Thrice Armed

"Ah!" she said; "if it was only to see that, I am glad I came – it may be the last time."

Jimmy, who was sitting on the skylights, saw the apprehension in Anthea Merril's eyes as she glanced down for a moment into the fragile face of her companion, and he fancied that Valentine did so too; but the girl smiled wistfully.

"Still," she said, "it is a good deal to have seen the glory of this world, and one would almost fancy that other one – where the sea is glassy – could not be much more beautiful."

There was a hint of reproach in Anthea Merril's quiet voice, which reached Jimmy.

"Nellie," she said, "you have morbid fancies now and then. We brought you on this trip to make you cheerful and strong."

The sick girl smiled again, and the pallor of her fragile face intensified the faint shining of her eyes. "I think you know that I shall never get strong again, and, after all, why should I wish to stay here when I may leave my pains and weaknesses behind me? You can't understand that. You have the vigor of the sea in you – and the world before you."

It apparently occurred to Valentine that he was hearing too much, for he stood up, swaying while the Sorata plunged, and called to Austerly through one of the open skylights of the saloon.

"We'll have the breeze down on us twice as hard in a few minutes, sir, and there's an inlet we could lie snug in not far astern," he said. "It's quite likely we might come across a Siwash or two who would pole you up the river at the head of the inlet to within easy reach of the agent's place, to-morrow."

"Very well!" said Austerly; "you can run her away."

It appeared advisable, for the Sorata buried her bows in a smother of frothing brine and dipped her lee-deck deep, as a blast swept down. Valentine glanced at Miss Merril somewhat dubiously.

"Do you think you could jibe her all standing?" he asked.

Jimmy almost expected Anthea Merril to say that she could not, for, unless the helmsman is skilful, when a cutter-rigged craft is brought round, stern to a fresh breeze, her great mainsail with the ponderous boom along the foot of it is apt to swing over with disastrous violence. There was, however, no hesitation in the girl's face, and Valentine made a little gesture that implied rather more than resignation.

"When you're ready!" he said. "Stand by, Jimmy!"

They laid hands on the hard, wet sheet, and, while the girl swayed with the helm, and the Sorata came round, stern to sea, dragged the big mainboom in foot by foot until it hung over them, lifting, with the great bellying sail ready to swing. Then, though nobody knew quite how it happened, Jimmy got a loose turn of the rope about his arm as a sea washed in across the counter. In another second or two the boom would swing over, and it seemed very probable that his arm would at least be broken. While the tightening hemp ground into his flesh, he saw the color ebb in Valentine's face, and then the girl's voice reached him sharp and insistent.

"Now!" was all she said.

The Sorata's bows swung a trifle further, and no more. The boom went up with a jerk, and, while the blood started from Jimmy's compressed arm, came down again. For a second the turn of rope slackened, and he shook it clear. Then the sheet whirred through the quarter-blocks as the great sail swung over, and the Sorata rolled until one side of her was deep in the foam. She shook herself out of it, and Jimmy, who forgot the man-o'-war cap and what he was supposed to be, saw the girl's eyes fixed on him with a faint smile in them, and made her a little inclination. He felt that she was asking him a question.

"Thank you!" he said simply. "I don't think I was unduly frightened. I seemed to know you would not fail me."

Anthea Merril made no answer, but a slight flush crept into her cheek. She was very human, and it was in one sense an eloquent compliment. Then Jimmy went forward to haul the staysail down, though he found he had to do it with one hand, and he was kept busy until he went down with Valentine into the little forecastle, when the Sorata lay snug in a strip of still green water close beneath the dusky pines. Louis had just gone ashore with the dory to gather bark for fuel, and, for the scuttle was open, they could hear the splash of his oars through the deep stillness that was emphasized by the murmur of falling water. Valentine sat on a locker with the lamplight on his bronzed face, which was a trifle grave.

"Rain again, and I'd sooner lose my next charter than have bad weather now," he said.

"Why?" asked Jimmy.

His comrade made a sign of impatience. "Didn't you hear what that girl said – it was the last time? She knew that she was right, too, though it's probably only natural that her father wouldn't believe it. A last treat she's getting – and she's as fond of the sea as I am, or you are either."

Jimmy did not know why he smiled, but perhaps it was because he was stirred a little and did not wish to show it. In any case, Valentine frowned at him.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I know. It's a dog's life, and other things; but you wouldn't quit it, anyway, and that's not the question. Can't you understand what that sickly girl's life has been, with all that other women might expect to have denied her?"

There was a certain hoarse insistence in Valentine's inquiry, from which it seemed to Jimmy, who had noticed the solicitude with which he had endeavored to minister in every way to the comfort or pleasure of their delicate passenger, that his companion had some special reason for understanding what the girl's lot had been.

"Well," he said reflectively, "one would suppose that to be born foredoomed is hard upon such as Miss Austerly."

Valentine made a little abrupt gesture. "It's evident they once had a yacht of their own. Any one could see how fond of it she is; and I'm taking her father's money – he hasn't too much of it – like a – moneylender that she may have a last taste of the one thing she can take pleasure in. Lord, when one has so much for nothing, what selfish hogs we are!"

