Under the Deck Awnings
"CAN any man--a gentleman, I mean--call a woman a pig?"The little man flung this challenge forth to the whole group,then leaned back in his deck chair, sipping lemonade with anair commingled of certitude and watchful belligerence. Nobodymade answer. They were used to the little man and his suddenpassions and high elevations."I repeat, it was in my presence that he said a certain lady,whom none of you knows, was a pig. He did not say swine. Hegrossly said that she was a pig. And I hold that no man who isa man could possibly make such a remark about any woman."Dr. Dawson puffed stolidly at his black pipe. Matthews, withknees hunched up and clasped by his arms, was absorbed in theflight of a gunie. Sweet, finishing his Scotch and soda, wasquesting about with his eyes for a deck steward."I ask you, Mr. Treloar, can any man call any woman a pig?"Treloar, who happened to be sitting next to him, was startledby the abruptness of the attack, and wondered what grounds hehad ever given the little man to believe that he could call awoman a pig."I should say," he began his hesitant answer, "thatit--er--depends on the--er--the lady."The little man was aghast."You mean . . .?" he quavered."That I have seen female humans who were as bad as pigs--andworse."There was a long pained silence. The little man seemed witheredby the coarse brutality of the reply. In his face wasunutterable hurt and woe."You have told of a man who made a not nice remark and you haveclassified him," Treloar said in cold, even tones. "I shall nowtell you about a woman--I beg your pardon--a lady, and when Ihave finished I shall ask you to classify her. Miss Caruthers Ishall call her, principally for the reason that it is not hername. It was on a P. & 0. boat, and it occurred neither morenor less than several years ago."Miss Caruthers was charming. No; that is not the word. She wasamazing. She was a young woman, and a lady. Her father was acertain high official whose name, if I mentioned it, would beimmediately recognized by all of you. She was with her motherand two maids at the time, going out to join the old gentlemanwherever you like to wish in the East."She, and pardon me for repeating, was amazing. It is the oneadequate word. Even the most minor adjectives applicable to herare bound to be sheer superlatives. There was nothing she couldnot do better than any woman and than most men. Sing,play--bah!--as some rhetorician once said of old Nap,competition fled from her. Swim! She could have made a fortuneand a name as a public performer. She was one of those rarewomen who can strip off all the frills of dress, and in simpleswimming suit be more satisfying beautiful. Dress! She was anartist."But her swimming. Physically, she was the perfect woman--youknow what I mean, not in the gross, muscular way of acrobats,but in all the delicacy of line and fragility of frame andtexture. And combined with this, strength. How she could do itwas the marvel. You know the wonder of a woman's arm--the forearm, I mean; the sweet fading away from rounded biceps and hintof muscle, down through small elbow and firm soft swell to thewrist, small, unthinkably small and round and strong. This washers. And yet, to see her swimming the sharp quick Englishoverhand stroke, and getting somewhere with it, too, was--well,I understand anatomy and athletics and such things, and yet itwas a mystery to me how she could do it."She could stay under water for two minutes. I have timed her.No man on board, except Dennitson, could capture as many coinsas she with a single dive. On the forward main-deck was a bigcanvas tank with six feet of sea-water. We used to toss smallcoins into it. I have seen her dive from the bridge deck--nomean feat in itself--into that six-feet of water, and fetch upno less than forty-seven coins, scattered willy-nilly over thewhole bottom of the tank. Dennitson, a quiet young Englishman,never exceeded her in this, though he made it a point always totie her score."She was a sea-woman, true. But she was a land-woman, ahorsewoman--a--she was the universal woman. To see her, allsoftness of soft dress, surrounded by half a dozen eager men,languidly careless of them all or flashing brightness and witon them and at them and through them, one would fancy she wasgood for nothing else in the world. At such moments I havecompelled myself to remember her score of forty-seven coinsfrom the bottom of the swimming tank. But that was she, theeverlasting, wonder of a woman who did all things well."She fascinated every betrousered human around her. She hadme--and I don't mind confessing it--she bad me to heel alongwith the rest. Young puppies and old gray dogs who ought tohave known better--oh, they all came up and crawled around herskirts and whined and fawned when she whistled. They were allguilty, from young Ardmore, a pink cherub of nineteen outwardbound for some clerkship in the Consular Service, to oldCaptain Bentley, grizzled and sea-worn, and as emotional, tolook at, as a Chinese joss. There was a nice middle-aged chap,Perkins, I believe, who forgot his wife was on board until MissCaruthers sent him to the right about and back where hebelonged."Men were wax in her hands. She melted them, or softly moldedthem, or