Back Aa

Plain Mary Smith: A Romance of Red Saunders

<h2>VII</h2> <h3>"SAVE ME, ARTHUR!"</h3> The first part of the Matilda's trip slid by, day after day, like a happy dream. We had weather that couldn't be bettered; days of sunlight and pretty sailing breezes; nights picked out of heaven. The moon was in her glory. I like high land better than I do the ocean, but few sights can beat a full moon swelling over the glitter of water. There's also a snugness, a cozy, contented feeling, aboard a small boat, that you can't get elsewhere, except in a prairie camp. I suppose it's the contrast between so much space of sky and land or water, where people are not, and the little spot where they are, that makes your partners rise in value. Of course, the fact that it was my first cutaway puts a gilt edge on all that time, yet one other thing, a new thing, that made all my life different for me, must get its credit. That was music,—good music. Back home they weren't much in the musical line. I think I can remember when mother used to play the piano some, but her life soon jarred all that out of her. Bar here and there a man with a mouth-organ or a concertina, and a fiddler to do dance-tunes, the only thing that stood for music to me was the singing in father's church. I have since thought that anybody who could stand that once a week was certainly a good Christian. I remember one Sunday the preacher told us about heaven, and how it was a steady line of harps and hymn-tunes. I put in the rest of that Sunday bewildered. I didn't want to go to hell, and after that description of heaven I wasn't anxious to go there, neither. Looked like the hereafter was dark and uncertain. But when I first heard Saxton, with his fiddle; Barbado Joe, the nigger cook, with the guitar; and Mary singing, my soul just laid on its back and purred. I was standing at the rail, thinking, kind of misty kid-fashion, one moonlit night, when there came a ripple of little notes from the guitar, with three wind-up chords like spring water in the desert. Then old Sax's fiddle 'way, 'way up; so light, so delicate, so sweet and pretty that shivers ran down my back. I stiffened like a pointer-pup first smelling game. "Here's something," I thought, "something that's me, all right, but I don't understand yet." And then, Mary's voice rose gorgeous out of the bigness of sky and moonlight and water; it filled the whole empty world, without an effort. Me and the moon and the waves stopped dead and listened. Even the Matilda trod the water gently. I turned and looked at Mary. There's no way for me to tell you what a picture she made. If I say she was beautiful, you'll think of some woman you know, and that's wrong, for there never was another like Mary. She was always beautiful, but never else had quite the touch as when lost in her singing. Man, she was Paradise itself, and when she opened her lips and sang, you entered the gates thereof. Of course, everybody's heard good singing, the same as everybody's seen handsome faces, but once in a while you strike a face or a voice that's beyond all guessing. You'd never believed it, if you hadn't seen or heard it. She sang as easily as you think,—opened her lips and it rolled out. And, in spite of power that could ring the air for miles and never seem loud, a deep something trembled underneath that was the very soul of pity and womankindness, and another little something floated high and joyful above it like the laugh of a child. Yes, sir. That voice was food, drink, and clean blankets. When she stopped, I thought I never wanted to hear a sound again. But I didn't know the limit of old Sax. With her voice quivering in his heart, he grabbed up his wooden box and made a miracle. Sure, it was different; but just as sure he tore a hole in you. His eyes were on Mary, backing the story the violin was telling. She was giving way, too. Her eyes would meet his, as if she couldn't help herself. He'd promised not to speak, but that didn't stop the old fiddle from making out the prettiest kind of case. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/></div> <h3>"He grabbed up his wooden box and made a miracle"</h3> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> She sat with her chin in her hand, breathing deep. The violin would give a tug at her, and, as I say, her eyes would turn to Sax, and then she'd force them away again, over the water, slowly down to the deck once more. She was frightened. I don't blame her, for Sax was out of himself. He towered there in the moonlight making those inhumanly beautiful sounds, his face burning white and his eyes burning black, fire clean through, fire in every soople muscle, fire pulsing out of every heave of his shoulders, one handsome and scary figure. There was something so out-and-out wild in him, I swear he looked as if he could call up devils from the sea. Well, when a man does get beyond the ordinary he scares the rest of the tribe. If two fellows start to fight, the bystanders will try to separate them. It's kind of instinct—I've done it many a time myself, when it would have been better to let the boys whack 'emselves good-natured instead of keeping the grudge sour on their stomachs. Anyway, I can't blame Mary for feeling leery of Sax when I confess that he put creeps in my spine. He seemed to grow till he filled the bow of the boat; the fiddle sung in my ears till I couldn't think straight; heavy medicine in it, you bet. Mary got whiter and whiter. I saw her constantly wetting her lips, and her hand went to her heart. The whole night was changed. The air was full of war and uneasiness. I wish to