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 detaiclass="underline" in any position, and from any point of view: from the front, from the back, from the side, from above, from below: his fore-shortening 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 recognizable.
He took the penciclass="underline" 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.
10
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 of the nicety of their shape; and her grave face lost none of its attractiveness by being a fraction nearer your own. The only drawback was that she used to get pains in the calves of her legs, now, and sometimes in her back: but those of course did not show. (They were all provided with clothes by a general collection, so it did not matter that she grew out of her old ones.)
She was a nice child: and being a little less shy than formerly, was soon the most popular of all of them. Somehow, no one seemed to care very much for Margaret: old ladies used to shake their heads over her a good deal. At least, any one could see that Emily had infinitely more sense.
You would never have believed that Edward after a few days’ washing and combing would look such a little gentleman.
After a short while Rachel threw Harold over, to be uninterrupted in her peculiar habits of parthenogenesis, eased now a little by the many presents of real dolls. But Harold became soon just as firm friends with Laura, young though she was.
Most of the steamer children had made friends with the seamen, and loved to follow them about at their romantic occupations — swabbing decks, and so on. One day, one of these men actually went a short way up the rigging (what little there was), leaving a glow of admiration on the deck below. But all this had no glamour for the Thorntons. Edward and Harry liked best to peer in at the engines: but what Emily liked best was to walk up and down the deck with her arm round the waist of Miss Dawson, the beautiful young lady with the muslin dresses: or stand behind her while she did little watercolor compositions of toppling waves with wrecks foundering in them, or mounted dried tropical flowers in wreaths round photographs of her uncles and aunts. One day Miss Dawson took her down to her cabin and showed her all her clothes, every single item — it took hours. It was the opening of a new world to Emily.
The captain sent for Emily, and questioned her: but she added nothing to that first, crucial burst of confidence to the stewardess. She seemed struck dumb — with terror, or something: at least, he could get nothing out of her. So he wisely let her alone. She would probably tell her story in her own time: to her new friend, perhaps. But this she did not do. She would not talk about the schooner, or the pirates, or anything concerning them: what she wanted was to listen, to drink in all she could learn about England, where they were really going at last — that wonderfully exotic, romantic place.
Louisa Dawson was quite a wise young person for her years. She saw that Emily did not want to talk about the horrors she had been through: but considered it far better that she should be made to talk than that she should brood over them in secret. So when the days passed and no confidences came, she set herself to draw the child out. She had, as everybody has, a pretty clear idea in her own head of what life is like in a pirate vessel. That these little innocents should have come through it alive was miraculous, like the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace.
“Where used you to live when you were on the schooner?” she asked Emily one day suddenly.
“Oh, in the hold,” said Emily nonchalantly. “Is that your Great-uncle Vaughan , did you say?”
In the hold. She might have known it. Chained, probably, down there in the darkness like blacks, with rats running over them, fed on bread and water.
“Were you very frightened when there was a battle going on? Did you hear them fighting over your head?”
Emily looked at her with her gentle stare: but kept silence.
Louisa Dawson was very wise in thus trying to ease the load on the child’s mind. But also she was consumed with curiosity. It exasperated her that Emily would not talk.