It was nearly half-past eight when the Grandhaven ran into a fog-bank, and the second officer sent a message to the captain's steward1, waiting at that great man's dinner-table in the saloon.
The captain's steward was a discreet2 man. He gave the message in a whisper as he swept the crumbs3 from the table with a jerk of his napkin. The second officer could not, of course, reduce speed on his own responsibility. The Grandhaven had been running through fog-banks ever since she left Plymouth in the grey of a November afternoon.
Every Atlantic traveller knows the Grandhaven. She was so well known that every berth4 was engaged despite the lateness of the season. It was considered a privilege to sail with Captain Dixon, the most popular man on the wide seas. A few millionaires considered themselves honoured by his friendship. One or two of them called him Tom on shore. He was an Englishman, though the Grandhaven was technically5 an American ship. His enemies said that he owed his success in life to his manners, which certainly were excellent. Not too familiar with any one at sea, but unerringly discriminating6 between man and man, between a real position and an imaginary one. For, in the greatest Republic the world has yet seen, men are keenly alive to social distinctions.
On the other hand, his friends pointed7 to his record. Captain Dixon had never made a mistake in seamanship.
He was a handsome man, with a trim brown beard cut to a point in the naval9 style, gay blue eyes, and a bluff10 way of carrying his head. The lady passengers invariably fell into the habit of describing him as a splendid man, and the word seemed to fit him like a glove. Nature had certainly designed him to be shown somewhere in the front of life, to be placed upon a dais and looked up to and admired by the multitude. She had written success upon his sunburnt face.
He had thousands of friends. Every seat at his table was booked two voyages ahead, and he knew the value of popularity. He was never carried off his feet, but enjoyed it simply and heartily11. He had fallen in love one summer voyage with a tall and soft-mannered Canadian girl, a Hebe with the face of a Madonna, with thoughtful, waiting blue eyes. She was only nineteen, and, of course, Captain Dixon carried everything before him. The girl was astonished at her good fortune; for this wooer was a king on his own great decks. No princess could be good enough for him, had princesses been in the habit of crossing the Atlantic. Captain Dixon had now been married some years.
His marriage had made a perceptible change in the personnel of his intimates. A bachelor captain appeals to a different world. He was still a great favourite with men.
Although the Grandhaven had only been one night at sea, the captain's table had no vacant seats. These were all old travellers, and there had been libations poured to the gods, now made manifest by empty bottles and not a little empty laughter. Dixon, however, was steady enough. He had reluctantly accepted one glass of champagne13 from the bottle of a Senator powerful in shipping14 circles. He and his officers made a point of drinking water at table. The modern sailor is one of the startling products of these odd times. He dresses for dinner, and when off duty may be found sitting on the saloon stairs discussing with a lady passenger the respective merits of Wagner and Chopin as set forth15 by the ship's band, when he ought to be asleep in bed in preparation for the middle watch.
The captain received the message with a curt16 nod. But he did not rise from the table. He knew that a hundred eyes were upon him, watching his every glance. If he jumped up and hurried from the table, the night's rest of half a hundred ladies would inevitably17 suffer.
He took his watch from his pocket and rose, laughing at some sally made by a neighbour. As he passed down the length of the saloon, he paused to greet one and exchange a laughing word with another. He was a very gracious monarch18.
On deck it was wet and cold. A keen wind from the north-west seemed to promise a heavy sea and a dirty night when the Lizard19 should be passed and the protection of the high Cornish moorlands left behind. The captain's cabin was at the head of the saloon stairs. Captain Dixon lost no time in changing his smart mess-jacket for a thicker coat. Oilskins and a sou'wester transformed him again to the seaman8 that he was, and he climbed the narrow iron ladder into the howling darkness of the upper bridge with a brisk readiness to meet any situation.
The fog-bank was a thick one. It was like a sheet of wet cotton-wool laid upon the troubled breast of the sea. The lights at the forward end of the huge steamer were barely visible. There was no glare aloft where the masthead light stared unwinking into the mist.
