CHAPTER XVIII
THE GYPSY OF THE SEA
"But, Señorita, I see them."
"With your own eyes, Dick?" questioned Sally from the knightheads.
"Yes, with these eyes. By San Juan el Moro I swear eet!"
"That makes thirty-eight fairy stories and thirty-eight saints, and we've only been out nine days."
She shook her head sceptically, then gazed up at the giant yardarms that dipped and rose with the ship's roll, then in spite of herself turned to listen again.
I have often wished that a painter, even slow old Queer Hat, had been there to transfix line and colour forever on some canvas,—the girl against the knightheads, a knot of scarlet at her throat, the spray glistening on her black lashes and unfettered hair; those trousers, crosslegged on the deck below her, a Whistlerish nocturne in azures and greys and greens; the brass earrings swaying as he talked; the crimson and yellow bandanna; and the wrinkled leather of the face looking up at her, with visions of lands and seas far beyond that ship.
No cloud above, the only white the gulls in their wake, and the sails; and ever around them, and really above, for the sea seemed to rise up bowl-wise to meet the horizon, the shifting sapphire of the waves, their tips glinting like fire flies far brighter than those of the night.
And then the buoyant grace, the brave strength of the ship, the aspiration of the tall masts, so like the soul's own, the delicate pattern of the rope-mazes, the curve of the filled sail!
She yielded to the temptation.
"And you say you know him?" again the girl asked.
"I swear it, Señorita. To many ports I go and in many ships I sail—Engleesh and Français and those from Etalee and my own Countree and many more" (Sally loved to listen to the flowing ripple of his r's). "I see him when he sail, an his wife on the wharf an' the poor little bebee. An also I see his bones."
"Now, Dick, that is too much."
"Believe me, Señorita, have I not swear by San Juan el Moro?" (He named him reverently in the Spanish phraseology again, this particular saint being the patron of this particular story. She wondered how he never mixed his tales and their protecting patrons): "Si, I saw his bones on the shore."
"Well, never mind the bones, Dick, sing it again."
So over he sang that song. It was English, but neither the polyglot patois nor its haunting music, as the gypsy interpreted it, can be here reproduced any more than those elusive qualities in the tale itself. We will give it in Sally's pretty paraphrase as she sang it seven years later to her children, and as we heard it again on one of our summer vacations on the cape. Just what its name was she never knew, but something like:
"The Mermaid's Tail."
1
"There was a sailor bold
Who sailed upon the deep,
And when he left the port
His wife did nought but weep.
Chorus:
"Ding, dong, ding, dong,
Hark to the bell-buoy's song;
But stop yer ears, when the Maid ye hears,
It's death if ye listen too long.
2
"Oh Jack, she cries, be true.
'These hands are skin and bone
'Worn with workin' fer you,
'And I'll be all alone.'
3
"Oh Jack swore long and loud
By Mary Mother o' Men:
'As leal and true as now I am,
'I'll come back again.'
4
"He sailed a year and a day
To a sea that no man knows,
Where off the shore o' the spicy isles
The Love Wind softly blows.
5
And there upon the waves,
Combin' her golden hair,
A mermaid sang a pretty song,
And she was very fair.
6
"Oh, Jack he heard her sing
And saw her glist'ning eyes,
And Nance was short 'er mate that night,
When the moon began to rise.
7
"Now whiter than her skin,
His bones tossed by the tide;
And still her song she sings
And still the waves she rides.
Chorus:
"Ding, dong, ding, dong,
Hark to the bell-buoy's song;
But stop yer ears when the Maid ye hears,
It's death if ye listen too long!"
"Poor lady and oh, the poor little bebee!" sighed the troubadour.
Then he looked at the dog and at the girl. He felt a little ashamed. He understood why she shifted her position so uneasily—why her breast rose and fell once—at the finish of the song.
"It's a beautiful song, Dick—and thank you. But it's sad. I like it and yet I don't like it."
"Perhaps the lady would like to hear the tale of the wicked Pierre who mock the good Saints and go aloft in the night an' was all swallow up in St. Elmo's Fire. That ees not sad, there ees no wife an' little bebee in that tale."
