpageant, and Miss Keene as California, in white and blue, welcomed fromthe hands of Neptune (Senor Perkins) and Amphitrite (Mrs. Markham) herfair sister, Massachusetts (Mrs. Brimmer), and New York (Miss Chubb),Mrs. Brimmer was most enthusiastic of the beauty of Miss Keene.
On the present morning Mr. Banks found his disappointment at not goinginto Mazatlan languidly shared by Mrs. Brimmer. That lady even made aplace for him on the cushions beside her, as she pensively expressed herbelief that her husband would be still more disappointed.
"Mr. Brimmer, you know, has correspondents at Mazatlan, and no doubthe has made particular arrangements for our reception and entertainmentwhile there. I should not wonder if he was very indignant. And if, as Ifear, the officials of the place, knowing Mr. Brimmer's position--and myown connections--have prepared to show us social courtesies, it may bea graver affair. I shouldn't be surprised if our Government were obligedto take notice of it. There is a Captain-General of port--isn't there? Ithink my husband spoke of him."
"Oh, he's probably been shot long ago," broke in Mr. Crosby cheerfully."They put in a new man every revolution. If the wrong party's got in,they've likely shipped your husband's correspondent too, and mightbe waiting to get a reception for you with nigger soldiers and ballcartridges. Shouldn't wonder if the skipper got wind of something of thekind, and that's why he didn't put in. If your husband hadn't been sowell known, you see, we might have slipped in all right."
Mrs. Brimmer received this speech with the languid obliviousness ofperception she usually meted out to this chartered jester.
"Do you really think so, Mr. Crosby? And would you have been afraid toleave your cabin--or are you joking? You know I never know when you are.It is very dreadful, either way."
But here Miss Chubb, with ready tact, interrupted any possible retortfrom Mr. Crosby.
"Look," she said, pointing to some of the other passengers, who, ata little distance, had grouped about the first mate in animateddiscussion. "I wonder what those gentlemen are so interested about. Dogo and see."
Before he could reply, Mr. Winslow, detaching himself from the group,hurried towards them.
"Here's a row: Hurlstone is missing! Can't be found anywhere! They thinkhe's fallen overboard!"
The two frightened exclamations from Miss Chubb and Mrs. Brimmerdiverted attention from the sudden paleness of Miss Keene, who hadimpulsively approached them.
"Impossible!" she said hurriedly.
"I fear it is so," said Brace, who had followed Winslow; "although," headded in a lower tone, with an angry glance at the latter, "that bruteneed not have blustered it out to frighten everybody. They're searchingthe ship again, but there seems no hope. He hasn't been seen since lastnight. He was supposed to be in his state-room--but as nobody missedhim--you know how odd and reserved he was--it was only when the stewardcouldn't find him, and began to inquire, that everybody remembered theyhadn't seen him all day. You are frightened, Miss Keene; pray sit down.That fellow Winslow ought to have had more sense."
"It seems so horrible that nobody knew it," said the young girl,shuddering; "that we sat here laughing and talking, while perhaps hewas--Good heavens! what's that?"
A gruff order had been given: in the bustle that ensued the ship beganto fall off to leeward; a number of the crew had sprung to the davits ofthe quarter boat.
"We're going about, and they're lowering a boat, that's all; but it's asgood as hopeless," said Brace. "The accident must have happened beforedaylight, or it would have been seen by the watch. It was probably longbefore we came on deck," he added gently; "so comfort yourself, MissKeene, you could have seen nothing."
"It seems so dreadful," murmured the young girl, "that he wasn't evenmissed. Why," she said, suddenly raising her soft eyes to Brace, "YOUmust have noticed his absence; why, even I"--She stopped with a slightconfusion, that was, however, luckily diverted by the irrepressibleWinslow.
"The skipper's been routed out at last, and is giving orders. He don'tlook as if his hat fitted him any too comfortably this morning, doeshe?" he laughed, as a stout, grizzled man, with congested face andeyes, and a peremptory voice husky with alcoholic irritation, suddenlyappeared among the group by the wheel. "I reckon he's cursing his luckat having to heave-to and lose this wind."
"But for a human creature's life!" exclaimed Mrs. Markham in horror.
"That's just it. Laying-to now ain't going to save anybody's life, andhe knows it. He's doin' it for show, just for a clean record in the log,and to satisfy you people here, who'd kick up a row if he didn't."
"Then you believe he's lost?" said Miss Keene, with glistening eyes.
"There ain't a doubt of it," returned Winslow shortly.
"I don't agree with you," said a gentle voice.
They turned quickly towards the benevolent face of Senor Perkins, whohad just joined them.
"I differ from my young friend," continued the Senor courteously,"because the accident must have happened at about daybreak, when we wereclose inshore. It would not be impossible for a good swimmer to reachthe land, or even," continued Senor Perkins, in answer to the ray ofhope that gleamed in Miss Keene's soft eyes, "for him to have beenpicked up by some passing vessel. The smoke of a large steamer wassighted between us and the land at about that time."
"A steamer!" ejaculated Banks eagerly; "that was one of the new linewith the mails. How provoking!"
He was thinking of his lost letters. Miss Keene turned, heart-sick,away. Worse than the ghastly interruption to their easy idyllic lifewas this grim revelation of selfishness. She began to doubt if even thehysterical excitement of her sister passengers was not merely a pleasanttitillation of their bored and inactive nerves.
