"I"ve yet to see her face," said Hugh abstractedly.
"That"s so, too! When she heard you coming back that time, she ran like a kildee." The narrator checked a laugh. "How"s mom-a? Oh, she"s well or you"d have told me. I just can"t imagine mom-a any way but well." But again the tone betrayed incert.i.tude.
"Yes, she"s well," said the youth. "So is my father."
"Where is he?"
Hugh"s queer solemnity deepened. "He"s down in a stateroom with your brothers. The senator and the general have just joined them."
What a freshet of grave information! Ramsey laughed straight at him.
"You talk like a trance medium."
"Not at all."
"You do! I heard one once. You"re in a trance now."
"Not at all."
"You are! Y"always are." When Hugh laughed, her laugh redoubled. The mate and the players, though busy talking, took time to smile; the mate winked an eye. Suddenly Ramsey sobered. "Is Basile in hot water again?
Tell me quick."
"Tell me first," said Hugh, "why his two brothers----"
"Are so wild? Because pop-a won"t allow mom-a to hold them in. Pop-a says: "Oh, let "em sow their wild oats early, like me; so deep they"ll never come up." Oh, my! they"re up now."
"I wasn"t going to ask that."
"Well, I can"t tell if you don"t ask."
"Why do they keep themselves so apart from you?"
"Me? Oh, they just can"t stand me!--nor even mom-a."
"That"s bad, for all of us."
"All of--who? Oh!... Humph!... Oh, but it"s worse for Basile! He goes with them till he"s sick of "em, then tries mom-a and me till he"s just as sick of--of me--and himself--and then strays off to whoever he can pick up with!"
"This time," said Hugh, "he"s been picked up."
"Oh, _now_ what"s happened?"
"He sickened of those boys and girls he was selling tickets with and to drown yesterday"s recollections he took a hand at cards with two strangers."
Ramsey caught her breath but then laughed joyously. "He couldn"t! He had no money!"
"Except from his sale of tickets."
"Oh!" Her tears started. "Oh, where was mammy Joy?"
"Nursing the sick."
"The new--?" She barely escaped breaking her word. "Oh," she moaned, "he didn"t use _that_ money?"
"He lost it. He was wild to play on and recover it, and his brothers were as eager to have him do it."
"Why, _they_ couldn"t help him. They tried, yesterday, to borrow from mom-a.... Wait." The last word came softly. The Gilmores and the mate drew near to see the _Antelope_ overtaken. There she loomed, out on the starboard bow, shrouded in the swirling rain. How unlike the earlier pa.s.sing, down below Natchez! No touching of guards, no hail by sign or sound. "Like ladies under two umbrell"s!" laughed Ramsey to the actor"s wife.
Now squarely abreast, stem and stem, wheel and wheel, the two crafts seemed to stand motionless with the tempest rushing aft between them.
Then fathom after fathom the _Antelope_ fell behind, the mate and the Gilmores moved away, Ramsey softly bade Hugh "go on," and his first utterance drew her liveliest look.
"There"s another thing makes your brothers wild," he said, "which they"re not to blame for."
"What"s that?"
"Our starving plantation life," said Hugh, speaking low.
"Why, they call it the only life for a gentleman!"
"That"s because they"re so starved, so marooned."
"It"s so tasteless without high seasoning, Basile says," said Ramsey.
She meditated. "Basile loves to eat."
Said Hugh, "It"s a life I don"t want you to live," and for an age of seconds they looked into each other"s eyes.
Then Ramsey--not drooping a lash--"I love the river."
"For keeps?"
She nodded, and still they looked. At length said Hugh:
"I tried hard to make friends with the twins, but----"
"They wouldn"t. I know. Mr. Watson told Mrs. Gilmore."
"Yet a while ago, on the strength of it, they sent for me, to ask me to ask my father to indorse their note."
Ramsey gasped: "You declined, of course?"
"Yes, but I told those other two pa.s.sengers if they cast another card with any of your brothers they"d go ash.o.r.e, themselves, as quick as the boat could land."
Ramsey turned and gazed out on the subsiding storm. "Why are the senator and the general down there?"
"For quite another matter."
"Weapons. I know. Mr. Watson told Mrs. Gilmore. I thought that was settled."
"It is."