it all happened a century ago. “on this day,” the village minister of those other years wrote in his slow, regular hand—the pages of his journal are yellow as saffron now, and the ink is faded brown—“on this day did captain hastings sail in command of the amaryllis, taking with him as hitherto, poor christine widmer, concerning whom there has been so much talk. for my own part i cannot be properly scandalized by their relation. certainly the thought of marriage with one in her condition is not to be tolerated, and i believe her to be happier with him than elsewhere.” christian charity, indeed!
there have always been men of the hastings name in the village. they came in the days of its first settlement. there are a score of them living here at this very minute. and, like the most of them in the early years of the republic, donald hastings followed the sea. holiest, impetuous, young, as were so many of those sea captains in that golden era of the early nineteenth century, he left but one shadow on his memory—perhaps not altogether a shadow. therein lies the story.
above the junk the masts and spars of a ship loomed in the moonlight.
singsong voices swelled to a wild chatter, and p. 224the steering sweep was swung hard over. but the old junk, clumsy and slow to obey her helm, remained in the center of the channel. for a moment, collision was imminent. then from the deck of that chinese vessel on the chu kiang, one of thousands as like as their yellow masters, came the sharp call:
“ahoy there! bear off!”
“who’s there below?” a deep voice from above roared the words in a tone of amazement.
a rattle of commands came down to the junk, hoarse and loud on the night air. the chinese clamored in ducklike harshness of speech. then the slowly turning junk and the veering ship passed by a margin of inches. and as they passed, seven men came scrambling over the bulwarks of the ship to a deck filled with shadowy figures that gathered in a silent circle. then the circle opened and one man, standing out from the rest, confronted the seven in the near darkness.
“well,” said he, in a low, deliberate voice, “who and what are you?”
“this,” replied the leader of the seven, with a quick gesture, “is all that is left of the crew of the helen of troy.”
“ah!” the voice was cool and noncommittal. “of the helen of troy. do you know what ship this is?”
“who are you?” the man from the junk demanded suddenly.
the other laughed shortly. “i—” he began.
“you are amos widmer!”
and amos widmer it was.
“yes, i am amos widmer—and you are . . . all that is left of the crew of the helen of troy!”
p. 225there was a suggestion of irony in his tone. he stood there for a time, smiling queerly in the dusk, and looking past the other, who faced him with folded arms. his was not a pleasant smile.
“boy,” he said at last in a soft, gentle voice, “captain hastings, of the helen of troy, will have the unoccupied stateroom. show him down, and put yourself at his service.”
there was one porthole to the stateroom, iron gray it seemed, and a lantern swung from an overhead beam. when the boy had gone, hastings leaned back and surveyed darkly the narrow confines of the little room.
then he heard a woman laughing somewhere in the ship, as if a long way off, and was swept by a flood of conflicting emotions.
in a way, it had all begun long before, when the helen of troy slipped through the narrows of my old new england port on a day in early june, the wind abeam, and was passed by a ship outward bound under full press of canvas. the scene came back to hastings there in the dim light of the stateroom; the new england shore dark against the yellow sunset; the ship, phantom-like, her sails barred by shadows of spar and rigging; then the rumbling voice of the mate of the helen of troy: “the winnemere, as i’m alive! it ain’t in nature to be meeting with her always. nagasaki! batavia! sumatra! aye, she sang another tune, though, the night we passed her in macassar strait.”
it seemed to hastings that he could hear again his own reply, faint and far off: “there were light winds that night. but she’s an able craft in coarse weather.” training his glass at the tall figure on p. 226the deck of the outgoing vessel, he had muttered, “grin, damn ye, grin!” and flung back his head with an air of elation. not in ships alone were donald hastings and amos widmer rivals.
so the winnemere had sailed to meet the oncoming dusk, and the helen of troy had come bravely into port. and there donald hastings had heard an old story, and like many a better man before him, had gone back to the sea to forget that he ever had loved. but one thing he had not been able to forget.
after a time that faint laughter, breaking the pregnant silence of the little stateroom, came again to hastings’ ears. there was in it a strange note that puzzled him, an unfamiliarity that overbore the lingering familiarity of its tone. presently, as he stood with parted lips, the boy came, knocking, and asked him to the captain’s cabin. as he traversed the narrow passage he heard the laughter yet again, louder now, and more than ever was puzzled by it. for though it reminded him of christine duncan’s voice, it had a penetrating wildness like no laughter he had heard before. he entered the door with his hands half raised, as if to guard against an unexpected attack. but the gesture was needless. amos widmer, calm as buddha, was seated already at the oak table.
smiling softly when his guest appeared, widmer motioned him to a chair. “now then, boy,” he murmured, “what has that black scoundrel in the galley got ready for us?”
and the boy vanished, flinching in the door.
