A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes [61]
IV
When Emily returned to the fore-hold, her first act was one which greatly complicated life. As if there was not sea enough already outside the ship, she decreed that practically all the deck was sea also. The main-hatch was an island, of course; and there were others--chiefly natural excrescences of the same kind. But all the rest, all the open deck, could only be safely crossed in a boat, or swimming.
As to who was in a boat and who wasn't, Emily decided that herself. No one ever knew till she had been asked. But Laura, once she had got the main idea into her head, always swam, whether said to be in a boat or not--to be on the safe side.
"_Isn't_ she silly?" said Edward once, when she refused to stop working her arms although they had all told her she was safe on board.
"I expect we were all as silly as that when we were young," said Harry.
It was a source of consternation to the children that none of the grown-ups would recognize this "sea." The sailors trod carelessly on the deepest oceans, refusing so much as to paddle with their hands. But it was equally irritating to the sailors when the children, either safe on an island or bearing down in a vessel of their own, would scream at them in a tone of complete conviction:
"You're drowning! You're drowning! O-o-oh, look out! You're out of your depth there! The sharks'll eat you!"
"O-oh look! Miguel's sinking! The waves are right over his head!"
That happens to be the one sort of joke sailors can't enjoy. Even though the words were unintelligible, their gist--eked out by the slightly malicious hints of the mate-- was not. If they steadily refused to swim, they at least took to crossing themselves fervently and continuously whenever they had to traverse a piece of open deck. For there was no way one could be certain that these brats were not gifted with second sight--_hijos de puntas!_
What the children were really doing, of course, was trying out what it would feel like when they themselves were all grown pirates, running a joint venture or each with a craft of his own: and though they never so much as mentioned piracy in the course of these public navigations, they talked their heads off about it at night now.
Margaret also refused to swim: but they knew by now it was no good trying to make her: no good yelling at her she was drowning, for all she did at that word was to sit down and cry. So it became a recognized convention that Margaret, wherever she went or whatever she was doing, was on a raft, with a keg of biscuit and a barrel of water, by herself--and could be ignored.
For, since her return, she had become very dull company. That one game of Consequences had been a flash in the pan. For several days after it she had remained in bed, hardly speaking, and inclined to tear strips off her blanket when she was asleep: and even when she was about again, though perfectly amiable--more amiable than bef ore-- she refused to join in any game whatever. She seemed happy: but for any imaginative purpose she was useless.
Moreover, she made no attempt to regain the sovereignty to which Emily had succeeded. She never ordered any one about. There was not even any fun to be got out of baiting her: nothing seemed to ruffle her temper. She was sometimes treated with a good-humored contempt, sometimes ignored altogether: and it was enough for _her_ to say something for it to be automatically voted silly.
Rachel also, for several days after her service, showed no disposition to join with the others. She preferred to sit about below, sulking, in the hold. From time to time she attempted to pick a hole, with a copper nail she had got hold of, in the bottom of the ship, and so sink it. It was Laura who discovered her purpose, and came hot-foot to Emily with the news. Laura never doubted, any more than Rachel did, that the task was a possible one.
Emily came below