The voyage of the Hermione had now lasted several weeks.
During that time Hawkshaw had never ventured to resume the subject which Ethel had so summarily dismissed on that evening in Acton Chase—the evening which had an end so fatal—the subject, of his passion for her, and certainly, as such things grow and mature by propinquity, it was more deeply rooted now than it was then.
He was wisely and sedulously attentive during their daily and hourly intercourse in the circumscribed space on shipboard—attentive, but nothing more.
Yet Ethel knew well what those delicate attentions inferred, and shrank from them systematically and intuitively, and in such a manner, though quiet and gentle, as to give the persevering ex-captain of Texan troopers not the shadow of a hope for the future.
Moreover, he was rather galled to perceive that ever since that evening when Morley Ashton disappeared, Ethel had adopted a nun-like soberness of attire and colour that reminded one of mourning. Save Morley's engagement-ring, she wore no ornament, and Hawkshaw knew that to the black ribbon around her neck was attached a locket, with a braid of Ashton's hair entwined with her own, on one side, and on the other, a miniature of herself, for it was the same locket which he had worn when in Africa, and which she had found lying on his toilet-table on the morning after his mysterious disappearance and supposed death.
She knew that he had always borne it next his heart, and now she resolved it should ever be worn next her own; for with such things do lovers solace themselves.
Hawkshaw knew, we say, quite well, that the black ribbon around that white and slender neck sustained that which she deemed an affectionate memento; so he never dared to ask her what it was, lest its production should serve as a curb and rebuke to himself; and while it was worn thus, he deemed it almost hopeless to resume the task of entreating her to love him, or permit his loving her. So day followed day, and still the great ship that bore them all flew on, but not always successfully, for she encountered such a succession of headwinds, as served almost to prove the truth of what our old friend Bill Morrison, of the Princess, stated to Morley, about a ship that had a "shedder" of blood on board; and now, even jolly Captain Phillips lost his temper with his mates, his crew, himself, and everybody but Rose Basset, who, he was wont to say, "could wind him round her little finger like a bit o' spunyarn."
Though the Hermione made long tacks westward and eastward, on the latter sometimes "sighting" the coast of Africa, and though the winds were ahead, and fearfully protracting the voyage, the weather was very fine, almost to monotony, and thus for days after the moonlit evening on which Manfredi told his tale, nothing occurred to disturb the even tenor of the voyage, save the usual sights to be seen at sea.
A drove of porpoises dashing in the wind's eye; a shower of silvery flying-fish crossing the vessel's course, and falling in hundreds, like a glittering torrent, into the sea, from, which they had sprung; the stormy petrels tripping gracefully with brown wings outspread, above the snowy spray, or the black fin of a shark prowling for offal in the vessel's wake astern; and once a sucking-fish was seen fixed to the rudder, where it remained for weeks, wriggling and twisting, for no amount of motion in the water, not even the waves of the wildest storm that furrows up the sea, can shake it off when once it adheres to a ship's bottom, to a whale, or a shark, as it is sometimes wont to do.
Captain Phillips was not superstitious enough to believe that this small parasite retarded the progress of a ship, though such has been for ages the idea of those who live, and have lived, by salt water, as we may find in many
"——a book,
From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook,"
but more especially in the works of many who have written of nautical phenomena between the days of Pliny, Plutarch, and Captain Dampier. Yet to watch from the taffrail its obstinate adherence and wriggling, amid the foam down below, was for some time an amusement which duly found a record in the journal or diary which Rose kept for the special perusal of her friend Lucy Page when they met again.
On another day a ship was passed, "bound for Europe"—they had ceased to speak of Britain now—and all crowded to the side to hear her hailed. On she came, and each vessel backed her maintopsail and showed her colours, plunging stern down and head, their cutwaters dripping with foam, their bright copper, that rose to the bends, flashing in the sun, the sails of the stranger shivering, as the Hermione kept the weather-gauge of her.
"Ahoy!" came faintly from a trumpet over the sea; "what ship is that?"
"The Hermione, of London—two months out—bound for Singapore. What ship are you?"
"The Robert Bruce, of Glasgow, bound for Europe."
"Where from?"
"Batavia."
"Report all well."
"Aye, aye; good-bye."
Then the latitude and longitude, chalked on a black board, would be shown over the quarter of each ship; the colours were dipped at the gaff-peak, the yard-heads filled, a parting cheer exchanged, and each left the other to plough through the waste of waters, and each, ere the sun set, would be "hull down" to the other, at the horizon.
Then Rose hurried to her desk to record this trivial, but, to her, important episode; but, alas! events were soon to occur which would make her diary, if kept amid them, the most startling work of the kind ever penned by a human hand—especially a hand so small and so pretty as hers.
That the young Scotch surgeon, Dr. Leslie Heriot, was very much captivated by Rose was evident to all in the cabin; but Rose was so accustomed to have plenty of admirers to talk to, laugh, and flirt with, when on shore, that to have an acknowledged dangler on board ship seemed nothing unusual, and she accepted his attentions accordingly.
She conceived it to be a penchant that had begun with the voyage, and would end with it; but, being less volatile than she was, to our young M.D. and F.R.C.S. of Edinburgh, it was a passion deeper than she thought, and of that she was to have ample proof ere long.
Whether it was that the irritation always consequent to headwinds extended from the occupants of the after cabin to those of the forecastle bunks, we know not; but about this time a very perceptible difference began to manifest itself in the tone and conduct of the crew towards the passengers—towards each other generally, and the officers of the ship in particular; in short, a general insolence of bearing, to which the latter had been quite unaccustomed.
We have stated that they were a mixed crew; that the coloured, the foreign, and the Yankee elements largely predominated among them; hence, they were not the kind of men to stand upon trifles.
Thus, when two had their grog stopped for insolence to Mr. Quail when ordering them to work the spun-yarn winch, they drew their knives, and swore they "would have blood, if not their Jarnaiky rum;" and so menacing generally was the conduct of the rest, that Mr. Quail was polite enough to content himself by entering in the ship's log a threat he affected not to overhear, and gave the mutineers their grog two days after, when both got three tremendous sousings, when ordered to "lay out forward and furl the gib."
The watch on deck at night went sometimes to sleep, committing the care of the vessel to the winds and the man at the helm; and, as he occasionally chose to nod also at his post, the Hermione was thrice thrown in the wind, hove flat aback with all her studding-sails set, and fortunate it was that, on each of these occasions, the wind was light, or some of her masts would have gone by the board.
Sailors are never idle when at sea, as a ship perpetually finds work for every hand at all times, were it only to "polish the chain-cable;" but the crew of the Hermione were resolutely slothful.
By day, the men who lounged about the forecastle bitts, or stood in a row with their backs against the bow to leeward, exchanged strange cries, whoops, signals, and scraps of low ribald songs with those who were engaged aloft, or elsewhere; and more than once the man at the wheel ventured to do so likewise; and when told by Captain Phillips never again to come aft the mainmast, or appear on the quarter-deck, he very deliberately spat thereon, and told him that he and his quarter-deck might both be—not blessed at least.
These unusual indications were quite enough to cause alarm, and a day seldom passed that Captain Phillips, Mr. Quail, and his three mates, did not confer about them, or exchange glances, the anxiety and import of which Mr. Basset and his two daughters knew nothing.
