Chapter 8

"The French and hurricanes between them have done much to wreck this island's chances. Matters, however, are more hopeful now. Dominica abounds in sulphur springs, and vast sulphurous accumulations occur inland. Even the bed of the River Roseau is not free from these volcanic outbursts. Formerly the place produced very famous and high-class coffee, but this cultivation was ruined by an insect pest. Now, you shall find that sugar-cane, cocoa, and limejuice are the principal products. The manioc root, of which cassava bread is made, also grows abundantly here, and basket work is rather an important industry too. In the year 1881, there were still a hundred and seventy-three pure aboriginal Caribs left in Dominica, but they have not been counted lately. I don't fancy they like it. The port of the isle is Roseau, named after the river. We shall presently anchor off this town. I don't know that there is anything more to say."

Then I looked at the Fourth Officer inquiringly. He was evidently hurt. He said:

"No, I don't fancy that there is anything more to say." Then he shook his head rather reproachfully, and walked off to the other end of the ship. In fact, he went as far away from me as he possibly could without getting into the sea. I felt sorry, and followed him, and begged him to tell me about his younger days, when he was an apprentice, and first sailed the ocean. This cheered him up, and he recounted a mad freak off Cape Horn by night. It happened that another sailing ship was following his vessel, so he and a friend began hanging out signal lamps to her, and waving green and blue and yellow and crimson lights over the stern of their ship. The approaching barque stood this display for some time, and then, probably under the impression she was running into a chemist's shop, grew frightened, and changed her course, and was no more seen. Our Fourth Officer, I should think rightly, regards this as one of his happiest efforts.

The Doctor has already arranged a programme for Roseau. One Podbury dwells there, and this Podbury brews the best rum punch in the West Indies. The Doctor knows and esteems him. My brother is also familiar with the Bishop of Dominica, and says that he is a genial, lovable Irishman of admirable parts, and the best company in the world. It is agreed, therefore, that we first call upon the Bishop, then see the town, and finally cheer our exhausted systems with Podbury's rum punch. Neither the Bishop nor Podbury has invited us, or knows we are here at all; but that is a sort of detail which counts for nothing in foreign parts.

Dominica is very beautiful, with the same beauty as many other islands already mentioned. Great wooded hills rise, peak upon peak, to the clouds, and between them lie deep gorges and fertile ravines. The margins of the sea are fringed with palms; Roseau itself lies glimmering upon the shore, with white walls and red and grey roofs. Inland, winding out under low cliffs behind the town, flows forth the river over a rocky bed to the sea. This stream produces some very noble scenery towards the interior, and is rather a large volume of water for such a small island. As a result Dominica is extremely damp at seasons of much rain, and grows, among other things, frogs of majestic size.

By kind permission of the Captain, I was allowed to avail myself of the mail-boat at all ports; and now, tumbling into this vessel, the Doctor and I soon reached dry land.

"Let us bolt straight off to the Cathedral," he said; "ten to one the Bishop's there; if not, we can go on to his house."

Roseau appeared to be rather a languishing little town. The stony streets were all overgrown with grass; the place generally lacked any air of enterprise; the negro children, who swarmed everywhere, were more than usually destitute of attire.

Upon reaching the Bishop's place of business, we found to our dismay that a funeral was going on. The Cathedral doors were wide open, a crowd was gathered within, and over a flower-laden bier stood the Bishop, singing away, and as fully occupied as a man could be.

I noticed that the Doctor was fussing about, trying to catch his friend's eye. I therefore said:

"Don't; it isn't decent. You can't expect even a bishop to be genial and effusive at a time like this. Consider the survivors."

"He sees me!" whispered my brother.

"Sees you; yes, not being blind he couldn't help it. Everybody in the Cathedral sees you; and they very naturally resent the sight. Come away; you're making the Bishop nervous."

It really was most annoying. There he stood, so close that we could almost touch him, and yet separated from us by a gulf only to be bridged by the end of his burial service.

