<h2 id="c15"><span class="h2line1">14</span> <br/><span class="h2line2">THE EASTERN SEA; THE CAPTAIN’S STORY</span></h2>
<p>A frond of white had spread across the sky as they talked. Lalette
went to her room in the round covered-house that rose from
the deck, and applied herself to the needle. Making the new dress
right was a problem, since she had done little but broidery before,
and she became so taken with fitting and clipping as not to note the
tick of time; then felt drowsy, and lay down to be roused by a knock
at the door.</p>
<p>It was Tegval, third mate. “May I lead you to supper?” The ship
had no motion when they reached air; here they were in the middle
of a brown-blue tide, with flat shores stretching to green-blue on
either flank. Tegval helped her graciously down the stair, and was
this time prompt enough so that all of them were waiting when Captain
Mülvedo came in. This officer was now at ease, cracking his
face into a smile for Lalette and trying to converse with her about
people a demoiselle of condition might be expected to know. Some
of them she did know, but was forced to avoid the issue lest he learn
the falsity of her name.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</div>
<p>Tegval offered her his arm after the meal, and showed her
around the deck as far forward as the tri-mast, his discourse being
of the parts of the ship and the beauty of the sea. He would answer
little when she asked him about Brog, the Captain and other personalities,
and as evening was now beginning to grow shadowy,
with a hint of chill, she announced an early return to her cabin. He
leaned close as he handed her in the door and said in a low voice
that he would knock at the fourth glass of night with a book, then
tipped a finger to his lips to prevent questions (and she realized
that even on a ship trading to Mancherei, it was not too well to be
an Amorosian).</p>
<p>With no desire for sleep, she stretched out on the bed and tried
to solve her riddles—how it was that her mind should turn to the
seldom-felt nearness of Rodvard. There had been about him the
faintest trace of some odor like that of old leather, masculine and
comforting. She was a little irritated at herself for feeling the lack of
it, and her mind drifted off through other angers till she lay there
in the dark, simmering with wordless fury over many things; the
ship began to move. The change in circumstance made her conscient
of what she was doing; she began to weep for her own
troubles, the tears trickling into the hard pillow where her face
was buried, thinking that after all Rodvard had perhaps been right
to slip away from a witch with so vile a temper.</p>
<p>There was a lamp hanging from a kind of pivoted chandelier.
She swung out of the bed to light it, but had to strike more than
once to obtain a good spark. By this time there was the queerest
feeling in her stomach as though it were turning; she lay down
again, not sure whether this was the over-robust supper she had
eaten or the veritable malady of the sea. Orderly stampings and the
sound of shouts drifted through the cabin’s small window as her
illness declared itself more firmly; she was miserable, her mind
going round like a rat in a slat trap until a whistle was blown
four times and someone knocked at the door.</p>
<p>Tegval, of course, with an overjacket on that swung as he stood
balancing to the motion of the ship on widespread feet. “We sail
on a fair and rising wind,” said he, in a lilt. “Good fortune. Are you
troubled by the sea, demoiselle?”</p>
<p>“I am—ill.” (Hating to confess it.)</p>
<p>“No matter. Give me your hand.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</div>
<p>It was taken in both his in a manner curiously impersonal, the
eyes were closed and his lips moved. They opened pale blue. “You
will be well,” said he and sat down on the chair which, for the first
time, she noted as bolted to the floor. She did not believe him and
the swing of the lamp made her dizzy (and now she could feel his
personality reaching out toward her with an effort almost physical,
and was enough ashamed of her former angers to put into her tone
some of the kindness now felt toward the race of man):</p>
<p>“You are most good. I was told you would have a book for me.”</p>
<p>He undid his lacings and produced from beneath the jacket a
volume, large, flat and all bound in blue leather with the royal coat
of arms of Dossola on it to indicate who was the author. “You
should not let it be seen,” he said. “Our cargo-overseer takes the
law’s letter so seriously that he would denounce his best friend—which
I am not.”</p>
<p>“You may count on me.” Their fingers touched as he handed it to
her, no longer impersonal, and she let the contact linger for a brief
second, before leafing over the pages. They were printed in heavy-letter
with red initials. “What a beautiful book!” she said.</p>
<p>“It is the word of love,” he said. “A true word, a good word—”
chopping off suddenly as though there were more it would be imprudent
to tell.</p>
<p>“I will read it.” She did not want him to go quite yet and sought
for words. “God knows, I need some help in the tangle of my life.”</p>
<p>Said he: “We make a distinction between the god of evil and
the God of love, in whose arms we may lie secure from the savagery
that infests the world. Ah, inhumanity! Today a plover lit in the
rigging, and what must they do but net that bird to be eaten by
the captain. I could barely consume my supper for thinking of it.”</p>
<p>Lalette stirred. “I do not understand this feature of your doctrine.