The captain dreaded that this secret spirit of disorder might develop itself in scenes of outrage when the old, and now almost disused, ceremony of receiving Neptune and crossing the Line took place. To ignore the occasion might cause discontent, and to celebrate it might provoke what he feared; but, fortunately, for twenty-four hours, about the time of crossing the equator, the wind blew almost a hurricane, so Neptune and his visit were alike forgotten.
There was one occasion on which Hawkshaw hoped to get rid, at least, of one of his chief sources of dread—the Barradas.
There fell a dead calm one day about noon; the air was almost suffocating, the sea like glass or oil, and there was not a breath of wind to stir the canvas, or even to wave the scarlet fringes of the quarter-deck awning, under the shade of which Ethel and Rose reclined languidly, with light summer dresses, and fan in hand.
It was strange that with this listlessness below there seemed to be aloft a current of air, which did not descend even to the skysail-yards, but played with the vane and its scarlet streamer on the mainmast-head.
On this day the Hermione was about a hundred miles to the northward of St. Helena. The air was thin and ambient; the sunlight, broad and blazing, exhaling from the sea a thin white haze, which, at the dim horizon, made the sea and sky so blend together, that none could tell where cloud began and water ended.
Through the glassy surface of the still, calm sea the black crooked fin of a great shark was seen, as he glided stealthily alongside, preceded, as usual, by the long, wriggling pilot-fish.
It was evidently a white shark, by the mode in which he swallowed; for when the cook cast some offal to him, he turned on his back, and opening his dreadful mouth, exhibited his six-fold row of teeth, triangular, and sharp as razors. This terrible apparatus for mastication is quite flat in the mouth when the shark is in a state of quietude; but when biting or swallowing food, it has the power of erecting it with vast power, by the enormous muscles of the jaw.
The whole body being of a light ash colour, his grim form, with the motion of his pectoral fins, could be distinctly seen, as he floated alongside, or glided to and fro.
Now Zuares Barradas, a daring and athletic young fellow, stripped of everything but his canvas trousers, appeared suddenly in the starboard forechains with a coil of rope in his hand, and a murmur almost rang along the deck, as he made one end of his coil fast to a belaying-pin, preparatory to plunging into the sea.
"Oh, Mr. Quail!" exclaimed Ethel, "is he about to fish for that dreadful thing?"
"No, miss," replied Quail, quietly; "he is going to attack it."
"Attack it?"
"Yes, in the water. Shouldn't care if a few more tried the same game," growled the mate.
"Is it not rashness—madness? So handsome a young man, too," continued Ethel, greatly excited.
"It is rashness and madness too, as you say, Miss Basset."
"You will prevent it, surely?"
"By no means. The weather is warm; if he wants a dip, let him have it," replied the mate, who had not forgotten that Zuares was one of the men who had drawn his knife when his grog was stopped.
Before he could be either warned or prevented, the younger Barradas sprang into the jolly-boat, which had been alongside for the carpenter, who had taken advantage of the calm to perform some piece of work upon the outer sheathing.
Shoving off to the full extent of the painter, Zuares stood for a moment in an attitude which showed his handsome, athletic, and tawny form to great advantage, and when the horrible shark came within six yards of the boat, rising at the same time so near to the surface that his gray body shone through the pea-green sea, as if scaled with gold and silver, a cry of terror burst from Ethel Basset, as Zuares plunged headlong into the water, within three feet of his jaws.
Turning instantly, the shark shot towards his expected prey, who rose near his tail, and, on the shark turning again, dived once more beneath him, with a skill and courage he could only have acquired on the half-savage shores of his native country.
All on deck beheld this strange and perilous game with breathless interest, and even the ruffianly crew were hushed into silence by a scene so unexpected.
Thrice the ill-matched antagonists appeared on the surface, Zuares swimming with the hand he had at liberty, and keeping the other, with the coiled rope, behind him on his loins, the shark following, but warily, as if in doubt. Each time Zuares got breath he dived headlong down, and on the third time, the monster dived after him, so closely and so simultaneously, that not a doubt remained in the minds of those who lined the ship's gunwale that they had encountered below, and that the bubbles, now rising fast to the surface, would soon be tinged with blood.
Even the swarthy visage and beetling brow of Pedro Barradas grew pale; and his present emotion found vent in a heavy curse.
Ethel and Rose covered their faces, and sank down on the quarter-deck seat. Nance Folgate gazed steadily at the place where the shark and seaman had disappeared, and continued to utter a series of noisy outcries, and "Lor' a mussy me's!"
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty seconds elapsed—they seemed an age; then suddenly the slack of the rope at the starboard fore-rigging was seen to tighten and pay out.
"Tail on—tally on—yeo-heavo!" was now the cry, and a dozen pairs of strong hands were pulling at it, and meeting, apparently, with a resistance that threatened to snap the rope.
At that moment, Zuares Barradas, panting, breathless and weary, rose to the surface at some distance, and swam leisurely towards the boat, while the shark—round the tail of which, and the small back fin that is close thereto, he had, in some fashion known best to himself, contrived to loop the rope tightly—was drawn, ignominiously and in great wrath, tail-foremost from his proper element.
A hurrah, rather varying in its cadence, as it did not come from British throats, greeted the monster's appearance as he floundered alongside, with his head downwards, and his awful jaws rasping and scraping in impotent fury against the ship's outer sheathing.
Up, up he was hoisted tailwise; then the carpenter, armed with his hatchet, descended into the fore-chains, and put an end to his power, by severing the spinal column, after which Jack Shark was cut adrift to perish, and amid great exultation the intrepid Zuares was hauled on board.
His right arm was severely lacerated and bleeding; but this, he stated, was done by one of the monster's fins, and not its jaws.
Handsome though the young fellow was, Ethel and Rose beheld him more with fear than admiration, for his feat savoured of a courage that was reckless or diabolical.
"True," said Dr. Heriot, aside to Mr. Quail; "a fellow who sets so little store upon his own life will set still less upon ours."
Although Captain Phillips would, perhaps, have felt small regret had Zuares shared the fate of the Prophet Jonah, he ordered the steward to give him a good tot of grog, and ere long, as the breeze sprang up and sail was made on the ship, nothing remained of an adventure so exciting, but an entry made very briefly by Mr. Quail in the ship's log:—
"4 P.M., calm. Zuares Sarradas caught and killed a shark.
"6 P.M., steady breeze; people employed in shifting the foretopsail and slushing the mainmast. Pumps attended to as usual."
The pumps and the foretopsail were evidently of more importance to Mr. Quail than the shark and its story.
One day, Ethel, inspired perhaps by Hawkshaw's evil genius, expressed a wish to go forward and see what she termed "the front part of the ship."
Her papa and Dr. Heriot were near; but as Hawkshaw had a jealous dislike of Heriot's attention to the sisters, and Mr. Basset had no desire to take more trouble than was absolutely necessary, the ex-captain drew closer to her, on which she said:
"Please take me to see it."
Hawkshaw, though he would almost as soon have walked into a furnace, gave his hand reluctantly to Ethel, pulled his newly-donned wide-awake down over his eyes, and led her forward from the sanctum of the quarter-deck.
