Free Honey Harlot by Christianna Brand Page A

remarked to him that now there was more of a swell than there had been so far. He said: ‘You keep pretty gutt your legs.’
    ‘I was brought up on the seaboard,’ I said.
    No doubt they were all in some anxiety as to what was to happen next. He wasted no more time. He said: ‘Vot is mit Mary, Missis? You are not yet tellink de Master?’ It must be obvious to him that the Captain knew nothing so far.
    ‘I’m lost to know what to do about it, Volkert,’ I said.
    ‘He got to know.’
    ‘He’ll find out,’ I said.
    ‘Big troubles!’
    ‘Why did you do such a foolish thing? You knew he’d find out and that there would be trouble.’
    ‘Dronk!’ he said, succinctly. I guessed that coming aboard such a ship as the Mary Celeste, they would all get drunk enough the night before she sailed, to last them for a few days at least, into the long grog-less voyage.
    ‘And she tempted you?’
    ‘Dis vicked von, she tempt de Archanchel Gabriel himself.’
    ‘But why does she want to come?’
    He shrugged. ‘For angry de Captain?’
    ‘Why should she want to make him angry?’
    ‘He make big preachings,’ he suggested, shrugging again. ‘Doing harm for Mary. De men is going off on long voyages, may be dangers, in spring Boz and I was in big dangers, big storm and wreck. Cap’n preaching they lose their souls if they going with such like Mary, they maybe going to their death this very voyage, don’t going aboard with sin on the soul. So instead, they getting dronk, too dronk for woman, Cap’n Briggs is turning blind eye to this if it keep them from woman.’ He laughed. ‘Som is paying friends keep sober and keep them from going with woman when they dronk, save their soul in case shipwreck and dangers. So Mary losing business.’ But he looked at me, sharply. ‘Not gutt talk for ladies like Mrs Briggs. I married, not gutt talk for mine vife.’
    ‘I know about Mary now,’ I said, ‘and it must be spoken of. I must protect my husband.’
    He laughed again, and at least I saw that he had no suspicion that the kind of protection he supposed me to mean was too late. ‘Cap’n Briggs don’t need no protection, Ma’am, from Honey Mary. Very gutt man, very Got-fearing, big preaching, very strong. Besides…’ he added, with a little gesture. Besides, he meant, Captain Briggs had his own woman aboard. I could have told him: Yes, indeed!
    ‘I mean that this woman’s presence aboard his ship… She says she will spread it abroad that he brought her here.’
    ‘She iss a devil woman,’ he said, laughing. ‘Much mischief.’
    I stood with my shawl hugged about me, the wind whipping my pale hair from its shining bands about my head, rocking a little, riding the movement of the ship as she sped with a following wind through the rolling grey-green waters. How vast it all was and how limitless! For a moment the affairs of men seemed very petty and sordid against that expanse of glittering deep green.
    They all moved so quietly about the ship, barefooted or in soft deck shoes except when the weather drove them to their heavy sea-boots, that often, with the sound in one’s ears of the eternal swish and drag of the waves, the flapping of the sails, the creaking and groaning in the rigging, one did not hear their approach. I did not hear my husband now, only his voice calling to me sharply. I went down the steps, followed him along the deck to a place by the rail mid-way between the two upstanding roofs of the cabin quarters. He stopped there and faced me, almost hissing out at me: ‘What are you doing, up there on the poop?’
    ‘I was passing the time of day with Lorenzen,’ I said; but recalling the subject of our conversation, I daresay that tell-tale colour of mine that came up so easily under my delicate skin, betrayed my unease.
    ‘Are you to spend your whole time aboard, in vulgar gossip with my crew?’
    ‘Gossip?—how could I gossip with them, what have I to gossip about?’ Yet, exactly what had I been