Chapter 9

So it was that our friend the senator had early discovered Basile and later had found a capital use for him. In him he saw a most timely opportunity, one not afforded by anybody besides. He showed the youth marked attentions, affirming in him all the men's rights and boys' privileges he had ever thought of, got him assigned to his sick brother's place at table, presented him to the committee of seven, called him Gideon by mistake, and at the right moment made him an instrument, not to say tool, by diverting his idle course through the crowd into a highly successful soliciting of signatures to the committee's, or let us say his own, the senator's, petition.

Unlucky task! An exceptional feature of the _Votaress_ was that her passenger guards ran aft in full width all round her under the stern windows of the ladies' cabin. Beneath, the lower deck ended in a fantail of unusual overhang, around whose edge curved the stout bars of the "bull-ring," to fence it off from the billowing white surge that writhed after the rudder blade and the trailing yawl, so close below. Among the petition's subscribers were several pretty girls of an age at which their only important business was beauty and levity and who gave small heed to the document's purport, readily assuming that nothing _they_ were asked to sign needed to be taken seriously. There was much laughter over the performance. They turned it into a "Signing of the Declaration," patterned after the old steel engraving. One of them, as the scroll lay open on the rail under her pen hand, unwittingly set foot in a scrubbing bucket kept there with a line attached for bailing water from the river, and was so unnerved by the fun of it that all at once the scroll flirted back into scroll form and fell through the whirling air that eddied behind the boat. Yet it had the luck to drop upon the deck below, and there presently an immigrant stood mutely gazing up with it in his lifted hand. Otto Marburg came and stood looking up beside him.

Dropping the bucket's line through the balusters under the rail, Basile stepped over the guards and proceeded, while the girls acted out their girlish distresses, to let himself down. The foolish exploit was sufficiently unsafe and painful to be its own reward, the rough line cutting his hands and forcing him, as soon as he dared, to drop into the arms of the two men. With them and others he passed from sight between the great wheels but soon was with the pretty signers again, coming up alone by way of the cook-house and pantry. His hands showed ugly red scars as he brushed away a few flies that liked his perfumery and had stubbornly followed him from below.

But the fun was over. It was not his galled palms but his pallid face that struck the young company with a frank dismay. His whole bearing was transformed and betrayed him smitten with emotions for which he found no speech. Had it made him ill, they asked, going down by that dreadful rope? No, he was not ill at all. But when they vacantly proposed to resume the signing he exclaimed almost with vehemence that he had names enough, and left them, to return the petition to the senator.

This was an incident of the forenoon. As he delivered the paper the senator spoke a pleased word and then gazed on him in surprise. "Why, what's the matter? Sick?"

"No, I'm not sick."

"But, look here, where--where's your own signature?"

"You can't have it."

"Oh, you want to sign, don't you?"

"No." A sudden anguish filled the boy's face. "Not for all the gold in California. God A'mighty, sir, I've been down there and seen those people!"

"Oh! my! dear! fellow! If we let mere sights and sounds--of things that can't be helped--upset us--There's the dinner-bell--come, have a cocktail with me--a Rofignac!... Ah! general--judge--wet your whistle with us?"

The general and the judge, accepting, looked sharply at Basile. "Why--what's the matter? Sick?"

But he went with them to the bar and to the board.

XXIII

A STATE OF AFFAIRS

Watson was in the pilot-house, though not at the wheel.

So early of a Sabbath afternoon, in the middle of his partner's watch, he might well have been in his texas stateroom asleep, but to a Mississippi River pilot Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon, or forenoon, or midnight, or dusk or dawn, on watch or off, the one thing in this world was the river. Else what sort of a pilot would he be, when the whole lore of its thousands of miles of navigation was without chart, light, or beacon, a thing kept only in pilots' memories, a lamp in a temple?

