Laid up in Lavender

"You are not in the trade?" he continued. He meant the orange trade.

"No, I am not. I am travelling for pleasure," I answered readily. "You will understand that, though it is more than a Frenchman or Spaniard can." I smiled as I spoke, but he was not very responsive.

"It is a queer place to visit for pleasure," he said, looking from me to the busy throng about the orange crates.

"Not at all," I retorted. "It is a lively town and quaint, and it is warm and sunny. I cannot say as much for Madrid, from which I came two or three weeks back."

"Come straight here?" he asked.

I was growing tired of his curiosity, but I answered, "No. I stayed a short time at Toledo and Aranjuez, and at several other places."

"You speak Spanish?"

"Not much. Muy poco de Castellano," I laughed, calling to mind the maddening grimace by which the Spanish peasant indicates that he does not understand, and is not going to understand you. He is a good fellow, is Sancho Panza, but having made up his mind that you do not speak Spanish, the purest Castilian is not Spanish for him.

"You are going some way with us-perhaps to Carthagena?" the inquisitor persisted.

He laid some stress on the last word, and with it shot a sly glance at me-a glance so unpleasantly suggestive that I did not answer him at once. Instead, I looked at him more closely. He was a wiry young fellow, rather below than above the middle height, to all appearance the chief engineer. Everything about him, not excluding the atmosphere, was greasy and oily, as if he had come straight from the engine-room. The whites of his eyes showed with unlovely prominence. Seeing him thus, I took a dislike for him. "To Carthagena!" I answered brusquely. "I am not going to stay at Carthagena. Why should you suppose so? Unless, indeed," I added, as another construction of his words occurred to me, "you think I want to see some fighting? No, I fancy the fun might grow too furious."

I should say that three days before there had been a mutiny among the troops at Carthagena. An outlying fort had been captured, and the governor of the city killed before the attempt was suppressed. The news was in every one's mouth, and I fancied that his question referred to it.

My manner or my words disconcerted him. Without saying more he turned away, not going below at once, but standing on the main deck near the office in the afterpart. There was a good deal of bustle in that quarter. The captain, the second officer, and clerk were there, giving and taking receipts and what not. He did not speak to them, but leaned against the rail close at hand. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was watching me; and this gave rise to a shrinking from the man, which did not affect me always, but returned from time to time.

Presently the dinner-bell rang, and simultaneously the San Miguel moved out to sea. We were to spend the next day at Alicante, and the following one at Carthagena.

Dinner was not a cheerful meal. The officers of the ship did not speak English or French, and were not communicative in any language. Besides myself there were only three first-class passengers. They were ladies, relatives of the newly appointed Governor of Carthagena, and about to join him there. I have no doubt that they were charming and fashionable people, but their partiality for the knife in eating prejudiced them unfairly in English eyes. Consequently, when I came on deck again, and the engineer-he told me his name was Sleigh-sidled up to me, I received him graciously. He proffered the omnipresent cigarette, and I provided him with something to drink. He urged me to go down with him and see the engine-room, and after some hesitation I did so. It was after dinner.

"I have pretty much my own way," he boasted. "They cannot do without English engineers. They tried once, and lost three boats in six months. In harbour, my time is my own. I have seven stokers under me, all Spaniards. They tried it on with me when I first came aboard! But the first that out with his knife to me I knocked on the head with a shovel. I have had none of their sauce since!"

"Was he much hurt?" I asked, scanning my companion. He was not big, and he slouched. But there was an air of swaggering dare-devilry about him that gave colour to his story.

"I don't know," he answered. "They took him to the hospital, and he never came aboard again. That is all I know."

"I suppose your pay is good?" I suggested. To confess the truth, I felt myself at a disadvantage with him down there. The flaring lights and deep shadows, the cranks and pistons whirling at our elbows, the clank and din, and the valves that hissed at unexpected moments, were matters of every hour to him; they imbued me with a desire to propitiate. As my after-dinner easiness abated, I regretted that it had induced me to come down.

He laughed harshly. "Pretty fair," he said, "with my opportunities. Do you see that jacket?"

"Yes."

"That is my shore-going jacket," with a wink. "Here, look at it!"

I complied. It appeared at first sight to be an ordinary sailor's pea-coat; but, looking more closely, I found that inside were dozens of tiny pockets. At the mouth of each pocket a small hook was fixed to the lining.

