The saloon of the Excelsior was spacious1 for the size of the vessel2, and was furnished in a style superior to most passenger-ships of that epoch3. The sun was shining through the sliding windows upon the fresh and neatly4 arranged breakfast-table, but the presence of the ominous5 "storm-racks," and partitions for glass and china, and the absence of the more delicate passengers, still testified to the potency6 of the Gulf7 of California. Even those present wore an air of fatigued8 discontent, and the conversation had that jerky interjectional quality which belonged to people with a common grievance9, but a different individual experience. Mr. Winslow had been unable to shave. Mrs. Markham, incautiously and surreptitiously opening a port-hole in her state-room for a whiff of fresh air while dressing10, had been shocked by the intrusion of the Pacific Ocean, and was obliged to summon assistance and change her dress. Jack11 Crosby, who had attired12 himself for tropical shore-going in white ducks and patent leathers, shivered in the keen northwest Trades, and bewailed the cheap cigars he had expected to buy at Mazatlan. The entrance of Miss Keene, who seemed to bring with her the freshness and purity of the dazzling outer air, stirred the younger men into some gallant13 attention, embarrassed, however, by a sense of self-reproach.
Senor Perkins alone retained his normal serenity14. Already seated at the table between the two fair-headed children of Mrs. Brimmer, he was benevolently15 performing parental17 duties in her absence, and gently supervising and preparing their victuals18 even while he carried on an ethnological and political discussion with Mrs. Markham.
"Ah, my dear lady," continued the Senor, as he spread a hot biscuit with butter and currant jelly for the youngest Miss Brimmer, "I am afraid that, with the fastidiousness of your sex, you allow your refined instincts against a race who only mix with ours in a menial capacity to prejudice your views of their ability for enlightened self-government. That may be true of the aborigines of the Old World—like our friends the Lascars among the crew"—
"They're so snaky, dark, and deceitful-looking," interrupted Mrs. Markham.
"I might differ from you there, and say that the higher blonde types like the Anglo-Saxon—to say nothing of the wily Greeks—were the deceitful races: it might be difficult for any of us to say what a sly and deceitful man should be like"—
"Oor not detheitful—oor a dood man," interpolated the youngest Miss Brimmer, fondly regarding the biscuit.
"Thank you, Missie," beamed the Senor; "but to return: our Lascar friends, Mrs. Markham, belong to an earlier Asiatic type of civilization already decayed or relapsed to barbarism, while the aborigines of the New World now existing have never known it—or, like the Aztecs, have perished with it. The modern North American aborigine has not yet got beyond the tribal19 condition; mingled20 with Caucasian blood as he is in Mexico and Central America, he is perfectly21 capable of self-government."
"Then why has he never obtained it?" asked Mrs. Markham.
"He has always been oppressed and kept down by colonists22 of the Latin races; he has been little better than a slave to his oppressor for the last two centuries," said Senor Perkins, with a slight darkening of his soft eyes.
"Injins is pizen," whispered Mr. Winslow to Miss Keene.
"Who would be free, you know, the poet says, ought themselves to light out from the shoulder, and all that sort of thing," suggested Crosby, with cheerful vagueness.
"True; but a little assistance and encouragement from mankind generally would help them," continued the Senor. "Ah! my dear Mrs. Markham, if they could even count on the intelligent sympathy of women like yourself, their independence would be assured. And think what a proud privilege to have contributed to such a result, to have assisted at the birth of the ideal American Republic, for such it would be—a Republic of one blood, one faith, one history."
"What on earth, or sea, ever set the old man off again?" inquired Crosby, in an aggrieved23 whisper. "It's two weeks since he's given us any Central American independent flapdoodle—long enough for those nigger injins to have had half a dozen revolutions. You know that the vessels24 that put into San Juan have saluted25 one flag in the morning, and have been fired at under another in the afternoon."
"Hush26!" said Miss Keene. "He's so kind! Look at him now, taking off the pinafores of those children and tidying them. He is kinder to them than their nurse, and more judicious27 than their mother. And half his talk with Mrs. Markham now is only to please her, because she thinks she knows politics. He's always trying to do good to somebody."
"That's so," exclaimed Brace28, eager to share Miss Keene's sentiments; "and he's so good to those outlandish niggers in the crew. I don't see how the captain could get on with the crew without him; he's the only one who can talk their gibberish and keep them quiet. I've seen him myself quietly drop down among them when they were wrangling29. In my opinion," continued the young fellow, lowering his voice somewhat ostentatiously, "you'll find out when we get to port that he's stopped the beginning of many a mutiny among them."