One must often go hungry by thinking so, it seems to me. Do
we not all live by the death of other beings, and even a plant suffer
when it is devoured?”</p>
<p>Tegval stood up. “In true love, as you will learn, all are parts of
one body, and must give whatever another needs for sustenance.
Read the book and sleep well, demoiselle.”</p>
<p>He was gone, and to Lalette’s surprise, so was her illness.</p>
<h3>II</h3>
<p>It was a strange book, cast in the form of a marvellous tale about
a young man whose troubles were manifold, and only because he
sought at each step to control his actions by reason, as he had been
taught; it seemed that reason forever deceived him, because something
would arise that was not comprehended in his philosophy,
but was born from the natural constitution of an imperfect world.
Thus reason always led him into doing evil, from which he would
only be rescued by rejecting reason for affection to his fellow-men.
Lest the reader should miss any part of the thought, he who had
set this down abandoned his romance from time to time to draw a
moral, as: “None can turn from vileness to virtue but those unbound
by the teaching of the academies that consistency is a virtue.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</div>
<p>Lalette found such interjections an annoyance, but forgave many
of them for the beauty of the words, which were like a music; and
the great glory of the descriptions of clouds, trees, brilliant night,
and all the things that one person may share with all others, but
were polluted (said the author) when the one would hold them to
himself. Yet the type of the volume made it hard reading, the swing
of the lamp made it flicker, so after a time she turned out the light
and drifted to sleep.</p>
<p>By morning the ship was leaning through long surges under a
grey sky with all her sails booming. It was hard to keep food on
the table; at breakfast Captain Mülvedo rallied Lalette hilariously,
saying she was so good a sailor he must send her to the masthead to
run ropes. Brog smiled at her paternally; the first mate, whose ears
moved at the end of a long jaw as he chewed, laughed aloud at the
Captain’s light jest, and offered to teach her to direct the steering-yoke.
On the deck she felt like a princess (that this adventure would
succeed after all, glad that she had done with tortured Rodvard),
with her hair blowing round her face and salt spray sweet on her
lips. The waters set forth an entrancing portrait of sameness and
change; she turned from the rail to see Tegval all jaunty, with his
eye fixed bow-ward, balancing lightly.</p>
<p>Said Lalette; “I would be glad to know what witchcraft it was
you used to cure me so quickly.”</p>
<p>“No witchcraft, demoiselle,” said he, not turning his head, “but
the specific power of love, which wipes out misery in joy. And now
no more of this.”</p>
<p>The ship heaved; she would have lost her balance but that he
put out a hand to sustain her, and the Captain’s voice bellowed:
“Tegval! I will thank you to remember that an officer’s duty is to
watch his ship and not the pretty ladies. You will do better in the
forward head.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</div>
<p>He had come unobserved upon them; now as the third mate
made a croak of assent, he touched his cap to the girl. “No disrespect
to you, demoiselle. You know the legend old seamen have,
ha, ha, of sea-witches with green hair that speak to the spirit of a
ship and witch her to a doom that is yet ecstasy for her crew? Be
careful how you handle the people of my ship; for at sea I have
the rights of justice and can diet you on bread and water.” He
shook a finger and ruffled like a cock, laughing till all the loose
muscles of his face pulled in loops.</p>
<p>“But my hair is not green,” said she, falling into the spirit of his
words for very joy of the morning (but thinking with the back of
her mind—what if he knew I am a witch? and—this one can do
nothing for me; why am I here?).</p>
<p>“There was a mate with me once,” he said, “in the old <i>Quìnada</i>
at the time of the Tritulaccan war, which you are too young to remember,
demoiselle.” He ducked his head in a kind of bow to emphasize
the compliment. “Yeh, what a time of it we had in those
days, always dodging from one port to another, and afraid we’d be
caught by a rebel cruiser or one of those Tritulaccans and finish our
years pulling an oar under the lash in the galleys of an inshore
squadron. A dangerous time and a heavy time; you cannot imagine
the laziness of some of these sailors, demoiselle, who will see their
own lives sacrificed rather than keep a sharp watch. I do remember
now how we were making into the Green Islands in broad daylight,
