Limekiller!

“I know,” she said, ‘you ‘just work here.’ Isn’t that what the hangman says? No wonder your friends the Nationals prefer hempen rope; tend to your helm” she flung at him, fiercely, as he moved toward her. “Typhoid Mary couldn’t help it, either'.” a breath she took; then: “Sorcerer!.” and “Sorcerer!.”

The sails luffed, crack! crack! The bow-wave curled around the prow, shedding phosphorescence as a plow sheds loam. “If I am a sorcerer,” he said, slowly (slowly! for this was quite a new conception) — and Felix: “If’ — scornful, almost: if the woman with child can be almost pregnant. “If l am a sorcerer,” he repeated, now white-hot with emotion, “then you are my familiar!.”

It hit her, he saw on her stricken face the apprehension that it just might be true. Then she turned away.

Winds of good fetch or not, it was hours before they came into port into that small port and ancient haven there on the barm and marge of the Carib Sea: For the world is wondrous large — Seven Seas from marge to marge — Lights reflected and shimmered. Music sounded, not the music of any classic instruments, indeed (It is sweet to dance to music, when love and life are fair./ To dance to lutes, to dance to flutes, is delicate and rare./But it is not sweet, with nimble feet, to dance upon the air.); the instruments were raw and the music raucous; the Holiday season had begun, and from St. Nicholas Day on the 6th of December to the Day of Epiphany on January 6th, Holiday would hold sway in a Saturday night that was one month long. To and fro, to and fro, the people: they did not, indeed, talk of Michelangelo, their talk was of the New Year’s new linoleum and of the Christmas turkey and the Christmas ham: of the presence of these traditional favors. Or of their absence. And of the chaparitas and the pint and, if one were especially fortunate, of the quarts and the “galleon” jugs of festive, festive rum. The vendors were setting out the fresh cabbages and the boxes of fresh apples, be sure most of them were ruddv and sweet-scented and (Limekiller knew) Canadian. The shops had set out the currants and the scented glazed citron rinds both alike from the Isles of Greece, and the raisins and the nutmeats from manywhere and the brandy and the cashew wine: to start the making and the baking of many and many a holiday fruitcake. Peppery cowfoot soup was cooking odorously in cauldrons. Millions of mosquitoes whined and hummed, but the Nationals, dismissing these as mere flies, danced around as though there was nothing in the warm night air anything like a vexation or a bother.

And those who had none of these material things (save the flies) and not even any hopes of them? What joy had they of the season? They had the inalienable joys of watching and mingling with those who did have, they would baste their scant bread in the rich smoke of the others’ cook-fires. And would pay with the sounds of their inextinguishable laughter, like the ringing of many rich coins. And they had the infinite joys of song. St. Nicholas did not leave them with nought.

Jack and Felix took down the sail. The sails. The mainsail and the jib. Coasted a ways. Then put over to where their pole, their pole, still hospitted their skiff. Indeed, she said it: There’s our pole and skiff.

A spirit touched his lips with a glowing coal. Enough of Oscar and of Rudyard and Tom. “Rowing in Eden./ Ah, the sea!/ That I might moor myself/ In thee.” She whirled around (Felix), her face demanding immediate knowledge of Who? “Emily Dickinson,” said he. Added, “Critics assure us that of course she had no idea — virginal Emily? — that it might be a metaphor of —”

She said, verv, very rapidly, “Believe that, you’ll believe anything;” said it with emphasis. and without emotion. whirled around and jumped onto the stone coping of Corn Meal Wharf. And was off into the throng. A moment he thought of striding after her, did not. A moment he thought of shouting. something. Did not. Watched and observed that she was not heading toward the Swinging Bridge over the Old Belinda River which bisected King Town, and therefore not toward any of the large hotels with their wicked bars; he observed that she almost at once flitted into Spyglass Alley. And was gone. For a scant fraction of a second he thought she might be making for the Spy Glass itself: a liquor booth, but respectable enough that ah ’oman might enter without total loss of respect or reputation: but almost at once he knew better.