A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes [28]
But on hearing those splashes, Marpole's lively imagination had interpreted them in his own way. They suggested that there was now no reason to wait: indeed, every reason to be gone.
I think he was quite honestly misled.
It was after all but a small slip to say he had "seen with his own eyes" what he had heard with his own ears: and the intention was pious.
He set his men feverishly to work: and when Captain Jonsen looked his way again, the _Clorinda_, with every stitch spread in the starlight, was already half a mile to leeward.
To pursue her, right in the track of shipping, was out of the question. Jonsen had to content himself with staring after her through his nightglass.
IV
Captain Jonsen set the little monkeyfied sailor, who had been so mortified earlier in the evening, to clear the schooner's fore-hold. The warps and brooms and fenders it contained were all piled to one side, and a sufficiency of bedclothes for the guests was provided from the plunder.
But nothing could now thaw them. They clambered down the ladder and received their blanket apiece in an uncomfortable silence. Jonsen hung about, anxious to be helpful in this matter of getting into beds which were not there, but not knowing how to set about it. So he gave it up at last, and swung himself up through the fore-hatch, talking to himself.
The last they saw of him was his fantastic slippers, hanging each from a big toe, outlined against the stars: but it never entered their heads to laugh.
Once, however, the familiar comfort of a blanket under their chins had begun to have its effect, and they were obviously quite alone, a little life did begin to return into these dumb statues.
The darkness was profound, only accentuated by the starlit square of the open hatchway. First the long silence was broken by some one turning over, almost freely. Then presently:
LAURA (_in slow, sepulchral tones_). I don't like this bed.
RACHEL (_ditto_). I do.
LAURA. It's a horrid bed; there isn't any!
EMILY and JOHN. Sh! Go to sleep!
EDWARD. I smell cockroaches.
EMILY. Sh!
EDWARD (_loudly and hopefully_). They'll bite all our nails off, because we haven't washed, and our skin, and our hair, and--
LAURA. There's a cockroach in my bed! Get out!
(_You could hear the brute go zooming away. But Laura was already out too_.)
EMILY. Laura! Go back to bed!
LAURA. I can't when there's a cockroach in it!
JOHN. Get into bed again, you little fool! He's gone long ago!
LAURA. But I expect he has left his wife.
HARRY. They don't have wives, they're wives themselves.
RACHEL. Ow!--Laura, stop it!--Emily, Laura's walking on me!
EMILY. Lau-rer!
LAURA. Well, I must walk on something!
EMILY. Go to sleep!
(_Silence for a while_.)
LAURA. I haven't said my prayers.
EMILY. Well, say them lying down.
RACHEL. She mustn't, that's lazy.
JOHN. Shut up, Rachel, she must.
RACHEL. It's wicked! You go to sleep in the middle then. People who go to sleep in the middle ought to be damned, they ought--Oughtn't they? (_Silence_.) Oughtn't they? (_Still silence_.) Emily, I say, oughtn't they?
JOHN. NO!
RACHEL (_dreamily_). I think there's lots more people ought to be damned than are.
(_Silence again_.)
HARRY. Marghie.
(_Silence_.)
Marghie!
(_Silence_.)
JOHN. What's up with Marghie? Won't she speak?
(_A faint sob is heard_.)
HARRY. I don't know.
(_Another sob_.)
JOHN. Is she often like this?
HARRY. She's an awful ass sometimes.
JOHN. Marghie, what's up?
MARGARET (_miserably_). Let me alone!
RACHEL. I believe she's frightened! (_Chants tauntingly_) Marghie's got the bogies, the bogies, the bogies!
MARGARET (_sobbing out loud_). Oh you little fools!
JOHN. Well, what's the matter with you, then?
MARGARET (_after a pause_). I'm older than any of you.
HARRY. Well, _that's_ a funny reason to be frightened!
MARGARET. It isn't.
HARRY. It is!
MARGARET (_warming to the argument_). It isn't, I tell you!
HARRY. _It is!_
MARGARET (_smugly_).