The Doctor became illogical and childish about it. When I had dragged him away from these last sad rites, he gave it as his opinion that any other bishop would have stopped, just for a moment at least, and been friendly and enthusiastic, if only in an undertone.

"He may get thousands of opportunities to bury people, but he will never have a chance of seeing you again," said my brother. Then he added, as an afterthought, "And very probably you will never get another opportunity of talking to an Irish bishop."

After that he sneered at the local medical practitioner, and said that likely enough the deceased would not have died at all in proper hands.

Then a thought struck me, the horror of which reduced my brother to absolute despair. I said:

"Perhaps the Bishop is interring Podbury. In that case everybody you know on this island will be busy, and we shan't get any hospitality, or punch, or anything."

"Just my luck if he is," answered the Doctor gloomily. He then kept absolute silence for half-an-hour, during which time we walked to the Roseau River and beheld many black laundresses out in mid-stream washing clothes. Turning from this spectacle, he spoke again and said:

"Our present state of suspense is destroying me. I've a terrible presentiment that they _were_ burying Podbury. If so, we're done all round. I'm going right away to Podbury's now. I shall see in a moment by the blinds if the worst has happened."

We sought out Podbury's desolate home, and the Doctor asked bitterly why Providence should have snatched away one whose skill in the matter of rum punch was a household word. I said:

"Try and feel hopeful. We cannot yet be absolutely certain that he has gone."

And then we met Podbury in the Market Place. He was thoroughly alive, and apparently in good health.

"Ah, Doctor!" he exclaimed, "back again. Glad to see you. How are the boys on the 'Rhine?' Who's your friend?"

I was made known to Podbury, and explained how the sight of him had turned our mourning into joy, and how I had come out from England as much to taste his celebrated rum punch as anything else. He appeared gratified at this, and led the way to his house.

We asked him who the Bishop was burying, and he did not even know. He said:

"A nigger, for certain. Can't be anybody of much account or I should have heard tell of it."

Then we reached his home, and while he brewed cold punch, we talked to his wife and daughters and some aunts that he had, on his father's side.

The Treasure dropped in too. He knew Podbury well, and Podbury regarded him as an authority on punch. The liquid was presently placed before us. Podbury showed pleasure when I said what I thought about it; but he did not feel quite contented until he had expert's opinion.

"Magnificent!" the Treasure presently declared; "why it's equal to the 1890 brew--you remember."

Podbury's eye brightened at this allusion to one of his greatest past triumphs. He tasted the punch himself, and admitted that it certainly seemed "about right."

With a desire to be entertaining, I volunteered a fact or two concerning punch generally. I said:

"Our word 'punch,' as you are doubtless aware, is derived from the Hindustani '_panch_' or Sanskrit '_panchan_'; which mean simply 'five.' Punch is a mixture of five ingredients, hence the name."

Everybody was rather impressed with this apposite remark, excepting Podbury. He answered:

"Yes, that's so. I've known it years and years. You bet what I don't know about punch isn't worth knowing."

This I took to be sheer conceit on the part of Podbury. His successes with punch were making the man egotistical. I did not believe that he had heard of these interesting points before, whatever he said to the contrary. At any rate, they were quite new to his wife and daughters and aunts. So I turned my attention to them, and told them several other things worth knowing. They doubtless retailed my information to Podbury after we had departed. Still the punch was good and cooling, and, with a heart that rises above trifles, I here deliberately bless the man who brewed it. To be thus publicly blessed in print ought to content even Podbury.

When we returned to the "Rhine" night had shaken out her starry skirts, and land and sea were very dark. But great electric eyes glared down from either side of the ship, facilitating the business of loading, and shining upon a struggling crowd of lighters, and a yelling, swearing assembly of negroes. Steam cranes groaned and shrieked and rattled; new passengers were coming aboard, driven to madness with luggage; and sundry Dominica tradesmen bustled about, selling curiosities. These people vended stuffed frogs, the skins of humming-birds, Brazilian beetles, and gigantic Rhinoceros beetles also.