when I found one of them sound asleep, cradled in the capon-beam
forward, where he had been set as a lookout—and in the
Green Islands, mind you, where armed vessels would lie in among
the branches to pounce on you.</p>
<p>“Yet you shall not think it was an exciting life, demoiselle, for
the thing no one will ever believe is that in war you go and go, attending
death with breakfast and nothing ever happening, so that
it is almost a relief to fight for life. This mate now—what was his
name? He was always called Rusty for no reason I could ever
plumb, since his head was not rusty at all, but dark as yours—well,
Rusty, the mate, you could hardly call him handsome, but he was
gay and lively and had a good tongue. Always telling stories he
was, of things that happened, and the good half of them happened
to other people, though he took the name of it. But bless you, nobody
minded, he could carry off the tale so well. I call to mind how
one night when we were both together at the home of Ser Lipon,
that was our factor, Rusty started right in with the story of a polar-bear
hunt in the ice beyond Kjermanash that I had no more than
finished telling him about the day before, just as though he had
been in the center of it.</p>
<p>“I sat with my mouth open, but never saying a word, because it
had not happened to me, neither, and beside, the Lipons had a
daughter, a pretty little thing named Belella, who seemed as much
doting on Rusty as he on her, and it was no part of my game to
spoil him, since I was spoken for already, y’ see? So he told the
story of the polar-bear hunt and soon enough the two of them were
off in an angle of the parlor, and within a week they were married.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</div>
<p>Brog approached, touching his cap. “Your pardon, Captain,” he
said. “There is a trouble among those bales of wool. I can find but
six marked for your account, whereas by the papers it should be
thrice that number.”</p>
<p>Mülvedo frowned. “Ah, pest, I am engaged.” He took Lalette’s
arm tight under his own. “See me later, Brog.”</p>
<p>They moved a few steps away, the captain steadying her
against the shuddering heave of the sea. “That was his name now,
Piansky, though why he should have been called Rusty I never
could see. They were married, as I said, after one of those lightning
courtships we sailors have to make because we have no time
for any others, and they went to live in a big house in Candovaria
Square, which the old man had built, and some said it was a cruel
waste of money for just the two of them. But I could never follow
that, since she was the only daughter, so she would have come
into the whole inheritance in time, and she was only getting what
would be hers.</p>
<p>“One voyage Rusty missed while they were building their nest,
but after that he came back to us, happy as a rabbit, and well he
might be with a fine wife, a good home and his fortune made. It
was about that time my own wife died; Rusty took me home to be
with him while the ship lay over for a new cargo. Dame Belella
always had a great deal of wine and a house full of people, different
ones always, to whom Rusty must forever be telling some
tale of his adventures. She would laugh at the ridiculous parts and
look proud over him. They were very gay; at least up to the time
of the Tritulaccan war, which I was speaking of.</p>
<p>“I remember going to Rusty’s house after the second or third
voyage in that war, and a dangerous running passage it was, too,
out with wool to the south and back with goods for the army, but
our captain had judged where the Tritulaccans would be, and we
never saw a sail of them. That was the passage where we slipped
through the Green Islands, as I have said. We reached Rusty’s
house late in the evening; the parlor was already full with people
sitting drinking round the fire, and Dame Belella stumbled as she
got up to embrace him, which shows how much cargo she had
taken aboard already, ha, ha. She let him take her place while she
sat down on his lap, saying we must be quiet because here was
Ensign Glaverth of the Red Shar, who had been on a raid right
through the Ragged Mountains, and was just telling about it. I
did not think a thing at the time, since this Glaverth was sitting on
the floor with his back to a red leather hassock, and besides he
was one of those Glaverths from Ainsedel, the family they call the
mountain Glaverths, to distinguish them from the ducal branch.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</div>
<p>“He was telling how he had requisitioned a bed in a Tritulaccan
farmhouse where there was a daughter, and made love to her,
so that she told him of an ambush that had been set for the Shar.