“i did not expect this honor,” hastings began.
“the honor is mine.” unstopping the decanter on the table, widmer filled two wine glasses. “your health, sir!” he said.
p. 227hastings fingered the stem of his own glass. young and hot-headed, versed in rough courtesies and frank enmities, he was placed at a singular disadvantage by this quiet man with the eyes of a devil. “i did not expect this honor, sir,” he repeated, “or this pleasure. your—” his pause was almost imperceptible—“wife?”
“she is ailing.”
of the two, hastings was the less mature, although perhaps physically the stronger. certainly his face, frank, impetuous, fearless, was the more wholesome. but lacking the easy grace and the calm assurance that characterized the other, he realized a certain want in his own hard schooling that left him almost powerless in the duel of wits, baffled by a bewildering subtlety, like a young fencer drilled in the rudiments, blade to blade, meeting for the first time an opponent who refuses contact. there was the same sense of helplessness, the same mental groping for possible parries and thrusts, without the comforting rasp of steel on steel, that to the trained hand and wrist reveals more than sight itself of an antagonist’s intent. once an enemy always an enemy, unless there were reason otherwise, he had supposed. he breathed deeply.
“i am sorry,” he replied.
self-possessed, yet watching his uninvited guest between almost imperceptibly narrowed eyelids, widmer continued casually, “yes, she is ailing. but of yourself? how came you here?”
“our masts were carried away in a typhoon. the natives came out, apparently to plunder the waterlogged hull, but, by the grace of god, human compassion was stirred in their yellow bellies. the p. 228helen of troy was an able ship—” hastings eyed widmer with a touch of patronage that passed apparently unnoticed “—and a rich cargo was under her hatches, but there was no way to save her.”
“i see.”
hastings fingered the stem of his glass. silence filled the cabin. then the boy appeared with a great tray.
“for some reason,” widmer began after a time, “i am reminded of a garden, a garden with honeysuckle in bloom. there’s a white house by the garden, three stories high and square as a cube. do you remember the house? a door with oval-paned side lights? and the little pillars?”
hastings’ face whitened, except for a red spot on each cheek. shoving back his chair, he half rose. “if you—” he cried.
“ha! ha! i see you remember the garden. surely you would not resent a mere pleasantry. that garden! how many times we have avoided meeting there, you and i. well, it’s all over now. don’t hold ill will toward me, even though i carried off the queen of the garden. men have loved and lost and laid resentment aside before now. it is a bond between us that we have loved christine duncan. if only she were stronger, how gladly she would join me in welcoming you. it is long since she has been able to receive guests.” widmer’s voice fell, perhaps a trifle more than was natural. certainly his eyes never left the flush on hastings’ face. but his voice rose again, lightly, as he resumed. “allow me!” and he proffered the decanter.
again the adversary had withdrawn his blade. again that baffling sense of nothing to contend with.
p. 229when, late, hastings returned to his quarters, he heard, in the still watches of the night, a woman laughing faintly.
already in the far interior of china the cold fingers of winter were reaching toward the south, and the northeast monsoon had settled on the sea. but where now innumerable steamships are to be met,—tramps, their iron flanks streaked with rust; trim liners of japan, the almost untranslatable maru coupled with their names; dingy coasters, slattern traders, and men of war from half the navies of the world, a hundred years ago there were only the slow junks and the white-sailed ships of the occident, with now and then a high-sided, square-sterned dutchman.
the next evening hastings came on deck and, standing by the taffrail, gazed long toward hainan and the sunset. no boat was in sight. save for a small island that lay a point abaft the beam, the winnemere was running before the wind through an unbroken expanse of water. hearing steps, he turned.
it was widmer. “a fine evening,” he remarked in his singularly restrained voice.
