Mr Crane would have done better, thought Captain Thaddaeus wryly, to prevent his young cousin from sailing at all. But then Miss Hollis appeared to be a headstrong young woman who was obviously accustomed to having her own way, and Josiah Crayne had probably found it less fatiguing to let her have it than to attempt to argue with her. It was also possible that he was not altogether sorry to be temporarily rid of her!
Captain Fullbright grinned to himself; and immediately suffered a twinge of remorse. It was plumb ungrateful of him to criticize a girl who had heroically conquered her own nausea, and reversing their roles, nursed her chaperone through several bad bouts of seasickness. His poor Amelia—she had been so delighted at the prospect of accompanying him on this voyage, but he feared that it was proving a sad disappointment to her, for it had been an ill-fated trip from the start. The weather had been stormy and inclement, and at Bermuda one of the cabin stewards had been left behind in hospital with broken ribs. A deckhand had been swept overboard and drowned off the Cape Verde Islands, and another died from an outbreak of malignant fever in the Gulf of Guinea. And now the Trades had failed!
“It’s a gey ill year,” Mr MacKechnie the ship-chandler had said in his dockside office in Durban as he checked the list of stores that the Captain was buying: “Aye, a verra ill year! I doot but it’ll be the waurk o’ the Lorrd as a punishment on the sinfu’ worrld for the continuin’ evil o’ slavery. First ‘twas the rains failed and then “twas the winds. And now there’s a tale that awa’ back in the bad lands there’s a pestilence broke out that’s killin’ off the tribes like a black frost’ll kill the greenfly, until soon there’ll be naebody left alive in Africa, and a’ the great land will be as empty as the back o’ me hand! “Tis the Judgement o’ the Lorrd, and if ye are a wise mon, Mr Fullbright, ye’ll keep awa’ frae the coast this trup.”
Captain Thaddaeus had been moved to retort that if the Lord intended to deal out punishment for the evils of slavery, it was surely illogical that He should vent His wrath upon the Africans, who were the hapless victims and chief sufferers from the trade, instead of upon the Europeans who had reaped much profit from it.
“Europeans, did ye say?” enquired Mr MacKechnie, wagging his white head and looking at the Captain with bleary, near-sighted eyes that yet retained a disconcerting gleam of northern shrewdness. “But is it no a fact that in the last twa years nae less than five-and-twenty slave ships ha’ been built and fitted out in the porrt o’ New York alone? Or that your ain nation is fallin’ apart and dividin’ and quarrellin’ on account o’ this verra question o’ slavery? It’s my opeenion there are few worse evils than bad blood between brithers, an’ maybe ye’ll find that the Judgements o’ Jehovah ha’ fallen upon those that profited by the black trade, ta’gither wi’ those who engaged in it. Aye! an’ a’ those that did little tae prevent it or put it doon! As fer the puir benighted heathen themselves, ‘twas more often than not their ain blood and kin that caught them and drove them like kine and sold the puir deevils into slavery—thae Judases! I’m a God-fearing mon, and I’ve nae doot but it’s their ain evil murderin’ ways that have tried the patience o’ the Almighty, and that He has sent a pestilence to wipe them frae the face o’ the earth as a punishment on the evil-doers, and a mair mairciful release for the innocent than slow death in the bight o’ a slave ship. Imphmn!”
After which weighty pronouncement the God-fearing man had attempted to cheat Captain Fullbright in the matter of ships stores and fresh vegetables. But although he had not succeeded in this, for some unaccountable reason his senile croakings had lingered uncomfortably in the Captain’s mind, nagging at him with the persistence of circling flies, until he was almost tempted to believe that the hot, miasmic haze that lay along the sullen sea and obscured the horizon was an emanation of the pestilence that old Tod MacKechnie had spoken of; creeping down from the vast unknown hinterland of Africa to still the Trade Winds and calm the ocean, and visit the judgement of an angered Jehovah upon erring mankind.
