Chapter XVI
No, the sea is not a gentle place. It must be the very hardness of the
life that makes all sea-people hard. Of course, Captain West is unaware
that his crew exists, and Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire never address the men
save to give commands. But Miss West, who is more like myself, a
passenger, ignores the men. She does not even say good-morning to the
man at the wheel when she first comes on deck. Nevertheless I shall, at
least to the man at the wheel. Am I not a passenger?
Which reminds me. Technically I am not a passenger. The Elsinore has
no licence to carry passengers, and I am down on the articles as third
mate and am supposed to receive thirty-five dollars a month. Wada is
down as cabin boy, although I paid a good price for his passage and he is
my servant.
Not much time is lost at sea in getting rid of the dead. Within an hour
after I had watched the sail-makers at work Christian Jespersen was slid
overboard, feet first, a sack of coal to his feet to sink him. It was a
mild, calm day, and the Elsinore, logging a lazy two knots, was not
hove to for the occasion. At the last moment Captain West came for'ard, prayer-book in hand, read the brief service for burial at sea, and returned immediately aft. It was the first time I had seen him for'ard.
I shall not bother to describe the burial. All I shall say of it is that
it was as sordid as Christian Jespersen's life had been and as his death
had been.
As for Miss West, she sat in a deck-chair on the poop busily engaged with
some sort of fancy work. When Christian Jespersen and his coal splashed
into the sea the crew immediately dispersed, the watch below going to its
bunks, the watch on deck to its work. Not a minute elapsed ere Mr. Mellaire was giving orders and the men were pulling and hauling. So I returned to the poop to be unpleasantly impressed by Miss West's smiling unconcern.
"Well, he's buried," I observed.
"Oh," she said, with all the tonelessness of disinterest, and went on
with her stitching.
She must have sensed my frame of mind, for, after a moment, she paused
from her sewing and looked at me.
Your first sea funeral, Mr. Pathurst?
"Death at sea does not seem to affect you," I said bluntly.
"Not any more than on the land." She shrugged her shoulders. "So many
people die, you know. And when they are strangers to you . . . well, what do you do on the land when you learn that some workers have been killed in a factory you pass every day coming to town? It is the same on the sea."
"It's too bad we are a hand short," I said deliberately.
It did not miss her. Just as deliberately she replied:
"Yes, isn't it? And so early in the voyage, too." She looked at me, and
when I could not forbear a smile of appreciation she smiled back.
"Oh, I know very well, Mr. Pathurst, that you think me a heartless
wretch. But it isn't that it's . . . it's the sea, I suppose. And yet, I didn't know this man. I don't remember ever having seen him. At this stage of the voyage I doubt if I could pick out half-a-dozen of the sailors as men I had ever laid eyes on. So why vex myself with even thinking of this stupid stranger who was killed by another stupid stranger? As well might one die of grief with reading the murder columns of the daily papers."
"And yet, it seems somehow different," I contended.
"Oh, you'll get used to it," she assured me cheerfully, and returned to
her sewing.
I asked her if she had read Moody's Ship of Souls, but she had not. I
searched her out further. She liked Browning, and was especially fond of
The Ring and the Book. This was the key to her. She cared only for
healthful literature--for the literature that exposits the vital lies of
life.
For instance, the mention of Schopenhauer produced smiles and laughter. To her all the philosophers of pessimism were laughable. The red blood of her would not permit her to take them seriously. I tried her out with a conversation I had had with De Casseres shortly before leaving New York. De Casseres, after tracing Jules de Gaultier's philosophic genealogy back to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, had concluded with the proposition that out of their two formulas de Gaultier had constructed an even profounder formula. The "Will-to-Live" of the one and the "Will-to- Power" of the other were, after all, only parts of de Gaultier's supreme generalization, the "Will-to-Illusion."