“it is, indeed.”
silence followed. since the seven survivors of the helen of troy had come tumbling over the bulwarks of the winnemere there had been many such silent moments. always the words exchanged by the two captains were like those tentative thrusts with which the fencer tries the mettle of his opponent.
“it is a pleasure to be able to bring home the crew of the helen of troy,” widmer said, slowly, covertly watching the other’s face. “i remember p. 230when you left us in macassar strait. the winnemere was always a slow craft in light winds. your men like to tell the story of that race.”
hastings, red of face, made no reply.
“yes, there was much talk of that race. you beat us on the run up from the horn another time—that story, too, became well known. remarkably well known.”
looking off at the single island, a dark blot on the shining sea, widmer laughed softly.
“there was another race, however: a race by land. there was a prize for that race, such a prize!” facing about at hastings, he bit his mustache angrily. “well, though the prize was rotten at the heart, i won it, by god!” he whispered.
hastings turned, his fists clenched, but widmer, the tension of his face departing like a shadow, raised his hand and stepped two paces back. “be careful, captain hastings. a single blow, and you would find yourself in the lazarette. you have the freedom of the ship, but—merely a hint, captain hastings, as from friend to friend—guests on this ship have found it unwholesome to leave the straight path from their stateroom to the deck. ships have many eyes.” widmer paused. “it will be a rare pleasure to bring home the captain of the helen of troy, but if necessary—” leaving the sentence unfinished, he smiled and strolled away.
and that night, when he should have been asleep, again hastings heard the woman laughing.
the breath of the monsoon stirred the sea from hie-che-chin to vanguard bank, and leagues and leagues beyond. in the moonlight the waves came rolling up in mountains of silver, vanishing again p. 231into the farther darkness, in never-ending succession. they swept past the winnemere as, with all sail set, she bore down the china sea, past her and away into the distance like shoals of fish tumbling in the water, and when they had gone a long journey they came to a derelict hull, and tossed it and turned it, and bore it on.
when widmer had gone on deck, hastings emerged from his narrow quarters and made his way swiftly through the now familiar cabin, through the captain’s own stateroom, to the single door beyond. he heard, indistinctly from behind the closed door, only a confusion of small sounds, the rustle of skirts, the faint noise of some wooden object pushed along the floor, then the murmur of a voice. “hush,” it said, very softly, “little one, . . . little one . . . ” then it broke and rose suddenly to a small, plaintive cry. “he isn’t here, . . . where can he be? . . . little one! . . . little one!”
with shaking hand hastings fumbled for the latch, found it, and pushed, then pulled, but the oaken door did not yield.
then from within came that low, strange laughter, and the voice, singularly restrained now, “little one . . . little one!”
startled by footsteps on deck just outside the companionway, hastings turned back through the darkness to his stateroom, and closed the door very gently as the companionway was shadowed by the form of some one descending.
almost stifled by the confinement of the room, he went on deck, when the way was clear, and leaned over the weather rail, with the wind and the flying spray beating hard against his face. p. 232but even so, he felt, strangely, that the air was close and that he was restricted by something at once vague, yet paradoxically definite. by and by, wandering amidships, he found the second mate, late promoted from the forecastle, smoking comfortably by the mainmast, and glad of a chance to beguile the watch with friendly conversation.
so foreign to hastings’ blunt directness was the finesse of intrigue that even the unsuspecting mate was not drawn off his guard. coming, as he thought, adroitly to the subject that filled his mind, hastings was surprised by the sudden change in the second officer’s attitude.
“i suppose,” he had remarked, in a voice carefully casual, “captain widmer has no children.”
the officer’s attitude seemed all at once a little less friendly. raising his eyes to the dark heavens, he remarked, “it’s a raw night, for all there’s no great of a wind.”
