Kit Musgrave's Luck

"In a way I am satisfied. The captain and engineer are my friends, I like the company's agents, and your clerks make things easy. In fact, if you think I ought to stop, I will stop."

"You imply that you are willing to give up the better post unless we agree to your leaving us?"

"Of course!" said Kit. "I won't urge you to agree."

Don Ramon smiled. "After all, your joining Mr. Wolf has some advantages, particularly since the steamer he has chartered is ours, and I don't know that it is necessary for you to break your engagement with us. If it is not broken, you could go back to Campeador after the other boat's return, and, in the meantime, will get your pay. I expect Mr. Wolf did not state how long he wanted you."

"He did not," said Kit and pondered.

Perhaps it was strange, but he had not stipulated that he must be employed for a fixed time. He ought to have stipulated. Then he was surprised because Don Ramon knew his object for wanting to go. Don Ramon was clever and his remarks hardly indicated much confidence in Wolf.

"You are generous," Kit resumed. "However, I doubt if I can honestly work for you and Wolf. You see, the office now and then buys corn at the Moorish ports."

"I think I see," Don Ramon replied with a twinkle. "You imply that so long as you take Wolf's pay you are his man, and we must not expect you to study his business for our benefit? Well, we do not expect this, and you will find Wolf's business is, for the most part, transacted at a neighbourhood we leave alone. All the same, the chartered steamer is valuable, and although we have asked for some guarantees, we would like a company's servant on board. Don Erminio and Macallister will join the ship."

Kit's hesitation vanished. His luck was strangely good, and he thanked Don Ramon, who presently sent him off. While his double engagement lasted he would be rich, and when he returned to the correillo he wrote to his mother, asking her to make some plan for helping Betty. For example, Betty might take a holiday and, if Mrs. Musgrave used proper tact, need not know Kit had borne the cost. He wanted Betty to get a holiday that would brace her up. Yet it was obvious he was not in love.

His reflections were disturbed. A fowl, cackling in wild alarm, came down the ventilator shaft that pierced the ceiling of his small room. It struck the rack above the folding washstand, and Kit's hairbrush and a box of brass buttons fell. The buttons rolled about the floor and under his berth. Then the fowl swept his desk with fluttering wings and the inkpot overturned. Kit frowned and put his letter in the envelope. His friends on board liked a rude joke, and a fowl had come down the shaft before. Kit had thought he had spoiled the joke by painting the inside of the bowl-head on deck, but the paint did not long keep wet. He tried to catch the fowl, with the object of putting it in Macallister's bed, and finding he could not, opened the door, and drove it out. Soon afterward Macallister came in and indicated the stained desk.

"She's no' rolling, but it looks as if ye couldna' keep your inkpot right-side-up," he said. "Weel, I've kenned Garcia's sherry account for stranger things than yon."

"I've known it account for your losing your boots," Kit rejoined.

Macallister grinned. "The night was balmy. I was tired and my feet were sair. Ye'll mind I scalded them, saving the ship when the boiler tubes burst – "

"I was not on board," said Kit. "Anyhow, Don Erminio states Felix, your stoker, stopped the tubes. But you certainly lost your boots."

"How was I to ken the Spaniards would rob me while I slumbered? And I have my doubts. Mills o' the Estremedura was tacking along the mole, and they're no' a' gentlemen aboard yon boat. But we'll let it go. Ye dinna ken what auld Peter has done for ye?"

"My notion is, you have done enough," Kit remarked. "It's some time since the mate and you sold my clothes when I was ashore, but you haven't paid me yet."

"If my luck is good, ye will be paid, and ye have not heard my news. The company is chartering the old Mossamedes and ye're to gang to Africa on board. I got ye the job."

"Go on," said Kit dryly. "I expect it's a romantic tale."

Macallister lighted his pipe and put his coaly boots on the locker cushions.

"It was like this. Don Ramon called me to the office. 'We have chartered Mossamedes for a run to the Morocco coast,' says he. 'Captain Erminio is no' much o' a navigator and the mate's eyes are no' very good, but if ye're in the engine-room, I'll ken all's weel. Then we need a sobrecargo. Whom would ye like?'

