“You see.
“Here. no.
“Evidence. Testimony. Guilty, Sentenced. Three Weeks later. Dead, you know. Result? Very few murders.” He paused a moment, said, “You see…”
Felix, it was clear, did see. But still didn’t like what she saw. After a moment she murmured, “A twelve-year-old boy for stealing a pearl-handled penknife?”
“Ahh —” Stickney’s groan was deep in his throat. “Terrible. I quite agree. Two hundred years ago. Time when George Washington owned slaves. When free Negroes owned slaves. ”
There was silence. Limekiller stared at the flaccid sea. Then Major Deak’s sick eyes drooped. Blinked. Opened wider. “Freshen your drinks?” he asked. “Freshen mine, Stickney, a good chap.”
More George IV gin (and less tonic) added to his glass, Deak, who had listened absolutely silently to Stickney Forster, now said, with the by now familiar breath-breaks and gasps and sighs, “During my years as District Judge I had to pass sentence of death on between I suppose oh twenty to thirty men. Only one woman.” A voice not his: “Ohhh?" A gasp. His. Then, “Mmm. First she killed her baby because child didn’t look like her husband. Then killed her husband. Too.” A gulp of air.
Outside, someone shouted, “Dahnce, everybody? Dahnce? Dahnce!
The joviality note at once rose high. So did the music. Someone’s familiar voice sang out, “ Oh baby, oh, baby; O Baby: 0h!” Jack wondered if it were Alex Brant. and by Felix’s quick glance out the door, wondered if she were not wondering, too; her glance returned, met his, blazed. Suddenly he thought of National Senator Weston’s remark (at which he had then laughed), “Frahnkly, me dear Jahk, my trouble is that my wife understands me!”
Felix asked, “And was she hanged?”
An inhaustion of gin. Of air. “Of course.”
Silence. Felix asked, in a strained voice, “I don’t suppose you took into account her state of mind —?”
„Oh ves.”
The glass of gin and its minuscule dose of quinine went up. and up. came down. came down. Shimmering. Very slight tinge of blue?
and the Hell she must have been in
“Yes.” The thrust-out, hairless, tortoise-head nodded, twice. “First off, she had taken her great knife to be sharpened. Secondly, she had dug up her jewelry and her husband’s savings and placed it all in her travelling trunk. Then killed them both. And left. Found her waiting for the train, ticket in her hand. Premediteflon. Flight to avoid prosecution. Jury found her guilty. My duty was to pronounce sentence.”
“Which you did.” Eyes smoldering into Jack’s as if he himself had donned the Black Cap over the wig. After accurately guessing her cousin’s taste in reading matter. Well, he eyeballed to her, May’s taste in books is one hell of a lot better than your friend Alex Brant’s taste in music —
“Which,” choke, gasp, “I did.”
Silence. Even, for some reason, the music. The eyeball semaphore informed him what be could do with his opinion.
“Stifling weather all this past week,” said Major/Judge Deak. “Can’t breathe. Doctor says no trace of asthma,” bad sounds in chest; “or of emphysema.” He made Stickney Forster a signal to recharge his glass. Judge Deak’s expenses were exceeding his income. But he drank the best gin.
Somewhat suddenly several of the sitters-in-the-room were gone downstairs, and, as though in a game of Musical Chairs/Going to Jerusalem, several of the dancers-in-the-yard were come upstairs. “Are there rather a lot of sea-turtles around here?” asked English Neville. Deak said he’d seen a few. “Ah, there must have been more than a few in the days of yore,” Neville reckoned; “we found you jolly well wouldn’t believe how many ghastly old turtle-bones just dug up recently and thrown over there in the bog. Burnt, I shouldn’t wonder
“Kept them in a crawl,” the Honourable said.
Noddy: “In a what?"
“A cor-ral in North America. Africa? K-r-a-a-1. We say 'crawl.'"
“Well, I daresay they do. Never heard of a turtle trot, eh? Haw haw!”
“Who kept them in the crawl?”
“Pair of cut-throats, who —”
“Cut-throats? Here on Galleon’s Cave?”
Jack had not remembered seeing the National improbably- named Pony-Boy here before, but here he was: bottle of rum in one hand, bottle of ginger stout (temperance beverage) in the other: And feeling no pain. “Planty of cut-t’roats here on Galliard’s Caye in de w’old days,” he said, clearly pleased to contribute to the general enlightenment. “Live for mont’s on tortle-meat! Galliard, he was ahn Ehnglishmahn, me grahd/a/irfer knew he’m. well. me great grahdfahder.” Immediately, regardless of the shades of antiquity, for Stephenson the explorer had remarked, back in those very davs, that “all the Bavmen are boatmen, and cradled on the water,” Pony-Boy said, ’Jock, as your boat hasn’t got no ox —”
Noddy: “No what?"
„— no ox, no oxilliary engine, just sail; as you hasn’t got none, Jock, meh-be best you be starting bock. Else you gwayne be oet on de wah-tah ahl night.”
What response Limekiller might have given to this unsolicitate advice, with its implication that he was a mere suckling-child where these things were concerned, might or might not soon have been known. But Felix very civilly and very swiftly made her farewells and was gone down the stairs. Leaving Guess Who to follow after. Hastily. Lest she be off, and leave him up to his huckle-bones in the bog. Doomed to live on broiled turtle-meat, and the leavings and drippings of the shandygaff. And the gin.
The need to set the sails and sheets and tackle-in-general to rights relieved either of them from the need to say anything. Certainly a damned good thing. The fading sun would probably serve them well enough until the light tended by Old Captain Barber was visible, and after that sank more-or-less behind them, the lights of King Town would be visible. And even if a mist were to come up (not an impossible thing at this season of the waning year) so that they couldn’t see the nation’s onlyr city: well, they could damned well smell it: the drains of the capital (scarcely above sea-level) were notorious, let the Honourable draft how many Sanitary Ordinances as he would.
By and by, what between steering, pumping, and scanning the horizon, Jack was aware that his temper had gone down to nearly normal. And he looked around to see what Felix was doing. She was being mighty quiet. This was the first real quarrel that they had had, and he hoped that she was not making any plans to scuttle the boat; lo! she was crouching very near to him, and she was shining the flashlight. Was she planning to —? Shucks. The water was so shallow he could almost walk ashore. She wasn’t as tall as he was? Very well. He would carry her on his shoulders; vague thoughts of Saint Christopher.