Though in no way enchanted with her cavalier, Ethel, with a minuteness that, to him, was alike distressing and provoking, insisted on examining everything in this new region of the ship. The capstan, with its drumhead, pals, and bars; the hatches, with their tarpaulins and iron bands; the long-boat upon its chocks, lashed amidships, full of hens, pigs, and all the debris of the deck; the cook's galley, with its hot, steaming coppers and tin pans; the skuttle-butt, from which the sailors drunk their water, by a long tin measure lowered through the bung-hole; the bowsprit, riding gallantly above the foam, with its perpendicular martingale for guying down the headstays, dipping in the sea from time to time; the catheads with their double sheaves; the windlass, the best bower anchor, and the sheet anchor; and last of all, she peeped into the forecastle bunks, a dreary-looking little den, in the berths of which a number of the ruffian-like crew were lounging, sleeping, and some, in defiance of all orders, smoking pipes and cigaritos.
So full of interest had the beautiful and intelligent girl been while exploring this new world, passing from object to object, stepping lightly and gracefully with her gathered skirts above her pretty tapered ankles, that some time elapsed before she perceived, that which the more wary Hawkshaw had from the first observed, the cool and deliberate insolence with which the seamen—so unlike British seamen—were observing her. They loitered or stood directly in her way, and, when she begged pardon or turned aside, they leered at her, thrust their tongues in their cheeks, applied their forefingers to the side of their noses, whistled, and betrayed other and unmistakable signs of coarse wit or insolent admiration.
Ignorant of all this, poor Ethel continued to loiter among them, thinking them all very brave and fine fellows, though very dirty, and quite unlike William in "Black-eyed Susan," with his spotless trousers, tight at the waist and loose at the feet, his low-crowned, varnished hat, with its black ribbon, his dandy jacket, broad collar, and black silk neckerchief, with its peculiar tie.
The Barradas, Bill Badger, and Co., were the very antipodes of all this; but now the cook's galley interested her again.
"Oh, Captain Hawkshaw—the cat—look at the poor cat!" she exclaimed, as this useful domestic animal peeped at her from amid the cook's kettles.
"Well, Ethel, what of the cat?"
"See, what a horror it is!" continued Ethel, pointing to pussy, who had neither ears nor tail, and whose usually silky coat was coarse as that of a Spitzbergen bear, by almost daily immersions in the salt water of the lee-scuppers. "Captain Hawkshaw, tell me——"
"You must not speak so loudly, Miss Basset!" said that personage, with uncontrollable asperity and alarm. "I am close beside you; and others will hear as well as myself," he added.
"Others, sir?" repeated Ethel, with astonishment.
"You were about to ask something," said he, with visible uneasiness and confusion.
"I was about to ask who had mutilated the poor animal so cruelly."
"How can I say? Some ruffian, no doubt. Come aft, and ask the captain about it."
"Lord love you, marm," said the cook—a greasy black fellow, who seemed to be in a perpetual state of steam, grime, and perspiration; and no wonder, when he had his blazing coppers around him, and overhead a tropical sun that melted pitch out of the decks—"there ain't no cruelty in this whatsomdever."
"What! no cruelty in mutilating the poor animal thus?"
"It's natur's wicious, marm," replied the cook, with great earnestness. "'Tain't lucky to have a cat aboard o' ship, or a parson neither, for the matter o' that. We can't dock the parson; but we docks the cat, as you see."
"Poor little pussy!"
"Poor! be darned, marm! I shears off the ears for'ard, and docks the tail aft, leavin' on'y the starn post; and so a cook's knife alters their appearance and their wicious nature entirely."
"What strange stuff is that you are cooking?"
"Scouse, for the fork'stle, marm; have a taste?" replied the cook, offering a huge dirty ladle, filled with a queer mess, to Ethel's lovely lip.
But she shrank back; so he poured down his capacious throat the scalding contents, which, in reality, was a savoury mess, composed of salt junk, chopped into small pieces, bruised biscuits, potatoes, suet and pepper, all stewed up together, and ready to be served up in the wooden kid for the ship's crew.
"Shall we go aft, now?" said Hawkshaw, with irrepressible annoyance.
"Yes, please," replied Ethel, hastening away, on finding herself the centre of what she deemed a curious, but which was in reality an impertinently admiring group.
And, grasping the belaying pins to steady her steps, she hastened towards the quarter alone, for Hawkshaw remained behind, paralysed, and almost cursing her in his heart, on finding himself confronted by the bulky form and lowering front of Pedro Barradas.
He saw that Ethel, alone and unattended, had reached a seat near the taffrail, and was now beside her father, Rose, Dr. Heriot, and some of the ship's officers; so he turned hastily away, seeking to get aft by passing between the foremast and the forehatch; but there he was encountered by Bill Badger, the raw-boned, red-skinned, and ruffianly-looking Yankee, who said, while touching his hat in insolent mockery:
"Avast! I beg yer pardon, Capting 'Awkshaw, but haul yer wind. I calculate there's a yellow cove as wants to speak with yer uncommon pertic'lar—one o' the not-to-be-done squadron."
Turning, with rage and desperation in his heart, Hawkshaw affected a calm exterior, and said, suavely, to Barradas:
"I believe you wish to speak with me, my good fellow?"
"Ha! ha! ha! morte de Dios; how well he does it!" exclaimed the black-whiskered Pedro, slapping his huge thigh with a great brown, hairy hand, and showing a row of strong white teeth that a shark might envy. "But it won't do, capitano—caramba! it won't do!"
"I do not comprehend you, fellow!" said Hawkshaw, with an assumption of dignity.
"Oho! hallo, mates, he doesn't comprehend. Shall I make him?"
"Aye, aye; pitch into the cork-sucker!" growled several of the crew, bent upon mischief.
"Step with me this way," said Hawkshaw, with growing perturbation, drawing Pedro Barradas towards the bow of the long-boat. "I assure you that I am quite at a loss to know what you mean."
"Mean!" thundered the other, with a scowl on his dark visage, so terrible that Hawkshaw expected next moment to see a sharp knife glittering at his throat; "do you pretend to say that you have forgotten our old South American life, camarado, and how well you handled your lasso in the Barranca Secca, between Orizaba and the Puebla de Perote?"
"You are labouring under some strange mistake."
"If I were, would you take it so quietly, unless you were a coward? Mistaken! Por vida del demonio, I am not!"
"You are, fellow!"
"Oh, no, we are not mistaken," sneered the seaman.
"We?"
"Yes, we—Zuares and I. We knew you at once, and have known you ever since we cleared the Thames; so you may as well let your beard grow, and leave off skulking below when we take our trick at the wheel, or our spell at church on Sunday. You may as well leave off your blasted quarter-deck airs, too, for they won't go down with either of us."
"Scoundrel!" began Hawkshaw.
"Hah! is it to be guerra al cuchillo between us?" said the half Spaniard, touching his knife with a grim smile; "if so, cuidar con el lobo!"—(beware of the wolf.)
"Let me pass," said Hawkshaw, choking with rage.
"Not yet. I see you have still on your finger the ring we cut off the hand of the old padre, whom we lured into the Barranca, by sending, in the name of our Lady of Guadaloupe, a message that he must hasten to a dying man."