Such an idea was fanciful to the point of absurdity, and he was ashamed of entertaining it. But all the same he kept well away from the coast And continued to regret that he had brought his wife with him, for Amelia was far from strong, and the breathless heat was causing her almost as much discomfort as the Atlantic storms had done. He should have had more sense than to allow Josiah Crane and his spoilt, obstinate, self-willed chit of a niece to—
A shadow fell across the threshold of the chartroom, and Captain Fullbright looked up to see the chit in question framed in the open doorway. A tall young woman in her early twenties, dressed in the unrelieved black of deep mourning, and wearing her thick, chestnut-brown hair in a severe chignon whose weight tilted her firm chin and gave an added stateliness to a naturally upright carriage.
Thaddaeus Fullbright did not approve of passengers in the charthouse, but Miss Hollis was a privileged person for more reasons than one. Apart from being a Crayne on her mother’s side and travelling under the care and chaperonage of his own wife, her personal appearance was such as to assure her of privileges that plainer and less well-favoured women might sigh for in vain. Though it held little or no appeal for Captain Fullbright, whose taste ran to smaller, softer and more yielding damsels.
The “New Woman’, of whom Miss Hollis was an outstanding example, frankly terrified him. And certainly there was nothing small, soft or yielding about the youthful Juno who stood looking in at the door of the chartroom. But despite his prejudices the Captain could appreciate good looks when he saw them, and there was no denying that Miss Hollis was a remarkably handsome young woman.
Not even the unwieldy fashions of the day could disguise the excellence of her figure, while the sombre mourning hue of her dress merely served to accentuate an admirable complexion that had frequently, and with justice, been compared to magnolia petals. Her eyes alone would have given a plain girl pretensions to beauty, for they were large and grey, black-lashed and wide set. Unfortunately, they were also disconcertingly direct, and apt to flash in a manner that had intimidated many a young man who had been temporarily attracted by her looks; and possibly by her fortune.
Captain Fullbright studied his intrusive passenger with a wary eye and said: “Yes, Miss Hollis? Anything I can do for you?”
Miss Hollis frowned and said with a touch of impatience in her voice: “You can stop calling me Miss Hollis for a start. Captain Thaddaeus. After all, it’s not as though I were one of your ordinary passengers. I’m being looked after by your wife, and I don’t call her ‘Mrs Fullbright.’ And nor does she call me ‘Miss Hollis.’ If Amelia can call me ‘Hero,’ so can you.”
Captain Thaddaeus smiled and the lines of strain eased about his eyes and mouth. He said dryly: “Can’t say as I’ve noticed her calling you ‘Hero’ much. Seems to me it’s more often ‘dear’ or ‘honey.’”
Miss Hollis laughed, and looked the prettier for it. “Yes, indeed. Do you know, your wife is the first person who ever called me ‘honey’? Papa never called me by pet names. I was always ‘Hero’ to him. He said it was a beautiful name: and it is, I guess. But…sometimes I missed the pet names.”
Her face was suddenly as wistful as her voice, and she gave a sharp sigh, and then remembering what it was that she had come to ask him, said more briskly: “Captain Thaddaeus, how much longer is this going to last? This weather, I mean? We don’t seem to be moving at all. Mr Stoddart says he does not believe we have advanced more than a mile these last two days, and that at this rate we shall not reach Zanzibar within the month.”
“Maybe not,” agreed Captain Fullbright placidly. “But there ain’t nothing we can do about it, that’s for sure. Unless Mr Stoddart cares to try a bit of rowing! You tell him that he’ll soon get all the movement he wants. And maybe a sight more.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Hero, interested. “Do you mean we shall have a wind soon?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Glass is falling.”
“But you said that yesterd
ay, and it’s still as calm as a duckpond.”
“And the glass is still falling. There’s dirty weather brewing, and I don’t like it I’ll sure be mighty glad to see Zanzibar, and that’s a fact.”
“Yes, indeed!” agreed Hero warmly. “It’s the one place I have always meant to see, ever since my father showed it to me on a globe when I was quite young—five or six…”
She turned to look out across the hot, sun-baked deck and the motionless shadows of the mast and the standing rigging, and thought of that long ago day. And of other things too: the lamplit kitchen at Hollis Hill with its dark, beamed ceiling and rows of copper pans, and the whispering voice of old Biddy Jason who had told her her fortune.
