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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0b9dd2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66212 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66212) diff --git a/old/66212-0.txt b/old/66212-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 24520ac..0000000 --- a/old/66212-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,19612 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of List, Ye Landsmen!, by William Clark Russell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: List, Ye Landsmen! - A Romance of Incident - -Author: William Clark Russell - -Release Date: September 3, 2021 [eBook #66212] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - available at The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIST, YE LANDSMEN! *** - - - - - LIST, YE LANDSMEN! - - - - - LIST, YE LANDSMEN! - - _A ROMANCE OF INCIDENT_ - - - BY - W. CLARK RUSSELL - - AUTHOR OF “THE WRECK OF THE ‘GROSVENOR,’” “AN OCEAN TRAGEDY,” - “THE FROZEN PIRATE,” ETC., ETC. - - - NEW YORK - CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY - 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY - CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - -CONTENTS. - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I. I ARRIVE IN THE DOWNS, 1 - - II. I VISIT MY UNCLE AT DEAL, 10 - - III. THE GIBBET, 18 - - IV. I ESCAPE FROM THE PRESS, 27 - - V. CAPTAIN MICHAEL GREAVES OF THE _Black Watch_, 34 - - VI. I VIEW THE BRIG, 43 - - VII. A STRANGE STORY, 53 - - VIII. A STARTLING PROPOSAL, 62 - - IX. I FIGHT VAN LAAR, 71 - - X. WE TRANSHIP VAN LAAR, 82 - - XI. THE _Rebecca_, 95 - - XII. THE ROUND ROBIN, 111 - - XIII. A MIDNIGHT SCARE, 124 - - XIV. I SEND MY LETTER, 137 - - XV. THE WHITE WATER, 147 - - XVI. GREAVES’ ISLAND, 160 - - XVII. THE SHIP IN THE CAVE, 171 - - XVIII. WE TRANSHIP THE DOLLARS, 183 - - XIX. OFF THE ISLAND, 198 - - XX. WE START FOR HOME, 213 - - XXI. A FIGHT, 227 - - XXII. GREAVES SICKENS, 242 - - XXIII. THE WHALER, 255 - - XXIV. A SAILOR’S WILL, 267 - - XXV. AURORA ENTERTAINS US, 284 - - XXVI. A TRAGIC SHIFT OF COURSE, 300 - - XXVII. BOL’S RUSE, 315 - -XXVIII. I SCHEME, 331 - - XXIX. AMSTERDAM ISLAND, 345 - - XXX. MY SCHEME, 357 - - XXXI. A QUAKER SKIPPER, 373 - - XXXII. MYNHEER TULP, 391 - - - - - LIST, YE LANDSMEN! - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -I ARRIVE IN THE DOWNS. - - -Sailors visit many fine countries; but there is none--not the very -finest--that delights them more than the coast of their own native land -when they sight it after a long voyage. The flattest piece of treeless -English shore--such a melancholy, sandy, muddy waste, say, as that which -the River Stour winds greasily and slimily through past Sandwich, into -the salt, green, sparkling waters of the Small Downs--the English sailor -will look at with a thirstier and sharper pleasure than ever could be -excited in him by the most majestic and splendid scenery abroad. - -Thus in effect thought I, as I stood upon the quarter-deck of the _Royal -Brunswicker_, viewing the noble elevation of the white South Foreland -off which the ship was then leisurely rolling as she flapped her way to -the Downs with her yards squared to the weak westerly breeze; for--to -take you into my confidence at once--this part of the coast of old -England I had the best of all reasons for loving. First of all, I was -born at Folkestone; next, on losing my parents, I was taken charge of by -a maternal uncle, Captain Joseph Round, whose house stood on the road -between Sandwich and Deal; and then, when I first went to sea, I was -bound apprentice to a master sailing out of Dover Harbor; so that this -range of coast had peculiar associations for me. Consider. It comprised -the sum of my boyish, and of most, therefore, of my happiest, memories; -indeed, I could not gaze long at those terraces of chalk, with their -green slopes of down on top, and with clusters of houses between -sparkling like frost, and many a lozenge-shaped window glancing back the -light of the sun with the clear, sharp gleam of the diamond, without -recollection stealing in a moisture into my eyes. - -The ship was the _Royal Brunswicker_. I was her first mate. The name of -her master was Spalding; mine William Fielding. Captain Spalding had -married a relative of my mother’s. He was a north-countryman, and had -sailed for many years from the Tyne and from the Wear; but two years -before the date of this story--that is to say, in the middle of the year -1812--he had been offered the command of the _Royal Brunswicker_, a -small, cozy, lubberly, full-rigged ship of 490 tons, belonging to the -Port of London. I was stopping at Deal with my uncle at that time, and -heard that Captain Spalding--but I forget how the news of such a thing -reached me at Deal--was in want of a second mate. I applied for the -post, and, on the merits of my relationship with the captain’s wife, to -say no more, I obtained the appointment. - -We sailed away in the beginning of September, 1812, bound to the east -coast of South America. Before we were up with the Line the mate--a -sober, gray-haired, God-fearing Scotsman--died, and I took his post and -served as mate during the rest of the voyage. We called at several -ports, receiving and discharging cargo, and then headed for Kingston, -Jamaica, whence, having filled up flush to the hatches, we proceeded to -England in a fleet of forty sail, convoyed by a two-decker, a couple of -frigates, and some smaller ships of the King. But in latitude 20° north -a hurricane of wind broke us up. Every ship looked to herself. We, with -top-gallant masts on deck, squared away under bare poles, and drove for -three days bow under in foam, the seas meeting in slinging sheets of -living green upon the forecastle. We prayed to God not to lose sight of -us, and kept the chain-pumps going, and every hour a dram of red rum was -served out to the hearts; and there was nothing to do but to steer, and -pump, and swear, and hope. - -Well, the gale broke, and the amazing rush of the wings of seas sank -into a filthy, staggering sloppiness of broken, rugged surge, amidst -which we tumbled with hideous discomfort for another two days, so -straining that we would look over the side thinking to behold the water -full of tree-nails and planks of bottom sheathing. But the _Royal -Brunswicker_ was built to swim. All the honesty of the slow, patient, -laborious shipwright of her time lived in every fiber of her as a noble -conscience in a good man. When the weather at last enabled us to make -sail and proceed from a meridian of longitude many degrees west of the -point where we had parted company with the convoy, we found the ship -staunch as she had been at the hour of her birth. - -All the water she had taken in had tumbled into her from above. What say -ye to this, ye sailors of the paddle and the screw? We made the rest of -the passage alone, cracking on with the old bucket to recover lost time, -and keeping a bright lookout for anything that might betoken an enemy’s -ship. - -And now on the afternoon of September 19, in the year of God 1814, the -_Royal Brunswicker_ was off the South Foreland, languidly flapping with -square yards before a light westerly breeze into the Downs that lay -broad under her bows, crowded with shipping. - -The hour was about three. A small trickle of tide was working eastward, -and upon that we floated along, more helped by the fast failing run of -the stream than by the wind; but there would be dead water very soon, -and then a fast gathering and presently a rushing set to the westward, -and I heard Captain Spalding whistle low as he stood on the starboard -quarter, sending his gaze aloft over the canvas, and looking at the -shipping which had opened upon us as the South Foreland drew away, -seeking with his slow, cold blue north-country eye for a comfortable -spot in which to bring up. - -The coast of France lay, for all its whiteness, in a pale orange streak -upon the edge of the sea, where it seemed to hover as though it were -some sunny exhalation in process of being drawn up and absorbed by the -sun that was shining with September brightness in the southwest sky. But -over that smudge of orange-colored land slept a roll of massive white -clouds, the thunder-fashioned heads of them a few degrees high, and -clouds of a like kind rested in vast shapeless bulks of tufted heaped-up -vapor--very cordilleras of clouds--on the ice-smooth edge of the water -in the northeast. The sea streamed in thin ripples out of the west; and -upon the light movement running through it the smaller of the vessels at -anchor in the Downs were lazily flourishing their naked spars. Captain -Spalding called to me. - -“I shall bring up, Bill,” said he; for Bill was the familiar name he -gave me when we were alone, though it was always “Mr. Fielding” in the -hearing of the men. “I shall bring up, Bill,” said he. “I don’t quite -make out yet what the weather’s going to prove. See those clouds? Who’s -to tell what such appearances signify in these waters? But the westerly -wind’s failing. There’s nothing coming out astern that’s going to help -us,” and he looked at the horizon that