The Ebb-Tide Chapter 8 - Better Acquaintance

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CHAPTER VIII. BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.

The boat was gone again, and already halfway to the far alone, before Herrick turned and unwillingly up the pier. From the crown of the beach, the figurehead confronted him with what seemed irony, her helmeted head tossed back, her formidable arm apparently hurling something, whether shell or missile, in the direction of the anchored schooner. She seemed a defiant deity from the island, coming forth to its threshold with a rush of one about to fly, and perpetuated in that dashing attitude. Herrick looked up at her, where she towered above him head and shoulders, with singular feelings of curiosity and romance, and suffered his mind to travel to and fro in her life history. So long she had been the blind conductress of a ship among the waves, so long she had stood here idle in the violent sun, that yet did not avail to blister her. And was even this the end of so many adventures? he wondered. Or was more behind?

And he could have found in his heart to regret that she was not a goddess, nor yet he, a pagan, that he might have bowed down before her in that hour of difficulty.

When he now went forward, it was cool with the shadow of many well-grown palms, drafts of the dying breeze swung them together overhead, and on all sides, with a swiftness beyond dragonflies or swallows, the spots of sunshine flitted and hovered and returned. Underfoot the sand was fairly solid and quite level, and Herrick's steps fell there noiseless as in new-fallen snow. It bore the marks of having been once weeded like a garden alley at home, but the pestilence had done its work, and the weeds were returning. The buildings of the settlement showed here and there through the stems of the colonnade, fresh-painted, trim and dandy, and all silent as the grave. Only here and there in the crypt there was a rustle and scurry and some crowing of poultry, and from behind the house with the verandas he saw smoke arise and heard the crackling of a fire.

The stone houses were nearest him upon his right. The first was locked. In the second he could dimly perceive, through a window, a certain accumulation of pearl-shell piled in the far end. The third, which stood gaping open on the afternoon, seized on the mind of Herrick with its multiplicity and disorder of romantic things. Therein were cables, windlasses and blocks of every size and capacity, cabin windows and ladders, rusty tanks, a companion hutch, a binnacle with its brass mountings and its compass idly pointing, in the confusion and dusk of that shed, to a forgotten pole, ropes, anchors, harpoons, a blubber-dipper of copper, green with ears, a steering wheel, a tool-chest with the vessel's name upon the top, the Asia, a whole curiosity shop of sea curios, gross and solid, heavy to lift, ill to break, bound with brass and shod with iron.

Two wrecks at the least must have contributed to this random heap of lumber, and as Herrick looked upon it, it seemed to him as if the two ships' companies were there on guard, and he heard the tread of feet and whisperings, and saw, with the tail of his eye, the commonplace ghosts of sailor men.

This was not merely the work of an aroused imagination, but had something sensible to go upon. Sounds of a stealthy approach were no doubt audible, and while he stood staring at the lumber, the voice of his host sounded suddenly, and with even more than the customary softness of enunciation, from behind.

Junk, it said. Only old junk. And does Mr. Hay find a parable?

I find at least a strong impression, replied Herrick, turning quickly, lest he might be able to catch, on the face of the speaker, some commentary on the words.

Attwater stood in the doorway, which he almost wholly filled, his hands stretched above his head and grasping the architrave. He smiled when their eyes met, but the expression was inscrutable. Yes, a powerful impression. You were like me, nothing so affecting as ships, said he. The ruins of an empire would leave me frigid, when a bit of an old rail that an old shell-back leaned on in the middle watch would bring me up all standing. But come, let's see some more of the island. It's all sand and coral and palm-trees, but there's a kind of acquaintance in the place. I find it heavenly, said Herrick, breathing deep, with head bared in the shadow.

Ah, that's because you're new from the sea, said Attwater. I dare say, too, you can appreciate what one calls it. It's a lovely name. It has a flavor. It has a color. It has a ring and fall to it. It's like its author. It's half Christian. Remember your first view of the island, and how it's only woods and water? And suppose you had asked somebody for the name, and he had answered, Nemorosa zacentros. Jammedio apparat fluktu! exclaimed Herrick. Ye guts! Yes, how good! If it gets upon the chart, the skippers will make nice work of it, said Attwater. But here, come and see the diving shed. He opened a door, and Herrick saw a large display of apparatus neatly ordered, pumps and pipes, and the leaded boots, and the huge snouted helmets shining in rows along the wall, ten complete outfits. The whole eastern half of my lagoon is shallow, you must understand, said Attwater. So we were able to get in the dress to great advantage. It paid beyond belief, and was a queer sight when they were at it, and these marine monsters, tapping the nearest of the helmets, kept appearing and reappearing in the midst of the lagoon.