"Liar!" hissed Hawkshaw, while the crew drew nearer.
"He bent down to hear the confession of the expiring sinner—you, capitano—YOU, who sprang up and cut his throat. Ho! ho! Demonio, I knew from the first that we were companeros de viage."
"Villain and fiend!" muttered Hawkshaw, while drops of shame and rage rolled over his damp, pale visage, and his hands longed to clutch the muscular throat of the brawnier, mocking, and malevolent Barradas; "villain and fiend! so you are here?"
"Yes, and Zuares, too, Senor Capitano, as you have known well by the skulking aft; so civility is best. Oh, neither of us have forgotten that pleasant afternoon which we spent together in the Barranca Secca."
"Was I to blame for your mistake, or your brother's crime?"
"Now, what have you to say that I do not denounce you to your fine friends in the cabin, eh?—particularly to that girl with the dark eyes. Santos! what shoulders she has, such a bust and ankles! and then, there is that pretty little mina-bird, her sister, with the red cheeks and plump arms. It makes a fellow's mouth water to see them here upon the open ocean, so far from land—and help, eh, mates?—one would admire a coal-black negress here. And so you love the oldest one, capitano, eh?"
Hawkshaw drew back with indignant disgust at the idea of Ethel being referred to by such lips.
"Hah, did I sting you there?" resumed Barradas; "well, beware that you do not feel all the bitterness of losing her."
"Losing her?"
"Yes—before our ground-tackle is rove and ready. Take care," continued the mocking ruffian, "that you do not experience the bitterness of seeing a happiness that shall never be yours, ours. Harkee, hombre, can your fair ones swim?"
"Why?" asked Hawkshaw, mechanically.
"We meant to have had some fun with them when we crossed the Line, and shall have it yet. In their dainty white English skins—nothing else, remember—they will look uncommonly pretty floundering alongside, in the belly of a top-gallant studding-sail, won't they—eh?"
"You cannot mean—you dare not!" gasped Hawkshaw.
"Oh, don't be shocked, companero, before that comes to pass, you and some others shall have walked the plank, or been shot endlong, foot foremost, off a grating to leeward. Do you remember the Gulf of Florida, and what we did there to the mate of the Polacca?"
"Will you keep silent?" groaned Hawkshaw.
"Yes—if I am paid for it," grinned the other.
"Of course."
"But how am I to answer for Zuares, unless he is paid, too?"
"Of course," replied Hawkshaw, utterly bewildered.
The storm so long dreaded had burst upon him at last; and this was all he reaped by the cruel manner in which he had supplanted Morley Ashton.
"Well, the duros?" resumed Pedro, with a scowl, placing his hooked nose instantly within an inch of Hawkshaw's.
"I have no money."
"Maldita!" replied the South American, with a frown, "have you nothing?"
"Absolutely nothing—but this watch."
"Let us see it—presto!" said the impatient Pedro, with an oath that made even Hawkshaw shudder.
Turning his back to the quarter-deck, the latter drew from his vest pocket, with a sullen, humiliated, and hang-dog aspect, a handsome gold watch.
"Muchos gratias," said the mocking Barradas, with a grin, as he snatched it away with such force as to snap the guard; and then he thrust it into one of the pockets of his tarry trowsers, adding, "Now be off to your quarter-deck, and take care how you come forward again, until you are wanted—vaya usted al demonio! and the devil go with you!"
Barradas spat at Hawkshaw, with a scowl in his face, and turning away, walked to the forecastle, laughing.
A red blindness came over Hawkshaw, as if a crimson cloud enveloped him; he trembled in every limb, and his breath came in short painful gaspings. So black was his fury, that at first he thought of getting a revolver from his baggage, and shooting both the Barradas before the passengers and crew; but the fear of being instantly immolated by the latter restrained him, for he was a coward at heart, and one, moreover, who felt that he dared not die!
He was staggering, oppressed by hate, by rage, and shame, with the voice and mocking laugh of Barradas and his companions ringing in his ears, filling his tortured heart with bitterness and confusion, when suddenly several men on the weather-side exclaimed:
"A man in the water!"
"A dead body alongside!"
"Lay the ship in the wind!"
"Where away?" cried Mr. Quail.
"It's to leeward now. Bear a hand, boys; lower away the quarter-boat—stand by the falls."
This clamour, perhaps, arrested some immediate catastrophe, and gave a new current to the fierce emotions of Hawkshaw.
Though everything was set aloft that would draw or catch a breath of air, the breeze was very light, and all upon the starboard beam; thus the ship went very slowly through the water, with a steady but gentle heel to port.
Far away to leeward the western sun cast her giant shadow upon the sunny bosom of the deep, and it was in the midst of that shadow, about twenty yards from the ship, that the sad object was seen floating.
Soon it was abeam; then on the lee quarter, and soon astern, among the gold-tipped summits of the waves, as they rippled up in rapid succession beneath the passing breath of the light breeze.
Captain Phillips gave orders to lie to; so the mainyard was backed, and two of the crew, who owned the aristocratic names of Cribbit and Bolter, accompanied by Dr. Heriot, Manfredi, and Hawkshaw (who, after his late excitement, was anxious to do something, he knew not what), shoved off in the larboard quarter-boat, with four six-pound shots in a canvas bag, to sink the body after examining it.
A few strokes of the oar brought them alongside, scaring away a flock of Mother Gary's chickens that were hovering and tripping about it.
The body appeared to be that of a young seaman.
It was floating on its face, as all male corpses do when in the water, while those of females float on their back. How is it so?—let naturalists determine.
With his death-clutch his hands still grasped the lanyard of a life-buoy, from which the action of the weather had effaced the ship's name, and, as the poor fellow was minus a jacket, there were no pockets to search for anything that could lead to his identity. His dark hair rose and fell, floating on the water with every ripple that ran past him.
"He must have fallen overboard in the night, or belonged to some craft which has foundered in a storm that has not come our way," said Manfredi.
"Aye, aye," added Dr. Heriot; "some morning, perhaps the poor fellow little thought his soul would be required of him ere night; and little thinks some poor wife or sweetheart, mother or sister, that one they love is floating thus, so far from land."
"How long has he been in the water?" asked Hawkshaw, in a low tone.
"About four days, I think," replied Dr. Heriot, who, as he spoke, smartly lashed the bag containing the four six-pound shots to the feet of the corpse, at the same time desiring Hawkshaw with a clasp-knife to cut away the lanyard of the life-buoy, which was grasped by the hands of the deceased.
Hawkshaw reluctantly and shudderingly obeyed.
Then, as the poor corpse began to sink feet foremost, slowly, solemnly, and gradually into the pale green and transparent sea, the head rose, nodding, but almost erect, from the water.
The face became visible in the glare of the setting sun, now almost level with the sea, and an exclamation of horror burst from Hawkshaw, as he fell backward over the middle thwarts of the boat, for in the ghastly lineaments of the sinking dead man, as the sea closed slowly over them, he seemed to recognise—oh, was it conscience, fancy, or reality?—the dreaded features of MORLEY ASHTON!
In all the fleet of merchantmen which crowded the busy harbour of Rio de Janeiro, Morley could not discover a single vessel bound for the Isle of France. There were hundreds freighted for Holland, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the United States, Britain, and elsewhere, but not one for the island of his pilgrimage. So kind Tom Bartelot's generosity was proffered in vain, and for a time poor Morley was in despair!
