Limekiller!

And there in the dying day, with the curls of white foam, the perilous seas of faerie lands forlorn, and the emerging stars, and a line of fading light to the west above the Mayan Mountains, he was astonished and vexed and perplexed and pleased and all the rest of it: was he to be a father? Good! “- but I thought you said you’d decided you weren’t pregnant.”

And she: “Oh I don’t mean me. I don’t mean me. I mean that poor woman in the old paper. That chaplain’s wife. Life within her, life inside of her, because that damn dumbell dominus vobiscum man of hers couldn’t get it together to pull out in time, life inside of her and then from any window she could look out of, all she could see was death. A child hanging inside of her from a cord, and anywhere she looked, what were they getting ready to do, why hang some other woman’s child by cords. Ropes, lines,” she gestured to those on the boat; “goddamn you all, goddamn it all, all of it

A new noise out of the sea, a hum and a buzz, and new lights out of the sea: Noddy’s motor-cruiser, or Alex’s, and the faint sounds of music and laughter; she lifted the flashlight and waved it and shouted; he made to seize it more in astonishment than anything else, shouted What was she doing? and she made to strike him with it and then she just as suddenly flung it down and ran a few steps and leaned against the side; he could hear her heavybreathing. She was sorry, she was not sorry, she wept, she did not weep.

The new noises and new lights faded and were merged into the sea again. A new star rose up from the sea, wavered an instant, then it swung slightly to and fro. Then it was still and hung steady in the firmament. Captain Barber’s light. Limekiller adjusted his perceptions. Nodded. Swung the helm just a bit to port.

Having adjusted the inadvertancies of the boat, he thought, he still thought, still he thought he might, readjust the inadvertancies of their lives. their life… In a low and calm voice, he said, “Well, we don’t like it, but we don’t have to like it, that the wind almost didn’t take us there. It’s the anniversary of some grim event, but it’s also the anniversary of St. Nicholas Day, and he is the patron saint of sailors. So the wind wasn’t very willing, but it took us there, and now it’s more willing and it’s taking us back.” Another and a farther and a fainter star skimmed over the sea further out: another of the motor-craft bringing the guests back to port: Alex Brant? Stickney Porster? and who else? Didn’t matter. He saw that she saw- it. “And, anyway, now we’ve got the name cleared up. We don’t like the name? Not Gallants, not Galliards, not Galleon’s. So it’s Gallows Cave. At least now- we know. Now we know, eh. Maybe that ghastly tree does fill the air there with its. whatever they are. Whatever it is. Vibrations? ‘Vibes’? Emanations?” He did not say, but he thought, and he thought that she thought so too: affecting the very winds to drop, to slow, and to delay, one’s arrival. The winds had no power over the power boats? So be it. The twentieth century moved on, moved on; dissipating what once had been projected: the infinite reluctancy of those ancient criminals and their prayers not to get quickly to their destination. For St. Nicholas was the bringer and giver of gifts. It was grotesque, was it, to recall that St. Nicholas became Santa Claus? Life was often grotesque. And death, too.

Small wonder the large severalty of names: any variation of the basic one. Galleon Cave. Gallon Cave. Galliards. Gallants. Had he not even heard Callous Caye?. for stealing a puncheon of rum, to be hanged by the neck until dead… for striking his superior officer, to be hanged by the neck until dead. for selling plated silver as sterling. for breaking and entering. for arson… to be hanged by the neck until dead. They must, it would seem, have felt incalculably sure of themselves to pass and carry out such sentences for such crimes. And vet it seemed thev felt what Anthonv a Wood called a Great Reluctancy to name the plot of bog and sog where the carrying-out took place, and call it by its rightful, awful name. To call it by its dirty name.

Callous indeed.

But not that callous.

The wind blew better, coming in. But. somehow. the cracked boom no longer sang to them.