CHAPTER XVI
No, the sea is not a gentle place. It must be the very hardness of
the life that makes all sea-people hard. Of course, Captain West is
unaware that his crew exists, and Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire never
address the men save to give commands. But Miss West, who is more
like myself, a passenger, ignores the men. She does not even say
good-morning to the man at the wheel when she first comes on deck.
Nevertheless I shall, at least to the man at the wheel. Am I not a
passenger?
Which reminds me. Technically I am not a passenger. The Elsinore
has no licence to carry passengers, and I am down on the articles as
third mate and am supposed to receive thirty-five dollars a month.
Wada is down as cabin boy, although I paid a good price for his
passage and he is my servant.
Not much time is lost at sea in getting rid of the dead. Within an
hour after I had watched the sail-makers at work Christian Jespersen
was slid overboard, feet first, a sack of coal to his feet to sink
him. It was a mild, calm day, and the Elsinore, logging a lazy two
knots, was not hove to for the occasion. At the last moment Captain
West came for'ard, prayer-book in hand, read the brief service for
burial at sea, and returned immediately aft. It was the first time I
had seen him for'ard.
I shall not bother to describe the burial. All I shall say of it is
that it was as sordid as Christian Jespersen's life had been and as
his death had been.
As for Miss West, she sat in a deck-chair on the poop busily engaged
with some sort of fancy work. When Christian Jespersen and his coal
splashed into the sea the crew immediately dispersed, the watch below
going to its bunks, the watch on deck to its work. Not a minute
elapsed ere Mr. Mellaire was giving orders and the men were pulling
and hauling. So I returned to the poop to be unpleasantly impressed
by Miss West's smiling unconcern.
"Well, he's buried," I observed.
"Oh," she said, with all the tonelessness of disinterest, and went on
with her stitching.
She must have sensed my frame of mind, for, after a moment, she
paused from her sewing and looked at me
Your first sea funeral, Mr. Pathurst?
"Death at sea does not seem to affect you," I said bluntly.
"Not any more than on the land." She shrugged her shoulders. "So
many people die, you know. And when they are strangers to you . . .
well, what do you do on the land when you learn that some workers
have been killed in a factory you pass every day coming to town? It
is the same on the sea."
"It's too bad we are a hand short," I said deliberately.
It did not miss her. Just as deliberately she replied:
"Yes, isn't it? And so early in the voyage, too." She looked at me,
and when I could not forbear a smile of appreciation she smiled back.
"Oh, I know very well, Mr. Pathurst, that you think me a heartless
wretch. But it isn't that it's . . . it's the sea, I suppose. And
yet, I didn't know this man. I don't remember ever having seen him.
At this stage of the voyage I doubt if I could pick out half-a-dozen
of the sailors as men I had ever laid eyes on. So why vex myself
with even thinking of this stupid stranger who was killed by another
stupid stranger? As well might one die of grief with reading the
murder columns of the daily papers."
"And yet, it seems somehow different," I contended.
"Oh, you'll get used to it," she assured me cheerfully, and returned
to her sewing.
I asked her if she had read Moody's Ship of Souls, but she had not.
I searched her out further. She liked Browning, and was especially
fond of The Ring and the Book. This was the key to her. She cared
only for healthful literature--for the literature that exposits the
vital lies of life.
For instance, the mention of Schopenhauer produced smiles and
laughter. To her all the philosophers of pessimism were laughable.
The red blood of her would not permit her to take them seriously. I
tried her out with a conversation I had had with De Casseres shortly
before leaving New York. De Casseres, after tracing Jules de
Gaultier's philosophic genealogy back to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche,
had concluded with the proposition that out of their two formulas de
Gaultier had constructed an even profounder formula. The "Will-to-
Live" of the one and the "Will-to-Power" of the other were, after
all, only parts of de Gaultier's supreme generalization, the "Will-
to-Illusion."
I flatter myself that even De Casseres would have been pleased with
the way I repeated his argument. And when I had concluded it, Miss
West promptly demanded if the realists might not be fooled by their
own phrases as often and as completely as were the poor common
mortals with the vital lies they never questioned.
And there we were. An ordinary young woman, who had never vexed her
brains with ultimate problems, hears such things stated for the first
time, and immediately, and with a laugh, sweeps them all away. I
doubt not that De Casseres would have agreed with her.
"Do you believe in God?" I asked rather abruptly. She dropped her
sewing into her lap, looked at me meditatively, then gazed on and
away across the flashing sea and up into the azure dome of sky. And
finally, with true feminine evasion, she replied:
"My father does."