Dixon exchanged a few words with the second officer, who stood, rather restless, by the engine-room telegraph. They spoke21 in monosyllables. The dial showed “Full speed ahead.” Captain Dixon stood chewing the end of his golden moustache, which he had drawn22 in between his teeth. He looked forward and aft and up aloft in three quick movements of the head. Then he laid his two hands on the engine-room telegraph and reduced the pace to half-speed. There were a hundred people on board who would take note of it with a throb23 of uneasiness at their hearts, but that could not be helped.
The second officer stepped sideways into the chart-room, reluctant to turn his eyes elsewhere than dead ahead into the wind and mist, to make a note in two books that lay open on the table under the shaded electric lamp. It was twenty minutes to nine.
The Grandhaven was a quick ship, but she was also a safe one. The captain had laid a course close under the Lizard lights. He intended to alter it, but not yet. The mist might lift. There was plenty of time, for by dead reckoning they could scarcely hope to sight the twin lights before eleven o'clock. The captain turned and said a single word to his second officer, and a moment later the great fog-horn above them in the darkness coughed out its deafening24 note of warning. A dead silence followed. Captain Dixon nodded his head with a curt grunt25 of satisfaction. There was nothing near them. They could carry on, playing their game of blindman's-buff with Fate, open-eared, steady, watchful26.
There was no music to-night, though the band had played the cheeriest items of its repertoire27 outside the saloon door during dinner. Many of the passengers were in their cabins already, for the Grandhaven was rolling gently on the shoulder of the Atlantic swell28. The sea was heavy, but not so heavy as they would certainly encounter west of the Land's End. Presently the Grandhaven crept out into a clear space, leaving the fog-bank in rolling clouds like cannon-smoke behind her.
“Ah!” said Captain Dixon, with a sigh of relief; he had never been really anxious.
The face of the second officer, ruddy and glistening29 with wet, lighted up suddenly, and sundry30 lines around his eyes were wiped away as if by the passage of a sponge as he stooped over the binnacle. Almost at once his face clouded again.
“There is another light ahead,” he muttered. “Hang them.”
The captain gave a short laugh to reassure31 his subordinate, whom he knew to be an anxious, careful man, on his promotion32. Captain Dixon was always self-confident. That glass of champagne from the Senator's hospitable33 bottle made him feel doubly capable to-night to take his ship out into the open Atlantic, and then to bed with that easy heart which a skipper only knows on the high seas.
Suddenly he turned to look sharply at his companion, whose eyes were fixed34 on the fog-bank, which was now looming35 high above the bows. There were stars above them, but no moon would be up for another three hours. Dixon seemed to be about to say something, but changed his mind. He raised his hands to the ear-flaps of his sou'wester, and, loosening the string under his chin, pushed the flannel36 lappets up within the cap. The second officer wore the ordinary seafaring cap known as a cheese-cutter. He was much too anxious a man to cover his ears even in clear weather, and said, with his nervous laugh, that the colour did not come out of his hair, if any one suggested that the warmer headgear would protect him from rain and spray.
Dixon stood nearer to his companion, and they stood side by side, looking into the fog-bank, which was now upon them.
“No—why do you ask?”
“Thought I heard a little bell; such a thing as a lady's lap-dog wears round his neck on a ribbon.”
The second officer turned and glanced sharply up at the captain, who, however, made no further comment, and seemed to be thinking of something else.
“Couldn't have been a bell-buoy, I suppose?” he suggested, with a tentative laugh as he pushed his cap upwards38 away from his ears.
“No bell-buoys out here,” replied the captain, rather sharply, with his usual self-confidence.
They stood side by side in silence for five minutes or more. The mist was a little thinner now, and Captain Dixon looked upwards to the sky, hoping to see the stars. He was looking up when the steamer struck, and the shock threw him against the after rail of the bridge. The second officer was thrown to the ground and struggled there for an instant before getting to his feet again.
Captain Dixon was already at the engine-room telegraph wrenching40 the pointer round to full speed ahead. The quartermaster on watch was at his side in a moment, and several men in shining oilskins swarmed41 up the ladder to the bridge for their orders.