incinerated them, as she pleased. There wasn't asteward, even, grand and remote as she was, who, at herbidding, would have hesitated to souse the Old Man himself witha plate of soup. You have all seen such women--a sort ofworld's desire to all men. As a man-conqueror she was supreme.She was a whip-lash, a sting and a flame, an electric spark.Oh, believe me, at times there were flashes of will thatscorched through her beauty and seduction and smote a victiminto blank and shivering idiocy and fear."And don't fail to mark, in the light of what is to come, thatshe was a prideful woman. Pride of race, pride of caste, prideof sex, pride of power--she had it all, a pride strange andwilful and terrible."She ran the ship, she ran the voyage, she ran everything, andshe ran Dennitson. That he had outdistanced the pack even theleast wise of us admitted. That she liked him, and that thisfeeling was growing, there was not a doubt. I am certain thatshe looked on him with kinder eyes than she had ever lookedwith on man before. We still worshiped, and were always hangingabout waiting to be whistled up, though we knew that Dennitsonwas laps and laps ahead of us. What might have happened weshall never know, for we came to Colombo and something elsehappened."You know Colombo, and how the native boys dive for coins inthe shark-infested bay. Of course, it is only among the groundsharks and fish sharks that they venture. It is almost uncannythe way they know sharks and can sense the presence of a realkiller--a tiger shark, for instance, or a gray nurse strayed upfrom Australian waters. Let such a shark appear, and, longbefore the passengers can guess, every mother's son of them isout of the water in a wild scramble for safety."It was after tiffin, and Miss Caruthers was holding her usualcourt under the deck-awnings. Old Captain Bentley had just beenwhistled up, and had granted her what he never granted before.. . nor since--permission for the boys to come up on thepromenade deck. You see, Miss Caruthers was a swimmer, and shewas interested. She took up a collection of all our smallchange, and herself tossed it overside, singly and in handfuls,arranging the terms of the contests, chiding a miss, givingextra rewards to clever wins, in short, managing the wholeexhibition."She was especially keen on their jumping. You know, jumpingfeet-first from a height, it is very difficult to hold the bodyperpendicularly while in the air. The center of gravity of themale body is high, and the tendency is to overtopple. But thelittle beggars employed a method which she declared was new toher and which she desired to learn. Leaping from the davits ofthe boat-deck above, they plunged downward, their faces andshoulders bowed forward, looking at the water. And only at thelast moment did they abruptly straighten up and enter the watererect and true."It was a pretty sight. Their diving was not so good, thoughthere was one of them who was excellent at it, as he was in allthe other stunts. Some white man must have taught him, for hemade the proper swan dive and did it as beautifully as I haveever seen it. You know, headfirst into the water, from a greatheight, the problem is to enter the water at the perfect angle.Miss the angle and it means at the least a twisted back andinjury for life. Also, it has meant death for many a bungler.But this boy could do it--seventy feet I know he cleared in onedive from the rigging--clenched hands on chest, head thrownback, sailing more like a bird, upward and out, and out anddown, body flat on the air so that if it struck the surface inthat position it would be split in half like a herring. But themoment before the water is reached, the head drops forward, thehands go out and lock the arms in an arch in advance of thehead, and the body curves gracefully downward and enters thewater just right."This the boy did, again and again, to the delight of all ofus, but particularly of Miss Caruthers. He could not have beena moment over twelve or thirteen, yet he was by far thecleverest of the gang. He was the favorite of his crowd, andits leader. Though there were a number older than he, theyacknowledged his chieftaincy. He was a beautiful boy, a litheyoung god in breathing bronze, eyes wide apart, intelligent anddaring, a bubble, a mote, a beautiful flash and sparkle oflife. You have seen. wonderful glorious creatures--animals,anything, a leopard, a horse-restless, eager, too much aliveever to be still, silken of muscle, each slightest movement abenediction of grace, every action wild, untrammeled, and overall spilling out that intense vitality, that sheen and lusterof living light. The boy had it. Life poured out of him almostin an effulgence. His skin glowed with it. It burned in hiseyes. I swear I could almost hear it crackle from him. Lookingat him, it was as if a whiff of ozone came to one'snostrils--so fresh and young was he, so resplendent withhealth, so wildly wild."This was the boy. And it was he who gave the alarm in themidst of the sport. The boys made a dash of it for the gangwayplatform, swimming the fastest strokes they knew, pellmell,floundering and splashing, fright in their faces, clamberingout with jumps and surges, any way to get out, lending oneanother a hand to safety, till all were strung along thegangway and peering down into the water."'What is the matter?' asked Miss Caruthers."'A shark, I fancy,' Captain Bentley answered. 