To return to England merely to find that Ethel and her family had sailed at the appointed time, months ago, for the Isle of France, was a line of action to which he, by nature restless, impetuous, and impatient, could by no means reconcile himself to adopt.
He wrote to her a passionate and loving letter by the British mail, addressed to Laurel Lodge, to be forwarded after her, if she had left. In this letter he detailed the story of his disappearance, revealed the true character of Hawkshaw, and concluded by declaring that, whatever happened, death alone would prevent him from finding his way to her before the year was out.
And this letter, which he knew might be months in reaching her, he dropped into the post-office in the Rua Dirieta, with a sigh of hope, and turned away sadly, again to seek the docks where the Princess lay, feeling oppressively in his heart that his youth was almost gone—his once bright, hopeful youth gone—and without avail. A bitter, bitter conviction!
His letter, penned at such a distance from her, in a humble little posada, frequented by seamen, in the Campo de Santa Anna, though duly forwarded by the mail from Rio to Liverpool (for reasons which the reader will learn ere long) never reached the hand of Ethel Basset.
This, happily for himself, Morley could scarcely anticipate. The return steamer from Liverpool would not leave Rio, he learned, until its usual day of sailing (the 29th of every month); thus he knew that the letter on which his very life seemed to depend would be lying uselessly in the mail-bag for nearly three weeks. Tom Bartelot urged that Morley should remain with him, and he, poor fellow, at present had no other resource, and no immediate views.
"One chance remains," said Tom: "the Princess may get a freight for India or China, and, if so, it will go hard with me if I don't contrive somehow to get a sight of the Isle of France."
But this hope was speedily dissipated by the ship being chartered for Tasmania, or "Wan Demon's Land," as old Noah Gawthrop persisted in calling it.
Bartelot and Morrison were busy daily about the ship. Cast thus upon himself, Morley rambled listlessly about the streets of Rio, feeling downcast, forlorn, strange, and miserable.
The glorious climate, the endless summer, the wonderful fruits and flowers of the province, with the beauty of its capital city, alike failed to soothe, to charm, or to interest him, for Ethel was not there.
In vain he visited the gay and beautiful Rua do Ouvidor, the Regent Street of Rio, with its magnificent shops, some of which have their enormous windows piled with massive gold and silver plate, the produce of Brazilian mines, while others sparkle with jewels. He saw nothing to interest him in the quaint old palace of the Portuguese viceroy, and equally little in the noble residence of San Chris to val.
In vain he ascended the lofty hill which is crowned by the Church of Our Lady of Glory, and saw, spread at his feet, the vast Bay of Rio, with all its eighty isles and fleet of shipping, under steam, canvas, and bare poles; its verdant eminences, every one of which is crowned by a church or a convent, the surrounding mountains studded with villages and villas, and all this visible by the warm and golden light of a gorgeous Brazilian sunset in July.
There, on the western shore, rises the City of Palaces, where the early voyagers, 300 years ago, saw but a savage waste, a howling wilderness. What a change in the New World since these times, when, as quaint Richard Hakluyt informs us:
"Old Master William Hawkins, of Plymouth, a man esteemed for his wisdom, valour, experience, and skill in sea causes, much esteemed and beloved of Henry VIII., and being one of the principal sea-captains in the west port of England in his time, not contented with the short voyages commonly made then to the coasts of Europe, armed out a tall and goodlie ship, of the burthen of 250 tons, called the Paul, of Plymouth, wherewith he made three long and prosperous voyages unto the coast of Brazil—a thing in those days very rare, especially in our nation."
Great, indeed, is now the change, from those days when the Paul, of Plymouth, let go her anchor in the Ganabara Janeiro, as the bay was then named.
If a man wishes to kill time or bury care, few places afford better means for doing so than Rio, where all classes of that mixed race which inhabit it have an unlimited love for mirth and pleasure; but in vain did Morley Ashton, to the utmost of his limited means, visit the opera, where the loveliest women of Brazil may be seen in full ball costume, seated in boxes that are without fronts, as in our European theatres; and alike in vain he sought the public masquerades, and those glorious gardens by the cool seashore, for he had but one idea, one desire, to see Rio sink astern.
In this public garden, which is laid out with wonderful taste and skill by a Scottish gardener, with enormous flower-pots, shrubberies, and parterres, with winding walks between, bordered by tropical trees, whose luxuriant foliage forms cool shades from the sun, are beautifully-formed alcoves of trellis work, painted bright green and gold, and over these are trained the gorgeous and odoriferous flowering plants of that lovely clime; and in these great bowers are nightly supper parties, lighted less by gas than by the moon or stars, where music, mirth, laughter, love, flirtation, and frequently dancing, make the night glide into morning unperceived; but of all this, too, did our lost lover soon weary.
To lessen his gnawing anxiety, to spend the weary time, to make himself useful, and in some measure, by doing so, to repay, if only by mere manual labour, the friendliness of Tom Bartelot, Morley tried to become available on board the Princess, which was being rapidly got ready for sea, and he endeavoured to interest himself in all the details thereof.
Every huge round cask of sugar or tobacco that was lowered into the capacious hold seemed to hasten her departure, and every day that passed was reckoned by our lover as one less of absence from Ethel.
Ah! if, after all he had undergone, he should only meet her to find that she was lost to him for ever! But he thrust that idea aside, and, in spite of all that Tom Bartelot would say, he "tallyed on" at the rope, and "took his spell," like a veritable negro, at hoisting in the cargo.
A numerous gang of slaves, natives of Angola (for to that province the trade in "black passengers" is restricted in Brazil), sent by the merchant who had chartered the ship, soon accomplished this, and ere long the hatches were battened down, the tarpaulins spread over them, and the iron bands locked round the coamings.
Many of those slaves who worked on board were captured fugitives; and to Morley's European eye there was something strikingly repulsive in the iron neck-collars with which they were accoutred, like mastiff dogs, while others had masks of tin that concealed the lower part of their faces, and were secured at the back by iron padlocks.
Yet these poor wretches were as merry as crickets withal, and tramped away with their bare black feet on the sun-blistered deck, keeping chorus and time to some uncouth ditty which they had learned in the vast forests of their native Angola.
In their activity, especially under the long lash of their broad-brim-hatted taskmasters, they formed a strange contrast to the lazy Portuguese, or Spanish South Americans, who lounged, or, to use a well-known western word, "loafed" about the piers and quays in the sunshine, clad in their coarse but brilliantly-coloured surreppas or blanket-cloaks, that hid their rags, or, it may be, nakedness below; their poncho wrappers, or abarcas, or leather leggings, wherein the dagger-knife was stuck, like the skene-dhu of the Scottish Highlanders—solemn, stately, and polite ragamuffins, always smoking, wherever or however got, a paper cigarito.
Slowly, slowly, to Morley Ashton, seemed to pass the hours of the insipid anchor-watch, when he performed that duty, with his eyes fixed on the countless lights of Rio, that shed long lines of tremulous radiance across the bay, and his thoughts, as ever, with Ethel Basset.
