Maseden

“ Sister Madge followed. Sturgess was minded to argue, but met Maseden’s dour glance, and took his share. The first mouthful of the spirit acted on him like an elixir of life. He drank down to the allotted mark, and handed the bottle to Maseden.
“Now, girls,” he chortled, “this is the guy who really needs watching. If he doesn’t play fair let’s heave him into the sea.”
So three pairs of eyes saw to it that their rescuer had his full allowance. Then the bottle [Pg 180] was put away, and the castaways took stock of their surroundings. ”

“ It would almost seem that nature knows she may veil her ample splendors in the north, but must make the most of her scantier charms in the south.
Maseden, swinging on his heel in sheer bewilderment, suddenly found himself face to face with the Southern Cross, hanging low above the horizon. Had an impossible meteor flamed forth from the familiar cluster of stars and shot in awe-inspiring flight across the whole arc of the heavens northward to the line, it would not have surprised him more than the discovery that his “wife” was on board the ship. ”

“ If promptness in decision could enable a man to conquer a difficulty, Maseden was certainly not lacking in that attitude.
“Come!” he said. “Not for the first time, we must put our backs to the wall. We may find a good grip for our feet before the water mounts too high. The four of us must lace arms and cling together. I believe the tide will not rise above our knees. At any rate, we cannot be swept away easily. It is worth trying.”
She nodded. Turning to her sister, she explained Maseden’s scheme. Soon they were braced against the rock and facing valiantly their new ordeal. ”

“ Then Maseden left her. During this second crossing to the forecastle he knew beyond range of doubt that he had reached the limit of physical endurance. He had eaten nothing during many hours, he had been knocked insensible and had lost a good deal of blood. It was not in human nature that any man, howsoever fit and active he might be, could survive these heavy drains on his energies and yet put forth the sustained effort now called for. ”

“ A clear-headed American, armed against oppression, can be at once a most lusty warrior and the astutest of strategists.
“It is the unexpected that happens,” said Disraeli in one of his happiest epigrams. A few strenuous hours spent in the Republic of San Juan in Maseden’s plight would have yielded the cynic material for a dozen like quips, if he had survived the experience.
When Maseden reached the estancia he was received by Lopez with even greater amazement than was displayed by the peon. Being a privileged person, the old fellow expressed himself in absolutely untranslatable language. ”

“ When an avowed enemy first broached the subject of this extraordinary marriage, he had made a bitter jest on the use in real life of a well-worn histrionic situation. And now, perforce, he had become an actor of rare merit. Each look, each word must lead up to the grand climax. The penalty of failure was not the boredom of an audience, but death; such a “curtain” would sharpen the dullest wits, and Maseden, if wholly innocent of stage experience hitherto, was not dull. ”

“ If compelled to bend his wits to the task, he might have spoken or written in such wise. But an active brain has its own haphazard methods of weighing a new and distracting problem; it will ask and answer a dozen startling questions simultaneously.
In the midst of Maseden’s strange and formless imaginings the ship’s course was changed a couple of points to the southward, and the Southern Cross was shut out of sight by the forecastle head. Then, and not until then, did the coincidence of the vessel’s name with that of the constellation occur to his bemused wits. ”

“ Madge, having the gift of music, contrived to mimic certain words with tolerable accuracy, and “smoke,” “boats,” “bad men,” seemed, to Maseden’s ear, to emerge from the guttural Indian accents. In one important respect, the [Pg 300] wishes of the new addition to the party were quite understandable. She pointed to Providence Beach, indicated the boat, and made it clear that she counselled a prompt move eastward.
At last Maseden evolved a fairly intelligible notion of what she was endeavoring to convey. ”

“ Maseden, feeling oddly remote and unclassed among men of his own race, followed the second officer to the forecastle deck. There, at least, he could stare his fill at the inferno of rock and broken water which the vessel was approaching, though even his landsman’s eyes saw that she was in a waterway of considerable width, while each mile now traversed must tend to diminish the seas and bring a secure anchorage within the bounds of possibility. ”

