Mr. Keegan's Elopement

Afternoon found Mr. Keegan and the master-at-arms going ashore in a surf-boat. They both sat in the stern, and the buttons on their new mustering-clothes shone like bright-work. Mr. Keegan was more than usually silent and preoccupied, and when they arrived at the pier, instead of having his customary argument with the boatman over the fare, Mr. Keegan gave the man a dollar, greatly to the astonishment and indignation of his side partner, the master-at-arms. Mr. Keegan paid no attention whatever to his friend’s protestations, but climbed the stone steps, and led the way up the main street to the Plaza, where he turned into a wine-shop, and sat down at one of the tables.

“We’re not drinking to-day, you Dago,” he said, in response to the smiling inquiry of the proprietor. “Porto some cigarettos!” Thus having aired his Portuguese, and obtained the desired articles, Mr. Keegan produced a roll of bills from his pocket, which he had just received from the paymaster, and proceeded to count them over carefully.

“There, Chimmy,” he remarked, rolling his tobacco from one cheek to the other, as he laid the pile on the table; “I don’t get full this time, nor you don’t; what’s more, I don’t lend none of the bullies money. But if this here seventy-three dollars can help Mr. Pennington to get that there English young lady, and take her off in the packet to-night, he’s welcome to it; that’s all.” This was a very long speech for Mr. Keegan to make.

“Is he going to try it, Dennis?” asked the master-at-arms, incredulously.

“Is he goin’ to try it?” Mr. Keegan repeated witheringly. “Ain’t you ashamed, what’s been three years with him, for that there remark?”

The master-at-arms puffed at his cigarette in silence, and evidently felt the force of the rebuke.

“Yes, Chimmy,” Mr. Keegan went on in a milder tone, “he is going to try it;” and then he added, with an air of great secrecy, “He is leavin’ a good deal of the particulars to you and me.”

Whereupon he unfolded a plan to the master-at-arms, who could not but wonder at its wisdom and completeness. It would almost seem as if Mr. Keegan had conducted a similar elopement on his own account. Mr. Keegan’s powers of locution were not great, but he had a remarkable knack of conveying his meaning, the more remarkable because his face was absolutely without expression, and he never used any gestures. Perhaps one of the secrets of his ability to express himself lay in the fact that he alternated in his methods of explanation, now putting his hearers to shame at their stupidity, now leaving out a palpable conclusion, that they might give themselves credit for unusual perception. In any case, he never said any more than he had to.

“Now,” he concluded, when he had gone into every detail, “you have got your sailin’ orders, Chimmy. Get your friend, the senhora, to tell the young lady what I told you. We can’t take no big trunks--nothin’ but a small kit. I’ll be makin’ sure of a boat and a sky-pilot, and be here at two bells.”

The master-at-arms went out into the Plaza, and hired a bulla-carta. A bulla-carta is in reality a covered sled, provided with curtains, and drawn by two oxen. For the proper management of these vehicles, according to Portuguese ideas, two men are necessary. One goes ahead, in order to check any ambitious intentions on the part of the oxen, and apparently does the guiding. The duties of the other are harder to define: he receives the fare incidentally, and urges on the oxen in those plaintive, wailing tones which he who has been to Madeira can never forget, and which incline him to believe that the Portuguese language is one of lamentation. As Mr. Keegan tersely remarked, everything is “on skates” in Madeira. The streets of Funchal are paved with small lava blocks, set on end, and polished to a degree that makes walking dangerous to people who wear the shoes of civilisation. Hence the owners of the bulla-cartas do a thriving business with foreigners, especially up the slope, where a false step is fraught with no inconsiderable consequences.

It was up the hillside, or rather up the first slopes of the mountain, that the villa to which the master-at-arms was going was situated. Few visit Madeira who do not take that delightful ride up the mountain on horseback, and experience the delirium of the coast down, over the polished stones, in a wicker sled. Ascending, the traveller looks from his saddle over the high yellow walls on each hand into inviting gardens of tropical luxuriance, their shade trees often completely arching the way over his head. But the master-at-arms cared nothing about looking into the gardens, and had a sailor’s prejudice against horses; he discreetly preferred the bulla-carta. Even the picturesque procession of wine-growers which he met coming down the mountain, with skins slung over their shoulders, made no more of an impression on him than if they had been a draft of new hands. He sat back behind the curtains of his bulla-carta, and smoked brown-paper cigarettes, and meditated on the gravity of his mission; and he wondered whether the senhora would look with favour on the plan. Only once, when he had to turn out for a fat ecclesiastic from the convent above, was he aroused from these reflections. The priest was descending at a pace which would have defied a trolley-car, but sat in his sled with as much equanimity as if he were pronouncing a benediction, his guide deftly balanced on the runners behind.

“He’s sure swift for a holy father!” the master-at-arms exclaimed aloud, lifting the curtains in order to obtain a better view of the vanishing figure; “but Dennis ain’t hirin’ him for the ceremony--you can’t trust them Dagos even for splicin’.”

It was almost dusk when the master-at-arms recognised the back gate of Mr. Inglefield’s villa, and directed the gentleman at the side to draw up, which he accomplished with a great deal of unnecessary noise. Thereupon the master-at-arms alighted, and designated a point a little higher up for the men to wait for him. Then he opened the gate, and cautiously entered the garden. He sat down under a banana tree to hit upon some method of attracting the senhora’s attention; for the hour was unusual for a call, and the senhora was undoubtedly engaged in the kitchen. As the villa was on a rather steep portion of the slope, the house was considerably higher than the garden, its broad piazza being among the tree-tops. Here was a predicament! If he waited until the senhora finished cooking the dinner, put on her evening gown, and came down to the little porch where she received her callers, all would be lost. Bearing in mind the sentiments concerning his profession which the owner of the villa had expressed at various times, it was out of the question for him to go to the senhora, as he would undoubtedly be seen by Mr. Inglefield from the veranda. While he was vainly trying to hit upon an expedient, wishing ardently the while that Mr. Keegan might have undertaken this matter himself, he heard the rustle of a woman’s skirts coming down the path. His first impulse was to climb the tree, but on second thought he decided to sit still; it was getting dark, and he might not be seen where he was.