way. “I shall bring up.” - -I was mighty pleased to hear this, though indeed I had expected it: for -now might I hope to get leave to pay my uncle, Captain Joseph Round, a -visit for a few hours. I believe Spalding saw what was passing in my -mind; he gazed at the land and then round upon the sea, and fell -a-whistling again in a small note, shaking his head. I reckoned that I -could not do better than ask leave at once, and said: - -“As you intend to bring up, I hope you’ll allow me to go ashore for a -few hours to see how Uncle Joe does. He’d not forgive me for failing to -visit him should he hear that the _Royal Brunswicker_ had anchored -almost abreast of his dwelling-place, and that I had missed your consent -simply for not seeking it.” - -He sniffed and looked suspiciously about him awhile, and answered: - -“Don’t ask me for leave until the anchor’s down and the ship’s snug, and -the weather’s put on some such a face as a man may read.” - -“Ay, ay, sir,” said I. - -“Bill,” said he, “go forward now and see all clear for bringing up. -There’s a good berth some cables’ length past that frigate -yonder--betwixt her and the pink there.” - -As I was walking forward a man came clumsily sprawling over the side on -to the deck. His face was purple; he wore a hair cap, a red shawl round -his throat, and a jersey. I peered over the rail and saw a small Deal -galley hooked alongside, with two men in her. - -“Going to bring-up, sir?” said the man. - -“Yes,” I answered. - -“Where are ye bound to?” - -“To London.” - -“Want a pilot?” - -“You’ll find the captain aft there,” said I. “You are from Deal, I -suppose?” - -“Whoy, yes.” - -“Have you ever heard of Captain Joseph Round?” - -“Ever heard of Cap’n Joseph Round?” echoed the man. “Whoy, ye might as -well ask me if I’ve ever heard or Deal beach.” - -“Is he living?” - -“There’s ne’er a fish a-swimming under this here keel that’s more -living.” - -“And he’s well, I hope?” - -“It’s going to be a bad job when old Cap’n Round falls ill. Old Cap’n -Round’s one of them gents as never knows what it is to have so much as a -spasm; though when the likes of them _are_ took bad, it’s common-loy -good-noight,” said he with an emphatic nod. - -“I don’t reckon your services will be required,” said I; “but I may be -wanting to go ashore after we’ve brought up, and you can keep your eye -upon this ship if you like.” - -“Thank ye, sir. Loike to see a paper, sir?” and here the man thrust his -hand under his jersey and pulled down a tattered newspaper a few weeks -old, gloomy with beer stains and thumb marks; but news, even a few weeks -old, must needs be very fresh news to me after an absence of two years, -during which I had caught but a few idle and ancient whispers of what -was happening at home. I thanked the man, put the newspaper in my -pocket, meaning to look at it when I should have leisure, and stepped on -to the forecastle, where I stood staring about me awaiting orders from -the captain. - -The scene on the water was very grand. There were, probably, two hundred -sail of wind-bound ships at anchor. Every kind of rig, I think, was -there, from the tall spars of the British frigate down to the little, -squab, apple-bowed, wallowing hoy. I am writing this in the year 1849. A -great change in shipping has happened since 1814. You have men-of-war -now with funnels and paddle-wheels; steam has shortened the passage to -India from four months to two months and a half, which is truly -wonderful. Nay, the Atlantic has been crossed in three weeks, and I may -yet live to see the day when the run from Liverpool to New York shall -not exceed a fortnight. But the change since 1814 is not in steam only. -Many are the structural alterations. Ships I will not deny have gained -in speed and convenience; but they have lost in beauty. They are no -longer romantic, and picturesque, and quaint. No; ships are no longer -the gay, the shining, the castellated, the spacious-winged fabrics of my -young days. - -Could you possess the memory of the scene of Downs, as it showed on that -September afternoon from the forecastle of the _Royal Brunswicker_, you -would share in the affectionate enthusiasm, the delight and the regret -with which I recur to it. How am I to express the light, the life, the -color of the picture; the fiery flashing of glossy, low, black, wet -sides, softly stooping upon the silken heave of the sea; the gleam of -storied windows in tall sterns; the radiance of giltwork on the quarter -galleries of big West and East Indiamen, straining motionless at their -hempen cable and lifting star-like trucks to the altitude of the -mastheads of a line-of-battle ship! I see again the long, low, -piratic-looking schooner. Her brand-new metal sheathing rises like a -strong light, flowing upward out of the water on which she rests to -within a strake or two of her covering board. I see the handsome brig -with a rake of her lower masts aft and topgallant masts stayed into a -scarce perceptible curve forward. There is a short grin of guns along -the waist and a brilliant brass-piece pivoted on her forecastle; she is -a trader bound to the west coast of Africa. She will be making the -Middle Passage anon; but she will take care to furnish no warrant for -suspicion while she flies the peaceful commercial flag on this side the -Guinea parallels. And I see also the snug old snow, of a beam expanded -into the proportions of a Dutchman’s stern, huge pieces of fresh beef -slung over the taffrail, a boat triced up to the forestay, and a tiny -boy swinging, knife in hand, at the mast. - -But what I most clearly see is the fine English frigate motionless in -the heart of the forest of shipping that stretches away to right and -left of her. With what exquisite precision are her yards braced! How -admirably furled is every sail, and how finely managed each cone-shaped -bunt! There is no superfluous rigging to thicken her gear. Whatever is -not wanted is removed. Her long pennant floats languidly down the -topgallant mast, and at her gaff-end ripples the flag of Great -Britain--the fighting flag of the State; the flag that, by the victory -at Trafalgar but a few years since, was hauled to the very masthead of -the world, with such stout hearts still left, in this year of God 1814, -to guard the hilliards, that one cannot recall their names without a -glow of pride coming into the cheek and a deeper beat entering every -pulse. - -Ah! thought I, as I gazed at the fine frigate, delighting with -appreciative nautical eye in the hundred points of exquisite equipment -which express the perfect discipline of the sea; admiring the white line -of hammocks which crowned the grim, silent, muzzled tier of ordnance, -the spot of red that denoted a marine, the agility of some fellows in -her forerigging--Heavens! how different from the slow and cumbersome -sprawling of the heavily-breeched merchant Jack! Ah! thought I, while I -kept my eyes bent in admiration upon the frigate, who would not rather -be the first lieutenant of such a craft as that than the first mate of -such an old wagon as this? And yet I don’t know, thought I, keeping my -eyes fastened upon the frigate. It is good to be a sailor to begin -with--best sailor, best man, spite of uniforms and titles and the color -of the flag he serves under. And which service produces the best sailor, -I wonder? And here I told over to myself a number of names of seamen who -had risen to great, and some of them to glorious, eminence in the Royal -Navy, all of whom had served in the beginning of their years in the -merchant service; and then I also thought to myself, who sees most of -the real work--the hard, heavy, perilous work of the ocean--the -man-of-warsman or the merchantman? And I could not but smile as I looked -from that trim and lovely frigate to our own sea-beaten hooker, and from -the few lively hearties of the man-of-war visible upon her decks, to the -weather-stained, round-backed men of our crew, who were hanging about -waiting for the captain to sing out orders. No, I could not help -smiling. - -But while I smiled a volley of orders was suddenly fired off by Captain -Spalding from the quarter-deck, and in an instant I was singing out too, -and the crew were hauling upon the ropes, shortening sail. - -We floated to the spot that Spalding had singled out with his eye, the -Deal boat towing alongside, with the fellow that had boarded us inside -of her, for the captain had promptly motioned him overboard on his -stepping aft, and then the anchor was let go, and the sails rolled up. -It was just then sunset. The frigate fired a gun; down fluttered her -ensign, and a sort of tremble of color seemed to run through the forests -of masts as every vessel, big and little, in response to the sullen clap -of thunder from the frigate’s side, hauled down her flag. A stark calm -had fallen, heavy masses of electric cloud were lifting slowly east and -south, but they were to my mind a summer countenance. Methought I had -used the sea long enough to know wind by my sight and smell without -hearing or feeling it; and I was cocksure that those clouds signified -nothing more than a storm or two--as landsmen would call it--a small -local matter of lightning and thunder, with