The Blue Lagoon / Голубая лагуна. Генри де Вэр Стэкпул

uncle, received a kiss and went, led by the hand into a cabin on the port side[22] of the saloon.

      Mr Lestrange returned to his book, but he had not read for long when the cabin door was opened, and Emmeline, in her nightdress, reappeared, holding a brown paper parcel in her hand, a parcel of about the same size as the book you are reading.

      “My box,” said she; and as she spoke, the little plain face changed to the face of an angel.

      She had smiled. When Emmeline Lestrange smiled it was absolutely as if the light of Paradise had suddenly flashed upon her face. Then she vanished with her box, and Mr Lestrange renewed reading his book.

      This box of Emmeline’s, I may say, had given more trouble aboard ship than all of the rest of the passengers’ luggage put together.

      It had been presented to her on her departure from Boston by a lady friend, and what it contained was a dark secret to all on board, save its owner and her uncle; she was a woman, or, the beginning of a woman, yet she kept this secret to herself—a fact which you will please note.

      The trouble of the thing was that it was frequently lost. Seeing herself maybe living in a world filled with robbers, she would carry it about with her for safety, sit down behind a coil of rope[23] and fall into dreams—and then suddenly find she had lost her box.

      Then she would absolutely disturb the ship. Wide-eyed and distressed, she would wander hither and thither[24], peeping into the caboose, peeping down the deck, never saying a word, searching like a ghost, but silent.

      She seemed ashamed to tell of her loss, ashamed to let any one know of it; but every one knew of it directly when they saw her, and every one hunted for it.

      Strangely enough it was Paddy Button who usually found it. He who was always doing the wrong thing in the eyes of men, generally did the right thing in the eyes of children. Children, in fact, when they could get at Mr Button, went for him[25] con amore[26].

      Mr Lestrange after a while closed the book he was reading, looked around him and sighed.

      The cabin of the Northumberland was a cheerful enough place, decorated with mirrors let into the white pine panelling. Lestrange was staring at the reflection of his own face in one of these mirrors fixed just opposite to where he sat.

      His thinness was terrible, and it was just perhaps at this moment that he first recognised the fact that he must not only die, but die soon.

      He turned from the mirror and sat for a while with his chin resting upon his hand, and his eyes fixed on an ink spot[27]upon the table-cloth; then he arose, and crossing the cabin climbed up to the deck.

      As he leaned against the rail to recover his breath, the beauty of the Southern night struck him to the heart with a pain. He took his seat on a deck chair and gazed up at the Milky Way, that great triumphal arch built of suns that the dawn would sweep away like a dream.

      Then he became aware of a figure promenading the deck. It was the “Old Man.”

      A sea captain is always the “old man,” be his age what it may[28]. Captain Le Farges’ age might have been forty-five. He was a sailor of French origin, but a naturalised American.

      “I don’t know where the wind’s gone,” said the captain as he drew near the man in the deck chair. “I guess it’s blown a hole in the sky, and escaped somewhere to the back of beyond[29].”

      “It’s been a long voyage,” said Lestrange; “and I’m thinking, Captain, it will be a very long voyage for me. My port’s not ’Frisco; I feel it.”

      “Don’t you be thinking that sort of thing,” said the other, taking his seat in a chair close by. “Now we’re in warm latitoods[30], and you’ll be as right and spry[31] as any one of us, before we fetch the Golden Gates[32].”

      “I’m thinking about the children,” said Lestrange, seeming not to hear the captain’s words. “Should anything happen to me before we reach port, I should like you to do something for me. It’s only this: dispose of my body without—without the children knowing. It has been in my mind to ask you this for some days. Captain, those children know nothing of death.”

      Le Farge moved uneasily in his chair.

      “Little Emmeline’s mother died when she was two. Her father—my brother—died before she was born. Dicky never knew a mother; she died giving him birth. My God, Captain, death has laid a heavy hand on my family; can you wonder that I have hid his very name from those two creatures that I love![33]”

      “Ay, ay,” said Le Farge, “it’s sad! it’s sad!”

      “When I was quite a child,” went on Lestrange, “a child no older than Dicky, my nurse used to terrify me with tales about dead people. I was told I’d go to hell when I died if I wasn’t a good child. I cannot tell you how much that has ruined my life, for the thoughts we think in childhood, Captain, are the fathers of the thoughts we think when we are grown up. And can a sick father—have healthy children?”

      “I guess not.”

      “So I just said, when these two tiny creatures came into my care, that I would do all in my power to protect them from the terrors of life—or rather, I should say, from the terror of death. I don’t know whether I have done right, but I have done it for the best. They had a cat, and one day Dicky came in to me and said: ‘Father, pussy’s in the garden asleep, and I can’t wake her.’ So I just took him out for a walk; there was a circus in the town, and I took him to it. It so filled his mind that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he asked for her. I did not tell him she was buried in the garden, I just said she must have run away. In a week he had forgotten all about her—children soon forget.”

      “Ay, that’s true,” said the sea captain. “But I think they must learn some time they’ve got to die.”

      “Should I die before we reach land, and be thrown into that great, vast sea: just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship. You will take them back to Boston; I have here, in a letter, the name of a lady who will care for them. Dicky will be well off[34], as far as property is concerned, and so will Emmeline. Just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship—children soon forget.”

      “I’ll do what you ask,” said the seaman.

      The moon was over the horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift[35] in a river of silver.

      As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own thoughts, a little white figure appeared from the saloon hatch. It was Emmeline. She was a sleepwalker.

      She had dreamed that she had lost her precious box, and now she was hunting for it on the decks of the Northumberland.

      Mr Lestrange put his finger to his lips, took off his shoes and silently followed her. She searched behind a coil of rope, she tried to open the caboose door; hither and thither she wandered, wide-eyed and troubled of face, till at last, in the shadow of the hencoop, she found her treasure. Then back she came, holding up her little nightdress with one hand, and vanished down the saloon companion[36]very hurriedly; her uncle close behind, with one hand outstretched so as to catch her in case she stumbled.

      Chapter III

      The Shadow and the Fire

      It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been made on the stern for the passengers, and under

22

левый борт судна

23

усаживалась за сложенными канатами

24

туда-сюда

25

когда они добирались до мистера Баттона, их было от него не оторвать

26

с любовью (итал.)

27

чернильное пятно

28

какого бы возраста он ни был

29

бог знает куда

30

latitudes (искаж.)

31

и вы будете в полном порядке

32

Золотые Ворота – мост в Сан-Франциско.

33

неудивительно, что я скрываю само это слово от тех, кого люблю

34

Дики будет обеспеченным

35

плыла по течению

36

кают-компания