Larry O'Keefe
Pressing the questions I to ask, I myself. Oddly enough, I that he me, or my work. He had bought, it appeared, my upon the is and ash, that I had entitled, loosely, I now perceive, Flora of the Craters. For he that he had it up, it an different of a book, a in fact—something like Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
He had this when we touched the of the Suwarna, and I was to my until we the deck.
"That thing you saw me on," he said, after he had thanked the little for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of his Majesty's best little after that it off as baggage. And by the way, about where are we?"
Da Costa gave him our position from the reckoning.
O'Keefe whistled. "A good three hundred miles from where I left the H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That I in on was some whizzer!
"The Dolphin," he on, himself of his uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne. I'd been for a and up for an trip. Then that out of nowhere, me up, and that I go with it.
"About an hour ago I I saw a to up and out of it, I turned, and my right wing, and I dropped."
"I don't know how we can your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I said. "We have no wireless."
"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we our course, sair—perhaps—"
"Thanks—but not a of it," in O'Keefe. "Lord alone where the Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be around looking for me. Anyway, she's just as to into you as you into her. Maybe we'll something with a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked.
"For Ponape," I answered.
"No there," O'Keefe. "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago for fruit. Natives to death at us—or something. What are you going there for?"
Da Costa a at me. It me.
O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
"Oh, I your pardon," he said. "Maybe I oughn't to have asked that?"
"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied. "I'm about to some work—a little among the on the Nan-Matal."
I looked at the Portuguese as I named the place. A his skin and again he the of the cross, as he did so to the north. I up my mind then to question him when opportunity came. He from his quick of the sea and O'Keefe.
"There's nothing on to fit you, Lieutenant."
"Oh, just give me a to around me, Captain," said O'Keefe and him. Darkness had fallen, and as the two into Da Costa's I opened the door of my own and listened. Huldricksson was and regularly.
I my electric-flash, and its from my face, looked at him. His sleep was from the of the into one that was at least on the of the normal. The had its and the mouth had action. Satisfied as to his condition I returned to deck.
O'Keefe was there, looking like a in the he had about him. A table had been and one of the Tonga boys was setting it for our dinner. Soon the very of the Suwarna the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I it. The night had close and oppressive. Behind us the light of the Brunhilda and the lamp up a in which her black helmsman's out mistily. O'Keefe had looked a number of times at our tow, but had asked no questions.
"You're not the only we up today," I told him. "We the captain of that sloop, to his wheel, nearly with exhaustion, and his by himself."
"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment.
"We don't know," I answered. "He us, and I had to him we him from his lashings. He's sleeping in my now. His wife and little girl ought to have been on board, the captain here says, but—they weren't."
"Wife and child gone!" O'Keefe.
"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel and without water at least two days and nights we him," I replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these after such a time—it's hopeless."
"That's true," said O'Keefe. "But his wife and baby! Poor, devil!"
He was for a time, and then, at my solicitation, to tell us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had his and entered the war. He had been at Ypres the third year of the struggle, and when he the was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had in it since.
"And though the war's long over, I for the lark's land with the German playing on their machine and their Archies the of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love, love to the limit; and if you hate, why like the and if it's a you're in, where it's and like hell—if you don't life's not the living," he.
I him as he talked, my for him increasing. If I but have a man like this me on the path of unknown upon which I had set my I thought, wistfully. We sat and a bit, the coffee the Portuguese so well.
Da Costa at last the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I chairs up to the rail. The out through a sky; of the of the and with an almost angry as the of the Suwarna them aside. O'Keefe at a cigarette. The the keen, and the eyes, now black and under the spell of the night.
"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.
"Why?" he laughed.
"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would you Irish—but your of pure Americanese makes me doubtful."
He amiably.
"I'll tell you how that is," he said. "My mother was an American—a Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these two loved each other so well that the they gave me is Irish and American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And there you are—I'm as much American as I am Irish.
"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or I have the brogue. But for the purpose of life I like the United States talk, and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as well as St. Patrick's Channel; a at Eton, a at Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love of times, and a after that wasn't a one, and a purpose in life until I took the king's and my wings; something over thirty—and that's me—Larry O'Keefe."
"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the banshee," I laughed.
"It was that," he said somberly, and I the over his voice like and his again. "There's an O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning. An' twice have I the calling—once it was when my died an' once when my father waiting to be out on the tide."
He a moment, then on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a girl of the green people, like a of green fire through Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the of the Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh the Fair, all in the nine that from the of Cravetheen, an' I the echo of his harpings—"
He paused again and then, softly, with that sweet, high voice that only the Irish to have, he sang:
Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
Woman of the gold-brown hair, and of the red, red rowan,
Where is the that is whiter, with more soft,
Or the on the sea that moves as movest, Eilidh.