The Grandhaven was quite still now, but trembling like a horse that had stumbled badly and recovered itself with dripping knees. Already the seas were beating the bluff sides of the great vessel42, throwing pyramids of spray high above the funnels44.
Captain Dixon grabbed the nearest man by the arm.
“The boats,” he shouted in his ear. “Tell Mr. Stoke to take charge. Tell him it's the Manacles.”
There seemed to be no danger, for the ship was quite steady, with level decks. Turning to another quartermaster, Dixon gave further orders clearly and concisely45.
“Keep her at that,” he said to the second officer, indicating the dial of the engine-room.
“Stay where you are!” he shouted to the two steersmen who were preparing to quit the wheelhouse.
If Captain Dixon had never made a mistake in seamanship he must have thought out the possibilities of this mistake in all their bearings. For the situation was quite clear and compact in his mind. The orders he gave came in their proper sequence and were given to the right men.
From the decks beneath arose a confused murmur46 like the stirring of bees in an overturned hive. Then a sharp order in one voice, clear and strong, followed by a dead silence.
“Good!” said the captain. “Stoke has got 'em in hand.”
“She is heeling,” he said. “Martin, she's heeling.”
The ship was slowly turning on her side, like some huge and stricken dumb animal laying itself down to die.
“Yes,” said the captain with a bitter laugh, to the two steersmen who had come a second time to the threshold of the wheel-house, “yes, you can go.”
He turned to the engine-room telegraph and rang the “Stand by.” But there was no answer. The engineers had come on deck.
“She's got to go,” said Martin, the second officer, deliberately47.
“You had better follow them,” replied the captain, with a jerk of his head towards the ladder down which the two steersmen had disappeared.
“Go, be d—d,” said Martin. “My place is here.” There was no nervousness about the man now.
The murmur on the decks had suddenly risen to shrieks48 and angry shouts. Some were getting ready to die in a most unseemly manner. They were fighting for the boats. The clear, strong voice had ceased giving orders. It afterwards transpired49 that the chief officer, Stoke, was engaged at this time on the sloping decks in tying lifebelts round the women and throwing them overboard, despite their shrieks and struggles. The coastguards found these women strewn along the beach like wreckage50 below St. Keverne—some that night, some at dawn—and only two were dead.
The captain snapped his finger and thumb, a gesture of annoyance52 which was habitual53 to him. Martin knew the meaning of the sound, which he heard through the shouting and the roar of the wind and the hissing54 of a cloud of steam. He placed his hand on the deck of the bridge as if to feel it. He had only to stretch out his arm to touch the timbers, for the vessel was lying over farther now. There was no vibration55 beneath his hand; the engines had ceased to work.
“Yes,” said Dixon, who was holding to the rail in front of him with both hands. “Yes, she has got to go.”
And as he spoke the Grandhaven slid slowly backwards56 and sideways into the deep water. The shrieks were suddenly increased, and then died away in a confused gurgle. Martin slid down on to the captain, and together they shot into the sea. They sank through a stratum57 of struggling limbs.
The village of St. Keverne lies nearly two miles from the sea, high above it on the bare tableland that juts58 out ten miles to the Lizard lights. It is a rural village far from railway or harbour. Its men are agriculturists, following the plough and knowing but little of the sea, which is so far below them that they rarely descend59 to the beach, and they do no business in the great waters. But their churchyard is full of drowned folk. There are one hundred and four in one grave, one hundred and twenty in another, one hundred and six in a third. An old St. Keverne man will slowly name thirty ships and steamers wrecked60 in sight of the church steeple in the range of his memory.
A quick-eared coastguard heard the sound of the escape of steam, which was almost instantly silenced. Then he heard nothing more. He went back to the station and made his report. He was so sure of his own ears that he took a lantern and went down to the beach. There he found nothing. He stumbled on towards Cadgwith along the unbroken beach. At times he covered his lantern and peered out to sea, but he saw nothing. At last something white caught his eye. It was half afloat amid the breakers. He went knee-deep and dragged a woman to the shore; she was quite dead. He held his lantern above his head and stared out to sea. The face of the water was flecked with dark shadows and white patches. He was alone, two miles from help up a steep combe and through muddy lanes, and as he turned to trudge61 towards the cliffs his heart suddenly leapt to his throat. There was some one approaching him across the shingle62.
