Chapter XV--A Discourse on Manners

by Jack London

　　The days passed, and Tudor seemed loath to leave the hospitality ofBerande. Everything was ready for the start, but he lingered on,spending much time in Joan's company and thereby increasing thedislike Sheldon had taken to him. He went swimming with her, inpoint of rashness exceeding her; and dynamited fish with her,diving among the hungry ground-sharks and contesting with them forpossession of the stunned prey, until he earned the approval of thewhole Tahitian crew. Arahu challenged him to tear a fish from ashark's jaws, leaving half to the shark and bringing the other halfhimself to the surface; and Tudor performed the feat, a flip fromthe sandpaper hide of the astonished shark scraping several inchesof skin from his shoulder. And Joan was delighted, while Sheldon,looking on, realized that here was the hero of her adventure-dreamscoming true. She did not care for love, but he felt that if evershe did love it would be that sort of a man--"a man who exhibited,"was his way of putting it.

　　He felt himself handicapped in the presence of Tudor, who had thegift of making a show of all his qualities. Sheldon knew himselffor a brave man, wherefore he made no advertisement of the fact.He knew that just as readily as the other would he dive amongground-sharks to save a life, but in that fact he could find nosanction for the foolhardy act of diving among sharks for the halfof a fish. The difference between them was that he kept thecurtain of his shop window down. Life pulsed steadily and deep inhim, and it was not his nature needlessly to agitate the surface sothat the world could see the splash he was making. And the effectof the other's amazing exhibitions was to make him retreat moredeeply within himself and wrap himself more thickly than ever inthe nerveless, stoical calm of his race.

　　"You are so stupid the last few days," Joan complained to him."One would think you were sick, or bilious, or something. Youdon't seem to have an idea in your head above black labour andcocoanuts. What is the matter?"

　　Sheldon smiled and beat a further retreat within himself, listeningthe while to Joan and Tudor propounding the theory of the strongarm by which the white man ordered life among the lesser breeds.As he listened Sheldon realized, as by revelation, that that wasprecisely what he was doing. While they philosophized about it hewas living it, placing the strong hand of his race firmly on theshoulders of the lesser breeds that laboured on Berande or menacedit from afar. But why talk about it? he asked himself. It wassufficient to do it and be done with it.

　　He said as much, dryly and quietly, and found himself involved in adiscussion, with Joan and Tudor siding against him, in which a moreastounding charge than ever he had dreamed of was made against thevery English control and reserve of which he was secretly proud.

　　"The Yankees talk a lot about what they do and have done," Tudorsaid, "and are looked down upon by the English as braggarts. Butthe Yankee is only a child. He does not know effectually how tobrag. He talks about it, you see. But the Englishman goes him onebetter by not talking about it. The Englishman's proverbial lackof bragging is a subtler form of brag after all. It is reallyclever, as you will agree."

　　"I never thought of it before," Joan cried. "Of course. AnEnglishman performs some terrifically heroic exploit, and is verymodest and reserved--refuses to talk about it at all--and theeffect is that by his silence he as much as says, 'I do things likethis every day. It is as easy as rolling off a log. You ought tosee the really heroic things I could do if they ever came my way.But this little thing, this little episode--really, don't you know,I fail to see anything in it remarkable or unusual.' As for me, ifI went up in a powder explosion, or saved a hundred lives, I'd wantall my friends to hear about it, and their friends as well. I'd beprouder than Lucifer over the affair. Confess, Mr. Sheldon, don'tyou feel proud down inside when you've done something daring orcourageous?"

　　Sheldon nodded.

　　"Then," she pressed home the point, "isn't disguising that prideunder a mask of careless indifference equivalent to telling a lie?"

　　"Yes, it is," he admitted. "But we tell similar lies every day.It is a matter of training, and the English are better trained,that is all. Your countrymen will be trained as well in time. AsMr. Tudor said, the Yankees are young."

　　"Thank goodness we haven't begun to tell such lies yet!" was Joan'sejaculation.

　　"Oh, but you have," Sheldon said quickly. "You were telling me alie of that order only the other day. You remember when you weregoing up the lantern-halyards hand over hand? Your face was thepersonification of duplicity."

　　"It was no such thing."

　　"Pardon me a moment," he went on. "Your face was as calm andpeaceful as though you were reclining in a steamer-chair. To lookat your face one would have inferred that carrying the weight ofyour body up a rope hand over hand was a very commonplaceaccomplishment--as easy as rolling off a log. And you needn't tellme, Miss Lackland, that you didn't make faces the first time youtried to climb a rope. But, like any circus athlete, you trainedyourself out of the face-making period. You trained your face tohide your feelings, to hide the exhausting effort your muscles weremaking. It was, to quote Mr. Tudor, a subtler exhibition ofphysical prowess. And that is all our English reserve is--a merematter of training. Certainly we are proud inside of the things wedo and have done, proud as Lucifer--yes, and prouder. But we havegrown up, and no longer talk about such things."

　　"I surrender," Joan cried. "You are not so stupid after all."

　　"Yes, you have us there," Tudor admitted. "But you wouldn't havehad us if you hadn't broken your training rules."

　　"How do you mean?"

　　"By talking about it."