"Never mind now, Dick."
"Or the tale of Pedro who marry a mermaid and love her so much and pray so hard that the good God change her tail into legs and petticoat. They live in a little hut in the hills and have many goats. Then they forget their prayers and when the first little bebee come, it have a tail. Then for a year very hard they pray, but the second little bebee it also have a tail, and the third. They never have any more bebees. Those little tails punish them, for they forget the good God."
But Sally was in no mood for his stories now. That refrain still echoed in her ears. Her averted little nose and pretty mouth expressed scorn.
"And you believe that?"
"I myself see them—by Santa Maria el Blanco, I swear eet—with these eyes. Pedro and his wife grow very poor an' all the goats die. Nothing for them to eat or the bebees. Not one leetle crumb of bread, not one leetle drop of goat's milk. But the good God is sorry even for them who forget Heem an' after, he send into the hills a man who had leetle shows with painted dolls—you pull them with strings like this.
"He see on the grass the three leetle bebees, lying flat on thin bellies—for as I tell you, Señorita, they have so leetle food—with their arms on the ground—so" (crooking his clenched fists to his jaws). "They lie just like real mermaids as I see them—so many times—on the sand of the beeg South Sea Islands, or bebee seals on the rocks where it ees very cold.
"The man with the little dolls see their tails go 'thump,' 'thump,' 'thump,' on the ground just like Alfonso here" (he placed his hand on the head of the mongrel, who was illustrating that part of the story realistically on the deck) "only his tail is short like bologna an' theirs grow long and green an' so shiny like water.
"He turn their tails to gold. I mean he make much money out of those tails. For he take those little mermaid bebees to the beeg city, with his show of little dolls, an' his dancing girl from Algier who did many wiggles. He ask ten centesimos for the people to have one leetle look at those bebees with tails. Soon he had many pesetas an' so he turn those tails to gold, as I have said.
"I myself see them in Carnival time. By Santa Maria el Blanco—the White Mary, you call her, Señorita, I swear eet."
"What happened to the Mother and the Father?"
In spite of herself the girl tossed this question at him.
Gone was the "solid feel" of the commonsense Earth under her feet. There was only the deck rising and falling to the measured swell of the waves. They were borne along over a shining sailless sea, and on towards the ever retreating horizon, wafted by winds that breathed romance. Why couldn't such things be true? They were such pretty stories!
"Oh the Motherr and Fatherr," he repeated, then, never at a loss for solution or sequel, he continued in that voice whose foreign inflections lazily rose and fell like the surrounding sea,—
"The man with his leetle show of painted dolls, an' the dancing girl from Algierr, and bebee mermaids, send the poor man and his wife a leetle money—oh not nearly so much as make music in his own pocket but enough to buy more goats so that they do not starve.
"But their hearts are sad. They wish to see their bebees, even with leetle tails. So they pray and pray till they wear a beeg hole in the ground before the Virgin who stand by the road. Their knees grow very sore an' also they are bent from much praying, like very old people.
"Then one night when the angels light their lamps—the stars are their lamps, Señorita, an' they fill them with holy oil, an' trim their wicks so they shine bright for people who have eyes in their heads an' do not always look down on the ground, or make their eyes blind with looking at silver pesetas like the bad man with the painted dolls. Oh, no, he never see the stars!
"On this night they hear a voice. It say:
"Go sell your goats an' go into beeg city and get your bebees.
"They look up, but the mouth of the Virgin is so still—they do not make move but there is leetle smile in her mouth, not like yours, Señorita, when you make fun for me, but like that when I hurt my hand in the storm and you feex it.
"So when the sun come up, very early nex' day, they sell their goats and walk to the beeg ceety.
"It is very far, but they go very fast, although they are bent like old people. Señorita, the heart give wings even to lame feet.
"In the streets the rich people make mock of them, but they jus' think hard of what the voice say:
"Go get your bebees.
"It is again carnival time, an' in the plaza they see the man an his painted dolls in a little red box high like your head an' with boards like this above the middle. The people all go inside to see the dancing girl. You would not like herr! Oh no! She was not nice.