"It can't be helped, anyway. You couldn't offer a favor to a man like Austerly."

"No;" and Valentine frowned. "He's a man with all the condemned prejudices of his class, and he would, naturally, sooner see his daughter's one wish ungratified. After all, women now and then rate the value of things more justly than we do. There's Miss Merril who came with them, and somehow it was she who brought this trip about. She has her pride, full measure of it, but she has sense as well, sense of proportion, and if we had only her to deal with we'd let every other charter slide and go south to-morrow to find the summer."

Jimmy was not in the least astonished. He had, of course, listened to a certain amount of forecastle ribaldry, though, after all, conversation and badinage of that nature is, at least, as frequent in a mail-boat's smoking-room; but he knew the ways of his fellows, and it seemed a very natural thing to him that Valentine the pariah should in his own fashion reveal these depths of chivalrous compassion. He had seen hard-handed men of coarse fiber do many a gentle deed with a curse on their lips that was probably worth a good deal more than a conventional platitude. Still, it would have been wholly extraordinary if he had mentioned anything of this.

"One would fancy Miss Merril has a good deal of character," he said.

"Too much for the man she marries, if there's anything small and mean in him. That's a girl with a capacity for doing more than sail a boat to windward well, and she will probably expect a good deal. In one way there's something humorous in the fact that her father is one of the – est rogues in this Province, though there are naturally a good many people who look up to him. Of course, she isn't aware of it yet. Brought up back East, I believe, and somebody told me she had lived a good deal with her mother's people. It probably means trouble for her when she understands the reality."

He rose with a little shrug of his shoulders. "I'm talking like an old woman, and these things have nothing to do with us. We have our wet watches to keep at sea, and perhaps we are better off than the rest of them because that is all. You can turn in if you want to; I'll wait for Louis."

Five minutes later Jimmy crawled into his bunk, and fell fast asleep. When he awakened, he found that the day had broken still and sunny. There was a Siwash rancherie a mile or two up the Inlet, and when an Indian had been found who would carry a message through the forest, Austerly, who never forgot what was due to a Crown-land official, decided to stay where he was and allow the agent to visit him. He was not in any way an active man, and appeared quite content to sit in the cockpit reading, when Valentine, who had procured a Siwash river canoe – a long, light shell of cedar with some two feet beam – offered to take his daughter up the Inlet to see the rancherie. Miss Austerly was pleased to go with him, and Anthea Merril, who watched the knife-edge craft slide away, turned to Jimmy.

"If you will get the trolling-spoon I will go fishing," she said.

"Yes, miss," said Jimmy, touching his cap – a thing that is very seldom done in Western Canada. Hauling the dory alongside, he handed her into it. Then he dipped the oars, and they slid slowly up the Inlet with the silver and vermilion spoon trailing astern. He had laid Valentine's shot-gun across the thwarts.

The lane of clear green water was, perhaps, two hundred yards wide, and the stately pines which shroud all that lonely coast rose in somber ranks on either side, distilling their drowsy fragrance as their motionless needles dried in the sun. There was not a sound when the splash of Valentine's paddle died away, and Jimmy dipped his oars leisurely, now and then venturing a glance at his companion. It seemed to him that the big white hat she wore became her wonderfully well, and it is possible that she guessed as much and did not resent it, for Jimmy was, after all, a personable man.

"Your skipper is very good to Nellie Austerly," she said. "I am rather pleased with him because of it. There are, naturally, not many things in which she can take any great interest."

"I suppose," said Jimmy reflectively, "there are people who would consider it good of him, but, in one way, it really isn't. It doesn't cost him anything, and he can't help it. That man would do what he could for anybody who didn't want to take advantage of him. What's more, he would do it almost without realizing what he was about."

"Do you know why he lives as he does at sea?"

"I don't. Probably because he likes it."

Anthea Merril smiled. "Is that all? It has not occurred to you that there is, perhaps, a reason why he and Nellie Austerly understand each other?"

"Both fond of the sea?"

"That mightn't go far enough. Nellie has had to give up so much, or rather it has been taken away from her. You can understand that?"

Jimmy nodded assent. It had already occurred to him that his comrade was a man who had lost something he greatly valued, and it did not appear incongruous that Miss Merril should be speaking in this familiar fashion to him. In fact, she frequently contrived to make him forget that he was Valentine's hired hand and wore the man-o'-war cap.

"What would a boat like the Sorata cost to build?" she asked.

"Perhaps four thousand dollars in this country."

"Ah!" said the girl; "and with that sum one could probably set up a store, buy one of the little sawmills near a rising settlement, or start on one of the other paths that are supposed to lead to affluence."

Jimmy laughed. "Supposing he owned the big Hastings mill, what more could it offer a man with his views? As he will tell you, he gets what he likes almost for nothing. He may be right, too. After all, it is clean dirt one has to eat at sea."

"There are not many men who could live as he does; the rest would go to pieces. And isn't it rather shirking a responsibility?"

"You mean that one ought to make money?"