University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Mat Sutcliffe went home soon after Virginia's
departure and asked Mary to pinch him, for he wanted
to be sure he wasn't in a dream. If he was awake
he would go to bed, if not, he might as well stay up,
and take it out a-dreaming, though he couldn't say
that he found the nightmare refreshing. Mary
pinched him till he roared.

“Look here, Moll,” he said, “I found this handkerchief
squeezed in his waistband; the name
marked on it is Sebastian Ford. That's the man's
name. I'll bet you, he never put the handkerchief
where I found it.”

“Who did then?”

“Never you mind, old woman.”

Argus was alone at his post. He had stretched
himself on the floor, and lay as silent and motionless
as the figure upon the cot near him. A sigh diverted
his attention from the ceiling, and he raised himself
on his elbow to find that he was observed by
a pair of eyes with speculation in them.

“Well,” said Argus, “have you made up your
mind to live? You couldn't be drowned now, if you
tried, you know”

“Was it you, who did this?” a faint voice
asked.

Argus nodded.

“What a debt I have incurred!”

“I think so,” Argus replied absently, his thoughts
reverting to the last scene on the White Flat.

“How did you find me?” asked the voice, this
time in a sharper accent, with a vague horror coming
into the dark eyes.

“Alone,” answered Argus promptly.

“No vestige of the ship near me?”

“None whatever.”

“That is a lie, I think.”

“You must have more brandy, for you mustn't
think.” And Argus compelled him to swallow
several spoonfuls.

“Sir,” asked the voice once more. “Was there
anything by my person—clinging to me—round my
neck—I entreat you to tell me.”

“Nothing.”

“By God there was something—it strangles me
now—she,—you ”—

“Don't accuse me of inhospitality,” said Argus,
feeling strongly drawn towards the agitated young
man. “The collar of my shirt which you have on
would not do so unhandsome a thing as to choke
you.”

“Have the goodness to sit beside me, sir. My
name is Sebastian Ford. I am as naked as Adam
was, I suppose”

“I am Argus Gates, your friend, if you say so.
Some one, Mat Sutcliffe, shared with me in restoring
to you the gift of life. I hope you will make something

out of it. I have taken a fancy to you; it is
natural under the circumstances you know. Don't
do the other natural thing, though,—turn round
and give me a kick, as soon as there is power in
your foot.”

“Warm the viper, and see,” Sebastian answered
with a smile which changed his weary face into
beauty.

Argus struck his breast in astonishment at the
thrill which passed through it; a new light passed
over his cold, sarcastic face, and Sebastian felt it.
Destiny was kind to him in a measure he could not
yet comprehend; he was on the threshold of an unknown
world; to save himself from the past he
must enter it. He held out his hand to Argus, with
a mournful, affectionate glance; Argus took it.

“Argus,” he said presently, “look out, I am going
to faint.”

Roxalana was called, he remained in a dead faint
so long, one fit succeeding another, that it was afternoon
before he rallied. Argus sent Roxalana away;
he was in no mood to have her beside him, and only
allowed her to come to the door for his orders.
Messages from people in the town were left during
the day which he would not hear. Tempe came to
him once with Mr. Drake's offer of help. Sebastian
caught a glimpse of her.

“What made me imagine no woman was here?”
he asked, “though last night a crowd of them
seemed to be flitting round me.”

“There are two widows living under my roof,”

Argus replied curtly; “one is my niece, the other
my sister-in-law.”

“Ah.”

“Do you think you can sit up?”

“Yes, if you will be good enough to send for the
other Savior; I want to see him.”

Argus propped him up with pillows, and sent for
Mat, who came from home immediately. Though
his eyes were bloodshot, his hair ragged and saltlooking,
still Sebastian recognized a certain likeness
to Argus in him, or imitation perhaps. Neither of
them were the sort of men he had been familiar
with; they were not polished and conventional, nor
did they appear like easy desperadoes. He could
not rate them.

“Mat,” said Argus sharply, “you look like a jail
bird. Hasn't Mary any comb? A three-legged stool
I know she uses sometimes.”

Mat made no answer, but gazed intently at nothing.

“Come here, please,” said Sebastian, in a weak
voice. Mat stepped forward, on his toes, and Sebastian
offered his hand.

“Thanks,” he said.

The color streaked over Mat's cheek and forehead.

“'Twas nothing,” he answered; “I am used to
paddling a boat in rough weather. You are round
again, hey?”

“I am aware what a thing it is to be saved by
such men. Of the mere facts I know but little,” said
Sebastian, looking at Mat earnestly.

“The Captian here fetched you off the bar while

I was manning the boat. Blarst me, if 'taint a
question, since you went to so much trouble to get
on it, and being on it with all your sensibility drove
out, whether you ought not to have been left there.
When a man is so far gone out of his misery, what's
the use of tormenting him with breath again?”

“How do you account for finding me alone?”
Sebastian asked abruptly. He made a wild involuntary
gesture with his head, and the horror came
into his eyes again.

Mat hesitated, and there was a dead silence in the
room. Sebastian fell back on the pillows, and
closed his eyes. Argus exchanged a glance with
Mat, and shook his head. In a moment Sebastian
started up as if listening.

“Sebastian!” he called, in the imploring, dying
voice of a woman; “your lips are consecrated, and I
lose them forever.”