Glancing down forward of the bell, he was reminded of a certain young lady the sight of whom on the previous evening just after his brush with Hayle's twins, standing there before Hugh Courteney with her arms akimbo, had led him to say: "If that's to be the game I'm in it." He wished she were there now, or up here again in the pilot-house asking her countless questions about this endlessly interesting world's highway. He would be answering that the mouth of Red River was now twenty miles behind, the mouth of Buffalo Bayou ten and of Homochitto River four; that right here they were in the great cut-off of a hundred and fifty-odd years before. He would say they were passing up the west shore because the current was over yonder on the east side, Palmetto Point, and that behind there, inland, lay the great loop of still water which had once been part of the river. He would explain that now the slender Homochitto ran through that still water lengthwise, for miles, until, within forty rods of the Mississippi, it recoiled again to launch in at last farther down, opposite Black Hawk Point, still in sight astern. And he would tell how, over here on this west side, Red River was yet only four miles away and actually sent Grand Cut-off Bayou across into the Mississippi, but likewise swerved away southward through seven leagues more of wet forest before it finally surrendered to the mightier stream. All this would he tell, without weariness, to one who loved his great river.

Yet really he was in the pilot-house at this time not chiefly for the river, nor the girl, nor the _Votaress_, though the _Votaress_ was new, with kinks of character quite her own and important to be learned. He was there because the stateroom given Hayle's twins in the texas was next to his, and they, rarely in their life having restricted themselves to tones of privacy and being now especially in a state of storm and stress, had made sleep impossible even to a pilot off watch after a midday Sunday dinner. Lounging in his berth, he had overheard things which ought to be told to one Courteney or another early, though, of course, casually.

Meantime he enjoyed not telling his partner, at whose back he quietly chatted while the partner stood with hands and foot on the wheel and with eyes well up the river, holding the jack-staff close to his "mark" far ahead in the next bend.

"I couldn't stay," drawled Watson. "Noth'n' 'twixt the sick one an' me but a half-inch bulkhead."

"Cholery can't scratch through a half-inch bulkhead," said the partner.

"Sounds kin. Funny what little bits o' ones kin. An' the sawt o' keen, soft way he hollas an' cusses through his sot teeth an' whines an' yaps into his piller--why, he's suffered enough by now to be dead five times over."

"That sufferin', that ain't the peggin'-out stage."

"No, I know that, an' I don't misdoubt but what he's a-goin' to git well."

"Hmm!--sorry fo' that. What's goin' to kyore him?"

"His simon-pyo' cussedness! He's so chuck full of it--looks like it's a-p'isonin' the p'ison o' the cholery."

"Pity!" said the partner.... "Humph! _Now_ what's up?"

To see what was up, Watson rose and looked down. On the roof below, evidently having come there for privacy, were the commodore, the senator, and Hugh. Watson loitered from the pilot-house and disappeared.

Down on the roof the commodore and the senator conversed across Hugh's front. The statesman, with heavy "dear sirs" and heavier smiles, was buttonholing the elder Courteney, who at every least pause affably endeavored to refer him to Hugh. The grandson's turn to speak seemed not to have arrived. The senator was trying to keep it from arriving and Hugh was glum. Hence it may be doubted if the senator's cigar was really cocked as high, or that his silk hat was as dingy, his very good teeth as yellow, his cheeks as hard, or his forehead as knotty as they appeared to Hugh, or that his tone of superiority, so overbearing last night, so ingratiating to-day, was any worse for the change. Hugh was biassed--felt bias and anger as an encumbering and untimely weight. In self-depreciating contrast he recalled a certain young lady's airy, winning way--airy way of winning--and coveted it for himself here and now: a wrestler's nimble art of overcoming weight by lightness; of lifting a heavy antagonist off his feet into thin air where his heaviness would be against him. His small, trim grandfather had it, in good degree; was using it now. Would it were his own in this issue, where the senator held in his hand the folded petition, having already vainly proffered it to the commodore, who had as vainly motioned him to hand it to Hugh. Would the art were his! But he felt quite helpless to command it, lacking the joyous goodness of heart which in the young lady so irresistibly redeemed what the senator, the bishop, and the judge's sister, to themselves, called her amazing--and the Gilmores to each other called her American--bad manners. It made Hugh inwardly bad-mannered just to feel in himself this lack, and tempted him to think what a comfort it would be to apply the wrestler's art physically and heave the senator overboard.