For years Hero had believed whole-heartedly in those mysterious predictions; though once free of the schoolroom she had pretended to laugh at them. Yet now they were actually coming true! Or had she herself made them come true because of what old Biddy had told her? It was a debatable point. But at least one thing was certain. Here she was, sailing half way round the world to an island full of black men, where there must be plenty of work for her to do: and Clayton Mayo to help her do it!
She turned impulsively to the Captain: “You’ve been to Zanzibar several times, Captain Thaddaeus. What is it like? Will you tell me about it, please?”
“Well, now: it’s no more’n half the size of Long Island—around fifty miles long by ten wide, I’d say—and it lies near enough to the mainland for folk in the city to see the hills of Africa on a clear day. Its nearest neighbour is an island called Pemba which is even smaller and a heap wilder, and—”
Hero shook her head and said: “No, those are not at all the sort of things I want to hear about. I want to know what it’s like.”
Captain Fullbright replied unhelpfully that she’d soon be finding that out for herself and, for his part, he preferred to let people get their own impressions instead of handing them his spectacles to look through. But Miss Hollis was not to be fobbed off so easily, and seating herself with some deliberation, she announced calmly that in her opinion looking through other people’s spectacles could be very instructive, since it would often show one a viewpoint that was totally different to one’s own: “And I find it interesting to know how other people see things. You have to know, if you’re going to do any good in this world.”
Captain Fullbright raised a pair of bushy eyebrows and looked faintly surprised: “Good? What sort of good?”
“Helping people. Setting things to rights.”
“Humph. What sort o’ things?”
Miss Hollis sketched a small impatient gesture: “Slavery. Ignorance. Dirt and disease. I don’t believe in sitting around with folded hands and saying “The Lord’s Will be done,” when there are so many things being done that cannot possibly be the Lord’s Will. One should start right in and do something about it.”
Captain Fullbright observed dryly that he could see that she was going to have plenty to keep her occupied in Zanzibar.
“I know it,” agreed Hero calmly: “That is largely why I made up my mind that I must go there at once. You see, there was nothing for me to do at Hollis Hill. And I wanted to get right away from Boston—the house seemed so empty after Papa died, and I couldn’t bear…”
Her crisp, confident voice wavered unexpectedly, and she did not complete the sentence but said hurriedly: “Besides Cressy—my cousin Cressida—particularly wished me to come. We have always been great friends and she was lonely in Zanzibar; and it seems that the climate does not suit Aunt Abby. So I felt that since they both needed me, it was my duty to—” She paused briefly, as though examining this statement, and then said a shade ruefully: “No, I am not being quite honest It was very pleasant to feel really needed.”
Captain Fullbright’s lips twitched and he remarked in a deceptively innocent voice that he seemed to remember hearing something about someone else needing her. Maybe Mr Clayton Mayo?
Miss Hollis blushed, and Captain Fullbright, who had not believed her to be capable of such a thing, was mildly astonished. The rush of bright colour suited her, and he thought idly that she should do it more often.
“You’ve been talking to Amelia!” accused Miss Hollis.
“Sure. It’s usual, “twixt husbands and wives,” admitted Captain Thaddaeus with his slow smile. “But I weren’t aware that there was any secret about it. Your cousin, Mr Josiah Crayne, told me that it was kind of understood in the family that you were planning on becoming Mrs Clayton Mayo, and that was why he’d allowed you to sail.”
“Indeed?” said Hero haughtily. “Well, he is wrong. As it happens, I have not yet made up my mind about Mr Mayo. I have always esteemed him, and I know that Aunt Abby and Uncle Nat hoped that we should marry some day. But Papa took against him. Not that I should have allowed such a thing to over-influence me had I been convinced that we should suit, but I do feel very strongly that marriage is not an estate to be entered into on the basis of mere pleasure in another’s society, and that one should look for more than that.”
“Oh…er…sure. Sure,” agreed Captain Fullbright, disconcerted and more than a little shocked by the unmaidenly frankness with which Miss Hollis was prepared to discuss such delicate matters as marriage and affairs of the heart. Surely a certain show of coyness—something more in keeping with that blush—would have been more fitting?
