A High Wind in Jamaica

Chp. 9

  They were all frightened, the sailors even more than the children, and hastened on board.

  In the small hours, Edward suddenly called Emily in his sleep. She woke up: “What is it?”

  “It’s rather cow-catching, isn’t it?” he asked anxiously, his eyes tight shut.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He did not answer, so she roused him—or thought she had.

  “I only wanted to see if you were a real Cow-catching Zomfanelia,” he explained in a kind voice: and was immediately deep asleep again.

  In the morning they might easily have thought the whole thing a dream—if John’s bed had not been so puzzlingly empty.

  Yet, as if by some mute flash of understanding, no one commented on his absence. No one questioned Margaret, and she offered no information. Neither then nor thereafter was his name ever mentioned by anybody: and if you had known the children intimately you would never have guessed from them that he had ever existed.

  III

  The children’s only enemy on board the schooner (which presently put to sea again, with them still on board) was the big white pig. (There was a little black fellow, too.)

  He was a pig with no decision of mind. He could never choose a place to lie for himself; but was so ready to follow any one else’s opinion, that whatever position you took up he immediately recognized as the best, the only site: and came and routed you out of it. Seeing how rare shady patches of deck are in a calm, or dry patches in a stiff breeze, this was a most infernal nuisance. One is so defenseless against big pigs when lying on one’s back.

  The little black one could be a nuisance also, it is true—but that was only from excess of friendliness. He hated to be left out of any party: nay more, he hated lying on inanimate matter if a living couch was to be found.

  On the north beach of Cape San Antonio it is possible to land a boat, if you pick your spot. About fifty yards through the bushes there are a couple of acres of open ground: cross this, and among some sharp coral rocks in the scrub on the far side are two wells, the northernmost the better of the two.

  So, being becalmed off the Mangrove Keys one morning, Jonsen sent a boat on shore to get water.

  The heat was extreme. The ropes hung like dead snakes, the sails as heavy as ill-sculptured drapery. The iron stanchion of the awning blistered any hand that touched it. Where the deck was unsheltered, the pitch boiled out of the seams. The children lay gasping together in the small shade, the little black pig squealing anxiously till he found a comfortable stomach to settle down on.

  The big white pig had not found them yet.

  From the silent shore came an occasional gunshot. The water-party were potting pigeons. The sea was like a smooth pampas of quicksilver: so steady you could not split shore from reflection, till the casual collision of a pelican broke the phantom. The crew were mending sails, under the awning, with infinite slowness: all except one negro, who straddled the bowsprit in his trousers, admiring his own grin in the mirror beneath. The sun lit an iridescent glimmer on his shoulders: in such a light even a negro could not be black.

  Emily was missing John badly: but the little black pig snuffled in supreme content, his snout buried amicably in her armpit.

  When the boatload returned, they had other game besides pigeons and gray land-crabs. They had stolen a goat from some lonely fisherman.

  It was just as they came up over the side that the big white pig discovered the party under the awning, and prepared for the attack. But the goat at that moment bounded nimbly from the bulwarks: and without even stopping to look round, swallowed his chin and charged. He caught the old pig full in the ribs, knocking his wind out completely.