"They are for watches," he explained, when he saw that I did not comprehend. "I get five francs over the price for every one I carry ashore to a friend of mine-duty free, you understand."

I nodded to show that I did understand. "And which is your port for that?" I asked, desiring to say something as I turned to ascend.

He touched me on the shoulder, and I found his face close to mine. His eyes glittered in the light of the lamp that hung by the steam-gauge; they had the same expression that had perplexed me before dinner. "At Carthagena!" he whispered, bringing his face still closer to mine. "At Carthagena! Wait a minute, mate, I have told you something," he went on. "I am not too particular, and, what is more, I am not afraid! Ain't you going to tell me something?"

"I have nothing to tell you!" I answered, staring at him.

"Ain't you going to tell me something, mate?" he repeated. His voice was low, but it seemed to me that there was a menace in it.

"I have not an idea what you mean, my good fellow," I said, and, turning abruptly, my eye discovered a shovel lying ready to his hand-I ran as nimbly as I could up the steep ladder, and gained the deck. Once there, I looked down. He was still standing by the lamp, staring up at me, chagrin plainly written on his face. Even as I watched him he rounded his lips to an oath; and then seemed to hold it over until he should be better assured of its necessity.

I thought no worse of him for his revelations. In a country where the head of the custom-house lives like a prince on the salary of a beggar, smuggling is no sin. But I was angry with him, and vexed with myself for the haste with which I had met his advances. I disliked and distrusted him. Whether he was mad, or took me for another smuggler-which seemed the most probable hypothesis-or had conceived some false idea of me, whatever the key to the enigma of his manner might be, I felt that I should do well to avoid him.

Like should mate with like, and I am not a violent man. I should not feel at home in a duel, though the part were played with the most domestic of fire shovels, much less with a horrible thing out of a stoke-hole.

About half-past ten the San Miguel began to roll, and I took the hint and went below. The small saloon was empty, the lamp turned down. As I passed the steward's pantry I looked in and begged a couple of biscuits. I am a tolerable sailor, but when things are bad my policy is comprised in "berth and biscuits." With this provision against misfortune, I retired to my cabin, happy in the knowledge that it was a four-berth one, and that I was its sole occupant.

In truth I came near to chuckling as I looked round it. I did not need the experience I had had of a cabin three feet six inches by six feet three, shared with a drunken Spaniard, to lead me to view with contentment my present quarters. A lamp in a glass case lighted at once the cabin and the passage outside, and gave assurance that it would burn all night. On my right hand were an upper and lower berth, and on my left the same, with standing room between. A couch occupied the side facing me. The sliding door was supplemented by a curtain. What joy-to one who had known other things-to arrange this and stow that, and fearlessly to place in the rack sponge and tooth-brush! What wonder if I blessed the firm of Segovia Quadra and Company as I sank back upon my well-hung mattress.

I sleep well at sea. The motion suits me. A slight qualm of sea-sickness does but induce a pleasant drowsiness. I love a snug berth under the porthole, and to hear the swish and wash of the water racing by, and the crisp plash as the vessel dips her forefoot under, and the complaint of the stout timbers as they creak and groan in the bowels of the ship.

Cosy and warm, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was again in the engine-room, seated opposite to the other Englishman. "Haven't you something to tell me? Haven't you something to tell me?" he droned monotonously, wagging his head from side to side, with the perplexing smile on his face which had distressed me waking. "Haven't you something to tell me?"

I strove to say that I had not, because I knew that if I did not satisfy him, he would do some dreadful thing, though I did not know what. But I could not utter the words, and while I struggled with this horrible impotency, the thing was done. I was bound hand and foot to the crank of the engine, and was going up and down with it, up and down! I wept and prayed to be released, but the villain took no heed of my prayers. He sat on, regarding my struggles with the same impassive smile. In despair I strove to think what it was he wanted-what it was-what-

How the ship was rolling! Thank Heaven I was awake! Thank Heaven I was in my berth, and not in that horrible engine-room. But how was this? The other Englishman was here too, standing by the lamp, looking at me. Or-was it the other Englishman? It was some one who had a smudged and smutty face. All the wonder in my mind had to do with that. I lay for a while, between sleeping and waking, watching him. Then I saw him reach across my feet to a little shelf above the berth. As he drew back, something that was in his hand-the hand that rested on the edge of my berth-glittered as the light fell upon it; and, wide awake, I sprang to a sitting posture in my berth, and cried out for fear.

