Jack London
Under the Deck Awnings
From "The Night-Born"
"Can any man - a gentleman, I mean - call a woman a pig?"
The little man flung this challenge forth to the whole group, then leaned
back in his deck chair, sipping lemonade with an air commingled of certitude and
watchful belligerence. Nobody made answer. They were used to the little man and
his sudden passions and high elevations.
"I repeat, it was in my presence that he said a certain lady, whom none of
you knows, was a pig. He did not say swine. He grossly said that she was a pig.
And I hold that no man who is a man could possibly make such a remark about any
woman."
Dr. Dawson puffed stolidly at his black pipe. Matthews, with knees hunched up
and clasped by his arms, was absorbed in the flight of a gunie. Sweet, finishing
his Scotch and soda, was questing about with his eyes for a deck steward.
"I ask you, Mr. Treloar, can any man call any woman a pig?"
Treloar, who happened to be sitting next to him, was startled by the
abruptness of the attack, and wondered what grounds he had ever given the little
man to believe that he could call a woman a pig.
"I should say," he began his hesitant answer, "that it - er - depends on
the - er - the lady."
The little man was aghast.
"You mean...?" he quavered.
"That I have seen female humans who were as bad as pigs - and worse."
There was a long pained silence. The little man seemed withered by the coarse
brutality of the reply. In his face was unutterable hurt and woe.
"You have told of a man who made a not nice remark and you have classified
him," Treloar said in cold, even tones. "I shall now tell you about a woman -
I beg your pardon - a lady, and when I have finished I shall ask you to classify
her. Miss Caruthers I shall call her, principally for the reason that it is not
her name. It was on a P. & 0. boat, and it occurred neither more nor less than
several years ago.
"Miss Caruthers was charming. No; that is not the word. She was amazing. She
was a young woman, and a lady. Her father was a certain high official whose name,
if I mentioned it, would be immediately recognized by all of you. She was with
her mother and two maids at the time, going out to join the old gentleman
wherever you like to wish in the East.
"She, and pardon me for repeating, was amazing. It is the one adequate word.
Even the most minor adjectives applicable to her are bound to be sheer
superlatives. There was nothing she could not do better than any woman and than
most men. Sing, play - bah! - as some rhetorician once said of old Nap,
competition fled from her. Swim! She could have made a fortune and a name as a
public performer. She was one of those rare women who can strip off all the
frills of dress, and in simple swimming suit be more satisfying beautiful. Dress!
She was an artist.
"But her swimming. Physically, she was the perfect woman - you know what
I mean, not in the gross, muscular way of acrobats, but in all the delicacy of
line and fragility of frame and texture. And combined with this, strength. How
she could do it was the marvel. You know the wonder of a woman's arm - the fore
arm, I mean; the sweet fading away from rounded biceps and hint of muscle, down
through small elbow and firm soft swell to the wrist, small, unthinkably small
and round and strong. This was hers. And yet, to see her swimming the sharp quick
English overhand stroke, and getting somewhere with it, too, was - well,
I understand anatomy and athletics and such things, and yet it was a mystery to
me how she could do it.
"She could stay under water for two minutes. I have timed her. No man on
board, except Dennitson, could capture as many coins as she with a single dive.
On the forward main-deck was a big canvas tank with six feet of sea-water. We
used to toss small coins into it. I have seen her dive from the bridge deck - no
mean feat in itself - into that six-feet of water, and fetch up no less than
forty-seven coins, scattered willy-nilly over the whole bottom of the tank.
Dennitson, a quiet young Englishman, never exceeded her in this, though he made
it a point always to tie her score.
"She was a sea-woman, true. But she was a land-woman, a horsewoman - a - she
was the universal woman. To see her, all softness of soft dress, surrounded by
half a dozen eager men, languidly careless of them all or flashing brightness and
wit on them and at them and through them, one would fancy she was good for
nothing else in the world. At such moments I have compelled myself to remember
her score of forty-seven coins from the bottom of the swimming tank. But that was
she, the everlasting, wonder of a woman who did all things well.
"She fascinated every betrousered human around her. She had me - and I don't
mind confessing it - she bad me to heel along with the rest. Young puppies and
old gray dogs who ought to have known better - oh, they all came up and crawled
around her skirts and whined and fawned when she whistled. They were all guilty,
from young Ardmore, a pink cherub of nineteen outward bound for some clerkship in
the Consular Service, to old Captain Bentley, grizzled and sea-worn, and as
emotional, to look at, as a Chinese joss. There was a nice middle-aged chap,
Perkins, I believe, who forgot his wife was on board until Miss Caruthers sent
him to the right about and back where he belonged.