"I reckon they'd make short work of a man like him," said Winslow, whose superciliousness30 was by no means lessened31 by the community of sentiment between Miss Keene and Brace. "I reckon, his political reforms, and his poetical32 high-falutin' wouldn't go as far in the forecastle among live men as it does in the cabin with a lot of women. You'll more likely find that he's been some sort of steward33 on a steamer, and he's working his passage with us. That's where he gets that smooth, equally-attentive-to-anybody sort of style. The way he skirmished around Mrs. Brimmer and Mrs. Markham with a basin the other day when it was so rough convinced ME. It was a little too professional to suit my style."
"I suppose that was the reason why you went below so suddenly," rejoined Brace, whose too sensitive blood was beginning to burn in his cheeks and eyes.
"It's a shame to stay below this morning," said Miss Keene, instinctively36 recognizing the cause of the discord37 and its remedy. "I'm going on deck again—if I can manage to get there."
The three gentlemen sprang to accompany her; and, in their efforts to keep their physical balance and hers equally, the social equilibrium38 was restored.
By noon, however, the heavy cross-sea had abated39, and the Excelsior bore west. When she once more rose and fell regularly on the long rhythmical40 swell41 of the Pacific, most of the passengers regained42 the deck. Even Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb ventured from their staterooms, and were conveyed to and installed in some state on a temporary divan43 of cushions and shawls on the lee side. For even in this small republic of equal cabin passengers the undemocratic and distinction-loving sex had managed to create a sham34 exclusiveness. Mrs. Brimmer, as the daughter of a rich Bostonian, the sister of a prominent lawyer, and the wife of a successful San Francisco merchant, who was popularly supposed to be part-owner of the Excelsior, was recognized, and alternately caressed44 and hated as their superior. A majority of the male passengers, owning no actual or prospective45 matrimonial subjection to those charming toad-eaters, I am afraid continued to enjoy a mild and debasing equality among themselves, mitigated46 only by the concessions47 of occasional gallantry. To them, Mrs. Brimmer was a rather pretty, refined, well-dressed woman, whose languid pallor, aristocratic spareness, and utter fastidiousness did not, however, preclude48 a certain nervous intensity49 which occasionally lit up her weary eyes with a dangerous phosphorescence, under their brown fringes. Equally acceptable was Miss Chubb, her friend and traveling companion; a tall, well-bred girl, with faint salmon-pink hair and complexion50, that darkened to a fiery51 brown in her shortsighted eyes.
Between these ladies and Mrs. Markham and Miss Keene existed an enthusiastic tolerance52, which, however, could never be mistaken for a generous rivalry53. Of the greater popularity of Miss Keene as the recognized belle54 of the Excelsior there could be no question; nor was there any from Mrs. Brimmer and her friend. The intellectual preeminence55 of Mrs. Markham was equally, and no less ostentatiously, granted. "Mrs. Markham is so clever; I delight to hear you converse56 together," Mrs. Brimmer would say to Senor Perkins, "though I'm sure I hardly dare talk to her myself. She might easily go into the lecture-field—perhaps she expects to do so in California. My dear Clarissa"—to Miss Chubb—"don't she remind you a little of Aunt Jane Winthrop's governess, whom we came so near taking to Paris with us, but couldn't on account of her defective57 French?"
When "The Excelsior Banner and South Sea Bubble" was published in lat. 15 N. and long. 105 W., to which Mrs. Markham contributed the editorials and essays, and Senor Perkins three columns of sentimental58 poetry, Mrs. Brimmer did not withhold59 her praise of the fair editor. When the Excelsior "Recrossed the Line," with a suitable tableau60 vivant and pageant61, and Miss Keene as California, in white and blue, welcomed from the hands of Neptune62 (Senor Perkins) and Amphitrite (Mrs. Markham) her fair sister, Massachusetts (Mrs. Brimmer), and New York (Miss Chubb), Mrs. Brimmer was most enthusiastic of the beauty of Miss Keene.
On the present morning Mr. Banks found his disappointment at not going into Mazatlan languidly shared by Mrs. Brimmer. That lady even made a place for him on the cushions beside her, as she pensively63 expressed her belief that her husband would be still more disappointed.
"Mr. Brimmer, you know, has correspondents at Mazatlan, and no doubt he has made particular arrangements for our reception and entertainment while there. I should not wonder if he was very indignant. And if, as I fear, the officials of the place, knowing Mr. Brimmer's position—and my own connections—have prepared to show us social courtesies, it may be a graver affair. I shouldn't be surprised if our Government were obliged to take notice of it. There is a Captain-General of port—isn't there? I think my husband spoke64 of him."
"Oh, he's probably been shot long ago," broke in Mr. Crosby cheerfully. "They put in a new man every revolution. If the wrong party's got in, they've likely shipped your husband's correspondent too, and might be waiting to get a reception for you with nigger soldiers and ball cartridges65. Shouldn't wonder if the skipper got wind of something of the kind, and that's why he didn't put in. If your husband hadn't been so well known, you see, we might have ............