Heaven I knew how it might have ended, if nothing interrupted, because Saxton was doing magic. It was the queerest feeling I ever had. What Mary's feelings were I'd give something to know, but just when things were the tightest old Jesse come up and pulled my sleeve. "Get the girl below quiet," he says. "Hell will be loose in a minute." I stared at him. Coming on top of my queer sensations, it gummed my works. Jesse pointed to the sou'east. A cloud was flying north, the center of it black, but wisps and streamers flew out white in the moonlight like steam from an explosion. To the north of it lay another storm, huge and heavy, black as death, except where lightning sprayed through it. "Wind, Jesse?" I says. "The last time I see a thing like that, boy," he says, "I made land three days later, aboard a hencoop—the only one of a hull ship's company. Get that girl below." I thought quick, as he walked away. The fiddle had stopped. A wicked silence lay on everything. Old man Fear put his cold feet on me. I looked again at the mass to s'utherd. It boiled and turned and twisted. Big gusts of black and white shot crazily out to nowhere—she was climbing! Then I looked at the group. Mary sat white and still. Sax stood behind her, his fiddle by his side, holding the bow like a sword. He was white and still, too, and looking up to where the moon was going out. Their backs were turned to the devilry that threatened us. I stepped forward,—easy as possible, and spoke to her. "You're not looking well, Mary," I said. "Hadn't you better go down?" That was before my poker days. Playing a four-flush gives a man control of his face and voice. She heard what I wanted to hide at once, being naturally sharp as a needle and tuned high that night. "What's the matter?" says she. "Matter?" says I, laughing gaily. "Why, I don't want to see you sick—come along like a good girl." "Tell me why I should, and I will," she says. Well, what was the use? Hadn't she the right to know? When old Jesse said trouble was turning the corner, you could expect the knock on the door. He had the reputation of being the most fearless as well as the most careful skipper in the coast trade. He never took a chance, if there was nothing in it, and he'd take 'em all, if there was. Sax bent to us. "What's up?" says he. I didn't say a word—pointed behind him. He looked for a full five seconds. "Tornado, by God!" he says in a sort of savage whisper. He took the violin and bow in those thin strong hands of his and crumpled 'em up, and threw the pieces overboard. I'll swear he felt what I did—that he had called up a devil from the sea. Then he put a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Go below, sweetheart," he said. "But you'll call me—you'll let me—" she says, an agony in her eyes. "You ought to know that I will be with you, if there's no need of me here," he said. We stood stock-still for a minute. It had come with such a stunning bang. "There is great danger, Mary," said Saxton. "But you'll be brave, my dear?" "I will, Arthur," she answered. Then her eyes filled with panic and she caught him around the neck. "Save me, Arthur! Save me!" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to die!" Never in his life had Arthur Saxton stood up more of a man and gentleman. He put his hand on her head and looked courage into her. "Nor do I want to die while there's a chance of you," he said. "Now you'll believe and trust me, and go with Will?" I think he kissed her—I don't remember. That hell aloft was sudsing fast to us, and I was dancing inside to do something beside wait for a drowning. Anyhow, old Jesse's voice ripped out ferocious; there was a rattle of blocks, and I put Mary below at the bottom of the step, picked up a lantern for her, told her we'd watch out more for her than we would for ourselves, and seeing how utterly God-forsaken the poor girl looked, I kissed her, too. "Don't leave me, Will! Oh, don't!" she cried; "I can't stand it!" "I must," I pleaded. "Mary, think! I may be some use." She gripped herself. "That is so. Go, Will." It hurt to go. The lantern made a dim light in which her face half showed. The shadows shifted black, here and there. From above came a grinding, shattering sort of roar, like a train crossing a bridge. It was horrible to leave a woman alone to face it. But then came a scurry and trampling of feet on deck; yells and orders. That was my place. "Good-by! God save you!" I said, caught her hand for a good-by, and jumped up the stair. I was just in time. They slammed the hatch down almost on my heels. "Mary's there!" I screamed in Jesse's ear. "It's her only chance!" he roared back. On deck that machinery roar drowned everything. It rattled the bones in your body. The deck sung to it. You felt the humming on your feet. It dumbed and tortured you at the same time, like a fever-dream. You couldn't think for it, and your temper was spoiled entirely. Lightning! My God! It was zippitty-flash-flash-flash, so fast and fearful that the whole world jumped out into broad day and back a hundred times a minute. Heaven send I'll never see another such sight as the sea those flashes showed. Under the spout it was as if somebody had run a club into a snake-hole. You got it, to the least crinkle, in the lightning blasts. There were walls of water like Niagara Falls, jumbled up, falling, smashing together. If it hit us square we'd vanish. Saxton stood near me. He passed me a rope and signed for me to make myself fast. I couldn't do it. I must be free. I thought of Mary, below, and shook. What must she feel? We couldn't get down to her now, and that made me