"'Maybe Mr. Musgrave would suit,' says I. 'He's slow and dour, but for a crabbit Englishman, he has some parts. Besides, when he gangs ashore the lassies will not bother him. He's no' the sort to charm a fastidious e'e. If ye send Mr. Musgrave, ye'll not go far wrang.'"

"Did you argue in Scots or Castilian?" Kit inquired.

"In Edinburgh Scots; better English than ye use. What for would I use Castilian?"

"I see one important obstacle," said Kit. "When a man who has long been chief-engineer on board a Spanish ship is forced to paint the pressure gauge and chalk the clock, in order to let his firemen know what steam must be raised – "

"There's no' a shabby hotel tout who canna speak six languages," Macallister rejoined. "Don Arturo and I use English. Since I dinna convairse with foreigners, what for would I learn their language? If they want to talk to me, they must use mine."

He went off and Kit laughed. He owned that his conventional notion of the grim, parsimonious Scot was strangely inaccurate. The Scots he knew in the Canaries were marked by freakish humour and rash generosity. They were kind with the kindness of a benevolent Puck. In fact, all the correilleros were to some extent like that, a reckless, irresponsible lot, but Kit had known men with virtues shabbier than the sailors' faults.

A week afterwards, he got up one evening from his revolving chair in the Mossamedes' saloon. She was going to sea at daybreak, and Don Erminio had brought his friends on board. All the chairs were occupied, and cigarette smoke drifted about the green trailers of a sweet-potato that grew across the beams. The empty bottles were numerous, and at the end of the table Don Erminio made a speech. Kit heard something about animals and anarchists, and noted that the wine dripped from the glass in the captain's hand. At the other end of the table Macallister sang.

Kit had had enough. He thought he had done all politeness required, and the noisy revels jarred. It was a relief to go on deck and breathe the cool night breeze. Mossamedes was a larger boat than the correillo. Riding near the harbour mouth, her masts and funnel swung languidly, and her lights threw trembling reflections on the black water. A long deckhouse ran aft from the captain's room and pilot house at the bridge, and a row of stanchions carried its top level with the rail. Luminous smoke rolled from the funnel; one heard the clank of shovels and hiss of steam. In the background were glimmering surf, lights that twinkled in clusters against dark rocks, and then a gap where the Atlantic rolled back to Africa.

When he ordered his boat Kit's heart beat. His last duty before the vessel sailed was to get some documents from the commandancia, and then he was going to Mrs. Austin's. Mrs. Austin was not at home, but Olivia received him on the veranda.

"Harry and Jacinta will not be very long," she said.

"I'm sorry," said Kit. "I can't stop, but I wanted to say good-bye, and thank your sister."

"Then you waited for some time. Didn't you know Jacinta was going to the Metropole?"

"Not altogether," Kit replied with some awkwardness. "I think I knew she might go, but the captain was giving a party and I couldn't get off."

Olivia smiled. She knew her charm, and Kit was rather obvious.

"When his guests started I was at the mole and I expect the port-guards will get some amusement when they come back," she said. "But why do you want to thank Jacinta?"

"I imagine she had something to do with my getting the new post."

Olivia gave him a keen glance and was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, "It's possible! You feel you ought to thank her?"

"Of course," said Kit and pondered. It looked as if Olivia were angry, and this was puzzling.

"The post is good," he resumed. "I could get no farther on board the correillo and my work was not important. On the bigger boat I'll have some responsibility. Wolf is not going with her and gives me control. You see – "

"I think I do see," Olivia interrupted with a touch of scornful impatience. "You imagine you are going to force people to own your talents? This, of course, is enough for you, and you see nothing else. You imagine Jacinta knew your ambition and wanted to help?"

"I'm satisfied she did want to help, and she has helped. Mrs. Austin's kind."

Olivia laughed. Kit was very dull, but Jacinta's firm rule was sometimes galling. Olivia saw her object and wanted to baffle her. Besides, she doubted Wolf and knew Austin did not like him.

"Kit," she said, "suppose I asked you to do something for me?"

"Try!" he said, rather tensely, and waited.

"Then don't go to Africa. Stop at Las Palmas."

Kit's heart beat. Olivia had come nearer him; if he moved his hand he would touch her. Her voice had a strange, soft note, and she fixed her eyes on his. For a moment he hesitated and then braced himself to resist. It was not for nothing he sprang from Puritan stock.