Five or six of them hemmed in the Doctor immediately he arrived, but, finding that he had already laid in frogs and beetles, they turned upon me with grim determination to do business, or perish in the attempt. My knowledge of the "Rhine" enabled me to escape from all save one, but he was as familiar with our vessel as I, and finally, penning me in a corner, he produced a frog as big as a lap-dog, and declared that it was his almost suicidal intention to practically give me the thing for half-a-dollar. I said:

"No, John. I am perhaps as good a judge of a bull-frog as anybody living, and I tell you without hesitation that your frog is worth ten shillings. Don't dream of parting from it for less."

He grinned, and asked:

"Massa gib me ten shillin' for him?"

"Again, no, John. I do not need this Goliath of a frog. I am merely valuing the reptile for your future guidance. Let me see those beetles."

He showed me a weird creature, which looked as if nature had begun an insect and then changed her mind and finished it off like a crab. This thing, with the ferocious claw-like nose and chin, was a female Rhinoceros beetle, so the owner explained. The male beetle appeared to be a harmless, mild concern of much smaller size, and with no warlike appendages whatever. I never saw any insect of the sterner sex labour under such crushing disadvantages. Personally, did I belong to this order of coleoptera, I should sing extremely small, and remain a bachelor, and creep or fly about quietly after dark, and not affect ladies' society much. Probably, most gentlemen Rhinoceros beetles do so. It must always be Leap Year with these concerns. If the males had to propose, the race would long since have become extinct.

I bought a beetle or two, and then my merchant, with strange pertinacity, returned to the bull-frog. Not far distant stood our Model Man, working for his life. So I said:

"You see that gentleman there--the one ordering everybody about and making so much noise? Take your frog to him, tell him it is a ten-shilling frog, and he will probably buy it on the spot."

But this frog vendor knew the Model Man from experience. He evidently had no inclination to attempt any business with him.

"Dat gem'man no buy nuffing, sar. He berry sharp wid me 'fore to-day."

Indeed, the near presence of the Model Man discouraged my friend to such an extent that he presently withdrew. I told his enemy afterwards, and the Model Man said:

"Offer his beastly frogs to ME! If he had dared to, I should have pitched him into the sea, stock and all. I did once, when he began bothering people to buy things they had no wish for."

"Ah," I said, "doubtless he alluded to that circumstance when he told me you had been sharp with him before to-day."

Among the passengers who joined us at Dominica was an old friend, an ample, full-bodied, admirable gentleman who travelled from England with us, and found the ocean extremely monotonous and trying upon the voyage out. The same trouble still dogged his footsteps. He came aboard quite wild and haggard, and declared the universal and appalling lack of variety was telling upon his health.

"Just think of it," he said, "wherever you turn, nothing but negroes and cocoanut palms, cocoanut palms and negroes. Every place is exactly like the last; every palm tree exactly like every other; every negro identical with the rest. I never saw such a monotonous set of islands in my life."

"Look at their beauty," I said.

"I have, until I'm out of all heart with it," he replied. "A pinnacle or two, with clouds round the top; a field of sugar-cane; hundreds of palms, hundreds of blacks; mean houses and a paltry pier--that's a West Indian island. I liked the first; I tolerated the second; I even bore with the third; but the fourth wearied me; the fifth harrowed me; the sixth sickened me; the seventh--that is this one--has absolutely maddened me; and the eighth or ninth will probably kill me."

I said:

"You ought not to have come here. Why did you?"