This is a small watch, composed of one, and, at times, of two men, who look after the ship while at anchor or in port; and Morley was frequently so abstracted or taciturn that his watchmate or companion, when he had one, usually coiled himself up and dozed off to sleep under the counter of the longboat, so our poor lover, when left in charge of the deck, always forgot to strike the bell, which it was his duty to do every half hour, as if the vessel were at sea.
On the 23rd July, after being thirteen days in Rio de Janeiro, the Princess was ready for sea, and blue peter flying at her foremast-head. The hands were all busy preparing for their new and long voyage; the royal-yards were crossed aloft; the chafing gear (mats or other stuff to save the rigging from being frayed) was shipped on the backstays, or wherever necessary; the last of the sea stores were taken in, and the studding-sail gear rove.
The carpenter gave the ship a final touch of paint all round, the standing and running rigging got their last overhauling, after the fag-end of the cargo, which was principally composed of tobacco and sugar, was hoisted in from a lighter alongside, and stowed away by negroes between decks; the last boat laden with water had come off and been hoisted to the davits, and about 4 P.M. Morley, with delight in his heart, heard Bartelot's welcome order:
"All hands stand by the anchor—ahoy!"
It was soon heaved up, and hung dripping at the cathead; then came the next orders to set the courses, cast loose the topsails, jib, and staysails, to sheet home and hoist away.
Old Noah Gawthrop grasped the wheel, the sails filled, her head payed off, and the tall cone of the giant Pao d'Asucar, which was before astern, was now on the larboard bow, and the Princess began to leave the harbour of Rio.
In working out among the many isles which stud that magnificent bay, bracing the yards sharp to port and then to starboard every few minutes, a tug steamer nearly ran foul of her.
"Look out!" shouted the carpenter, who was probably thinking of his new paint, while assisting to get the anchor a-cockbill; "are your eyes no better than sojers' buttons, Noah?"
Old Noah, who handled the ship to perfection, disdained to reply as he looked grimly at the puffing, pursy tug; but, nevertheless, contrived to let the foreyardarm get foul of the foretopmast rattlings of an ugly, squat, hermaphrodite brig[*] which shot suddenly round the little isle of Paqueta, going at great speed, with a vast fore-and-aft mainsail.
[*] A vessel with a schooner's mainmast and brig's foremast.
"Hallo, Noah," cried Morrison; "are you playing at sojers with that wheel?"
"Are you going to sleep? Wipe your eyes with the flying jib," added Bartelot angrily, while some men jumped aloft and got the hamper clear.
"Dash my wig!" growled Noah, "after clearing a dirty smoke-jack, to run foul o' that ere confounded butter-box! 'tain't like me, sir, 'tain't like me."
"I know it is not like your steering, you old Triton," said Tom Bartelot; "but keep a bright look-out for the next craft that comes near us, or your next glass of grog won't be measured by the rule of thumb."
Poor old Noah, who had been a man-of-war's-man, and served with the Black Sea fleet at Sebastopol, and who rather prided himself upon his steering, almost wept with shame and vexation. Spasms twisted his ancient visage, which was wrinkled like the kernel of a dry nut, and his grey eyes, the pupils of which were like herring scales, glared as he griped the wheel, with an air as much as to say:
"Thumb-grog or not, sir, pity the next craft as I runs foul on—damme!"
And here, for the information of the uninitiated in such matters, we may mention that the grog so specially mentioned, referred to that made for the watch who came below in the dark; it was measured by dipping the thumb into the can, to ascertain when it contained enough of rum before adding water thereto; but, as the nights were often cold as well as dark, the regular old salt had usually no sensation in his thumb till the rum rose to the second joint thereof.
"'Twarn't my fault, sir!" resumed Noah, as Bartelot came aft; "that hermaphrodite brig don't answer her helm a bit—see how her mainsheet jibs."
"She is an old tub," said Bartelot, "and rolls at least twenty times per minute in a sea-way, or, like a crab, goes sideways, broadside-on, and any way but ahead."
"Shiver my topsails!" shouted Noah, with delight, "if she won't be bump ashore upon that blowed island of Packwetty, and sarve her right, too."
Contrary to his revengeful wish, however, the brig cleared it, and now the Princess soon passed the Castle of Santa Cruz, the giant rock of the Pao d'Asucar, after which she felt the full force of the sea breeze, and trimmed her sails on the starboard tack.
Morley was full of joy, and strangely excited.
The evening was a splendid one, and all the crew were in their summer gear—straw hats, white duck trousers, and flannel shirts of any colour they chose.
By 8 P.M. the coast of Brazil was many miles off, and all the outline of the land wore a deep blue indigo tint, against a warm sky of the most brilliant gold and burnt-sienna, that gradually turned to crimson, as the sun set behind the mountains of the Corcovado, the Sugar-loaf, and La Gaviá.
The pharos at the mouth of the Bay of Rio was twinkling like a star that sunk at times amid the darkening waves, while, with night closing around her, the Princess, with royals and studding-sails set, bore swiftly on her course through the lonely waters of the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
Though, to the impatient landsman, life on board ship becomes soon monotonous, to be once again at sea was soothing to Morley Ashton. He was not without imagination, and something of the poetic in his temperament; thus, when contemplating the ocean, he felt how much there is of the grand and sublime, the terrible and beautiful, the free and fetterless in it; and hence, perhaps, the great popularity of most tales, novels, and romances, which refer to that aqueous element.
Morley seemed to become a new man. With all his disappointments, he was too young not to feel the fresh impulses of youth strong within him; and thus hope seemed to come with the keen breeze that blew over the starlit sea, as he and Morrison trod the deck, keeping together the middle watch, which extends from midnight till four in the morning.
"There is," says one of the liveliest of our English writers, "a great feeling of freedom in being the arbiter of one's actions, to go where you will and when you will. The first burst of life is, indeed, a glorious thing; youth, health, hope, and confidence, have each a force and vigour they lose in after years. Life is then, a splendid river, and we are swimming with the stream.—no adverse waves to weary, no billows to buffet with us, as we hold on our way rejoicing."
Morley had buffeted with many adverse waves, but it was the ardour and confidence of this "first burst of life" and spring of youth that enabled him to surmount them; and, inspired by it, he looked hopefully and manfully forward to the vague and uncertain future.
Being an intelligent, well-educated, and well-read man, with a strong sense of probity and trust in religion, Morrison, though several years his senior, formed an admirable companion and occasional mentor to Morley. He was a man who had undergone many vicissitudes in life; but believing rigidly that all things were ordered for our ultimate good, and nothing evil occurred which might not have been worse, he passed through the world with a tolerable air of philosophy, and he contrived somehow to infuse into Morley's more ardent nature the quiet of content for the present time, with a spirit of perseverance and hope for that to come.
So Morrison talked away about Ethel Basset, as if he had known her all his life. He pointed out a variety of ways and means for reaching the Isle of France. He calculated the distance to a nicety; about 2,400 miles from Rio to the Cape; about 4,800 miles from thence to Tasmania; and about 2,400 more from thence to the Isle of France. In short, making allowance for variation, leeway, head-winds, and so forth, poor Morley found that he must traverse at least 9,600 miles before he saw the land that was Ethel's new home!