'Lucky littlebeggars that he didn't get one of them.'"'Are they afraid of sharks?' she asked."'Aren't you?' he asked back.She shuddered, looked overside at the water, and made a moue."'Not for the world would I venture where a shark might be,'she said, and shuddered again. 'They are horrible! Horrible!'"The boys came up on the promenade deck, clustering close tothe rail and worshiping Miss Caruthers who had flung them sucha wealth of backsheesh. The performance being over, CaptainBentley motioned to them to clear out. But she stopped him."'One moment, please, Captain. I have always understood thatthe natives are not afraid of sharks.'"She beckoned the boy of the swan dive nearer to her, andsigned to him to dive over again. He shook his head, and alongwith all his crew behind him laughed as if it were a good joke."'Shark,' he volunteered, pointing to the water."'No,' she said. 'There is no shark.'"But he nodded his head positively, and the boys behind himnodded with equal positiveness."'No, no, no,' she cried. And then to us, 'Who'll lend me ahalf-crown and a sovereign!'"Immediately the half dozen of us were presenting her withcrowns and sovereigns, and she accepted the two coins fromyoung Ardmore."She held up the half-crown for the boys to see. But there wasno eager rush to the rail preparatory to leaping. They stoodthere grinning sheepishly. She offered the coin to each oneindividually, and each, as his turn came, rubbed his footagainst his calf, shook his head, and grinned. Then she tossedthe half-crown overboard. With wistful, regretful faces theywatched its silver flight through the air, but not one moved tofollow it."'Don't do it with the sovereign,' Dennitson said to her in alow voice."She took no notice, but held up the gold coin before the eyesof the boy of the swan dive."'Don't,' said Captain Bentley. 'I wouldn't throw a sick catoverside with a shark around.'"But she laughed, bent on her purpose, and continued to dazzlethe boy."'Don't tempt him,' Dennitson urged. 'It is a fortune to him,and he might go over after it.'"'Wouldn't YOU?' she flared at him. 'If I threw it?'This last more softly.Dennitson shook his head."'Your price is high,' she said. 'For how many sovereigns wouldyou go?'"'There are not enough coined to get me overside,' was hisanswer."She debated a moment, the boy forgotten in her tilt withDennitson."'For me?' she said very softly."'To save your life--yes. But not otherwise.'"She turned back to the boy. Again she held the coin before hiseyes, dazzling him with the vastness of its value. Then shemade as to toss it out, and, involuntarily, he made ahalf-movement toward the rail, but was checked by sharp criesof reproof from his companions. There was anger in their voicesas well."'I know it is only fooling,' Dennitson said. 'Carry it as faras you like, but for heaven's sake don't throw it.'"Whether it was that strange wilfulness of hers, or whether shedoubted the boy could be persuaded, there is no telling. It wasunexpected to all of us. Out from the shade of the awning thecoin flashed golden in the blaze of sunshine and fell towardthe sea in a glittering arch. Before a hand could stay him, theboy was over the rail and curving beautifully downward afterthe coin. Both were in the air at the same time. It was apretty sight. The sovereign cut the water sharply, and at thevery spot, almost at the same instant, with scarcely a splash,the boy entered."From the quicker-eyed black boys watching, came anexclamation. We were all at the railing. Don't tell me it isnecessary for a shark to turn on its back. That one did not. Inthe clear water, from the height we were above it, we saweverything. The shark was a big brute, and with one drive hecut the boy squarely in half."There was a murmur or something from among us--who made it Idid not know; it might have been I. And then there was silence.Miss Caruthers was the first to speak. Her face was deathlywhite."'I never dreamed,' she said, and laughed a short, hystericallaugh.All her pride was at work to give her control. She turnedweakly toward Dennitson, and then, on from one to another ofus. In her eyes was a terrible sickness, and her lips weretrembling. We were brutes--oh, I know it, now that I look backupon it. But we did nothing."'Mr. Dennitson,' she said, 'Tom, won't you take me below!'"He never changed the direction of his gaze, which was thebleakest I have ever seen in a man's face, nor did he move aneyelid. He took a cigarette from his case and lighted it.Captain Bentley made a nasty sound in his throat and spatoverboard. That was all; that and the silence."She turned away and started to walk firmly down the deck.Twenty feet away, she swayed and thrust a hand against the wallto save herself. And so she went on, supporting herself againstthe cabins and walking very slowly."Treloar ceased. He turned his head and favored the little manwith a look of cold inquiry."Well," he said finally. "Classify her."The little man gulped and swallowed."I have nothing to say," he said. "I have nothing whatever tosay."
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