Limekiller!

And so now it wras the next day, and Jack and Felix were out on the waves of the waters of Eden; they had for the time being anyway left the, mangrove bluffs and the coral shoals and shallows behind them and were out in “the blue,” in the deep water: deep being hereabouts a relative term. It was alreadv somewhat hot in the sunlight but not boiling hot as it sometimes was. It wras for that matter hot in the shade but in no wise uncomfortably hot. There was no longer exactly a wind, but there was a sort of languid breeze, and it blew now and then like a warm pat in the face. On the coast of British Hidalgo there wras no surf, the surf beat against the Reef, about ten miles out. But the wind acted upon the water… or, now, the breeze did. and after each gust. and before the next. the water would surge slightly against the boat with a small soft slapping sound.

“What’s May doing, these last few days,” he asked, realizing that he had lately seen nothing of his lady’s cousin and (until recently) travelling companion.

“Hmm. Well, when did we last see her?”

Felix had a characteristic slight frown which enchanted him. Not near so much, of course, as her smile, or her laugh. Still. It was perhaps more intriguing than either. Because you never knew exactly what it meant. Oh, it never meant wrath, of course. Still.

“Oh. Couple of days ago. In the New Chinese Grand Grotto.”

‘“And Restaurant.’ Yes. Was that the dav we had the chicken cashewseeds? As the menu said?”

Something large in the water, to port. He glanced. Looked like a great ray-fish, slowly following the sun. “Uh. No. It was the day we had the prypish potato. As the menu said.” Blue sky. Cotton clouds. Hot sun. Dry my white hair. “And she said, ‘There is nothing like these exotic foods.’ Remember?”

“Oh, that’s what she always says.”

There was a soft silence. “Reading her way through the National Library, I suppose… I suppose we could have asked her to leave off for a day, and come out with us. ”

Caves blurry to the port distance. Caves blurry to the starboard distance. Behind, the low, low coast had sunk from sight. Of a sudden, also low, the cracked, hollow boom sang out; a fresh slap of wind, struck his cheek.

But it was not followed by another.

“And I suppose she’d say that she could always go on a picnic, back in the Thousand Islands: but where else could she find the Compleat Planter’s Almanac for 1800 through 1818?”

Felix had that slight frown, still, as she turned to face him. Or again. “That is what she would say. That’s exactly what she’d say. How could you know?”

Looking into her eyes, the color of water flowing over mangrove bark, Limekiller opened his mouth. Realized that whatever he was about to say was bound to be the wrong thing to say. And a spirit touched his lips with a glowing coal. And he said something else, instead.

“Reef the mainsail, would you?”

She turned. A moment later, in an entirely different tone of voice, she asked, “One reef enough?”

“Just exactly enough.”

And Skippy the Cat, in no wise resentful of his demotion, since Felix’s arrival aboard, from first mate to supercargo, at that moment rubbed his off-white pelt against her aft leg. She bent down to pet him and to utter endearments. Next she said, “Do you know, Skippy, what pleased me so much last night? It was when Captain Jack said, "our boat.’ Not ‘my boat.’ But "our boat.’”

In a sudden up-flowing of joy, Captain Jack said, “Well Skip, if you want to know what made my night, it was when First Mate Felix introduced herself to Chief Minister McBride as ‘Felix Limekiller.’”

Skippv’s comment was, “Must I put up with all this mush so early in the morning? Eeyoo. Blech. - a little more scratching abaft the starboard ear, Biped. Ahh…"

And then, for a white, nobody said anything at all, but everybody seemed verv well-content.

They had been heading east to begin with (never mind about Marley), with a good east wind behind them, and this had gradually dropped… so gradually that, being blissful all together there in Eden, they hardly noticed. And, in fact, they were slow to notice when the wind shifted and began blowing right up their noses. The flapping of the dirty old sail brought the change to their attention. The boat was now quite out of sight of the low-lying mainland; talk about the Lowland Sea… or sing.

But the boat had come in sight of some other point of land. “There it is,” Jack gestured to something small and bright, a house with the sun on it. “Galleons Cave… or whatever it’s called.”

She gave her ruddy hair a shake. “WTiatever it’s called, we don’t seem to be going there. Or anywhere else.”

“No… No way to steer, this way. The boat is in irons.”

Felix’s face wrinkled. “In what?”

‘“In irons. ’ Dead-assed still. As you’ve noticed.”

Felix said that she preferred in irons. It sounded, she said, much more romantic, “though kind of grim. Though.”