sick. Saxton fastened the rope around me. He put his mouth to my ear and shouted, "You never could hold without it!" I let him do what he liked. All desire to do anything myself, one way or the other, was rattled out of me. "How is she?" he shrieked again. I could just hear him at a one-inch range. "All right,"! said. "Make a little prayer to Himmel," he says, "for here it comes!" Here it come. Something that looked like the Atlantic up-ended loomed over the bows. The wind struck me flat on my back, in one grand crash of snapping wood, roaring water, thunder, and the fall of the pillars of the world. The ocean swept over me, yet I rose high in the air. I felt that the Matilda was turning a back somersault. The rope nearly cut me in half. Just when my lungs were pumping so I couldn't hold my breath a heart-beat longer, the wind suddenly cut over my face. Man! It hit like a fire-engine stream! I turned and swallowed some of it before we went down into the deep again. After that, it was plain disorderly conduct. Part of the time I was playing at home, a little boy again, and part of the time I was having a hard time trying to sleep in strange lands. But the next thing I can swear to is that the moon was shining, and the Matilda jumping like a horse. In spite of the aches and pains all over me, I just lay still for a minute and let it soak in that I was still on board this pretty good old world. Next, I thought of Mary and the rest of them and scrambled to my feet. I was dizzy—a three-inch cut across the top of my head gave reason enough for that, let alone the rest of the racket—and one eye was swelled shut. Otherwise, barring a sprained arm, a raw circle around me where the rope cut, a black-and-blue spot the size of a ham on my right leg, and all the skin off my knuckles, I was the same person. Saxton got himself up. We stared at each other. "Hello!" says he. "Hello!" says I. "Well, what the devil are you doing alive?" he says. He meant it, too. It seemed to astonish him greatly. This made me mad. "Well, I guess I have a right to," I says. At this we both laughed very hard. So hard I couldn't stop, till he grabbed me by the arm. "Mary!" he says. We both tried to cast our moorings. The knots were jammed beyond fingers and teeth. He took out a knife and we cut loose. On the way to the hatch we come across Jesse sitting up straight, staring out to sea. He put his hand to his head and put it down again, looking at his fingers. What he found so interesting in the fingers I don't know, but he couldn't take his eyes off of them. "Hurt, Jesse?" we asked him. He turned a face like a child's to us. "My," he says, "wasn't it wet!" "Come on!" says Sax; "he's all right!" We pulled the scuttle off by main strength. "Mary!" we called. "Mary!" "Yes!" she answered. The relief was so sweet my knees weakened. She came to the stair and looked up. Durned if the old lantern wasn't burning. That knocked me. I remembered lighting that lantern several hundred years ago, and here it was, still burning! "Are you hurt?" said Saxton. "Not—no, not much," she answered. "But nearly dead from fright—is it over?" "All over, thank God!" says Sax. "We only caught the edge of it, or— The moon is shining now. There's a heavy sea still, but that's harmless if the boat isn't strained—do you want us to stay with you?" She looked up and laughed—a great deal nearer being sensible than either Sax or me. "If I could stand the other, I can stand this alone—where's your promise, Arthur? You never came near me." He took this very seriously. "Why, Mary," he began, "do you think I would have left you if I could have helped it! They closed the hatch—" "Come along," I said. "She's joking." He turned and looked at me. "Is she?" he asked, as earnest as if his life hung on it. Not the least strange memory of that night is when Arthur Saxton turned and said, "Is she?" "Sure!" I replied. "Come—some of the boys may be badly hurt." We pulled through that uproar surprisingly good. Of course, every man-jack of us had lumps and welts and cuts, and there were some bones broken. Saxton was slapped down with such force that the flat of his hand was one big blister where it hit the deck, and the whole line of his forearm was a bruise—but that saved his face. One passenger drew a bad ankle, jammed in the wreckage. The worst hurt was Jimmy Hixley, a sailor; a block hit him in the ribs—probably when the mainmast went—and caved him for six inches. The actual twister had only hit one third of us, from where the mainmast stood, aft. That stick was pulled out by the roots—clean. Standing rigging and all. Good new stuff at that. Some of the stays came out at the eyes and some of 'em snapped. One sailor picked a nasty hurt out of it. The stays were steel cable, and when one parted it curled back quick, the sharp ends of the broken wires clawing his leg. Nobody knows the force of the wind in that part of the boat. Had there been a man there, no rope could hold him from being blown overboard; but, luckily, we were all forward. The rails were cut clean as an ax stroke. Nothing was left but the wheel, and the deck was lifted in places as if there'd been an explosion below. However, we weren't in the humor to kick over trifles. We shook hands all around and took a man's-sized swig of whisky apiece, then started to put things shipshape. Jesse had an extra spar and a bit of sail that we rigged as a jigger, and though the Matilda didn't foot it as pretty as before, we had a fair wind nearly all the rest of the trip, making Panama in two weeks, without another accident. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.