Said that gentleman--"For you saw I wouldn't let the matter come up at the table. A lot of those men who signed this paper--which your grandson suggested last night, you know--" He smiled at Hugh. "Now, I am never touchy, and I know, commodore, that you're not. But, Lord, so many of us--maybe Democrats a little more than Whigs--are! We take our politics, like our bread, smokin' hot." He put away his smile. "My dear sir, to us the foreigner--as you saw last night at supper--has become a political problem, a burning question. Yet I propose to keep this whole subject so unmenacing to you personally, you owners of this boat, that I won't let a word be risked where any one might take even a tone of voice unkindly."

"So, then, Hugh can take care of it."

The senator tossed a hand in amiable protest: "Oh, sir, you see it much too small! My half of it is large enough for me, with forty times this young gentleman's experience. I don't see just this one boat and trip and these few hundred native-American citizens in deadly contact with a few hundred of Europe's refuse. I see--your passengers see--we view with alarm--a state of affairs--and a test case!"

The old commodore's eyes flashed to retort, but the senator forced a propitiative smile, adding: "However, let that pass just now, here's something else."

"Is it also in that paper?"

"It is."

"Tell it to Hugh--or let him read it."

But as the old gentleman would have moved away, the senator, ignoring the suggestion, stepped across his path:--

"Last night, commodore, this matchless new boat"--he paused to let the compliment sink in, his eye wandering to Watson, who had sauntered down from the texas roof--"this _Votaress_, swept past everything that had backed out at New Orleans ahead of her."

"Built to do it," put in Hugh while the commodore, by a look, drew Watson to them and the senator flowed on.

XXIV

A SENATOR ENLIGHTENED

"But, lying at Bayou Sara this morning," said the senator, "everything worth counting left us behind again."

"For the time being," said Hugh.

"Good for you," said the senator. "Mr. pilot, this paper, of a hundred signatures, petitions this boat to put off her foreigners at Natchez Island. If that is refused, when and where are we likely to overhaul the _Antelope_?"

"_Antelope_? Let's see. We'd still be a-many a bend behind the _Antelope_ at sundown but fo' one thing. At Natchez she's got to discharge an all-fired lot o' casting an' boilers, things she can't put ashore 'ithout han'spikes, block-an'-taickle an' all han's a-cuss'n' to oncet. Like as not we'll catch her right there."

"Good again; sundown!" said the senator. "Now, commodore, this petition begs----"

The commodore tried to wave him to Hugh but the senator's big hand gently prevented. "It begs," he went on, "and every friend of Gideon Hayle and John Courteney on this boat insists, that Madame Hayle be required to leave this suicidal work she's doing and with her daughter and youngest son be put aboard the _Antelope_ to join her husband ahead of all bad news." With his under lip pushed out he smiled into the commodore's serene face.

Hugh spoke. "The _Votaress_ being slow?" he inquired.

"Not at all! But, my young friend, the _Votaress_ can't hold funerals and outrun the _Antelope_ at the same time."

The commodore had turned to Watson: "Want to see me?" The two moved a few paces aft.

"Then it isn't," Hugh asked the senator, "that your hundred signers of this thing are afraid madame will get the cholera?" He took the petition's free end between thumb and finger and softly pulled. But its holder held on.

"Why, yes," said the holder-on, "we fear that, too. Good Lord, she may have the contagion now!" It gave him grim amusement to note that the grandson's face was as quiet as the old man's, yet as hard and heavy as any of the _Antelope's_ big castings. He thought how much better it were to have this chap for an adherent than opponent.

"Yet you're all willing," slowly pressed Hugh, while--with their pull on the paper increasing--they here and the commodore and Watson yonder returned the bow of the bishop as he came from below and passed on up to the sick-room--"you're willing to send the cholera aboard the _Antelope_?"