"But this is not for you, and I am forced to go. Mossamedes sails in the morning, and Wolf cannot get another man. Besides, the company ordered me on board, and I have the ship's papers. I can't break my engagement when the boat is ready to start."

Olivia gave him a glance that fired his blood, and then turned her head. At the beginning she had meant to baffle Jacinta, but she had another object now. Kit's stubbornness was a challenge, and if she could not move him, she must own her charm was weak. Vanity accounted for something, but not for all. His resistance moved her to passion.

"Is it a drawback that the thing I ask is rather for your sake than mine?" she said, looking up. "Would you sooner I didn't care if you ran a risk or not?"

Kit used stern control. Olivia was very alluring, and he noted the tremble in her voice. He was strongly tempted, but although he thrilled he was not a fool. She did not belong to his circle; he was poor and her sister, with careless kindness, had tried to help him. By and by perhaps, if he got a good post – He pulled himself up. If he meant to be honest and justify Mrs. Austin's kindness, he must stick to his job. Besides, if there was a way at all, this was the way that led to Olivia.

"I think you know I'd like you to care," he said and paused. To talk like this was dangerous. "But why do you want me to stop?" he resumed with an effort for calm.

"Are you very dull, Kit?" Olivia asked quietly.

Kit coloured and got up. After all, he was human and knew he could not hold out long. He thrilled and his hands shook as he turned his soft hat. Mrs. Austin trusted him, and since he could not see another plan, he must run away.

"If my luck is good and I get promotion, I won't refuse another time. Now, because your sister got me the post, I must stick to it and go on board."

Olivia gave him a cool, level glance. "Oh, well! I know your obstinacy; you baffled me before." Then her look got softer and she added: "But be cautious Kit! I don't like Wolf."

She let him go and when he went down the steps he frowned. He had tried to take the proper line, but he was young and wondered whether his scruples were extravagant.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST VOYAGE

To some extent, Kit's first voyage on board Mossamedes was disappointing, and he felt as if he had been cheated. Nothing romantic marked the run; the boat was large, her roll was slow and regular, and while her big engines pushed her north against the Trade-breeze, one could without much balancing walk the deck. On board Campeador one could not. Her sharp plunges sent one staggering about, and one must dodge the spray that swept her like a hailstorm when the white surges burst against her forecastle. The spray and violent motion had some drawbacks, but Kit got a sense of man's struggle with the sea.

On the whole, he thought the Morocco coast dreary. The towns were like the Spanish towns, dazzlingly white on the water-front, but meaner and dirtier. In fact, to walk about the narrow streets in the dark was rash, and Kit was satisfied by his first experiment. The hot, foul-smelling cafes by the harbour had no charm for him, and he lost himself in a network of alleys between straight walls. The alleys were very dark; sometimes an indistinct figure stole past, and sometimes he saw a yellow gleam in a high and narrow window. This was all, and it was a relief to get back to the beach and feel the fresh Trade-breeze.

As a rule, they moored Mossamedes some distance from the beach, and she rode uneasily, rolling on the long swell while her cable jarred against the stem. Boats came off with her cargo of beans, barley and maize, and Kit, watching the dust-clouds roll along the parched coast, wondered where the produce grew. When he asked Yusuf, Wolf's agent, the Jew vaguely indicated the hinterland. He was, he said, a merchant, and the merchants stopped in the towns. The Moors of the back country were strange people, and one left them alone. Notwithstanding this, Yusuf was obviously a good business man, for the quantity of grain he sent on board was large and when Mossamedes weighed anchor, Kit thought Wolf would find her first voyage profitable.

Getting off was not easy. She had swung, and her cable, sweeping the bottom, had fouled the anchor. They hove all on board in a horrible tangle, and for hours the barefooted crew were occupied in dragging the ponderous links about. In the meantime Mossamedes steamed slowly south, with a yellow smear on her port hand that stood for the coast. The shallows run far to sea, and the charts are not remarkably good. Yusuf had sent her to load sheep at the mouth of a wady, but stated that she might wait some days before the animals arrived.