Mat felt strangely heart-sick, but seeing that Sebastian
did not seem aware that he was speaking, he
began in a loud voice:

“When the book is written which will contain the
freaks of what I call the she-part of nature, the Sea,
—you will be able to account for our finding you as
we did. Moreover, sir, the White Flat is mostly a
quicksand; it sucks down all that goes on't. Also,
sir, the wind changed after your craft bilged, and the
crew were washed off the deep water side. If ever
they round the bar for harbor, there will be skeletons
in port.”

Mat did not add that seven of the crew had already
been picked up, and buried that afternoon.

“Take a cigar, Mat,” said Argus suddenly.

“Aye, sir.”

As Mat approached for a light, he felt rewarded
for his deceit when he met Argus's eyes,—no longer,
cold and hard, but vivid and sympathetic. He discovered
then that Argus was thoroughly drunk.

“Capen, I'll take my turn to watch this ere invalid;
you are about up to your notch. How much
have you had, a quart?”

Argus smiled, and held up two fingers.

“Falling off, somewhere,” continued Mat. “I've
known you to hold up three, and a quart was a quart
in them days.”

As silently as before, Argus directed his attention
to Sebastian, who had opened his melancholy eyes.

“Why won't Argus go?” he said. “Stay by me,
and perhaps he may be persuaded to rest.”

“He calls him Argus,” said Mat to himself. “It
will be pretty thick with these two.”

“Be off,” said Argus presently, now holding up
three fingers, “and come back hereafter.”

Mat, saying he had a little business outside, one
that wasn't necessary to the gentlemen present, retired
as far as the other side of the green room door,
sat down on the floor, keeping his hat on, and patiently
embracing his knees.

To be drunk with Argus, meant a revivification of
his faculties, usually in a state of neglect or suspension.
To say that one occasionally puts the noble

and generous enemy, wine, into the mouth, means
more philosophically than it does morally. At present
anything that would go to fill up the cup of sensation
Argus would have drained, and added to the
fine life of the moment; he was determined to attain
a certain desirable condition, when a medicine of
oblivion interposes between the vital present and
one's past and future.

Sebastian, aware of the physical strain he had
gone through, was amazed at his increasing brightness,
and deep refreshment.

“How do you do it, Argus?” he exclaimed.

“I don't do it. Do you suppose there will be
such a storm again?”

“You are a strange man.”

“Because I observe you through a number of
glasses? It is my telescopic way. I am a marine,
you know—one of the shelved monsters of the deep.
Have you a fancy to start a museum?”

“Yes,—and begin with that curiosity between
men—our friendship.”

“I said, `your friend.' I am not inclined to
twist my mouth with repeating a phrase I have not
used for forty-one years.”

“Heavens! how old are you?”

“Forty-one.”

Sebastian pulled his moustache with the air of
solving a problem, and Argus walked up and down
the room as if there was no problem left him to
solve. Each observed the other furtively, and both
felt a sentiment new to them.

“I have provoked Nature into a conspiracy,” said
Argus at length. “I experience something akin to
the Ideal. I have refused to learn it from ordinary
circumstances,—she has thrown you towards me.”

“And I,” replied Sebastian, “find something in
the Real, which I have struggled against. I'll try a
few steps on the floor, too.”

He slipped from the cot, and stood dizzy and reeling.

“Steady,” said Argus, approaching him; “you
still have on your sea legs.”

Sebastian flung his arms round the neck of Argus,
and kissed his cheek. Argus strained Sebastian to
his breast, and while they were in this attitude, Mat
softly entered in a pair of canvass slippers.

“Blarsted,” he said, almost aloud, “if I haven't
eaten something that's hurt me. I see double—
specks in my eyes—appears to me as if a play was
going on—twenty-five years are supposed to elapse
in the Isle of France, and home comes that ere long
lost vagabond. Raly, they might be brothers now—
in the dark.”

He sat down on the edge of a chair, moved in
spite of the contempt he tried to show, and said in
a gruff voice:

“Past midnight, gentlemen; time for old folks to
be in bed.”

“Get a light then,” said Argus, “and show me
the way to bed.”

“Mrs. Gates would be glad to know,” continued
Mat, cautiously pulling a blanket over Sebastian as

he dropped on the cot again, “just how comfortable
the person is.”

Sebastian laughed.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Like a fine young fellow,” replied Mat, warming
into sudden enthusiasm.

“Get a light then,” repeated Argus, “and show
me the way to that bed you spoke of. I don't know
where it is.”

Mat hurried after a candle, and they started for
the stairs.

“I hope,” said Argus politely, “that you will allow
me to retire in my clothes. I prefer to do so.”

“All right,” answered Mat, “only be sure to undress
in the morning.”

Argus stretched himself on the bed, and closed
his eyes.

“Stop!” he called, as Mat was about to go out,
“What do you think of him?”

“There's a pair of you.”

“A pair! His face paired?”

“I aint a judge of beauty, Capen. What makes
his eyebrows meet? He has got a long, green face.
His eyes are too near together.”

“Is he handsome?”

Argus sat up to make the pillow up to throw at
Mat, in case his reply did not suit him.

“I say, yes: dead and alive, I never looked upon
a handsomer boy.”

“Now go watch him.”