Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1783 page)

“Some of our married ladies live here,” she said, “during at least half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children.”

“Many children here, ma’am?”

“Seventeen.  There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like me.”

There were not eight like her — there was not one like her — in the world.  She meant single.

“Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees,” said the young lady, “form the little colony now on the Island.  I don’t count the sailors, for they don’t belong to us.  Nor the soldiers,” she gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, “for the same reason.”

“Nor the Sambos, ma’am,” said I.

“No.”

“Under your favour, and with your leave, ma’am,” said I, “are they trustworthy?”

“Perfectly!  We are all very kind to them, and they are very grateful to us.”

“Indeed, ma’am?  Now — Christian George King? — ”

“Very much attached to us all.  Would die for us.”

She was, as in my uneducated way I have observed, very beautiful women almost always to be, so composed, that her composure gave great weight to what she said, and I believed it.

Then, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine, and was brought over from the mainland, and was stored here.  The Christopher Columbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer yield than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver.

When we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing we were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, English born but West India bred, who served her as her maid.  This young woman was the widow of a non-commissioned officer in a regiment of the line.  She had got married and widowed at St. Vincent, with only a few months between the two events.  She was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair of eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little turned-up nose.  The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped your face if you accepted the invitation.

I couldn’t make out her name at first; for, when she gave it in answer to my inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn’t sound right.  But, when we became better acquainted — which was while Charker and I were drinking sugar-cane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner — I found that her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott.  Being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of — I never saw a woman so like a toy in my life — she had got the plaything name of Belltott.  In short, she had no other name on the island.  Even Mr. Commissioner Pordage (and
he
was a grave one!) formally addressed her as Mrs. Belltott, but, I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Pordage presently.

The name of the captain of the sloop was Captain Maryon, and therefore it was no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott, that his sister, the beautiful unmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon.  The novelty was, that her christian-name was Marion too.  Marion Maryon.  Many a time I have run off those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse.  Oh many, and many, and many a time!

We saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and then took our leaves, and went down to the beach.  The weather was beautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the island, a picture; the sea, a picture; the sky, a picture.  In that country there are two rainy seasons in the year.  One sets in at about our English Midsummer; the other, about a fortnight after our English Michaelmas.  It was the beginning of August at that time; the first of these rainy seasons was well over; and everything was in its most beautiful growth, and had its loveliest look upon it.

“They enjoy themselves here,” I says to Charker, turning surly again.  “This is better than private-soldiering.”

We had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat’s-crew who were camped and hutted there; and we were approaching towards their quarters over the sand, when Christian George King comes up from the landing-place at a wolf’s-trot, crying, “Yup, So-Jeer!” — which was that Sambo Pilot’s barbarous way of saying, Hallo, Soldier!  I have stated myself to be a man of no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope allowance may be made.  I will now confess to one.  It may be a right one or it may be a wrong one; but, I never did like Natives, except in the form of oysters.

So, when Christian George King, who was individually unpleasant to me besides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking, “Yup, So-Jeer!”  I had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right.  I certainly should have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand.

“Yup, So-Jeer!” says he.  “Bad job.”

“What do you mean?” says I.

“Yup, So-Jeer!” says he, “Ship Leakee.”

“Ship leaky?” says I.

“Iss,” says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by a most violent hiccup — which is the way with those savages.

I cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the sloop, and saw the signal run up, “Come on board; hands wanted from the shore.”  In no time some of the sloop’s liberty-men were already running down to the water’s edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against the Pirates, were putting off to the Columbus in two boats.

“O Christian George King sar berry sorry!” says that Sambo vagabond, then.  “Christian George King cry, English fashion!”  His English fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand.  It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, “Double-quick, Harry!” and we got down to the water’s edge, and got on board the sloop.

By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbour, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the little colony would be destroyed by the sea-water as it rose in her, there was great confusion.  In the midst of it, Captain Maryon was heard hailing from the beach.  He had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad; but he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, myself, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him.

A quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon resolved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and that when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, and that the sloop must be hauled ashore, and careened, and the leak stopped.  We were all mustered (the Pirate-Chace party volunteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will.  Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest.  He went at it with so much heartiness, to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion almost as fast as the water rose in the ship.  Which was fast enough, and faster.

Mr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red-and-black japanned box, like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other, which some Sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the Island.  Through having hold of this box, Mr. Pordage got his title of Commissioner.  He was styled Consul too, and spoke of himself as “Government.”

He was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him, of a very angry temper and a very yellow complexion.  Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the same.  Mr. Kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine — but everybody there was that, more or less — was sometimes called by Mr. Commissioner Pordage, his Vice-commissioner, and sometimes his Deputy-consul.  Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten, merely as being “under Government.”

The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the preparations for careening the sloop, and with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water-casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Maryon.  The Captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct; and he raised his head, and answered for himself.

“Captain Maryon,” cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, “this is not official.  This is not regular.”

“Sir,” says the Captain, “it hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power.  I am quite certain that hath been duly done.”

“Captain Maryon,” replied Mr. Commissioner Pordage, “there hath been no written correspondence.  No documents have passed, no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments.  This is indecent.  I call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or Government will take this up.”

“Sir,” says Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his hammock; “between the chances of Government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former.”

“You do, sir?” cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage.

“I do, sir,” says Captain Maryon, lying down again.

“Then, Mr. Kitten,” says the Commissioner, “send up instantly for my Diplomatic coat.”

He was dressed in a linen suit at that moment; but, Mr. Kitten started off himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button.

“Now, Mr. Kitten,” says Pordage, “I instruct you, as Vice-commissioner, and Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Captain Maryon, of the sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on?”

“Mr. Pordage,” says Captain Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, “as I can hear what you say, I can answer it without troubling the gentleman.  I should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself.”

“Very good, Captain Maryon,” says Pordage, in a tremendous passion.  “Very good, sir.  Be the consequences on your own head!  Mr. Kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it.”

When he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being lost.

Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher Columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water.  While she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honour of the ship, and the ship’s company, and the other visitors.  At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then upon the Island, without any exception.  I took no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, and mostly very pretty — as they mostly are.  There was one handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and gray hair, that I inquired about.  I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning; and her married daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of Fanny Fisher.  Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress; and her husband, just come back from the mine, exceeding proud of her.  They were a good-looking set of people on the whole, but I didn’t like them.  I was out of sorts; in conversation with Charker, I found fault with all of them.  I said of Mrs. Venning, she was proud; of Mrs. Fisher, she was a delicate little baby-fool.  What did I think of this one?  Why, he was a fine gentleman.  What did I say to that one?  Why, she was a fine lady.  What could you expect them to be (I asked Charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees bending over them, soft lamps lighting them, fire-flies sparkling in among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out, delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and every one dancing and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for a pleasant chorus.