"John," said I to my Chinaman, "carry this to the ladies;" and handed
him a card on which I had inscribed: "Black Bart's compliments; and he
desires the attendance of the ladies on deck for a parley. At once."
John came back in a few moments and stood on one foot. "She say, she
say, Misal Hally, she say no come."
"Letter have got, John?"
"Lessah have got."
"Take it back. Say, at once."
"Lessah. At wullunce."
"Lessah," he added two moments later. "Catchee lettah, them lady, and
she say, she say, go to hellee!"
"What! What's that, John? She said nothing of the sort!"
"Lessah, said them. No catchee word, that what she mean. Lady, one
time she say, she say, go topside when have got plenty leady for
come."
"Go back to your work, John," said I. And I waited with much dignity,
for perhaps ten minutes or so, before I heard any signs of life from
the after suite. Then I heard the door pushed back, and saw a head
come out, a head with dark tendrils of hair at the white neck's nape,
and two curls at the temple, and as clean and thoroughbred a sweep of
jaw and chin as the bows of the Belle Helène herself. She did not
look at me, but studiously gazed across the river, pretended to yawn,
idly looked back to see if she were followed; as she knew she was not
to be.
At length, she turned as she stepped out on the deck. She was fresh as
the dew itself, and like a rose. All color of rose was the soft skirt
she wore, and the little bolero above, blue, with gold buttons,
covered a soft rose-colored waist, light and subtle as a spider's web,
stretched from one grass stalk to another of a dewy morning. She was
round and slender, and her neck was tall and round, and in the close
fashion of dress which women of late have devised, to remind man once
more of the ancient Garden, she seemed to me Eve herself, sweet,
virginal, as yet in a garden dew-sweet in the morning of the world.
She turned, I say, and by mere chance and in great surprise,
discovered me, now cap in hand, and bowing.
"Oh," she remarked; very much surprised.
"Good morning, Eve," said I. "Have you used Somebody's Soap; or what
is it that you have used? It is excellent."
A faint color came to her cheek, the corners of her bowed lips
twitched. "For a pirate, or a person of no culture, you do pretty
well. As though a girl could sleep after all this hullabaloo."
"You have slept very well," said I. "You never looked better in all
your life, Helena. And that is saying the whole litany."