A strong deep voice called to him, with command and a certain resolution in its tones.
“You, a coastguard?” it asked.
“Yes.”
The man came up to him and gave him orders to go to the nearest village for help, for lanterns and carts.
“What ship?” asked the coastguard.
“Grandhaven, London, New Orleans,” was the answer. “Hurry, and bring as many men as you can. Got a boat about here?”
“There is one on the beach half a mile along to the south'ard. But you cannot launch her through this.”
“Oh yes, we can.”
The coastguard glanced at the man with a sudden interest.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Stoke—first mate,” was the reply.
The rest of the story of the wreck51 has been told by abler pens in the daily newspapers. How forty-seven people were saved; how the lifeboat from Cadgwith picked up some, floating insensible on the ebbing63 tide with lifebuoys tied securely round them; how some men proved themselves great, and some women greater; how a few proved themselves very contemptible64 indeed; how the quiet chief officer, Stoke, obeyed his captain's orders to take charge of the passengers;—are not these things told by the newspapers? Some of them, especially the halfpenny ones, went further, and explained to a waiting world how it had all come about, and how easily it might have been avoided. They, moreover, dealt out blame and praise with a liberal hand, and condemned65 the owners or exonerated66 the captain with the sublime67 wisdom which illumines Fleet Street. One and all agreed that because the captain was drowned he was not to blame, a very common and washy sentiment which appealed powerfully to the majority of their readers. Some of the newspapers, while agreeing that the first officer, having saved many lives by his great exertions68 during the night, and perfect organization for relief and help the next day, had made for himself an immortal69 name, hinted darkly that the captain's was the better part, and that they preferred to hear in such cases that all the officers had perished.
Stoke despatched the surviving passengers by train from Helston back to London. They were not enthusiastic about him, neither did they subscribe70 to present him with a service of plate. They thought him stern and unsympathetic. But before they had realized quite what had happened they were back at their homes or with their friends. Many of the dead were recovered, and went to swell the heavy crop of God's seed sown in St. Keverne churchyard. It was Stoke who organized these quiet burials, and took a careful note of each name. It was he to whom the friends of the dead made their complaint or took their tearful reminiscences, to both of which alike he gave an attentive71 hearing emphasized by the steady gaze of a pair of grey-blue eyes which many remembered afterwards without knowing why.
And they sent him money, and left him in charge at St. Keverne. The newspaper correspondents hurried thither73, and several of them described the wrong man as Stoke, while others, having identified him, weighed him, and found him wanting in a proper sense of their importance. There was no “copy” in him, they said. He had no conception of the majesty74 of the Press.
At length the survivors75 were all sent home and the dead thrown up by the sea were buried. Martin, the second officer, was among these. They found the captain's pilot-jacket on the beach. He must have made a fight for his life, and thrown aside his jacket for greater ease in swimming. Twenty-nine of the crew, eleven passengers, and a stewardess76 were never found. The sea would never give them up now until that day when she shall relinquish77 her hostages—mostly Spaniards and English—to come from the deep at the trumpet78 call.
Stoke finished his business in St. Keverne and took the train to London. Never an expansive man, he was shut up now as the strong are shut up by a sorrow. The loss of the Grandhaven left a scar on his heart which time could not heal. She had come to his care from the builder's yard. She had never known another husband.
He was free now—free to turn to the hardest portion of his task. He had always sailed with Dixon, his life-long friend. They had been boys together, had forced their way up the ladder together, had understood each other all through. His friend's wife, by virtue79 of her office perhaps, had come nearer to this man's grim and lonely heart than any other woman. He had never defined this feeling; he had not even gone back to its source as a woman would have done, or he might have discovered that the gentle air of question or of waiting in her eyes which was not always there, but only when he looked for it, had been there long ago on a summer voyage before she was Captain Dixon's wife at all.
