And so now it wras the next day, and Jack and Felix were out on the waves of the waters of Eden; they had for the time being anyway left the, mangrove bluffs and the coral shoals and shallows behind them and were out in “the blue,” in the deep water: deep being hereabouts a relative term. It was alreadv somewhat hot in the sunlight but not boiling hot as it sometimes was. It wras for that matter hot in the shade but in no wise uncomfortably hot. There was no longer exactly a wind, but there was a sort of languid breeze, and it blew now and then like a warm pat in the face. On the coast of British Hidalgo there wras no surf, the surf beat against the Reef, about ten miles out. But the wind acted upon the water… or, now, the breeze did. and after each gust. and before the next. the water would surge slightly against the boat with a small soft slapping sound.
“What’s May doing, these last few days,” he asked, realizing that he had lately seen nothing of his lady’s cousin and (until recently) travelling companion.
“Hmm. Well, when did we last see her?”
Felix had a characteristic slight frown which enchanted him. Not near so much, of course, as her smile, or her laugh. Still. It was perhaps more intriguing than either. Because you never knew exactly what it meant. Oh, it never meant wrath, of course. Still.
“Oh. Couple of days ago. In the New Chinese Grand Grotto.”
‘“And Restaurant.’ Yes. Was that the dav we had the chicken cashewseeds? As the menu said?”
Something large in the water, to port. He glanced. Looked like a great ray-fish, slowly following the sun. “Uh. No. It was the day we had the prypish potato. As the menu said.” Blue sky. Cotton clouds. Hot sun. Dry my white hair. “And she said, ‘There is nothing like these exotic foods.’ Remember?”
“Oh, that’s what she always says.”
There was a soft silence. “Reading her way through the National Library, I suppose… I suppose we could have asked her to leave off for a day, and come out with us. ”
Caves blurry to the port distance. Caves blurry to the starboard distance. Behind, the low, low coast had sunk from sight. Of a sudden, also low, the cracked, hollow boom sang out; a fresh slap of wind, struck his cheek.
But it was not followed by another.
“And I suppose she’d say that she could always go on a picnic, back in the Thousand Islands: but where else could she find the Compleat Planter’s Almanac for 1800 through 1818?”
Felix had that slight frown, still, as she turned to face him. Or again. “That is what she would say. That’s exactly what she’d say. How could you know?”
Looking into her eyes, the color of water flowing over mangrove bark, Limekiller opened his mouth. Realized that whatever he was about to say was bound to be the wrong thing to say. And a spirit touched his lips with a glowing coal. And he said something else, instead.
“Reef the mainsail, would you?”
She turned. A moment later, in an entirely different tone of voice, she asked, “One reef enough?”
“Just exactly enough.”
And Skippy the Cat, in no wise resentful of his demotion, since Felix’s arrival aboard, from first mate to supercargo, at that moment rubbed his off-white pelt against her aft leg. She bent down to pet him and to utter endearments. Next she said, “Do you know, Skippy, what pleased me so much last night? It was when Captain Jack said, "our boat.’ Not ‘my boat.’ But "our boat.’”
In a sudden up-flowing of joy, Captain Jack said, “Well Skip, if you want to know what made my night, it was when First Mate Felix introduced herself to Chief Minister McBride as ‘Felix Limekiller.’”
Skippv’s comment was, “Must I put up with all this mush so early in the morning? Eeyoo. Blech. - a little more scratching abaft the starboard ear, Biped. Ahh…"
And then, for a white, nobody said anything at all, but everybody seemed verv well-content.
They had been heading east to begin with (never mind about Marley), with a good east wind behind them, and this had gradually dropped… so gradually that, being blissful all together there in Eden, they hardly noticed. And, in fact, they were slow to notice when the wind shifted and began blowing right up their noses. The flapping of the dirty old sail brought the change to their attention. The boat was now quite out of sight of the low-lying mainland; talk about the Lowland Sea… or sing.
But the boat had come in sight of some other point of land. “There it is,” Jack gestured to something small and bright, a house with the sun on it. “Galleons Cave… or whatever it’s called.”
She gave her ruddy hair a shake. “WTiatever it’s called, we don’t seem to be going there. Or anywhere else.”
“No… No way to steer, this way. The boat is in irons.”
Felix’s face wrinkled. “In what?”
‘“In irons. ’ Dead-assed still. As you’ve noticed.”
Felix said that she preferred in irons. It sounded, she said, much more romantic, “though kind of grim. Though.”
He nodded. “It used to be very grim indeed, when this happened in the open sea. Well. Often. However. Time to start tacking.”
They hauled the sails in, and, thus close-hauled on the starboard tack, the sloop proceeded to windward at a reasonable pace: they were heading, still, or, rather, again, out from land. But they were not steering toward Galleons Caye. Not yet. Neither were they heading dead away from it; they were away from it at an angle. but only at an angle. The jib had been loosed, and, with a “Ready — about,” Jack put the tiller over, the boat crossed the wind, the mainsail came over, the jib slithered across, and she pulled it in on the other side by the other sheet: sheet, here, not meaning sail, but the line that trimmed it. This being a close-hauled tack, the jib- sail did most of the work. The boat heeled over, then came back a bit, with the sea (seemingly, and perhaps, exactly) rising to meet it.
“Ugh,” said Felix, wincing at the shock.
“Pounding a bit.”
She said she was glad it was only a bit.
“Not exactly a downhill run, is it?”
“. not exactly… I guess. ”
After a bit he felt the wind shift; “Ready — about” he ordered. He was to say it again. And again.
The small bright building came nearer, after a while. It had never, after the first sighting, been out of sight at all. She asked, “Is it Gallard? Or is it Galliard? — Oh! I don’t mean the damned name! of the caye! — I mean: which is the dance? You don’t know, either? Well, I just had this picture. In my mind. Of those eighteenth century buccaneers dancing gaily out there, in the muck.” He smiled. She returned the smile, though somewhat more faintly. And, through the many tacks, the building became many times larger; Jack said to himself that he was glad to see it become so, become nearer. But something was odd. Sophia. Something was very odd. Sophia. What? Sophia. Well, who and what was Sophia? A woman’s name, of course. Of course! Well, actually a girl’s. He had been just a boy. How old? Seventeen, maybe, all legs and nose. I am in love with Sophia and any minute now I am going to see her and what a wonderful minute that will be, his thoughts had run, there in the station in Victoria, he having come over on the ferry from Vancouver for to see her and no other reason, she coming down on the train from whatever ossified moss-covered hamlet near the Island’s eastern shore where her family had been summering: and then he realized that he was not, after all, feeling wonderfuclass="underline" instantly she appeared and instantly he realized that he was not at all in love with her.