“i suppose,” hastings repeated, more loudly, “captain widmer—”
“it’s al’ays seemed hard lines to me that the lord didn’t put monsoons in the north atlantic. think o’ the good they’d do thereabouts! to be sure, typhoons is a curse. but there’s the trades, say. now, if the lord had only seed fit—”
“damn the trades, i say. did captain widmer ever have a child?”
the other took his pipe from his mouth and eyed the master of the helen of troy speculatively. “it don’t do, sir,” he replied, with a cautious glance about, “to ask questions aboard this vessel. a child, you say? there was a child. but—” again glancing aft, the man lowered his voice to a whisper, “i mistrust it warn’t his’n.”
p. 233the next day the two captains met for the first time at dinner in the cabin, hastings silent, widmer smiling with his lips, in spite of mirthless eyes.
for a time neither spoke. the boy, in mute testimony to the fit of ill temper that had beset widmer, scurried hack and forth in obvious terror. as the ship rolled, the water in the glasses and the wine in the decanter rocked this way and that. it was widmer, as usual, who broke the silence. “i have heard,” he said in his low voice, “that some one was listening outside my door last night. if any man in my crew were caught there, i’d have him pitched to the sharks.”
“do you mean that i—”
“yes, sir, i’d have him pitched to the sharks. there is no occasion for excitement. certainly no guest of mine would be guilty of anything like that. i should not like to be under the necessity of sending a guest of mine forward. but as sure as my name is amos widmer, if it comes to action i’ll act with the best of them—or the worst.”
then hastings smiled. “it would indeed be a singular circumstance that would force a gentleman—” the stress on the word was ever so slight—“to take such measures with a guest.”
so deep the silence, as they finished the meal, that each heard twice the faint ripple of a woman’s laugh.
with all her canvas set, the winnemere swept on down the long line dotted on the charts, to singapore and malacca strait; and off among the islands, with the stumps of her broken masts rising from the seas that washed her decks, lay the hull of the helen of troy.
evening came, and again the two sat opposite p. 234each other at the cabin table. but this time hastings was the more taciturn. after the manner of many an outspoken man who becomes all at once aware that he has been made game of, he withdrew into a silence that, half unwittingly, met widmer at his own game. and widmer, with that unpleasant light in his eyes, again masked himself with exaggerated courtesy.
“who would have thought—” his voice was unnaturally smooth as he repeated the sentence for the twentieth time, lingering over the irony of each phrase, “—who would have thought that i should have the honor of bringing home captain hastings, of the helen of troy!” then he laughed shortly.
hastings raised his glass, as if unaware that he had been addressed.
“such an honor!” widmer continued. “think of it. more than once i’ve raced the helen of troy and been beaten. and a good many times more than once i’ve seen donald hastings sitting in the garden by the white house, and have gone away and left him there. but there was a time when donald hastings found the gate open and the garden empty. and now the time is come when all that is left of the crew of the helen of troy is right glad of passage on the winnemere.”
if there was any indication that hastings was listening to the other’s words, it was only in the tension of his fingers as they pressed the table top, and in the whiteness of his knuckles.
but widmer, speaking at intervals as if to probe for some most sensitive nerve center, went on, his eyes fixed on hastings’ forehead: “an empty garden—and now the helen of troy is gone—it would be an honor indeed to bring him home, p. 235but an empty honor, after all—what if he never came home—if—!” suddenly he lowered his eves until they looked into hastings’ own. “my wife, sir,” he said with fierce intensity, “cried the day i married her, cried at her wedding, shed a bucket of tears. tears are no wedding flummery, sir. i didn’t know then why it was. but i know now. do you hear? i know, damn it, know.”
once again hastings felt the rasp of steel, and closed to the combat in a manner worthy of his opponent’s saner moments. “if you mean to imply—”
before his slow speech was past his lips, widmer interrupted him, changing his expression so facilely that hastings felt again that sense of losing all touch with the blade that maneuvered for his weakness: “i beg you to pardon me. i was excited. of course i imply nothing. nothing that you would be guilty of.”
and hastings, quicker of hand than of brain, tried again to follow that baffling change of front. he was gaining experience in that other school of fence, and was not so easily evaded now.
throughout the meal he studied widmer cautiously. thin mouth, cold eyes, an outward politeness itself threatening by the suggestion of what lay behind it. he had known the man’s reputation of old; the ever-present apprehension of the cabin boy, the servility of the mate, the silence of the crew, all went to bear it out.