"But you?" I insisted.
"I really don't know. I don't bother my head about such things. I
used to when I was a little girl. And yet . . . yes, surely I
believe in God. At times, when I am not thinking about it at all, I
am very sure, and my faith that all is well is just as strong as the
faith of your Jewish friend in the phrases of the philosophers.
That's all it comes to, I suppose, in every case--faith. But, as I
say, why bother?"
"Ah, I have you now, Miss West!" I cried. "You are a true daughter
of Herodias."
"It doesn't sound nice," she said with a moue.
"And it isn't," I exulted. "Nevertheless, it is what you are. It is
Arthur Symon's poem, The Daughters of Herodias. Some day I shall
read it to you, and you will answer. I know you will answer that
you, too, have looked often upon the stars."
We had just got upon the subject of music, of which she possesses a
surprisingly solid knowledge, and she was telling me that Debussy and
his school held no particular charm for her, when Possum set up a
wild yelping.
The puppy had strayed for'ard along the bridge to the 'midship-house,
and had evidently been investigating the chickens when his disaster
came upon him. So shrill was his terror that we both stood up. He
was dashing along the bridge toward us at full speed, yelping at
every jump and continually turning his head back in the direction
whence he came.
I spoke to him and held out my hand, and was rewarded with a snap and
clash of teeth as he scuttled past. Still with head turned back, he
went on along the poop. Before I could apprehend his danger, Mr.
Pike and Miss West were after him. The mate was the nearer, and with
a magnificent leap gained the rail just in time to intercept Possum,
who was blindly going overboard under the slender railing. With a
sort of scooping kick Mr. Pike sent the animal rolling half across
the poop. Howling and snapping more violently, Possum regained his
feet and staggered on toward the opposite railing.
"Don't touch him!" Mr. Pike cried, as Miss West showed her intention
of catching the crazed little animal with her hands. "Don't touch'm!
He's got a fit."
But it did not deter her. He was half-way under the railing when she
caught him up and held him at arm's length while he howled and barked
and slavered.
"It's a fit," said Mr. Pike, as the terrier collapsed and lay on the
deck jerking convulsively.
"Perhaps a chicken pecked him," said Miss West. "At any rate, get a
bucket of water."
"Better let me take him," I volunteered helplessly, for I was
unfamiliar with fits.
"No; it's all right," she answered. "I'll take charge of him. The
cold water is what he needs. He got too close to the coop, and a
peck on the nose frightened him into the fit."
"First time I ever heard of a fit coming that way," Mr. Pike
remarked, as he poured water over the puppy under Miss West's
direction. "It's just a plain puppy fit. They all get them at sea."
"I think it was the sails that caused it," I argued. "I've noticed
that he is very afraid of them. When they flap, he crouches down in
terror and starts to run. You noticed how he ran with his head
turned back?"
"I've seen dogs with fits do that when there was nothing to frighten
them," Mr. Pike contended.
"It was a fit, no matter what caused it," Miss West stated
conclusively. "Which means that he has not been fed properly. From
now on I shall feed him. You tell your boy that, Mr. Pathurst.
Nobody is to feed Possum anything without my permission."
At this juncture Wada arrived with Possum's little sleeping box, and
they prepared to take him below.
"It was splendid of you, Miss West," I said, "and rash, as well, and
I won't attempt to thank you. But I tell you what-you take him.
He's your dog now."
She laughed and shook her head as I opened the chart-house door for
her to pass.
"No; but I'll take care of him for you. Now don't bother to come
below. This is my affair, and you would only be in the way. Wada
will help me."
And I was rather surprised, as I returned to my deck chair and sat
down, to find how affected I was by the little episode. I
remembered, at the first, that my pulse had been distinctly
accelerated with the excitement of what had taken place. And
somehow, as I leaned back in my chair and lighted a cigarette, the
strangeness of the whole voyage vividly came to me. Miss West and I
talk philosophy and art on the poop of a stately ship in a circle of
flashing sea, while Captain West dreams of his far home, and Mr. Pike
and Mr. Mellaire stand watch and watch and snarl orders, and the
slaves of men pull and haul, and Possum has fits, and Andy Fay and
Mulligan Jacobs burn with hatred unconsumable, and the small-handed
half-caste Chinese cooks for all, and Sundry Buyers perpetually
presses his abdomen, and O'Sullivan raves in the steel cell of the
'midship-house, and Charles Davis lies about him nursing a marlin-
spike, and Christian Jespersen, miles astern, is deep sunk in the sea
with a sack of coal at his feet.
