Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/52

48 and thus!—a sea-god confessed, a gatherer of riches, a dealer of death from the poop of the Star! In his mind's eye the lost bark swelled to a phantom ship, gigantic, terrible, wrapped with the mist of the sea; while he himself—ah! he himself—

All that he had been and all that he had done, if man were only something more than man, if devil's luck and devil's power would come to his whistle, if the seed of his nature could defy the iron stricture of the flesh, reaching its height, shooting up into a terrible upas-tree—so for the moment Baldry saw himself. Into his voice came a deep and sonorous note, his black eyes glowed; he began to gesture with his hand, stately as a Spaniard. And then, chancing to glance toward the head of the board, he met the eyes of the man who sat there, his Captain now, whom he must follow! What might he read in their depths? Half-scornful amusement, perhaps, and the contempt of the man who has done what man may do for the yoke-fellow who habitually made claim to supernatural prowess; in addition the scholar's condemnation of blatant ignorance, the courtier's dislike of unmannerliness, the soldier's scorn of unproved deeds, athwart all the philosophic smile! Baldry, flushing darkly, hated with all his wild might, for that he chose to hate, the man who sat so quietly there, who held with so much ease the knowledge that by right of much beside his commission he was leader of every man within those floating walls. The Captain of the Star struck the table with his hand.

"Ah, I had good help that time! My brother sailed with me—Thomas Baldry, that was master of the Speedwell that went down at Fayal in the Azores Didst ever see a ghost, Sir Mortimer Ferne?"

"No," answered Ferne, curtly.

"Then the dead come not to haunt us," said Baldry. "I would have sworn a many had passed before your eyes. Now had I been Thomas Baldry I would have won back."

"That also?" demanded Sir Mortimer. His tone was of simple wonder, and there went round the board a laugh for Baldry's boasting. That adventurer started to his feet, his eyes, that were black, deep-set, and very bright, fixed upon Ferne.

"That also," he answered. "An I should die before our swords cross, that also!"

He turned and left the cabin.

"Now," said Arden, as his heavy footsteps died away, "I had rather gather snow for the Grand Turk than rubies with some I wot of!"

Henry Sedley, a hot red in his cheek, and his dark hair thrown back, turned from staring after the retreating figure.

"If I send him my cartel. Sir Mortimer, wilt put me in irons?"

"Ay, that will I," said Ferne, calmly.

"Word and deed he but doth after his kind. He was set a road, and like a bull he rushes madly down it, feeling the goad in every circumstance, seeing in a universal goal only the end of his cloudy wishes. Well, let him go. For his words, that a man's deeds do haunt him, rising like shadows across his path, I believe full well—but for me the master of the Speedwell makes no stirring Take thy lute, Henry Sedley, and sing to us, giving honey after gall! Sing to me of other things than war."

As he spoke he moved to the stern windows, took his seat upon the bench beneath, and leaning on his arm, looked out upon the low red sun and the darkening ocean.

sang Sedley with throbbing sweetness, depth of melancholy passion. The listener's spirit left its chafing, left pride and disdain, and drifted on that melodious tide to far heavens.

rang Sedley's splendid voice. The song