"All day the man and his wife they wait in Plaza. At night when the stars shine an' the people sleep in their beds, that motherr and fatherr go to the door. But there is big lock on the door an' they cannot open it. Then they both rub their eyes, for Señorita, believe me, the man tell me himself, there come out the air a hand. There was nobody, only the hand white like a cloud. It hold a key of gold. It is very bright an' the door it open. Then the key an the hand go away.
"The beeg fat man who make money from the little bebees an the painted dolls he sleep on leetle bed inside an snore—oh, like a beeg whale. They step over him soft like this—an' there on the hard floor are the little bebees. The ends of their leetle tails stick out from the blanket.
"They pick them up an' wrap them in the blanket an' run out of the beeg city an' up to the hills.
"Next day the man says to the people: 'Come in an' see wonderrful merrmaids.' The people are very angry to pay their centesimos and not see them. They throw stone an' kill heem. I know it, Señorita, I am there an' I myself throw the stone that hit heem here" (he pointed to his temple) "an' kill heem.
"When the sun get up an say 'Bon Dios,' the motherr and fatherr are away up in the hills with their bebees on their backs, an' their backs are not bent any more. Oh, so very straight like the tall mast up there! They hear little voices say: 'Mother let me down on the ground.' But the mother do not, for how can they walk on their tails and they have yet far to go?
"But the bebees wriggle out—like eels and the motherr an' fatherr turn around an', Señorita, those little bebees were walking on legs so straight and white. They reach the leetle hut in the yard an' there are the goats again, which the Holy Virgin give back to them. So they live happy ever"
But the spell was shattered by the sound of seven bells and a raucous voice calling:
"You're another, you're another." Through the gilt bars of a cage hanging from a cleat on the foremast near them, Mariuch the parrot, proud of her blue and green and scarlet magnificence, was transfixing them with her cantankerous eye.
"You're another, you're another," she shrieked, always happy in the selection of the eleven epithets in her repertoire.
Spanish Dick playfully shook his fist at her, upbraiding the culprit in his own picturesque tongue.
"You infidel of many colours! I feed you an' keep you well—an' yet you do not believe me. My little Alfonso, you alone keep the faith." He looked down at the mongrel, who was frantically thumping his tail on the deck in evidence of his loyalty and confidence.
"I believe you, Dick," fibbed Sally, guessing at the trend of his tirade, and placing her hand sympathetically on his shoulder. "It's such a pretty story, and I do appreciate the way you've kept me from feeling worried and blue."
Wistfully she looked over the starboard rail, then straightened suddenly.
"Look, Dick—there's a steamer to starboard—it looks more like a steam yacht—why it looks as tiny as the toy ones Ben and Phil, when he was just a nice boy—used to sail."
She made her way aft along the trim deck.
She reached the after deck-house, steadied herself against the lee-rail, and listened to the hoarse commands from the Mate's brazen throat, the shuffle of feet on deck, the creak of block and pulley, and the snap of canvas, as the yards were braced and the ship came up into the wind. Above her the sails and the towering masts hung sleazily for a moment, then ballooned beautifully, as she heeled over on the starboard tack, racing on over the blue towards that ever-retreating horizon. The girl wished she could see its perfect rim broken by a little dark lump of island. But for the uncertainty about Ben she would have been jubilantly happy in this joyous carefree life of the sea.
"Don't strain those pretty eyes of yours, lass! We're a good three-hundred miles north of him still. Sight the Luards tomorrow, if all goes well."
It was Captain Fairwind's voice booming along the deck. How she loved to hear it! Out here on the sea it always rang like a trumpet.
She reached his side and asked for the glass. Still on their port, the far-off tiny yacht nosed its way steadily southwest. She could pick out more clearly now the twin slanting masts and funnel, but it was fast steaming out of sight.
And five minutes later when she looked again, the last line of mast, the last feather of smoke had gone. The Alice and her unseen motley crew had vanished. She seemed to have passed over the sparkling rim and dropped clean over its blue edge.