yes, each knew; and each knew, unconfessed, that the other knew. all night the thought haunted hastings. he recalled numerous half-spoken sentences fraught with scarcely concealed meaning, and others, outspoken and direct, that made no p. 236pretense of concealment. he had come back to the sea to forget that he ever had loved, but, after all, he could not forget. he even doubted if the girl had forgotten. such dreams as they had dreamed together do not vanish overnight. he saw her on the porch of the old house, by the slim, white pillars. he remembered her in the garden sweet with honeysuckle. on the wharf, by the church door, here, there, everywhere, among the familiar scenes of the old town, she appeared in the eyes of his memory. then like a dark cloud came the memory of a certain night—and the strange laughter, the locked door, and the words he had heard her say.
at noon next day widmer was gay. he laughed and joked, and seemed unaware of hastings’ silence. at night he gave himself up again to a politeness elaborate and artificial. but through it all hastings felt a certain threatening undertone. and widmer, taking no chances, gave secret orders, quite as if he had not fathomed hastings and found him shallow to the lead.
the sun set in a blaze of fire, shooting great beams of light far into the heavens, and the moon rose in a pale halo. a junk in the offing tossed on the long swell that rolled away into the distance, and the wvinnemere, her braces rattling as they ran, leaned easily before the wind that swept the gray sea. the sky changed from blue to scarlet, from scarlet to flaming gold, and from gold, as the night set in, to sea green and steel blue. the ship’s lanterns twinkled in the dusk; the stars came out thickly overhead; and presently, as the moon climbed above the horizon, its wan light thinly illuminated the decks of the ship and the towering structure of masts and spars and canvas and cordage.
p. 237late at night, when all was quiet, hastings crept out of his berth. for a time he could hear only the straining of ropes, the creaking of blocks, and the whisper of the sea. then he heard the sound of some one sobbing. then the sound changed to that low laugh.
that laugh! he had half expected, half feared, to hear it. he felt within himself the sharp palpitation stimulated by quick, intense emotion, that for want of a better name we call leaping of the heart. with a quick motion he started forward in the darkness, but his feet struck something soft. it was the little cabin boy, asleep on a folded blanket. uttering a cry, the lad scrambled to his feet and fled up the companionway.
for a moment there was silence, heavy and suspicious, then, out of the dark, came widmer’s calm challenge. “what does this mean?”
again silence ensued. the slow opening of a shutter, through which a few rays of light had been struggling feebly, suffused the scene with a dim, yellow glow. hastings, his knees slightly bent, his hands raised as for attack or defense, his lips parted, was confronted by amos widmer, who stood with folded arms, smiling softly.
“what does this mean?” he repeated, in the same low, calm voice.
taken at an overwhelming disadvantage, hastings’ mind, groping, could summon no reply.
down the companionway came only the familiar sounds of a ship at sea, the creaking of blocks and braces, the low voices of the watch, the whisper of the ocean.
“so, sir, you presume upon my hospitality!”
“there are laws—” hastings’ voice was thick—“that override the laws of ‘hospitality.’”
p. 238“i fear, sir, you are little versed in the customs of gentlemen.” and widmer, measuring the effect of the retort, let the smile creep to his eyes.
drawing himself erect, hastings stepped forward until the shadow of the casement fell across his face and masked it, but although he said nothing, widmer persisted.
“gentlemen have a code of their own. and when a man fails to meet that code, it is sometimes necessary to teach him a painful lesson.”
another pause followed, then, clearly and distinctly, a shrill laugh from somewhere beyond the cabin sounded on the night air.
“gentlemen—” widmer’s sneering voice began again, but the sentence was not finished.
an outthrust hand flung back the shutter. there was a quick movement in the sudden darkness, a hoarse gasp, a strange sound that frightened the little cabin boy, who had thrown himself, belly down, by the open hatch overhead, then from above came the lookout’s voice, sharp with warning.
“sail ho!”
“where away?”
“dead ahead! something afloat under the bows!”
“where—”
“wear ship—put down your helm!”
a third voice broke into the dialogue: “what’s all this? there’s nothing there.”