All through his long swim to shore, all through the horrors of that November night and the long-drawn pain of the succeeding days, he had done his duty with a steady impassiveness which was in keeping with the square jaw80, the resolute81 eyes, the firm and merciful lips of the man; but he had only thought of Mary Dixon. His one thought was that this must break her heart.
It was this thought that made him hard and impassive. In the great office in London he was received gravely. With a dull surprise he noted82 a quiver in the lips of the managing director when he shook hands. The great business man looked older and smaller and thinner in this short time, for it is a terrible thing to have to deal in human lives, even if you are paid heavily for so doing.
“There will be an official inquiry—you will have to face it, Stoke.”
“Yes,” he answered, almost indifferently.
“And there is Dixon's wife. You will have to go and see her. I have been. She stays at home and takes her punishment quietly, unlike some of them.”
And two hours later he was waiting for Mary Dixon in the little drawing-room of the house in a Kentish village which he had helped Dixon to furnish for her. She did not keep him long, and when she came into the room he drew a sharp breath; but he had nothing to say to her. She was tall and strongly made, with fair hair and delicate colouring. She had no children, though she had been married six years, and Nature seemed to have designed her to be the mother of strong, quiet men.
Stoke looked into her eyes, and immediately the expectant look came into them. There was something else behind it, a sort of veiled light.
“It was kind of you to come so soon,” she said, taking a chair by the fireside. There was only one lamp in the room, and its light scarcely reached her face.
But for all the good he did in coming it would seem that he might as well have stayed away, for he had no comfort to offer her. He drew forward a chair and sat down with that square slowness of movement which is natural to the limbs of men who deal exclusively with Nature and action, and he looked into the fire without saying a word. Again it was she who spoke, and her words surprised the man, who had only dealt with women at sea, where women are not seen at their best.
“I do not want you to grieve for me,” she said quietly. “You have enough trouble of your own without thinking of me. You have lost your friend and your ship.”
He made a little movement of the lips, and glanced at her slowly, holding his lip between his teeth as he was wont83 to hold it during the moments of suspense84 before letting go the anchors in a crowded roadstead as he stood at his post on the forecastle-head awaiting the captain's signal. She was the first to divine what the ship had been to him. Her eyes were waiting for his. They were alight with a gentle glow, which he took to be pity. She spoke calmly, and her voice was always low and quiet. But he was quite sure that her heart was broken, and the thought must have been conveyed to her by the silent messenger that passes to and fro between kindred minds. For she immediately took up his thought.
“It is not,” she said, rather hurriedly, “as if it would break my heart. Long ago I used to think it would. I was very proud of him and of his popularity. But—”
And she said no more. But sat with dreaming eyes looking into the fire. After a long pause she spoke again.
“So you must not grieve for me,” she said, returning persistently85 to her point.
She was quite simple and honest. Hers was that rare wisdom which is given only to the pure in heart; for they see through into the soul of man and sift86 out the honest from among the false.
It seemed that she had gained her object, for Stoke was visibly relieved. He told her many things which he had withheld87 from other inquirers. He cleared Dixon's good name from anything but that liability to error which is only human, and spoke of the captain's nerve and steadiness in the hour of danger. Insensibly they lapsed88 into a low-voiced discussion of Dixon as of the character of a lost friend equally dear to them both.
Then he rose to take his leave before it was really necessary to go in order to catch his train, impatient to meet her eyes—which were waiting for his—for a moment as they said good-bye, as the man who is the slave of a habit waits impatiently for the time when he can give way to it.
He went home to the rooms he always occupied near his club in London. There he found a number of letters which had been sent on from the steamship company's offices. The first he opened bore the postmark of St. Just in Cornwall. It was from the coastguard captain of that remote western station, and it had been originally posted to St. Keverne.
“Dear Sir,” he wrote. “One of your crew or passengers has turned up here on foot. He must have been wandering about for nearly a week and is destitute89. At times his mind is unhinged. He began to write a letter, but could not finish it, and gives no name. Please come over and identify him. Meanwhile, I will take good care of him.”
