The Blue Lagoon / Голубая лагуна. Генри де Вэр Стэкпул

did what he was told joyfully.

      Paddy tried on the tall hat, and the children laughed. On her old friend’s head the thing didn’t have terror for Emmeline.

      She had two methods of laughing. The angelic smile—a rare thing—and, almost as rare, a laugh in which she showed her little white teeth, whilst she pressed her hands together.

      Paddy put the hat on one side, and continued the sorting, searching all the pockets of the clothes and finding nothing. When he had arranged what to keep, they tossed the rest overboard, and the valuables were taken to the captain’s cabin, there to remain till wanted.

      Then the idea that food might be useful as well as old clothes in their present condition struck the mind[96] of Mr Button, and he began to search, though couldn’t find anything else.

      Still, the provisions and water brought on board from the dinghy would be sufficient to last them some ten days or so, and in the course of ten days a lot of things might happen.

      Mr Button leaned over the side. The dinghy was nestling beside the brig like a duckling beside a duck. Having made all secure, he climbed slowly up to the top, and looked round upon the sea.

      Chapter VIII

      Shadows in the Moonlight

      “Daddy’s a long time coming,” said Dick all of a sudden.

      They were seated on the deck of the brig. The sun was setting in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to tremble.

      “Ay, is he,” said Mr Button; “but it’s better late than never. Now don’t be thinkin’ of him, for that won’t bring him. Look at the sun goin’ into the wather, and don’t be spakin’ a word, now, but listen and you’ll hear it hiss.”

      The children gazed and listened, Paddy also. All three were silent.

      You could hear the water hiss—if you had imagination enough. Once having touched the water, the sun went down behind it, as swiftly as a man in a hurry going down a ladder. As the sun vanished, a ghostly and golden twilight spread over the sea. Then the sea became a violet shadow, the west darkened, and the stars rushed over the sky.

      “Mr Button,” said Emmeline, nodding towards the sun as he vanished, “where’s over there?”

      “The west,” replied he, staring at the sunset. “Chainy and Injee[97] and all away beyant.”

      “Where’s the sun gone to now, Paddy?” asked Dick.

      “He’s gone chasin’ the moon, an’ she’s running off for all she’s worth[98]; she’ll be up in a minit. He’s always afther her, but he’s never caught her yet.”

      The moon, silver and splendid, was breaking from the water. She was full, and her light was powerful almost as the light of day. The shadows of the children and the shadow of Mr Button were cast on the wall of the caboose hard and black as silhouettes.

      “Look at our shadows!” cried Dick, taking off his straw hat and waving it.

      Emmeline held up her doll to see its shadow, and Mr Button held up his pipe.

      “Come now,” said he, putting the pipe back in his mouth, and making to rise, “and be off to bed; it’s time you were aslape, the both of you.”

      Dick began to wail.

      “I don’t want to go to bed; I aint tired, Paddy—les’s stay a little longer.”

      “Not a minit,” said the other, with all the decision of a nurse; “not a minit afther me pipe’s out!”

      “Fill it again,” said Dick.

      Mr Button made no reply.

      “Mr Button!” said Emmeline. She was holding her nose in the air and sniffing; her delicate sense of smell felt something lost to the others.

      “What is it, acushla[99]?”

      “I smell something.”

      “What d’ye say you smell?”

      “Something nice.”

      “What’s it like?” asked Dick, snifnif g hard. “I don’t smell anything.”

      Emmeline sniffed again to make sure.

      “Flowers,” said she.

      The breeze was bearing with it a faint, faint odour: a perfume of vanilla and spice so faint as to be insensible to almost all.

      “Flowers!” said the old sailor, tapping the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot. “And where’d you get flowers in middle of the say? It’s dhramin’ you are. Come now—to bed wid yiz!”

      “Fill it again,” wailed Dick, referring to the pipe.

      “It’s a spankin’ I’ll give you,” replied his guardian, lifting him from the deck, and then assisting Emmeline, “in two ticks[100] if you don’t behave. Come along, Em’line.”

      He started off, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing.

      As they passed the ship’s bell, Dick stretched towards the pin that was still lying on the deck, seized it, and hit the bell a mighty bang. It was the last pleasure to be had before sleep, and he got it.

      Paddy had made up beds for himself and his charges in the deck-house; he had cleared the stuff off the table, opened the windows to get the musty smell away, and placed the mattresses from the captain and mate’s cabins on the floor.

      When the children were in bed and asleep, he went to the starboard rail, and, leaning on it, looked over the moonlit sea. He was thinking of ships as his eye wandered over the sea, little dreaming of the message that had been received and dimly understood by Emmeline. Then he leaned with his back to the rail and his hands in his pockets. He was not thinking now, he was meditating.

      The basis of the Irish character, Paddy Button being an example, is a deep laziness mixed with a deep melancholy. Yet Paddy, in his left-handed way, was as hard a worker as any man on board ship; and as for melancholy, he was the life and soul of the cockpit[101].

      Suddenly Mr Button came back from his dreams to find himself on the deck of the Shenandoah; and he instantly became taken by fears. Beyond the white deserted deck, he could see the door of the caboose. Suppose he should suddenly see a head pop out—or, worse, a shadowy form go in?

      He turned to the deck-house, where the children were sound asleep[102], and where, in a few minutes, he, too, was sound asleep beside them, while all night long the brig rocked to the gentle ripple of the Pacific, and the breeze blew, bringing with it the perfume of flowers.

      Chapter IX

      The Tragedy of the Boats

      When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the long-boat saw the quarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them.

      “Can you see the dinghy?” asked Lestrange of the captain, who was standing up searching the horizon.

      “Not a speck,[103]” answered Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman! but for him I’d have got the boats away properly supplied and all[104]; as I don’t know what we’ve got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got there?”

      “Two bags of bread and a small barrel of water,” answered the steward.

      “A barrel of water, half full!” came another voice.

      Then the steward’s voice: “So it is; there’s not more than a couple of gallons

96

пришла в голову

97

China and India

98

что есть мочи

99

дорогуша (ирл.)

100

в два счёта

101

он был душой компании

102

крепко спали

103

Никакого намёка

104

если бы не он, я бы снарядил лодки как надо