第93章 DEVOTED SERVANTS--AND THE LIGHT OF A FLARE(2)

And may I be hanged if I know who or what he was or is. I haven't been able to find out. No, I don't know. He may have been anything. All I know is that once, years ago when I went to see the Derby with a friend, I saw a pea-and-thimble chap who looked just like that old mystery father out of a cab."All this the goggle-eyed mate had said in a resentful and melancholy voice, with pauses, to the gentle murmur of the sea. It was for him a bitter sort of pleasure to have a fresh pair of ears, a newcomer, to whom he could repeat all these matters of grief and suspicion talked over endlessly by the band of Captain Anthony's faithful subordinates. It was evidently so refreshing to his worried spirit that it made him forget the advisability of a little caution with a complete stranger. But really with Mr. Powell there was no danger.

Amused, at first, at these plaints, he provoked them for fun.

Afterwards, turning them over in his mind, he became impressed, and as the impression grew stronger with the days his resolution to keep it to himself grew stronger too.

What made it all the easier to keep--I mean the resolution--was that Powell's sentiment of amused surprise at what struck him at first as mere absurdity was not unmingled with indignation. And his years were too few, his position too novel, his reliance on his own opinion not yet firm enough to allow him to express it with any effect. And then--what would have been the use, anyhow--and where was the necessity?

But this thing, familiar and mysterious at the same time, occupied his imagination. The solitude of the sea intensifies the thoughts and the facts of one's experience which seems to lie at the very centre of the world, as the ship which carries one always remains the centre figure of the round horizon. He viewed the apoplectic, goggle-eyed mate and the saturnine, heavy-eyed steward as the victims of a peculiar and secret form of lunacy which poisoned their lives. But he did not give them his sympathy on that account. No.

That strange affliction awakened in him a sort of suspicious wonder.

Once--and it was at night again; for the officers of the Ferndale keeping watch and watch as was customary in those days, had but few occasions for intercourse--once, I say, the thick Mr. Franklin, a quaintly bulky figure under the stars, the usual witnesses of his outpourings, asked him with an abruptness which was not callous, but in his simple way:

"I believe you have no parents living?"

Mr. Powell said that he had lost his father and mother at a very early age.

"My mother is still alive," declared Mr. Franklin in a tone which suggested that he was gratified by the fact. "The old lady is lasting well. Of course she's got to be made comfortable. A woman must be looked after, and, if it comes to that, I say, give me a mother. I dare say if she had not lasted it out so well I might have gone and got married. I don't know, though. We sailors haven't got much time to look about us to any purpose. Anyhow, as the old lady was there I haven't, I may say, looked at a girl in all my life. Not that I wasn't partial to female society in my time,"he added with a pathetic intonation, while the whites of his goggle eyes gleamed amorously under the clear night sky. "Very partial, Imay say."

Mr. Powell was amused; and as these communications took place only when the mate was relieved off duty he had no serious objection to them. The mate's presence made the first half-hour and sometimes even more of his watch on deck pass away. If his senior did not mind losing some of his rest it was not Mr. Powell's affair.

Franklin was a decent fellow. His intention was not to boast of his filial piety.

"Of course I mean respectable female society," he explained. "The other sort is neither here nor there. I blame no man's conduct, but a well-brought-up young fellow like you knows that there's precious little fun to be got out of it." He fetched a deep sigh. "I wish Captain Anthony's mother had been a lasting sort like my old lady.

He would have had to look after her and he would have done it well.

Captain Anthony is a proper man. And it would have saved him from the most foolish--"He did not finish the phrase which certainly was turning bitter in his mouth. Mr. Powell thought to himself: "There he goes again."He laughed a little.

"I don't understand why you are so hard on the captain, Mr.

Franklin. I thought you were a great friend of his."Mr. Franklin exclaimed at this. He was not hard on the captain.

Nothing was further from his thoughts. Friend! Of course he was a good friend and a faithful servant. He begged Powell to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to strike a bargain with Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were good to the captain, he (Franklin) would find it in his heart to love Old Nick for the captain's sake. That was so. On the other hand, if a saint, an angel with white wings came along and--"He broke off short again as if his own vehemence had frightened him.

Then in his strained pathetic voice (which he had never raised) he observed that it was no use talking. Anybody could see that the man was changed.

"As to that," said young Powell, "it is impossible for me to judge.""Good Lord!" whispered the mate. "An educated, clever young fellow like you with a pair of eyes on him and some sense too! Is that how a happy man looks? Eh? Young you may be, but you aren't a kid; and I dare you to say 'Yes!'"Mr. Powell did not take up the challenge. He did not know what to think of the mate's view. Still, it seemed as if it had opened his understanding in a measure. He conceded that the captain did not look very well.