At this calculation he could not repress a sigh and an emotion of repining, notwithstanding all the patience and philosophy with which his Scottish friend sought to inspire him.
But the ship flew fast on her watery path. She was spanking along at the rate of nine knots an hour over a smooth sea with a glorious sky overhead—a sky wherein he saw, for the first time, the Hole, or, as sailors term it, "the Coal-sack," a deep and dark blue starless space in the southern quarter of the heavens, an appearance only to be found in those latitudes where, in its far immensity of lightless azure, that portion of the sky becomes black, as if it had been pierced by a hole.
After they had been three days out from Rio, early in the morning, Morley was roused from sleep, first by the rattling and hauling aft of the starboard chain, which the watch on deck were unbending for stowage in the cable-tier, and second by a conversation at the companion hatch, where he heard the voices of Bartelot and Gawthrop, who both summoned Morrison with something of excitement in their tone, so he, too, hurried on deck.
The wind, which had been due west all night, enabling the Princess to run her course with both sheets aft, had veered round to the northward: so she was now trimmed with her starboard tacks on board, and had all her fore-and-aft canvas set.
"What is the matter?" asked Morley.
"Look astern," replied Bartelot.
He did so, and saw a long, low brigantine, with a black hull, and a vast spread of snow-white canvas, heading directly in their wake about ten miles astern.
Every time she rose upon a wave her bright copper flashed in the morning sun, and the foam that flew off from each side from her sharp black prow was white as the cloth of the long tapering jib and fly ing-jib that bellied out from the bowsprit and boom above.
The crew of the Princess were all grouped aft about the quarter, regarding her with some anxiety, conferring in whispers, and the telescope was passed alternately from Bartelot and Morrison to Noah Gawthrop, Ben Plank, the carpenter, and some of the older men of the crew.
"Is there anything suspicious about her?" asked Morley of Gawthrop, who was taking a long and steady look at her through a tarpaulin-covered telescope.
Noah did not reply immediately; but vigorously expectorated his quid to leeward, and again applied his stern grey visual organ to the glass, puckering up the other fearfully as he closed it.
"When I came on deck this morning that craft was hull down at the horizon, bearing northward close-hauled; but she soon altered her course and headed directly after us. As I did not like the cut of her jib, or her hull either, for the matter of that, I kept the ship away six or eight points, upon which she still headed after us, and spread more canvas, which I saw her crew had been wetting. I hoisted our ensign, to which she made no reply by showing any colour, not even a thread of bunting. She is full of men; I don't like her look at all, and don't see why she should be dodging in this way."
This was the explanation of Bartelot, who added:
"And now, Noah, what do you say?"
"I say, sir, as she's a powerfully-built brigantine—coppered to the bends, sharp as a needle, and harmed, too, sir—harmed. She has stings in her, that wasp has! Blowed if I don't see 'em a-tricing up her bow ports now! She's up to some mischief, that confounded miskitty; so as we can't meet her in her own fashion, my advice, captain, is to give her a jolly wide berth."
"Just what I mean to do, Noah. She has gained a knot on us in the last twenty minutes; so, on a wind, we are no match for her; but before the wind we'll give her the go-by hand over hand."
Bartelot now ordered the vessel's course to be altered due south; the tacks to be brought aft, the fore-and-aft canvas to be reduced, the studding-sails to be set, and each, before it was hoisted out, was well drenched by buckets of water, to make the canvas draw better; and from the tops and cross-trees the courses and topsails underwent a similar process. The royals were set, and little triangular skysails above them, too; thus, in a very few minutes, the Princess was flying right before the wind under a mighty spread of canvas.
The morning breeze was fresh and increasing, and as she tore through the glittering water at the rate of ten knots an hour, deeply laden as she was, it literally smoked under her bows, and flew over her dripping catheads, while her new wake was one of white froth, like a mill-race, extending at an acute angle from the old one.
"Hah! look there—how well I knew she was bent on mischief!" exclaimed Bartelot. A white puff, reduced by distance to the size of a whiff of tobacco, escaped from, her lee-bow, and a long time after, for she was nine miles or so astern, the report of a cannon came over the water, but still no colours were displayed. "I knew it would come to this; round goes her foretopsail-yard square before the wind."
With man-o'-war-like rapidity she, too, altered her course, set her fore-royal, her fore-top and top-gallant studding-sails, easing off the long spanker-boom and sheet of her enormous fore-and-aft mainsail, above which, on a mast that tapered away aloft like a fishing-rod, she hoisted a tall, shoulder-of-mutton gaff-topsail.
Fast flew the foam before her now, rising at times so high as to hide nearly her black hull, the fulcrum above which this cloud of canvas swayed as she rolled heavily from side to side; but, sharply though she was built, and swiftly as she had hitherto run upon the wind, she was no match before it for a square-rigged vessel like the Princess, with her greater spread of sail.
So now she was left astern as fast as previously she had been overhauling the Princess, and as both were now trimmed dead before the wind, each rolled heavily from side to side.
This too-evident pursuit caused considerable excitement, and no small anxiety on board; for, with the exception of a revolver of Tom Bartelot's, and a couple of fowling-pieces, the crew had no arms whatever, save handspikes and their sheath knives, with which to encounter the pirate, if such she proved to be.
That she was not a ship of war was evident, as she did not possess steam power, and carried neither ensign nor pennant at this juncture; so, whatever her object was, Tom Bartelot, in his present defenceless condition, was resolved to avoid her acquaintance, and continued to run due south during the whole day, for though she was left astern, the brigantine still continued to pursue them, with four long sweeps out, which her crew worked amidships; but, about the middle of the first dog-watch, viz., four o'clock P.M., she was more than hull down at the horizon.
Clouds were banking up to windward; the weather was becoming hazy; but while daylight lasted, Bartelot did not alter his southern course, though he took in some of his studdingsails, and sent down his royals and skysails.
When darkness had fairly set, he reduced the last of his studdingsails, set his fore and mainstay sail, brought the starboard tacks on board, and kept the ship upon her former course, after being forced by this little rencontre on the high seas to run about 100 miles out of it, for the ship had gone for more than ten hours at an average of ten knots per hour by the log-line.
He gave Gawthrop the wheel, and ordered him to steer by the stars, when he could see them, as he kept the binnacle dark, lest its lamps, by their light, might reveal the ship's course to some keen-sighted mastheadman of the suspicious brigantine. The cabin lamp was lit below, but a tarpaulin was spread over the skylight.
Silence was ordered to be kept on deck, as water will convey every sound to a vast distance; so, thus, in the dark, without moon, and with very few stars visible through the gathering scud, to guide our steersman, the ship sped upon her eastern course once more. The chase of the day formed a fruitful theme in the cabin that night, where they frequently congratulated themselves on their escape, and many a strange story of the pirates, whom the progress of steam, and its adoption in war vessels, had swept from those southern waters, served to beguile the night.
Morrison, who had the history and memoirs of all the buccaneers of America and the Indian Isles by heart, particularly excelled in the yarns he spun; but the most quaint was one he told of a Scottish skipper—a Hebridean from Stornaway—who possessed a bottle, the stopper of which informed him how to steer for the avoidance of storms as well as the sailor's horn-book could do.
"A bottle!" exclaimed Bartelot. "I have heard of many a man who has lost his life, and his ship also, by application thereto; but never of one who saved them through its means."