He was gone on the instant, and in the same second of time I was out of bed and on the floor. A moment's hesitation, and I drew aside the curtain, which still shook. The passage was still and empty. But opposite my cabin and separated from it by the width of the passage was the door of another cabin, which was, or had been when I went to bed, unoccupied. Now the curtain, drawn across the doorway, was shaking, and I did not doubt that the intruder was behind it. But behind it also was darkness, and I was unarmed, whereas the thing upon which the light had fallen in the man's hand was either a knife or a pistol.

No wonder that I hesitated, or that discretion seemed the better part of valour. To be sure I might call the steward and have the cabin searched; but I feared to seem afraid. I stood on tiptoe listening. All was still; and presently I shivered. The excitement was passing away, I began to feel qualms. With a last glance at the opposite cabin-had I really seen the curtain shake? might it not have been caused by the motion of the ship? – I closed my sliding door, and climbed hastily into my bunk. Robber or no robber I must be still. In a short time, what with my qualms and my drowsiness, I fell asleep.

I slept until the morning light filled the cabin, and I was roused by the cheery voice of the steward, bidding me "Buenos dias." The ship was moving on an even keel. Overhead the deck was being swabbed. I opened my little window and looked out-and the night's doings rose in my memory. But who could think of dreams of midnight assassins with the sea air in his nostrils, and before his eyes that vignette of blue sea and grey rocks-grey, but sparkling, gemlike, ethereal under the sun of Spain? Not I. I was gay as a lark, hungry as a hunter. Sallying out before I was dressed, I satisfied myself that the opposite cabin was empty, and came back laughing at my folly.

But when I found that something else was empty, I thought it no laughing matter. I wanted a snack to stay my appetite until the steward should bring my café complet, and I turned to the little shelf over my berth where I had placed the biscuits. They were not there. Curious! And I had not eaten them. Then it flashed upon my mind that it was with this shelf my visitor had meddled.

After that I did not lose a moment. I examined my luggage and the pockets of my clothes; the result relieved as much as it astonished me; nothing was missing. My armed apparition had carried off two captain's biscuits, and nothing else!

I passed the morning puzzling over it. Sleigh did not come near me. Was he conscious of guilt, I wondered, or offended by the abruptness of my leave-taking the night before? Or was he engaged about his work?

About noon we came to our moorings at Alicante. The sky was unclouded. The shabby town and the barren hills that rose behind it-barren to the eye, since the vines were not in leaf-looked baking hot. I had found a cool corner of the ship, and was amusing myself with a copy of "Don Quixote" and a dictionary, when the engineer approached.

"Not going ashore?" he said.

For the twentieth time I wondered what it was in his manner that made everything he said a gibe. Whatever it was, I hated him for it; and I gave my feelings vent by answering sullenly, "No, I am not." And forthwith I turned to my books again.

"I thought you travellers for pleasure wanted to see everything," he said. "Maybe you know Alicante?"

"No," I answered snappishly. "And in this heat I don't want to know it!"

"All right, governor, all right!" he replied. "Think it might be too hot for you, perhaps?" And with a hoarse laugh that lasted him from stem to stern, and brought the blood to my cheeks, he left me. But I could see that he did not lose sight of me, and at intervals I heard him chuckling at his own wit for fully half an hour afterwards. But where the joke came in I could not determine.

Towards evening I went ashore, slipping away at a time when he had gone below for a moment. I found a public walk in an avenue of palm-trees which ran beside the sea. The palms were laden with clusters of yellow dates, that were more like dried sea-weed than fruit. As darkness fell, and with it coolness, I sat here, and watched the vessels in the port fade one by one into the gloom, and little sparks of light take their places. A number of people were still abroad, enjoying the air, but these sauntered in the indolent southern fashion, so that when I heard the step of a man approaching in haste, I looked up sharply. To my surprise, it was Sleigh, the engineer!

He passed close to me. I could not be mistaken, though he had put off his slouching, shambling air, and was keenly on the alert, glancing from this side to that, as if he were searching for some one. For whom? I was one of half a dozen on a seat in deep shadow. If I were the person he wanted, he overlooked me, and went on. I sat some time after his step had died away in the distance, my thoughts not pleasant ones. But he did not return, and I went up to the Hôtel Bossio prepared to eat an excellent dinner.