"Men were wax in her hands. She melted them, or softly molded them, or
incinerated them, as she pleased. There wasn't a steward, even, grand and remote
as she was, who, at her bidding, would have hesitated to souse the Old Man
himself with a plate of soup. You have all seen such women - a sort of world's
desire to all men. As a man-conqueror she was supreme. She was a whip-lash, a
sting and a flame, an electric spark. Oh, believe me, at times there were flashes
of will that scorched through her beauty and seduction and smote a victim into
blank and shivering idiocy and fear.
"And don't fail to mark, in the light of what is to come, that she was a
prideful woman. Pride of race, pride of caste, pride of sex, pride of power - she
had it all, a pride strange and wilful and terrible.
"She ran the ship, she ran the voyage, she ran everything, and she ran
Dennitson. That he had outdistanced the pack even the least wise of us admitted.
That she liked him, and that this feeling was growing, there was not a doubt.
I am certain that she looked on him with kinder eyes than she had ever looked
with on man before. We still worshiped, and were always hanging about waiting to
be whistled up, though we knew that Dennitson was laps and laps ahead of us. What
might have happened we shall never know, for we came to Colombo and something
else happened.
"You know Colombo, and how the native boys dive for coins in the shark-
infested bay. Of course, it is only among the ground sharks and fish sharks that
they venture. It is almost uncanny the way they know sharks and can sense the
presence of a real killer - a tiger shark, for instance, or a gray nurse strayed
up from Australian waters. Let such a shark appear, and, long before the
passengers can guess, every mother's son of them is out of the water in a wild
scramble for safety.
"It was after tiffin, and Miss Caruthers was holding her usual court under
the deck-awnings. Old Captain Bentley had just been whistled up, and had granted
her what he never granted before... nor since - permission for the boys to come
up on the promenade deck. You see, Miss Caruthers was a swimmer, and she was
interested. She took up a collection of all our small change, and herself tossed
it overside, singly and in handfuls, arranging the terms of the contests, chiding
a miss, giving extra rewards to clever wins, in short, managing the whole
exhibition.
"She was especially keen on their jumping. You know, jumping feet-first from
a height, it is very difficult to hold the body perpendicularly while in the air.
The center of gravity of the male body is high, and the tendency is to
overtopple. But the little beggars employed a method which she declared was new
to her and which she desired to learn. Leaping from the davits of the boat-deck
above, they plunged downward, their faces and shoulders bowed forward, looking at
the water. And only at the last moment did they abruptly straighten up and enter
the water erect and true.
"It was a pretty sight. Their diving was not so good, though there was one of
them who was excellent at it, as he was in all the other stunts. Some white man
must have taught him, for he made the proper swan dive and did it as beautifully
as I have ever seen it. You know, headfirst into the water, from a great height,
the problem is to enter the water at the perfect angle. Miss the angle and it
means at the least a twisted back and injury for life. Also, it has meant death
for many a bungler. But this boy could do it - seventy feet I know he cleared in
one dive from the rigging - clenched hands on chest, head thrown back, sailing
more like a bird, upward and out, and out and down, body flat on the air so that
if it struck the surface in that position it would be split in half like a
herring. But the moment before the water is reached, the head drops forward, the
hands go out and lock the arms in an arch in advance of the head, and the body
curves gracefully downward and enters the water just right.
"This the boy did, again and again, to the delight of all of us, but
particularly of Miss Caruthers. He could not have been a moment over twelve or
thirteen, yet he was by far the cleverest of the gang. He was the favorite of his
crowd, and its leader. Though there were a number older than he, they
acknowledged his chieftaincy. He was a beautiful boy, a lithe young god in
breathing bronze, eyes wide apart, intelligent and daring, a bubble, a mote, a
beautiful flash and sparkle of life. You have seen wonderful glorious creatures -
animals, anything, a leopard, a horse - restless, eager, too much alive ever to
be still, silken of muscle, each slightest movement a benediction of grace, every
action wild, untrammeled, and over all spilling out that intense vitality, that
sheen and luster of living light. The boy had it. Life poured out of him almost
in an effulgence. His skin glowed with it. It burned in his eyes. I swear I could
almost hear it crackle from him. Looking at him, it was as if a whiff of ozone
came to one's nostrils - so fresh and young was he, so resplendent with health,
so wildly wild.
"This was the boy. And it was he who gave the alarm in the midst of
the sport. The boys made a dash of it for the gangway platform, swimming the
fastest strokes they knew, pellmell, floundering and splashing, fright in their
faces, clambering out with jumps and surges, any way to get out, lending one
another a hand to safety, till all were strung along the gangway and peering down
into the water.
"'What is the matter?' asked Miss Caruthers.
"'A shark, I fancy,' Captain Bentley answered. 'Lucky little beggars that he
didn't get one of them.'
