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diff --git a/old/62343-0.txt b/old/62343-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index aec31c9..0000000 --- a/old/62343-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6885 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Shipmate Louise, Volume 1 (of 3), by -William Clark Russell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: My Shipmate Louise, Volume 1 (of 3) - The Romance of a Wreck - -Author: William Clark Russell - -Release Date: June 8, 2020 [EBook #62343] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY SHIPMATE LOUISE, VOLUME 1 *** - - - - -Produced by David E. Brown and The Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -MY SHIPMATE LOUISE - -VOL. I. - - - - -NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. - - - A FELLOW OF TRINITY. By ALAN ST. AUBYN and WALT WHEELER. 3 vols. - - THE WORD AND THE WILL. By JAMES PAYN. 3 vols. - - AUNT ABIGAIL DYKES. By GEORGE RANDOLPH. 1 vol. - - A WARD OF THE GOLDEN GATE. By BRET HARTE. 1 vol. - - RUFFINO. By OUIDA. 1 vol. - - -London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W. - - - - - MY SHIPMATE LOUISE - - The Romance of a Wreck - - BY - - W. CLARK RUSSELL - - [Illustration] - - IN THREE VOLUMES - - VOL. I. - - - London - CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY - 1890 - - - - - PRINTED BY - SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE - LONDON - - - - - TO - - LEOPOLD HUDSON, ESQ. - - _Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England - Warden of Middlesex Hospital College_ - - IN GRATITUDE - - - - - CONTENTS - OF - THE FIRST VOLUME - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. DOWN CHANNEL 1 - - II. THE FRENCH LUGGER 20 - - III. MY FELLOW PASSENGERS 43 - - IV. LOUISE TEMPLE 60 - - V. A MYSTERIOUS VOICE 84 - - VI. WE LOSE A MAN 108 - - VII. A SEA FUNERAL 130 - - VIII. A STRANGE CARGO 161 - - IX. A SECRET BLOW 182 - - X. THE HUMOURS OF AN INDIAMAN 203 - - XI. A STRANGE SAIL 223 - - XII. A STORM OF WIND 246 - - XIII. FIRE! 270 - - XIV. CRABB 292 - - - - -MY SHIPMATE LOUISE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -DOWN CHANNEL - - -We had left Gravesend at four o’clock in the morning, and now, at -half-past eight o’clock in the evening, we were off the South Foreland, -the ship on a taut bowline heading on a due down Channel course. - -It was a September night, with an edge of winter in the gusts and -blasts which swept squall-like into the airy darkling hollows of the -canvas. There was a full moon, small as a silver cannon-ball, with -a tropical greenish tinge in its icy sparkling, and the scud came -sweeping up over it in shreds and curls and feathers of vapour, sailing -up dark from where the land of France was, and whitening out into -a gossamer delicacy of tint as it soared into and fled through the -central silver splendour. The weight of the whole range of Channel was -in the run of the surge that flashed into masses of white water from -the ponderous bow of the Indiaman as she stormed and crushed her way -along, the tacks of her courses groaning to every windward roll, as -though the clew of each sail were the hand of a giant seeking to uproot -the massive iron bolt that confined the corner of the groaning cloths -to the deck. - -The towering foreland showed in a pale and windy heap on the starboard -quarter. The land ran in a sort of elusive faintness along our beam, -with the Dover lights hanging in the pallid shadow like a galaxy of -fireflies: beyond them a sort of trembling nebulous sheen, marking -Folkestone; and on high in the clear dusk over the quarter you saw the -Foreland light like some wild and yellow star staring down upon the sea -clear of the flight of the wing-like scud. - -The ship was the _Countess Ida_, a well-known Indiaman of her day--now -so long ago that it makes me feel as though I were two centuries old -to be able to relate that I was a hearty young fellow in those times. -She was bound to Bombay. Most of the passengers had come aboard at -Gravesend, I amongst them; and here we were now thrashing our way into -the widening waters of the Channel, mighty thankful--those of us who -were not sea-sick, I mean--that there had come a shift of wind when the -southern limb of the Goodwin Sands was still abreast, to enable us to -keep our anchors at the cathead and save us a heart-wearying spell of -detention in the Downs. - -The vessel looked noble by moonlight; she was showing a maintopgallant -sail to the freshening wind, and the canvas soared to high aloft -in shadowy spaces, which came and went in a kind of winking as the -luminary leapt from the edge of the hurrying clouds into some little -lagoon of soft indigo, flashing down a very rain of silver fires, -till the long sparkling beam travelling over the foaming heads of the -seas, like a spoke of a revolving wheel, was extinguished in a breath -by the sweep of a body of vapour over the lovely planet. I stood at -the rail that ran athwart the break of the poop, surveying this grand -night-picture of the outward-bound Indiaman. From time to time there -would be a roaring of water off her weather-bow, that glanced in the -moonshine in a huge fountain of prismatic crystals. The figures of a -couple of seamen keeping a look-out trudged the weather-side of the -forecastle, their shadows at their feet starting out upon the white -plank to some quick and brilliant hurl of moonlight, clear as a sketch -in ink, upon white paper. Amidships, forward, loomed up the big galley, -with a huge long-boat stowed before it roofed with spare booms; on -either hand rose the high bulwarks with three carronades of a side -stealing out of the dusk between the tall defences of the ship like -the shapes of beasts crouching to obtain a view of the sea through the -port-holes. A red ray of light came aslant from the galley and touched -with its rusty radiance a few links of the huge chain cable that was -ranged along the decks, a coil of rope hanging upon a belaying pin, -and a fragment of bulwarks stanchion. Now and again a seaman would -pass through this light, the figure of him coming out red against the -greenish silver in the atmosphere. A knot of passengers hung together -close under the weather poop ladder, with a broad white space of the -quarter-deck sloping from their feet to the lee waterways, whence at -intervals there would come a sound of choking and gasping as the heave -of the ship brought the dark Channel surge brimming to the scupper -holes. The growling hum of the voices of the men blended in a strange -effect upon the ear with the shrill singing of the wind in the rigging -and the ceaseless washing noises over the side and the long-drawn -creaking sounds which arise from all parts of a ship struggling against -a head sea under a press of canvas. - -Aft on the poop where I was standing the vessel had something of a -deserted look. The pilot had been dropped off Deal; the officer of the -watch (the chief mate) was stumping the weather-side of the deck from -the ladder to abreast of the foremost skylight; the dark figure of the -captain swung in a sort of pendulum-tramping from the mizzen rigging to -the grating abaft the wheel. Dim as a distant firebrand over the port -quarter, windily flickering upon the stretch of throbbing waters, shone -the lantern of the lightship off the South Sand Head; and it was odd to -mark how it rose and fell upon the speeding night sky to the swift yet -stately pitching of our ship, with the figure of the man at the helm -somehow showing the vaguer for it, spite of the shining of the binnacle -lamp flinging a little golden haze round about the compass stand, abaft -which the shape of the fellow showed vague as the outline of a ghost. - -Ha! thought I, _this_ is being at sea now indeed! Why, though we were -in narrow waters yet, there was such a note of ocean yearning in -the thunderous wash of the weather billows sweeping along the bends -that, but for the pale glimmer of the line of land trending away to -starboard, I might easily have imagined the whole waters of the great -Atlantic to be under our bow. - -It was a bit chilly, and I caught myself hugging my peacoat to me with -a half-formed resolution to make for my cabin, where there were yet -some traps of mine remaining to be stowed away. But I lingered--lover -of all sea-effects, as I then was and still am--to watch a fine brig -blowing past us along to the Downs, the strong wind gushing fair over -her quarter, and her canvas rising in marble-like curves to the tiny -royals; every cloth glancing in pearl to the dance of the moon amongst -the clouds, every rope upon her glistening out into silver wire, with -the foam, white as sifted snow, lifting to her hawse-pipes to the -clipper shearing of her keen stem, and not a light aboard of her but -what was kindled by the luminary in the glass and brass about her decks -as she went rolling past us delicate as a vision, pale as steam, yet of -an exquisite grace as determinable as a piece of painting on ivory. - -I walked aft to the companion hatch and entered the cuddy, or, as it is -now called, the saloon. The apartment was the width of the ship, and -was indeed a very splendid and spacious state-cabin, with a bulkhead -at the extremity under the wheel, where the captain’s bedroom was, and -a berth alongside of it, where the skipper worked out his navigation -along with the officers, and where the midshipmen went to school. There -were also two berths right forward close against the entrance to the -cuddy by way of the quarter-deck, occupied by the first and second -mates; otherwise, the interior was as clear as a ballroom, and it was -like entering a brilliantly illuminated pavilion ashore, to pass out -of the windy dusk of the night and the flying moonshine of it into the -soft brightness of oil-flames burning in handsome lamps of white and -gleaming metal, duplicated by mirrors, with hand-paintings between and -polished panels in which the radiance cloudily rippled. A long table -went down the centre of this cuddy, and over it were the domes of the -skylights, in which were many plants and flowers of beauty swinging -in pots, and globes of fish and silver swinging trays. Right through -the heart of the interior came the shaft of the mizzen mast, rich with -chiselled configurations, and of a delicate hue; a handsome piano -stood lashed to the deck abaft the trunk of giant spar. The planks -were finely carpeted, and sofas and arm-chairs ran the length of this -glittering saloon on either side of it. - -There were a few people assembled at the fore-end of the table as I -made my way to the hatch whose wide steps led to the sleeping berths -below. It was not hard to perceive that one of them was an East Indian -military gentleman whose liver was on fire through years of curry. His -white whiskers of the wire-like inflexibility of a cat’s, stood out on -either side his lemon-coloured cheeks; his little blood-shot eyes of -indigo sparkled under overhanging brows where the hair lay thick like -rolls of cotton-wool. This gentleman I knew to be Colonel Bannister, -and as I cautiously made my way along--for the movements of the decks -were staggering enough to oblige me to tread warily--I gathered that -he was ridiculing the medical profession to Dr. Hemmeridge, the ship’s -surgeon, for its inability to prescribe for sea-sickness. - -‘It iss der nerves,’ I heard a fat Dutch gentleman say--afterwards -known to me as Peter Hemskirk, manager of a firm in Bombay. - -‘Nerves!’ sneered the colonel, with a glance at the Dutchman’s -waistcoat. ‘Don’t you know the difference between the nerves and the -stomach, sir?’ - -‘Same thing,’ exclaimed Dr. Hemmeridge soothingly; ‘sea-sickness means -the head, any way; and pray, colonel, what are the brains but’---- - -‘Ha! ha!’ roared the colonel, interrupting him; ‘_there_ I have you. If -it be the brains only which are affected, why, then, ha! ha! no wonder -Mynheer here doesn’t suffer, though it’s his first voyage, he says.’ - -But my descent of the steps carried me out of earshot of this -interesting talk. My cabin was well aft. There was a fairly wide -corridor, and the berths were ranged on either hand of it. From some of -them, as I made my way along, came in muffled sounds various notes of -lamentation and suffering. A black woman, with a ring through her nose -and her head draped in white, sat on the deck in front of the closed -door of a berth, moaning in a sea-sick way over a baby that she rocked -in her arms, and that was crying at the top of its pipes. The door of -a cabin immediately opposite opened, and a young fellow with a ghastly -face putting his head out exclaimed in accents strongly suggestive of -nausea: ‘I thay, confound it! thtop that noithe, will you? The rolling -ith bad enough without _that_ thindy. Thteward!’ The ship gave a lurch, -and he swung out, but instantly darted back again, being indeed but -half clothed: ‘I thay, are _you_ the thteward?’ - -‘No,’ said I. ‘Keep on singing out. Somebody’ll come to you.’ - -‘Won’t they thmother that woman?’ he shouted, and he would have said -more, but a sudden kickup of the ship slammed his cabin door for him, -and the next moment my ear caught a sound that indicated too surely -his rashness in leaving his bunk. - -I entered my berth, and found the lamp alight in it, and the young -gentleman who was to share the cabin with me sitting in his bedstead, -that was above mine, dangling his legs over the edge of it, and gazing -with a disordered countenance upon the deck. I had chatted with him -during the afternoon and had learnt who he was. Indeed, his name was -in big letters upon his portmanteau--‘The Hon. Stephen Colledge;’ and -incidentally he had told me that he was a son of Lord Sandown, and -that he was bound to India on a shooting tour. He was a good-looking -young man, with fair whiskers, white teeth, a genial smile, yet with -something of affectation in his way of speaking. - -‘It’s doocid rough, isn’t it, Mr. Dugdale?’ said he; ‘and isn’t it -raining?’ - -‘No,’ said I. - -‘Oh, but look at the glass here,’ he exclaimed, indicating the scuttle -or porthole, the thick glass of which showed gleaming, but black as -coal against the night outside. - -‘Why,’ said I, ‘the wet there is the sea; it is spray; nothing but -spray.’ - -‘Hang all waves!’ he said in a low voice. ‘Why the dickens can’t the -ocean always be calm? If I’d have known that this ship pitched so, I’d -have waited for a steadier vessel. Will you do me the kindness to lift -the lid of that portmanteau? You’ll find a flask of brandy in it. Hang -me if I like to move. Sorry now I didn’t bring a cot, though they’re -doocid awkward things to get in and out of.’ - -I found the flask, and gave it to him, and he took a pull at it. I -declined his offer of a dram, and went to work to stow away some odds -and ends which were in my trunk. - -‘Don’t you feel ill?’ said he. - -‘No,’ said I. - -‘Oh, ah, I remember now!’ he exclaimed; ‘you were a sailor once, -weren’t you?’ - -‘Yes; I had a couple of years of it.’ - -‘Wish _I’d_ been a sailor, I know,’ said he. ‘I mean, after I’d given -it up. As to _being_ a sailor--merciful goodness! think of four, -perhaps five months of _this_.’ - -‘Oh, you’ll be as good a sailor as ever a seaman amongst us in a day or -two,’ said I encouragingly. - -‘Don’t feel like it now, though,’ he exclaimed. ‘Let’s see: I think -you said you were going out to do some painting?--Oh no! I beg pardon: -it was a chap named Emmett who told me that. You--you----’ He looked -at me with a slightly inebriated cock of the head, from which I might -infer that the ‘pull’ he had taken at his flask was by no means his -first ‘drain’ within the hour. - -‘No,’ said I, with a laugh; ‘I am going out to see an old relative up -country. And not more for that than for the fun of a voyage.’ - -‘The _fun_ of the voyage!’ he echoed with a stupid face; then with a -sudden brightening up of his manner, though his gloomy countenance -quickly returned to him, he exclaimed, ‘I say, Dugdale--beg pardon, you -know; no good in _mistering_ a chap that you’re going to sleep with for -four or five months--call me Colledge, old fellow--but I say, though, -seen anything more of that ripping girl since dinner? By George! what -eyes, eh?’ - -He drew his legs up, and with a slight groan composed himself in a -posture for sleep, manifestly heedless of any answer I might make to -his question. - -I lingered awhile in the berth, and then, filling a pipe, mounted to -the saloon, and made my way to the quarter-deck to smoke in the shelter -of the recess in the cuddy front. Colonel Bannister lay sprawling upon -a sofa, holding a tumbler of brandy grog. There were other passengers -in the cuddy, scattered, and all of them grimly silent, staring hard -at the lamps, yet with something of vacancy in their regard, as though -their thoughts were elsewhere. As I stepped on to the quarter-deck, -the cries and chorusing of men aloft, came sounding through the strong -and hissing pouring of the wind between the masts and through the -harsh seething of the seas, which the bows of the ship were smiting -into snowstorms as she went sullenly ploughing through the water with -the weather-leech of the maintopgallant-sail trembling in the green -glancings of the moonlight like the fly of a flag in a breeze of wind. -They were taking a reef in the fore and mizzen topsails. The chief -mate, Mr. Prance, from time to time, would sing out an order over my -head that was answered by a hoarse ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ echoing out of the -gloom in which the fore-part of the ship was plunged. I lighted my -pipe and sat myself down on the coamings of the booby hatch to enjoy -a smoke. I was alone, and this moon-touched flying Channel night-scene -carried my memory back to the times when I was a sailor, when I had -paced the deck of such another vessel as this, as a midshipman of her. -It seemed a long time ago, yet it was no more than six years either. -The old professional instinct was quickened in me by the voices of the -fellows aloft, till I felt as though it were my watch on deck, that I -was skulking under the break of the poop here, and that I ought to be -aloft jockeying a lee yard-arm or dangling to windward on the flemish -horse. - -Presently all was quiet on high, and by the windy sheen in the -atmosphere, caused by the commingling of white waters and the frequent -glance of the moon through some rent in the ragged scud, I could make -out the figures of the fellows on the fore descending the shrouds. A -little while afterwards a deep sea voice broke out into a strange wild -song, that was caught up and re-echoed in a hurricane chorus by the -tail of men hauling upon the halliards to masthead the yard. It was -a proper sort of note to fit such a night as that. A minute after, a -chorus of a like gruffness but of a different melody resounded on the -poop, where they were mastheading the topsail yard after reefing it. -The combined notes flung a true oceanic character into the picture of -the darkling Indiaman swelling and rolling and pitching in floating -launches through it, with her wide pinions rising in spaces of -faintness to the scud, and the black lines of her royal yards sheering -to and fro against the moon that, when she showed, seemed to reel -amidst the rushing wings of vapour to the wild dance of our mastheads. -The songs of the sailors, the clear shrill whistling of a boatswain’s -mate forward, the orders uttered quickly by the chief officer, the -washing noises of the creaming surges, the sullen shouting of the wind -in the rigging resembling the sulky breaker-like roar of a wood of tall -trees swept by a gale--all this made one feel that one was at sea in -earnest. - -I knocked the ashes out of my pipe and went on to the poop. The land -still showed very dimly to starboard, with here and there little -oozings of dim radiance that might mark a village or a town. You could -see to the horizon, where the water showed in a sort of greenish -blackness with some speck of flame of a French lighthouse over the -port quarter, and the September clouds soaring up off the edge of the -sea like puffs and coils of smoke from a thousand factory chimneys down -there, and now and again a bright star glancing out from amongst them -as they came swiftly floating up to the moon, turning of a silvery -white as they neared the glorious planet. - -There were windows in the cuddy front, and as I glanced through one -of them I saw the captain come down the companion steps into the -brightly lighted saloon and seat himself at the table, where in a -moment he was joined by the fiery-eyed little colonel. Decanters and -glasses were placed by one of the stewards on a swing-tray, and the -scene then had something of a homely look spite of the cuddy’s aspect -of comparative desertion. Captain Keeling, I think, was about the -most sailorly-looking man I ever remember meeting. I had heard of him -ashore, and learnt that he had used the sea for upwards of forty-five -years. He had served in every kind of craft, and had obtained great -reputation amongst owners and underwriters for his defence and -preservation of an Indiaman he was in command of that was attacked in -the Bay of Bengal by a heavily armed French picaroon full of men. Cups -and swords and services of plate and purses of money were heaped upon -him for his conduct in that affair; and indeed in his way he was a sort -of small Commodore Dance. - -I looked at him with some interest as he sat beside the colonel with -the full light of the lamp over against him shining upon his face and -figure. There had been little enough to see of him during the day, -and it was not until we dropped the pilot that he showed himself. -His countenance was crimsoned with long spells of tropic weather, -and hardened into ruggedness like the face of a rock by the years of -gales he had gone through. He was about sixty years of age; and his -short-cropped hair was as white as silver, with a thin line of whisker -of a like fleecy sort slanting from his ear to the middle of his cheek. -His nose was shaped like the bowl of a clay-pipe, and was of a darker -red than the rest of his face. His small sea-blue eyes were sunk deep, -as though from the effect of long staring to windward; and almost -hidden as they were by the heavy ridge of silver eyebrow, they seemed -to be no more than gimlet holes in his head for the admission of light. -He had thrown open his peacoat, and discovered a sort of uniform under -it: a buff-coloured waistcoat with gilt buttons, an open frock-coat -of blue cloth with velvet lapels. Around his neck was a satin stock, -in which were three pins, connected by small chains. His shirt collar -was divided behind, and rose in two sharp points under his chin, which -obliged him to keep his head erect in a quite military posture. Such -was Captain Keeling, commander of the famous old Indiaman _Countess -Ida_. - -I guessed he would not remain long below, otherwise I should have been -tempted to join him in a glass of grog, spite of the company of Colonel -Bannister, who was hardly the sort of man to make one feel happy on -such an occasion as the first night out at sea with memory bitterly -recent of leave-taking, of kisses, of the hand-shakes of folks one -might never see again. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE FRENCH LUGGER - - -My pipe was out; the quarter-deck bulwarks hid the sea, and so I -mounted the poop ladder to take a look round before turning in. Away -to port, or _larboard_, as we then called it, was a full-rigged ship -rolling up Channel under all plain sail, with such a smother of white -yeast clouding her bows, and racing aft into the long line of her -wake, which went glaring over the dark throbbing waters, that it made -one think of the base of a waterspout writhing upwards to meet the -descending tube of vapour. She was the first object that took my eye, -and I hurriedly crossed the deck to view her. Mr. Prance, the chief -mate, stood at the rail watching her. - -‘A noble sight!’ said I. - -‘Yes, sir, an English frigate. A fifty-one gun vessel, apparently. -Upon my word, nothing statelier ever swam, or ever again will swim, -than ships of that kind. Look at the line of her batteries--black and -white like the keys of a pianoforte! What squareness of yard, sir! Her -main-royal should be as big as our topgallant-sail.’ - -He sent a look aloft at the reeling, fabric over our heads, with a -thoughtful drag, at a short growth of beard that curled upwards from -his chin like the fore-thatch of a sou’-wester. The noble ship went -floating out into the darkness astern, and her pale heights died upon -the gloom like a burst of steam dissolving in the wind. - -‘What is that out yonder upon the starboard bow there, Mr. Prance?’ -said I. - -He peered awhile, and said: ‘Some craft reaching like -ourselves--standing as we head--a lumpish thing, anyhow. What a blot -she makes, seeing that she has no height of spar!’ - -‘We are overhauling her,’ said I. - -‘Ay,’ he answered, keeping his eyes fixed upon her. ‘Doesn’t she seem a -bit uncertain, though?’ he muttered, as if thinking aloud. - -I had wonderfully good sight in those days, and after straining my eyes -awhile against the heap of scarce determinable shadow which the craft -made, I exclaimed: ‘She’ll be a French lugger, or I’m greatly mistaken.’ - -‘I believe you are right, sir,’ answered the mate. - -He drew a little away from me, as a hint, perhaps, that he desired to -address his attention to the vessel on the bow, and suddenly putting -his hand to his mouth, he hailed the forecastle in a sharp clear note. -An answer was returned swift as the tone of a bell to the blow of its -tongue. - -‘Show a light forward! Smartly now! That chap ahead seems asleep.’ - -There were no side-lights in those days. Some long years were to elapse -before the Shipping Act enforced the use of a night signal more to the -point than a short flourish of the binnacle lamp over the side. In a -few moments a large globular lantern in the grip of a seaman, whose -figure showed like a sketch in phosphorus to the illumination of the -flame, was rested upon the forecastle rail, with the night beyond him -looking the blacker for the rising and falling point of fire. The hint -seemed to be taken by the fellow ahead, and the mate walked aft to the -binnacle, into which he stood looking, afterwards going to the rail, at -which he lingered, staring forwards. - -I crossed over to leeward to watch the milk-like race of waters along -the side. The foam made a sort of twilight of its own in the air. Under -the foot of the mainsail that was arched transversely across the deck, -the wind stormed with a note of hurricane out of the huge concavity of -the cloths, and made the rushing snow giddy with the whipping of it, -till the eye reeled again to the sight of the yeasty boiling. Never -did any ship raise such a smother about her as the _Countess Ida_. Our -speed was scarce a full five miles, and yet, looking over to leeward, -when the huge fabric came heeling down to her channels to the scud -of a sea and to the weight of the wind in her canvas, you would have -supposed her thundering through it a whole ten knots at least. - -On a sudden there was a loud and fearful cry forward. ‘Port your -hellum! port your hellum!’ I could hear a voice roaring out with a -meaning as of life or death in the startling vehemence of the utterance. - -‘Starboard! starboard!’ shouted Mr. Prance, who was still standing -aft: ‘over with it, men, for God’s sake, before we’re into her!’ - -Next instant there was a dull shock throughout the ship; a thrill -that ran through her planks into the very soles of one’s feet, while -there arose shrieks and shouts as from three-score throats under the -bows, and a most lamentable and terrifying noise of wood-splintering, -of canvas tearing, of liberated sails flogging the wind. I bounded -to the weather-rail, and saw a large hull of some eighty tons wholly -dismasted--a wild scene of wreck and ruin to the flash of the moon at -that moment shining down out of a clear space of sky--gliding past into -our wake. The dark object seemed filled with men, and the yells left me -in no doubt that she was a Frenchman--a large three-masted lugger, as I -had supposed her. - -In an instant our ship was in an uproar. There is nothing in language -to express the noise and excitement. To begin with, our helm having -been put down, we had come round into the wind, and lay pitching -heavily with sails slatting and thundering, yards creaking, rigging -straining. The sailors rushed to and fro. All discipline for the -moment seemed to have gone overboard. The captain had come tumbling up -on deck, and was calling orders to the mate, who re-echoed them in loud -bawlings to the quarter-deck and forecastle. Lanterns were got up and -shown over the rail, and by the light of them you saw the figures of -the seamen speeding from rope to rope and hauling upon the gear, their -gruff, harsh chorusings rising high above the terrified chatter of the -passengers--many of whom had rushed up on deck barely clothed--high -also above the storming and shrilling of the wind, the deep notes of -angry waters warring at our bows, and the distracting shaking and -beating of the sails. - -But a few orders delivered by Mr. Prance, whose tongue was as a trumpet -in a moment like this, acted upon the ship as the sympathetic hand of a -horseman upon a restive terrified thoroughbred. - -‘Haul up the mainsail--fore clew garnets--back maintopsail yard--tail -on to the weather-braces and round in handsomely. Mr. Cocker (this was -addressed to the second-mate, who had tumbled up with the rest of the -watch below on feeling the thump the _Countess Ida_ had given herself, -and on hearing the uproar that followed)--burn a flare--smartly, if you -please! Also get blue lights and rockets up.’ - -I ran aft to see if the vessel that we had wrecked was anywhere about. -The moon was shining brilliantly down upon the sea at that time, and -the swollen Channel waters were lifting their black heights into -creaming peaks in an atmosphere of delicate silver haze, that yet -suffered the eye to penetrate to the dark confines of the horizon. The -wake of the planet was a long throbbing line of angry broken splendour -in the south; but the tail of it seemed to stream fair to the point of -sea into which the lugger had veered, and I was confident that if she -were afloat I should see her. - -‘Who is that to leeward there?’ called the captain from the other side -of the wheel in a tone of worry and irritation. - -‘Mr. Dugdale,’ I replied. - -‘Oh, beg pardon, I’m sure,’ he exclaimed; ‘do you see anything of the -vessel that we’ve run down?’ - -‘Nothing,’ I responded. - -‘She must have foundered,’ said he; ‘yet though I listened, I heard no -cries after the wreck had once fairly settled away from us.’ - -Here the mate came aft hastily, and with a touch of his cap, reported -that the well had been sounded, and that all was right with the ship. - -‘Very well, sir,’ said the captain. ‘I shall keep all fast with my -boats. The calamity can’t be helped. I’m not going to increase it by -sacrificing my men’s lives. The poor devils will have had a boat of -their own, I suppose. Show blue lights, will ye, Mr. Prance, and send a -rocket up from time to time.’ - -They were burning a flare over the quarter-deck rail at that -moment--some turpentine arrangement, that threw out a long flickering -flame and a great coil of smoke from the yawning mouth of the tin -funnel that contained the mixture. It was like watching the ship by -sheet-lightning to see a large part of her amidships and her mainmast -and the pale lights of the mainsail hanging from the yard in the grip -of the gear--to see all this come and go as the flame leapt and faded. -There was a crowd of terrified passengers on the poop, some of them -ladies, hugging themselves in dressing-gowns and shawls; and out of the -heart of the little mob rose the saw-like notes of Colonel Bannister. - -‘These collisions,’ I heard him cry, ‘never _can_ take place if a -proper look-out be kept. It is preposterous to argue. I’d compel -the oldest seaman who contradicted me to eat his words. Why, have I -been making the voyage to India four times----’ But the rest of his -observations were drowned in cries of astonishment and alarm from the -ladies as a rocket, discharged close to them, went hissing and shearing -up athwart the howling wind in a stream of fire, breaking on high into -a blood-red ball, that floated swiftly landwards, like an electric -meteor, ghastly against the moonshine, with a wide crimson atmosphere -about it that tinctured the very scud. A moment after a blue light was -burnt over the side from the head of the poop ladder, whereat there -was a general recoil and more shrill exclamations from the ladies. In -fact, these wild mystical lights as it were coming on top of the fancy -of men drowning astern, and colouring the ship with unearthly glares, -and flinging a wonderful complexion of horror upon the night for a -wide space round about the pitching and groaning Indiaman, put such -an element of mystery and fear into the scene that though I was by no -means a new hand at such sea-shows, I will own to shuddering again and -yet again as I overhung the side of the poop, striving to discern any -object that might resemble a boat in the foam-whitened gloom into which -the lugger had slided. - -‘What has happened? Everybody is so excited that one can’t get at the -real story.’ - -I turned quickly, and saw the tall figure of a lady at my side. She was -habited in a cloak, the hood of which was over her head, and darkened -her face almost to the concealment of it, saving her eyes, which shone -large, liquid, with a clear red spot in the depths, from the reflection -of the flare at the quarter-deck bulwark. - -I briefly explained, lifting my cap as I gave her her name--Miss -Temple--for I had particularly remarked her as she came aboard at -Gravesend, and asked who she was, though I had seen nothing more of her -down to that moment. I ended my account pointing to the quarter of the -sea where the lugger had disappeared. - -‘Thanks for the story,’ she exclaimed, with a sudden note of -haughtiness in her voice, while she kept her eyes, of the rich -blackness of the tropic night-sky, fixed firm and gleaming upon me, -as though she had addressed me in error, and wanted to make sure of -me. She moved as though she would walk off, paused, and said: ‘Poor -creatures! I hope they will be saved. Is our ship injured, do you know?’ - -‘I believe not,’ said I a little coldly. ‘There may be a rope or two -broken forward perhaps, but there is nothing but the French lugger to -be sorry for.’ - -‘My aunt, Mrs. Radcliffe,’ said she, ‘has been rendered somewhat -hysterical by the commotion on deck. She is too ill to leave her bed. I -think I may reassure her?’ - -‘Oh yes,’ I exclaimed. ‘But yonder, abreast of the wheel there, is the -captain to confirm my words.’ - -She gave me a bow, or rather a curtsey of those days, and walked aft -to address the captain, as I supposed. Instead, she descended the -companion hatch, and I lost sight of her. - -A disdainful lady, thought I, but a rare beauty too!--marvellous eyes, -anyhow, to behold by such an illumination as this of rockets and blue -lights, and flying moonshine, and the yellow glimmer of flare-tins. - -All this while the ship lay hove-to, her maintopsail to the mast, the -folds of her hanging mainsail sending a low thunder into the wind -as it shook its cloths, the seas breaking in stormy noises from her -bow; but _now_ there fell a dead silence upon the people along her -decks: nothing broke this hush upon the life of the vessel, save the -occasional harsh hissing rush of a rocket piercing the restless noises -of the sea and the whistling of the wind in the rigging. The bulwark -rail was lined with sailors, eagerly looking towards the tail of the -misty wake of the moon, into which the black surges went shouldering -and changing into troubled hills of dull silver. The captain and two -of the mates stood aft, intently watching the water, often putting -themselves into strained hearkening postures, their hands to their -ears. Most of the lady passengers went below, but not to bed, for you -could catch a sight of them through the skylight seated at the table -talking swiftly, often directing anxious glances at the window-glass -through which you could see them. There was one majestic old lady -amongst them with grey hair that looked to be powdered, a hawk’s-bill -nose, an immense bosom, that started immediately from under her -chin. The lamplight flashed in diamonds in her ears, and in rubies -and in stones of value and beauty upon her fingers. She was Colonel -Bannister’s wife, and was apparently not wanting in her husband’s fiery -energy and capacity of taking peppery views of things, if I might judge -by her vehement nods, and the glances she shot around her from her grey -eyes. It was a cabin picture I caught but a glimpse of as I crossed the -deck to take a look to leeward, but one, somehow, that sunk into my -memory, maybe because of the magic-lantern-like look of the interior, -with its brilliant lamps and many-coloured attire of the ladies in -their shawls, dressing-gowns, and what not--standing out upon the eye -amidst the wild dark frame of the seething clamorous night. - -All at once there was a loud cry. I rushed back to the weather rail. - -‘There’s a boat heading for us, sir--see her, sir? Away yonder, this -side o’ the tumble of the moon’s reflection!’ - -‘Ay, there she is! It’ll be the lugger’s boat. God, how she dives!’ - -Twenty shadowy arms pointed in the direction which had been indicated -by the gruff grumbling cries of the sailors. The second mate, Mr. -Cocker, came hastily forward to the break of the poop. - -‘Stand by, some of you,’ he shouted, ‘to heave them the end of a line. -Make ready with bowlines to help them over the side.’ - -I could see the boat clearly now as she rose to the height of a sea, -her black wet side sparkling out an instant to the moonlight ere she -sank out of sight past the ivory white head of the surge sweeping under -her. She seemed to be deep with men; but I could count only two oars. -She was rushed down upon us by the impulse of the sea and wind, and I -felt my heart stand still as she drove bow on into us, whirling round -alongside in a manner to make you look for the wreck of her in staves -washing away under our counter. She was full of people, with women -amongst them--poor creatures, in great white caps and long golden -earrings, the men for the most part in huge fishermen’s boots, and -tasselled caps and jerseys that might have been of any colour in that -light. One could just make these features out, but no more, for the -contents of the boat as it rose soaring and falling alongside were but -a dark huddle of human shapes, writhing and twisting like a mass of -worms in a pot, vociferating to us in the scarce intelligible _patois_ -of Gravelines or Calais or Boulogne. - -There was no magic in the commands even of British officers to British -sailors to put the least element of calm into the business. It was -not only that at one moment the boat alongside seemed to be hove up -to the Indiaman’s covering-board and that at the next she was rushing -down into a chasm that laid bare many feet of the big ship’s yellow -sheathing: there was the dreadful expectation of the whole of the human -freight being overset and drowning alongside in a breath; there were -the heart-rending shouts of the distracted people; there was the total -inability of captain and mates to make themselves understood. How it -was managed I will not pretend to explain. By some means the boat was -dragged to the gangway, grinding and thumping herself horribly against -the Indiaman’s rolling, stooping, massive side; then bowlines and -ropes in plenty were dangled over or flung into her; and through the -unshipped gangway, illuminated by half-a-dozen lanterns, and crowded by -a hustling mob of sailors and passengers, one after another, the women -and the men--most of the men coming first!--were dragged inboards, -some of them falling flat upon the deck, some dropping on their knees -and crossing themselves; a few of the women weeping passionately, one -of them sobbing in dreadful paroxysms, the others mute as statues, as -though terror and the presence of death had frozen the lifeblood in -them and arrested the very beating of their hearts. Two of them fell -into the sea; but they had lines about them and were dragged up half -dead. They were all of them dripping wet, the men’s sea-boots full of -water; whilst the soaked gowns of the women flooded the deck on which -they stood, as though several buckets of brine had been capsized there. - -Old Keeling’s pity for them would not go to the length of introducing -the wretched creatures into the cuddy, to spoil the ship’s fine -carpets and stain and ruin the coverings of the couches. They were -accordingly brought together in the recess under the break of the poop, -where at all events they were sheltered. Hot spirits and water were -given to them along with bread and meat, and this supper the unhappy -creatures ate by the light of the dimly burning lanterns held by the -sailors. - -There never was an odder wilder sight than the picture the poor -half-drowned creatures made. Some of the women scarcely once -intermitted their sobs and lamentations, save when they silenced their -throats by a mouthful of food or drink. They were very ugly, dark as -coffee; and their black wet hair streaming like sea-weed upon their -shoulders and brows from under their soaked caps made them look like -witches. The men talked hoarsely and eagerly with many passionate -gestures, which suggested fierce denunciation. The mate coming down -to the booby hatch around which these people were squatting, eating, -drinking, moaning, and jabbering without the least regard to the crowd -of curious eyes which inspected them from the quarter-deck--the mate, -I say, coming down, stood looking a minute at them, and then sent a -glance round, and seeing me, asked if I spoke French. - -‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but not such French as those people are talking.’ - -‘We have three passengers,’ said he, ‘who, I am told, are scholars in -that language; but the steward informs me they’re too sea-sick to come -on deck. Just ask these people in such French as you have, if their -captain’s amongst them.’ - -As he said this, a little old man seated on the hatch-coaming, with a -red nightcap on, immense earrings, and a face of leather puckered into -a thousand wrinkles like the grin of a monkey, looked up at Mr. Prance, -and nodding with frightful energy whilst he struck his bosom with his -clenched fist, cried out: ‘Yash, yash, me capitaine.’ - -‘Ha!’ said the mate, ‘do you speak English, then?’ - -‘Yash, yash,’ he roared: ‘me speakee Angleesh.’ - -Happily he knew enough to save me the labour of interpreting; and -_labour_ it would have been with a vengeance, since, though it was -perfectly certain none amongst them, saving the little monkey-faced -man, comprehended a syllable of the mate’s questions, every time -the small withered chap answered--which he did with extraordinary -convulsions and a vast variety of frantic gesticulations--all the rest -of them broke into speech, the women joining in, and there was such -a hubbub of tongues that not an inch of idea could I have got out of -the distracting row. However, in course of time the leathery manikin -who called himself captain made Mr. Prance understand that the lugger -belonged to Boulogne; that she had the survivors of another lugger on -board, making some thirty-four souls in all, men and women, at the time -of the collision, of which seventeen or eighteen were drowned. After he -had given Mr. Prance these figures, he turned to the others and said -something in a shrill, fierce, rapid voice, whereat the women fell to -shrieking and weeping, whilst many of the men tore their hair, some -going the length of knocking their heads against the cuddy front. It -was a sight to sicken the heart, the more, I think, for the unutterable -element of grotesque farce imported into that dismal tragedy by their -countenances, postures, and behaviour; and having heard and seen -enough, I slipped away on to the poop, with a chill coming into my -very soul to the thought of the drowned bodies out yonder when my eye -went to the sea weltering black to the troubled line of moonshine, and -heaving in ashen luminous billows in that chill path of light. - -But long before this, our rockets, blue-lights, and flares had been -seen; and a moment or two after I had gained the poop I spied the -figure of Captain Keeling with a few male passengers at his side -standing at the rail watching a powerful cutter thrashing through it -to us close-hauled, with the water boiling to her leaps, and her big -mainsail to midway high dark with the saturation of the flying brine. -In less than twenty minutes she was rising and falling buoyant as a -seabird abreast of us, with a shadowy figure at her lee rail bawling -with lungs of brass to know what was wrong. - -‘I have run down a French lugger,’ shouted Captain Keeling, ‘and have -half her people on board, and must put them ashore at once, for I wish -to proceed.’ - -‘Right y’are,’ came from the cutter; but with a note of irritation and -disappointment in the cry, as I could not but fancy. - -Then followed some wonderful manœuvring. There was only one way of -transshipping the miserable French people, and that was by a yard-arm -whip and a big basket. Hands sprang aloft to prepare the necessary -tackle; Prance meanwhile, from the head of the poop ladder, thundered -the intentions of the Indiaman through a speaking-trumpet to the -cutter. I could see old Keeling stamp from time to time with impatience -as he broke away from the questions of the passengers, one of whom was -Colonel Bannister, into a sharp walk full of grief and irritability. -Meanwhile they had shifted their helm aboard the cutter and got way -upon the fine little craft. I saw her take the weight of the wind -and heel down to the line of her gunwale, then break a dark sea into -boiling milk, leaping the liquid acclivity, as a horse takes a tall -gate, burying herself nose under with the downwards launching rush, -then soaring again to the height of the next billow with full way upon -her. She came tearing and hissing through it as though her coppered -forefoot were of red-hot metal, and when abreast of our lee quarter, -put her helm down, and swept with marvellous grace and precision to -alongside of us, clear of our shearing spars, and there she lay. - -It was hard upon midnight when the last basket-load had been lowered -on to her deck. There was no hitch; all went well; a line attached to -the basket enabled the cutter’s people to haul it fair to their decks; -but the terror of the unfortunate Frenchmen was painful to see. The -women got into the basket bravely; but many of the men blankly refused -to enter, and had to be stowed in it by force, our Jacks holding on -till the order to ‘sway away’ was given, when up would go poor Crapaud -shrieking vengeance upon us all, and calling upon the Virgin and saints -for help. In its way it was like a little engagement with an enemy. -Some of the Frenchmen drew knives, and had to be knocked down. - -Then, when the last of them was swayed over the side and lowered--‘Are -you all right?’ shouted Captain Keeling to the cutter. - -‘All right,’ responded a deep voice, hoarse with rum and weather. ‘I -suppose your owners’ll make the job worth something to us?’ - -‘Ay, ay,’ answered the captain. ‘Round with your topsail yard, Mr. -Prance. Lively now! this business has cost us half a night as it is.’ - -In a few minutes the great yards on the main were swung slowly to the -drag of the braces with loud heave-yeos from the sailors, and the ship, -feeling the weight of the wind in the vast dim hollow of the topsail, -leaned with a new impulse of life in her frame and drove half an acre -of foam ahead of her. We had resumed our voyage; and with a sense of -supreme weariness in me following the excitement of the hours, and -chilled to the marrow by my long spell on deck and incessant loiterings -in the keen night-wind, I entered the saloon, called for a tumbler of -grog, and made my way to my berth. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -MY FELLOW PASSENGERS - - -It blew a hard breeze of wind that night. Soon after I had left -the deck they furled the mainsail and topgallant-sail, reefed the -maintopsail, and tied another reef in the mizzen-topsail. In fact, it -looked as if we were to have a black gale of wind, dead on end too, -with a sure prospect then of bearing up for the Downs afresh. How it -may be in these steamboat times, I will not pretend to say; but my -experience of the old sailing-ship is that the first night out, let the -weather be what it will, is, on the whole, about as wretched a time as -a man at any period of his life has to pass through. - -Mr. Colledge was sound asleep in his bunk, his brandy flask within -convenient reach of his hand. It was certain enough that he had heard -nothing of the disturbance on deck. I undressed and rolled into my -bed, and there lay wide awake for a long time. The ship creaked like -a cradle. The full dismalness of a first night out was upon me, and it -was made weightier yet--how much weightier indeed!--by the recollection -of the wild and sudden tragedy of the evening. Oh, the insufferable -weariness of the noises, the straining of the bulkheads, the yearning -roar of the dark surge washing the porthole, with the boiling of it -dying out into a dim simmering upon the wind, the instant stagger of -the ship to the blow of some heavy sea full on her bow, the sensation -of breathless descent as the vessel chopped down with a huge heave to -windward into the trough, the pendulum swing of one’s wearing apparel -hanging against the bulkhead, the half-stifled exclamations breaking -from adjacent cabins, the whole improved into a true oceanic flavour -by the occasional hoarse songs of the sailors above, faintly heard, as -though you were in a vault, and that strange vibratory humming which -the wind makes to one hearkening to it out of the cabin of a ship. - -I fell asleep at last, and was awakened at half-past seven by the -steward, who wished to know if I wanted hot water to shave with. The -moment I had my consciousness, I was sensible that a heavy sea was -running. - -‘No shaving this morning, thank you,’ said I, ‘unless I have a mind to -slice the nose off my face. How’s the weather, steward?’ - -‘Blowing a buster from the south’ard, sir,’ he answered, talking with -his lips at the venetian of the closed door, ‘and the ship going along -’andsomely as a roll of smoke.’ - -Here somebody called him, and he trotted away. - -Mr. Colledge awoke. ‘By George!’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ve had a doocid long -sleep.’ - -‘How d’ye feel?’ said I. - -‘In no humour to rise,’ he answered. ‘I suppose I can have what -breakfast I’m likely to eat brought to me here?’ - -‘Bless you, yes,’ I answered. - -‘Any news, Mr. Dugdale?’ he asked, his voice beginning to languish as -a sensation of nausea grew upon him with the larger awakening of his -faculties. - -‘We ran down a French lugger last night,’ said I, ‘and drowned a lot of -men. That’s all.’ - -He eyed me dully, thinking perhaps that I was joking, and then said: -‘Well, there it is, you see. Yesterday, you were talking of the fun of -a voyage; and the very earliest of the humours is the drowning of a lot -of men.’ - -‘And women,’ said I. - -‘Poor devils!’ he exclaimed. ‘Will you hand me a bottle of Hungary -water that you’ll find in my portmanteau? Much obliged to you, Dugdale: -and will you kindly tell the steward as you pass through the cabin to -bring me a cup of tea?’ - -‘Get up by-and-by, if you feel equal to it,’ said I. ‘Nursing -sea-sickness only makes the demon more pitiless. Show yourself on -deck, and the wind’ll blow the nausea out of you. And I’ll tell you a -better cure than Hungary water or brandy flasks--a cube of salt-horse, -Colledge; a hearty lump of marine beef, something to work up the -muscles of your jaws, and to sharpen your teeth for you.’ - -‘Oh gracious, my dear fellow--don’t,’ he exclaimed, turning his face to -the wall of the ship; and I heard him exclaim, as though muttering to -himself: ‘How the water gurgles about this window, and what a doocid -sickly green it is!’ - -But a very few of us assembled at the breakfast table. Colonel -Bannister was there, a very ramrod of a man, with a Bengal-tigerish -expression of face as he glared round about him from betwixt his white -wire-like whiskers. There were also present Mr. Emmett, an artist, -who was making the voyage to the East for the purpose of painting -Indian scenery, a man with long hair curling down his back, a ragged -beard and moustaches, a velvet coat, and Byronic collars, out of -which his long thin neck forked up like the head of a pole through a -scarecrow’s suit of clothes; Mr. Peter Hemskirk, who looked uncommonly -fat, pale, and unfinished in his attire this morning; two young Civil -Service fellows--as we should now call their trade--named Greenhew and -Fairthorne; and Mr. Sylvanus Johnson, a journalist, bound to Bombay -or Calcutta (I cannot be sure of the city), to edit a newspaper--a -bullet-headed man, with a sort of low-comedian face, very blue about -the cheeks where he shaved, and small keen restless black eyes, full -of intelligence, whose suggestion in that way was not to be impaired -or weakened by an expression in repose of singular self-complacency. -Captain Keeling, at the head of the table, sat skewered up in his -uniform frock-coat in stiff satin stock and collars. Mr. Prance -occupied the other end of the table. He, too, was attired in a uniform -resembling the dress worn by the skipper. He had a pleasant brown -sailorly face, with a floating pose of head upon his shoulders that -made one think of a soap-bubble poised on top of a pipe-stem. There -were no ladies. Once I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Colonel Bannister’s -Roman nose, and grey hair ornamented with a large black lace cap, -fitfully hovering for a moment or two in the wide hatch past the chief -officer’s chair, down which the steps led that went to the sleeping -berths. But the apparition vanished with almost startling suddenness, -as though the old lady had fallen or been violently pulled below. When, -later on, I inquired after her, I learnt that she had betaken herself -again to her bunk. - -It was a mighty uncomfortable breakfast. The ship was rolling violently -and convulsively upon the short snappish Channel seas--the most -insufferable of all waters when in commotion, making even the seasoned -salt pine for the long regular rhythmic heave of the blue ocean billow. -The fiddles hindered the plates from sliding on to our laps; but their -contents were not to be so easily coaxed into keeping their place; an -unusually heavy lurch shot a large helping of liver and bacon on to -Mr. Hemskirk’s knees; and the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Hemmeridge, came -perilously near to being badly scalded by Mr. Johnson, the literary -man, who, in reaching for a cup of tea tilted the swinging tray. There -was not much talk, and what little was said chiefly concerned the -incident of the previous evening. - -‘Captain,’ cried young Mr. Fairthorne in an effeminate voice--he was -the gentleman, it seems, who last night had been calling upon anybody -to smother the ayah--‘whath to become of thothe poor Frenchmen?’ - -‘Sir,’ answered Captain Keeling in a manner as stiff as a marline-spike -with his dislike of the subject, ‘I do not know.’ - -‘Frenchmen,’ cried Colonel Bannister in a loud voice, as though he were -directing the manœuvres of a company of Sepoys, ‘are the hereditary -enemies of our country, and it never can matter to a Briton what -becomes of them.’ - -‘Boot my tear sir,’ remarked Mr. Hemskirk, ‘you are a Briton, yes--and -you are a Christian too, und der Franchman iss your broder.’ - -‘My what?’ roared the colonel. ‘Tell ye what it is, Mr. Hemskirk: it is -a good job that you cannot pronounce our language, otherwise you might -happen sometimes, sir, to grow offensive.’ - -Mynheer, who seemed to have had some previous acquaintance with this -little bombshell of a man, dried the grease upon his lips with a -napkin, and cast a wink upon Mr. Greenhew, whose face of resentment -at this familiarity caused me to break into such an immoderate fit of -laughter that there was nothing for it but to bolt from the table. - -I found a real Channel picture stretching round me when I gained the -deck; a grey sky, lightened in places with a kind of suffusion of -radiance that made one think of the rusty bronze lingering in the wake -of an expired sunset. Saving these flaws of dull light, there was no -break anywhere visible in the wide cold bald stare of heaven over our -mastheads. The strong wind was a dry one, yet the horizon was thick -with a look of rain all the way round; and out of the smother in -the south, the sea was rolling in heights of a dark green, rich with -creaming foam, that somehow seemed to satisfy the eye, as though each -frothing crest were a streak of sunshine. There was a smack half a -mile to windward of us staggering along and sinking and rising under a -fragment of red mainsail; but there was nothing else to be seen in that -way. - -The wind was blowing free for us--almost dead abeam, indeed; and the -_Countess Ida_ was swarming through it in a manner to put a quicker -beat into the heart at the first sight of the picture she made. The -topgallant-sail was set over the single-reefed maintopsail; the whole -foresail was on her, and, with the other topsails and a staysail or -two, was tearing the great ship through the short savage heapings -of water with a power that made one think of steam as trifling by -comparison. The forecastle was wet with flying spray. The galley -chimney was smoking cheerily, and from all about the long-boat came -hearty farmyard sounds of the grunting of pigs and the bleating of -sheep and the cackling of hens. There was a gang of seamen at the -pumps, and as they plied the brakes with nervous sinewy arms, their -song chimed in with the gushing of the water flowing freely to the -scuppers, and washing back again to their feet with every roll to -windward. Other seamen were at work upon the carronades, or cleaning -paint-work with scrubbing-brushes, or coiling gear away upon pins, -and so on, and so on. It was after eight, and all hands were on deck, -and a fine set of livelies they looked, spite of most of them being -snugged up in black or yellow oil-skins. Ships went with full companies -in those days, and but for the slenderness of our ordnance, it might -have been easy to imagine one’s self on board a man-of-war when one ran -one’s eyes over the decks of the _Countess Ida_ and counted the crew, -and marked the butcher and butcher’s mates, the cook and _his_ mates, -the baker and _his_ mates, the carpenter and _his_ mates, coming and -going, and making a very fair of the neighbourhood of the galley. - -The second mate warmly clad paced the weather side of the poop, sending -many a weatherly glance to seaward, with a frequent lifting of his -eyes to the rounded iron-hard canvas; whilst against the brilliant -white wake of the ship, roaring and boiling upwards as it seemed, to -the stoop of the Indiaman’s huge square counter, the figures of the -two sailors at the big wheel stood out clear-cut as cameos, with the -broad brass band upon the circle dully reflecting a space of copperish -light in the sky over the weather mizzen-topsail yard-arm, and the -newly polished hood of the binnacle gleaming as though sun-touched. -A couple of midshipmen in pea-coats and brass buttons, curly headed -young rogues, with a spirit of mischief bright in every glance they -sent, patrolled the lee side of the poop; and up in the mizzen top -were two more of them, with yet another long-legged fellow jockeying a -spur of the cross-trees, with his loose trousers rattling like a flag; -but what job he was upon I could not tell. The planks of this deck -were as white as the trunk of a tree newly stripped of its bark. Four -handsome quarter-boats swung at the davits. Along the rail on either -hand went a row of hencoops, through the bars of which the heads of -cocks and hens came and went in a winking sort of way, like a swift -showing and withdrawing of red rags. On the rail, for a considerable -distance, were stowed bundles of compressed hay, the scent of which -was a real puzzle to the nose, coming as it did through the hard sweep -of the salt wind. The white skylights glistened through the intricacies -of brass wire which shielded them. Abaft the wheel, on either side of -it, their tompioned muzzles eyed blindly by the closed ports meant to -receive them, were a couple of eighteen pounders; for in those days the -Indiamen still went armed; not heavily, indeed, as in the war-times of -an earlier period, but with artillery and small-arms enough to enable -her to dispute with some promise of success with the picaroon who was -still afloat, whose malignant flag the burnished waters of the Antilles -yet reflected, and whose amiable company of assassins were as often -to be met with under the African and South American heights as in the -Channel of the Mozambique, or eastward yet on the broad surface of the -Indian Ocean. - -I crossed the deck to where Mr. Cocker was stumping, and asked him if -he could tell me off what part of the English coast our ship now was. - -‘Drawing on to the Wight, sir,’ he answered, with a sort of groping -look in the little moist blue eyes he turned over the lee bow into the -thickness beyond. - -‘Well, we’re blowing through it, anyway,’ said I. ‘I shouldn’t have -allowed these heels for any conceivable structure born with such bows -as the _Countess Ida_. What is it?’ I asked with a glance at the broad -dazzle of yeast dancing and whipping and slinging off the Indiaman’s -tall side against the hurl of the weather surge. - -‘It’ll be all eight,’ answered the second officer: ‘it would be ten had -she worked herself loose of the grip of the stevedores. She wants the -mainsail and foreto’garn’sail. These old buckets are manufactured to -creak, and whilst they creak, they hold, it is said.’ - -His face crumpled up into a grin that made him look twenty years older -under the thatch of his sou’-wester curling to his eyebrows, with the -broad flaps over his ears like a nightcap for his sea-helmet to sit -upon. - -‘Pray, Mr. Cocker,’ said I, ‘was any damage done to the ship by the -collision last night?’ - -‘There wasn’t so much as a rope-yarn parted,’ he answered. ‘I looked -to see the spritsail yard sprung, for it’ll have been that spar, I -reckon, which dragged the lugger’s masts overboard by the shrouds of -them. But it’s as sound as anything else aboard the ship.’ - -He shifted uneasily, as though to make off, and, turning my head, I -spied the captain looking into the binnacle. So, having had already -enough of the deck, I stepped below for a smoke in the cuddy recess, -where I found Mr. Emmett in a long cloak, such as mysterious assassins -and renegade noblemen used to wear at the Coburg Theatre, sucking at a -large curled meerschaum pipe, and arguing on the subject of longitude -with a little man almost a dwarf, an honest and highly intelligent -pigmy, with the head of a giant supported on the legs of a boy of -six, an amiable earnest little creature, with a trick of looking -up wistfully into your face. His name was Richard Saunders: and I -afterwards understood that he was proceeding to India on behalf of some -Pharmaceutical Society, to collect information on and examples of Hindu -and other medicines, drugs, charms, and so forth. - -Well, all that day it continued to blow a very strong wind. The ship’s -plunging increased as the Channel opened under her bow and admitted -something of the weight of the Atlantic in the run of its seas. There -was a constant sharp-shooting of spray forward over the forecastle, and -the wet came sobbing along; the lee scuppers to where the cuddy front -checked it under the poop ladder. Very few of us assembled at lunch or -at dinner. - -During the progress of this last meal, Colonel Bannister left the table -and went below, and after an interval, uprose through the hatch, with -his large distinguished-looking wife holding on to him. Mynheer Peter -Hemskirk, on seeing her, cried out: ‘Ah, Meestrees Bannister, boot dot -iss vot I call plooky!’ and Mr. Johnson came near to breaking his neck -whilst starting to his legs to stand as she passed. She took a chair -next her husband, and sat grimly staring around her, her lips pale with -the compression of them. She shook her head to every suggestion made by -the steward, and then, being unable to hold out any longer, seized hold -of her little ramrod of a husband and went staggering and rolling below -with him. When he returned, he tossed down a glass of wine with an -angry gesture and a fierce countenance, and looking at Hemskirk, cried -out: ‘I’ve a great respect for my wife, sir, and she’s a fine woman in -every sense of the word.’--The Dutchman nodded.--‘But,’ continued the -colonel, clenching his fist, ‘if ever I go to sea with a woman again, -be she wife, aunt, or grandmother, may I be poisoned for a lunatic, and -my remains committed to the deep. This is the fourth time I’ve sworn -it--my mind is now resolved!’ - -Out of all this sort of thing one could get a laugh here and there; but -on the whole it was desperately weary work, and continued so till we -had blown clear of soundings. Altogether, it was as ugly a down Channel -run as any man would pray to be preserved from; the atmosphere grey, -the seas a muddy green, the howling blast chill as a November morn, -often darkening to a squall, that would sweep between the masts in -horizontal lines of rain sparkling like steel, and with spite enough in -the lancing of them to compel the strongest to turn his back. Now and -again a lady passenger would show in the cuddy; but though there were -some twenty-eight of us in all, not reckoning a couple of ayahs, and -a Chinaman in the garb of his country, who acted as nurse to one Mrs. -Trevor’s baby, never once in those days did above seven of us, barring -the skipper and his mates, sit down to a meal. - -The thick weather lay heavily upon the captain’s mind, held him in fits -of abstraction whilst at table, dismissed him after a brief sitting -to the deck, and kept him heedful and taciturn whilst there. He had -had one collision, and wanted no more; and you would notice how that -tragedy had served him, by observing him when in the cuddy to prick up -his ears to the least unusual noise on deck, to glance at the tell-tale -compass over his head, as though it were the sun which he had been -patiently waiting for a chance to ‘shoot,’ to swallow his food with -impatient motions to the steward to bear a hand, and to bolt up the -cabin steps without a smile or syllable of apology to us for quitting -the table. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -LOUISE TEMPLE - - -But there came a change at last. Ushant was then many long leagues -astern, and the night had been dark but quiet, with a long Biscayan -swell brimming to our starboard quarter, and a play of sheet-lightning -off the lee bow, and wind enough to send the Indiaman through it at -some six knots with her royals and cross-jack furled and the weather -clew of her mainsail up. This was as the picture showed when I went -to bed at five bells--half-past ten--and on opening my eyes next -morning I found the berth brilliant with sunshine, bulkhead and ceiling -trembling to the glory rippling off the sea through the large round -scuttle or porthole, and the action of the ship a stately gliding, with -a slow long floating heave that raised no sound whatever of creak or -straining, and that, after the long spell of tumblefication, was as -grateful to every sense and to all wearied bones as the firm unrocking -surface of dry land. - -Mr. Colledge was shaving himself. I lay eyeing him for a few minutes, -admiring the handsome high-born looks of the youth, and thinking it was -a pity that such manly beauty as his should lack the consecrating touch -of an intellectual expression to parallel his physical graces. He saw -me in the glass in which he was scraping himself. - -‘Good-morning, Dugdale. I feel all right again, d’ye know. I am going -to eat my breakfast in the cuddy and then go on deck.’ - -‘Glad to hear it,’ said I, putting my legs over the side of the bunk. - -‘I suppose there’ll be some girls about this morning,’ said he. ‘Who -the dooce are the passengers, I wonder? Anybody very nice aboard, not -counting that ripping young lady with the black eyes?’ - -‘Nearly everybody’s been as sea-sick as you,’ said I; ‘and the few -who have put in an appearance are males--your friend Emmett, the fat -Dutchman, and two or three others.’ - -‘Oh, you mean Mynheer Hemskirk, the corpulent chap, whose voice sounds -like that of a man inside a rum puncheon talking through the bunghole.’ - -I asked him if he could tell me anything about Miss Temple, the -black-eyed lady. - -‘Some one told me at Gravesend,’ he answered--‘but I don’t know who it -was--that she’s a daughter of Sir Conyers Temple. I think I’ve heard -my father speak of him as a man he has hunted with. If he’s that Sir -Conyers, he broke his neck four years ago in a steeplechase.’ - -‘Who accompanies the young lady to India, I wonder?’ said I. - -‘Her aunt, I believe; but I don’t know her name. But I say, though, -what makes you so inquisitive?’ - -‘Oh, my dear Colledge,’ said I, ‘one is always inquisitive about one’s -fellow-passengers on board ship. The girl came up to me on deck the -other night when the row of the collision was in full swing. I see her -big eyes now--black as ebony, yet luminous too, with the flame of a -flare-tin at the side reflected in each magnificent orb in a spot of -crimson which made her pale hooded face as mystical as a vision of the -night.’ - -He turned to stare at me, and broke into a laugh. ‘So! _you_ are the -poet amongst the passengers, eh? as Emmett’s the painter? What’s to be -_my_ walk? Oh, there goes the first breakfast bell! Heaven bless us, -what a delightful thing it is not to feel sea-sick!’ - -We continued to gabble a bit in this fashion; he then left the berth, -and a little later I followed him. - -The large cuddy wore an aspect it had not before exhibited. The -sunshine sparkled upon the skylights, and the interior was full of -the blue and silver radiance of the rich and welcome autumn morning -outside. The long table was all aglow with the silver and crystal -furniture of the white damask, and through the glazed domes in the -upper deck you could see the canvas on the mizzen swelling in a milky -softness from yard to yard as the sails mounted to the height of the -tender little royal. - -The passengers came from the deck or up from below one after another; -the change in the weather had acted as a charm, and here now was the -whole mob of us, one old lady excepted, with a glimpse to be had of -the two ayahs sunning themselves on the quarter-deck. The skipper, -looking a bit stale, as with too much of all-night work, but smart -enough in the gingerbread trickery of his uniform, made a little speech -of compliments to the ladies and gentlemen from the head of the table. -There was a courtliness about the old fellow that gained not a little -in relish from a sort of deep-sea flavour in his manner and varying -expressions of face. I liked the quality of the bow with which he -accompanied his answer to any lady who addressed him. - -I sat at the bottom of the table on the right hand of the -chief-officer, and was able to command a pretty good view of the -people that I was to be associated with, as I might suppose, for the -next three or four, and perhaps five months. There were several girls -amongst us--two Miss Joliffes, three Miss Brookes’s, Miss Hudson, and -four or five more. Miss Hudson was exceedingly pretty--hair of dark -gold, and a skin delicate as a lily, upon which lay a kind of golden -tinge--oh, call it not freckles! though I daresay the charming effect -was produced by something of that sort. Her eyes were large, moist, -violet in hue, with slightly lifted eyebrows, which gave them an arch -look. Mr. Sylvanus Johnson, who sat next me, after staring at her -a little, muttered in my ear in a dramatic undertone: ‘Perdita has -expressed that girl, sir: - - Violets dim, - But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes - Or Cytherea’s breath.’ - -‘If that be her mother next to her,’ said I, ‘fix your attention upon -her, Mr. Johnson, and Perdita’s fancy will exhale!’ - -And indeed Mrs. Hudson was a very extraordinary, and I may say violent -contrast to her daughter: a pursy lady of about fifty, with a heavy -underlip, puffed-out cheeks of a bluish tint, and a wig, the youthful -hue of which defined every trace of age in her countenance, till one -thought of her as being some score years older than she really was. - -But the interior was wonderfully humanised by these ladies. Their -dress, the sparkle of jewels in their ears, on their fingers and -throats, here and there a turban seated high on some motherly head--it -was the age of turbans and feathers--the soft notes of the girls -running an undertone of music through the deeper voices of the matrons -and the growling of us males grumbling conversation across and up the -table, whipped the fancy ashore, and made one think of drawing-rooms -and guitars and Books of Beauty. - -There was one lady, however, who held my eye from the start. She was -Miss Louise Temple, and I cannot express how deep was the admiration -her charms excited in me. I told you that I had caught a glimpse of her -at Gravesend; but, down to this moment, I had been unable to obtain -a fair view of her. Her hair that, to judge by the coils of it, when -let down would have reached to below her knees, was of a wonderful -blackness without either gloss or deadness. She wore it in a manner -that was perfectly new in those days: in twinings which heaped it up -to the aspect of a crown; whilst behind it was brushed up in a way to -exhibit the lovely form of the head from the curve of the neck to where -the beautiful tresses lay piled. Her face was perfectly colourless, -the complexion clear, and the skin exquisitely delicate. Her mouth was -small, the upper lip slightly curved, and there was the hint of a pout -in the faint, scarce perceptible protrusion of the under lip. Her nose -was perfectly straight, like a Greek woman’s; but it had the English -indent under the brow, and therefore had the beauty, which to my fancy, -no Greek profile ever yet possessed. - -But her eyes! How am I to describe them? What impression can I hope to -convey by such terms as large, black, soft, and fluid? The lids were -delicately veined, the eyelashes long, and between these fringes the -eyes shone of a dark liquid loveliness, full of the light, as it seemed -to me, of a high intelligence, with spirit and haughtiness in every -glance. They were the most dramatic, by which I do not mean theatric, -pair of twinklers that ever sparkled star-like under the beauty of a -woman’s brow; created, you might have thought, for the interpretation -of the Shakespearean imaginations, with all capacity in them of -surprise, scorn, resentment, melting tenderness, and of every fine and -noble passion. She was attired in a dress of black cloth, simple as a -riding habit of to-day, and so fitting her figure as to express without -exaggeration every point of grace in the curves and fulness of her tall -but still maidenly form. - -I caught her glance for a moment: I am sure she remembered me as the -passenger she had addressed on the poop; yet there was not the faintest -expression of recognition in the full, firm, swift stare she honoured -me with. She looked away from me as haughtily as a queen, with flashing -inspection of the others of the row of us that confronted her, though -it seemed to me that her gaze lingered a little on the Honourable Mr. -Colledge, who was seated immediately opposite. - -‘I reckon now,’ whispered Mr. Prance, leaning to me in his chair from -his athwart-ship post at the foot of the table, ‘that yonder Miss -Temple will be about the handsomest woman that was ever afloat.’ - -‘There have been many thousands of women afloat,’ said I, ‘since Noah -got under way with the ladies of his family aboard.’ - -‘I have been sailing in passenger-ships,’ said he,‘for nineteen years -come next month, and have never before seen such a figure-head as Miss -Temple’s. What teeth she has! Little teeth, sir, as all women’s should -be; and where’s the whiteness that’s to be compared to them?’ - -‘Who is that homely, pleasant-faced woman sitting by her side?’ - -‘Her aunt, Mrs. Radcliffe,’ he answered. - -‘What errand carries that stately creature to India, do you know, Mr. -Prance?’ - -‘I do not, sir.’ - -‘Not very likely,’ I continued, ‘that she’s bound out in search of a -husband.’ - -‘No, no,’ he muttered. ‘The like of her have a big enough market -at home to command. No need for _her_ to cross the ocean to find a -sweetheart. She’s the daughter of a dead baronet, a tenth title, so -the captain was saying; and her mother has a large estate to live on. -Captain Keeling knows all about them. Her ladyship was seized with -paralysis when her husband was brought home with his neck broken, and -has been a sheer hulk ever since, I believe, poor thing. We brought -Mrs. Radcliffe to England last voyage. Her husband’s a big planter up -country, and worth a lac or two. I expect Miss Temple is going out on a -visit--nothing more. Her health may need a voyage. Those choice bits of -mechanism often go wrong in their works. She wants a stroke of colour -in her cheeks. ’Tis the scent of the milkmaid that she lacks, sir.’ - -He gave a pleasant nod, quietly rose, and went on deck by way of the -cuddy front, to relieve the second officer, who was watching the ship -for him whilst he breakfasted. - -At such a first meal as this, so to speak, when, barring one, we had -all come together for the first time, there was no want of British -reserve and shyness. We chiefly contented ourselves with staring. -Colonel Bannister alone talked freely; he was loud on the subject of -army grievances, and was rendered indeed, intolerably fluent and noisy -by the respectful attention he received from a gentleman who sat over -against him, one Mr. Hodder, a tall, thin, nervous, yellow-faced man, -with a paralytic catching up of his breath in his speech, who was -going to India to fill some post of responsibility in a college. Mrs. -Bannister with her hawks-bill nose, grey hair, and full figure, sat -bolt upright, eating with avidity, and sweeping the faces round about -her with a small severe eye. - -I watched little Mrs. Radcliffe with attention. It was not hard to -guess that she was an amiable, fidgety, anxious body, of elastic -properties of mind, easily, but only temporarily, to be repressed. She -talked in a quick way to her niece, darting what she had to say into -the girl’s ear, with an abrupt withdrawal of her head, and an earnest -look at Miss Temple’s face. The other would sometimes faintly smile, -but for the most part her air was one of haughty abstraction. Indeed, -it was easy to see that, so far as her opinion of her fellow-passengers -went, it was not quite flattering to the bulk of us. - -It was a noble morning, indeed, on deck. There was a long blue heave -of swell from the northward, quiet as the rise and fall of a sleeper’s -breast, and the white buttons of the ship’s trucks, glancing like -silver against the moist blue of the sky, swung so slowly and tenderly -to and fro that one could almost watch them without perception of any -movement. The ocean was of a deep sea blue, all to eastward flashing -under the sun, and the small waves chased us with a voice of summer in -the caressing seething of the snow of their heads against the sides -of the Indiaman. The ship had studdingsails set, and under these far -overhanging wings the water trembled back the radiance that fell from -the swelling cloths, as though there were a floating thinness of -quicksilver there prismatic as a soap-bubble. - -Very soon after breakfast the poop was filled, and I marked the Jacks -forward staring aft at the sight of us all. It was not hot enough for -an awning, and there was still too much edge in the breeze, warmly -as the sun looked down, to suffer the ladies to sit for any length -of time. The picture was a cheerful one, full of movement and life -and colour. The white-headed skipper, skewered up in his bebuttoned -and belaced frock-coat, patrolled the weather side of the deck with -Mrs. Radcliffe on his arm. Mr. Emmett paced the planks with Mrs. -Joliffe and her daughters, and I could hear him bidding them admire -the contrast between the violet shadowing in the hollows of the sails -and the delicate sheen of the edges against the blue, as though at -those extremities they dissolved into pure lustre. Little Mr. Saunders -trotted alongside the orbicular form of Mynheer Hemskirk, who showed -as a giant as he looked down into the earnest upstaring face of the -big-headed little chap. Three Civil Service youths lounged upon a -hencoop, looking askant at the young ladies, and laughing under their -breaths at what one or another of them said. Near the foremost -skylight stood Mr. Johnson and Colonel Bannister. One did not need to -listen attentively to understand that the colonel was falling foul of -the calling of journalism, and that Mr. Johnson was endeavouring to -defend it by repeating over and over again: ‘Granted--I admit it--I’m -not going to say no; but give me leave to ask, where on earth would -your profession be, sir, if its actions were not chronicled?’ These -remarks he continued to reiterate till the colonel was in a white heat, -and I had to walk away to conceal my laughter. - -As I passed the companion hatchway, which you will please to understand -is the hooded entrance to the cuddy by way of the poop, Miss Temple -came up out of it, closely followed by Mr. Colledge. There was -something like a smile on her pale face, and he was talking with -animation. She wore a black hat, wide at the brim, with a large black -feather encircling it, and a sort of jacket with some rich trimming of -dark fur upon it. I was close enough to overhear them as they emerged. - -‘I quite remember my dear father speaking of Lord Sandown,’ she said, -coming to a stand at the head of the companion steps, and sending -a sparkling sweeping look along the decks. ‘Is not Lady Isabella -FitzJames an aunt of yours, Mr. Colledge?’ - -‘Oh yes. I hope you don’t know her,’ he answered. ‘She writes books, -you know, and fancies herself a wit; and her conversation is as -parching as the seedcake she used to give me when I was a boy.’ - -‘I have met her,’ said Miss Temple. ‘I rather liked her. Perhaps she -neglects to be clever in the company of her own sex.’ - -‘Ever been to India before?’ he asked. - -‘No,’ she answered in a voice whose note of affability somehow by no -means softened her haughty regard of the passengers as they walked -past. ‘I am entirely obliging my aunt by undertaking the trip. My -uncle is very old, and too infirm to make the passage to England, and -he was extremely anxious for my mother and me to spend some months with -him. Of course it was a ridiculous invitation as far as poor mamma is -concerned. You know she is a helpless cripple, Mr. Colledge.’ - -‘Oh, indeed. I didn’t know. I am very sorry, I’m sure,’ said he. - -‘I shall not remain long,’ she continued; ‘most probably I shall return -in this ship.’ - -‘By George, though, I hope you will!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m booked to come -home in her too. There’ll be more shooting in three months than I shall -want, you know. I mean to pot a few tigers, and try my hand on a wild -elephant or two. By Jove, Miss Temple, if you’ll allow me, you shall -have the skin of the first tiger I shoot!’ - -‘Oh, you are too good, Mr. Colledge,’ said she, with a smile trembling -on her parted lips, lifting her hand as she spoke to smooth a streak -of hair off her forehead with fingers that sparkled with rings; but -her eyes were brighter than any of her gems; they turned at that -instant full upon me as I stood looking at her a little way past the -mizzen-mast, and there seemed something of positive insolence in the -brief stare she fixed upon me; the faint smile vanished to the curl of -her upper lip as she turned her head. - -_That_, my fine madam, thought I, may be your manner of regarding -everything which is not to be found in the Peerage. - -Colledge, who had followed her glance, saw me. - -‘Oh, Dugdale,’ he cried, ‘can you tell me anything about tigers’ -skins--how long it takes to doctor them into rugs and all that sort of -thing, don’t you know?’ - -‘I can tell you nothing about tigers’ skins,’ said I curtly. ‘I have -never seen a tiger.’ - -‘Know anything about lions’ skins, then?’ he sung out with a -half-smile, meant, as my temper fancied, for Miss Temple. - -‘The ass in the fable clothed himself in one, I believe,’ said I, ‘but -his roar betrayed him.’ - -‘Now I come to think of it,’ said he, ‘I believe there are no lions in -India;’ and he looked from me to the girl with a face of interrogation -so full of good temper as to satisfy me that at heart he was a -kindly-natured young fellow. - -‘I think I shall walk, Mr. Colledge,’ said Miss Temple. - -They joined the folks promenading the weather-deck, and I went to the -recess under the poop to smoke a pipe. - -I leaned in a sulky mood against the bulkhead. There was a sense upon -me as of having been snubbed. I was a young man in those days, of an -uncomfortably sensitive disposition. Yet there should have been virtue -enough in that glorious morning to soothe in one’s soul a keener sting -than was to be inflicted by a handsome woman’s scornful glance. The -slight leaning away of the ship from the soft breeze showed a space -over the bulwark rails of the sparkling azure under the sun steeping to -the delicate silver blue of the sky, with a small star-like point of -white in the far-off airy dazzle, marking the topmost cloths of a ship -out there. The white planks under my feet had the glistening look of -sand, now that the decks had been washed down, and had dried out into -a frosting of themselves, as it were, with tiny crystals of brine. The -shadows of the rigging in ink-black lines swung sleepily to the motion -of the fabric. The Chinaman nurse, in a gown of blue, and wide blue -trousers, and primrose-coloured face, and a gleaming tail like a dead -black serpent lying down his back, leaned against a carronade, tossing -the little baby he had charge of till the plump little sweet crowed -again with delight. On the warm tarpaulin over the main-hatch sat the -two ayahs, crooning over the infants they held, often lifting their -eyes, like beads of unpolished indigo stuck into slips of mottled soap, -to the poop, where the mothers of their youngsters were. There was a -taste as of a hubble-bubble in the air, with the faint relish of bamboo -chafing-gear and cocoa-nut ropes. The hubble-bubble, I daresay, was a -fancy wrought by the spectacle of those black faces, and helped by a -noise of parrots somewhere aft. - -A length of sail was stretched along the waist, and upon it were seated -several sailors, flourishing palms and needles as they stitched. They -talked together in a low voice that the mate of the watch should not -hear them. At one of the fellows who sat with his face towards me, -I found myself looking as at a curiosity that slowly compels the -attention, spite of any heedless mood you may be in. Many ugly mariners -had I met in my time, but never the like of that man. His right eye -had a lamentable cast; his back was so round that I imagined he had -a hunch. He had enormously long strong arms, with immense fists at -the ends of them, and the sleeves of his shirt being rolled to above -his elbow exposed a score of extraordinary devices in Indian ink -writhing amongst the hair that lay in places like fur upon the flesh. -The bridge of his nose had been crushed to his face, and a mere knob -with two holes in it stood out about an inch above his hare-lip. -Though manifestly an old sailor, salted down for ship’s use by years -of seafaring, his complexion was dingy and dough-like as the skin of -a London baker, with nothing distinctive upon it saving a number of -warts, and a huge mole over a ridge of scarlet eyebrow dashed with a -few grey hairs. His hair, that was of coarse brick-red, hung down upon -his back, as though, forsooth, the ship’s cook had made a wig for him -out of the parings of carrots. Indeed, he was as much a monster as -anything that was ever shut up in a cage and carried about as a show. - -I was watching him with growing interest, wondering to myself what sort -of a life such a creature as that had led, what kind of ships he had -sailed in chiefly, and how so grotesque an object had been suffered to -‘sign on’ for an Indiaman, in which one might expect to find something -of a man-of-war uniformity and smartness of crew, when Mr. Sylvanus -Johnson came out from the cuddy, rolling an unlighted cheroot betwixt -his lips. - -‘See that chap sitting upon the sail yonder?’ said I--‘a good subject -for a leading article, Mr. Johnson.’ - -‘Oh confound it, Mr. Dugdale; no sneers, if you please. Let me light -this cigar at your pipe. That fellow is in Emmett’s way, not mine. -Quite a triumph of hideousness, I protest. But what’s the matter -with you, this lovely morning? You look a bit down in the mouth, Mr. -Dugdale. Not going to be sea-sick, I hope, now that all the rest of us -have recovered?’ - -‘Down in the mouth? Not I. But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Johnson--when -you take charge of your newspaper, will you be so good as to inform the -world that there is nothing under the broad sky more consumedly insipid -than the chattering of a young man and a young woman when they first -meet.’ - -‘Why, how now?’ said he. - -‘Oh, my dear sir,’ cried I, ‘hear them. The unspeakable drivel of -it--the “reallys” and “oh dears” and “yes quites”’-- - -‘Yes,’ said Mr. Johnson looking at the ash of his cigar after -every puff; ‘I think I know what you mean. But it is the effect of -politeness, I believe. A young gentleman and a young lady who desire -to please will begin very low with each other, lest they should prove -disconcerting. But what d’ye say’--he lowered his voice--‘to the -drivel, as you call it, of a man of advanced years?’--here he looked -into the cuddy, then took a step forward to peer up at the poop--‘of a -person who has seen the world--of a colonel, in short? I wish to be on -good terms with my fellow-passengers; but if that man Bannister goes -on as he has begun, I’m afraid--I’m afraid it will end in my having to -pull his nose.’ - -He sent another nervous look into the cuddy and frowned upon his cigar -end. - -‘Has he been offensive?’ said I. - -‘Well, judge,’ he exclaimed, ‘when I tell you that he said there wasn’t -a respectable man connected with journalism; that the calling was -distinctly a tipsy one; that his idea of a journalist was that of a -man lying in bed till his only shirt came from the wash, and inventing -lies to publish to the world when the washerwoman enabled him to clothe -himself.--“And pray, sir,” said I, sneering at him, “what would the -country know of your military achievements if it were not for the -journalist? You army gentlemen profess to despise him; but you will get -up very early to buy his paper if you have a notion that there will be -any mention of your doings in it.”--That was pretty warm, I think?’ - -‘Rather,’ said I; ‘and what did he say?’ - -‘He answered that if any other man but myself had said as much, he -would have told him to go and be damned.’ - -‘Well,’ said I, ‘I hope the passengers may prove a companionable body, -I am sure. For my part, it is more likely than not that my place of -abode whilst the weather permits will be the foretop. Anything to -escape overhearing the insipidity of a chat between a young man and a -young woman when they first meet.’ - -‘I see,’ said he, ‘that your friend Colledge has hooked himself on to -Miss Temple. I should say he needs to be the son of a nobleman to make -headway with such a Cleopatra as her ladyship. Fine eyes, perhaps; but -a little pale, eh? Give me Miss Hudson. I don’t admire the sneering -part of the sex.’ - -‘Nor I,’ said I. - -‘But every woman,’ said he, ‘has a way of her own of making love. Some -simper themselves into a man’s affection, and some triumph by scorn and -contempt. Do you remember how the Duchess of Cleveland made love to -Wycherley? She put her head out of the coach window and cried out to -him: “Sir, you’re a rascal, you’re a villain!” and Pope tells us that -Wycherley from that moment entertained hopes.’ - -But by this time my pipe was smoked out; and catching sight of Mynheer -Hemskirk and a passenger named Adams, a lawyer, coming down the ladder -with the notion as I might guess of joining us in the recess that was -the one smoking-room of the ship, I bolted forwards, got upon the -forecastle, and overhung the rail, where I lay for a long half-hour -lazily enjoying the sight of the massive cutwater of the Indiaman -rending the brilliant blue surface, with a clear lift of azure water -either hand of her, that broke into a little running stream of foam -abreast of the cat-heads, and swarmed quietly aft in foam-bells and -winking bubbles, that made one think of the froth at the foot of a -cascade gliding along the crystal-clear breast of a stream to the -murmur of summer leaves and the horn-like hum of insects. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -A MYSTERIOUS VOICE - - -Well, all that day the weather held fine and clear; indeed, we might -have been on the Madeira parallels; and I said to Mr. Prance that it -was enough to make one keep a bright look-out for the flying fish. The -sky was of a wonderful softness of blue, piebald in the main, with -small snow-like puffs of cloud flying low, as though they were a fog -that had broken up. A large black ship passed us in the afternoon. She -was close hauled, and, being to leeward, showed to perfection when -she came abreast. Her sails seemed to be formed of cotton cloth, and -mounted in three spires to little skysails, with a crowd of fleecy jibs -curving at the bowsprit and jib-booms, and many stay-sails between the -masts softly shadowed like a drawing in pencil. The lustre lifting off -the sea was reverberated in a row of scuttles, and the flash of the -glass was so like the yellow blaze of a gun that you started to the -sight, and strained your ear an instant for the report. - -She was too far off to hail. The captain, standing in the midst of a -crowd of ladies, said that she was an American, and told the second -officer, who had the watch, to make the _Countess Ida’s_ number. - -‘Oh, what a lovely string of flags!’ exclaimed Miss Hudson, who stood -near me, following with her languishing violet eyes the soaring of -the mani-coloured bunting as it rose to the block of the peak signal -halliards like the tail of a kite. ‘Is there anybody very important in -that ship that we are honouring him with that pretty display?’ - -‘No,’ said I, laughing, as I let my gaze sink fair into the sweet -depths of her wonderful peepers. ‘By means of those flags the _Countess -Ida_ is telling yonder craft who she is, so that when she arrives home -she may report us.’ - -‘Oh, how heavenly! Only think of a ship being made to tell her name! Oh -mamma,’ she cried, making a step to catch hold of her mother’s gown, -and to give it a tweak, as the old lady stood at the rail gazing at -the American vessel from the ambush of a large bonnet, shaped like -a coal-scuttle; ‘imagine, dear: Mr. Dugdale says that the _Countess -Ida_ is telling that ship who she is. How clever men are--particularly -sailors. I love sailors.’ - -Her melting eyes sought the deck, and the long lashes drooped in a -tender shadow of beauty upon the faint golden tinge of her cheeks. - -‘La, now, to think of it!’ cried Mrs. Hudson. ‘Well, those who go down -into the sea, as the saying is, do certainly see some wonderful things.’ - -Here Mr. Colledge, who did not know, I suppose, that I was conversing -with these ladies, came up to me and said: ‘By the way, Dugdale, what -was that joke of yours about the lion’s skin this morning? Miss Temple -says it was meant for a joke; but hang me if I can see any point in it.’ - -‘What did I say?’ I asked. - -He repeated the remark. - -‘Oh, yes; the young lady is right,’ said I, sending a look at her as -she stood near the wheel by her aunt’s side--the pair of them well away -from the rest of us--gazing through a pair of delicate little opera -glasses at the Yankee; ‘it was a joke. What a capital memory you have. -But as to point, it had none, and the joke, my dear fellow, lies in -that.’ - -‘Well,’ said he, ‘it makes a man feel like an ass to miss a good thing -when a lady is standing by who can see it clearly enough to laugh at it -afterwards.’ - -‘Yes,’ I exclaimed; ‘very true indeed. What a fine picture that ship -makes, eh? There goes her answering pennant! Let them say what they -will of Jonathan, he has a trick high above the art of John Bull in -shipbuilding.’ - -I watched his handsome face as he peered at her. He turned to me and -said: ‘D’ye know, there’s a doocid lot of humour in the idea of the -point of a joke lying in its having no point;’ and with that he went -over to Miss Temple, whose haughty face softened into a smile to his -approach; and there for some time the three of them stood, he ogling -the American (that was slowly slipping into toy-like dimensions upon -our quarter) through the girl’s binocular; whilst she talked with him, -as I could tell by the movement of her lips, Mrs. Radcliffe meanwhile -looking on with fidgety motions of her head, and frequent glances at -her niece, the nervous interrogative slightly troubled character of -which was as suggestive to me as to how it stood between them, as if -she had come to my side and whipped out that she was really afraid -that Louise’s character would make the charge of her a worry and a -perplexity. - -There was a noble sunset that evening, in the west lay stretched a -delicate curtain of cloud linked in shapes of shell, with dashes here -and there as of mare’s tails; whilst near the sea-line the vapour was -more compacted, still linked, but with a closer inwreathing, as like to -chain armour as anything I can compare it to. When the sun sank into -this exquisite lace of vapour, it lighted up a hundred colours all over -it, which transformed the whole of the western heavens into a most -gorgeous and dazzling tapestry. Never saw I before the like of such a -sunset. But for the visible circle of the glowing mass of the orb, you -would have thought those glorious shooting hues, those astonishing and -sumptuous emissions of green and gold and purple, of rose and brilliant -yellow and shining blue fainting into an unimaginably delicate texture -of green, some phenomenal exhibition of electric splendour. The sea -glowed under this vast display of western magnificence in fifty superb -hues. We all stood looking, whilst the wondrous pageant slowly faded, -the ship meanwhile reflecting the splendour in her sails till they -showed like yellow satin against the soft evening blue gathering over -the mastheads, as she pushed softly through the water, the oil-smooth -surface of her wake lined with the spume broken out by the passage of -her bows lifting tenderly on the swell that was flowing in long lines -to the ship from out of the north-west. - -The moon rose late, but it was a fine clear starlit dusk when eight -bells of the second dog-watch floated along the decks and echoed -quietly down out of the wind-hushed spaces of the canvas. The sea swept -black to its confines where the low wheeling stars were hovering like -ships’ lights in the immeasurable distance. The radiance of the cuddy -lamps flung a sheen upon the quarter-deck atmosphere; but away forward -from abreast of the mainmast the ship lay black in the shadow of her -own canvas, with a view of a few dark blotches of the forms of men -moving about the forecastle, their figures showing out against the -brilliant dust in the sky under the wide yawn of the fore-course. - -Old Keeling was pacing the deck with studdingsails out on both sides, -as Jack says, that is to say, with a lady on either arm. Other figures -moved here and there; and Mr. Cocker, who had charge of the deck, -walked to and fro from rail to rail with the young fourth officer by -his side, regularly pausing, ere swinging round for the stump back, to -take a peep under the foot of the mainsail or to send a long look into -the weather horizon. Little Mr. Saunders came up to me, spoke of the -beauty of the evening, and asked me to walk. He was a very intelligent -little chap, and had written several works on the superstitions of -various peoples in relation to their treatment of diseases. He was -wonderfully in earnest in all he said, and would again and again in his -enthusiasm come to a stand, raise his arm to catch hold of a button of -my coat, as if to detain me, meanwhile standing on the tips of his toes -and peering up into my face. On the other side of the deck walked my -friend Colledge between Miss Temple and her aunt. Three of the Civil -Service gentlemen were in tow of Mrs. Brookes and her daughters; and -right aft, leaning in picturesque attitude against one of the guns, was -Mr. Sylvanus Johnson airily and in a gallant tone of voice explaining -to Mrs. and Miss Hudson how it was that the sun and moon were sometimes -to be seen shining together. Down in the cuddy, directly under the -after-skylight, sat Colonel Bannister playing whist with his wife, Mr. -Hodder, and Mr. Adams; and almost every time I passed I could hear the -military man’s voice remonstrating with one or the other of them for -having played such or such a card: ‘You should have led the knave, sir. -What on earth, my dear, made you trump spades? No, no; I was right! I -believe I am not to be taught whist at my time of life, sir;’ and so -on, and so on. - -By-and-by a bell rang to summon the passengers below to such -refreshments of wine and biscuits and strong waters as they chose to -partake of. The promenaders in shadowy forms melted down the companion -hatchway, and two or three of us only remained on deck. Mr. Colledge -was one of them. He came over to me, staring in my face, to make sure -of me, and exclaimed: ‘I wish they would allow a man to smoke up here. -What is the evil in a pipe of tobacco or a cheroot, that you must go -and sneak into a dark corner to light it?’ - -‘How is it that you are not below with Miss Temple?’ said I. - -‘Oh,’ said he, laughing, ‘I want to make her last me out the voyage, -and that won’t be done, you know, if we see too much of each other.’ - -‘You are to be congratulated,’ said I, ‘on the compliment she pays you: - - Favours to none, to none she smiles extends; - Oft she rejects, and oftener still offends. - -That’s not exactly how the poet puts it, but it is apter than the -original.’ - -‘Oh well, you know, Dugdale, she has met some of my people. I don’t -dislike her for holding off. It shows that her blood and instincts -are English; though, faith, when I first saw her I took her to be a -Spaniard. Between you and me, though, the golden headed girl’s the -belle of the ship. What’s her name?--Ah! Miss Hudson. Look at her as -she sits in the light down there! Why, now, if I had your poetical -turn, how would I spout whole yards about her fingers like snowflakes, -and her lips like---- But see here! there’s nothing new in the shape of -imagery to apply to a pretty woman. Oh yes! Miss Hudson’s the ship’s -beauty. But Miss Temple is ripping company, and, my stars! what eyes!’ - -‘Take care,’ said I, laughing, ‘that you don’t do what the man who -marries the deceased wife’s sister always does--wed the wrong one. -Choose correctly at the start.’ - -He burst into a laugh. - -‘I am already engaged to be married,’ said he. ‘What single man of -judgment would dare adventure a voyage to Bombay without securing -himself in that fashion against all risks?’ - -I stared into his grinning face, as we stood at the skylight, to -discover if he was in earnest. - -‘Keep your secret, Colledge,’ said I; ‘I’ll not peach.’ - -Here the second-mate interrupted us by singing out an order to the -watch to haul down the fore and main topgallant studdingsails. Then -he took in his lower and main topmast studdingsails. The men’s noisy -bawling made talking difficult, and Colledge went below for a glass of -brandy-and-water. Presently old Keeling came on deck, and after a look -around, and a pretty long stare over the weather bow, where there was a -very faint show of lightning, he said something to the second mate and -returned to the cuddy. - -‘In foretopmast studdingsail!’ bawled Mr. Cocker; ‘clew up the -mizzen-royal and furl it.’ - -A little group of midshipmen hovering in the dusk in the lee of the -break of the poop, where the shadow of the great mainsail lay like the -darkness of a thunderstorm upon the air, rushed to the mizzen rigging, -and in a few moments the gossamer-like cloud floating under the -mizzen-royal truck was melting out like a streak of vapour against the -stars, with a couple of the young lads making the shrouds dance as they -clawed their way up the ratlines. - -‘What’s wrong with the weather, Mr. Cocker,’ said I, ‘that you are -denuding the ship in this fashion?’ - -‘Oh,’ said he with a short laugh, ‘Captain Keeling is a very cautious -commander, sir. He’ll never show a stun’sail to the night outside the -tropics; and it is a regular business with us to furl the fore and -mizzen royal in the second dog-watch, though it is so fine to-night, he -has let them fly longer than usual.’ - -‘Humph!’ said I; ‘no wonder he’s popular with lady passengers. I -suppose there is no chance of the ship falling overboard with the -main-royal still on her?’ - -‘When it comes to my getting command,’ said he, ‘the world will find -that I am for carrying on. What my ship can’t carry, she’ll have to -drag. I’ve made my calculations, and there’s nothing with decent heels -that shouldn’t be able to make the voyage to India in seventy-five -days. It is the trick of wind-jamming that stops us all. A skipper’ll -sweat his yards fore and aft sooner than be off his course by the -fraction of a point. For my part, I’d make every foul wind a fair one.’ - -He called out some order to the group of shadows at work upon the lower -studdingsail, and I went to the skylight with half a mind in me to go -below and see what was doing there; but changed my intention when I saw -friend Colledge leaning over a draught-board with Miss Temple, Miss -Hudson looking on at the game from the opposite side, and Mr. Johnson -drawing diagrams with his forefinger to Mrs. Hudson in explanation of -something I suppose that he was talking about. - -I went right aft and sat myself upon a little bit of grating abaft the -wheel, and there, spite of the adjacency of the man at the helm, I felt -as much alone as if I had mastheaded myself. The great body of the -Indiaman went away from me in a dark heap; the white deck of the poop -was a mere faintness betwixt the rails. Her canvas rose in phantasmal -ashen outlines, with a slow swing of stars betwixt the squares of the -rigging, and a frequent flashing of meteors on high sailing amongst -the luminaries in streaks of glittering dust. There was little more -to be heard than the chafe of the tiller gear in its leading blocks, -the occasional dim noise of a rope straining to the quiet lift of the -Indiaman, the bubbling of water going away in holes and eddies from the -huge rudder, and a dull tinkling of the piano in the saloon, and some -lady singing to it. - -All at once I spied the figure of a man dancing down the main shrouds -in red-hot haste. I was going in a lounging way forward at the moment, -and heard Mr. Cocker say: ‘What the deuce is it?’ The fellow standing -on a ratline a little above the bulwark rail made some answer. - -‘You are mad,’ cried the mate. ‘What _are_ you--an Irishman?’ - -‘No, sir.’ I had now drawn close enough to catch what was said. ‘If -I was, maybe I’d be a Papish, and then the sign of the cross would -exercise [exorcise, I presume] the blooming voice overboard.’ - -‘Voice in your eye!’ cried Mr. Cocker. ‘Up again with you! This is some -new dodge for skulking. But you’ll have to invent something better than -a ghost before you knock off on any job you’re upon aboard this ship.’ - -‘What is it, sir?’ called the voice of the captain from the companion, -and he came marching up to us in his buttoned-up way, as though he -sought to neutralise the trick of a deep sea roll by a soldierly -posture. - -‘Why, sir,’ answered Mr. Cocker, ‘this man here has come down from -aloft with a run to tell me that there’s a ghost talking to him upon -the topsail yard.’ - -‘A what?’ cried the captain. - -‘I ’splained it to the second officer as a woice, sir,’ said the man, -speaking very respectfully, but emphatically, as one talking out of a -conviction. - -‘What did this voice say?’ said the captain. - -‘I was mounting the topmast rigging,’ replied the man, ‘and my head was -on a level with the tawps’l yard, when a woice broke into a sort of raw -“haw-haw,” and says, “What d’ye want?” it says. “Hook it!” it says. “I -know you.” So down I come.’ - -‘Anybody skylarking up there, Mr. Cocker?’ - -The mate looked up with his hand to the side of his mouth. ‘Aloft -there!’ he bawled; ‘anybody on the topsail yard?’ - -We all strained our ears, staring intently, but no response came, and -there was nothing to be seen. Dark as the shadow of the night was up in -the loom of the squares of canvas, it was not so black but that a human -figure might have been seen up in it after some searching with the gaze. - -‘It’s your imagination, my man,’ said the captain, half-turning as -though to walk aft. - -‘Up aloft with you again, now!’ exclaimed the second-mate. - -‘By thunder, then,’ cried the man, smiting the ratline with his fist, -whilst he clipped hold of it with the other, swinging out and staring -up, ‘I’d rather go into irons for the rest of the woyage!’ - -By this time a number of the watch on deck had gathered about the -main-hatchway, and stood in a huddle in the obscurity, listening to -what was going forward. On a sudden a fellow leapt out of the group and -sprang into the main rigging. - -He hove some curses under his breath at the seaman, who continued -to hang in the shrouds, and went aloft, hand over fist, as good as -disappearing to the eye as he climbed into the big main top. The other -man put his foot on to the rail and dropped on to the deck, where some -of the sailors began eagerly in hoarse hurried whispers to question him. - -‘Well, what d’ye see?’ shouted Mr. Cocker, sending his voice fair into -the full heart of the high glooming topsail. - -There was no answer; but a few seconds later I spied the dark form of -the man swing off the rigging on to the topmast backstay, down which he -slided in headlong speed. He jumped on to the poop ladder and roared -out: ‘By holy Moses, then, sir, it’s the devil himself! There’s no man -to be seen, and yet a man there is!’ - -‘And what did he say?’ - -‘Why,’ he cried, wiping the sweat off his brow, ‘Blast me, here he is -again!’ - -The brief pause that followed showed the captain as well as the -second-mate, to be not a little astonished. In fact, the fellow was -one of the boatswain’s mates, a bushy whiskered giant of a sailor, -assuredly not of a kind to connive at any Jack’s horse-play or -tomfoolery in his watch on deck and under the eye of the officer in -charge. The captain sent one of the midshipmen for his binocular -glass, the second mate meanwhile staggering back a few paces to stare -aloft. But there was no magic in the skipper’s lenses to resolve the -conundrum. Indeed, I reckoned my own eyes to be as good as any glasses -for such an inspection as that; but view the swelling heights as I -would, going from one part of the deck to another, that no fathom of -the length of the yards should escape me, I could witness nothing -resembling a human shape, nothing whatever with the least stir of life -in it. - -‘Well, this beats my time!’ said Mr. Cocker, drawing a deep breath. - -‘What sort of voice was it?’ demanded Captain Keeling, letting fall the -binocular with which he had been sweeping the fabric of spar and sail, -and coming to the brass rail overlooking the quarter-deck. - -The first of the two men who had been terrified cried out from the -group near the hatchway, before the other could answer: ‘It was exactly -like the voice of Punch, sir, in the Judy show.’ - -‘Then there _must_ be a pair of ’em!’ roared the other fellow with -great excitement. ‘What I heard was like a drunken old man swearing in -his sleep.’ - -‘Captain,’ said I, stepping forward, ‘let me go aloft, will you? I’ve -long wanted to believe in ghosts, and here is a chance now for me to -embark in that faith.’ - -‘Ghosts, Mr. Dugdale? Yet it is an extraordinary business too. There -has been nothing to hear from the deck, has there?’ - -‘Nothing, sir,’ answered Mr. Cocker. ‘But, Mr. Dugdale, if you will -take the weather rigging, I’ll slip up to leeward; and it’ll be strange -if between us we don’t let the life out of the wonder, be it what it -will.’ - -I jumped at once into the weather shrouds, and was promptly travelling -aloft with the sight of the figure of the second mate in the rigging -abreast clawing the ratlines, and the frog-like spread of his legs -showing out against the faintness of the space of the mainsail behind -him. We came together in the maintop, and there stood looking up and -listening a minute. - -‘I see nothing,’ said I. - -‘Nor I,’ said the second mate. - -We peered carefully round us, then got into the topmast rigging and -climbed to the level of the topsail yard, where we waited for the -wonderful voice to address us; but nothing spoke, nor was there -anything to be seen. - -‘Those two sailors must have fallen crazy,’ said I. - -‘There’s no need to go any higher,’ said Mr. Cocker; ‘the topgallant -and royal yards lie clear as rules against the stars. On deck there!’ - -‘Hallo?’ came the voice of the captain, floating up in a sort of echo -from the hull of the ship, that looked a mile down in that gloom. - -‘There’s nothing up here for a voice to come out of, sir.’ - -‘Then you had better come down, sir,’ called the captain; and I -thought I could hear a little note of laughter below, as though two or -three passengers had collected. - -Mr. Cocker’s vague form melted over the top; but I lingered a minute -to survey the picture. My head was close against the maintopmast -cross-trees, a height of some eighty or ninety feet above the line -of the ship’s rail, with the distance of the vessel’s side from the -water’s edge to add on to it. I lingered but a minute or two, yet in -that brief space the shadowy night-scene, with the grand cathedral-like -figure of the noble craft sailing along in the heart of it, was swept -into me with such vehemence of impression that the scene lies upon my -memory clear now as it then was in that far-off, that very far-off, -time. Every sound on deck rose with a subdued thin tone, as though from -some elfin world. There was a delicate throbbing of green fire in the -black water as it washed slowly past the lazy sides of the _Countess -Ida_, and upon this visionary, faintly-glittering surface the form of -the great ship was shadowily depictured, with the glimmer of the deck -of the poop dimly dashed with the illuminated squares of the skylights, -and a point of scarce determinable radiance confronting the wheel -where the binnacle light was showing. The ocean night-breeze sighed -with a note of surf heard from afar in the quiet hollows of the canvas. -There was sometimes a little light pattering of the reef-points, -resembling the noise of the falling of a brief summer thunder-shower -upon fallen leaves. The sea spread as vast as the sky, and you seemed -to be able to pierce to the other side of the world, so infinitely -distant did the stars close to the horizon look, as though _there_ they -were shining over an antipodean land. - -‘Aloft there, Mr. Dugdale!’ came dimly sounding from the deck; ‘do you -hear anything more of the voice?’ - -‘No,’ I answered; but the cry had broken the spell that was upon me, -and down I went, looking narrowly about me as I descended. - -I had scarcely gained the poop when there was a commotion on the -quarter-deck, and I heard the voice of the Chinaman exclaiming: ‘What -sailor-man hab seen Prince? What sailor-man, I say, hab seen him? Him -gone for lost, I say? Oh--ai--O; Oh--ai--O! Him gone for lost, I say?’ - -‘Who in thunder is making that row?’ shouted Mr. Cocker, putting his -head over the brass rail. - -The Chinaman stepped out from under the recess, and the cabin lights -showed him up plainly enough. He wrung his hands and executed a variety -of piteous gestures whilst he cried: ‘Oh sah, did you sabbe Prince? Him -gone for lost, I say! Oh--ai--O! Oh--ai--O! Him gone for lost, I say!’ -And here he rolled his eyes up aloft and over the bulwarks, and then -made as if he would rush forwards. - -‘Is that you, Handcock?’ said Mr. Cocker, addressing a stout man who -stepped out of the cuddy at that moment. - -‘Yes, sir,’ answered the fellow, who was indeed the head steward. - -‘What’s the matter with that Chinese idiot?’ - -‘Why, sir, his mistress’s parrot has escaped. He is responsible for the -safe-keeping of the fowl, and he’s just missed him.’ - -‘Then it’ll ha’ been that bloomin’ parrot that’s been a talking aloft,’ -said a deep voice from near the pumps; but I noticed an uneasy shifting -amongst some of the figures standing there, as though _that_ were a -conjecture not to be too hastily received. - -‘Here, John,’ shouted Mr. Cocker; ‘come up here, Johnny.’ - -The Chinaman, who continued to mutter ‘Oh-ai-O!’ whilst he gazed -idiotically about him with much wringing of his hands, slowly and in -attitudes of extreme misery, ascended the poop ladder. - -‘Could this parrot talk, John?’ said Mr. Cocker. - -‘Oh, him talkee lubberly. Him speakee like soul of Christian gen’man.’ - -‘What could he say?’ shouted the second mate, evidently desirous that -this conversation should be heard on the quarter-deck. - -‘Oh, him say “you go dam,”’ cried John. - -‘And what else?’ cried Mr. Cocker, smothering his laughter. - -‘Oh, him say “Gib me egg for breakfiss;” and him laugh “haw-haw;” and -him say “hook it” and “whach you wantee;” and he speakee better than -common sailor-man;’ and here he burst out into another long wailing -‘Oh--ai--O! Him gone for drownded. Him gone for lost, I say!’ - -‘Now you hear what this man says, my lads,’ called Mr. Cocker. ‘Jump -aloft, those of you who are not _afraid_, and catch the bird if you -can.’ - -The young fourth mate set the example; and in a trice a dozen sailors -were running up the fore main and mizzen, where for a long half-hour -they were bawling to one another, some of them feigning to have caught -the bird, whilst they _kurikity-cooed_ at the top of their pipes, the -Chinaman meanwhile shrieking with excitement as he ran from one mast -to another. But it was all to no purpose. The bird had evidently gone -overboard; probably had attempted a flight with its shorn pinions after -the second of the men who had been frightened had come down in a hurry. -The search was renewed next morning at daybreak; but poor Prince was -gone for good. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -WE LOSE A MAN - - -Spite of Mr. Cocker’s hints as to Captain Keeling’s timidity in the -matter of canvas, the old skipper evidently knew what he was about in -taking in his flying kites in good time, for whilst the seamen were -still scrambling in the rigging and skylarking up there in search of -the parrot, the breeze freshened in a long moaning gust over the rail, -with a brighter flashing of the stars to windward, and a sudden stoop -of the Indiaman that sent a line of water washing along her sides in -milk; and at midnight she was bowing down with nothing showing above -her main topgallant-sail to a strong wind off the beam, the stars gone, -and a look of hard weather in the obscurity of the horizon. - -For the next four days we had plenty of wind and high seas with -frequent grey rain-squalls shrouding the ship, and leaving her with -streaming decks and darkened canvas and dribbling gear. It was Channel -weather again, in short, saving that there was the relish of the -temperate parallels in the air, whilst the seas rolled large and wide -and regular with all the difference betwixt the motion of the ship and -her rollicking neck-breaking capers in the narrow waters that you’d -find between the trot of a donkey and the majestical thunderous gallop -of a charger. - -But the wet made a miserable time of it. What was there to be seen on -deck save the gleaming forms of men in oil-skins, the sweep of the -dark-green surge out of the near veil of haze, the rain-shadowed curves -of the canvas--the whole fitly put to music by the damp dull clattering -of booms, noises of chafing up aloft, and the wild whistling of the -wind upon the taut weather rigging? The males amongst us who smoked -would come together after meals in a huddle under the break of the -poop, cowering against the weather bulkhead out of the wet of the rain; -and on these occasions arguments ran high. If Colonel Bannister was of -our company, nothing could be said but that he whipped out with a flat -contradiction to it. In fact, he was of that order of mind who reckons -its mission to be that of teaching everybody to think correctly. - -Once he endeavoured to prove to Mr. Emmett that he was wanting in an -essential qualification of a painter, namely, an eye for atmosphere, -by requesting him to say how far the horizon was off, and roaring in -triumph because Mr. Emmett answered five miles. Mr. Johnson, after -a careful look at the sea, submitted that Mr. Emmett was right. The -colonel, pulling out his white whiskers, asked how it was possible that -a journalist should know anything about such things. Angry words were -averted by Mynheer Hemskirk, who, with a fat face and foolish smile, -broke in with a mouldy old puzzle: ‘Answer me dis: here iss a bortrait. -I shtands opposite, und I shay, “Brooders und shisters hov I none boot -dot man’s farder iss my farder’s soon! Vot relation iss dot man to dot -bicture?”’ The colonel had never heard this, and asked the Dutchman to -repeat it. Mr. Hodder in a mild voice said: ‘It is himself.’ Little Mr. -Saunders, after thinking hard, said it was his father. ‘_That’s_ it, of -course!’ shouted the colonel. The Dutchman said no, and repeated the -lines with great emphasis, striking one fist into the palm of the other -at every syllable. Then sides were taken merely to enrage the colonel. -Some agreed with him, and some with the Dutchman. Mr. Emmett, feigning -not to catch the point, compelled the stupid good-natured Hemskirk to -repeat the question a dozen times over. So loud was the argument, so -angry the colonel, so excited the Dutchman, and so demonstrative most -of the others of the listeners, that the chief officer came off the -poop to look at us. - -I give this as an instance of our method of killing that dreary time. -The old ladies for the most part kept their cabins; but the girls came -into the cuddy as usual, and made the interior comfortable to the eye -as they sat here and there with knitting-needles in their hands or a -book upon their knees. - -On one of these foul-weather afternoons, hearing a strange noise of -singing, I entered the cuddy, and found Peter Hemskirk standing with -his face to the company and his back upon one of the Miss Joliffes, -who was accompanying him at the piano. He was singing a fashionable -sentimental song of that day, ‘I’d be a Butterfly, born in a Bower.’ -The posture of the man was exquisitely absurd as he stood with his -immensely fat figure swaying to the movements of the ship, a ridiculous -smile upon his face, whilst he held his arms extended, singing first to -one and then to another, so that every one might share in the song. The -picture of this great corpulent man, with an overflow of chins between -his shirt collars, and a vast surface of green waistcoat arching out -like the round of a full topsail, and then curving in again to a pair -of legs of the exact resemblance of a pegtop--standing as he was with -his feet close together--I say, the sight of this immense man singing -‘I’d be a Booterfly’ in falsetto, proved too much for the company. They -listened a little with sober faces; but at last Miss Hudson gave way, -and bent her head behind her mother and lay shaking in an hysterical -fit of laughter; then another girl laughed out; then followed a general -chorus of merriment. But the undaunted Dutchman persevered. He would -not let us off a single syllable, but worked his way without the least -alteration of posture right through the song, making us a low bow when -he had come to an end; whilst Miss Joliffe, darting from the piano -stool, fled through the saloon and disappeared down the hatchway with -a face as red as a powder-flag. - -Miss Temple was the only one of us unmoved by this ridiculous -exhibition. She kept her eyes bent on a book in her lap for the most -part whilst Mynheer sang, now and then glancing round her with a face -of cold wonder. Once our eyes met, when she instantly sent her gaze -flashing to her book again. Indeed, it was already possible to see -the sort of opinion in which she was held by her fellow-passengers by -their manner of holding off from her as from a person who considered -herself much too good to be of them, though the obligation of going to -India forced her to be with them. Yet one easily guessed that the other -girls hugely admired her. I’d notice them running their eyes over her -dress, watching her face and bearing at table, following her motions -about the deck; and again and again I would overhear them speaking in -careful whispers about her when she was out of sight. In short, she -might have been a woman of distinguished title amongst us; and if the -passengers gave her a respectful berth, it was certainly not, I think, -because they would not have felt themselves flattered by an unbending -or friendly behaviour in her. - -On the following Thursday the wind slackened, the weather cleared, and -midway of the forenoon it was already a hot sparkling morning, with -a high heaven of delicate clouds like a silver frosting of the blue -vault, a wide sea of flowing sapphire, and the Indiaman swaying along -under studdingsails to the royal yards. I had been spending an hour in -my bunk reading. As I passed through the cuddy on my way to the poop I -heard the report of firearms, and on going on deck found Mr. Colledge -and Miss Temple shooting with pistols at a bottle that dangled from the -lee main-yard-arm. Most of the passengers sat about watching them; but -the couple were alone in the pastime. The pistols were very elegant -weapons, mounted in silver, with long gleaming barrels. Colledge loaded -and handed them to his companion, occasionally taking aim himself. - -She could not have lighted upon any practice fitter to exhibit and -accentuate the perfections of her figure and face. Her dark glance -went sparkling along the line of the levelled barrel; her lips, -of a delicate red, lay lightly apart to the sweep of the breeze, -that was sweet and warm as new milk; her colourless face under the -broad shadow of her hat resembled some faultless carving in marble -magically informed by a sort of dumb haughty human vitality. I cannot -tell you how she was attired, but her figure was there in its lovely -proportions, a full yet maidenly delicate shape against the clear azure -over the sea-line, as she stood poised on small firm feet upon the -leaning and yielding deck, her head thrown back, her arm extended, and -a fire in her deep liquid eyes that anticipated the flash of the pistol. - -‘A very noble-looking woman, sir,’ said a voice low down at my side. - -Mr. Richard Saunders stood gazing up at me with the eager wistful -expression that is somewhat common in dwarfs. It was on the tip of my -tongue to ask the poor little chap if he had ever been in love; but he -was a man whose sensitiveness and tenderness of heart obliged one to -think twice before speaking. - -‘Ay, Mr. Saunders. A noble woman indeed, as you say,’ I answered as -softly as he had spoken. ‘But how pale is her cheek! It makes you think -of the white death that Helena speaks of in “All’s Well that Ends -Well.”’ - -‘What Hemmeridge would term chlorosis,’ said he. ‘No, sir; she is -perfectly healthy. It is a very uncommon complexion indeed, and very -fit for a throne or some high place from which a woman needs to gaze -imperiously and with a countenance that must not change colour.’ - -‘She looks to have been born to something higher than she is likely -to attain,’ said I, watching her with eyes I found it impossible to -withdraw. ‘A pity there did not go a little more womanhood to her -composition. She might make a fine actress, and do very well in the -unrealities of life; but I should say there is but small heart there, -Mr. Saunders, with just the same amount of pride that sent Lucifer -flaming headlong to----’ - -Some one coughed immediately behind me. I looked round and met Mrs. -Radcliffe’s gaze full. She was seated on a hencoop; but whether she -was there when I came to a stand to view Miss Temple, or had arrived -unobserved by me, I could not tell. I felt the blood rise in scarlet to -my brow, and walked right away forward on the forecastle, greatly, I -doubt not, to the astonishment of little Saunders, who, I believe, was -in the act of addressing me when I bolted. - -I went into the head of the ship and leaned against the slope of the -giant bowsprit as it came in the towering steeve of those days, to -the topgallant-forecastle deck, through which it vanished like the -lopped trunk of a titan oak whose roots go deep. The ping of a pistol -report caught my ear. There was a sound of the splintering of glass -at the yard-arm, along with some hand-clapping on the poop, as though -the passengers regarded this shooting at a mark as an entertainment -designed for their amusement. Far out ahead of me, jockeying the -jib-boom, sat a sailor at work on the stay there; his figure stooped -and soared with the lift of the long spar that pointed like the ship’s -outstretched finger to the shining azure distance into which she was -sailing, and he sang a song to himself in hoarse low notes, that to -my mind put a better music to the flowing satin-like heavings of the -darkly blue water under him than any mortal musician that I can think -of could have married the picture to. There were a few seamen occupied -on various jobs about the forecastle. The square of the hatch called -the scuttle, lay dark in the deck, and rising up through it, I could -hear the grumbling notes of a sailor apparently reading aloud to one of -his mates. - -Presently the bewhiskered face of the boatswain showed at the head -of the forecastle ladder. On spying me, he approached with the rough -sea-salute of a drag at a lock of hair under his round hat. He had -served as able seaman aboard the ship that I had been midshipman in, -though before my time; this had come out in a chat, and now he had -always a friendly greeting when I met him on deck. He was a sailor of a -school that is almost extinct; a round-backed man of the merchantman’s -slowness in his movements, yet probably as fine a sample of a boatswain -as was ever afloat; with an eye that seemed to compass the whole ship -in a breath, of a singular capacity of seeing into a man and knowing -what he was fit for, most exquisitely and intimately acquainted with -the machinery of a vessel; a delightful performer upon his silver pipe, -out of which he coaxed such clear and penetrating strains that you -would have imagined when he blew upon it a flight of canary birds had -settled in the rigging round about him. The voice of the tempest was in -his gruff cry of ‘All hands!’ and his face might have stood as a symbol -for hard ocean weather, as the bursting cheeks of Boreas express the -north wind. He carried a little length of tough but pliant cane in his -hand, with which he would flog whatever stood next him when excited and -finding fault with some fellow for ‘sogering,’ as it is called; and I -once saw him catch a man of his own size by the scruff of the neck, -and with his cane dust the hinder part of him as prettily as ever a -schoolmaster laid it on to a boy. - -‘At the wrong end of the ship, ain’t you, sir?’ he called to me as he -approached in his strong hearty voice. - -‘It’s all one to me,’ said I, laughing, ‘now that there’s no music in -the like of that pipe of yours to set me dancing.’ - -‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, fetching a deep breath. ‘I wonder if ever it’ll -be my luck to knock off the sea and settle down ashore? I allow -there’s more going to the life of a human being than the turning in of -dead-eyes and the staying of masts _plumb_. By the way,’ added he, -lowering his voice, ‘I’m afeerd there’s going to be a death aboard.’ - -‘I hope not,’ said I; ‘it will be the first, and a little early, too. -Who’s the sick man, bo’sun?’ - -‘Why, a chap named Crabb,’ he answered. ‘I think you know him. I once -took notice of a smile on your countenance as you stood watching him at -the pumps.’ - -‘What! do you mean that bow-legged carroty creature with no top to his -nose and one eye trying to look astern?’ - -‘Ay,’ said he; ‘that’s Crabb.’ - -‘Dying, d’ye say, Mr. Smallridge?’ I considered an instant, and -exclaimed: ‘Surely he was at the wheel from ten to twelve during the -first watch last night?’ - -‘So he was,’ answered the boatswain; ‘but he took ill in the middle -watch, and the latest noose is that he’s a-dying rapidly.’ - -‘What’s the poor fellow’s malady?’ said I. - -‘Well, the doctor don’t seem rightly to understand,’ he answered: -‘he’s been forrards twice since breakfast-time, and calls it a general -break-up--an easy tarm for the ‘splaining of a difficulty. But what it -means, blowed if I know,’ he added, with a glance aft, to observe if -the mate had hove into sight. - -‘A general break-up,’ said I, ‘signifies a decay of the vital organs. I -don’t mean to say that Crabb isn’t decayed, but I certainly should have -thought the worst of his distemper lay outside.’ - -‘Oh, yes,’ said he; ‘you wouldn’t suppose that he’d need a worse -illness than his own face to kill him. But this ain’t seeing after the -ship’s work, is it?’ and with another pleasant sea-flourish of his hand -to his brow, he left me. - -A little later, I was walking leisurely aft, meaning to regain the poop -for a yarn with Colledge, who stood alone to leeward, looking over the -rail with his arms folded in the attitude of a man profoundly bored, -when the ship’s doctor, Mr. Hemmeridge, came out of the cuddy door to -take a few pulls at his pipe under the shelter of the overhanging deck. - -‘So, doctor,’ said I, planting myself carelessly in front of him with a -light swing on my straddled legs to the soft heave of the ship, ‘we are -to lose a man, I hear?’ - -‘Who told you that?’ he exclaimed, gazing at me out of a pair of moist -weak eyes, which, I am afraid, told a story of something even stronger -than his jalap and Glauber salts, stored secretly amongst the bottles -which filled the shelves of his dark and dismal little berth right away -aft over the lazarette. - -‘Why, the air is full of the news,’ said I: ‘a ship’s a village, where -whatever happens is known to all the neighbours.’ - -‘I don’t know about losing a man,’ said he, striking a spark into -a tinder-box and lighting his pipe with a sulphur match; ‘he’s not -dead yet, anyway. We must keep our voices hushed in these matters -aboard ship, Mr. Dugdale. Wherever there are ladies, there’s a deal of -nervousness.’ - -‘True; and I’ll be as hushed as you please. But this Crabb is so -amazing a figure, that I can’t but feel interested in his illness. What -ails him, now?’ - -‘If he dies, it must be of decay,’ he answered, with a toss of his -hand. ‘I can find nothing wrong with him but the manner of his going. -He lies motionless, and groans occasionally. It will be a matter in -which the heart is involved, no doubt.’ - -I saw my curiosity did not please him, and so, after exchanging a few -idle sentences, I mounted the poop and joined Mr. Colledge. - -He was looking at the water that was passing, but not greatly heeding -the sight of it. I daresay, though there was much, nevertheless, to -engage the eye of a lover of sea-bits in the delicate interlacery of -foam that came past in spaces like veils of lace spreading out on the -heave of the sea along with cloudy seethings of milk-white softness -under the surface, which made a wonder of the radiant opalescent -blue of the clear profound there that was softened out of its sunny -brilliance by the shadowing of the high side of the Indiaman. - -‘This is going to be a long voyage, I am afraid,’ exclaimed Colledge, -with a sort of sigh, bringing his back round upon the rail and leaning -against it with folded arms. - -‘Not bored already, I hope?’ said I. - -‘Well, do you know, Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, whilst I caught his eye -following the form of Miss Hudson, who was walking the weather-deck -with Mr. Emmett, ‘I believe I made a mistake in engaging myself before -I started. When a man asks a girl to be his wife, he ought to marry her -with as little delay as possible. Now, here am I leaving the sweetheart -I have affianced myself to for perhaps ten months of ocean voyaging, -with some months on top of it in India for shooting, and the chance -beyond of being eaten up by the game I pursue.’ - -‘Why did you engage yourself?’ said I. - -‘I had been lunching at her father’s house--Sir John Crawley, member -for Oxborough, a red-hot Tory, and one of the noblest hands at -billiards you could dream of. Do you know him?’ - -‘Never heard of him,’ said I. - -‘Well, he rarely speaks in the House, certainly. I had been lunching -with him and Fanny; and as I was not likely to see the old chap again -this side of my Indian trip, he plied me with champagne in a loving -way; and when I walked with Fanny into the garden for a little ramble, -I was rather more emotional than is customary with me; and the long -and short of it is I proposed to her, and she accepted me. Here she -is,’ said he; and he put his hand in his pocket and produced a very -delicate little ivory miniature of a merry, pretty, rather Irish face, -with soft brown curls about the forehead, and a roguish look in the -slightly lifted regard of the eyes, as though she were shooting a -glance at you through her upper lashes. - -‘A very sweet creature,’ said I, giving him back the painting. ‘Is not -she good enough for you? Bless my soul, what coxcombs men are! What -is there to fret you in knowing that you have won the love of such a -sweetheart as that?’ - -He hung his handsome face over the miniature, gazing at it with an -intentness that brought his eyes to a squint, then slipped it into his -pocket, exclaiming with an odd note of contrition in his voice: ‘Well, -I’m a doocid ass, I suppose. But still I think I made a mistake in -engaging myself. There was time enough to ask her to marry me when I -returned. Who knows that I shall ever return?’ - -‘Now, _don’t_ be sentimental, my dear fellow.’ - -‘Oh yes, that’s all very fine,’ said he; ‘but I suppose you know that -tiger-hunting isn’t altogether like chasing a hare, for instance.’ - -‘Don’t tiger-hunt, then,’ said I, growing sick of all this. ‘Hark! -what fine voice is that singing in the cuddy?’ - -He pricked his ear. ‘Oh, it is Miss Temple,’ said he; and he stole away -to the after skylight, through which a glimpse of the piano was to -be had. He took a peep, then bestowed a train of nods upon me, and a -moment after crept below. Alas! for Fanny Crawley, thought I. - -Both of the wide skylights were open, and Miss Temple’s voice rose -clear and full, a rich contralto, with now and then a tremor sounding -through it in an added quality of sweetness. Those who were walking -paused to listen, and those who were seated let fall their work or -lifted their eyes from their books. Mr. Johnson and one or two others -assembled at the skylight. But no one saving friend Colledge offered to -go below. I could have bet a thousand pounds that the cuddy was empty, -or the girl never would have sung. In fact, one took notice of a sort -of timidity in the very hearkening of the people to her, as though she -were a princess whose voice was something to be listened to afar and -with respect, and who was not to be approached or disturbed on any -account whatever. Soon after she had ended, a male voice piped up, and -Mr. Johnson, after listening a little, came sauntering over to me. - -‘Your friend Colledge don’t sing ill,’ he exclaimed with the complacent -grin he usually put on before delivering himself. ‘Do you feel equal to -a small bet?’ - -‘What’s the wager to be about?’ - -‘I bet you,’ said he, closing one eye, ‘twenty shillings to a crown -that Mr. Colledge and Miss Temple will have plighted their troth before -we strike the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope.’ - -‘Why not latitude?’ said I. - -‘Why, my dear sir, don’t you see that the longitude gives me a -broader margin?’ And the fellow was actually beginning to explain the -difference between latitude and longitude, when I cut him short. - -‘I’ll not bet,’ said I; ‘I have no wish to win your money on a -certainty. They won’t be engaged, and so you’d better keep your -sovereign.’ - -He whistled low, and with a melancholy attempt at a comical cast of -countenance, exclaimed: ‘Ah, I see how it goes. It is the wish, my -friend, that’s father to the thought. But Lor’ preserve us; my dear -Mr. Dugdale, do you suppose that a young lady after her pattern would -ever condescend to cast her eye upon anything even the sixtieth part of -one single degree beneath the level of the son of a baron and heir to -the title and property?’ - -‘Do you recollect,’ said I, ‘how your name-sake Dr. Samuel Johnson -told his friends that being teased by a neighbour at table to give his -opinion on Horace or Virgil, I forget which, he immediately fixed his -attention on thoughts of Punch and Judy? Suffer me now to imitate that -great man and to think of Punch and Judy.’ - -‘Here comes Punch, I do believe,’ said he with a good-natured laugh. - -As he spoke, up rose the figure of Colonel Bannister from the -quarter-deck. His face was red with temper, his eyes sparkled, and his -white whiskers stood out like spikes of light from a flame. We happened -to be the first persons he came across as he climbed the ladder. - -‘Of all infernal instruments,’ he cried, ‘the piano is the worst. What -on earth, I should like to know, do shipowners mean by adding that -execrable piece of furniture to the cabin accommodation? The moment I -sit down to write up my diary, twang-twang goes that scoundrel Jew’s -harp; and as if that noise were not enough, a woman must needs fall -a-squealing to it; and then, when I think that the row is over for -a bit, and I pick up my pen afresh, some chap with a voice like a -tormented hog lets fly.’ - -‘You should write to the _Times_, sir,’ said Mr. Johnson. - -The colonel gave him a look full of marlinespikes and corkscrews, and -walked aft on his short stiff legs to the captain, with whom I heard -him expostulating in very strong language. Presently the tiffin-bell -rang, and I went below. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -A SEA FUNERAL - - -The doctor sat on the starboard side of the table, and I caught him -eyeing me with a meaning expression that somewhat puzzled me. Once, -indeed, he winked, and fearing that he might be a little tipsy and -easily led into a demonstrativeness of manner sufficiently marked to -catch the skipper’s attention, I took some pains not to see him. Old -Keeling, at the head of the table, his face shining like a mahogany -figure-head under a fresh coat of varnish, was in the middle of the -story of his action with the corsair in the Bay of Bengal, when Mr. -Prance entered the cuddy and quietly took his seat. He fell to work -upon a piece of corned beef whilst he seemed to listen with a face of -respectful courtesy to Keeling’s long-winded yarn, with its running -commentary of ‘How brave!’ ‘What dreadful creatures!’ ‘How very -awful!’ and the like from the ladies. - -The skipper came to an end, and Mr. Prance said to me: ‘A plucky fight, -sir.’ - -‘Very,’ said I, watching for that twinkle of eye which his voice -suggested. - -‘The best of an engagement of that sort,’ he exclaimed, ‘is that you -may go on fighting it over and over again without loss of blood. By the -way, talking of pirates, the captain has yet to be informed that one of -them lies dead aboard his ship.’ - -I stared at him. - -‘A fellow named Crabb,’ he began. - -‘What!’ I interrupted; ‘is Crabb dead then?’ - -It was now his turn to stare. ‘Do you know the man, Mr. Dugdale?’ - -‘Why, yes,’ I answered, ‘as the ugliest creature (heaven rest his soul, -since he _is_ dead!) that ever encountered mortal gaze.’ - -‘But how did you learn that his name was Crabb, and that he was dying? -for _that_ you seem to have guessed also, judging from your question?’ - -‘Why, my dear sir,’ I answered, ‘you have a large company of sailors -on board, and the ship is full of deep-sea voices, and I carry ears in -my head, Mr. Prance.’ - -‘Humph!’ said he. ‘Well, as I’ve always said, news travels a deal too -fast aboard passenger craft. In fact, I’ve known passengers to pick up -things which had remained for weeks afterwards secrets to the captain -and mates.’ He emptied a glass of marsala and added: ‘You are right in -speaking of the man’s ugliness. I have been to see him as he lies in -his bunk.’ He made a dreadful grimace and upturned his eyes to the deck -above. - -‘Was this Crabb a pirate?’ said I. - -‘Ay,’ he answered; ‘but I had not heard of it down to half an hour -ago. The carpenter knew him, but held his tongue when he found him a -shipmate. Now that the fellow is dead, Chips has a yarn as long as the -sea-snake about him. He did business in West Indian waters; and the -carpenter says that if the stories he told against himself were to be -believed, no viler miscreant ever stepped between the rails of a ship.’ - -‘But did he brag of his evil doings in the forecastle before the men?’ -I asked. - -‘No; Chips had been shipmate with him two voyages ago in a small craft, -and he afterwards met him ashore in several of the low sailors’ haunts -down in the east end of London. When he had too much drink, he would -out with the most blood-curdling tales of atrocity. No, sir; he kept -his counsel aboard this ship. He knew what would have followed had his -career been suspected by us aft.’ - -‘When do you bury him?’ said I. - -‘To-morrow morning, I suppose,’ he answered. ‘Captain Keeling is averse -to hasty funerals. I’ve heard him say that when he was chief mate, a -man died, and two hours later the body had been stitched up ready for -the last toss; but whilst the captain was looking for his Prayer-book, -the boatswain of the ship came rushing aft with his hair on end and his -eyes half out of his head to report that the hammock with its contents -had rolled off the grating on which it was placed, and was wriggling -about the deck. When it was cut open, the fellow inside was found to be -alive, bathed in perspiration and half-mad with fright.’ - -This conversation we had carried on in a low voice, easily managed, -as I sat on his right hand close against him. A few minutes later the -mate went on to the poop, and I stepped to the quarter-deck to smoke -a cheroot. Whilst I was preparing the weed to light it, Dr. Hemmeridge -came out of the cuddy. - -‘You may be interested to know,’ said he, ‘that your ugly friend is -dead.’ - -‘And that is what you wished to convey to me by winking?’ said I. - -He nodded with a smile that could scarcely be called sober. ‘You took -a particular interest in him,’ he exclaimed, ‘and so I thought I would -give you the news before I made my report to the captain.’ - -‘You are very good,’ I exclaimed with a sarcastic bow. - -‘In fact, Mr. Dugdale,’ he continued, ‘I am going to pay another -visit to the forecastle, as there is something in the manner of this -fellow’s death that puzzles me. Indeed, it is as likely as not I may -make a post-mortem examination.’ Here he lifted his hand and eyed it an -instant. I noticed that it trembled. He immediately grew conscious of -his action, blushed slightly, and spoke with a note of confusion: ‘The -devil of it is, the Jacks object to this sort of inquisitions. Then, -again, the light forward is abominably bad, and there is too much risk -when there are ladies aboard in any attempt to smuggle the body aft. -Would you like to see the man? You admired him in life, you know.’ - -I hung in the wind a moment, then said: ‘Yes; I will go with you;’ and -we trudged forwards. - -The sailors’ dwelling-place was what is called a topgallant forecastle; -a structure in the bows of the ship corresponding with the cuddy and -its poop-deck aft. There was a wing on either hand of it that came very -nearly to abreast of the foremast, for in those times a ship’s foremast -was stepped or erected nearer to the bows than it now stands. Each of -these two wings held a couple of cabins, respectively occupied by the -boatswain, the sailmaker, the carpenter, and the cook. You entered the -forecastle itself by doors just forward of the huge windlass, the great -fore-hatch lying between it and the long-boat that stood in chocks -full of live-stock. It should have been familiar ground to me; yet I -found something of real novelty, too, in the sight as I followed the -doctor through the port door and entered what resembled a vast gloomy -cave, resonant with the sound of seas smitten by the cutwater, with -a slush-lamp swinging amidships under a begrimed beam, and a line -of daylight falling a little beyond fair through the open scuttle or -deck-hatch, and resembling in its dusty shaft and defined margin a -sunbeam striking through a chink of the shutter of a darkened room. - -There was at least a score of hammocks hung up under the ceiling or -upper deck, with here and there the faces of mariners showing over -them, or perhaps the half of a stockinged leg, and nothing else of -the man inside but _that_ to be seen. There was also a double tier -of bunks, which wound round from the after bulkhead into the gloom -forward, that seemed the darker, somehow, for the loom of the immense -heel of the bowsprit that came piercing through the knightheads. It -was a rough, wild scene to survey by that light; a blending into a -sort of muddle, as it were, of hammocks and sea-chests and stanchions -and dangling oil-skins and sea-boots and canvas bags, and divers other -odds and ends of the marine equipment. There were figures seated on the -boxes, stolidly smoking, or stitching at their clothes; grim, silent, -unshaven salts, stealing out upon the eye in that strange commingling -of dull light and dim shadow, in proportions so grotesque and even -startling that they hardly needed to vanish on a sudden to persuade one -they were creatures of another universe. Many creaking and straining -noises threaded the hush in this gloomy timber cavern. The motion of -the ship, too, was much more defined here than it was aft, and you felt -the deck rising and falling under your feet as though you were on a -see-saw with a frequent small thunder of cleft sea breaking in. - -The doctor made his way to a bunk on the port side, almost abreast of -the scuttle, where the light came sifting through the gloom with power -enough to define shape, and even colour. In this bunk lay a motionless -figure under a blanket, and a small square of canvas over his head. The -bunks in the immediate neighbourhood were empty, and the fellows who -swung in hammocks a little distance away peered dumbly at us, with eyes -which gleamed like discs of polished steel amid the hair on their faces. - -Dr. Hemmeridge pulled the bit of sail-cloth from the face of the body, -and there lay before me the most hideous mask that could enter the mind -of any man, saving the master who drew Caliban, to figure. Nothing -showed of the eyes through the contracted lids but the whites. There -was a drop in the under-jaw that had twisted the creature’s hare-lip -into the distortion of a shocking grin. - -I took one look and recoiled, and, as I did so, a fellow who had been -watching us at the forecastle door approached and said respectfully: -‘There ain’t no doubt of his being stone-dead, sir, I suppose?’ - -Hemmeridge turned from the body. There was an odd look of loathing and -puzzlement in his face. - -‘Oh yes, man, quite dead,’ he answered. ‘An amazing corpse, don’t you -think, Mr. Dugdale? Good enough to preserve in spirits as a show for -the museum of a hospital.’ - -‘I hope,’ exclaimed a deep voice from a hammock that swung near, ‘if so -be that that there Crabb’s dead and gone, he ain’t going to be let lie -to p’ison the parfumed hatmosphere of this here drawing-room.’ - -‘No, my man,’ answered the doctor, looking at the body; ‘we’ll have him -out of this in good time. But there’s nothing to hurt in his remaining -here a bit.’ - -‘What did he doy of?’ asked an old sailor, who had risen from his -chest, and stood surveying us as he leaned against a stanchion with the -inverted bowl of a sooty pipe betwixt his teeth. - -‘Now, what would be the good,’ cried the doctor fretfully, ‘of giving -this forecastle a lecture on the causes of death? What did he die of? A -plague on’t, Mr. Dugdale! Do you know I’ve a great mind to take a peep -inside him, if only in the interests of the medical journals.’ - -‘I’m beginning to feel a little faint,’ said I, with a movement towards -the forecastle door. - -‘Oh well, Mr. Willard,’ exclaimed Hemmeridge, addressing the man -who had approached us, and who proved to be the sailmaker, ‘have -him stitched up as soon as you please, and then get him on to the -fore-hatch with a tarpaulin over him, till other orders come forward.’ - -‘Are ye likely to hold an inquest, doctor?’ asked the sailmaker, whose -Roman nose and thin frill or streamlet of wool-white whisker running -under his chin from one ear to another gave him a queer sort of -yearning _raised_ haggard look in that light, as he inclined his head -forward to ask the question. - -‘Oh, it wouldn’t be an inquest,’ responded the doctor with a short -laugh. ‘But it is death from natural causes, anyway,’ added he in -a careless voice; ‘and so we’ll go aft again, Mr. Dugdale; unless, -indeed, you would like to take another view of your friend?’ - -I shoved past him, and got out of the forecastle at once; and never -before did the sunshine seem more glorious, nor the ocean breeze -sweeter, nor the swelling heights of the Indiaman more airily beautiful -and majestic. In fact, I had felt half suffocated in that forecastle; -and as I made my way to the poop, I respired the gushing wind as it -hummed past me over the bulwarks as thirstily as ever shipwrecked -sailor lapped water. - -That same evening, some time after dinner, after a long smoke and a -yarn with Colledge and young Fairthorne down on the quarter-deck, where -we patrolled the planks in a regular look-out swing from the cuddy -front to the gangway and back again, I went on to the poop, leaving -my two companions to continue a game of chess in the cuddy, where -they had been playing that afternoon. It was a fine clear moonless -night, with a pleasant breeze out of the north-east, before which the -ship was quietly running under all plain sail, saving the fore and -mizzen royals, with a foretopmast studdingsail boom still rigged out -and reeling gaunt athwart the stars to the quiet heave and plunge of -the ship, as though it were some giant fishing-rod in the hand of a -Colossus bobbing for whales. - -There were a few passengers moving about the deck, but it was too dark -to make sure of them, though the delicate sheen in the air, falling in -a sort of silver showering from the velvet-dark heaven of brilliants on -high, enabled one to see forms and to follow the movements of things -clearly. There was a deal of phosphorus in the water this night, and I -stood looking over the lee quarter at the pale green or sun-coloured -flashings of it as it swept into the race of our wake in fiery coils, -in configurations as of writhing serpents, in fibrine interwreathings -that would enlarge and shape themselves into the proportions of -sea-monsters and leviathan fish. - -‘Is it true, do you know, that one of the sailors died this -afternoon?’ exclaimed a low, clear, but most melodious voice by my side. - -It was Miss Temple. She started as I quitted my leaning posture and -turned to her. - -‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she exclaimed in a changed note. - -It was very clear she had mistaken me--for Colledge, for all I can -tell. She was alone. Yet had she come from the cuddy, she must -certainly have seen the young sprig playing at the table with -Fairthorne at chess. - -‘I should be glad to answer your question,’ said I coolly, ‘if you care -to stop and listen, Miss Temple.’ - -By the starlight I could see her fine imperious dark eyes bent on me. - -‘It is curious,’ she exclaimed--and perhaps by daylight I should have -found some sign of a smile in her face; but her countenance showed like -marble in that shadow--‘that this should be the second time I have -asked you about what is happening in the ship. You have been a sailor, -I think, Mr. Dugdale?’ - -‘Mr. Colledge has doubtless told you so,’ said I. - -‘Yes; it was he who told me. You share his cabin, I believe. Will you -tell me if it be true that one of the sailors has died?’ - -‘It is true,’ said I; ‘a sailor named Crabb died this morning.’ - -‘Has he been buried?’ - -‘No; that ceremony is to take place in the morning, I believe.’ - -‘Our ship, then, will sail all night long with a dead body on board?’ -she exclaimed with a lift of her eyes to the stars and then a look -seawards. ‘Are not the superstitions of sailors opposed to such -burdens?’ - -‘Jack does not love dead bodies,’ said I, making as if to resume my -leaning posture at the rail, as one interrupted in a reverie; for -harmless as her questions were, I did not at all relish her haughty -commanding manner of putting them; besides, this was the first time I -had exchanged a sentence with her since that night of the collision -in the Channel; and the unconquerable delight I took in gazing at her -beauty, that _now_, to my ardent young eyes, was idealised by the -starlit dusk by which I surveyed her into graces beyond expression -fascinating, affected me also as a sort of injury to my own dignity, -thanks to the mood that had grown up in me through what I had said and -thought of her. ‘But,’ continued I carelessly, ‘what is regarded as a -superstition by the sailor is a stroke of nature common to us all. One -may travel far without meeting any person who will choose a dead body -for company.’ - -She walked to the rail a few feet away from where I stood, and looked -at the water for some while in silence, as though she had not heard me. - -‘I would rather die anywhere than at sea,’ she exclaimed, as though -thinking aloud, with a sudden crossing of her hands upon her breast, as -if a chill had entered her from the dark ocean. ‘The horror of being -buried in that void there would keep me alive. Oh, if it be true, -as Shakespeare says, that dreams may visit us in our graves--in our -graves ashore, where there are daisies and green turf and the twinkling -shadows of leaves, and often the full moon and the high summer night -shedding a peace like that of God himself, passing all understanding, -upon the dead--_what_ should be the visions that enter into the sleep -of one floating deep down in that great mystery there?’ - -This was a passage of humour which I was quite young enough to have -coaxed, and have sought to improve in any other fine young woman after -her pattern; but my temper just then happened to be perverse and my -mood obnoxious to sentiment. - -‘Why,’ said I, pretending to stare at the water, ‘what’s the difference -between being lowered in a coffin and being hove overboard in a canvas -sack with a lump of holystone at one’s feet, when one doesn’t know it? -If one could believe in the mermaid, in coral pavilions illuminated -with cressets brilliant with sea-fire, in those sweet songs which were -formerly sung by _fishy_ virgins, who swept their lyres of gold with -arms of ivory and fingers of pearl, I believe that when my time came -I should be very willing to take the plunge, in fact _choose_ it in -preference to----’ - -I brought my eyes away from the water, and saw her figure in the -companion-way down which she floated! - -A minute later, Colonel Bannister came along. He approached me close, -staring hard, and said: ‘Oh, it’s you, Dugdale! I thought it was the -second-mate. Here’s a pretty go! There’s a man dead.’ - -‘He couldn’t help it, colonel,’ said I. - -‘Ay, but what did he die of?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve asked Hemmeridge, and -he won’t give the disease a name. I don’t want it to go further, but -betwixt you and me and the bedpost, hang me’--here he subdued his -voice into an extraordinary croaking whisper--‘if I don’t believe -that Hemmeridge’--and he lifted his hand to his mouth in a posture of -drinking. ‘My contention is, they’ve got no right to keep the body. -What’s the good of it? Since Hemmeridge is mute, who’s going to say -that the seaman didn’t die of smallpox? That’s it, you see! Smallpox! -and a crowd of creatures forward who are infernally negligent in -cleanliness, as all sailors are, not to mention a mob of us aft who, if -a plague should break out, must perish. Mind, I say _perish_! Where’s -that second-mate?’ - -He impetuously crossed the deck and hurried forward on the weather side -of the poop. - -‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said the fellow at the wheel, speaking in a deep, -bass, salt voice; ‘’tain’t for the likes of me to say nothen, leastways -here;’ he made a step to leeward, holding a spoke at arm’s-length, -to expectorate over the rail, and then returned: ‘but I’ve heerd -the bo’sun say as that you’ve been a sailor-man in your day, and I -know that the gent that’s just left ’ee is a sojer. And I should ha’ -taken it very koind if, when he told ye that we was an oncleanly lot -forrards, you’d ha’ called him a bloomin’ liar.’ - -‘So he is, my man,’ said I, ‘whether I tell him so or not.’ - -‘I’ve been a-sailing in troopships ower and ower again,’ exclaimed -the fellow, half-stifling himself, to subdue his angry voice, ‘and I -could tell that there gent this--that spite of all his pipeclay and the -ship-shape looks of him outside, there ain’t an oncleanlier man than -the _guffy_. You let him know that, sir; and if he dorn’t believe it, -and the capt’n’ll gi’ me leave, smite me! if I won’t ondertake to argue -it out wi’ him to the satisfaction of every party as chooses for to -listen, either aft’--striking the wheel a blow with his immense fist; -‘or forrads’--another blow; ‘or down in the hold’--a third blow; ‘or -up in that there maintop;’ and here he fetched his thigh a whack that -sounded like the report of a firearm. - -‘Wheel there! where are you driving the ship to?’ shouted the -second-mate from the forward part of the poop; but merely as an -excuse, I think, to break away from the colonel, who had now tailed on -to him. - -As he came rumbling aft, I went forward. - -It was the most delicate gentle weather imaginable next morning when I -went on deck an hour before breakfast-time to get a cold bath in the -ship’s head, which to my mind is the very noblest luxury the sea has to -yield: nothing to be done but to strip, drop over the side on to the -grating betwixt the headboards, well out of sight of the poop, where -the spout of the head-pump, as it is called, commands you, and so be -played on for half-an-hour at a spell by some ordinary seaman, who will -be glad to oblige you for the value of a glass of grog. Oh, the delight -past language of the sensation sinking through and through one to the -very marrow that comes with the gushing of the sparkling green brine -pouring away from one in foam back into the flashing heart of the deep -out of which it is sucked! - -As I passed the fore-hatch on my way aft, I observed a heap of -something lying under a tarpaulin; at the same moment the boatswain -stepped out of his berth. - -‘Have ye heard what time the funeral’s to take place, sir?’ - -‘Bless me!’ cried I with a start, ‘I had forgotten all about it. Small -wonder that we and our troubles should be compared to sparks that fly -upwards, for we are extinguished in a breath and clean forgotten.’ -I glanced at the tarpaulin on the hatchway with an ugly shuddering -recollection coming upon me of the face of the man as I had last viewed -him dead in his bunk. ‘No,’ said I; ‘I am unable to tell you when they -mean to bury him. The sooner the better, I should say.’ - -‘True for you, sir,’ he answered; ‘here are some of our chaps swearing -that they had bad dreams last night, all a-owing to this here dead man -a-lying here. The fact is Crabb wasn’t no favourite, and since he’s -made his hexit, as the saying is, the men want him gone for true.’ - -As he said this, the third-mate, Mr. Playford, came forward singing out -for the boatswain. - -‘Here, sir,’ answered Smallridge in a voice like the low of a calf. - -The officer crossed the hatch, taking care to give the heap under the -tarpaulin a wide berth. - -‘Funeral’s to take place at four bells, bo’sun,’ said he.--‘Good -morning, Mr. Dugdale. All hands to be cleaned up and attend. Pity -there’s no more wind, Mr. Dugdale. The trades are consumedly slow of -coming. Four bells, bo’sun, d’ye hear? All hands--the big ensign--four -pall-bearers,’ he added with a grin--‘everything to be ship-shape and -in Bristol fashion--to please the ladies,’ he added, looking at me with -one eye shut. - -‘Well, now you know all about it, Mr. Smallridge,’ said I, and walked -aft with Mr. Playford; and the breakfast-bell then sounding, I entered -the cuddy and took my place. - -I had thought to catch a glance, perhaps _one_ glance, during the meal -from Miss Temple, who might probably recollect her few words with me -on the preceding evening, and her cool trick of sliding off to let -me talk aloud to myself. But she never turned her eyes my way. She -sometimes spoke across the table to Mr. Colledge, once inclined her -fine figure towards Captain Keeling to respond to some remark of his, -and occasionally exchanged a sentence with her aunt. But the rest of us -might have been as much hidden as the body of Crabb was forward, for -all the attention she honoured us with. - -‘I am glad that this funeral is going to take place,’ Mr. Johnson said -to me. ‘I have promised a friend of mine who owns a newspaper in London -a series of articles on this voyage, and down to this time I haven’t -quite seen my way. For what has happened proper to tell? Dash my wig! -saving that collision, of which I couldn’t make head nor tail, and dare -not therefore attempt, what ghost of an incident good for what I may -call word-painting has occurred?’ - -‘This burial should give you the chance you want,’ said I. - -‘Yes,’ he exclaimed; ‘I shall be able to do it justice, I believe. I -am a little uncertain in the matter of nautical terms; and when I’ve -finished the account of it, I should be glad if you’d listen to it, -Mr. Dugdale, and correct any trifling technical errors I may happen -to make. Even now, I’ll be shot if I can tell the difference between -starboard and larboard--never can remember, somehow. The words are so -confoundedly alike, you know.’ - -‘If I were you,’ said I, ‘I should not suffer ignorance of the sea-life -to hinder me from writing fully about it. Few sailors read; nobody else -understands the calling. Say what you like, and you need only dash your -absurdities into your canvas with a cocksure brush to be accepted as an -authority.’ - -‘Still,’ he exclaimed, ‘in an account of a funeral at sea I should -like to have the rigging right; nor in a description which,’ added -he complacently, ‘is not likely to be wanting in some of the choicer -qualities of poetry, would it be desirable, insignificant as the error -might be in the eyes of landsmen, to mistake the mainmast for, let me -say, the spanker boom.’ - -I assured him that I should be glad to hear his account when he had -written it; and soon afterwards we left the table and went on deck. - -The ship was this morning a very grand show of canvas. Her yards were -braced just a little forward; the weather clew of the mainsail was up; -all studdingsails to port were on her, and aloft she had something of -the look of a line-of-battle ship with her immensely square yards -rising to the truck, the great hoist of main topsail, with its four -bands of reef-points, enormously thick shrouds and big tops, and all -the heavens over the bow and far to port hidden by space upon space of -cloth, effulgent in the sunshine, and flinging a light of their own -upon the blue air in a sort of liquid gushing of radiance off their -edges, trembling into an exquisite delicacy of outline like a thinness -of ice against the sky. At the peak flew the red ensign half-mast high, -languidly floating in rich brand-new folds of sunny crimson to the -quiet breathing of the wind over the quarter. It was a hint of what -was to come, and you noticed the influence of it upon the passengers, -who talked in subdued voices, and walked thoughtfully, as though it -were the Sabbath and Divine service was shortly to be held. There -was nothing in sight the wide and gleaming circle round, saving the -shoulders of a group of huge cream-coloured clouds down in the west, -looking like the mountainous loom of a snow-whitened country. - -Shortly before ten o’clock, Smallridge, taking his stand upon the -forecastle head, applied his silver whistle to his lips, and sent the -shrill metallic summons ringing throughout the length of the ship, -following it with a deep-chested hurricane roar of ‘All hands ’tend -funeral.’ The Jacks had been off work since breakfast time, and to -the boatswain’s melodious invitation they came tumbling out of the -forecastle all in the spruce warm-weather attire of those days--flowing -white trousers, coloured shirts, round jackets, collars lying open to -half way down their breasts, half a fathom of silk handkerchief worked -up into the sailor’s knot, and, for the most part, round hats of straw, -shaped like a tall hat of to-day, but the crown considerably lower. -They came soberly rolling along in bunches of three and four, and -massed themselves forward of the gangway and round about the hatchway, -and the huge pillar of mast shooting up abaft it. In the foreground -stood Smallridge, with three rows of cloth buttons to his jacket, his -storm-beaten face luminous with recent rinsing, and his cheeks framed -by a pair of upright collars such as the negro minstrel of our time -loves to embellish his blackened countenance with. Next him was the -sailmaker, his small blood-stained eyes restlessly rolling themselves -aft upon the people on the poop from either side his high Roman nose. -By his side was the cook, a fat, bilious-looking man; and close to -him the carpenter, a withered old Scotchman, with a face of leather, -puckered into a thousand wrinkles by time, weather, and trials of -temper. - -The first, third, and fourth mates took their place a little abaft -the gangway, leaving the second officer on the poop to look after the -ship. A young reefer clad in bright buttons stood at the bell, which -he struck in funereal time, constantly glancing around him to find -some one to exchange a grin with. When all were assembled the skipper -stalked solemnly out of the cuddy, Prayer-book in hand. He was dressed -as the officers were, in a long blue coat with black velvet lapels, -cuffs, and collar, and white jean pantaloons. The only feature that -distinguished his costume from that of the mates was the undecorated -coat-cuffs; whereas the chief-mate had one button on his wrist, the -third-mate three, and the fourth-mate four. Keeling was a man of strong -piety, and his manner of addressing himself to this solemn business -was full of an old-fashioned awe and reverence, which one might look -a long way round among modern sea captains to find the like of, in -such a performance, at all events, as that of burying the remains of a -forecastle hand. Most of the passengers were grouped along the break of -the poop to witness the ceremony. I see that large and stirring picture -very freshly even now: the mass of whiskered faces, one showing past -another, nearly every jaw moving to the gnawing of a quid; Keeling -and his officers in full fig; the many-coloured dresses of the ladies -fluttering along the line of the poop rail; I recall the deep hush that -settled down upon the fine ship, no sound to break it but the tolling -of the bell and a noise of water lazily washing alongside. High above -us the great squares of canvas rose in brilliant clouds, one swelling -to another with a soft swaying of the whole majestic fabric, as though -the vessel were something sentient, and was keeping time with her -mastheads to the mournful chimes on the quarter-deck. - -The bell ceased; the midshipman struck ten o’clock upon it; the Jacks -on the quarter-deck made a lane, and down it from forward came four -hearty seamen, bearing upon their shoulders a hatch grating, on which -was the hammock containing the body, covered with England’s commercial -ensign. One end of this grating was rested upon the lee rail; then the -captain began to read the sea funeral service. Mr. Johnson, who stood -near me, stared thirstily at the scene; and methought Mr. Emmett, who -was perched on the rail to windward, rolled his eye over the mass of -colour that softened and brightened as the movement of the ship shifted -the shadows, as though some fancies of a startling canvas to be wrought -out of the spectacle were stirring in his mind. The captain paused in -his delivery; the ensign was whipped off, the grating tilted, and the -white hammock flashed overboard. I was at the lee rail, and glanced -down into the sea alongside as the hammock sped from the bulwark. -But the ocean coffin, instead of sinking, went floating astern like -a lifebuoy, bobbing bravely upon the summer tumble, and lifting and -sinking upon the swell as duck-like as a waterborne lifeboat. - -I believe no man saw this but myself, everybody listening reverentially -to the closing words of the skipper’s recital from the Prayer-book. I -walked hastily aft to observe the hammock as it veered into our wake, -and beckoned to Mr. Cocker, who at once crossed the deck. - -‘See there!’ cried I, pointing to the thing that was frisking in the -eddies upturned by our keel, and crawling into the distance to the slow -progress of the ship. ‘Friend Crabb seems in no hurry to knock at Davy -Jones’s door.’ - -‘I expect the fool of a sailmaker forgot to weight the body,’ said he. -‘Unless,’ he added, with a little change in his voice, as if he meant -what he said, whilst he did not wish me to suppose him in earnest, ‘the -chap was too great a rascal when alive to sink now that he’s nothing -but a body.’ - -‘I thought,’ I exclaimed, ‘that wicked sailors, like Falstaff, had an -alacrity in sinking.’ - -‘I’ll tell you a fact, then, Mr. Dugdale,’ said he. ‘I was aboard a -ship where we buried a man that had murdered a negro in Jamaica. He was -a ruffian down to the heels of his yellow feet, sir, with a deal worse -on his conscience, in our opinion, than even the blood of a darkey. It -was a dead calm when we dropped him over the side with a twelve-pound -shot at the clews of his hammock. Down he went; but up he came again, -and lay wobbling under the main chains. The captain, not liking such -a neighbour, ordered a boat over with a fresh weight for the corpse. -It was another twelve-pound shot, and down it took him, as all hands -expected. But scarce was the boat hoisted when the chief mate, who -was looking over the rail, sings out quietly: “Here’s Joey again.” -And _there_ lay the hammock just under the mizzen chains. ’Twas lucky -a breath of wind came along just then and sneaked the barque away, -for had the calm lasted, the men would have sworn that the body had -got hold of the ship and wouldn’t let her move. But as to our being -ever able to sink it’--he shook his head, and pointing to the hammock -that was now showing like a fleck of foam in the tail of our wake, he -exclaimed: ‘It’s the same with Crabb. He’s of the sort that Old Davy -will have nothing to do with.’ - -The boatswain’s pipe shrilled out again; the ceremony was over. -The sailors stalked gravely towards the forecastle, the passengers -distributed themselves about the poop. - -‘Quite worth seeing, don’t you think?’ said Mr. Johnson, coming up to -me in the manner of a man fresh from a stage performance that has -pleased him. ‘Only let me be sure of my nautical details, and I believe -I can see my way to a very pretty article, Mr. Dugdale.’ - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -A STRANGE CARGO - - -We took the north-east trades on the Canary parallels; but they blew -a very light breeze, occasionally failing us, indeed, with more than -once a positive hint of a shift in the western sky, though no change -happened. Captain Keeling declared that in all his time he never -remembered the like of so faint a trade-wind. Indeed, it threatened us -with a long passage to the equator, and again and again I would feel as -vexed as if I had had command of the ship, and my reputation depended -upon her progress, when I’d come on deck and find the long blue heave -of the swell gushing to our port quarter, just freckled by the delicate -soft wind, with scarce a ripple of weight enough to run into foam, the -weather clew of the mainsail swinging in and out, and the big topsails, -to the curtseying of the ship upon the swell, coming into the masts -with short slaps, which made each sheet hum like a twanged harp-wire -through its yard-arm sheave-hole. Very different was all this from my -own experience of the trades when, for days and days, from twenty-seven -degrees north down to within thirty leagues of the equator, it had been -one long wild thunderous spell of sailing, foam to the hawse-pipes, -every yard and studdingsail boom straining at its brace as a racer at -its bridle, the white water to leeward flashing past in a dazzle, like -foam from the sponsons of a paddle-steamer, and all day long a fine -noise of wind roaring between the masts, and on high the wool-like -clouds of the trades blowing, charged with prismatic hues, transversely -across the line of our course. - -Yet we managed to kill the time with some degree of entertainment to -ourselves. Mr. Greenhew and Mr. Riley were head over ears in love with -Miss Hudson, and were beginning to talk sarcasm at each other when -there were people near to listen to their conversation. Mr. Fairthorne -was paying very marked attention to Miss Mary Joliffe. Mynheer Peter -Hemskirk seemed to find something agreeable in the company of Miss -Helen Trevor, an exceedingly fat, blue-eyed girl, with a bunch of -flaxen ringlets falling before each ear, and her hair behind dragged up -to a tall comb that sat in an odd staring way upon her head. There was -some sport in all this for quiet observation. Then there was always a -rubber of whist to be had. Though Colonel Bannister was often in too -peppery a humour to play, his aristocratic falcon-beaked wife was ever -ready and eager to take a hand, and partners were never to be wanting -when Mr. Adam or Mr. Saunders or Mr. Hodder was about. - -Colledge and I were good friends, and had long yarns together in our -cabin and on deck. It was, maybe, because we shared a berth that I was -more with him than with the others, though Mr. Johnson once attempted a -stroke of irony by saying that of course my intimacy with Mr. Colledge -had nothing whatever to do with the circumstance of his being the son -of a lord, ‘which,’ added he, ‘speaks well for your heart, Dugdale, for -he has very many excellent qualities.’ - -‘Mr. Johnson,’ said I, ‘I do not think you very brilliant as a genius, -and I am sure you are not very richly stocked in gifts of satire. -I would advise you to dedicate all you have in that way to your -profession, lest, when you come to set up as a book-critic, you will -find yourself _gastados_, as the Spaniards say--expended.’ - -But to return to Mr. Colledge: the characteristic I liked him best for -was a certain naïveté. He would speak of his engagement with Fanny -Crawley as a schoolboy might of a like experience, and not seem to know -what to make of it. One day he was lying in his bunk smoking a pipe, -with his leg over the edge, his head propped by his arm, his handsome -face flushed, by the heat, and his soft dark-blue eyes shining as with -wine. I had come warm and fatigued from the poop, and lay stretched -upon the deck on my mattress. We had been talking of Miss Crawley, and -he had lugged her portrait from his breast-pocket to have a look at -it; which indeed was a habit of his when he spoke of her, as though he -could hardly persuade himself that he was engaged without first taking -a peep. - -‘Upon my word, Dugdale,’ said he languidly, ‘hang me now, if it was not -for Fanny here, I’d propose to Louise Temple. She’s a ripping girl, -and the sort of woman my father would like; a fine stately presence -for a drawing-room, eh? Figure the dignity with which she would kiss -the hand of a sovereign, making the business quite the other way -about by her salutation, and queening it to the confusion of every -eye. My father doesn’t very much care about Fanny--has no style, he -thinks--nothing distinguished about her.’ - -‘But you are engaged to her with his sanction, I presume?’ - -‘I don’t know,’ he answered. - -I laughed, and said: ‘Has Miss Temple heard that you’re engaged to be -married?’ - -‘No,’ he answered with a small air of confusion; ‘there was no need to -tell her. What should there be in such a confession to interest her? -You’re the only person on board the ship that I have mentioned the -thing to. Of course I can trust to _you_,’ said he, soothingly. - -‘Trust me!’ I exclaimed, laughing again. ‘There is nothing wrong surely -in this engagement that you should fear the betrayal of the secret of -it? But since it _is_ a secret, it is perfectly safe in my keeping.’ - -‘Do you think I ought to tell Miss Temple that I’m engaged?’ said he. - -‘Well, if you are making love to her,’ said I, ‘it might be as well to -give her a hint that you’re not in earnest.’ - -‘Oh, but, confound it, I _am_!’ he cried. ‘I mean,’ he added, catching -himself up, ‘I think her a doocidly charming girl, and the most -delightful creature to flirt with that ever I met in my life; but if I -go and tell her I’m engaged’---- - -‘Well?’ - -‘It would knock my association with her on the head. It is not as if -Fanny were within reach of an early post. Even if I were disposed to -break off my engagement with her, it must take me some months to do it. -D’ye understand me?’ - -‘You mean, of course,’ said I, ‘that no letter can reach her under -seven or eight months, unless, indeed, you conveyed one to her by a -homeward-bound ship.’ - -‘Ay; but putting the homeward-bound ship aside, Fanny could not knew of -my resolution--were it ever to come to _that_--until she received the -letter I posted to her in India; therefore, I should have to consider -myself engaged to her all that time.’ - -‘No doubt,’ said I, beginning to feel bored. - -‘Miss Temple would take that view,’ said he, ‘and that’s why I don’t -choose to tell her the truth.’ - -‘I don’t quite follow your logic,’ I exclaimed; ‘but no matter. It may -be that you want too much in the way of sweethearts. But so far as your -secret goes, you can trust me to hold my tongue. Possibly, I may admire -Miss Temple as warmly as you do; see qualities in her superior even to -her excellence as a mistress of postures; but I do not yet love her so -passionately as not to wish to see her chastened a bit by the lesson -she is likely to learn from your delight in her society.’ - -‘I don’t understand,’ he exclaimed, lazily knocking the ashes of his -pipe out through the open porthole. - -‘Neither do I,’ cried I, springing to my legs with a loud yawn. ‘Heaven -bless us, my dear Colledge! here are we now, I daresay, a fair thousand -miles from the nearest African headland. Surely we are distant enough -from all civilisation, then, to be clear of the influence of the girls! -Take my advice, and keep your heart whole till you get to India. -There may be a Princess waiting for you there, more likely to value a -tiger-hide offering than Miss Temple; whilst Miss Crawley’s broken -heart will mend apace when she learns that your wife has a black skin.’ - -‘Oh, hang it all!’ I heard him begin; but I was sick of the subject, -and sauntered forth to see what was doing on deck. - -There was very little wind; indeed, here and there about the sea were -glass-like swathes riding the quiet pulse of the long slow swell in -scythe-shaped horns, as though, in fact, there was to be a dead calm -anon. Only the topmost and lightest canvas was asleep; the heavier -cloths hung up and down with no more of life in them than what they -got out of the heave of the ship; and deep as we yet were in the heart -of the North Atlantic, there was, it seemed to me, a true tropic touch -in the aspect of things--in the clear pale blue of the sky; in the -sluggish crawling of the clouds, with their rounded brows stealing out -in a copperish hue; in the wavering of the atmosphere over the hot line -of the bulwarks, as though there was a sort of steam going up from -the wood; in the parched look of the running-gear, and in the salt -glistening of the white planks; in the figures of crimson-faced men, -their feet naked, their arms and chests bare, again and again coming -to the great scuttle butt, lashed a bit forward of the gangway, and -drinking from the metal dipper. - -When I arrived on the poop, I found the captain standing aft surrounded -by a number of ladies, directing a binocular glass at the sea over -the starboard bow. The chief mate at the head of the poop ladder was -likewise staring into the same quarter, with Mr. Johnson alongside, -bothering him with questions, and little Saunders on tip-toe, to see -over the rail, fanning his face with a large flapping black wide-awake. - -I stepped to the side to look, and saw some object about a mile -distant, that emitted a wet flash of light from time to time. I asked -the mate to lend me his glass, and at once made the thing out to be a -capsized hull of a vessel of about eighty tons. She floated almost to -the line of her yellow sheathing, and the gold-like metal rising wet -to the sun from the soft sweep of the blue brine darted flashes as -dazzling as flame from the mouth of a cannon. - -I returned the glass to Mr. Prance. - -‘She has not been long in that condition, I think?’ said I. - -‘Not twenty-four hours, I should say,’ he answered. ‘I see no wreckage -floating about her.’ - -‘Nor I. If she had a crew on board when she turned turtle,’ I said, -‘she may have clapped down upon them as you imprison flies under a -tumbler.’ - -‘God bless us, what a dreadful death to die!’ cried little Saunders. ‘I -can conceive of no agony to equal that of being in a cabin in a sinking -ship and going down with her, and _knowing_ that she is under water and -still settling.’ - -The little chap shuddered and pulled out a great blue -pocket-handkerchief, with which he dried his forehead. - -‘How long could a man live in a cabin under water?’ asked Mr. Johnson. - -‘Long enough to come off with his life,’ answered the mate, bringing -the glass from his eye and looking at Mr. Johnson. ‘I’ll give you -a queer yarn in a few words, sir; wild enough to furnish out an A1 -copper-bottomed sea-tale to some one of you literary gentlemen. A small -vessel was dismasted ’twixt Tariffa and Tangier in the middle of the -Gut there. All her crew saving one man got away in the boat. The fellow -that was left lay drunk in the cabin. A sea shifted her cargo; shortly -after she capsized and went down. A few days later, that same ship -floated up from the bottom of the sea on to the shore near Tangier. She -was boarded, and they found the man alive in the cabin.’ - -‘What was the vessel’s cargo, Mr. Prance?’ inquired little Saunders. - -‘Oil and brandy, sir.’ - -‘Don’t you think,’ exclaimed Mr. Johnson, ‘that your story is one that -would be very acceptable to the marines, Mr. Prance, but that would not -be believed by your sailors were you to tell it to them?’ - -Here the captain, who had been slowly coming forward, accompanied by -half-a-dozen ladies, interrupted us. - -‘Mr. Prance.’ - -‘Sir?’ - -‘That object yonder is a danger in the way of navigation. I think it -would be kind in us to send a shot at it.’ - -‘Ay, ay, sir.’ - -‘We will shift the helm,’ continued old Keeling, in the skewered, -buttoned-up sort of voice and air he was wont to use when addressing -his mates in the presence of the passengers, ‘so as to bring the wreck -within reach of our carronades.’ - -‘Very good, sir.’ - -‘I expect,’ continued old marline-spike, ‘that she is floating on the -air in her hold rather than on her cargo, even though it be cork; and -if we can knock a hole in her, she will sink.’ - -Mr. Prance stepped aft to the wheel, and the vessel’s course was -changed. Instructions went forward; and the boatswain, who combined -with his duties the functions of chief-gunner aboard the _Countess -Ida_, superintended the loading of a couple of pieces. - -‘Please tell me when they are going to fire, Mr. Riley, that I may stop -my ears,’ cried Miss Hudson, who looked a very lovely little woman that -morning in a wide straw hat and a body of some muslin-like material, -through which the snow of her throat and neck showed, making you think -of a white rose in a crystal vase. - -Mr. Greenhew, with a glance full of scissors and thumbscrews, as -sailors say, at Mr. Riley, told Miss Hudson that if she objected to the -noise, he would insist that the gun should not be fired, and would -make it a personal matter between himself and the captain. - -‘Not for worlds, thank you very much all the same,’ said Miss Hudson, -sending a languishing look at him through her eyelashes; which, being -witnessed by Mr. Riley, would, I did not doubt, occasion a large -expenditure of sarcasm between the young men later on. - -The motion of the ship was very slow, and we had floated almost -imperceptibly down upon the wreck. The skipper then suggested that the -ladies should go aft, and off they went in a flutter and huddle of -many-coloured gowns, Mrs. Colonel Bannister leading the way, and Mrs. -Hudson limping in the wake with her fingers in her ears. A chap with a -purple face and immense whiskers was sighting the piece. - -‘Let fly now, whenever you are ready,’ shouted Mr. Prance. - -There was a roaring explosion; Mr. Johnson recoiled on to the feet of -Mr. Emmett, who shouted with pain, and went hopping to the skylight -with a foot in his hand. There were several screeches from the -ladies, and methought the whiskers of the colonel, who stood beside -me thirstily looking on, forked out with an added tension of every -separate fibre, to the thunder of the gun and the smell of the powder. -The ball flew wide. - -‘Another shot!’ called out Mr. Prance. - -Bang! went the piece. I had my eye on the wreck at that moment, and saw -half the stern-post, from which the rudder was gone, and a few feet of -the keel to which it was affixed, vanish like a shattered bottle. - -‘That’s done it!’ cried old Keeling with excitement as he stood ogling -the wreck through his binocular. ‘If a hole that’ll let the air out is -to sink her, she’s as good as foundered.’ - -He had scarcely said this when there was a sudden roar of voices along -the whole length of our ship. - -‘See! she is full of men!’ - -‘Heart alive, where are they coming from?’ - -‘They’re rising as if they were dead bodies, and the last blast was -sounding.’ - -‘What’ll they be? What’ll they be?’ - -‘Defend us! they must all be afloat in a minute and drowning!’ - -Fifty exclamations of this kind rolled along the bulwarks, where the -sailors had gathered in their full company to watch the effect of the -shot. There was no glass within reach of me; but my sight was keen, -and at the first blush I believed that the hull had been a slaver, -that she had capsized when full of negroes, and that our round-shot -had made a man-hole aft big enough for them to escape through. There -were twenty or thirty of them. They came thrusting through the aperture -with extraordinary agility, and most of them held a very firm seat on -the clean line of the keel. But every now and again one or another of -them would lose his balance and slide down the hard bright surface of -the yellow sheathing upon the round of the bilge plump into the water, -where you would observe him making frantic but idle efforts to reclimb -the wet and slippery slope. - -‘Monkeys, as I am a man!’ roared Mr. Prance. - -‘A cargo of monkeys, sir!’ shouted the skipper from the other end of -the poop, whilst he kept his glasses levelled at the wreck. - -A sort of groaning note of astonishment, followed by a wild shout of -laughter, came along from the Jacks. Indeed, one needed to look hard -at the thing to believe in it, so incredibly odd was the incident. One -moment the wreck was a mere curve of naked yellow sheathing flashing -to the sun as it rolled; the next, pouff! went the thunder of the gun, -and as though its grinning adamantine lips owned some magical and -diabolical potency of invocation, lo! the hole made by the shot was -vomiting monkeys, and in a trice the radiant rounds of the keel-up -fabric were covered with the figures of squatting, clinging, grinning -creatures of all sizes, some like little hairy babies, some like men as -large at least as Mr. Saunders. - -‘There’ll be a human being rising out of that hole before long, I -expect,’ said Mr. Prance. ‘He must needs be slower than the monkeys if -he’s a man. How many d’ye make, Mr. Dugdale?’ - -‘Some thirty or forty,’ said I. ‘But I tell you what, Mr. Prance: -there’ll be none left in a few minutes, for the hull is sinking -rapidly.’ - -At that instant Captain Keeling sung out: ‘Mr. Prance--have one of the -quarter-boats manned. It is as I thought--the hull was floating on -the air in her hold, and she’s settling fast. We can’t let those poor -creatures drown. Get the main topsail backed.’ - -A boat’s crew came bundling aft to the cry of the mate; in a mighty -hurry the gripes were cast adrift, and the tackles slackened away with -the men in their places, and the fourth officer in the stern sheets -shipping the rudder as the boat sank. There was a deal of confusion for -the moment, what with the tumbling aft of the sailors, the passengers -getting out of their road, the hubbub of ladies’ voices, and the cries -of the seamen dragging upon the weather main-braces to back the yards. - -‘There she goes!’ cried I; ‘there’ll not be many of the creatures -rescued, I believe. Monkeys are indifferent swimmers.’ - -‘Lively now, Mr. Jenkinson,’ yelled Mr. Prance to the fourth officer, -‘or they’ll all be drowned.’ - -The chaps gave way with a will, and the boat buzzed towards the patch -of little black heads that rose and sank upon the swell as though a -sack of cocoa-nuts had been capsized out there. All hands stood gazing -in silence. The drowning struggle of a single beast is a pitiful -sight; but to see a crowd perishing, a whole mob of brutes horribly -counterfeiting the aspect and motions of suffering humanity with their -faces and gestures, is painful, and indeed intolerable. The ladies -had come to the forward end of the poop out of the way of the seamen -pulling upon the main brace, and I found myself next to Miss Temple at -the rail. - -‘They _are_ monkeys, I suppose?’ she said, swiftly shooting a glance -of her black eyes at me, and then staring again seawards with her pale -face as passionless as a piece of carving, and nothing to show that -she was in the least degree moved by the excitement of the scene of -drowning monkeys and speeding boat, saving her parted lips, as though -she breathed a little fast. - -‘They are as much monkeys,’ said I, ‘as fur and tails can make a -creature.’ - -‘Do you suppose there were living people locked up in that hold?’ - -‘God forbid!’ said I. ‘It is not a thing to conjecture _now_.’ - -‘How could those monkeys have lived without air?’ - -‘Air there must have been, Miss Temple, or they could not have lived. -The story of the wreck seems simple enough to my mind. She was, no -doubt, a little schooner from the Brazilian coast, bound to a European -port with a freight of monkeys, which are always a saleable commodity. -They would be stowed away somewhere aft in the run, perhaps, as it is -called. The vessel capsized, and floated, as Captain Keeling suggested, -upon the air in her. Our cannon-ball knocked a hole in the hulk right -over the monkeys’ quarters, and out they came. I can tell you of more -wonderful things than that.’ - -‘She must have _capsized_, as you call it, very recently,’ said she, -glancing at me again--it was rarely more than a glance with her, as -though she believed that such beauty as her eyes had entitled them to a -royal privacy. - -‘No doubt,’ I answered. - -By this time the boat had reached the spot where the hulk had -foundered, and we could see the men lying over the side picking up the -monkeys. I ran my gaze eagerly over the surface there, somehow fancying -that one or more bodies of men might rise; but there was nothing in -that way to be seen. The boat lingered with the fellows in her standing -up and looking around them. They then reseated themselves, the oars -sparkled, and presently the little fabric came rushing through the -water to alongside. - -‘How many have you picked up, Mr. Jenkinson!’ cried the mate. - -‘Only eight, sir. I believe they were half dead with hunger and thirst, -and had no strength to swim, for most of them had sunk before we could -approach them.’ - -‘Hand the poor brutes up.’ - -Some of the Jacks jumped into the chains to receive the creatures, and -they were passed over the rail on to the quarter-deck. Deeply as one -might pity the unhappy brutes, it was impossible to look at them with -a grave face. One of them was an ape with white whiskers like a frill, -and a tuft of hair upon his brow that made the rest of his head look -bald. He had lost an eye, but the other blinker was so full of human -expression that I found myself shaking with laughter as I watched him. -He sat on his hams like a Lascar, gazing up at us with his one eye with -a wrinkled and grinning countenance of appeal grotesque beyond the -wildest fancies of the caricaturist. There was one pretty little chap -with red fur upon his breast like a waistcoat. Some of the creatures, -on feeling the warm planks of the deck, lay down in the exact posture -of human beings, reposing their heads upon their extended arms and -closing their eyes. - -‘Bo’sun,’ called Mr. Prance, ‘get those poor beasts forward and have -water and food given them. Swing the topsail yard--lee main topsail -braces.’ - -In a few minutes the quarter-deck was clear again, with an ordinary -seaman swabbing the wet spaces left by the monkeys, and the ship -quietly pushing forwards on her course. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -A SECRET BLOW - - -At sea, a very little thing goes a very long way, and you will suppose -that this incident of the monkeys gave us plenty to talk about and to -wonder at. At the dinner table that evening old Keeling favoured us -with a long yarn about a French craft that capsized somewhere off the -Scilly Islands with four men in her: how the air in her hold kept her -buoyant; how the fellows climbed into the run and sat with their heads -against the ship’s bottom; how one of them strove with might and main -to knock a plank out, that he might see if help was about, in nowise -suspecting that if he let the air escape the hull would sink; how, -all unknown to the wretched imprisoned men, a smack fell in with the -capsized craft and tried to tow her, but gave up after the line had -parted two or three times; how she finally stranded upon one of the -Scilly Isles; and how one of the inhabitants coming down to view the -wreck, shot away as though the devil were in chase of him, on hearing -the sound of voices inside. - -Mr. Johnson whispered to me: ‘I _don’t_ believe it;’ and Colonel -Bannister listened with a fine incredulous stare fixed upon the -skipper’s crimson countenance; but the rest of us were vastly -interested, especially the elder ladies, who, behind old Keeling’s -back, spoke of him as ‘a love.’ - -We settled it amongst us to purchase the monkeys from the boat’s crew -which had rescued them, leaving the ape for the seamen to make a pet -of. The matter was talked over at that dinner, and I overheard Miss -Temple ask Mr. Colledge to try to secure the little monkey with the -red waistcoat for her. She was the only one of the ladies who wanted a -monkey. - -‘Would _you_ like one, Miss Hudson?’ said I. - -She shuddered in the prettiest way. - -‘Oh, I hate monkeys,’ she cried; ‘they are so like men, you know!’ - -‘Then, by every law of logic,’ bawled the colonel with a loud laugh, -‘you must hate men more, madam. Don’t you see?--ha! ha! Why do you -hate monkeys? Because they are like men. How much, then, must you hate -men, the original of the monkey!’ - -He roared with laughter again. In fact, there never was a man who more -keenly relished his own sallies of wit than Colonel Bannister. - -Miss Hudson coloured, and fanned herself. - -‘I hate monkeys too,’ cried Mr. Greenhew, ‘and for the reason that -makes Miss Hudson averse to them;’ and here he looked very hard at the -colonel. - -‘Well, certainly a fellow-feeling don’t _always_ make us kind,’ -murmured Mr. Riley in an audible voice, and putting a glass into his -eye to look around him as he laughed. - -Here the steward said something in a low voice to Mr. Prance, who -looked at me, and said in a hollow tragic tone: ‘Five of the monkeys -have gone dead, sir.’ - -I called the news down the table to the captain. - -‘I’m sorry to hear it, Mr. Dugdale,’ he answered in a dry voice; ‘but -you don’t want me to open a subscription list for the widows, do ye?’ - -‘Can any one say if the little chap with the red waistcoat’s dead?’ -cried Mr. Colledge. - -‘Dead hand gone, sir,’ exclaimed the cockney head steward. - -‘What is left of the lot?’ inquired Keeling. - -‘The hape, sir; and the two little chaps that was rescued with their -tails half ate up, as is supposed by themselves,’ responded the steward. - -Mr. Johnson burst out a-laughing. - -‘Tails eaten up!’ cried Mrs. Bannister, poising a pair of gold glasses -upon her Roman nose as she addressed the captain. ‘Are there any sharks -here?’ - -‘I should say not, madam,’ answered the skipper. ‘It is a trick monkeys -fall into of biting their own tails, as human beings gnaw their -finger-nails.’ - -‘And when they have consumed their tails, Captain Keeling,’ said Mrs. -Hudson, in a rather vulgar voice, ‘do they go on with the rest of -themselves?’ - -‘I believe they are only hindered, madam,’ said Keeling, with a grave -face, ‘by discovering themselves, after a given limit, somewhat -inaccessible.’ - -‘I dislike monkeys,’ said Mrs. Joliffe to Mr. Saunders; ‘but I should -imagine that natural philosophers would find their habits and tastes -very interesting subjects for study.’ - -The little chap moved uneasily in his chair, with a half-glance up and -down, to see if anybody smiled. - -‘The monkey eating his tail,’ exclaimed Mr. Emmett, ‘is to my mind a -very beautiful symbol.’ - -‘Of what?’ inquired Mr. Hodder. - -‘Of a dissipated young man devouring the fortune left him,’ answered -Mr. Emmett. - -‘Very true; very good, indeed!’ cried Mr. Adams, the lawyer, with a -laugh. - -The death of the monkeys extinguished the scheme of purchasing them. -The one-eyed ape was not to be thought of; and now it was known that -the tails of the other survivors were merely stumps, the subject was -very unanimously dropped, and the three poor beasts left for the -sailors to do what they pleased with. - -As an incident, the matter might have served for the day, so dull is -life on shipboard with nothing to look forward to but mealtime. But -something else was to happen that evening. - -Two bells--nine o’clock--had been struck. Most of the passengers were -below, for there was a deal of dew in the air, too much of it for the -thin dresses of the ladies, who, through the skylight, were to be seen -reading and chatting in the cuddy, with a party of whist-players at -the table, Mr. Emmett’s and Mr. Hodder’s noses close together over a -cribbage board, and Colledge at chess with Miss Temple, Miss Hudson -opposite, leaning her shining head on her arm bare to the elbow, a -faultless limb indeed, watching them. The breeze had freshened at -sundown. There was a half-moon in the heavens, with a tropic brightness -of disc, and the ocean under her light spread away to its limits in a -surface firm and dark as polished indigo, saving that under the planet -there was a long trembling wake, and an icy sparkle in the eastern -waters, over which some large, most beautiful star was hanging; but -though there was breeze enough to put a merry rippling into the sea, -the feathering of each little surge was too delicate to catch the eye, -unless the white water broke close; and the deep brimmed to the distant -luminaries, a mighty shadow. - -The skipper was below; Mr. Cocker had charge of the deck, and I joined -him in his walk. He talked of the monkeys, how the poor wretches had -died one after another in the forecastle. - -‘I saw one of them die,’ said he: ‘upon my life, Mr. Dugdale, it was -like seeing a human being expire. I don’t wonder women dislike that -kind of beasts. For my part, I regard monkeys as poor relations.’ - -‘What were the men laughing at, shortly after we had come up from -dinner?’ I asked. - -‘Why, sir, at little John Chinaman. The ape was on the fore-hatch, -secured by a piece of line round his waist. Johnny went to have a look -at him. There was nobody about--at least he thought so. He stared hard -at the ape, who viewed him eagerly with his one eye, and then said: -“I say, where you from, hey?” The ape continued to look. “Oh, you can -speakee,” continued John; “me savee you can for speakee. Why you no -talkee, hey? Me ask where you from? Where you from?” The ape caught a -flea. “How you capsize, hey?” asked the Chinese lunatic as gravely, Mr. -Dugdale, so the men say, as if he were addressing you or me. “Speakee -soft--how you capsize, hey?” This went on, I am told, for ten minutes, -the men meanwhile coming on tip-toe to listen over the forecastle edge -till they could stand it no longer, and their roar of laughter was what -you heard, sir.’ - -‘A mere bit of sham posture-making in Johnny, don’t you think?’ said I. -‘He might guess the men were listening. Had he been a negro, now. But a -Chinaman would very well know that a monkey can’t talk.’ - -‘This John is one who doesn’t know, I’ll swear. Besides, sir, the -Chinese are not such geniuses as are imagined. There are thousands -amongst them to correspond with our ignorant superstitious peasantry -at home. I remember at Chusan that four Chinamen were engaged to carry -a piano out of the cabin. Whilst they were wrestling with it on the -quarter-deck, a string broke with a loud _twang_, on which they put the -instrument down and ran away, viewing it from a distance with faces -working with alarm and astonishment. The mate called to know what they -meant by dropping their work. “Him spirit! him speakee,” they cried; -in fact, they would have no more to do with the piano; and when some -of the crew picked it up to carry it to the gangway, the quivering -Johns went backing and recoiling on to the forecastle, as though the -instrument were a cage with a wild beast in it that might at any moment -spring out on them.’ - -Whilst he was speaking I had been watching a star slowly creeping away -from the edge of the mainsail to leeward, as though it were sweeping -through the sky on its own account on a course parallel with the line -of the horizon. My attention was fixed on what my companion said, and -my gaze rested mechanically upon the star. Suddenly the truth flashed -upon me, and I started. - -‘Why, Mr. Cocker, what’s happening to the ship? Are we going home -again? She is coming to rapidly! You will be having all your -stun’-sails there to larboard aback in a minute.’ - -He had been too much engrossed by our chat to notice this. - -‘Wheel there!’ he shouted, running aft as he cried. ‘What are you doing -with the ship? Port your hellum, man, port your hellum!’ - -I hastily followed, to see what was the matter. The wheel was deserted, -and as I approached, I saw the circle revolve against the stars over -the taffrail like a windmill in a gale. Alongside, prone on the deck, -his arms outstretched and his face down, was the figure of the helmsman. - -‘He is in a fit,’ cried the second mate, grasping the wheel and -revolving it, to bring the ship to her course again. - -Here Captain Keeling came hastily up the companion steps. - -‘Where’s the officer of the watch?’ he shouted. - -‘Here, sir,’ answered Cocker from the wheel. - -‘Do you know, sir,’ cried the skipper, ‘that you are four points off -your course?’ - -‘The helmsman has fallen down in a fit, or else lies dead here, sir,’ -responded the second-mate. - -The skipper saw how it was, and bawled for some hands to come aft. Such -of the passengers as were on deck gathered about the wheel in a group. - -‘What is that?’ exclaimed little Mr. Saunders, stooping close to the -prostrate seaman’s head. ‘Blood, gentlemen!’ he exclaimed. ‘See the -great stain of it here! This man has been struck down by some hand.’ - -‘What’s that? what’s that?’ cried old Keeling, bending his crowbar of -a figure to the stain. ‘Ay, he has been struck down as you say, Mr. -Saunders. Who has done this thing? Look about you, men; see if there’s -anybody concealed here.’ - -Three or four fellows had come tumbling aft. One took the wheel from -the second mate; and the others, along with the midshipmen of the -watch, fell to peering under the gratings and into the gig that hung -astern flush with the taffrail, and up aloft; but there was nothing -living to be found, and the great fabric of mizzen masts and sails -whitened to the truck by the moon, and the yard-arms showing in black -lines against the stars, soared without blotch or stir, saving here and -there a thin shadow upon the pallid cloths creeping to the movement of -the spars. - -Dr. Hemmeridge now arrived. The seaman, who appeared as dead as a -stone, was turned over, and propped by a couple of sailors, and the -doctor took a view of him by the help of the binnacle lamp. There was a -desperate gash on the left side of the head. The small straw hat that -the poor fellow was wearing was cut through, as though to the clip of a -chopper. There was a deal of blood on the deck, and the man’s face was -ghastly enough, with its beard encrimsoned and dripping, to turn the -heart sick. - -‘Is he dead, think you?’ demanded the captain. - -‘I cannot yet tell,’ answered the doctor. ‘Raise him, men, and carry -him forward at once to his bunk.’ - -The sailors, followed by the doctor, went staggering shadowily under -their burden along the poop and disappeared, leaving a little crowd of -us at the wheel dumb with wonder, and looking about us with eyes which -gleamed to the flame of the binnacle lamp that Mr. Cocker yet held. - -‘Now, _how_ has this happened?’ demanded old Keeling, after a prolonged -squint aloft. ‘Had you left the deck, Mr. Cocker?’ - -‘No, sir, not for a living instant; Mr. Dugdale will bear witness to -that.’ - -‘It is true,’ I said. - -‘Did no man from forward come along the poop?’ - -‘No man, sir; I’ll swear it,’ answered Mr. Cocker. - -‘Any of you young gentlemen been aloft?’ said Keeling, addressing the -midshipmen. - -‘No, sir,’ answered one of them, ‘neither aloft nor yet abaft the -mizzen rigging for the last half-hour.’ - -The old chap took the lamp out of Mr. Cocker’s hand and looked under -the gratings, then got upon them and stared into the gig, as though -dissatisfied with the earlier inspection of these hiding-places. - -‘Most extraordinary!’ he exclaimed; ‘did some madman do it, and then -jump overboard?’ - -He looked over the sides to port and starboard. The quarter galleries -were small, with bumpkins for the main-braces stretching out from them. -They were untenanted. - -‘What was the man’s name, Mr. Cocker?’ - -‘Simpson, sir.’ - -‘Was he unpopular forward, do you know? Had he quarrelled lately with -any man?’ - -‘I will inquire, sir.’ - -Old Keeling seemed as bewildered as a person newly awakened from a -dream; and, indeed, it was an extraordinary and an incredible thing. -Mr. Saunders and Mynheer Hemskirk, with one or two others who were on -the deck at the time, swore that no man had come aft from the direction -of the forecastle. They were conversing in a group a little forward of -the mizzen mast, and could take their oaths that there was no living -creature abaft that point at the time of the occurrence saving the man -who had been so mysteriously felled to the deck. - -‘He most hov done it himself,’ said Hemskirk. - -‘What! Dealt himself a blow that sheared through his hat into his -skull?’ cried old Keeling. - -‘I’ve been making inquiries, sir,’ said the second-mate, approaching -us, ‘and find that Simpson, instead of being disliked, was a general -favourite. No man has been aft, sir.’ - -‘Something must have fallen from the rigging,’ said Mr. Saunders. - -‘Sir,’ cried the captain in a voice of mingled wrath and astonishment, -‘when anything falls from aloft, it drops plumb, sir--up and down, -sir. The law of gravitation, Mr. Saunders, is the same at sea as it is -on shore. What could fall from those heights up there’--and here he -turned up his head like a hen in the act of drinking,--‘to strike a man -standing at the wheel all that distance away?’ - -The news had got wind below, and the passengers came up in twos and -threes from the cuddy, asking questions as they arrived, the loudest -and most importunate amongst them, needless to say, being Colonel -Bannister. There was real consternation amongst the ladies at the -sight of the bloodstain. I shall not easily forget the picture of -that poop-full of people: the staring of the women at the dark blotch -against the wheel, whilst they held themselves in a sort of posture of -recoil, holding their dresses back, as if something were crawling at -them; the subdued wondering air of the men, restlessly looking about -them, one going to the rail to gaze over, the dusky form of another -stooping to peer under the gratings, a third with his head lying back -straining his sight at the airy empearled spire of the cloths rising -from the cross-jack to the royal yard, the mizzen-top showing clear -and firm as a drawing in Indian ink against the delicate shimmering -concavity of the topsail. The half-moon rode in brilliance over the -main topgallant yard-arm, and the dark swell rolled in soundless -heavings to the quarter, with the wake of the planet lying in the shape -of a silver fan to half way across the ocean, and not a cloud in the -whole wide velvet-black depths to obscure so much as a thumbnail of -stardust. - -‘What has happened, Dugdale?’ exclaimed Colledge, accosting me at once -as he rose through the companion with Miss Temple at his side. - -‘A man that was at the helm has been struck down,’ said I. - -‘By whom?’ said he. - -‘Why, that’s it,’ I answered; ‘nobody knows, and I don’t think anybody -ever will know.’ - -‘Is he dead?’ asked Miss Temple. - -‘I cannot say,’ I responded; ‘his hat was cut through and his head -laid open. There is a dreadful illustration of what has happened close -against the wheel.’ - -‘In what form?’ she asked. - -‘Blood!’ said I. - -‘Why, it’s _murder_, then!’ cried Colledge. - -‘It looks like it,’ said I, with a glance at Miss Temple’s face, that -showed white as alabaster to the moonlight, whilst in each glowing -dark eye sparkled a little star of silver far more brilliant than the -ice-like flash of the diamonds which trembled in her ears. ‘But be the -assassin what he may, I’ll swear by every saint in the calendar that -he’s not aboard this ship.’ - -‘Pray, explain, Mr. Dugdale,’ exclaimed Miss Temple in a voice of -curiosity at once haughty and peevish. - -I made no answer. - -‘My dear fellow, what do you want to imply?’ said Colledge: ‘that the -man was struck down--by somebody out of doors?’ and his eyes went -wandering over the sea. - -‘It seems my mission, Miss Temple,’ said I with a half-laugh, ‘to -furnish you with information on what happens on board the _Countess -Ida_. Once again let me enjoy the privilege you do me the honour to -confer upon me;’ and with that, in an offhand manner, I told her the -story as you have it. - -‘Did anybody, think you, crawl out of the hind windows,’ exclaimed -Colledge, ‘and creep up over the stern and strike the man down?’ - -‘No,’ said I. - -‘How did it happen, then?’ asked Miss Temple fretfully. - -‘Why,’ I answered, looking at her, ‘the blow was no doubt dealt by a -spirit.’ - -‘Lor’ bless us, how terrifying!’ exclaimed Mrs. Hudson, who, unknown -to me, had drawn to my elbow to listen. ‘What with the heat and the -sight of that blood!’ she cried, fanning herself violently. ‘A spirit, -did you say, sir? Oh, I shall never be able to sleep in the ship again -after this.’ - -I edged away, finding little pleasure in the prospect of a chat with -Mrs. Hudson with Miss Temple close at hand to listen to us. At that -moment Dr. Hemmeridge made his appearance. He stalked up to the -captain, who stood with his hand gripping the vang of the spanker gaff, -returning short almost gruff answers to the questions fired at him. - -‘The man’s alive, sir,’ said the doctor; ‘but he’s badly hurt. I’ve -soldered his wound; but it is an ugly cut.’ - -‘Is he conscious?’ demanded Keeling. - -‘He is.’ - -‘And what does he say?’ - -‘He has nothing to say, sir. How should he remember, Captain Keeling? -He fell to the blow as an ox would.’ - -‘Ha!’ cried the skipper; ‘but does he recollect seeing anybody lurking -near him--has he any suspicion’---- - -‘Sir,’ answered the doctor, ‘at the present moment his mind has but -half an eye open.’ - -I made one of the crowd that had assembled to hear the doctor’s report, -and stood near the binnacle stand--close enough to it, in fact, to be -able to lay my hand upon the hood. My eye was travelling from the ugly -patch that had an appearance as of still sifting out upon the white -plank within half a yard of me, when I caught sight of a black lump of -something just showing in the curve of the base of the binnacle stand -betwixt the starboard legs of it. It was gone in a moment with the -slipping off it of the streak of moonshine that had disclosed it to me. -Almost mechanically, whilst I continued to listen to the doctor, I put -my toe to the thing; then, still in a mechanical way, picked it up. It -was a large stone, something of the shape of a comb, with a twist in -the middle of it, and of a smooth surface on top, but rugged and broken -underneath, with a length of about five inches jagged into an edge as -keen as a flint splinter. It was extraordinarily heavy, and might in -that quality have been a lump of gold. - -‘Hallo!’ I cried, ‘what have we here?’ and I held it to the glass of -the binnacle to view it by the lamplight. - -‘What is that you are looking at, Mr. Dugdale?’ called out old Keeling. - -‘Why,’ said I, ‘neither more nor less to my mind than the weapon with -which your sailor has been laid low, captain.’ - -There was a rush to look at it. Keeling held it up to the moonlight, -then poised it in his hand. - -‘Who could have been the ruffian that hove it?’ he cried. - -‘Allow me to see it,’ exclaimed little Mr. Saunders, and he worked his -way, low down amongst us, to the captain. He weighed the stone, smelt -it, carefully inspected it, then looked up to the captain with a grin -that wrinkled his large, long, eager, wise old face from his brow to -his chin. ‘A suspicion,’ he exclaimed, ‘that has been slowly growing in -my mind is now confirmed. No mortal hand hove this missile, captain. It -comes from the angels, sir.’ - -He paused. - -‘Lawk-a-daisy, what is the man going to say next?’ cried out Mrs. -Hudson hysterically. - -‘Captain Keeling, ladies and gentlemen,’ continued little Saunders, -nursing the stone as tenderly while he spoke as if it had been a -new-born babe, ‘this has fallen from those infinite spangled heights -up there. It is, in short, a meteorolite, and, so far as I can now -judge, a very beautiful specimen of one.’ - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE HUMOURS OF AN INDIAMAN - - -The mystery being at an end, most of the passengers, after a brief -spell of loitering and talking, went below, little Saunders leading -the way with the meteorolite, and the captain closing the procession, -to finish the glass of grog; he had been disturbed at by finding the -ship off her course. I was exchanging a few words with Mr. Cocker on -this second queer incident of the day, when the fellow who was at the -wheel exclaimed: ‘Beg pardon, sir;’ and I saw him shift very uneasily -from one leg to the other with a drag of the length of his arm over his -brow, as though he freely perspired. - -‘What is it?’ inquired Mr. Cocker. - -‘Am I expected to stand here alone, sir?’ asked the fellow. - -‘Certainly. What! On a fine night like this? What do you want? That I -should call hands to the relieving tackles?’ cried the second-mate. - -The man sent a look up at the stars before answering, with a sort of -cowering air in the posture of his head. - -‘One of them blooming boomerangs,’ said he, ‘might come along again, -sir. What’s a man to do if time ain’t allowed him to get out of the -road?’ - -‘Your having a companion won’t help you,’ said the second-mate. - -‘I dunno,’ answered the fellow. ‘Whatever it be that chucks the like of -them things, might hold off at the sight of _two_ of us.’ - -The second-mate stood looking at him a little, and then burst into a -laugh. - -‘Well, well!’ said he; ‘if there’s ever a lead-line to sound the depths -of forecastle ignorance, I allow there must be fathoms enough of it to -belay an end to the moon’s horns.’ - -Nevertheless he called to one of the watch to come aft and hold the -wheel with the other man, making some allowance, I daresay, for the -superstitious feelings which possessed the sailor, and which were -certainly not to be softened down by the sight of the great bloodstain -close to his feet. - -I went below for a glass of brandy, and found the passengers listening -to Mr. Saunders, who, with the meteorolite before him, was delivering -a discourse on that kind of stone, pointing to it with his finger, -speaking very slowly and emphatically, and looking in his wistful way -up into the faces of his audience. Even Miss Temple seemed interested, -and stood listening with her back against the mizzen-mast, the -embellished trunk of which formed a very noble fanciful background -for her fine figure. However, I was more in the temper for a pipe of -tobacco than for a lecture, and was presently on deck again, for after -half-past nine o’clock in the evening we were privileged to smoke -upon the poop. Colledge presently joined me; but in twenty minutes -he gave a prodigious yawn and then went to bed; and I paced the deck -alone, with deep enjoyment of the hush coming to the ship out of the -dark scintillant distance--a silence of ocean-night that seemed to -be deepened to the senses by the marble stillness of the wide white -pinions stealing and floating up in a sort of glimmer of spaces to the -faint mist-like square of the main royal. There was a faint noise -of trembling and rippling waters over the side, and the line of the -taffrail with the two fellows at the wheel rose and fell very softly to -the black secret heave of the long deep-sea undulation. The cuddy lamps -were dimmed, the interior deserted; there was a small group of smokers -on the quarter-deck in the shadow of the bulwark conversing quietly; -abaft the mizzen rigging flitted the dusky form of old Keeling, who had -come up to take a turn or two and a final squint at the weather before -turning in. - -Some one emerged through the companion hatch, and, after looking about -him a little, crossed to the lee rail, where I was standing. - -‘Is that you, Dugdale?’ - -‘Yes,’ said I. ‘What’s the matter, Greenhew? Time to be in bed, isn’t -it?’ - -‘Oh, I say, Dugdale,’ exclaimed the young fellow in a breathless kind -of way, as though the effort to check some fit of merriment nearly -choked him, ‘there’s such a lark down-stairs--in my cabin--Riley, you -know’---- And here he laughed out. - -‘What’s the lark?’ I asked. - -‘I want you to come and see,’ he answered. ‘I found it out by the -merest accident. Heavens, what capers! And if I don’t contrive some -excuse to introduce Miss Hudson into the cabin, that she may see -him---- Well! well! But come along, though.’ - -‘But, my good fellow, let me first of all know what I am to see,’ said -I. ‘I am enjoying the silence and coolness of this deck and my pipe -and’---- - -He interrupted me as he cautiously stared around him. - -‘You know, of course, that Riley’s got the bunk under me?’ he exclaimed -in a fluttering voice, as though he should at any moment break out into -a loud laugh; ‘well, you can make him do whatever you like when he’s -asleep.’ - -‘Go on,’ said I; ‘I may understand you presently.’ - -‘When I went to my cabin to turn in,’ he continued, ‘I found him in -bed; and imagining him to be awake, I exclaimed, just as a matter -of chaff, you know: “Look out, my friend! There’ll be a meteorolite -crashing clean through my bunk into your head in a minute--so, mind -your eye, Riley!” The moment I said this he hopped out from between -his sheets on to the deck, and stood cowering with his hands over his -head, as if to shelter it. His eyes were shut, and I supposed he was -playing the fool. “Get back into bed, man,” said I; “you can’t humbug -me.” He immediately lay down again in a manner that surprised me, I -assure you, Dugdale; for it was as full of obedience as the behaviour -of any beaten dog. I watched him a little, to see if he opened his -eyes; but he kept them shut, and his breathing proved him fast asleep. -I thought I would try him again. “Hi, Riley!” I exclaimed. “Here’s -Peter Hemskirk come to haul you out of your bunk. Protect yourself, -or he’ll be dragging you into the cuddy, dressed as you are, and Miss -Hudson is there to see you.” Instantly, Dugdale’--here he clapped his -hands to his lips, to smother a fit of laughter--‘he doubled up his -fists and let fly at the air, kicking off the clothes, that he might -strike out with his legs; and thus he lay working all over like a -galvanised frog. You never saw such a sight. Come down and look at him.’ - -‘Have you observed anything of the sort in him before?’ said I, -knocking the ashes out of my pipe. - -‘Never before,’ he answered; ‘but I have him on the hip now. He’s -tried to make a fool of me to Miss Hudson, and this blessed evening -shows me my way to a very pretty rejoinder. Come along, come along! -Should he wake, there can be no performance.’ - -He went gliding with the step of a skater to the companion, and I -followed, scarcely knowing as yet whether the young fellow was not -designing in all this some practical joke of which I was to be the -victim. We passed through the deserted cuddy, faintly lighted by one -dimly burning lantern, and descended to the lower deck, where the -corridor between the berths was illuminated by a bull’s-eye lamp fixed -under a clock against the bulkhead. The cabin shared by the young men -stood three doors down past mine on the same side of the ship. Greenhew -halted a moment to listen, then turned the handle, took a peep, and -beckoned me to enter. Affixed to a stanchion was a small bracket lamp, -the glow of which was upon Riley’s face as he lay on his back in an -under bunk, unmistakably in a deep sleep. His eyes were sealed, his -lips parted, his respirations low and deep, as of one who slumbers -heavily. The wild disorder of the bedclothes was corroboration enough -of Greenhew’s tale, at least in one article of it. - -‘Try him yourself,’ said my companion in a low voice. - -‘No, no,’ I answered. ‘I have a sailor’s reverence for sleep. You have -invited me here to witness a performance. It is for you to make the -play, Greenhew.’ - -He at once cried out: ‘Riley! Riley! the ship is sinking! For God’s -sake strike out, or you’re a drowned man!’ - -I was amazed to observe the young fellow instantly rise to his knees -and motion with his arms in the exact manner of a swimmer, yet with a -stoop of the head to clear it of the boards of the upper bunk, which -I considered as remarkable as any other part of the extraordinary -exhibition for the perception that it indicated of surrounding -conditions; whilst his gestures on the other hand proved him completely -under the control of the delusion created by his cabin-fellow’s cry. -I also observed an expression of extreme suffering and anxiety in his -face, that was made dumb otherwise by the closed lids. In fact it was -the countenance of a swimmer battling in agony. Greenhew looked on -half choking with laughter. - -‘Oh,’ he whipped out in disjointed syllables, ‘if Miss Hudson could -only see him now! Dugdale, you’ll have to find me some excuse to -introduce her here. Her mother must attend too--the more the merrier!’ -and here he went off again into a fit, as though he should suffocate. - -For my part, I could see nothing to laugh at. Indeed, the thing shocked -and astonished me as a painful, degrading, mysterious expression of the -human mind acting under conditions of which I could not be expected -of course to make head or tail. Riley continued to move his arms -with the motions of a swimmer for some minutes, meanwhile breathing -hard, as though the water’s edge rose to his lip, whilst his face -continued drawn out into an indescribable expression of distress. His -gesticulations then grew feeble, his respiration lost its fierceness -and swiftness and became once more long drawn and regular, and -presently he lay back, still in a deep sleep, in the posture in which I -had observed him when I entered. - -‘What d’ye think of _that_?’ exclaimed Greenhew with a face of -triumphant enjoyment. - -‘A pitiful trick for a sleeper to fall into,’ said I. ‘I like your show -so little, Greenhew, that I wish to see no more of it.’ - -‘Oh, nonsense!’ he exclaimed; ‘let’s keep him caper-cutting a while -longer. I’ll have a regular performance here every night. It shall be -the talk of the ship, by George!’ - -As he spoke these words, Riley uttered a low cry, opened his eyes full -upon us, stared a moment with the bewilderment of a man who has not all -his senses, then sat upright, running his gaze over his bedclothes. - -‘What is the matter?’ he exclaimed, looking around at us. ‘Who has -been’---- - -The light and expression of a full mind entered his eyes. He threw his -feet over on to the deck and stood up. - -‘Have I been making a fool of myself in my sleep, Dugdale?’ said he.--I -was at a loss for an answer.--He proceeded: ‘I know my weakness. I -have heard of it often enough--at school--from my mother--again and -again since, Dugdale. Greenhew has brought you here to watch me. And -that means,’ cried he, turning fiercely upon Greenhew, ‘that you -have been exercising your humour upon me in my sleep, and instead of -compassionating a painful and humiliating infirmity, you have’---- - -His temper choked him. He clenched his fist and let fly at friend -Greenhew right between the eyes. Down went the Civil Service man like -a statue knocked off its pedestal; but he was up again in a minute; -and neither of them wanting in spunk, at it they went! It was enough -to make any man die of laughter to see Riley’s very imperfectly clad -figure dancing and manœuvring round Greenhew with the gestures of a -cannibal at a feast-dance, yet all the while handsomely plumping his -fists into his antagonist, who hammered wildly in return with a ruddy -nose and one eye already slowly closing. I threw myself between them, -but could do little for laughing. They fought in silence, so far at -least as their voices were concerned; but the hard thumps they dealt -the bulkhead as they went pommelling each other from side to side, -not to mention their frequent capsizals over boxes, the flight of any -objects, such as boots, which their toes happened to strike against, -might well have caused the occupants of the adjacent cabins to believe -that if this scramble did not signify a rush of people escaping from a -sinking ship, then it must certainly mean a desperate mutiny amongst -the crew accompanied by all the disorder of a struggle for life. - -‘For heaven’s sake, stop this!’ I shouted; ‘consider how terrified the -ladies will be. Greenhew, cease it, man. Riley, get you into your bunk -again’---- - -Here there was a violent thumping upon the door of the cabin. - -‘Anybody fallen mad here?’ was bawled in the familiar notes of Colonel -Bannister, ‘or is it murder that’s being done?’ - -He opened the door and looked in. - -‘Vot, in Got’s name, iss happening?’ rumbled the deep voice of Peter -Hemskirk over the military man’s shoulder. - -The ship slightly leaned at that moment, and caused the Dutchman to put -his weight against the colonel, with the consequence that the little -soldier was shot into the cabin with Mynheer at his heels. - -‘What’s this?’ cried the colonel. - -‘I’ll teach you!’ gasped Riley. - -‘Haven’t you had enough?’ shouted Greenhew. - -‘Seberate ’em! seberate ’em!’ exclaimed Hemskirk. ‘Look, shentlemen, -how Mr. Greenhew bleeds.’ - -‘What on earth is the matter?’ exclaimed some one at the door. - -It was Mr. Emmett. He trembled, and was very pale. He had thrown his -tragedian cloak over his shoulders, and looked a truly ludicrous -object with a short space of his bare shanks showing and his feet in -a pair of large carpet slippers. In fact, by this time the whole of -the passengers were alarmed, the ladies looking out of their doors and -calling, the men hustling into the passage to see, with the sound of -Mr. Prance’s voice at the head of the steps of the hatch shouting down -to know what the noise was about. It was more than I could stand. The -figures of the colonel and the Dutchman and Emmett, not to mention -Riley, coming on top of the absurdity of the fight, proved too much -for me. I took one look at Greenhew, shot through the door, gained my -cabin, and flung myself into my bunk, exhausted with laughter, and -utterly incapable of answering the numberless questions which Colledge -fired off at me. - -The noise ceased after a while, but not before I heard the captain’s -storming accents outside my berth. I could also hear the colonel -complaining in strong language of so great an outrage as that of two -young men fighting in the dead of night within the hearing of ladies. -The old skipper insisted on one of the young fellows quitting the cabin -and sharing the berth tenanted by Mr. Fairthorne. Both vehemently -refused to budge. The captain then asked who struck the first blow. -Riley answered that he had, and was beginning to explain, when old -Keeling silenced him by saying that he would give him five minutes to -retire to Mr. Fairthorne’s berth, and that if he had not cleared out by -that time he would send for the boatswain and a sailor or two to show -him the road. This ended the difficulty, as I was told next morning, -and the rest of the night passed quietly enough. - -Next day, Mr. Riley put in an appearance at breakfast. On seeing me -he came round to my seat, and in a few words begged me not to explain -the cause of the quarrel, as he had no wish that his peculiarity as -a sleeper should be known to the rest of us. I gave him my word, but -regretted that he should have exacted it, as I wished to talk with -Saunders and Hemmeridge on the very extraordinary manifestations I had -witnessed. It was fortunate, however, that my share in the disturbance -was not guessed at. The colonel, Hemskirk, and the rest imagined that -I had been drawn to the young men’s berth by the noise, as they had, -and no questions were therefore asked me. Mr. Greenhew kept his bed -for three days. It was mainly sulking and shame with him, the others -thought; but the truth was his eye had not only closed, but was so -swollen and blackened as to render him unfit to appear in public. He -sent one of the stewards to ask me to see him; but I had had quite -enough of Mr. Greenhew, and contrived to keep clear of the youth until -his coming on deck made escape from him impossible. - -Nothing happened worth noting in the week that followed this business. -The trade-wind blew as languid a breeze as ever vexed the heart and -inflamed the passions of a ship-master. It was to be a long passage, we -all said--six months, Mr. Johnson predicted--and old Keeling admitted -that he had nothing to offer us in the way of hope until we had crossed -the equator, where the south-east trades might compensate us for this -northern sluggishness by blowing a brisk gale of wind. - -However, if the dull crawling of the ship held the spirits of us -who lived aft somewhat low, forward the Jacks made sport enough for -themselves, and of a second dog-watch were as jolly a lot as ever -fetched an echo out of a hollow topsail with salt-hardened lungs. There -were a couple of excellent fiddlers amongst them, and these chaps would -perch themselves upon the booms, and with bowed heads and quivering -arms saw endless dance-tunes out of the catgut. Many a half-hour have I -pleasantly killed in watching and hearkening to the forecastle frolics. -The squeaking of the fiddles was the right sort of music for the show; -the Jacks in couples lovingly embracing each other, slided, twirled, -frisked, polked with loose delighted limbs between the forecastle -rails, their hairy faces grinning over each other’s shoulders; or one -of them would take the deck--the rest drawing off to smoke a pipe and -look on --and break into a noble maritime shuffle--the true deep-sea -hornpipe--always dancing it to perfection, as I would think. One such -scene I vividly recall as I sit writing: a tar of manly proportions, a -little way past the forecastle ladder, plain in the view of the poop, -his shoes twinkling, his flowing duck breeches trembling, his arms -folded, or one hand gracefully arching to his head, his straw hat on -nine hairs, his face between his broad black whiskers showing out in -the hue of claret, his little eyes sparkling with the enjoyment of -the measures, and the perspiration hopping off his nose like parched -peas; past him a crowd of storm-dyed faces meditatively surveying him, -gnawing with excitement upon the junks standing high in their cheeks -in their sympathy with the dancer, or pulling their pipes from their -lips with the slow deliberateness of the merchant sailor to expectorate -and growl out a comment upon the capering lively; to the right of -him amidships on the booms the two fiddlers, working their hardest, -and threatening every moment to topple over on to the deck with the -energy of their movements. Far ahead forked out the great bowsprit -and jib-booms, made massive to the eye by the long spritsail yard -and the enormously thick gear of shrouds and guys; on high rose the -canvas at the fore, yellowing as it soared into a golden tinge to the -westering glory that was setting the heavens on fire on the starboard -beam. Oh! it was a sight beautiful exceedingly, with the gilding of the -ropes by the sunset to the complexion of golden wire, and a long line -of blood-red radiance flowing down to the ship from the horizon, and -making a sparkling scarlet of the fabric’s glossy sides, and putting -a crimson star of splendour into every window, with the sweep of the -dark-blue sea coursing in long lines into the east, that showed in a -liquid softness of violet past the wan spaces of the far overhanging -studdingsails. - -In this same week about which I am writing, Mr. Colledge, inspired -possibly by the noise of the fiddles forward and the spectacle of the -forecastle jinks, made an effort to get up a dance aft; but to no -purpose. Some of the girls looked eagerly when the thing was suggested; -and certainly Colledge’s programme was a promising one: there was the -wide spread of awning for a ballroom ceiling; there were flags in -abundance to stretch between the ridge-rope and the rail, as a wall of -radiant colours through which the moon would sift her delicate tender -haze without injury to the light of the lanterns, which were to be hung -in a row on either side fore and aft; there was the piano to rouse up -from its moorings below, and to be secured on some part of the deck -where its tinkling could be everywhere heard. There was also a quiet -sea, and a deck whose gentle cradling could but serve as a pulse to the -joyous revolutions of the waltz. - -Colledge was enchanted with his scheme, and went about thirstily in -the prosecution of it; but, as I have said, to no purpose. Colonel -Bannister shouted with derision when asked if he would dance; Greenhew -was not yet well of his eye, was extremely sulky, and hung about in -retired places; Riley called dancing a bore; Fairthorne pleaded tender -feet; little Saunders smote his breast to Colledge’s inquiry and said -plaintively: ‘Who would stand up with _me_?’ In short, every man-jack -of us aft, saving Mr. Johnson and myself, declined to take any active -part in the proposed ball; and Colledge, with a face of loathing, -abandoned the idea, vowing to me that he had never met with such a -pack of scarecrows in his life, and that we should have been better off -in the direction of jollity and companionship had the cargo of monkeys -been spared to take the place of our male passengers. - -Thus did we somewhat wearily roll our way through the Atlantic -parallels, fanned by a light north-east wind over the quarter, under a -heaven of blue, with the sun in the midst of it splendidly shining, and -a night-sky of airy indigo rich with stars from sea-line to sea-line. -The flying-fish shot from the coppered sides of the Indiaman, but -saving them and ourselves, the ocean was tenantless of life; we sighted -no ship; no bird hovered near us; once only, when it was drawing near -to midnight, I heard the sounds of a deep respiration off one or the -other of the bows--the noise of some leviathan of the deep rising from -the dark profound to blow his fountain under the stars; but there was -no shadow of it to be seen nor break of white waters to indicate its -neighbourhood. It was but a single sigh, deep and solemn, as though old -ocean himself had delivered it out of his heart, and the glittering -heights seemed to gather a deeper mystery from the mere note of it. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -A STRANGE SAIL - - -It was a Friday morning. On going on deck before breakfast for a -pump-bath in the ship’s head, I found as queer a look of weather all -about as ever I had witnessed in my life. A troubled swell, but without -much height or power, was running from the westwards, and the Indiaman -rolled awkwardly upon it with much noise of beating canvas aloft and of -straining spars. The water was of a dull olive tint, with an appearance -of mud in it, as though some violent disturbance at bottom had lifted -the ooze cloudily to the surface. It was hard to tell whether the sky -was blue or slate, so thick, dusty, impervious was it, with here and -there a dim outline of cloud, and patches, so to speak, of a kind of -yellowish blue, where some belly of obscured vapour stooped lower than -the rest; whilst, the whole sea-circle round, there hovered an immense -grummet or ring of a dingy, sooty appearance, like to a line of smoke -left by the funnels of steamers, and hanging in a brown cloud, leagues -in length, in silent motionless weather on the rim of the waters of the -English Channel. - -‘Hallo, Mr. Smallridge,’ said I, as I stepped over the rail out of the -head, addressing the boatswain, who was superintending the work of a -couple of hands slung over the bow, ‘what have we yonder?’ and I sent -my gaze at a sail I had now for the first time caught sight of that was -hovering down upon our port quarter some two or three miles distant. - -‘A brig, sir, I believe,’ he answered; ‘she was in sight much about the -same place at daybreak. There’s been a little air of wind, but it’s -failing, I doubt.’ - -‘Making way for something to follow, I fancy?’ said I, casting a look -round the horizon. - -‘Ay,’ he answered; ‘that muck’s a-drawing up, and there’ll be thunder -in it too, if my corns speaks right. Niver had no such aching in my -toes as this morning since last Toosday was two year, when we fell in -off the Hope with the ugliest thunderstorm that I can remember south -of the heequator. When my corns begins to squirm I always know that -thunder ain’t fur off.’ - -‘Well, thunder or no thunder,’ said I, ‘I hope there’s to come wind -enough in the wake of all this to blow us along. We shall be having to -call it sixty days to the Line, bo’sun, if we don’t mind our eye;’ and -giving him a friendly nod, I made my way to my cabin to finish dressing. - -The gloomy appearance continued all the morning without the least -change. The wind fell dead; and a prodigious hush overhung the sea, a -stillness that grew absolutely overwhelming to the fancy, if you gave -your mind to it, and stood watching the heave of the swell running in -ugly green heaps without a sound. Noises were curiously distinct. The -voice of a man hailing the forecastle from the foretopmast cross-trees -sounded on the poop as though he had called from the maintop. A laugh -from near the wheel had a startlingly near note, though it came to you -along the whole length of the after-deck. The water brimming to the -channels alongside to the stoop of the hull sent the oddest hollowest -sobbing tone into the air, as though some monster were strangling -alongside. Halliards had been let go and sails clewed up and hauled -down, and the _Countess Ida_ lay with something of a naked look as she -wallowed with the clumsiness of a wide-beamed ship under topsails and -fore course; and all the rest of the square canvas, saving the royals -and mizzen topgallant-sail, which were furled, swinging in and out -festooned by the grip of the gear. - -By noon the sail that I had noticed early that morning had neared us in -some insensible fashion till she hung something more than a mile away -off the quarter as before. I had several times examined her with the -telescope and was not a little impressed by her appearance. She was a -brig of about two hundred and sixty tons; a most beautiful and perfect -model, indeed, with a clipper lift of bow and a knife-like cutwater and -a long wonderfully graceful arching sweep of side rounding into the -very perfection of a run. Her copper came high, and was very clean, -as though she were fresh from port. Her masts were singularly lofty -for her size, both of them tapering away into skysail poles with yards -across; but she had furled all canvas down to her two topsails and -foresail, and lay rolling heavily, lifting her symmetrical fabric to -the height of the swell, when she would be hove out against the ugly -sulky background in such keen relief that her rigging glanced like -hairs as it came from the mastheads to the channels, with a white, odd, -almost ghastly stare in her canvas that was brilliant as cotton; then -down she would sink behind some sullen almost livid peak till she was -hidden to the reef-band of her fore-course. - -Throughout the morning I had observed Captain Keeling somewhat -restlessly examining her; that is to say, he would send looks enough -at her through his binocular glass to suggest that he found something -unusual, perhaps disturbing, in her appearance. There were no sights to -be had, though the old fellow and his two mates stood about the deck, -sextants in hands, occasionally lifting their eyes to that part of the -sky where the sun was supposed to be. Observing Mr. Prance at the rail, -steadfastly observing the brig down upon the quarter, I went up to him. - -‘Pray what do you find in that craft yonder, Mr. Prance, to interest -you? The skipper does not seem able to keep his glass off her.’ - -‘What do _you_ see, Mr. Dugdale?’ he answered, viewing me out of the -corners of his eyes without turning his head. ‘Come, you have been a -sailor. What is _your_ notion of her?’ - -‘She’s a beauty, anyway,’ I answered; ‘no builder’s yard ever turned -out anything sweeter in the shape of a hull--a trifle too lofty, -perhaps. For my part, I hate everything above royals. Give me short -mastheads, the royal-yard sitting close under the track, English -frigate-fashion’--I was proceeding. - -‘No, no; I don’t mean that, Mr. Dugdale,’ he interrupted with a hint of -a seaman’s impatience at my criticism. - -‘What, then?’ I asked. - -‘Does she look honest, think you?’ said he. - -‘Ha!’ cried I: ‘now I understand.’ - -‘Hush! not a word if you please,’ he exclaimed with a glance along the -poop; ‘the ladies must on no account be frightened, and it is but a -mere suspicion on Captain Keeling’s part at best. Yet he has had some -acquaintance with gentry of her kind, if, indeed, yonder chap be of the -denomination he conjectures.’ - -‘She must have been stealthily sneaking down upon us,’ I exclaimed, -‘to occupy her present position, otherwise she should be a league -distant out on the beam. But then such a hull as that must yield to -a catspaw that wouldn’t blow a feather out of the _Countess Ida’s_ -mizzen-top. What has been seen to excite misgiving, Mr. Prance?’ - -‘Too many of a crew, sir,’ he answered; ‘the outline of a long-tom on -her forecastle, but ill-concealed by the raffle thrown over it. Six -guns of a side, Mr. Dugdale, though the closed ports hide their grins.’ - -‘She will not attempt anything with a big chap like us, surely.’ - -At that moment the captain called him, and he walked aft. - -Presently, it sensibly darkened, as though to the passage of some -denser sheet of vapour crawling through the heart of the obscurity on -high. The sea turned of an oil-like smoothness, and ran in folds as -of liquid bottle-green glass out of the grimy shadow that was slowly -thickening all away round the ocean limit. The order was given to furl -the clewed-up sails and to reef the topsails. The boatswain’s pipe -summoned all hands to this work, and the ship for a while was full of -life and commotion. However, by this time the secret of old Keeling’s -uneasiness had in some way leaked out; in fact, the skipper could no -longer have kept the people in ignorance of his suspicions; for some -ten minutes or so before the tiffin bell rang, after the hands had come -down from aloft, the order was quietly sent along to see all clear -for action; and as I took my seat at table, being close to the cuddy -front, as my chair brought me with a clear view of the quarter-deck -through the open windows, I could observe the men preparing our little -show of carronades, removing the tompions, placing rams, sponges, -train-tackles, and the like at hand, and passing shot and chests of -small-arms through the main hatch. - -Captain Keeling, stiff, and bolstered up as usual in his brass-buttoned -frock coat, his face of a deeper rubicund from some recent touch of -soap and towel, seated himself at the head of the table; but Prance -and the other mates remained on deck. One noticed a deal of uneasiness -amongst the ladies, saving Miss Temple whose haughty beautiful face -wore its ordinary impassive expression. There was no coquetry in the -startled eyes that Miss Hudson rolled around. Mrs. Bannister fanned -herself vehemently, and ate nothing. There were some of us males, -too, who looked as if we didn’t like it. Mr. Emmett was exceedingly -thoughtful; Mr. Fairthorne drank thirstily, and pulled incessantly -at his little sprouting moustache; Mr. Hodder watched old Keeling -continuously; and Mr. Riley made much of his eye-glass. Nothing to the -point was said for a little while; then the colonel rapped out: - -‘I say, captain, have you any notion as to the nationality of that chap -whom your people are making ready to resist?’ - -‘No, sir,’ answered Keeling stiffly; ‘we gave her a sight of our ensign -this morning; but she showed no colours in return, and I am not a man -to keep my hat off to one who will not respond.’ - -‘Dot iss my vay,’ exclaimed Peter Hemskirk, bestowing a train of nods -on the skipper. - -‘But, captain,’ said Mrs. Joliffe, a nervous gentle-faced middle-aged -lady, with soft white hair, ‘have you any good reason for supposing -that the ship may prove dangerous to us?’ - -‘Madam,’ responded Keeling with a bow, and you noticed the prevailing -condition amongst us by the general nervous inclining of ears towards -the old fellow to catch what he said, ‘there is reason to believe that -certain Spaniards of the island of Cuba have equipped two or three -smart vessels to act the part of marine highwaymen. The authorities -wink at the business, I am told. Their practice is to bring ships to -and board them, and plunder the best of what they may come across. Last -year, a West Indiaman named the _Jamaica Belle_ was overhauled by one -of these craft, who took specie amounting to twelve thousand pounds out -of her. I believe they are not cut-throats in the old piratic sense.’ - -‘Oh, don’t speak of cut-throats!’ cried Mrs. Hudson. ‘Will they dare to -attack us--the monsters!’ - -‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Keeling, ‘pray, clearly understand: my -suspicions of the stranger may be ill-founded. Meanwhile, our business -is to put ourselves in a posture of defence, ready for whatever may -happen.’ - -‘Certainly,’ exclaimed the colonel very emphatically with a look round; -and then speaking with his eyes fixed upon Mr. Johnson; ‘I presume -we shall be able to count upon all our male friends here assembled to -assist your crew to the utmost of their powers, should the stranger -make any attempt upon this ship?’ - -‘We shall expect you to cover yourself with glory, colonel,’ said Mr. -Johnson, in a familiar sarcastic voice; ‘and I shall be happy to write -and print a full description of your behaviour, sir.’ - -‘I am quite willing to fight,’ exclaimed Mr. Fairthorne in an -effeminate voice. ‘I mean that I shall be glad to thoot; but I am no -thwordthman.’ - -‘Possengers hov no beesness to vight,’ exclaimed Mynheer Hemskirk, -enlarging his immense waistcoat by obtruding his chest; ‘dey gets in -der vay of dem as knows vot to do.’ - -Miss Temple bit her lip to conceal a smile. - -‘That’s all very well,’ exclaimed Riley, talking at Miss Hudson; ‘but -suppose, Hemskirk, you should find some greasy Spaniard with earrings -and oily ringlets rifling your boxes, hauling out all the money you’ve -got, pocketing that fine silver-mounted meerschaum pipe of yours’---- - -‘I vould coot orff hiss head,’ answered the Dutchman, breathing hard. - -‘Gentlemen, you are unnecessarily alarming the ladies,’ cried old -marline-spike from the head of the table. - -‘I suppose there’s no lack of small-arms with you, captain?’ roared -the Colonel; ‘plenty for us here as well as for your men?’ - -‘I shall insist upon your not meddling, Edward, in whatever may -happen,’ cried his wife, giving him an emphatic nod over the edge of -her fan with her Roman nose. - -‘I shall meddle, then, my dear,’ he shouted. ‘If it comes to those -rascals attacking us, I shall fight, as of course we all will,’ and -again he bent his little fiery eyes upon Mr. Johnson. - -‘My note-book is ready, colonel,’ said Mr. Johnson pleasantly, with a -satirical grin at the peppery little soldier. ‘I’ll not lose sight of -you, sir.’ - -‘I believe you will then, sir,’ sneered the colonel, ‘unless Captain -Keeling takes the precaution to clap his hatches on to prevent anybody -skulking below from off the deck.’ - -‘Mere bluster is not going to help us,’ said Colledge, who disliked the -colonel; ‘no good in railing and storming like heroes in a blank-verse -performance for an hour at a time before falling to. If Captain Keeling -wants any assistance outside that of his crew, he may command me for -one.’ - -‘I wath never taught fenthing,’ said Mr. Fairthorne; ‘if I fight, it -mutht be with a muthket.’ - -‘If the ship should be captured, what’s to become of us?’ cried Mrs. -Hudson. ‘I’ve read the most barbarous histories about pirates. They -have no respect for sex or age; and it’s quite common, I’ve heard, for -every pirate to have twelve wives.’ - -Here Mrs. Trevor suddenly shrieked out for some one to bring her baby -to her, then went into hysterics, and was presently carried away in a -dead faint by the stewards, followed by her daughter, weeping bitterly. -Old Keeling whipped out an oath. - -‘Now, gentlemen,’ he exclaimed, ‘you see what your conversation has -brought about. Ladies, I beg that you will not be uneasy. The stranger -will give us no trouble, I am persuaded;’ and rising with a look of -contempt, he bowed stiffly to Miss Temple and her aunt, and went on -deck. - -I was too curious to observe what was going forward to linger in -the cuddy amid this idle rattle of tongues. Our ship having no -steerage-way, had slewed to the beat of the swell, and the brig was -now off the starboard bow, pretty much distant as she had been when -we went to lunch, but showing out with amazing clearness against the -sooty sky past her, upon which her topsails swung from side to side so -heavily that the lower yard-arms at times seemed to spear the water -lifting to them in hills. All over and beyond her lay a deep shadow of -thunder, a sky scowling to the zenith thick as though viewed through a -dust-storm, with a vision of the tufted cloud of the electric tempest -hovering here and there; but there was no lightning as yet, no echo of -distant grumbling; there was not a breath of air to cool the moistened -lip, and the noiseless heave of the swell was as though old ocean lay -breathing hard in a posture of dumb expectation. - -Our crew hung about the decks in groups ready to spring to the first -command. Iron stanchions had been fitted into the line of the rails, -and boarding-nets triced up the length of the ship from just before the -fore-rigging to the poop rail. Aft was a small gang of seamen stationed -at each gun there, with all necessary machinery for the artillery at -hand. The captain, the chief mate, and Mr. Cocker stood abreast of -the wheel, looking at the brig with an occasional glance round the -sea at the weather. I stepped to the side to take another view of the -stranger, and I was noticing with admiration the toy-like beauty of her -as she soared with ruddy sheathing to the head of a swell, with now and -again a most delicate echo of the clapping and beating of her canvas -stealing to us through the dark, breathless atmosphere, when I was -accosted by some one at my elbow. - -‘Do you think it possible, Mr. Dugdale, that if that vessel fired at -our ship she could hit us, so violently rolling as she is?’ - -I turned. It was Mrs. Radcliffe, and with her was Miss Temple. With the -exception of a ‘good morning’ or a ‘good night,’ I had never exchanged -a syllable with this lady in all the time she and I had been together -on shipboard. Her kind little face fluttered jerkily at me as she asked -the question in a manner to remind one of the movements of the head -of a hen. Miss Temple stood like a statue, swaying to the majestic -perpendicular of her figure upon the rolling deck without the least -visible effort to keep her balance, her dark and shining eyes fixed -upon the brig. - -‘Her gunners,’ said I, ‘would need to be practised marksmen, I should -say, to hit us from such a tumbling platform as that yonder.’ - -‘Just my opinion, as I told you, Louise,’ she exclaimed. - -‘If she were to begin to fire,’ exclaimed the girl, keeping her gaze -bent seawards, ‘she would be sure to hit us, though it were by chance.’ - -‘Very possibly,’ said I. - -‘There will be some wind soon, I think, don’t you?’ said Mrs. Radcliffe. - -‘I hope so,’ I answered. - -‘In that case,’ said she, ‘we shall be able to sail away and escape, -shan’t we?’ - -‘She will chase us,’ exclaimed Miss Temple; ‘and as she sails faster -than we do, she will catch us!’ - -‘Now, is that likely?’ cried Mrs. Radcliffe, with a nervous toss of her -head at me. - -‘Everything is possible at sea,’ said I, laughing; ‘but there is a -deal in our favour, Mrs. Radcliffe: first the weather, that as good -as disables that fellow at present anyway; then the coming on of the -night, with every prospect of losing the brig in the darkness.’ - -‘Would you advocate our running away from him?’ exclaimed Miss Temple, -looking at me with a fulness and firmness that was as embarrassing and -vexing in its way as an impertinent stare. - -‘Oh, yes,’ said I; ‘certainly. We are a peaceful trader. It is our -business to arrive in India sound in body’---- - -‘I should consider,’ said she, gazing at me as if she would subdue me -into acquiescence in anything she chose to say by merely eyeing me -strenuously, ‘that Captain Keeling would be acting the part of a coward -if he ran away from that little vessel.’ - -‘Oh, Louise, how can you talk so!’ cried Mrs. Radcliffe, with a sort of -despairful toss of her hands. - -‘I should like to see a fight between two ships,’ said the girl, -removing her overbearing eyes from my face to send them over the deck -amongst the groups of men. ‘Of course, if that vessel attacks us, -we ladies will be sent below to rend the cabin with our screams at -every broadside; but I, for one, am perfectly willing, if the captain -consents, to shoot at those people through a porthole.’ - -‘Oh, Louise, the whims which possess you are really dreadful!’ cried -Mrs. Radcliffe: ‘imagine, if you should even wound a man! it would -make you miserable for life; perhaps end in your becoming a Roman -Catholic and going into a convent. Think of that.’ - -Miss Temple looked at her aunt with a little curl of her lip. - -‘I do not know,’ she exclaimed, ‘why it should be more dreadful in -a woman to defend her life than in a man. Nobody, I suppose, wishes -to hurt those people; but if they attempt to hurt us, why should we -women feel shocked at the notion of our helping the sailors to protect -the ship by any means in our power? I am like Mr. Fairthorne,’ she -continued, with a sarcastic glance at me; ‘I could not fight with a -sword, but I can certainly pull the trigger of a musket.’ - -‘It is really hardly lady-like, my dear,’ began Mrs. Radcliffe. - -‘Nonsense, aunt! Lady-like! Is it more genteel to fall into hysterics -and swoon away, than to take aim at a wicked wretch who will have your -life if you don’t take his?’ and as she said this, she whipped a cotton -umbrella out of her aunt’s hand, and putting it to her shoulder, as -though it were a gun, levelled it at the brig. - -Colledge, who was standing at a little distance away, talking to two -or three of the passengers, clapped his hands and laughed out. For -my part, I could not take my eyes off her, so fascinating were the -beauties of her fine form in that posture, her head drooped in the -attitude of the marksman, and her marble-like profile showing out clear -as a cutting in ivory against the soft shadowy mass of gloom of the sky -astern. - -Mrs. Radcliffe again tossed her arms in a despairful gesture, with -a pecking, so to speak, of her face at the gangs of men on the -quarter-deck and waist; and then making a little flurried snatch at her -umbrella, she passed her arm through her niece’s, exclaiming: ‘Help me -to reach the cuddy, my dear. There’s a thunderstorm brewing, I’m sure, -and I’m afraid of lightning.’ She made me a little staggering curtsey, -and walked with Miss Temple to the companion, down which the pair of -them went, followed by Mr. Colledge, who I could hear complimenting -Miss Temple on her resolution to fight the enemy, if the stranger -should prove one. - -A few minutes later Mr. Emmett and Mr. Johnson approached me, bumping -against each other like a brace of lighters in a seaway as they struck -out on the swaying deck with their staggering legs. - -‘I say, Dugdale,’ cried the journalist, ‘shall you fight?’ - -‘Why, yes,’ I answered. ‘We shall all be expected to help the crew -certainly.’ - -‘I don’t see that!’ exclaimed Mr. Emmett, drawing his wide-awake down -to his nose and folding his arms with a tragic gesture upon his breast, -whilst he swung his figure from side to side on wide-stretched legs. -‘It’s all very fine to expect; but I agree with Johnson, whose argument -is, that we have paid our money to be transported in safety to Bombay; -and I cannot for the life of me see that the captain has any right to -look for cooperation at our hands, unless, indeed, he so contrives it -as to enable us to help him without imperilling our lives.’ - -‘But that fellow yonder may be full of ruffians, Emmett,’ said I; ‘and -if you do not help our sailors to defend the _Countess Ida_, they may -board us; and then they will cut your throat,’ I added, with a look at -his long neck, ‘which is no very agreeable sensation, I believe, and -an experience quite worth a pinch of heroism to evade.’ - -‘It’s a beastly business altogether,’ said he, wrinkling his nose as he -stared at the brig. - -‘But why should they board us?’ exclaimed Mr. Johnson. ‘If they do, it -will be the captain’s fault. Why does he want to go on sticking _here_ -for, as if, by George! we were a man-of-war with three decks bristling -with guns and crammed to suffocation with men?’ - -‘There is no wind,’ said I; ‘and without wind, Johnson, ships cannot -sail.’ - -‘Then why the confounded dickens don’t he lower all the boats,’ he -cried, ‘and fill them with sailors, and tug the ship out of sight of -that beast there?’ - -I laughed outright. - -‘Well, I’m not in the habit of using strong language,’ said Mr. -Emmett, scowling at the brig; ‘but curse me if I’m going to fight. My -simple contention is, I’ve paid my money to be transported peacefully -to India; and,’ added he, with a glance aft at old Keeling, who was -staring up at the sky, as though to observe if there were any drift in -the vapour up there, ‘if he don’t fulfil his undertaking, I’ll sue him -or his owners for breach of contract.’ - -‘I’m no sailor,’ exclaimed Mr. Johnson, ‘but I may claim to have some -intelligence as a landsman, and my argument is,’ he cried, talking in a -loud voice, ‘that it is quite in Captain Keeling’s power to launch the -boats and drag the ship away from this spot. In an hour the brig would -be out of sight.’ - -At that instant there was a flash of lightning that made a crimson -dazzle of the dark heavens beyond the brig, where the sky sloped in a -horrible yellowish slate colour into the sooty thickness which circled -the horizon. - -‘Ha!’ cried Mr. Emmett, ‘I don’t like lightning;’ and he abruptly -trundled down the poop ladder to the quarter-deck and disappeared. - -‘Here’s a mess to be in!’ grumbled Johnson. ‘It’s all very well to -shoot or be shot at if you make butchery a profession. But to be maimed -or killed in some cheap affray--having to fight for people you don’t -care a hang about--obliged, for instance, to jeopardise your eyes, -your limbs, perhaps your very existence, for an old woman like Mrs. -Bannister, when the business is not in one’s line at all--’ He clenched -his fist, and fetching his thigh a whack with it, exclaimed: ‘Let -little hectoring Colonel Cock-a-doodle-doo cut as many throats as he -can come at--I am a man of peace. I have parted with a large sum to get -to India in comfort; and to expect me to help the sailors to fight is -as monstrous as to look to me to assist them in furling the sails and -scrubbing the decks.’ - -Thus speaking, he followed Mr. Emmett down on to the quarter-deck. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -A STORM OF WIND - - -The atmosphere now took a deeper tinge of gloom. Thunder had followed -the blaze of lightning in the west, low, distant, but continuous, like -a rapid succession of the batteries of several ships of war heard from -afar; and as the echoes of this ominous growling swept to our ears over -the glass-smooth heave of the swell, the fresh dye of gloom came into -the day and made an evening darkness of the afternoon. - -The noise of the thunder had been like calling a hush upon the ship. -The men hung in silent groups along the decks; motionless at the wheel -was the tall form of a powerful sailor gripping the spokes with an iron -clutch that was scarcely to be shaken by the frequent hard drag of the -tiller-gear to the kick of the rudder; the seamen stationed at the -guns aft stood with folded arms or hands carelessly thrust into their -pockets gazing at the brig, or, with the impatient looks of sailors -kept idly waiting on deck during their watch below, directing glances -at the horizon or the sky, as though in search of some sign of wind. -The three mates continued to overhang the rail near the captain, who -walked the length of a plank to and fro with a telescope under his arm, -which he would sometimes level at the brig, afterwards addressing his -officers in a low voice. - -All the ladies were below; but shortly after Mr. Johnson had left me, -Miss Temple came on deck and went to the side to look at the stranger, -and there lingered, with her gaze upon the western sky, over which the -lightning was now running in fluid lines, a cascading of fiery streaks -with a frequent dull opening blaze low down, which the heads of the -swell would catch and mirror as though it were an instant gleam of -sunset. Had she condescended to glance my way, I should have joined -her. She loitered a while, and then left the deck; and at the same -moment the second-mate came forward to the break of the poop and called -out an order for the foresail and mizzen topsail to be furled and the -foretopsail to be close reefed. - -‘Very unpleasant state of suspense this,’ said little Mr. Saunders, -stealing to my side and looking up into my face. - -‘Very,’ I answered; ‘but it seems as if the weather was to extinguish -our anxiety as regards the brig.’ - -‘Yes,’ said he. ‘I heard the captain tell Mr. Prance that he believes -there is a gale of wind behind that storm yonder. Gracious me! what a -very vivid flash. Hark! it nears us quickly.’ - -There was a rattling peal of thunder now, a long volleying roar of it, -and a few large drops of rain fell. Mr. Cocker stood at the rail with -a telescope in his hand. He busily watched the men up aloft, sometimes -letting fly an order to the boatswain in a voice that went past the -ear like a stone from a sling. A large drop of rain splashed upon Mr. -Saunders’s nose. - -‘It’s about to burst, I think,’ said he, looking straight up into the -heavens with his modest yearning eyes. ‘I shall go below;’ and down -trotted the little creature. - -‘Mr. Cocker,’ said I, ‘lend me your glass for an instant, will you?’ I -pointed it at the brig. ‘Yes,’ I exclaimed, talking to the second-mate -with the telescope at my eye; ‘I believe I was not mistaken. Full -of men, indeed! Phew! Why, there are hands enough upon her yards to -furnish out the complement of a fifty-gun frigate.’ - -It was indeed as I said. They were furling all canvas upon the -stranger, intending apparently to let her meet what was to come with a -small storm foretrysail, which I could see a crowd of seamen bending -and making ready for setting. Her fore and topsail yards were loaded -with men swarming like bees along the thin delicate lines of spars, -and even as I watched, the canvas they were rolling up melted away -into slender streaks of white. In the cross-trees of both masts, and -higher yet on the yards above, and in the tops also, were a number of -men busily employed in sending down the royal, skysail, and topgallant -yards and housing the topgallant masts. There looked to me to be at -least a hundred of a crew to the vessel. - -You found something almost ghastly and absolutely startling in -the sharp distinctness of the little fabric rolling against the -thunder-black skies behind her, and upon the long, malignant, -greenish-hued swell in which the plunging lightning was sparkling as -though the water were crackling with phosphoric fires. Dark as the -atmosphere was with the deep shadow of storm, the brig stood out to the -eye visible to the minutest detail the sight could reach to, plunging -heavily under her naked spars, with her wet black sides darting out the -mirrored flame of the lightning flashes with as clear a dazzle as glass -or polished brass would throw. - -‘The number of her crew witnesses to her character,’ said I, returning -the telescope to Mr. Cocker. - -‘Oh, there is no doubt of her,’ he exclaimed; ‘the captain’s an old -hand, and twigged her speedily.’ - -‘The weather will put an end to her, I expect,’ said I. ‘Very lucky for -us, Mr. Cocker. A large crew of ruffians and six guns of a side, not to -mention a twenty-four pounder in the bows, and cutlasses and small arms -in galore, hardly form a joke. It is easy to figure the beauty, that -sails, I daresay, three feet to our one, quietly sheering alongside -and throwing seventy or eighty of her children aboard, dark-skinned -assassins, armed to the teeth, reeking of garlic. Well, hang me, Mr. -Cocker, if I didn’t believe that the times of those gentry had passed -some years ago.’ - -His lips were moving to answer me, but there was a wide and blinding -flash of lightning at that instant that set the heavens on fire, -immediately followed by a crash of thunder as deafening as though a -first-rate had blown up close aboard us. Yet again the scowl of the -clouds deepened in darkness, and the brig grew vague on a sudden in the -gloom of the storm. - -‘There comes the rain!’ cried Mr. Cocker, pointing to a line of greyish -shadow with a look of steam boiling up as it were from the base of it. -It drew creeping slowly on to the brig, and its perpendicular fall made -one think of it as of a vast sheet of water up above overflowing and -cataracting sheer down over the edge of a cloud. - -‘There is no wind there,’ said I; ‘it is a regular Irishman’s -hurricane, right up and down. But here goes for a waterproof.’ - -I trundled below for a suit of rubber clothes, being too anxious to -observe what was to happen to choose to leave the deck. All the -passengers were congregated in the cuddy, and the lightning, as it -glittered in the port-holes and skylights, flashed up their faces in -the gloomy atmosphere, making them look a pale and trembling crowd. The -colonel was pacing the deck near the piano. Miss Hudson leaned against -her mother with her hands over her eyes. If ever there came a brighter -flash than usual, one lady or another would scream. Colledge and Miss -Temple sat over a draught-board; but I could not gather, from the -hurried glance I threw over the people as I passed through them, that -they were playing. I equipped myself from head to foot in waterproofs -and came again into the saloon on my way to the poop. - -‘Are you going on deck, Dugdale?’ cried Mr. Johnson, shouting aloud, -to render his voice audible above the continuous cannonading of the -thunder. - -‘Yes,’ I replied. - -‘You will be struck dead, sir,’ called out Mrs. Hudson. - -‘I have half a mind to join you,’ said Mr. Emmett, jumping up with a -wild look at the skylight: ‘it’s simply beastly down here.’ - -‘Hark to that!’ bawled the colonel; ‘there’s a shower for you!’ - -The wall of rain had reached us. For a minute before it struck the ship -you could hear it hissing upon the sea like twenty locomotives blowing -off steam; then plump! came the cataract on to our decks. Had every -drop been a brick, the noise could not have been more astounding. One -couldn’t hear the thunder for the roaring of the fall of water and -hailstones, though the deep and awful note of the electric storm was -in it to add to its tremendous sound. The darkness was now so heavy -in the cuddy, that in the intervals of the lightning the faces of the -people were scarce distinguishable. Amid the distracting noises of -the thunder, of the breathless storm of hail and rain, of the water -cascading off the decks overboard in a furious gushing and seething, -arose the chorus of a number of seamen on the quarter-deck hauling upon -the maintopsail halliards there, with the piercing chirruping of the -boatswain’s pipe and hoarse orders delivered overhead from the poop. - -‘Where’s the steward?’ bawled the colonel in his loudest tones. -‘Confound it, are we to be left in total blackness here? Why don’t -some one light the lamps?’ - -‘Are you coming on deck, Mr. Emmett?’ I cried; but he had sunk back -on his seat with his arms folded and his head bowed; and obtaining no -reply, I walked to the companion steps, receiving, as I passed Miss -Temple, a half interrogative glance from her, which made me look again -in readiness to answer the question that seemed to hover on her lips. -But her eyes instantly dropped, and the next instant she had turned to -say something to her aunt, who was on a sofa behind her; so, rounding -on my heel, up I went into the smoking wet. - -There was nothing to be seen but rain--such a sheet of it as one -must explore the latitudes we were in to parallel. The lightning -flashed amidst it incessantly, and every line of the falling water -sparkled like glowing wire in dazzling hues of crimson and of violet -alternating. I waited under the shelter of the companion cover till the -first weight of all this rain and hail should have passed. Through the -haze of moisture that rose like steam off the decks to the cataractal -swamping I could discern the figure of old Keeling looking like a -soaked scarecrow, the fine-weather hat upon his head reduced to pulp -and hanging about his ears like a rotten fig. The fellow at the wheel -stood like a statue amid the drenching downpour; but the men who had -been stationed at the guns were gone. - -I had not been a minute in the hatchway when the heavens seemed to be -split open to the very heart of their depths by a flash of lightning, -followed in the space of the beat of a heart by a shock of thunder that -seemed to happen immediately over our mastheads--a most soul-subduing -crash, if ever there was one! and as if by magic, the rain ceased, -and the atmosphere sensibly brightened. There was a great noise of -shrieking in the cuddy, and half blinded, and pretty handsomely dazed -by that terrible blast of lightning and the thunder-clap which had -followed, I crept down the steps with my pulse beating hard in my ears -to see what had happened, scarce knowing but that some one had been -struck and perhaps killed. - -‘What is it?’ I shouted to the colonel, who stood at the foot of the -ladder. - -‘Only Mrs. Hudson in hysterics,’ he roared; on hearing which I went up -again, being in no temper to make one of the nervous company below. - -The swell had flattened; all to starboard there was an oozing as of -daylight into the breathless thickness, with ugly hump-shaped masses -of black vapour defining themselves up in the ugly sallow smother in a -sort of writhing way, as though they were coming together in a jumble; -but to port it was as black as thunder, an inky slope hoary with rain, -with lightning spitting and zigzagging all over it. I went to the rail, -where stood Mr. Cocker with his clothes full of water. - -‘A pretty little shower!’ said I. - -‘Very,’ he answered, with his face showing of a bleached look like the -flesh of a washerwoman’s hand. ‘A plague on this sort of work, say I! -This serge shrinks consumedly when drenched, and my trousers will be up -to my knees to-morrow morning--three pounds ten as good as washed out -of a man’s pocket.’ - -‘Where’s your glass, Mr. Cocker?’ - -‘In that hencoop there,’ said he. - -I pulled out and directed it at the dim blotch of brig that had caught -my eye stealing out of the wet dusk like the phantom of a ship. - -‘By my great-grandfather’s wig!’ cried I with a start. ‘So! no fear -_now_ of being boarded. Our windpipes are safe for the present. Look -for yourself, Mr. Cocker.’ - -He ogled her an instant, then bawled to the skipper, who was speaking -to Mr. Prance. - -‘The brig’s been struck, sir! Her mainmast is over the side.’ - -In very truth it was as he declared. I whipped the glass out of his -hand for another look, and, sure enough, could clearly distinguish -a whole lumber of wreckage lifting to the roll of the subdued swell -alongside the swaying hull of the brig. Her foremast and topmast stood -intact to the cross-trees, but abaft she was as completely denuded as -if a chopper had been laid to the foot of the mast. The mess is not to -be described. I could make out that a length of her bulwark was crushed -flat, and the black lines of shrouds and gear went snaking overboard -like so many serpents wriggling out of the hatches into the water. But -the gloom was too deep to suffer me to see what her people were doing. - -I went to the companion way and called down to Colonel Bannister. - -‘Halloa? What now? Who wants _me_?’ he shouted. - -‘Tell the ladies, colonel,’ I sung down, ‘that the brig has been struck -by lightning, and that our safety, so far as _she_ is concerned, is -assured.’ - -I heard him roar out the news as I went to the side again, and a moment -after up rushed the whole body of passengers to see for themselves. -The decks were full of water, but nobody seemed to mind that. The -ladies came splashing through it to the rail, some of them taking -terrified peeps at the mass of winking blackness settling away down in -the east, and dodging the play of lightning, as it were, with a sort -of involuntary ducking of their heads and lifting of their fingers to -their eyes. - -Old Keeling cried out: ‘Ladies, be good enough to take my advice and -return to the cabin. We shall be having a strong blow of wind coming -along in a few minutes.’ - -‘Gott, she iss on fire!’ here shouted Hemskirk, pointing directly at -the brig with a fat forefinger, whilst with the other hand he kept a -binocular glass glued to his eyes. - -‘Is it so then, sir!’ cried Mr. Prance to the skipper; ‘there is smoke -rising from her fore-hatch.’ - -Mr. Cocker had replaced his telescope in the hencoop; I jumped for -it, and in a trice had the lenses bearing upon the brig. There was an -appearance of smoke, a thin bluish haze of it, as though mounting from -a newly kindled bonfire, slowly going spirally into the motionless air; -but almost at the instant of my first looking I thought I could witness -something of a ruddy tinge flashing for a breath into this smoke, as -if to a sudden leap of flame. Though the brig lay at the same distance -that had separated her from us throughout the afternoon, the shrouded -and heaped-up vaporous wall of firmament beyond her seemed to heave her -as close again to us as she really was; and now quite easily by the aid -of the glass I could see her decks as she rolled them our way dark with -her people, many of them hacking and hewing at her rigging, as though -to clear away the wreckage; others seemingly passing buckets along; -others, again, running wildly and as it might seem aimlessly about, -whilst with the regularity of a swing in action the beautifully moulded -hull rolled quietly from side to side with a rhythmic oscillation -of her one mast upon which the fragment of white trysail filled and -hollowed as it beat the air, starting out upon the eye with a very -ghastliness of pallor as it swelled to its cotton-like hue out of the -shadow of its incurving, and hovered like some butterfly over the -hideous dusky green of the swell. - -I replaced the telescope. - -‘Here comes the wind!’ I heard Mr. Cocker sing out. - -‘Ladies,’ cried old Keeling, ‘let me beg of you to step below.’ - -Most of them complied, but a few lingered, staring with curiosity at -the coming weather. I watched it with amazement, for never before had I -seen a storm of wind coming down upon a ship in a sort of wall. One saw -the line of it in a ridge of foam whose extremities were lost in the -gloom on either hand. It was of a glass-like smoothness all in front -of it, and not a breath of air was to be felt when the stormy hissing -of it was loud in our ears as it came sweeping up, the clouds on high -darting to right and left, and a paler faintness, as of increasing -daylight, coming into the air along with it. The bull-like notes of Mr. -Prance rang from the poop through the ship. - -‘Stand by maintopsail halliards--foretopsail sheets--foretopmast -staysail down-haul.’ - -The wind struck the brig. My eye was upon her, and she disappeared in -the shrieking whirl of flying spume as you extinguish a reflection in -a mirror by breathing upon the glass. A minute later it was upon us. -It smote the Indiaman right abeam, and down she lay in a seething and -hissing flatness of boiling waters, stooping yet and yet, till the line -of the topgallant bulwark rail looked to be flush with the furious -yeasty smother. There were two men at the helm holding the wheel jammed -hard over. I swung to a belaying pin on the weather rail, and the poop -deck went down from me to leeward at an angle that made one’s eyes -reel in the head to look along it. There was a true hurricane note in -the bellowing of the wind on high under the rush and disparting of the -maddened clouds, and the first flash of it between our masts was as -the passage of a score of locomotives racing by at express speed and -shrieking as they went. - -I was waiting to see what the ship meant to do, when the weather -maintopsail sheet parted, though a treble-reefed sail, with a sound -like another clap of thunder, and in a moment the canvas was flogging -away from the yard in ribands, with Mr. Cocker shouting at the top -of his voice, and a crowd of seamen tumbling and capsizing about the -main deck to the officer’s orders to haul upon the clewlines. It was -at that instant, amidst all this prodigious hallabaloo, that I caught -sight of Miss Temple to leeward of the mizzen mast holding on to some -gear that was belayed at the foot of the mast. As my gaze rested on -her, the rope she grasped either overhauled itself or was detached from -the pin, and she swung out to leeward. There were hencoops and rails -and the mizzen shrouds to save her from going overboard; but there was -nothing to prevent her from breaking a limb, or even her neck, if she -let go. Though my legs yet preserved something of their old seafaring -nimbleness, the slope of the deck made desperate work for them. Yet -the girl must be reached, and at once. She did not appear to have -sense enough to lower herself down the rope till her feet touched, in -which posture she might have hung with safety. She maintained her first -clutch of the gear, and swung above the deck to the height of some two, -perhaps three feet. Keeling, who was clinging to the weather vang, did -not seem to see her. The helmsmen grinding at the wheel heeded nothing -but their business. Mr. Prance and the second officer clawing at the -brass rail at the break of the poop, leaned to windward, with their -eyes on the streaming rags of the maintopsail shouting commands. - -There was only one means of arriving at the girl with any approach to -swiftness. I dropped on to the deck, and went down upon my knees with -my head to windward, and worked my way stern first in that attitude -to the line of lee hencoops, along which I made shift to travel half -jammed by my own weight against the bars of the coops, until, coming -abreast of the girl, I got upon my legs, and firmly planting my left -foot against the bottom of the row of boxes in which the fowls were -immured, and leaning on my right leg in a fencing posture, I put my -arms round her waist and told her to let go. She did so at once, as -likely as not because she could hold on no longer. The weight of her -noble figure was rather more than I had bargained for. I had thought to -hold her fairly off the deck and ease her away, whilst in my arms, down -to the hencoop behind, on which she could sit; but she was too much for -me. I was forced to let her feet touch the planks, where, losing her -balance, she threw her arm round my neck to save herself from falling. -The next moment I was lodged upon the hencoop, she on my knee, and her -arms still enclosing my head; but this was only for a breath or two. -It was easy to lift her to my side, and there she sat, her fine face -dark with blushes, and her eyes sparkling with alarm and confusion and -twenty other passions and emotions, whilst the curve of her bosom rose -and fell with hysteric swiftness. - -‘What a very ridiculous position! It serves me right. I should have -taken the captain’s advice. I should have gone below.’ - -This was all my haughty companion condescended to say. Not a syllable -of thanks--not a glance of softness to reward me! However, to be -reasonable, she could have scarcely been audible had she attempted -more words. Even to catch the few sentences she uttered I had to -strain my ear to the movement of her lips, off which the wind clipped -her speech with a silencing yell. - -There had been but little in the thunder of the storm, which still -showed livid over the eastern horizon, that surpassed the wild and -prodigious roaring of this first outfly of the hurricane. The ship -continued to lie down to the fierce sweep of the wind at the angle she -had reached to--it was as good or bad, indeed, as being on her beam -ends--and Miss Temple and I were forced to keep our seats upon the -hencoop, no more able to crawl up the deck to where the companion hatch -was than had it been a slope of polished ice. This maybe was what she -meant by ‘the ridiculousness of her position.’ The captain, standing to -windward, was sending ominous looks at the band of the foretopsail and -at the foretopmaststay-sail, the cloths of which continued miraculously -to hold. There was too much wind for the sea to rise suddenly; indeed, -the weight of the blast had smoothed down what remains of swell the -rain and hail had left; the ocean was a level surface of foam, out of -which the tempest of wind was tearing up whole snowstorms of flakes -of spume, which flew over the ship in clouds that whitened out into a -sort of dazzle, as though sun touched, as they flew in their throbbing -masses athwart the leaden sky which poured across the sea over the -ship’s bows in rags and trailing lengths and gyrating coils of sooty -vapour. - -‘Look!’ I shouted to Miss Temple, and pointed over our stern, where, -out of the flying faintness and thickness of spray, the figure of the -brig was at that instant forming itself. - -I sprang upon the hencoop, the better to see, grasping the mizzen -shrouds for support. - -‘Shall I give you a hoist?’ I cried to the girl. - -Her curiosity was too strong; the flying brig--a fleeting vision of the -object which had filled us with alarm and suspense throughout the day, -was a wonder to be witnessed at such a time as that at any cost. Her -lips parted in the word yes to the howl of the gale, and in a moment I -had her up alongside of me, my arm through hers, securely gripping and -supporting her, and the pair of us gazing breathlessly at the sight -astern. - -With her single mast rising to the topmast cross-trees, the yards -square, the remains of the trysail streaming like white hair from gaff -and boltrope, the brig swept under our stern, shooting sheer athwart, -seething smoothly as a sleigh over a level plain of snow, and rushing -before the wind straight as the flight of an arrow. A coil of thick -black smoke, whose base was reddened by sudden tongues of fire, blew -over her bow, and coloured the atmosphere into which she rushed with a -complexion of thunder. It seemed to rise from the fore-hatch, and it -fled straight off the deck. I caught a sight of crowds of men forward -and aft, with a couple of fellows leaping into the fore-rigging as the -brig rushed by, to gesticulate to us. But the vision came and went in -a few breaths like an object seen by lightning. So dense was the gale -with spray, that there was scarcely a cable’s length of opening round -about us. The brig showed and was gone! a phantasm, with the white -waters pouring over her spritsail yard as she rushed through it, and no -more of her was to be noted by the eye during the headlong swiftness of -her plunge from one wall of spindrift into another, than the delicate -lines of her rigging supporting the foremast, the bowsprit vanishing -in a cloud of smoke, blowing ahead of her, a length of white deck, a -flash of skylight glass, the glimmer, so to speak, of some score of -faces turned our way. - -‘She is on fire,’ I cried in Miss Temple’s ear: ‘she carries a doomed -crew into that thickness!’ - -She moved, as if to resume her seat, and very carefully I got her on to -the hencoop again. - -But the first terrific spite of the gale was now gone, and the squab -form of the Indiaman lifting a little out of the seething cauldron in -which she lay with her main-deck rail flush with the yeasty surface, -was beginning slowly to pay off. Her decks gradually grew level, and -presently she was right before the wind, with the howl of it at her -taffrail, and her huge bows heaping up the white sea till the leaps of -the summits were at either cathead. - -Mr. Colledge’s face showed in the companion-way. - -‘Oh, there you are, Miss Temple!’ he roared. ‘Mrs. Radcliffe is firmly -persuaded you have been blown overboard.’ - -She rose, but sat again, for the wind was too strong for her. Friend -Colledge himself seemed pinned by the weight of it in the hatch. - -‘We may be able to manage it between us,’ I shouted; and passing my arm -through hers, I drove the pair of us to windward, and got her on to the -companion ladder, down which she went. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -FIRE! - - -It blew fiercely all that night. A mountainous sea was rolling two -hours after the first of the gale, amid which the _Countess Ida_ lay -hove-to under a small storm trysail, making very heavy weather of -it indeed. There was a deal to talk about, but no opportunity for -conversing. Few were present at the dinner-table, though the sea then -running was moderate in comparison with the sickening heights to which -it swelled later on; and there was little more to be done throughout -the meal than to hold on for dear life, to keep a keen weather-eye -lifting upon one’s food, and to gaze speechlessly across the table at -one another amid an uproar of howling hurricane, of roaring waters, of -straining bulkheads, of a ceaseless clattering of crockery and other -noisy articles, that rendered conversation sheerly impossible. - -And you may add to all this a good deal of consternation amongst us -passengers. I had seen some weather in my time, but never the like of -such a tossing and plunging bout as this. There were moments, indeed, -when one felt it high time to go to prayers: I mean when the ship would -lie down on the slant of some prodigious surge until she was hanging by -her keel off the slope with her broadside upon the water, as though it -were the bottom of her. There were many heave-overs of this sort, every -one of which was accompanied by half-stifled shrieks from the cabins, -by the sounds of the crash of boxes, unlashed articles, chairs, movable -commodities of all kinds rushing with lightning-speed to leeward. -Heavy contributions had been made upon our nervous systems by the -incidents of the day: the vicinity of the brig--the prospect of having -our windpipes slit--the furious thunderstorm--the spectacle of the -lightning-struck craft: and the stock of fortitude left amongst us was -but slender for a manly and courageous encounter of such an experience -as this night was to prove. - -I vividly recall the appearance of the cuddy at eleven o’clock when -the hurricane was nearing its height. The ship was hove-to on the -starboard tack, and the lamps in the saloon would sometimes swing over -to larboard till their globes appeared to rest against the upper deck. -I had managed in some sort of parrot fashion to claw along the table to -abreast of a swinging tray, where I mixed myself a glass of cold brandy -grog, with which I slided down to a sofa on the lee-side; and there I -sat looking up at the people to windward as at a row of figures in a -gallery. - -Heaven knows I was but little disposed to mirth; yet for the life of me -I could not refrain from laughter at the miserable appearance presented -by most of my fellow-passengers there assembled. Near to the cuddy -front, on the windward seats, sat Mr. Johnson, with terror very visibly -working in his white countenance. His eyes rolled frightfully to every -unusually heavy stoop of the ship, and his long lean frame writhed in -a manner ludicrous to see, in his efforts to keep himself from darting -forwards. Near him was Mr. Emmett, who strove to hold himself propped -by thrusting at the cushions with his hands, and forking out his legs -like a pair of open compasses with the toes stuck into the carpet on -the deck, as though he was a ballet dancer about to attempt a pirouette -on those extremities. Little Mr. Saunders, who had thoughtlessly taken -a seat on the weather side, sat with his short shanks swinging high off -the deck in the last agonies, as one could see, of holding on. My eye -was on him when he slided off the cushion to one of those dizzy heaves -of the ship which might have made any man believe she was capsizing. He -shot off the smooth leather like a bolt discharged from a cross-bow, -and striking the deck, rolled over and over in the manner of a boy -coming down a hill. There was nothing to arrest him; he passed under -the table and arrived half-dead within a fathom of me; on which I edged -along to his little figure and picked him up. He was not hurt, but was -terribly frightened. - -‘What shocking weather, to be sure!’ was all he said. - -I put my glass of grog into the worthy little creature’s hand, and he -thanked me with one of his long-faced, wistful looks, then applied the -tumbler to his mouth and emptied it. - -But to end all this: at three o’clock in the morning there was a -sensible decrease in the gale. I had fallen asleep in the cuddy, and -waking at that hour, and finding but one lamp dimly burning, and the -interior deserted, I worked my way to the hatch, groped along to my -cabin, and tumbled into my bunk, where I slept soundly till half-past -eight. The sun was shining when I opened my eyes: the ship was plunging -and rolling, but easily, and in a floating, launching manner, that -proved her to be sailing along with the wind aft. Colledge was seated -in his bunk with his legs over the edge, gazing at me meditatively. - -‘Awake?’ he exclaimed. - -‘Yes,’ said I. - -‘Fine weather this morning, Dugdale. But preserve us, what a night -we’ve come through, hey? D’ye remember talking of the _fun_ of a -voyage? Yesterday was a humorous time certainly.’ - -I sprang out of bed. ‘Patience, my friend, patience!’ said I; ‘this -trip will end, like everything else in our world.’ - -‘Ay, at the bottom of the sea, for all one is to know,’ he grumbled. ‘A -rod of land before twenty thousand acres of shipboard, say I. By the -way, you and Miss Temple looked very happy in each other’s company when -I peeped out of the hatch yesterday to see what had become of her, at -her aunt’s request.’ - -‘You should have risen through the deck a little earlier,’ said I. ‘Yon -would have found her hanging.’ - -‘Hanging!’ he cried. - -‘Oh, not by the neck,’ said I. - -‘What did you do?’ - -‘I rescued her. I seized her by the waist and bore her gloriously to a -hencoop.’ - -‘Did you put your arms round her waist?’ said he, staring at me. - -‘I did,’ I exclaimed. - -He looked a little gloomy. Then brightening in a fitful kind of way, he -said: ‘Well, I suppose you _had_ to do it--a case of pure necessity, -Dugdale?’ - -I closed one eye and smiled at him. - -‘She’s a very fine woman,’ said he, gazing at me gloomily again. ‘I -trust you have not been indiscreet enough to tell her that I am engaged -to be married?’ - -‘Oh now, my dear Colledge, _don’t_ let us trifle--_don’t_ let us -trifle!’ said I. ‘Scarcely have you escaped the risk of being boarded -by pirates--the chance of being beheaded by some giant picaroon--of -being struck dead by lightning--of foundering in this ship in the -small-hours, when round with circus speed sweep your thoughts to the -ladies again, and your mouth is filled with impassioned questions. -Where’s your gratitude for these hairbreadth escapes?’ and being by -this time in trim for my morning bath, I bolted out of the cabin, -laughing loudly, and deaf to his shout of, ‘I say, though, _did_ you -tell her that I was engaged?’ - -The ocean was a very grand sight. The wind still blew fresh, but as -the ship was running with it, it seemed to come without much weight. -The sea was flowing in long tall surges of an amazing richness and -brilliance of blue, and far and near their foaming heads flashed out -to the sunshine in a splendour of whiteness that contrasted most -gloriously with the long dark slopes of unbroken water. From sea-line -to sea-line the sky was overspread with clouds of majestic bulk and -grandeur of swelling form, as white in parts as the foam which broke -under them, and with many rainbows in their skirts, and a tender -violet shading in the centre of them, that gave them as they soared -above the horizon the look of brushing the very heads of the coursing -seas. The Indiaman was thundering through it under whole topsails and -topgallant-sails, rolling with the stateliness of a line-of-battle ship -as she went, with a rhythmically recurring stoop of her ponderous bows -till the water boiled to the line of her forecastle rail, and her deck -forward looked to lie as flat as a spoon in the dazzling smother. - -I saw Mr. Prance on the poop, and having had my bath, stepped aft to -exchange a greeting with him. - -‘The ship appears to have come safely out of last night’s mess,’ said I. - -‘It was a real breeze,’ he answered; ‘nothing suffered but the -maintopsail. The _Countess Ida’s_ a proper ship, Mr. Dugdale. Those who -put her together made all allowances, even for her rats. There’s some -craft I know would have strained themselves into mere baskets in last -night’s popple. But there was not an inch more of water this morning in -the _Countess’s_ well than will drain into her in twenty-four hours in -a river.’ - -‘And the brig, Mr. Prance? I believe I and Miss Temple were the two -who saw the last of her.’ - -‘No. Captain Keeling spied her as she swept under our stern,’ said he. -‘She was on fire; and by this time, I reckon her beautiful hull--and -truly beautiful it was, Mr. Dugdale--will be represented somewhere -around us here by a few charred fragments.’ - -‘Or,’ said I, ‘even supposing they managed to extinguish the fire, Mr. -Prance, her one mast with most of its heavy hamper aloft was not going -to stand the hurricane very long. So she’ll either be a few blackened -staves, as you say, or a sheer hulk. And her people?’ - -‘Ah,’ exclaimed the chief mate, fetching a deep breath, ‘from eighty to -a hundred of them I allow. There’s no boat put together by mortal hands -could have lived last night. By heavens though, but it is enough to -make a harlequin thoughtful to figure such a ship-load of souls as that -brig carried hurried into mere carcases for the deep-sea dab to smell -to and the wall-eyed cod of the Atlantic to nibble at.’ - -‘Now, honestly, Mr. Prance--do you really believe there was anything of -the pirate about that brig?’ - -‘Honestly, Mr. Dugdale, I do, sir; and I haven’t a shadow of a doubt -that if the weather had taken any other turn, if a sailing breeze had -sprung up, or the water had held smooth enough for a boating excursion, -her people would have put us to our trumps with a good chance of their -crippling us and plundering us, to say no more.’ - -Here the breakfast bell rang, and I rushed to the cabin to complete my -toilet for the table. - -There was no lack of talk this morning when the passengers had taken -their places. The anxieties of the preceding day and night seemed only -to have deepened the purple hue of old Keeling’s countenance, and his -face showed like the north-west moon in a mist betwixt the tall points -of his shirt collars, as he turned his skewered form from side to side -answering questions, smirking to congratulations, and bowing to the -‘Good-morning, captain,’ showered upon him by the ladies. Mr. Johnson -came to the table with a black eye, and Dr. Hemmeridge’s forehead -was neatly inlaid with an immense strip of his own sticking-plaster, -the effect in both cases of the gentlemen having fallen out of their -bunks in the night. Colonel Bannister had sprained a wrist, and the -pain made him unusually vindictive and aggressive in his remarks. The -weather had not apparently served the ladies very kindly. Mrs. Hudson -presented herself with her wig slightly awry, and her daughter looked -as if she had not been to bed for a week. It was hard to realise, -in fact, that the pale spiritless young lady with heavy violet eyes -looking languidly through their long lashes, which deepened yet the -dark shadow in the hollows under them, was the golden, flashful, -laughing, coquettish young creature of the preceding morning. - -I had made sure of a bow at least from Miss Temple; but I never once -caught so much as a glance from her. Yet she was very easy and smiling -in her occasional conversation with Colledge across the table. She -alone of the women seemed to have suffered nothing from the violent -usage of the night that was gone. In faultlessness of appearance, so -far as her hair and attire and the like went, she might have stepped -from her bedroom ashore after a couple of hours spent with her maid -before a looking-glass. Not even a look for me, thought I! not even one -of those cold swiftly fading smiles with which she would receive the -greeting of a neighbour or a sentence from the captain! - -I was stupid enough to feel piqued--to suffer from a fit of bad temper, -in short, which came very near to landing me in an ugly quarrel with -Mr. Johnson. - -‘D’ye know, I rather wish _now_,’ said this journalist, addressing -us generally at one end of the table, but with an air of caution, as -though he did not desire the colonel to hear him, ‘that that brig -yesterday _had_ attacked us. It would have furnished me with an -opportunity for a very remarkable sea-description.’ - -‘Tut!’ said I, with a sneer; ‘before a man can describe he must see; -and what would _you_ have seen?’ - -‘Seen, sir?’ he cried; ‘why, everything that might have happened, sir.’ - -‘Amongst the rats perhaps down in the hold. Nothing more to be seen -_there_, unless it’s bilgewater.’ - -‘Goot!’ cried Mynheer Hemskirk. ‘It vould hov been vonny to combare -Meester Shonson’s description mit der reeality.’ - -‘I will ask you not to question my courage,’ said Mr. Johnson, looking -at me with a face whose paleness was not a little accentuated by his -black eye. ‘I believe when it came to the scratch I should be found as -good as another. _You_ would have fought, of course,’ he added, with a -sarcastic sneer at me. - -‘Yes; I would have fought then, just as I am ready to fight now,’ said -I, looking at him. - -‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ exclaimed Mr. Prance, in a subdued reprimanding -voice, ‘the ladies will be hearing you in a minute.’ - -‘You have been a sailor, Dugdale, you know,’ remarked Mr. Emmett in -a satirical tone, ‘and might, therefore, have guessed yesterday that -either the brig was a harmless trader, or that, supposing her to have -been of a piratical nature, she would not attack us.’ - -‘And what then?’ cried I, eyeing him hotly. - -‘Well,’ said he, with a foolish grin, ‘of course, under those -circumstances, a large character for heroism might be earned very -cheaply indeed.’ - -Johnson lay back in his chair to deliver himself of a noisy laugh. -His seat was a fixed revolving contrivance, and its one socketed leg -might have been injured during the night. Be this as it may, on the -journalist flinging himself back with a loud applauding ‘Ha! ha!’ of -his friend Emmett’s satiric hit at me, the chair broke, and backward -he went with it with a knife in one hand and a fork in the other. -Old Keeling started to his feet; the stewards came in a rush to the -prostrate man. Those ladies who were near gathered their gowns about -them as they watched him plunging in his efforts to extricate himself -from the chair, in which his hips were in some manner jammed. For my -part, having breakfasted, and being half suffocated with laughter, -I was glad enough to run away out on deck. Indeed, the disaster had -cooled my temper, and this occurrence was something to be thankful for, -since one thing was leading to another, and, for all one could tell, -the journalist and I might have come to blows as we sat side by side. - -He and Emmett cut me for the rest of the day. My own temper was sulky -for the most part. I spent the whole of the morning on the forecastle, -smoking pipe after pipe in the ‘eyes’ of the ship, yarning in a -fragmentary way with the boatswain, who invented excuses to come into -the ‘head’ to indulge in a brief chat with me, whilst by his postures -and motions he contrived to wear an air of business to the gaze that -might be watching from the poop. - -I would not own to myself that the sullen cast of my temper that -day was due to Miss Temple; but secretly I was quite conscious that -my mood was owing to her, and the mere perception of this was a new -vexation to me. For what was this young lady to me? What could signify -her coolness, her insolence, her cold and cutting disregard of me? We -had barely exchanged a dozen words since we left the Thames. Though -my admiration of her fine figure, her haughty face, her dark, tragic, -passionate eyes was extravagantly great, it was hidden; she had not -divined it; and she was therefore without the influence over my moods -and emotions which she might have possessed had I known that she was -conscious how deeply she fascinated me. She would not even give me -a chance to thoroughly dislike her. The heart cannot steer a middle -course with such a woman as she. Had her behaviour enabled me to hate -her, I should have felt easy; but her conduct was of the marble-like -quality of her features, hard and polished, and too slippery for the -passions to set a footing upon. ‘Pshaw!’ thought I again and again, -as I viciously hammered the ashes out of the bowl of my pipe on the -forecastle rail, ‘am not I an idiot to be thinking of yonder woman in -this fashion, musing upon her, speculating about her--a person who is -absolutely as much a stranger to me as any fine lady driving past me in -a London Park!’ Yet would I repeatedly catch myself stealing peeps at -her from under the arch of the courses, hidden as I was right forward -in the ship’s bows, while she was pacing the length of the poop with -Mr. Colledge, or standing awhile to hold a conversation with her aunt -and Captain Keeling, the nobility of her figure and the chilling lofty -dignity of her bearing distinctly visible to me all that way off, and -strongly defining her amongst the rest of the people who wavered and -straggled about the deck. - -The wind lightened towards noon; the fine sailing breeze failed us, and -sank into a small air off the larboard beam; the swell of the sea went -down, but the colour of the brine was still the same rich sparkling -blue of the early morning. I had never seen so deeply pure and -beautiful a tint in the ocean in these parallels. It made one think of -the Cape Horn latitudes, with the white sun wheeling low, and a gleam -of ice in the distant sapphire south. The great masses of cream-soft -rainbow-tinctured cloud melted out, and at two o’clock in the afternoon -it was a true equinoctial day, and the Indiaman a hot tropic picture, -awnings spread, the pitch softening betwixt the seams, a sort of bluish -steamy haze lazily floating off the line of her bulwark rail, through -which the dim sea-limit showed in a sultry sinuous horizon. The ship -rippled through it, clothed to her trucks with cloths that shone with -the silver whiteness of stars to the hot noontide effulgence. The ayahs -lolled about the quarter-deck, and John Chinaman sat upon a carronade -fretting the baby he held into squeals of laughter and temper by -tossing to. The old sow grunted with a grave grubbing noise under the -long-boat, and fore and aft every cock in the ship was swelling his -throat with defiant fine-weather crowings. - -It was somewhere about three bells that evening--half-past seven -o’clock--that I was standing with Mr. Prance at the brass rail that -protected the break of the poop, the pair of us leaning upon it, -watching a grinning hairy fellow capering in a hornpipe a little abaft -the stowed anchor on the forecastle. The one-eyed ape which we had -rescued, and which by this time was grown a favourite amongst the -seamen, sat low in the foreshrouds, watching the dancing sailor--an odd -bit of colour for the picture of the fore-part of the ship, clothed -as he was in a red jacket and a cap like an inverted flower-pot, the -tassel of it drooping to his empty socket. It was a most perfect -ocean evening, the west glowing gloriously with a scarlet sunset, -the sea tenderly heaving, a soft warm breathing of air holding the -lighter sails aloft quiet. All the passengers were on deck saving -Miss Temple, who was playing the piano to herself in the cuddy. In -the recess just under me were three or four smokers; and the voice of -Mr. Hodder waxing warm in some argument with Mynheer Peter Hemskirk, -entered with unpleasant disturbing emphasis into the tender concert of -sounds produced by the fiddlers forward, the occasional laughter of -the seamen, the tinkling in the saloon, the voices of the ladies aft, -the gentle rippling of water alongside, combining, and softened by -distance and the vastness amid which the ship floated, into a sort of -music. - -I was in the midst of a pleasant yarn with Mr. Prance, whilst we -hung over the rail, half watching the jigging chap forward, and -half listening to each other. He was recounting some of his early -experiences at sea, with a hint in his manner of lapsing anon into a -sentimental mood on his lighting upon the name of a girl whom he had -been betrothed to. - -All on a sudden the music forward ceased. The fiddler that was working -away upon the booms jumped up and peered downwards in the posture of a -man snuffling up some strange smell. The fellow who was dancing came to -a halt and looked too, walking to the forecastle edge and inclining his -ear towards the fore-hatch, as it seemed. He stared round to the crowd -of his shipmates who had been watching him, and said something, and a -body of them came to where he was and stood gazing. The weather clew of -the mainsail being lifted, all that happened forward lay plain in sight -to those who were aft. - -‘What is wrong there?’ exclaimed Mr. Prance abruptly, breaking off -from what he was saying, and sending one of his falcon looks at the -forecastle. ‘The pose of that fiddling chap might make one believe he -was tasting cholera somewhere about.’ - -A boatswain’s mate came down the forecastle ladder and went to the -fore-hatch, where he paused. Then, with a glance aft, he came right -along to the quarter-deck with hurried steps, and mounted the poop -ladder, coming to a stand when his head was on a level with the upper -deck. - -‘What is it?’ cried Mr. Prance. - -The fellow answered in a low voice, audible only to the chief officer -and myself: ‘There’s a smell of fire forwards, sir, and a sound as of -some one knocking inside of the hatch.’ - -‘A smell of fire!’ ejaculated the mate; and swiftly, though preserving -his quiet bearing, he descended to the quarter-deck and walked forward. - -I had long ago made myself free of all parts of the ship, and guessed, -therefore, that, my following in the wake of the mate would attract -no attention, nor give significance to a business which might prove -a false alarm. By the time he had reached the hatch, I was at his -side. The boatswain and sailmaker came out of their cabins, a number -of seamen quitted the forecastle to join us, and the rest gathered -at the edge of the raised deck, looking down. The fore-hatch was a -great square protected by a cover that was to be lifted in pieces. A -tarpaulin was stretched over it with battening irons to keep it fixed, -for this was a hatch there was seldom or never any occasion to enter at -sea, the cargo in all probability coming flush to it. - -I had scarcely stood a moment in the atmosphere of this hatch, when I -became sensible of a faint smell as of burning, yet too subtle to be -detected by a nostril that was not particularly keen. As I was sniffing -to make sure, there came a hollow, dull noise of knocking, distinct, -and unmistakably produced by some one immediately under the hatch -striking at it with a heavy instrument. Mr. Prance hung in the wind for -a second or two snuffling and hearkening with the countenance of one -who discredits his senses. - -‘Why’ he exclaimed, ‘there _is_ somebody below, and--and’---- Here he -sniffed up hard with much too much energy, methought, to enable him -to taste the faint fumes. ‘Carpenter,’ he exclaimed to the withered -old Scotchman who made one of the crowd of onlookers, ‘get this hatch -stripped and the cover lifted--quickly, but _quietly_, if you please.’ - -He looked sternly round upon the men; and then sent a hurried glance -aft, where stood Captain Keeling in the spot we had just vacated, with -Mrs. Radcliffe on his arm. - -The battens were nimbly drawn, the tarpaulin thrown aside, and some -seamen stooped to raise the hatch cover. A few seconds were expended in -prising and manœuvring, in the midst of which the knocking was repeated -with a note of violence in it, accompanied by a general start and a -growl of wonder from all hands. - -‘Heave!’ cried the carpenter, and up came the cover, followed by a -small cloud of blue smoke, and immediately after by the figure of -the hideous sailor Crabb, who sprang from off the top of a layer of -white-wood cases with a loud curse and a horrible fit of coughing. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -CRABB - - -The atmosphere was still red with the sunset, though the luminary -was below the horizon, and there was plenty of light to see by. An -extraordinary shout went up from amongst the men at the sight of Crabb, -as he leapt out of the hatch in the heart of the little cloud of smoke. -Those who were on the side of the deck on to which he jumped recoiled -with a positive roar of horror and fright, one or two of them capsizing -and rolling over and over away from the hatch, as though they were in -too great a hurry to escape to find time to get upon their legs. - -I very well remember feeling the blood desert my cheek, whilst my heart -seemed to come to a stand, and my breathing grow difficult at the -apparition of the fellow. _Crabb!_ Why, I had _seen_ him lying dead in -his bunk! I had heard of him as lying stitched up in a hammock on this -very fore-hatch! I had beheld that same hammock flash overboard, and I -had watched it lifting and frisking away astern! Who, then, was yonder -hideous creature that had jumped in hobgoblin fashion out of the hold? -Could he be the buried Crabb himself? - -There is no lack of things to frighten people withal in this world; but -I cannot conceive of any shock comparable to the instant consternation -felt by a man who meets another of whose death he is profoundly -assured, and whom he has been thinking of as a corpse, dead and buried, -for any number of days gone by. The general horror, the prodigious -universal amazement which held the mate and me and others amongst us -speechless and motionless, as though we had been blasted and withered -up by some electric bolt from heaven, scarcely endured a minute; yet -by that handful of seconds was the picture of this amazing incident -framed. I see Crabb now as he let fall his arm from his face when his -fit of choking coughing ceased: and I recall the blind wild look of his -distorted eyes, as he slowly turned his countenance round, as though -the mild evening light was violently oppressive to his vision after -the days of blackness passed in the hold. His repulsive countenance -was dark with dirt and grime. I observed many scratches upon his -arms, which were naked to the elbows, as though he were fresh from -squeezing and boring through some ugly jagged intricacies of stowed -commodities. His shirt hung in rags upon him; there were many rents in -his loose trousers; and there was blood upon his exposed chest, from -a wound seemingly made by the sharp head of a nail or some edge of -iron-sheathed case. - -‘Seize that man, bo’sun,’ suddenly roared Mr. Prance, leaping out of -his benumbed condition of astonishment in a way to make one think of a -bull sweeping out through a hedge: ‘handcuff him, and shut him up in -your berth for the present. Get the head-pump rigged--the hose passed -along. Jump for buckets, and stand by to pass them down.’ - -The powerful hand of the boatswain closed like a vice upon Crabb’s -neck. I thought to see a struggle, but the ugly sailor seemed weak -and dazed, and stepped passively to the boatswain’s berth into which -my friend shot him, following and closing the door, to conceal, I -suppose, the operation of manacling the man from the eyes of the -half-stupefied Jacks. - -Half-stupefied, I say: but the orders of the mate were like the -flourish of some magic wand over each man. There was a headlong rush, -though with something of discipline in the hurry of it too, at the -chief officer’s command. Smoke was draining through the open hatch, -floating up thinly and lazily, though it was a thing to make one -hold one’s breath, not knowing but that the next vomit might prove a -thicker, darker coil, with a lightning-like reddening of the base of -it to the flicker of some deep down tongue of flame. Fire at sea! Ah, -great God! Out of the mere thought of it will come the spirit of the -fleetest runner into the laziest and most lifeless shanks. - -The mate sprang on top of the cases stowed level with the lower edges -of the hold with a cry for men to follow him. The interior was the -fore-part of the ’tween decks, bulkheaded off some little distance -before the mainmast, and filled with light, easily handled goods. The -hatch conducting to the ship’s hold lay closed immediately under these -few tons of freight in a line with the yawning square into which Mr. -Prance had sprung. Where was the fire? If in the lower hold, then -heaven help us! I glanced aft, and saw the captain hastily walking -forward. The passengers had come together in a crowd, and were staring -with pale faces from the head of the poop ladder. Old Keeling was -perfectly cool. He asked no questions, made no fuss, simply came to the -side of the hatch, saw Mr. Prance and a gang of men at work breaking -out the cargo, and stood watching, never hindering the people’s labour -by a question. His keen seawardly eye took in everything in a breath. -One needed but to watch his face to see _that_. The placidity of the -fine old fellow was a magnificent influence. In an incredibly short -space of time, the captain meanwhile never once opening his lips, the -head-pump was rigged, the hose trailed along and pointed ready, a -number of seamen were standing in files with buckets ranged along all -prepared for drawing water, and passing it to the hatchway with the -swiftest expedition. I cannot express the wonderful encouragement the -heart found in this silence alone. The captain trusted his chief mate, -saw that he exactly knew what to do, and stood by as a spectator, with -just one look of approval at his quiet, resolute, deep-breathing ranks -of seamen awaiting orders. - -Once he turned his purple face, and observing Mr. Johnson and Mr. -Emmett and one or two others nervously edging their way forwards, he -beckoned with a long forefinger to a boatswain’s mate and said in a low -voice: ‘Drive those gentlemen aft on to the poop, and see that none of -the passengers leaves it.’ He glanced at me once, but said nothing, -possibly because he had found me looking on when he arrived. - -All as tranquilly as though the job was no more than the mere breaking -out of a few boxes of passengers’ luggage, the work of removing the -cargo so as to get at the fire proceeded. The smoke continued to steal -stealthily up. The contents of the cases I do not know, but they -were light enough to be lifted easily. A number of them were got on -deck. The mate and Mr. Cocker--who had arrived from his cabin shortly -after the captain had come--headed the gang of workers, and rapidly -disappeared in the lanes they opened. - -‘Here it is!’ at last came a muffled shout. - -Mr. Cocker coming out of a dark hole like a rat, with the perspiration -streaming from him as though a bucket of oil had been capsized over his -head, sang out for the hose to be overhauled and the pump to be worked. - -‘Have you discovered the fire, sir?’ said the captain, calling down to -him in such a collected voice as he would have used in requesting a -passenger to take wine with him. - -‘Yes, sir. It is a small affair. The hose will suffice, I think, sir.’ - -An instant after, the clanking of the plied pump was to be heard along -with the sound of water steadily gushing, followed by a cloud of steam, -which quickly vanished. A quarter of an hour later the mate came up -black as a chimney-sweep. He touched his cap to the captain, and simply -said: ‘the fire’s out, sir.’ - -‘What was it, Mr. Prance?’ - -‘A bale of blankets, sir.’ - -‘Can you guess how it originated?’ - -‘I expect that the man Crabb----’ began the mate. - -The captain started and stared. - -‘The man Crabb,’ continued Mr. Prance, ‘whom we imagined dead and -buried, sir, has been skulking in the hold’--old Keeling frowned with -amazement--‘and I have no doubt he fired the bale whilst lighting his -pipe.’ - -‘Crabb in the hold!’ cried the skipper; ‘do you speak of the man whom -we buried, sir?’ - -‘The same, sir,’ answered Mr. Prance. - -Old Keeling gazed about him with a gaping face. ‘But he died, sir, and -was buried,’ he exclaimed. ‘I read the funeral service over him, and -saw, sir--Mr. Prance, I _saw_ with my own eyes the hammock fall from -the grating after it had been tilted.’ - -The chief officer said something in reply which I did not catch, -owing to the noise amongst the men who were yet in the hold and the -talk of the sailors round about. He then walked to the boatswain’s -berth followed by the captain, that old marline-spike’s eyes might -bear witness to the assurance that the Crabb who had leapt up out of -the fore-hatch in a smother of smoke was the same Crabb who had been -solemnly interred over the ship’s side some weeks before. - -Mr. Cocker came wriggling out of the hold and got on to the deck -alongside of me to superintend the restowal of the broken-out goods. - -‘Is the fire out?’ I asked. - -‘Black out,’ he answered. ‘It was no fire, to speak truly of it, Mr. -Dugdale. A top bale of blankets or some such stuff was smouldering in -about the circle of a five-shilling piece--a little ring eating slowly -inwards, but throwing out smoke enough to furnish forth a volcano for -a stage-scene. A beastly smell! not to speak of some of the stuff down -there being as blackening as a shoe-polisher’s brushes.’ Here he looked -at the palms of his hands, which were only a little more grimy than his -face.--‘But what’s this I hear about Crabb? Has the dead sailor come to -life again?’ - -‘He’s yonder,’ said I, nodding towards the boatswain’s berth, which -the captain and mate had entered, closing the door after them: ‘you’ll -need to see to believe. Time was that when a man was dropped over a -ship’s side with a cannon-ball at his feet he was as dead as if his -brains were out. D’ye remember, Mr. Cocker, how that hammock went -floating astern, as if there were less than a dead sailor in it, though -something more than nothing? There’s been some devilish stealthy -scheme here depend upon it. We may yet find out that the ship wasn’t -scuttled because the ugly rogue hadn’t time to pierce through the lower -hatch before he set the vessel on fire.’ - -‘But he was a dead man, sir; Hemmeridge saw him dead,’ cried Cocker, -eyeing me with an inimitable air of astonishment. - -‘Ay,’ said I, ‘dead as the bones of a mummy. But he’s _there_ all the -same,’ I added pointing to the forecastle cabin, ‘as alive as you or I, -and capable, I daresay, of kicking after a little.’ - -At this moment the mate put his head out of the boatswain’s berth and -called to Mr. Cocker, on which I walked leisurely aft, with amazement -in me growing, and scarcely capable of realising the truth of what I -had seen. - -The passengers were still crowding the fore-part of the poop, peering -and eagerly talking, but in subdued voices, with Colonel Bannister -moving angrily amongst them, and the boatswain’s mate sentinelling the -foot of the ladder. - -‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale,’ cried Mrs. Radcliffe, leaning over the rail and -crying down her question with a pecking motion of her head; ‘is the -fire out, do you know? Are we safe?’ - -‘The fire _is_ out, madam,’ I replied, lifting my hat; ‘and the ship -is as safe this minute as ever she was in the Thames. Captain Keeling -will, I have no doubt, be here very shortly to reassure you.’ - -Miss Temple, towering half a head above her aunt, looked down at -me with an air of imperious questioning in her face. There was a -hot scarlet blush all along the west, yet with power enough in -its illumination to render each face of the crowd above quite -distinguishable against the tender shadow stealing from the east -into the air, and I could see an eagerness in the girl’s full, dark, -glowing, and steadfast gaze to warrant me the honour of a conversation -with her if I chose to ascend the ladder. But just then Hemmeridge came -out of the cuddy on to the quarter-deck with the hint of a stagger in -his walk. His eyes showed that he was only just awake, and his hair -that he had run out of his cabin in a hurry. - -‘I say, Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, ‘what’s been the matter, hey? Fire, is -it? And the steward tells me that Crabb has come back. Has the man gone -mad?’ - -‘There’s been a fire,’ said I, ‘and Crabb has come back.’ - -Here Cocker came along the deck. - -‘Doctor, the captain wants you.’ - -‘Where is he?’ - -‘Come along; I’ll take you to him,’ said the second mate, running his -eye over Hemmeridge’s figure with a half-look on at me full of meaning -in it. - -They walked forward, the doctor a trifle unsteady in his gait, I -thought. - -I went to my berth for some tobacco; I stayed a short time below, and -when I returned, the last scar of sunset was gone. The west was a -liquid violet darkness trembling with stars, and the ship was floating -through the darkness of the night, which in these latitudes follows -swiftly upon the heels of the departing day. Captain Keeling had come -aft, and was standing in the midst of a crowd of passengers answering -questions, and soothing the women, who were snapping inquiries in -whole volleys, their voices threaded by tremors and shrill with -nerves. Mr. Prance, who had found time to cleanse himself, was on -deck in charge of the ship. All was hushed forwards. Against the stars -twinkling over the line of the forecastle rail under the foot of the -foresail, that slowly lifted and fell to the heave of the ship. I -could distinguish the outlines of sailors moving here and there in -twos and threes. A subdued hoarse prowling of voices came out of the -block of darkness round about the galley and the long-boat, where were -gathered a number of men, doubtlessly discoursing on the marvellous -incident of the evening. The glittering brilliants in the sky winked -like dewdrops along the black edge of the spars and at the extremity -of the yard-arms; and spite of the voices of the people aft and of the -mutterings forward, so deep was the ocean hush up aloft that again and -again the sound of the delicate night-breeze, breathing lightly into -the visionary spaces of the sails, would fall like a sigh upon the ear. - -‘An exciting piece of work, Mr. Prance,’ said I, stepping to his side, -‘taking it from the start to the close.’ - -‘Why, yes,’ he answered. ‘The passengers will not be wanting in -experiences to relate when they get ashore. Enough has happened -yesterday and to-day, in the way of excitement, I mean, to last out an -ordinary voyage, though it were as long as one of Captain Cook’s.’ - -‘What has Hemmeridge to say about this business of Crabb, do you know?’ -I asked. - -‘You will keep the news to yourself, if you please,’ he answered; ‘but -I don’t mind telling _you_ that he’s under arrest--that is to say, he -has to consider himself so.’ - -‘What for?’ I asked, greatly astonished. - -‘Why, Mr. Dugdale,’ said he, slowly looking round, to make sure that -the coast was clear, ‘you may easily guess that this business of the -scoundrel Crabb--an old pirate, as I remember telling you, signifies a -very deep-laid plot, an atrociously ingenious conspiracy.’ - -‘I supposed that at once,’ said I. - -‘The fellow Crabb feigned to be dead,’ he continued. ‘A sham it must -have been, otherwise he wouldn’t be in irons yonder. Now, are we to -believe that Hemmeridge can’t distinguish between death and life? He -reports the man dead to the captain. The fellow is stitched up; but, -as we have since ascertained, a prepared hammock is substituted for -the one that conceals his remains, and we bury maybe some clump of -wood. This is the part Captain Keeling least likes, I think. He is a -pious old gentleman, and his horror when’---- He checked himself with -a cough, and a sound on top of it like a smothered laugh, as though he -enjoyed some fancy in his mind, but durst not be too candid, since it -was the captain he talked about. - -‘It is assumed,’ said I, ‘that Hemmeridge represented Crabb as dead -knowing him to be alive?’ He nodded. ‘What will have been the project?’ -I continued, shaping out the truth as, bit by bit, it formed itself -in my head. ‘Robbery, of course. Ay, Mr. Prance, that will have been -it. Crabb is to be smuggled into the hold, the notion throughout the -ship being that he is dead and overboard; and when in the hold’---- I -stopped. - -‘Well,’ said he with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘there’s the mail-room. -What else? With a parcel of diamonds in it worth seventy thousand -pounds, not to speak of money, jewelry, and other precious matters.’ - -‘By heavens! did any man ever hear the like of such a plot?’ cried I; -‘and Hemmeridge is suspected as a confederate?’ - -‘We shall see, we shall see,’ he answered. - -‘Just tell me this, Mr. Prance,’ I exclaimed, thirsty with curiosity, -‘who are the others involved? Somebody must have shifted Crabb’s -remains.’ - -‘The sailmaker is in irons,’ said he. - -‘Yes! I might have sworn it! Why is it that the high Roman nose of that -chap has haunted my recollection of the ghastly appearance Mr. Crabb -presented at every recurrence of my mind to the loathsome picture?’ - -He slightly started, and I could see him eyeing me earnestly. - -‘By the way,’ he exclaimed, ‘now that I think of it, Hemmeridge showed -Crabb’s body to _you_, didn’t he?’ - -‘Certainly he did,’ I responded. - -‘Well, it will give the doctor a chance,’ said he, as though thinking -aloud; and so saying he made some steps in the direction of the -captain, and I went down on the quarter-deck to blow a cloud and muse -upon the matters he had filled my mind with. - - -END OF THE FIRST VOLUME - - - _Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London._ - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Shipmate Louise, Volume 1 (of 3), by -William Clark Russell - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY SHIPMATE LOUISE, VOLUME 1 *** - -***** This file should be named 62343-0.txt or 62343-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/3/4/62343/ - -Produced by David E. 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