As I said, I had no hint that Rusty would take it ill till he suddenly
interrupted the tale by throwing his cup into the fire and
crying that he would have no more of this southern red, which he
called hog’s water and traitors’ wine, but wanted the honest fiery
beverage of the north.</p>
<p>“Two or three of them laughed and Dame Belella put her
finger over his lips, and after that she had called the servitor for
fired-wine, she begged this Glaverth to go on with his tale. When
he had done and they were all murmuring to ask him questions,
Rusty pushed his wife off his lap as though she had been a sack
of meal and stood up next to the fireplace, with his own cup in his
hand.</p>
<p>“‘You sows of soldiers,’ he said (begging your grace, demoiselle,
but he said it so); ‘You sows of soldiers talk of your perils, but
they are not real dangers at all, only what you could meet with on
a city street and solve with a strong arm or a little straight talk,
or’—well, I will not say what else he said, demoiselle, but it was
something that made all those in the room to gasp, if you know
what I mean, and at least a third of them wearing coronet badges.</p>
<p>“‘Yah!’ Rusty said, ‘Your Tritulaccan wenches! What could
they do at the worst but slip a steel splinter in your back, so that
you go to Heaven with the Church’s blessing for the glory of old
Dossola? But the harridans we seamen must deal with could cost
a man his soul and eternal agony. Even now I may be a lost man—a
lost man.’ I remember how he said it, putting both hands to his
face with a sob, and somebody dropped a cup. They all thought
Rusty taken with wine, d’you see, and so did I, but now he began
to tell a long tale, with no sign of winishness at all in his voice.</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</div>
<p>“It was all of our voyage to the south through the Green Islands
and I swear to you, demoiselle, had I heard it before I
sailed, I would not have sailed at all, so gruesome he made it,
with escapes from storm and Tritulaccan raiders and all this only
a prelude to telling of a thing he said happened in the Green Islands,
where we lay becalmed one night, and he walked the deck.
He said then he heard a sound like far-away singing, and the ship
began to move without a wind. Going forward, he said, he saw
something like pools of green fire in the water; therefore knew
the ship was approached of sea-witches who were carrying her
on. Would have let go the brow-anchor, he would, but all the men
of the deck watch were staring over the side, so little obeying him
that they even shook off the hands he laid on them. The song went
to his own heart and he knew that the ship and all in it must soon
be doomed; therefore, he, Rusty, who still had some part of his
wits, conceived the measure of going forward to say they could
have him as a willing victim if they would release the rest. This
was accepted, he said. One of the demon women clambered to the
ship through the rope-hangings and companioned with him all
night, then bade him farewell with the word that he must come
to her again.</p>
<p>“Demoiselle, I do tell you that never have I heard Rusty give
a tale better. But when it was finished, the Ensign Glaverth took
Dame Belella’s hand to bid her good night, saying that he would
bring his young cousin over to hear some more of Rusty’s tales,
and all the others began to go as well. When all were departed,
Dame Belella came to sit on the hassock where the Ensign had
been, staring into the fire for a while. ‘Will you never become a
man?’ she asked her husband when he would have touched her.</p>
<p>“He looked at her a little. ‘Have I said the wrong thing?’ he
asked, and was that not a strange question to put?</p>
<p>“‘The wrong thing, yes,’ she said, looking away into the fire,
without as much as turning her head. ‘I couldn’t like it any more,
even if it were not true, Rusty.’ I remember that, because I did
not understand and still do not.</p>
<p>“He did not say anything more at that time, but I noticed that
people were not coming to the house so often as before during this
stay of ours in port, and while we were on the next voyage, she sold
the place and went out in the west to live. So I think perhaps, it
was a good fortune to lose my own wife, though a great sorrow at
the time, because people do change and grow apart instead of
together.”</p>
<p>A wave-crest came across the bulwarks and wetted the edge
of Lalette’s dress a little, so that she moved against the supporting
arm. Said she (wondering why he had told her this tale); “But she
must have known that he only made it up about the sea-witches.”</p>
<p>“That could be, could be, now. Could be that she was angry
with him for saying so much to a coronetted man like that Ensign
Glaverth. But I think more like that just all of us want a new bed-partner
now and again, and she could not bear it that he thought
of it before her.”</p>
<div class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</div>
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