“i tell you, sir, i see it— there it lifts, by heaven!”
all at once came a crash and shock that sent the mizzen-topmast by the board, and hurled men from their feet. for a moment there was silence, then that shrill yell sounded, that wrings hearts:
“man overboard!”
p. 239the trample of feet was broken by the voice of the mate:
“all hands on deck!” then the voice came down the hatch into the darkness below: “captain widmer! captain widmer! for god’s sake, come up! we’ve run afoul a derelict!”
but from amos widmer there was no reply.
instead, as the boats were launched by the pale light of the crescent moon, and the winnemere, listing heavily to port, settled rapidly, the captain of the helen of troy appeared by the after port davits, with a woman wrapped in a loose cloak.
and when the boats were in the water donald hastings and the woman in the loose cloak sat in the sternsheets of the third to be launched. and the men, as they rowed, heard snatches of the woman’s talk, which was about a child; how some one had cursed it and its father, and how the child was gone now. sometimes the woman laughed a strange laugh that the men did not like, but they were only sailors, so they rowed on into the night and asked no questions.
by and by they rested on their oars and, looking back, saw an extraordinary sight. revealed in the faint moonlight, the winnemere, sinking by the head, set at defiance the natural laws of ships upon the sea. at first it seemed as if her masts were being raked forward, then her stern rose, then, without sound or sign, she went under with all sail set. and from somewhere came a whisper that the derelict with the two upstanding stumps of masts, which went rolling down the wind, was all that was left of the helen of troy. all—but victorious.
the first sunrise coming slowly on the track p. 240of daylight found the boats, a little group of dark spots in the vast plain of the sea, held together, apparently, by something of that same magnetic power that leads two bits of cork to adhere each to each. when the sun rose again, they were scattered over miles of gray ocean. when the third day broke from a sky banked with clouds, only two boats were to be seen—two boats and a single sail small on the horizon.
the sail grew and took shape. out of the borderland between sea and sky came a bark flying the flag of england. presently, as she headed into the wind, the woman, lying in donald hastings’ arms, saw dimly the faces lined above the rail, then was lifted on board and carried into the cabin.
“donald,” she whispered in quiet happiness, “oh, donald!” her voice changed. “but the baby! he was angry about the baby: your baby—our baby.” and she laughed that strange laugh.
the sun, forcing its way through the clouds, touched the dark brown paneling with golden light. in the silence of the cabin the voices on deck were distinctly audible. “he was that cruel to his wife!” some one was saying. “all of us was glad enough to see him left.” but only a fragment of the narrative came to the little group below.
the woman, oblivious to all but donald hastings, raised herself on her elbow:
“i waited—oh, so long! and you never came!”
“don’t! i came—too late.” he dropped on his knees beside the berth in which she had been laid. “i will! i will marry you!”
again she laughed that strange, low laugh. the captain of the bark, his medicine chest open before him, shook his head. “you’ll not p. 241marry her,” he muttered. “it’ll not be allowed. you’ve but to hear her to know that.”
“i will,” hastings cried, wildly. “there’s little enough a man can do to atone for great wrong.”
“you’re overwrought, sir. you don’t know what you’re saying.”
and christine widmer laughed again.
there was indeed no wedding. not often is the path of atonement made broad and easy. instead, the story of my old new england town came to pass, the story of a man who provided for his enemy’s wife as if she were his own. for in the years to come there sailed with donald hastings a woman who laughed strangely at times, and talked of something other people pretended to have forgotten. and donald hastings, the marriage forbidden, gave her the rest of his life, covering her lapses of speech by quick wit and ever-remembering kindness, making her seem almost like other women, and placing out of his own reach forever the fellowship of those who called themselves honest folk.
it all happened a hundred years ago. stories, good and bad,—mostly bad,—were told of them then, and have been told ever since. such is the world’s way. and of amos widmer it was known only that he was lost at sea when the winnemere went down. who of us can say what accountings are to be made on that day when the good and evil are balanced, when things forgotten are remembered, and things unknown are brought to light?
“on this noon,” wrote the village minister in that rare old diary of his, “did captain hastings p. 242sail in command of the amaryllis, taking with him, as hitherto, poor christine widmer.” then, in the intimate privacy of the book, he adds—wise, rash, cautious old man: “i am almost of a mind, since things are as they are, that it is for the best,—even so.”
charles boardman hawes.