"'Are they afraid of sharks?' she asked.
"'Aren't you?' he asked back.
She shuddered, looked overside at the water, and made a moue.
"'Not for the world would I venture where a shark might be,' she said, and
shuddered again. 'They are horrible! Horrible!'
"The boys came up on the promenade deck, clustering close to the rail and
worshiping Miss Caruthers who had flung them such a wealth of backsheesh. The
performance being over, Captain Bentley motioned to them to clear out. But she
stopped him.
"'One moment, please, Captain. I have always understood that the natives are
not afraid of sharks.'
"She beckoned the boy of the swan dive nearer to her, and signed to him to
dive over again. He shook his head, and along with all his crew behind him
laughed as if it were a good joke.
"'Shark,' he volunteered, pointing to the water.
"'No,' she said. 'There is no shark.'
"But he nodded his head positively, and the boys behind him nodded with equal
positiveness.
"'No, no, no,' she cried. And then to us, 'Who'll lend me a half-crown and a
sovereign?'
"Immediately the half dozen of us were presenting her with crowns and
sovereigns, and she accepted the two coins from young Ardmore.
"She held up the half-crown for the boys to see. But there was no eager rush
to the rail preparatory to leaping. They stood there grinning sheepishly. She
offered the coin to each one individually, and each, as his turn came, rubbed his
foot against his calf, shook his head, and grinned. Then she tossed the half-
crown overboard. With wistful, regretful faces they watched its silver flight
through the air, but not one moved to follow it.
"'Don't do it with the sovereign,' Dennitson said to her in a low voice.
"She took no notice, but held up the gold coin before the eyes of the boy of
the swan dive.
"'Don't,' said Captain Bentley. 'I wouldn't throw a sick cat overside with a
shark around.'
"But she laughed, bent on her purpose, and continued to dazzle the boy.
"'Don't tempt him,' Dennitson urged. 'It is a fortune to him, and he might go
over after it.'
"'Wouldn't you?' she flared at him. 'If I threw it?'
This last more softly.
Dennitson shook his head.
"'Your price is high,' she said. 'For how many sovereigns would you go?'
"'There are not enough coined to get me overside,' was his answer.
"She debated a moment, the boy forgotten in her tilt with Dennitson.
"'For me?' she said very softly.
"'To save your life - yes. But not otherwise.'
"She turned back to the boy. Again she held the coin before his eyes,
dazzling him with the vastness of its value. Then she made as to toss it out,
and, involuntarily, he made a half-movement toward the rail, but was checked by
sharp cries of reproof from his companions. There was anger in their voices as
well.
"'I know it is only fooling,' Dennitson said. 'Carry it as far as you like,
but for heaven's sake don't throw it.'
"Whether it was that strange wilfulness of hers, or whether she doubted the
boy could be persuaded, there is no telling. It was unexpected to all of us. Out
from the shade of the awning the coin flashed golden in the blaze of sunshine and
fell toward the sea in a glittering arch. Before a hand could stay him, the boy
was over the rail and curving beautifully downward after the coin. Both were in
the air at the same time. It was a pretty sight. The sovereign cut the water
sharply, and at the very spot, almost at the same instant, with scarcely a
splash, the boy entered.
"From the quicker-eyed black boys watching, came an exclamation. We were all
at the railing. Don't tell me it is necessary for a shark to turn on its back.
That one did not. In the clear water, from the height we were above it, we saw
everything. The shark was a big brute, and with one drive he cut the boy squarely
in half.
"There was a murmur or something from among us - who made it I did not know;
it might have been I. And then there was silence. Miss Caruthers was the first to
speak. Her face was deathly white.
"'I never dreamed,' she said, and laughed a short, hysterical laugh.
All her pride was at work to give her control. She turned weakly toward
Dennitson, and then, on from one to another of us. In her eyes was a terrible
sickness, and her lips were trembling. We were brutes - oh, I know it, now that
I look back upon it. But we did nothing.
"'Mr. Dennitson,' she said, 'Tom, won't you take me below!'
"He never changed the direction of his gaze, which was the bleakest I have
ever seen in a man's face, nor did he move an eyelid. He took a cigarette from
his case and lighted it. Captain Bentley made a nasty sound in his throat and
spat overboard. That was all; that and the silence.
"She turned away and started to walk firmly down the deck. Twenty feet away,
she swayed and thrust a hand against the wall to save herself. And so she went
on, supporting herself against the cabins and walking very slowly."
Treloar ceased. He turned his head and favored the little man with a look of
cold inquiry.
"Well," he said finally. "Classify her."
The little man gulped and swallowed.
"I have nothing to say," he said. "I have nothing whatever to say."
1910
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