"I believe the Senor is right, Miss Keene," said Brace, taking heraside, "and I'll tell you why." He stopped, looked around him, and wenton in a lower voice, "There are some circumstances about the affairwhich look more like deliberation than an accident. He has left nothingbehind him of any value or that gives any clue. If it was a suicide hewould have left some letter behind for somebody--people always do, youknow, at such times--and he would have chosen the open sea. It seemsmore probable that he threw himself overboard with the intention ofreaching the shore."
"But why should he want to leave the ship?" echoed the young girlsimply.
"Perhaps he found out that we were NOT going to Mazatlan, and this washis only chance; it must have happened just as the ship went about andstood off from shore again."
"But I don't understand," continued Miss Keene, with a pretty knittingof her brows, "why he should be so dreadfully anxious to get ashorenow."
The young fellow looked at her with the superior smile of youthfulsagacity.
"Suppose he had particular reasons for not going to San Francisco, whereour laws could reach him! Suppose he had committed some offense! Supposehe was afraid of being questioned or recognized!"
The young girl rose indignantly.
"This is really too shameful! Who dare talk like that?"
Brace colored quickly.
"Who? Why, everybody," he stammered, for a moment abandoning hisattitude of individual acumen; "it's the talk of the ship."
"Is it? And before they know whether he's alive or dead--perhaps evenwhile he is still struggling with death--all they can do is to take hischaracter away!" she repeated, with flashing eyes.
"And I'm even worse than they are," he returned, his temper rising withhis color. "I ought to have known I was talking to one of HIS friends,instead of one whom I thought was MI
NE. I beg your pardon."
He turned away as Miss Keene, apparently not heeding his pique, crossedthe deck, and entered into conversation with Mrs. Markham.
It is to be feared that she found little consolation among the otherpassengers, or even those of her own sex, whom this profound eventhad united in a certain freemasonry of sympathy and interest--to theexclusion of their former cliques. She soon learned, as the return ofthe boats to the ship and the ship to her course might have clearly toldher, that there was no chance of recovering the missing passenger. Shelearned that the theory advanced by Brace was the one generally held bythem; but with an added romance of detail, that excited at once theircommiseration and admiration. Mrs. Brimmer remembered to have heard him,the second or third night out from Callao, groaning in his state-room;but having mistakenly referred the emotion to ordinary seasickness,she had no doubt lost an opportunity for confidential disclosure. "I amsure," she added, "that had somebody as resolute and practical as you,dear Mrs. Markham, approached him the next day, he would have revealedhis sorrow." Miss Chubb was quite certain that she had seen him onenight, in tears, by the quarter railing. "I saw his eyes glisteningunder his slouched hat as I passed. I remember thinking, at the time,that he oughtn't to have been left alone with such a dreadful temptationbefore him to slip overboard and end his sorrow or his crime." Mrs.Markham also remembered that it was about five o'clock--or was itsix?--that morning when she distinctly thought she had heard a splash,and she was almost impelled to get up and look out of the bull's-eye.She should never forgive herself for resisting that impulse, for shewas positive now that she would have seen his ghastly face in the water.Some indignation was felt that the captain, after a cursory surveyof his stateroom, had ordered it to be locked until his fate was morepositively known, and the usual seals placed on his effects for theirdelivery to the authorities at San Francisco. It was believed that someclue to his secret would be found among his personal chattels, if onlyin the form of a keepsake, a locket, or a bit of jewelry. Miss Chubb hadnoticed that he wore a seal ring, but not on the engagement-finger. Insome vague feminine way it was admitted without discussion that one oftheir own sex was mixed up in the affair, and, with the exception ofMiss Keene, general credence was given to the theory that Mazatlancontained his loadstar--the fatal partner and accomplice of his crime,the siren that allured him to his watery grave. I regret to say that thefacts gathered by the gentlemen were equally ineffective. The stewardwho had attended the missing man was obliged to confess that their mostprotracted and confidential conversation had been on the comparativeefficiency of ship biscuits and soda crackers. Mr. Banks, who was knownto have spoken to him, could only remember that one warm evening, inreply to a casual remark about the weather, the missing man, burying hisears further in the turned-up collar of his pea-jacket, had stated, "'Itwas cold enough to freeze the ears off a brass monkey,'--a remark, nodoubt, sir, intended to convey a reason for his hiding his own." OnlySenor Perkins retained his serene optimism unimpaired.
"Take my word for it, we shall yet hear good news of our missing friend.Let us at least believe it until we know otherwise. Ah! my dear Mrs.Markham, why should the Unknown always fill us with apprehension? Itssurprises are equally often agreeable."
"But we have all been so happy before this; and this seems such anunnecessary and cruel awakening," said Miss Keene, lifting her sad eyesto the speaker, "that I can't help thinking it's the beginning of theend. Good heavens! what's that?"
She had started at the dark figure of one of the foreign-lookingsailors, who seemed to have suddenly risen out of the deck beside them.
"The Senor Perkins," he said, with an apologetic gesture of his hand tohis hatless head.
"You want ME, my good man?" asked Senor Perkins paternally.
"Si, Senor; the mate wishes to see the Patrono," he said in Spanish.
"I will come presently."
The sailor hesitated. Senor Perkins took a step nearer to himbenignantly. The man raised his eyes to Senor Perkins, and said,--
"Vigilancia."
"Bueno!" returned the Senor gently. "Excuse me, ladies, for a moment."
"Perhaps it is some news of poor Mr. Hurlstone?" said Miss Keene, withan instinctive girlish movement of hope.
"Who knows?" returned Senor Perkins, waving his hand as he gayly trippedafter his guide. "Let us believe in the best, dear young lady, thebest!"