no air to notice, and a -silent night of stars to follow. - -When I had attended to all that required being seen to by me acting as -the mate of the ship, I went aft to Captain Spalding, who was walking -the deck alone, smoking a pipe, and said to him, “It’s going to be a -fine night.” - -“I believe you are right,” said he, gazing into the dusk of the evening, -amid which the near shipping looked pale, and the more distant craft -dark and swollen. - -“Are you going ashore?” said I. - -“No,” he answered. “There’s nothing at Deal to call me ashore. I know -Deal and I don’t love it, Bill.” - -“I should like to shake Uncle Joe by the hand,” said I. - -“So you shall,” said he. “But see here, my lad, you must keep a bright -lookout on the weather. If ever you’re to keep your weather eye lifting -’tis whilst you are visiting Uncle Joe, for should there come a slant of -wind, I’m off! there’ll be no stopping to send ashore to let you know -that I’m going.” - -“Right you are,” cried I heartily, “a bright lookout shall be kept. But -there’ll be no slant of wind this night--a little thunder, but no wind,” -said I, catching as I spoke the dim sheen of distant lightning coming -and going in a winking sort of way upon the mass of stuff that overhung -the coast of France. - -I stepped below into my cabin to change my clothes. It will not be -supposed that my slender wardrobe showed very handsomely after two years -of hard wear. I put on the best garments I had, a shaggy pilot coat, -with large horn buttons, and a velvet waistcoat, and on my head I seated -a round hat with a small quantity of ribbon floating down abaft it, so -that on the whole my appearance was rather that of a respectable -forecastle hand than that of the chief mate of a ship. - -Here whilst I am brushing my hair before a bit of broken looking glass -in my cabin let me give you in a few sentences a description of myself. -And first of all, having been born in the year 1790, I was aged -twenty-four, but looked a man of thirty, owing to the many years I had -passed at sea and the rough life of the calling. I was about five foot -eleven in height, shouldered and chested in proportion, very strong on -my legs, which were slightly curved into a kind of easy bowling, rolling -air by the ceaseless slanting of decks under me; in short taking me -altogether you would fairly have termed me at that age of twenty-four a -fine young fellow. I was fair, with dark reddish hair and dark blue -eyes, which the girls sometimes called violet; my cheeks and chin were -smooth shaven, according to the practice of those times; my teeth very -good, white, and even; my nose straight, shapely, and proper, but in my -throat and neck I was something heavy. Such was I, William Fielding, at -the age of twenty-four. I write without vanity. God knows it is too -late for vanity! Suppose a ghost capable of thinking: figure it musing -upon the ashes of the body it had occupied--ashes moldering and -infragrant in a clay-rotted coffin twelve foot deep. - -Even as such a ghost might muse, so write I of my youth. - -I pocketed the boatman’s newspaper, lest the cabin servant, coming into -my cabin, should espy and carry it away. And I also put in my pocket -some trifles which I had purchased as curios at one or another of the -ports we had visited, and then going on deck I hailed the boat that had -been keeping close to us, but that was now lying alongside a brig some -little distance away, and bade the fellows put me ashore. - -Sheet lightning was playing round the sea, but stars in plenty were -shining over our mastheads; the water was very smooth; I did not feel -the lightest movement of air. Forward on our ship a man was playing on -the fiddle, and a group of seamen in lounging attitudes were listening -to him. I also heard the voice of a man singing on the vessel lying -astern of us: but all was hushed aboard the frigate; the white lines of -her stowed canvas ruled the stars in pallid streaks as though snow lay -upon the yards; no light showed aboard of her; she lay grim, hushed, big -in the dusk with a suggestion of expectancy in the dominating sheer of -her bows and in the hearkening steeve of her bowsprit, as though -steed-like she was listening with cocked ears and wide nostrils; and -yet, dark as it was, you would have known her for a British man-of-war, -spite of the adjacency of some East and West Indiamen which looked in -the gloom to float nearly as tall as she. - -“It’s a quarter to eight, Bill,” exclaimed Captain Spalding, going to -the companion way and standing in it, while he spoke to me with one foot -on the ladder. “You will remember to keep your weather eye lifting, my -lad. At the first slant I get my anchor; so stand by. Ye’d better ask -Uncle Joe to keep his window open, that you may smell what you can’t see -and hear what you can’t smell. My respects to Uncle Joe. Tell him if I’m -detained here to-morrow I may pay him a visit, unless he has a mind for -a cut of Deal beef and a piece of ship’s bread down in my cabin. Anyhow, -my respects to him,” and he vanished. - -I dropped into the mizzen chains, got into the galley, and was rowed -ashore. