The stony shores ran away right and left in straight lines, enclosing a sombre and rectangular pool. brick walls rose high above the water -- soulless walls, staring through hundreds of windows as troubled and dull as the eyes of over-fed brutes. At their base monstrous iron cranes crouched, with chains hanging from their long necks, balancing cruel-looking hooks over the decks of lifeless ships. A noise of wheels rolling over stones, the thump of heavy things falling, the racket of feverish winches, the grinding of strained chains, floated on the air. Between high buildings the dust of all the continents soared in short flights; and a penetrating smell of perfumes and dirt, of spices and hides, of things costly and of things filthy, pervaded the space, made for it an atmosphere precious and disgusting. The Narcissus came gently into her berth; the shadows of soulless walls fell upon her, the dust of all the continents Page 123leaped upon her deck, and a swarm of strange men, clambering up her sides, took possession of her in the name of the sordid earth. She had ceased to live.
A toff in a black coat and high hat scrambled with agility, came up to the second mate, shook hands, and said: -- ‘Hallo, Herbert.’ It was his brother. A lady appeared suddenly. A real lady, in a black dress and with a parasol. She looked extremely elegant in the midst of us, and as strange as if she had fallen there from the sky. Mr. Baker touched his cap to her. It was the master's wife. And very soon the Captain, dressed very smartly and in a white shirt, went with her over the side. We didn't recognise him at all till, turning on the quay, he called to Mr. Baker: -- ‘Remember to wind up the chronometers to-morrow morning.’ An underhand lot of seedy-looking chaps with shifty eyes wandered in and out of the forecastle looking for a job --they said -- ‘More likely for something to steal,’commented Knowles cheerfully. Poor beggars. Who cared? Weren't we home!
But Mr. Baker went for one of them who had given him some cheek, and we were delighted. Everything was delightful -- ‘I've finished aft, sir,’ called out Mr. Creighton. -- ‘No water in the well, sir,’ reported for the last time t he carpenter, sounding-rod in hand. Mr. Baker glanced along the decks at the expectant groups of men, glanced aloft at the yards. -- ‘Ough! That will do, men.’he grunted. The groups broke up. The voyage was ended.
Rolled-up beds went flying over the rail; lashed chests went sliding along the gangway -- mighty few of both at that. ‘The rest is having a cruise off the Cape,’ explained Knowles enigmatically to a dock-loafer with whom he had struck a sudden friendship. Men ran, calling to one another, hailing utter strangers to ‘lend a hand with the dunnage,’ then sudden decorum approached the mate to shake hands before going ashore. -- ‘Good-bye, sir,’they repeated in various tones. Mr. Baker grasped hard palms, grunted in a friendly manner at every one, his eyes twinkled. -- ‘Take care of your money, Knowles. Ough! Soon get a nice wife if you do.’The lame man was delighted. -- ‘Good-bye, sir,’ said Belfast with emotion, wringing the mate's hand, and looked up with swimming eyes. ‘I thought I would take 'im ashore with me,’he went on plaintively. Mr. Baker did not understand, but said Page 124kindly: -- ‘Take care of yourself, Craik,’ and the bereaved Belfast went over the rail mourning and alone.
Mr. Baker in the sudden peace of the ship moved about solitary and grunting, trying door handles peering into dark places, never done -- a model chief mate! No one waited for him ashore. Mother dead; father and two brothers, Yarmouth fishermen, drowned together on the Dogger Bank;sister married and unfriendly. Quite a lady. Married to the leading tailor of a little town, and its leading politician, who did not think his sailor brother-in-law quite respectable enough for him. Quite a lady, quite a lady, he thought, sitting down for a moment's rest on the quarter-hatch.
Time enough to go ashore and get a bite, and sup, and a bed somewhere.
He didn't like to part with the ship. No one to think about then. The darkness of a misty evening fell, cold and damp, upon the deserted deck; and Mr.
Baker sat smoking, thinking of all the successive ships to whom through many years he had given the best of a seaman's care. And never a command in sight. Not once! -- ‘I haven't somehow the cut of a skipper about me,’ he meditated placidly, while the shipkeeper (who had taken possession of the galley), a wizened old man with bleared eyes, cursed him, in whispers for ‘hanging about so.’ -- ‘Now Creighton,’ he pursued the unenvious train of thought. ‘quite a gentleman..... swell friends....will get on. Fine young fellow.....a little more experience.’ He got up and shook himself. ‘I'll be back first thing to-morrow morning for the hatches. Don't you let them touch anything before I come, shipkeeper,’ he called out. Then, at last, he also went ashore -- a model chief mate!
