The Beach of Dreams: A Romance Read online

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  THE BEACH OF DREAMS

  A ROMANCE

  BY H. DE VERE STACPOOLE AUTHOR OF "THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF," "THE GHOST GIRL," "THE GOLD TRAIL," "THE BLUE LAGOON," ETC.

  THE NATIONAL BOOK CO. PUBLISHERS 28 WEST 44TH ST., NEW YORK

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  COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY STREET & SMITH COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY JOHN LANE COMPANY

  Printed in the United States of America

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  CONTENTS

  PART I

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. THE ALBATROSS 9 II. NORTH-WEST 14 III. THE GASTON DE PARIS 22 IV. DISASTER 41 V. VOICES IN THE NIGHT 48 VI. DAWN 53 VII. THE COAST 66

  PART II

  VIII. THE AWAKENING 73 IX. THE WOOLEY 80 X. THE CROSS 94 XI. THE CACHE 103 XII. THE QUARREL 117 XIII. WHERE IS BOMPARD? 124 XIV. THE DEATH TRAPS 132 XV. THE STROKE 143 XVI. ALONE 146 XVII. FRIENDS IN DESOLATION 153

  PART III

  XVIII. GOD MADE FRIENDSHIP 159 XIX. THE BIRDS 167 XX. VAE VICTIS 171

  PART IV

  XXI. TIME PASSES 181 XXII. A NEWCOMER 185 XXIII. RAFT 194 XXIV. A DREAM 203 XXV. STORIES ON THE BEACH 211 XXVI. THE GREAT WIND 225

  PART V

  XXVII. THE CORRIDOR 233 XXVIII. NIGHT 248 XXIX. THE SUMMIT 253 XXX. THE BAY 259 XXXI. THE SHIP 264 XXXII. THE OPIUM SMOKERS 272 XXXIII. MAINSAIL HAUL 277 XXXIV. THE CARCASSONNE 281

  PART VI

  XXXV. MARSEILLES 289 XXXVI. THE LEPER 301 XXXVII. A NEW HOME 313

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  THE BEACH OF DREAMS

  CHAPTER I

  THE ALBATROSS

  The fo'c'sle, lit by a teapot lamp, shewed the port watch in theirbunks, snoring, all but Harbutt and Raft seated on a chest, Harbuttpatching a pair of trousers, Raft smoking.

  Raft was a big red-headed man with eyes that seemed always roving overgreat distances as though in search of something. He was thirty-twoyears of age and he had used the sea since twelve--twenty years. Hispast was a long succession of fo'c'sles, bar-rooms, blazing suns, stormsand sea happenings so run together that all sequence was lost. Beyondthem lay a dismal blotch, his childhood. He had entered the world andliterally and figuratively had been laid at the door of a workhouse; ofhis childhood he remembered little, of his parentage he knew nothing. Indrink he was quiet, but most dangerous under certain provocations.

  It was as though deep in his being lay a blazing hatred born ofinjustice through ages and only coming to light when upborne byballoon-juice. On these occasions a saloon bar with its glitter andphantom show of mirth and prosperity sometimes called on him to dispenseand destroy it, the passion to fight the crowd seized him, a passionthat has its origin, perhaps, in sources other than alcohol.

  He was talking now to Harbutt, scarcely lowering his voice on account ofthe fellows in the bunks. Snoring and drugged with ozone a kick wouldonly have made them curse and turn on the other side, and as he talkedhis voice made part of that procession of noises inseparable from thefo'c'sle of a ship under sail against a head sea. He had been holdingforth on the food and general conditions of this ship compared with thefood and conditions of his last, when Harbutt cut in.

  "There's not a pin to choose between owners, and ships is owners as faras a sailorman's concerned.--Blast them."

  "I was in a hooker once," said Raft, "and the Old Man came across a lotof cheap sugar, served it out to save the m'lasses. It was lead, most ofit, and the chaps that swallowed it their teeth came out."

  "What happened to them then?"

  "They croaked. I joined at Bombay, after the business, or I'd havecroaked too."

  "What ship was that?" asked Harbutt.

  "I've forgot her name, it was a good bit back--but it's the truth."

  "Of course it's the truth," replied the other, "who's doubtin' you, anydog's trick played on a sailorman's the truth, you can lay to that.I've had four years of sea and I oughta know."

  "What's this you were?" asked Raft.

  "Oh, I was a lot o' things," replied Harbutt. "Wished I'd never leftthem to join this b--y business, but it's the same ashore, owners allthe time stuffin' themselves and gettin' rich, workers starvin'."

  Raft belonged to the old time labour world dating from Pelagon, hegrumbled, but had no grudge against owners in general, it was only indrink that Pelagon rose in him. Harbutt was an atom of the new voicethat is heard everywhere now, even in fo'c'sles. He had failed ineverything on land and a'board ship he was a slacker. You cannot be avoice and an A.B. at the same time.

  "What was your last job ashore?" went on Raft with the persistence of achild, always wanting to know.

  "Cleanin' out pig sties," said Harbutt viciously. "Drove to it. I tellyou when a chap's down he's down, the chaps that has money tramples onthe chaps that hasn't. I've been through it and I know. It's the richman does it."

  "Well," said Raft, "I don't even remember seeing one."

  "Haven't you ever been in no cities?"

  "I've been in cities right enough, but most by the water-side."

  "Well, you've seen chaps in plug hats and chaps drivin' in carriages,that's the sort that keeps us down, that's the sort we've got to makean end of."

  Raft did not quite see. He had a respect for Harbutt mixed with acontempt for him as a sailor. Harbutt knew a lot--but he could not seehow the chaps in plug hats kept other people down; the few he had seenhad always seemed to him away and beyond his world, soft folk, andalways busy about their own affairs--and how were they to be made an endof?

  "Do you mean killing them?" he asked.

  "Oh, there's other ways than killin'," replied Harbutt. "It's not them,it's their money does the trick."

  He finished his patch and turned in. Raft finished his pipe and turnedin also and the fo'c'sle was given over to the noises of the sea and thestraining timbers of the ship.

  Now that th
e figures of the two sailors had vanished its personalitytook fuller life, grim, dark, close, like the interior of a grimy handclutching the lives of all those sleepers. The beams shewed like thecurved fingers, and the heel of the bowsprit like the point of thein-turned thumb, a faint soul-killing rock of kerosene filled it,intensifying, after the fashion of ambergris, all the other perfumes,without losing in power. Bilge, tobacco and humanity, you cannot knowwhat these things are till they are married with the reek of kerosene,with the grunts and snores of weary men, with lamplight dimmed withsmoke haze; with the heave and fall of the sea; the groaning of timbersand the boom of the waves. This is the fo'c'sle whose great, great,great grandmother was the lower deck of the trireme where slaves chainedto benches laboured till they died, just as they labour to-day.