"Willing, my God, no, sir! compelled!--to risk it--for the sake of Gideon Hayle and his people and of you and yours, in a great public interest centring in you and them." The speaker smilingly tapped the hard-pulled document so lately urged upon the grandfather. "We couldn't _write_ that--in this paper. When I've explained _that_ I'll hand you _this_--don't pull it."

"Well, then, let go of it," said Hugh, with a light jerk which put it wholly into his possession.

The senator's eyes blazed, but when he saw that Hugh's, though as much too wide as his own, looked out of a face as set and hard as ever, he recovered his suavity, puffed his cigar, waved it abroad, and said: "That's all right. Take that to the captain at once, will you?"

"No," replied Hugh, the wrestler's nimble art being as far, far away from him as the "happy land" of the children's hymn, which the cornet was essaying below.

"No?" questioned the tolerant senator.

"No." Small knots of passengers, the squire in one, the general in another, had drawn within eavesdropping range and Hugh lowered his voice. "Not till I hear what you couldn't write," he said. "When you've explained _that_ I'll hand him _this_. No one's in his room, come there."

As they reached its door and the senator passed in, Hugh was joined by the grandfather and Watson and detained some moments in private council, with Watson as chief speaker. Then the commodore returned leisurely forward toward the captain's chair while Watson sought the texas roof and pilot-house, and Hugh shut himself in with the senator.

They sat with the writing-table between them. "I wish," said the senator, "I had a son like you. I'd say: 'My son, the worst notion in this land to-day is that always the first thing to do is fight, and that the only thing to fight with is hot shot. Don't you believe it! Don't think every man's your enemy the moment he differs with you. He may be your best friend. And don't think every enemy wants to stab you in the back.' But, Lord! I needn't offer a father's advice to you, with such a father--and grandfather--as you've got.

"Now, here we are. It's idle for me to tell you what we wanted to put in that paper and couldn't, if you can't believe that maybe, after all, I'm a peacemaker and your friend, hunh? I don't set up to be your only friend or only your friend or your friend only for your sake. Frankly, my ruling passion is for the community as a whole; the old Jacksonian passion for the people, sir. If I'm meddling it's because I see a situation that right on its surface threatens one misfortune, and at bottom another and bigger one, to them, the people--a public misfortune. I don't want to avert just the cholera, here to-day, gone to-morrow; I want to avert the lasting public misfortune of a Courteney-Hayle feud. There, sir! That's my hand! Cards right down on the table! Oh, I'm nothing if not outspoken, flat-footed! A lot of those signers don't see that bottom meaning. They don't need to. But, sir, _you_ know--your grandfather's always known--that by every instinct the Hayles, even to the sons-in-law, are fighters. They don't know any way to succeed, in anything, but to fight. It's the Old Hickory in them. Old Hickory always fought, your Harry of the West has always compromised. The Hayles loathe tact. They don't know the power of concession as you Courteneys do. And that's why your only way to succeed with them is to _con_cede something. Not everything, not principle--good Lord, not principle! yet something definite, visible, conciliatory, hunh?

"Mind you, I hold no brief for them. I know those twins haven't behaved right a minute. But no Hayle's been let into this affair, from first to last."

The falsehood was so rash a slip that its author paused, but when Hugh's face showed no change he resumed: "Sir, it is in your interest we ask you to put those foreigners off. If you don't you'll rouse public resentment up and down this river a hundred miles wide for a thousand miles. And if, keeping them aboard, you don't put Madam Hayle and her daughter on some other boat, and anything happens to them on this one, you'll have Gideon Hayle and his sons--and his sons-in-law--for your mortal enemies the rest of your lives, long or short--and with public sympathy all on their side. Oh, I'm nothing if not outspoken! Why, my dear boy, if you don't think I'm telling you this in friendship----"

"Call it so. But stop it, at once."

"Why--you say that--to me?"

"I do. Stop it, at once, or we'll call it----"

"Ridiculous! What will you call it, sir?"

"Mutiny. The captain has so ordered--and arranged."