"But this bottle and its stopper were unlike any you ever saw.
"So 'twould seem."
"It was one of our old flat-bottomed, blue Scotch dram-bottles, and had a quaint stopper of delf-ware, in the form of a man's head, with a rubicund visage, a jovial-mouth, wicked-looking little eyes, and a comical red hat. By day, or at any time when the skipper was not present, the queer visage which surmounted the cork remained stolid and immovable, and to all appearance mere delf, like any other stopper where a human face was carved or cast. But at night, when the skipper was seated at his grog, the steward, who peeped in from the steerage the man at the helm, who also peeped down through the skylight; the mate or anyone else who came suddenly below for orders, would find the skipper talking away to the stopper in the bottle neck—the little head was seen to nod waggishly, the eyes to wink and leer, the mouth to laugh, and the little red tongue to speak merrily; and it was further said, that the bottle had the admirable and economical property of being always half full——"
"Like the widow's cruse of oil?"
"Yes; but with the best Campbelton—some said Islay whisky—the quantity of which never diminished, yet it was never replenished by the steward, for the skipper seemed to prize his bottle as if it were the lamp of Aladdin, and always locked it carefully fast in the stern locker."
"And where is this jolly old bottle now?"
"At his death, he bequeathed it to a crack-brained skipper of Montrose, who, under its influence, astounded the public by the discoveries he made."
"How?"
"He sent the spirit of the bottle, in the form of a woman—a clairvoyante—to pry aboard a war ship in the West Indies; to search for Sir John Franklin; to visit his family in heaven, and bring back locks of their hair; to inquire after numerous enemies, who had all gone to the other place—and all of which revelations he duly recorded as they came to pass, in a Scotch newspaper, to the great astonishment of the queen's lieges."
About twelve o'clock, Bartelot went on deck, and adjusted his night-glass to sweep the horizon; but so dark and hazy was the atmosphere, that a large ship might have been within three miles of the Princess and yet have been invisible from her deck; so, as the middle watch was Morrison's, he and Morley turned in, and soon were sound asleep.
At 4 P.M. the latter was awakened by the bell being struck, and the morning watch called.
"Is that you, Morrison?" asked Bartelot, from his berth, as a step was heard in the cabin.
"Yes, sir; I was just about to call you in haste."
"About that rascally brigantine?"
"No, sir."
"What is in sight, then??
"Land on the weather-bow, and we are raising it fast."
"Land!" exclaimed Bartelot, in astonishment.
"Bearing about twenty miles distant."
"Bah! Cape Flyaway. You have been at your Montrose skipper's wonderful dram-bottle."
"Land as solid as the Bass Rock," continued the Scotchman obstinately; "I have just had a squint at it from the fore-crosstrees, and now mean to have a look at the chart."
"This must be some of your second sight—there is no island hereabout, Morrison. Come Morley, turn out—tumble up, there, and let us have a look at Morrison's enchanted island. How's the wind?"
"Veering ahead."
"And how does she lie?"
"East and by north," replied Morrison, glancing at the tell-tale compass that swung in the skylight, and which is constructed so as to hang with its face downward, for use in the cabin. Bartelot dressed in haste, and was soon on deck, where Morley joined him.
Although our hero knew it not—for who can foresee what to-morrow may bring forth?—this enforced and necessary divergence from the vessel's proper course brought about a very strange episode, or adventure, which cast some light upon the origin, and, it might be, the crimes, of certain persons whom we have been, however unwillingly, compelled by the force of circumstances and the tenor of our story, to introduce to the reader.
When they came on deck, day was breaking. The stars were still sparkling brightly in the blue zenith, and in the western quarter of the sky; but they paled away and faded out, as dawn spread over the east, and stole across the ocean in those long streaks of light that are rendered so weird, strange, and indistinct, from having only the tops of the lone waves to rest upon.
There is, indeed, something glorious and impressive in the dawn of a new day, as it spreads over the unlimited space of the mighty deep; and this effect increases in its splendour, as the sun, with tropical rapidity, heaves up at the horizon, amid a burst of golden haze, and then all becomes life and light. There is no eagle there to soar towards him, with the dew on his pinions, and no lark to sing at "heaven's gate;" but the petrels trip along the brine, the huge porpoise soars through the foam rejoicingly, and the silvery flying fish flits like a little spirit from the spray.
The wind was very light; the vessel was creeping along under a cloud of canvas, and as Morley came on deck the watch were busy swabbing it. No need was there to drench it first with water; there had been a rough gale in the morning watch, during which Morrison had ordered the foresail and foretopsail to be hoisted; since then, the wind had come in angry puffs, and then died gradually away.
Now the ship was almost becalmed, and there, sure enough, upon her weather bow, a few miles off, lay the land which Morrison had so confidently reported, rising in dark and opaque outline, like a dusky patch of indigo, against the yellow and gold of the sky beyond, and the amber sea, that lay in middle distance.
For a time it looked like a dark cloud resting on the sunlit ocean, from which it might arise and melt away, but, gradually, as the ship crept on, the form of a headland, and some tuft-like palm-trees, became defined against the sky.
Higher rose the sun, and ere long the beams began to gild this headland, and to shine glitteringly on the face of a bluff, in which it terminated.
"Land it is—but land here!" said Captain Bartelot.
"An island, and not a very small one either," added Morley.
"It is most extraordinary!"
"How so?"
"Bring up the chart, Morrison," said Bartelot, unheeding his friend's query, "and the log-book, too, with yesterday's reckoning and observation."
Morrison dived below, but speedily re-appeared, with a chart and the ship's log.
"At twelve, sir, yesterday, when we were running away from that rascally piccaroon, we were in latitude 28—25 south; longitude 35—20 west, Tristan d'Acunha bearing sixty-six miles to the eastward."
"That is not Tristan, but an island about three miles long, and there is no indication of it whatever in the chart. It is covered with trees; but I can see no sign of a human habitation," observed Bartelot, as he resumed his telescope.
Light though the wind, the ship gradually crept nearer the island; and by breakfast time is was abeam of her, and about four miles distant.
Save the rock before mentioned, no part of it was very high; it seemed to be about the size stated by Bartelot, and yet, strange to say, it was not recorded or borne in any map or chart on board.
Now there fell a dead and listless calm.
The sun was burning hot and the sea glistened like oil beneath its rays, but the fertility and greenness of this nameless and unknown isle were charming to look upon. Morley regretted the fresh delay occasioned by this calm, especially after the lost hundred miles yesterday (though a hundred were a trifle after Morrison's galling calculation of the oceans he had yet to traverse), but he could not resist the emotions of curiosity and novelty so peculiar to his age and temperament; and thus he expressed a strong wish to visit this terra incognita—this beautiful island of the southern sea. But Bartelot hesitated.
"It may be the head-quarters, the rendezvous, of those who pursued us yesterday," said he; "and some of their sort, shipmates and companions, may be lurking among those thickets, the foliage of which seems so inviting."
"Save the sea-birds, I cannot discover a living object about it," urged Morley.
"There may be savages—who can say?—and most likely wild animals. There are some very ferocious boars on Tristan d'Acunha, and other South Sea isles. Then we have no arms."