"No, I should hope not for many. Yet----"
"Boats" lives," she prompted, "are so uncertain."
"Yes, grandfather thinks----"
"Oh, if only he were here!" She paused to let Hugh notice that she had "were" and "was" in hand at last. Then:
"How long will that boat be?"
"Three hundred and thirty feet. She"ll have ten boilers. Her cylinders will be forty-three inches, her stroke eleven feet. She"ll carry eighty-five hundred bales of cotton."
"Goodness! How wide will she be?"
"In the beam fifty. Over all, at the wheelhouses, ninety. Her wheels will be forty-five feet in diameter and their buckets nineteen feet span. You still like figures, boats" figures, I hope?"
She still liked, for second choice, to make him, to herself, ridiculous; liked it even now while inwardly laughing and weeping at him for not coming to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on," she said, "I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?"
"Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen."
"What"ll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?"
"No, I"ve just been telling your father--here comes the _Antelope_. I was telling him that grandfather----"
An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drowned all words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfather was still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now was to know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to let Hugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined the Gilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain"s chair as to the light-draught _Antelope_ having come up through the chute of Island So-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor and gayety of the two boats" meeting and pa.s.sing. As the picture dissolved, Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey"s finger while asking Watson:
"Why don"t our men sing? _I_ want some more "Lindy!"
Had she not heard the signal for the lead? No, in the excitement she had not, though both Ramsey and "California" had, there being to them an unfailing poetry in the casting of the lead, whether by day or, as now, by the glare of a torch basket let down close to the water under the starboard freight guards. At one end of the breast-board the two ladies, at the other the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. The boat"s builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forward rail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up here except to experienced "poetic vision," sent up a long-drawn chant telling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flew forward from his skilled hand into the boat"s moonlight shadow, plunged to the river"s bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pine torch, stretched aft while he chanted, and was recovered in dripping coils and hove again.
"Mark under wa-ater, twai-ai-ain."
As the notes resounded Hugh looked up to the pilots and in his quietest speaking voice repeated:
"Mark under water, twain."
But our concern here is mainly with those for whom the scene, the calls, veiled two private conversations. Three or four times the one melodious cry, following as many casts, rose from below, and each time, with all its swing and melody left out, Hugh pa.s.sed it on up to the pilots.
Between the strains Gilmore said softly to "California":
"My dear fellow, no. Every time we show ourselves their partisans we make heavier hauling for them. They"d tell us so, only that--don"t you see?--they can"t even do that. It would be _infra dig._" But in fact Ramsey was just then telling something much like that to his wife.
"Yes," admitted the Californian, full of a new scheme, yet always generous, "and that was a ten-strike, your wife, after supper, taking Miss Hayle away from Hugh and Gideon in such gay style. Did you see how"t sort o" eased the old man"s mind?"
The leadsman"s cry changed and so came twice or thrice, Hugh as often repeating it to the pilots, while Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore, though hearkening, whispered busily.
"Shoaling," commented Mrs. Gilmore to Ramsey.
"Not seriously," said the river-wise Ramsey. "Go on. What did you get out of him at last?" She had a merry sparkle.
Once more the far-below cry rose to them and was restated by Hugh without color or thrill. Ramsey well knew that so it was always sung and spoken, yet she remarked:
"Hear that absurd difference--in those two voices."
"That"s the difference between him and other men, Ramsey; even between him and your father."
She liked that, though now she felt bitter toward him for not being more like ordinary mortals.
"Go on," she lightly repeated. "If he won"t make words happen with me I must take him second-hand."
"You naughty girl! He"ll tell you all you"ll let him."
"Oh, I"ll let him, all he"ll tell me. What did he say?"
"He said the very best was, that under all your mantle of new charms----"
Ramsey"s soft laugh interrupted. "He didn"t. He never said that, my lady. He wouldn"t know how. You said it."
"Well, he did say that under it all there"s nothing lost of the Ramsey we began with."
"The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead were pa.s.sing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet."
"The slanderer! Why, that"s actionable! I"ll have the law on him!" The speaker"s mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hugh sedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don"t get excited, captain. Keep cool."
Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he"s talked with your father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you"ll allow it."
"Humph! you don"t know that he"ll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on her trial trip, he"s got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don"t you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these eight years and more!--in spite of everybody"s silence."
"We didn"t. We don"t see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don"t believe Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?"
"Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers--may have broken promises but they--keep--their--threats. You know that"s the fashion of all this country, from Cairo down."
"Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain," chanted the leadsman for his final call, and not only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear, poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairo down. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over and the _Enchantress_ swept round for the chute.
In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat"s builder turned back toward the solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with "California." His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them.
"Your brothers," murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh"s life just the same before you came into the issue at all."
"Yes," said Ramsey, "and they"re watching their chance yet. Julian told me so this summer and Lucian berated him for "showing his hand." Oh, that isn"t the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as Hugh Courteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn"t I come in and it won"t; everything"s precipitated. And so, you see?...
"Hmm! Hugh Courteney won"t put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in a fight for his life, no matter who"s killed the killing would be in the family, and the killed would be ours, mom-a"s--and--and mine. The twins see that. Jule says it, and, what"s worse, Luce says nothing. That"s why _they_ are entirely satisfied with the deadlock.... Look."
The boat"s contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward the pilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him in meditation.
"I know what you"re thinking," said Ramsey. "But it"ll never happen.
They"ve settled down to the ordinary term of a decent life, thank G.o.d!... Here he comes. Think he"ll talk to me? Yes, he will. He"ll begin where he left off." She laughed. "He"s going to tell me the name of his next boat, if he ever builds another. Anything "conclusive" in that?"
Mrs. Gilmore was grave a moment longer and then brightly said: "There might be! There may be! I can see--I can see how he--" She could not finish. Hugh had entered.
His coming broke in upon another conversation, that of Gilmore and "California."