Miguel, the old quartermaster, steered her in. He had long sailed on board a fishing schooner and knew the shoals, for where the African coast-shelf drops to the deep Atlantic, fish are numerous. Fish, lightly salted and dried in the sun, make the Spanish baccalao, and the peons, whose main food it is, are sometimes touched by leprosy. Miguel never wore boots and stockings, although when he went home on feast days he carried raw-hide sandals. Kit rather doubted if he put the sandals on. His clothes were strangely patched, and he could not read, but his manners were the manners of a Spanish grandee. He was something of a mystic and believed in miracles. He told Kit the Moors were cruel and treacherous, but his saint was king of angels, and he was not afraid. The mate was a Catalan Freethinker, and believed in nothing he could not touch and see. Since he wore spectacles, his vision was limited.

When they reached the spot agreed upon, Miguel went to the bridge, and they rigged the deep-sea lead and stopped the ship. Miguel, posed like a Greek statue, stood on top of the pilot-house; his thin clothes wind-pressed against his body, and his white hair blown about his red cap. There were no shore marks, and Don Erminio's reckoning was not always accurate. Across a belt of blue sea one saw a brown and yellow streak. Its outline was vague and broken; only the colour was distinct.

"The Punta!" said Miguel. "The barranco is a league south. A bad place, captain, and the people are without shame."

Kit knew barranco in Castilian and wady in Arabic mean a stony hollow where water sometimes flows. He looked for an anchorage, but saw none. In places, the belt of blue was broken by patches of pale green, and farther on, by glistening white lines. These marked ridges on the coast-shelf and shallow spots where the long rollers broke. The wind was fresh but blew obliquely off the coast.

"How much water?" Don Erminio asked, and when Miguel answered, signed to a man on the forecastle.

"Veremos. We will see," he said.

The lead plunged, the line ran aft, and stopping swung upright at the poop. Two men began to haul and one shouted the depth.

"Half a brazo too much. It is very good," the captain remarked.

Then the screw began to throb and Mossamedes, going half-speed, forged ahead. Sometimes she crossed green belts and sometimes went round patches where the water was yellow and the swell curled as if the Atlantic waves ran up an inclined bottom. Kit thought Miguel did not hesitate; his lined face was imperturbable, and he directed the helmsman with a firm movement of his hand. Yet it was obvious they crept round banks where a ship like Mossamedes would not float. When Miguel nodded and the captain rang his telegraph, all felt some relief.

"Fondo!" the captain shouted and the anchor leaped from the forecastle.

The splash was drowned by the roar of running cable that presently stopped with a jar. She brought up, swung to the wind, and there was a strange quietness on board.

"We are arrived," said Don Erminio. "If Miguel's saint does not guard him until the sheep come, I do not think we will get to sea again. In the meantime, we will catch fish and make baccalao for my señora."

In the morning they launched a boat and rowed to the coast. The point was low and stony, and farther along the hammered beach a shallow hollow ran down to the sand. In the background one saw a sandy waste dotted by thick-stalked euphorbia. One could land by jumping overboard into the surf while the others held off the boat, and Don Erminio shot a partridge and got some bait. Then they went back to the steamer, and for three days Kit and the captain fished.

Shoals surrounded the basin where Mossamedes rode two miles from land. From her deck it looked as if she were at sea, for the banks that sheltered her were only marked by lines of foam. Although she rolled, the motion was not violent, and Kit got a sense of space and freedom. He liked the lonely anchorage better than a noisy port. In the morning they hoisted the boat's lugsail, and following the edge of the sands, stopped where fish were numerous. A disturbed swell crossed the shoals, and spray blew about. Sometimes when the boat sank in the trough they could not see the ship, but the fresh breeze tempered the heat and drove along a thin haze that softened the light. Kit caught strange, deep-bodied fish with square heads, and was content.

One day, however, the breeze backed North and the boat could not leave the ship. It blew hard, and big, hollow-fronted seas rolled along the coast. In the distance, their ragged crests cut the sky, and the horizon was indented like the edge of a saw. In the foreground they crashed upon the shoals, and all about Mossamedes one saw spouting foam. Brown dust-clouds tossed behind the yellow streak that marked the coast, and the sky was darkened as if by smoke. Macallister was ready to start his engines, but the lead-line that crossed the steamer's rail ran straight down. Although she plunged, her anchor held.

Kit, sitting behind the deckhouse, smoked and mused. He saw that since he arrived at Las Palmas he had taken greedily all his new life offered; sports he could not enjoy before, the society of cultivated people, fresh excitements and emotional thrills. Now, however, a reaction had begun; he must pause and try to see where he was going.