　　Joan clapped her hands in approval. Tudor lighted a freshcigarette, while Sheldon sat on, imperturbably silent.

　　"He got you there," Joan challenged. "Why don't you crush him?"

　　"Really, I can't think of anything to say," Sheldon said. "I knowmy position is sound, and that is satisfactory enough."

　　"You might retort," she suggested, "that when an adult is withkindergarten children he must descend to kindergarten idioms inorder to make himself intelligible. That was why you broketraining rules. It was the only way to make us childrenunderstand."

　　"You've deserted in the heat of the battle, Miss Lackland, and goneover to the enemy," Tudor said plaintively.

　　But she was not listening. Instead, she was looking intentlyacross the compound and out to sea. They followed her gaze, andsaw a green light and the loom of a vessel's sails.

　　"I wonder if it's the Martha come back," Tudor hazarded.

　　"No, the sidelight is too low," Joan answered. "Besides, they'vegot the sweeps out. Don't you hear them? They wouldn't besweeping a big vessel like the Martha."

　　"Besides, the Martha has a gasoline engine--twenty-five horse-power," Tudor added.

　　"Just the sort of a craft for us," Joan said wistfully to Sheldon."I really must see if I can't get a schooner with an engine. Imight get a second-hand engine put in."

　　"That would mean the additional expense of an engineer's wages," heobjected.

　　"But it would pay for itself by quicker passages," she argued; "andit would be as good as insurance. I know. I've knocked aboutamongst reefs myself. Besides, if you weren't so mediaeval, Icould be skipper and save more than the engineer's wages."

　　He did not reply to her thrust, and she glanced at him. He waslooking out over the water, and in the lantern light she noted thelines of his face--strong, stern, dogged, the mouth almost chastebut firmer and thinner-lipped than Tudor's. For the first time sherealized the quality of his strength, the calm and quiet of it, itssimple integrity and reposeful determination. She glanced quicklyat Tudor on the other side of her. It was a handsomer face, onethat was more immediately pleasing. But she did not like themouth. It was made for kissing, and she abhorred kisses. This wasnot a deliberately achieved concept; it came to her in the form ofa faint and vaguely intangible repulsion. For the moment she knewa fleeting doubt of the man. Perhaps Sheldon was right in hisjudgment of the other. She did not know, and it concerned herlittle; for boats, and the sea, and the things and happenings ofthe sea were of far more vital interest to her than men, and thenext moment she was staring through the warm tropic darkness at theloom of the sails and the steady green of the moving sidelight, andlistening eagerly to the click of the sweeps in the rowlocks. Inher mind's eye she could see the straining naked forms of black menbending rhythmically to the work, and somewhere on that strangedeck she knew was the inevitable master-man, conning the vessel into its anchorage, peering at the dim tree-line of the shore,judging the deceitful night-distances, feeling on his cheek thefirst fans of the land breeze that was even then beginning to blow,weighing, thinking, measuring, gauging the score or more of ever-shifting forces, through which, by which, and in spite of which hedirected the steady equilibrium of his course. She knew it becauseshe loved it, and she was alive to it as only a sailor could be.

　　Twice she heard the splash of the lead, and listened intently forthe cry that followed. Once a man's voice spoke, low, imperative,issuing an order, and she thrilled with the delight of it. It wasonly a direction to the man at the wheel to port his helm. Shewatched the slight altering of the course, and knew that it was forthe purpose of enabling the flat-hauled sails to catch those firstfans of the land breeze, and she waited for the same low voice toutter the one word "Steady!" And again she thrilled when it didutter it. Once more the lead splashed, and "Eleven fadom" was theresulting cry. "Let go!" the low voice came to her through thedarkness, followed by the surging rumble of the anchor-chain. Theclicking of the sheaves in the blocks as the sails ran down, head-sails first, was music to her; and she detected on the instant thejamming of a jib-downhaul, and almost saw the impatient jerk withwhich the sailor must have cleared it. Nor did she take interestin the two men beside her till both lights, red and green, cameinto view as the anchor checked the onward way.

　　Sheldon was wondering as to the identity of the craft, while Tudorpersisted in believing it might be the Martha.

　　"It's the Minerva," Joan said decidedly.

　　"How do you know?" Sheldon asked, sceptical of her certitude.

　　"It's a ketch to begin with. And besides, I could tell anywherethe rattle of her main peak-blocks--they're too large for thehalyard."

　　A dark figure crossed the compound diagonally from the beach gate,where whoever it was had been watching the vessel.

　　"Is that you, Utami?" Joan called.

　　"No, Missie; me Matapuu," was the answer.

　　"What vessel is it?"

　　"Me t'ink Minerva."

　　Joan looked triumphantly at Sheldon, who bowed.

　　"If Matapuu says so it must be so," he murmured.

　　"But when Joan Lackland says so, you doubt," she cried, "just asyou doubt her ability as a skipper. But never mind, you'll besorry some day for all your unkindness. There's the boat loweringnow, and in five minutes we'll be shaking hands with ChristianYoung."

　　Lalaperu brought out the glasses and cigarettes and the eternalwhisky and soda, and before the five minutes were past the gateclicked and Christian Young, tawny and golden, gentle of voice andlook and hand, came up the bungalow steps and joined them.