Stoke opened the folded paper, which had dropped from the envelope.
“Dear Jack20,” it began. One or two sentences followed, but there was no sequence or sense in them. The writing was that of Captain Dixon without its characteristic firmness or cohesion90.
Stoke glanced at his watch and took up his bag—a new bag hurriedly bought in Falmouth—stuffed full of a few necessities pressed upon him by kind persons at St. Keverne when he stood among them in the clothes in which he had swum ashore91, which had dried upon him during a long November night. There was just time to catch the night mail to Penzance. Heaven was kind to him and gave him no time to think.
The coach leaves Penzance at nine in the morning for a two hours' climb over bare moorland to St. Just—a little grey, remote town on the western sea. The loneliness of the hills is emphasized here and there by the ruin of an abandoned mine. St. Just itself, the very acme92 of remoteness, is yearly diminishing in importance and population, sending forth her burrowing93 sons to those places in the world where silver and copper94 and gold lie hid.
The coastguard captain was awaiting Stoke's arrival in the little deserted95 square where the Penzance omnibus deposits its passengers. The two men shook hands with that subtle and silent fellowship which draws together seamen96 of all classes and all nations. They walked away together in the calm speechlessness of Englishmen thrown together on matters of their daily business.
“He doesn't pick up at all,” said the coastguard captain, at length. “Just sits mum all day. My wife looks after him, but she can't stir him up. If anybody could, she could.” And the man walked on, looking straight in front of him with a patient eye. He spoke with unconscious feeling. “He is a gentleman, despite the clothes he came ashore in. Getting across to the Southern States under a cloud, as likely as not,” he said, presently. “Some bank manager, perhaps. He must have changed clothes with some forecastle hand. They were seaman's clothes, and he had been sleeping or hiding in a ditch.”
He led the way to his house, standing97 apart in the well-kept garden of the station. He opened the door of the simply furnished drawing-room.
“Here is a friend come to see you,” he said; and, standing aside, he invited Stoke by a silent gesture of the head to pass in.
A man was sitting in front of the fire with his back towards the door. He did not move or turn his head. Stoke closed the door behind him as he entered the room, and went slowly towards the fireplace. Dixon turned and looked at him with shrinking eyes, like the eyes of a dog that has been beaten.
“Let us get out on to the cliffs,” he said in a whisper. “We cannot talk here.”
He was clean-shaven, and his hair was grizzled at the temples. His face looked oddly weak; for he had an irresolute98 chin, hitherto hidden by his smart beard. Few would have recognized him.
By way of reply Stoke went back towards the door.
They did not speak until they had passed out beyond the town towards the bare tableland that leads to the sea.
“Couldn't face it, Jack, that's the truth,” said the captain, at last. “And if you or any others try to make me, I'll shoot myself. How many was it? Tell me quickly, man.”
“Over a hundred and ninety,” replied Stoke.
“And what do the papers say? I have not dared to ask for one.”
“What does it matter what they say?” answered the man who had never seen his own name in the newspapers. Perhaps he failed to understand Dixon's point of view.
“Have you seen Mary?” asked the captain.
“Yes.”
Then they sat in silence for some minutes. There was a heavy sea running, and the rocks round the Land's End were black in a bed of pure white. The Longship's lighthouse stood up, a grey shadow in a grey scene.
“Come,” said Stoke. “Be a man and face it.”
There was no answer, and the speaker sat staring across the lashed102 waters to the west, his square chin thrust forward, his resolute lips pressed, his eyes impassive. There was obviously only one course through life for this seaman—the straight one.
“If it is only for Mary's sake,” he added at length.
“Keeping the Gull103 Lightship east-south-east, and having the South Foreland west by north, you should find six fathoms104 of water at a neap tide,” muttered Captain Dixon, in a low monotone. His eyes were fixed and far away. He was unconscious of his companion's presence, and spoke like one talking in his dreams.