“ Many an actor has strode valiantly from wings to footlights only to find his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. This was Maseden’s “star turn,” and not a word could he utter!
By a singular coincidence, the lady was equally nervous. She gave scant attention to the commonplace occurrence that a member of the crew should walk aft from the dim interior of the forecastle and hurry up the ladder, but the situation altered dramatically when a faint [Pg 83] gleam from a window of the smoking-room fell on the tarnished silver braid and gilt buttons of Maseden’s jacket of black cloth and velvet. ”

“ Maseden took a cudgel, which he preferred to a sword, and hurried towards the prone figure. Sturgess followed, some fifty yards behind, with the rifle, his mission being to cover the retreat, if need be.
Neither Nina nor Madge uttered a word. They were becoming hardened to danger. They [Pg 294] knew full well that, for some unimaginable reason, a territory hitherto closed to Indians was now open to them, and Maseden had left his companions under no delusions as to the characteristics of the wretched tribes which infest the lower coast and islands of Chile. ”

“ If we don’t start life again better fixed than when we climbed to the ledge in the dark from the forecastle of the Southern Cross, call me a Dutchman.”
“I agree with C. K.,” Nina chimed in. “Even here there must be some sort of a passage at [Pg 242] low water. Which way shall we go—back or forward?”
“We gain nothing by going back,” said Maseden slowly. “For one thing, we are on the wrong side of the channel. ”

“ Well, now we’re all properly introduced, let’s talk as though we really knew one another. Has any one the beginning of a notion as to the time.”
Then Maseden remembered that he was wearing a watch which he had wound that morning. ”

“ Maseden laughed wearily. He was tired, and the day was only beginning. He knew, of course, that Lopez meant Valdez, having probably, as [Pg 41] yet, not so much as heard of Suarez as chief of the Republic.
“I’ll explain matters,” he said. “Stand by to catch me if I fall when I dismount. The devil take all dudes and their vanities! These boots have nearly killed me.”
In a minute the offending jack boots were off and flung into the veranda, the helmet after them. The horse was given over to the care of a peon, and Maseden went to his bedroom. ”

“ He made up his mind to head for a gap in the trees which seemed to mark a recent land-slip, and trust to fortune that the gradient might not be too steep. Better any open risk than the fall of perhaps the whole party into a pit of dead wood choked with fœtid and noisome fungus growths. Once caught in such a trap, they might never emerge.
And now they met with their greatest among many pieces of luck that day. The opening Maseden had noticed was not the track of an avalanche, but a rough water-course, through which the torrential rain-storms of the coast tumbled headlong to the sea. ”

“ Maseden was “Ah-lek,” and Sturgess “See-ke.” Her own name had a barbarous sound, if, indeed, it was a name at all; so Madge christened her “Topsy,” which seemed to please her. But her light-heartedness vanished when she saw preparations being made to renew the voyage. She protested volubly, pointed to a colony of seals and well-filled beds [Pg 310] of oysters, and generally implied an earnest desire to remain on the island.
Eastward, it would appear, were other “bad men” and “much smoke,” but, whatsoever her motive, Maseden sternly overruled her. ”

“ In this wild land, seldom, if ever, trodden by the foot of man, the forests throve on the bones of their own dead progenitors. Aged trees fell and rotted where they lay, and the roots of newcomers found substance among the heaped-up logs. Gales and landslides helped to swell the mad jumble of decaying trunks, which formed an impassable layer [Pg 193] hardly ever less than fifteen feet in depth and often going beyond thirty feet.
Of the two, Maseden believed he would sooner tackle another wall of rock rather than essay to cross that belt of fantastic growths. ”

“ Six steps from the door a thought came to him which made his heart leap for joy. “Of course, this is Anselmo,” he said. “I’ve come to Anselmo. This is the Elena’s ranch, and the Elenas and all their men have either gone to Don Manuel or joined the other Whites. That is it of course. Well, here I am. And they’ve moved all their horses with them; those were the horses which I heard. I’m late enough, but word has reached them. ’Zeke must have got through.”
Thinking thus he crossed the two broad stone steps of the perron to the estancia door. ”