"I took advice," he answered drearily. "So-called friends assured me that what I wanted was constant change of scene, with variety and novelty. They asserted that these things were to be found in the West Indies, and I believed them. Look at the climate, too; even that never changes. Look at the sky; English people cannot stand this eternal surface of dead blue. They are not accustomed to it, and it frets their optic nerves. In fact, the whole scheme of things here sets the nervous system on edge from morning till night. There is a cannon somewhere in this steamer, and it will fire in a moment; for no reason, that I can see, except a nautical love of unnecessary noise. These ships cannot come to a place or depart again without firing off their wretched brass guns."

He went moaning away to his cabin, saying that he never knew one room from another on board ship: they were all so exactly alike; and I proceeded to scan further fresh arrivals.

One party consisted of a man and his wife. They had recently been turned out of Venezuela, upon political grounds, and were now going up to St. Thomas, to meet some friends there and arrange a Revolution. A very pretty little French girl and her mother were also among the passengers. The Treasure knew them well, and, when he heard they were coming, grew excited, and hurried away to shave and change his clothes.

The Treasure's Enchantress was certainly very beautiful, with a slight, trim figure, great wealth of raven hair and flashing eyes. Moreover, she appeared to like him, and told me that he always gave her mother the best cabin in the ship.

There was a scene that night, after we started, between the Treasure and my brother. It happened thus:

The Enchantress proved to be but an indifferent sailor, and sent for the Doctor. He was just starting to comfort her when the Treasure arrived.

"Ill?" he asked. "Ah, I knew she would be, poor girl; she always is. Tell her to drink a pint of salt water. It's the only thing. If that fails, tell her to drink another."

The Doctor immediately showed anger. He said:

"Thanks very much. It saves a medical man such a deal of bother when he has got a chap like you always handy to do the prescriptions. Should you think two pints of salt water would be enough? Hadn't we better say a bucket of it?"

"You may be nasty, but it's none the less true that salt water is right," answered our Treasure. "Just because the thing is a simple, natural remedy, you doctors turn up your noses at it. I know this case better than you do. The girl has often sailed with us. Sea-water is what she wants to steady her. I told her so before dinner."

The Doctor departed, and when he had gone, I asked the Treasure all about his Enchantress. I said:

"Of course it's no business of mine, but I'm very interested in your welfare, and might be useful. Where does she live?"

He answered:

"She has two addresses: one in Martinique and one in Paris. I know them both; but I hardly think I should be justified in divulging them."

"Certainly you would not," I said. "I should be the very last to suggest it."

"It is a little romance in a small way--I mean her life and her mother's. The father was a French Count, and died in a duel. That shows some French duels are properly carried out. She is awfully rich, and not engaged. At least, she doesn't wear a ring. She likes tall men. Of course that's nothing, but I happen to be fond of small women."

"Merely a coincidence," I said, and he looked rather disappointed.

"We think curiously alike in a good many directions," he continued. "I taught her to play deck quoits, and shot a few things for her with my gun. And she gave me a photograph recently."

"Of herself?" I asked. "Well, no," he admitted, "not exactly that. She takes pictures sometimes in a little pocket camera. She did one of an old negro woman--ugly as sin; but it was not so much the subject as the thought of giving it to me. It argued a friendly feeling--at any rate, a kindly feeling. Don't it strike you so?"

"Undoubtedly it did. You're a lucky man. How far is she going with us?"

"To St. Thomas. She has a temporary address there, by-the-bye. I know that too."

"Go in and win at St. Thomas. I believe it is a certainty for you; I do, indeed."

The Treasure absolutely blushed. He was a very big man indeed, and produced the largest extent of blush I ever saw.

Then my brother came back, looking extremely grave.

"How is she?" we asked simultaneously.

"Very ill," he answered shortly. "She was all right when we started, and never better in her life; but, after dinner, she drank half a wineglass of salt water, and the natural result has been disaster. I understand some fool urged her to try this as a preventive of _mal-de-mer_. Her mother thinks it must have been a coarse practical joke, and is going to speak to the Captain about it. I wouldn't be the man who prescribed that insane dose for a thousand pounds."