But Miss Hollis, though she might not be able to control her blushes, obviously had no patience with coyness, for she proceeded to tell him that she already knew Mr Mayo to be serious-minded and eager to do good, because they had enjoyed many talks together and found themselves to be in complete agreement on a wide variety of subjects. And that he had also proved himself to be truly honourable by steadfastly refusing to countenance any suggestion that they should elope.
“Whose suggestion?” enquired Captain Thaddaeus, interested.
“Mine, I regret to say,” admitted Miss Hollis with a disarming twinkle. “Though I guess I only made it in the heat of the moment, because I was exceedingly annoyed with Papa, and I don’t believe I would ever have carried it out But Clay—I mean Mr Mayo—would not hear of it, and though my cousin Arabella Strong said that it was only because he knew quite well that Papa had threatened to cut me off with a quarter if I married against his wishes, I had enough sense to realize that Bella had a fondness for Clay herself and was only speaking out of jealousy. He is very handsome, you know.”
Captain Fullbright controlled his features with difficulty, and said gravely: “So now that you are rich and independent you’re hurrying right out to your handsome sweetheart, with the Craynes’ approval, to be married in white satin and a wedding veil and live happily ever after. That it?”
“No-o…not exactly. I am going out to see for myself what may be done to put a stop to the disgraceful traffic in slaves that is carried on in Zanzibar. And while I am there I shall also be able to renew my acquaintance with Mr Mayo before deciding whether we could make a success of marriage. We have not seen each other for nearly two years you see, and he may well have changed.”
“And you too, I guess.”
“I never change,” asserted Miss Hollis confidently. “But from all I have heard and read, the tropics are apt to have a deteriorating effect on men who are compelled to live there.”
“On their health, certainly.”
“Oh, and on their characters too, I assure you! That is why I felt I must see for myself. And even if it should turn out that Clay and I do not suit, I shall not have wasted my time, since quite apart from the slaves there must be so many things crying out to be changed in Zanzibar that I shall find plenty to do. I have been studying Arabic and Swahili for some months now, and though I am afraid that my vocabulary is still very small, I am told that I speak both languages passably well.”
She leaned forward to lay a hand on the Captain’s sleeve, and said coaxingly: “So now won’t you please tell me something about the Island?”
“Why don’t you go ask that young Mos
soo Jooles?” retorted the Captain gruffly. “Reckon he’ll be pleased enough to tell you anything you want to know. His Pa’s French Consul in Zanzibar, so he’s lived there; which is more’n I have!”
“Yes. He told me so,” said Hero. “But then he also told me that the Island was ‘A paradise on earth, colourful and exotic, and of a beauty inconceivable. A page,’ he says, ‘from the Arabian Nights!’”
Captain Fullbright, amused at the quotation and the expressive look that accompanied it, laughed heartily and remarked that all Frenchmen—and for that matter most foreigners—only said what they felt a lady would wish to hear. “Did he tell you anything else about it?”
“Indeed yes: a great deal. He told me that he is convinced that the British intend to annex the Island, together with Pemba and the Sultanates’ dependencies on the mainland.”
“Did he, now! Waal, ma’am, I guess that’s something I wouldn’t know a thing about. How d’you reckon they’ll set about it?—or hain’t he told you that?”
Apparently he had, and Miss Hollis (never one to shirk instructing the Ignorant), explained that it was really very simple; and quite infamous! The British, it seemed, were supporting a puppet-ruler—a most weak and vicious man, who besides encouraging slavery and wasting the revenues on riotous living, had no real claim to the throne, since he was merely a younger son of the late Sultan. The rival claimant, according to the French Consul’s son, was not only infinitely better fitted to rule, but possessed the respect and loyalty of nine-tenths of the local population together with the support of every thinking foreigner in Zanzibar with the exception of the British, who recognizing that his strength of character might be a bar to their schemes for colonial expansion, preferred to have a more malleable tool as a ruler. Had the Captain ever heard of anything more shameful? Of course she herself, as a good Republican, could not approve of kings in any form. But then nor could she tolerate injustice.