“ Are you Reds?”
“We have the work to do: it is the people in cities who have these quarrels.”
“But in this quarrel,” he said, “surely everyone must join.”
“The work has to be done. If these city people worked, they would not have the time to quarrel.”
“Oh, wouldn’t they,” he said, “that’s all you know of men. But, look here, how can I get to Anselmo?”
“You are not going to fight?”
“I’ve been trusted with a message to Don Manuel. If he is to be at Anselmo, I must try to get there to meet him. You’re sure it is Anselmo?” ”

“ When he turned into the street in front of the city hall, he saw some of the lancers, followed by a mob, riding uphill towards him. He turned uphill away from them, till he was out of the town, in a rocky path near a pine wood. The lancers paused at the city hall, as though to bivouac. Hi felt a deadly weariness overcoming the need of reaching Anselmo.
“I am done,” he thought. “I have done nothing, but I have been through a good deal to-day. I must rest for a bit before I go on.” He was cold as well as weary, for the cold sea breeze was blowing. “It must be midnight,” he thought. ”

“ But mother hasn’t been well for some time. She thinks that something terrible is happening; or soon going to happen. Any allusion to the Reds just now upsets her.”
“Right,” Hi said, “I’ll be silent. But I say, Rosa; I wish you’d tell me why you didn’t bow or smile or anything when those market people cheered you.”
“Did it seem very bad manners?”
“It struck me as a little odd.”
“We’re Whites,” she answered. “We’re watched pretty closely. What is to stop the Reds from sending agents to cheer the Whites in our presence, and watching whether we applaud? ”

“ We’ll save her.”
“This devil, Lopez, is going to wipe out the Whites,” she said.
“Not he,” Hi said. “Don’t you think it, Rosa.”
“What is to stop him? We’re all in his power.”
“Not you,” Hi said. “He’s done something wicked and stupid, which won’t prosper; you’ll see it won’t. Now about getting to Manuel. I don’t know a word of Spanish, except Dios and si and the oaths those sailors told me. Where can I get a horse, to begin with? I suppose all the livery stables will be closed?”
“You’ll get no horse here.” ”

“ Anselmo . . . sabe? Anselmo, est il bien loin? La ville d’Anselmo, est il far?”
The man nodded his head and grinned, as though to reassure him. Something in the man’s face, the pouchy look under the eyes, reminded Hi of one of the portraits of Henry VIII: it looked evil from evil done and evil planning. The man turned to his path and seemed about to lead the horse off the trail. “I daresay,” Hi thought, “the woman is the shot: she has the revolver. He’ll lead me round to her and she’ll pot me from behind a bush. Yet he’s as strong as an ox. ”

“ But it is in "The Everlasting Mercy" and not "The Story of a Round House" that we find Masefield at his big best, battering at the very doors of eternity with the fist of a giant and the tender love of a woman, and the plea of a penitent sinner.
Something had happened to Masefield in those ten years. A man's entire life had been revolutionized; and his poetry with it. He still feels the want and need of the world, and the social injustice; but he has found the cure. In a word, he has been converted. ”

“ If that fellow told the truth, if this is the Melchior forest, I must be near the San Jacinto, or its eastern tributaries. I must speak to that fellow and beg him to help me. After all, he is an Englishman, though he is as ross as a mule.”
As it was dark and cold, he turned back to his hammock to try for warmth and sleep. He slept a little, by starts, always broken by nightmares. The cold struck him from underneath: it got into all his bones. “Aha, you English boy,” voices said to him in his dreams. “Now you’ve come into our power you shall be searched. ”

“ The man turned and called out to him to stop. Glancing back, as the horse got into his stride, Hi saw the man running back to where the horses were tethered.
“The brute’s going to chase me,” he thought. “And he’ll track me, even if I dodge him. The worst of it is, that I don’t know whether I am headed for Anselmo or the new Jerusalem; but I must come out somewhere if I keep on. This forest can’t go on for ever.”
This was true; but he had a memory of his father saying, “The forest goes all the way to Cualimaçu on the Matulingas, 1,500 miles if its an inch.” ”