Then an expression of abject dismay stole over the Treasure's face as, despite his great size, he appeared to shrivel and curl up into nothing.

[Sidenote: The Rev. Dr. Parker pays a visit.]

My "predicament" was first "awkward," then "foolish." "It was all along of" a woman. I may even say a "woman in white." "I was a pale young curate" then, but of a dissenting type. Twenty-two years of age. Very white in the face. Dark brown hair, enough to fill a mattress. Very high collars, compared with which Mr. Gladstone's are mere suggestions. Huge white neckerchief. Black cloth from top to toe. I was sent to visit an invalid lady somewhere in City Road. A total stranger. Place: A shop. Room: At the tip-top of the house. The last part of the staircase was exceedingly narrow and steep, the stairs themselves little broader than a ladder. Tableau: A lady in bed, the only occupant of the room; a young minister, nearly all head and shirt collar, the rest of him a mere detail; the minister very shy and, as it were, "struck all of a heap" by the novelty of his position. The young minister, nervously shy, sat down, and the woman in white breathed a deep sigh. If my mother could have spoken to me then, it would have been such a comfort. I felt as if up in the clouds and the ladder had been stolen. There was not enough of me to break into perspiration, or I should have broken. I know I should. On this point I will brook no contradiction. There I sat. There were but two of us, and oh! I felt so very high up, and so very far from the police. Even the street noises seemed to be in another world, and that world next but one to this. The silence was painful. At length the young mother, not so very, very young, perhaps, turned her large brown eyes upon me in a fixed and devouring way, and I can tell you what she said. Shall I? Can you bear it? I could not. She said, with malignant slowness, "I feel such a strong desire to kill somebody." I was the only "body" in the room. How that young man got out of the chamber I could never tell. He never revisited it. He was in the City Road as if by magic. Did he pray with the woman? Not a word. Or she might have preyed upon him.

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[Sidenote: Burgin recalls an incident.]

I remember a couple of incidents, both of which gave me unpleasant dreams for some time. The first was in connection with that noble animal which is so useful to man--when it suits him. I was staying out at the Constantinople fortifications with my friend, Colonel A----, in a delightfully picturesque little Turkish village called Baba Nakatch. We had no drains, no amusements, no post--nothing but an occasional death from typhoid to vary the monotony. When we tired of playing chess, we rode out and inspected fortifications, _i.e._, my friend the Colonel rode into a place with earthworks round it, majestically acknowledged the salutes of the soldiers, and then rode out again. It generally took four or five hours to go the rounds, and I humbly remained outside each fort, only catching distant glimpses of the frowning guns as I sat on an Arab steed at the entrance, and tried to look military. One day, another Colonel, whose horse was pining for that exercise which his somewhat indolent master felt disinclined to give him, suggested that I should ride his grey charger and "take the devil out of him." I couldn't see any devil in the horse when he was brought round. He was apparently calm and sleepy, and tolerated me for about ten minutes. Then, without any warning, the brute swerved round, and bolted back at a mad gallop in the direction of the village. His mouth was like cast-iron, so I soon gave up pulling at it. The gallop was exhilarating. Why trouble to stop? So I simply sat well back, and awaited events. I hadn't to wait very long. We cut round a corner, and dashed up a muddy lane leading to the stables. Ten yards ahead of me, I suddenly noticed a thick telegraph wire stretched across the road, a little higher than a horse's shoulders, which had evidently been diverted from its original uses by an ingenious but unprejudiced Turkish soldiery for the purpose of suspending their washed shirts. Rip! rip! Z--z--z--z! as I ducked to the saddle-bow, and something scraped across my back with a sound as of rending garments. When I was able to reflect, I found the horse standing almost asleep in the yard, with my soldier-servant respectfully holding my stirrup in his hand. "Shall I sew up the back of the Effendi's jacket?" he placidly remarked; and the incident terminated.

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[Sidenote: Also another.]