To begin with, he thought he had not neglected his duties. It looked as if Don Ramon at the office approved him, and if they got the sheep on board, Wolf ought to be satisfied. Mossamedes carried a paying cargo, and Kit had kept the cost of shipment low. He was making good, and now he had been given some responsibility, found he could, without much effort, carry his load. In a sense, however, this was not important; he really meant to think about Olivia. Olivia had carried him away and after a half-hearted struggle he had let himself go. She had beauty, pluck, and a cultivation higher than his. Sometimes she was gracious, and when they jarred he thought she found the jars amusing. She laughed at him afterwards and he did not mind. He would sooner she laughed than let him alone. He could not think about her without a disturbing thrill.

Yet the thing was ridiculous! Olivia was rich and extravagant, but he was poor; and not like Austin, who had married her sister. But suppose he somehow made his mark? If Don Arturo, for example, gave him a good post? Kit lighted a fresh cigarette and frowned, for he began to see his doubts would not be banished then. After all, he was not Olivia's sort. He understood half-consciously that for him her charm was mainly physical, and he had tried to resist. He had an inherited distrust for all that appealed to his senses. With Olivia he would get excitement, shocks and thrills. He would live at high tension, and she would take him far; but his vein was sober, and perhaps he would not want to go. Yet he was flesh and blood, and her beauty called.

The others left him alone, and when a cloud of spray, sweeping over the deck-house, drove him aft, he looked for another quiet spot. The sea was getting worse, and spindrift blew across the turmoil like a fog. Mossamedes rolled until her scuppers dipped, and when she swung to the savage gusts the jar of her cable pierced the rumble of the sea. The water in her bilges splashed, and a ragged plume of smoke, blown flat from her funnel, indicated that Macallister kept keen watch. For all that, the anchor held, and Kit, sheltering behind the after wheel-house, thought about Betty.

Betty was his sort. She understood him, although he did not always understand her. She did not ask much and would not urge one far; Betty's plan was to brighten the spot she occupied. Kit had doubted its wisdom, but he began to see it had some advantages. Yet if Betty did not urge, now he thought about it, he had felt her gently lead and had known her way was better than his. He did not see all she saw, but sometimes he was dull. Betty was calm and kind and did not think about herself. She had, however, refused him, and he had let her go. All the same, he was glad he could help her, and if his mother had used some tact —

The swinging stern lifted, and the iron deck throbbed. The foam was torn in a frothy patch; Kit saw the screw spin, and the throbbing stopped. Macallister had turned his engines to satisfy himself they were ready to start. On the surface he was careless and irresponsible, but when the strain came one could trust old Mack.

On the whole, the break in his disturbing thoughts was a relief to Kit. His philosophy was rude, and he did not understand that he was moved by two antagonistic forces. One was altogether of the flesh; the other was not. He did, however, see that his business on board Mossamedes was with her cargo, and he began to speculate about the sheep. If the animals did not arrive soon, they ought not to stop. The anchorage was dangerous, and Mossamedes was the company's boat. He got up and went off to talk to Don Erminio.

In the night the wind veered to the north-east and got lighter, and soon after daybreak a streak of smoke blew along the beach. Juan, the mate, hove out a thirty-foot cargo launch, and Kit went down the rope with Miguel, the interpreter, and some sailors. A flock of sheep occupied the wady and five or six men, mounted on tall camels, moved the animals to the beach. The shepherds were big men, but their bodies and for the most part their dark faces, were covered by blue and white cloth. Kit's job, however, was to count the flock and see all were got on board. He let the interpreter talk and helped Miguel.

They dropped an anchor and the boat rode in the shallow surf a few yards from the beach. When a large roller ran in they hauled her off and waited; and then, letting her drift back, jumped over and picked up as many sheep as possible before another roller broke. The work was exhausting and sometimes men and sheep washed about in the surf. When they pulled off, the boat held much water and now and then the sea-tops splashed on board. Alongside Mossamedes, the sheep were thrown into a tub, swung out by a derrick when for a few moments she stopped rolling. The tub went up and came down empty, but after the most part of the flock was on board one plunged out through the gangway and the others followed. Don Erminio stormed, and Miguel with stolid patience steered the heavy launch in chase of the animals.