"And she was just about your age, miss, when I saw her; and you favor her, too."Condy and Travis held their breaths in attention. There in the cabin of that curious nondescript whaleback they had come suddenly to the edge of a romance--a romance that had been lived through before they were born. Then Travis said in a low voice, and sweetly "She died?""Before I ever set eyes on her, miss. That is, MAYBE she died. Isometimes think--fact is, I really believe she's alive yet, and waiting for me." He hesitated awkwardly. "I dunno," he said pulling his beard. "I don't usually tell that story to strange folk, but you remind me so of her that I guess I will."Condy sat down on the edge of the bunk, and the mate seated himself on the plush settle opposite the door, his elbows on his knees, his eyes fixed on a patch of bright sunlight upon the deck outside.
"I began life," he said, "as a deep-sea diver--began pretty young, too. I first put on the armor when I was twenty, nothing but a lad; but I could take the pressure up to seventy pounds even then.
One of my very first dives was off Trincomalee, on the coast of Ceylon. A mail packet had gone down in a squall with all on board. Six of the bodies had come up and had been recovered, but the seventh hadn't. It was the body of the daughter of the governor of the island, a beautiful young girl of nineteen, whom everybody loved. I was sent for to go down and bring the body up.
Well, I went down. The packet lay in a hundred feet of water, and that's a wonder deep dive. I had to go down twice. The first time I couldn't find anything, though I went all through the berth-deck. I came up to the wrecking-float and reported that Ihad seen nothing. There were a lot of men there belonging to the wrecking gang, and some correspondents of London papers. But they would have it that she was below, and had me go down again. Idid, and this time I found her."
The mate paused a moment "I'll have to tell you," he went on, "that when a body don't come to the surface it will stand or sit in a perfectly natural position until a current or movement of the water around touches it. When that happens--well, you'd say the body was alive; and old divers have a superstition--no, it AIN'T just a superstition, I believe it's so--that drowned people really don't die till they come to the surface, and the air touches them. We say that the drowned who don't come up still have some sort of life of their own way down there in all that green water...some kind of life...surely...surely. When I went down the second time, I came across the door of what I thought at first was the linen-closet.
But it turned out to be a little stateroom. I opened it. There was the girl. She was sitting on the sofa opposite the door, with a little hat on her head, and holding a satchel in her lap, just as if she was ready to go ashore. Her eyes were wide open, and she was looking right at me and smiling. It didn't seem terrible or ghastly in the least. She seemed very sweet. When I opened the door it set the water in motion, and she got up and dropped the satchel, and came toward me smiling and holding out her arms.
"I stepped back quick and shut the door, and sat down in one of the saloon chairs to fetch my breath, for it had given me a start.
The next thing to do was to send her up. But I began to think.
She seemed so pretty as she was. What was the use of bringing her up--up there on the wrecking float with that crowd of men--up where the air would get at her, and where they would put her in the ground along o' the worms? If I left her there she'd always be sweet and pretty--always be nineteen; and I remembered what old divers said about drowned people living just so long as they stayed below. You see, I was only a lad then, and things like that impress you when you're young. Well, I signaled to be hauled up. They asked me on the float if I'd seen anything, and I said no. That was all there was to the affair. They never raised the ship, and in a little while it was all forgotten.
"But I never forgot it, and I always remembered her, way down there in all that still green water, waiting there in that little state-room for me to come back and open the door. And I've growed to be an old man remembering her; but she's always stayed just as she was the first day I saw her, when she came toward me smiling and holding out her arms. She's always stayed young and fresh and pretty. I never saw her but that once. Only afterward I got her picture from a native woman of Trincomalee who was house-keeper at the Residency where the governor of the island lived. Somehow Inever could care for other women after that, and I ain't never married for that reason.""No, no, of course not! exclaimed Travis, in a low voice as the old fellow paused.
"Fine, fine; oh, fine as gold!" murmured Condy, under his breath.
"Well," said the mate, getting up and rubbing his knee, "that's the story. Now you know all about that picture. Will you have a glass of Madeira, miss?"He got out a bottle of wine bearing the genuine Funchal label and filled three tiny glasses. Travis pushed up her veil, and she and Condy rose.
"This is to HER," said Travis gravely.
"Thank you, miss," answered the mate, and the three drank in silence.
As Travis and Condy were going down the gangplank they met the captain of the whaleback coming up.
"I saw you in there talking to old McPherson," he explained. "Did you get what you wanted from him?""More, more!" exclaimed Condy.
"My hand in the fire, he told you that yarn about the girl who was drowned off Trincomalee. Of course, I knew it. The old boy's wits are turned on that subject. He WILL have it that the body hasn't decomposed in all this time. Good seaman enough, and a first-class navigator, but he's soft in that one spot."