Stoke sat motionless by him while he took his steamer in imagination through the Downs and round the North Foreland. But what he said was mostly nonsense, and he mixed up the bearings of the inner and outer channels into a hopeless jumble105. Then he sat huddled106 up on the wall and lapsed again into a silent dream, with eyes fixed on the western sea. Stoke took him by the arm and led him back to the town, this harmless, soft-speaking creature who had once been a brilliant man, and had made but one mistake at sea.
Stoke wrote a long letter to Mary Dixon that afternoon. He took lodgings107 in a cottage outside St. Just, on the tableland that overlooks the sea. He told the captain of the coastguards that he had been able to identify this man, and had written to his people in London.
Dixon recognized her when she came, but he soon lapsed again into his dreamy state of incoherence, and that which made him lose his grip on his reason was again the terror of having to face the world as the captain of the lost Grandhaven. To humour him they left St. Just and went to London. They changed their name to that which Mary had borne before her marriage, a French Canadian name, Baillere. A great London specialist held out a dim hope of ultimate recovery.
“It was brought on by some great shock,” he suggested.
“Yes,” said Stoke. “By a great shock.”
“A bereavement108?”
“Yes,” answered Stoke, slowly.
It is years since the loss of the Grandhaven, and her story was long ago superseded109 and forgotten. And the London specialist was wrong.
The Bailleres live now in the cottage westward110 of St. Just towards the sea, where Stoke took lodgings. It was the captain's wish to return to this remote spot. Whenever Captain Stoke is in England he spends his brief leave of absence in journeying to the forgotten mining town. Baillere passes his days in his garden or sitting on the low wall, looking with vacant eyes across the sea whereon his name was once a household word. His secret is still safe. The world still exonerates111 him because he was drowned.
“He sits and dreams all day,” is the report that Mary always gives to Stoke when she meets him in the town square, where the Penzance omnibus, the only link with the outer world, deposits its rare passengers.
“And you?” Stoke once asked her in a moment of unusual expansion, his deep voice half muffled112 with suppressed suspense.
She glanced at him with that waiting look which he knows to be there, but never meets. For he is a hard man—hard to her, harder to himself.
“I,” she said, in a low voice, “I sit beside him.”
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1
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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seaman
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| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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13
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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14
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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15
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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16
curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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17
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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18
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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19
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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20
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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21
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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22
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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23
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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24
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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25
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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26
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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27
repertoire
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| n.(准备好演出的)节目，保留剧目；(计算机的)指令表，指令系统， <美>(某个人的)全部技能；清单，指令表 | |
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28
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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29
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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30
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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31
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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32
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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33
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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34
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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35
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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36
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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37
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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38
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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39
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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40
wrenching
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| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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41
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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42
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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43
funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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44
funnels
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| 漏斗( funnel的名词复数 )； （轮船，火车等的）烟囱 | |
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45
concisely
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| adv.简明地 | |
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46
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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47
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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48
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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49
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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50
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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51
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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52
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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53
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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54
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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55
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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56
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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57
stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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58
juts
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| v.（使）突出( jut的第三人称单数 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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59
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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60
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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61
trudge
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| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
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62
shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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63
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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64
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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65
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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66
exonerated
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| v.使免罪，免除( exonerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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68
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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69
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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70
subscribe
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| vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助 | |
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71
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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72
steamship
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| n.汽船，轮船 | |
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73
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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74
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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75
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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76
stewardess
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| n.空中小姐，女乘务员 | |
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77
relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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78
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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79
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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80
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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81
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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82
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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83
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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84
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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85
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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86
sift
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| v.筛撒，纷落，详察 | |
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87
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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88
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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89
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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90
cohesion
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| n.团结，凝结力 | |
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91
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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92
acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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93
burrowing
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
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94
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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95
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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96
seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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97
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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98
irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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99
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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100
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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101
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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102
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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103
gull
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| n.鸥；受骗的人；v.欺诈 | |
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104
fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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105
jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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106
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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107
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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108
bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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109
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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110
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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111
exonerates
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| n.免罪，免除( exonerate的名词复数 )v.使免罪，免除( exonerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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112
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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113
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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