The inquirer drew breath, leaned forward on an elbow, and stared. The stare was returned. The senator began to smile. Hugh did not. The smile grew. Hugh's gaze was fixed. The smiler smiled yet more, but in vain. Abruptly he ha-haed.

"We'll call it that till you prove it's not," said Hugh.

"Did you ever hear of a poker face?" asked the senator.

"No, sir."

"You've got one, now; youngest I ever saw. I wish I had it--haw, haw! Where'd you find it? I doubt if ever in your life you've had any real contact with any real guile."

"I have," said Hugh, very quiet, very angry, yet with a joy of disclosure, communicative at last by sheer stress of so much kept unsaid. "And I've never got over it."

"Well, well! When was that?"

"All through the most important ten years of my life."

"Of your life! Good gracious! Which were they?"

"The first ten. A guile seemingly so guileless that yours, compared with it, is botch work."

The two were still looking into each other's eyes when the latch clicked and John Courteney stepped in.

XXV

"PLEASE ASSEMBLE"

Out from behind Fritz Island the _Votaress_ swept northward into a deluge of light from a sun just finishing the first half of his afternoon decline.

Before her lay, far and wide, an expanse of river and shore so fair, without a noticeable sign of man's touch, that one traveller of exceptional moral daring--conversing with the Gilmores and Ramsey--personified the scene as "Nature in siesta." At the steamer's approach the picture--or, as the daring traveller might have insisted, the basking sleeper--seemed to awaken and in a repletion of smiling content to stir and stretch and every here and there to darken and lighten by turns as though closing and opening upon the intruder a multitude of eyes as unnumbered as those of a human sort that looked on the scene, the sleeper, from the beautiful boat.

So for several minutes. Then the _Votaress_ curved into the west till the great twin shadows of her chimneys crept athwart the pilot-house and texas, while more than one passenger of the kind who tell all they know to whoever will hear said that yonder bright mass of cottonwoods and willows, bathing in sunlight directly up the stream, with open water shimmering all round it, was Glasscock Island; that Glasscock Towhead lay hidden behind it just above, and that a towhead was an island in the making. The whole view was such a stimulus to the outpouring of sentiment as well as of information, that one young pair, each succeeding flutter of whose heart-strings was more tenderly entangling them, agreed in undertone that the river's incessant bendings were steps of a Jacob's ladder with these resplendent white steamers for ascending and descending angels.

"Yonder comes another now," said both at once. They pressed forward to the foremost boiler-deck guards, among the many sitters and standers who were trying to determine, by the ornamental form of the stranger's chimney-tops or the peculiar note of her scape-pipes, before her name might show out on paddle-box or pilot-house, whether she was the _Chancellor_, the _Aleck Scott_, the _Belle Key_, or the _Magnolia_. To be either was to be famous. The next moment she swept into view on the island's sunward side, as pre-eminent in all the scene as though the sun were gone and she were the rising moon. The moon was not her equal in the eyes of those beholders. On every deck, from forecastle to after hurricane roof, there were big spots of vivid color, red, green, blue, never seen in the moon and which were quickly made out to be a high-piled freight of ploughs, harrows, horse-mills, carts, and wagons destined for the ever-widening Southern fields of corn and cotton, sugar and rice. The passenger with the pocket spy-glass--there is always one--proclaimed that her boiler deck was hung full--as no deck of the moon ever is--of the finest spoils of the hunt: geese, swan, venison, and bear; while the nakedest eye could see at a glance that from forward gangway to sternmost guard her bull railings were up, and a closer scrutiny revealed that the main load of her freight deck was every farm-bred sort of living four-footed beast: horses, mules, beeves, cows, swine, and sheep. She did not pass near though unaware of the distress she avoided; but in courtly exaggeration she sent across the intervening mile a double salute, white plumes of sunlit steam from her whistle--the new mode--and the gentler voice of her bell, the older form. The course of the _Votaress_ lay on the island's eastern side, and the hail and response of the two crafts had hardly ceased to echo from the various shores, or hats to wave and handkerchiefs to flutter, when the flood between them began to widen, a thousand feet to the half minute, and they parted.