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -I VISIT MY UNCLE AT DEAL. - - -The boat was swept to the beach, and I sprang on the shingle. I paid the -men their charges, and paused a moment to realize the thrilling, -inscrutable, memorable sensation which visits a man who, after a long -absence, treads his native soil for the first time. - -After the chocolate faces of the West, and the yellow faces of the East, -and the copper-colored faces of the South; after two years of -mosquitoes, of cathedral-like forests, of spacious roasting bays, of -sharks and alligators, and league-broad rivers, and songless birds -angelically plumed, and endless miles of ocean; after--but I should need -a volume to catalogue all that follows this _after_--after the _Royal -Brunswicker_, in a word, how exquisite was my happiness on feeling the -Deal shingle under my foot; how rejoiced was I to be in a land of white -men and women, who spoke my own native tongue with its jolly, hearty, -round, old Kentish accent, and who lived in a kingdom of roast beef and -Welsh mutton and the best ales which were ever brewed in this world! - -While I paused, full of happy thought, the men who had brought me ashore -dragged their boat up the shingle. Two or three others joined them, and -the little company rushed the boat up in thunder. They then went rolling -silently into Beach Street and disappeared. I was struck by the absence -of animation fore and aft the beach. Many luggers and galley-punts lay -high and dry, but only here and there did I observe the figure of a man, -and, as well as I could make out in the evening dusk, the figure was -commonly that of an old man. Here and there also a few children were -playing, and here and there at an open door stood a woman gossiping with -another. But though I saw lights in the public houses, no sounds of -singing, of voices growling in argument, of maudlin calls, such as had -been familiar to my ear in old times, issued from the doors or windows. -I was surprised by this apparent lifelessness. A fleet of two hundred -sail in the Downs should have filled the little town with bustle and -business, with riotous sailors and clamorous wenches, and a coming and -going of boats. - -There were two ways by which my uncle’s house was to be reached--the one -by the road, the other by the sand hills, a desolate waste of hummocky -sand, stretching for some miles from the north end of Deal toward the -town of Sandwich and the River Stour. I chose the road because I wanted -to taste the country air, to sniff the aromas of the fields and the -hedges as I marched along, and because I wished to put as much distance -as the highway permitted between me and the sea. The sky overhead was -clear; there was no moon as yet, but the stars shone in a showering of -light, and there was much lightning, which glanced to the zenith and -fell upon the white road I was stepping along; and now and again I -caught a low hum of thunder--an odd, vibratory note, like the sound of -an organ played in a church and heard at a distance on a still evening. -The atmosphere was breathless, and I was mighty thankful; but sometimes -I would catch myself whistling for an easterly wind, for I knew not from -what quarter a breeze might come on such a still night, and if the first -of it moved out of the south or west, then, even though my hands should -be upon the knocker of my uncle’s door, I must make a bolt of it to the -beach or lose my ship. - -My Uncle Joe’s house was a sturdy, tidy structure of flint, massively -roofed and fitted to outweather a century of hurricanes. He had designed -and built it himself. It stood at about two miles from Deal, withdrawn -from the road, snug, among a number of trees, elm and oak. Rooks cawed -in those trees, and their black nests hung in them; and in winter the -Channel gales, hoary with snow, shrieked through the hissing skeleton -branches with a furious noise of tempest, that reminded Uncle Joe of -being hove-to off the Horn. - -He had been a sailor. Uncle Joe had been more than a sailor--he had been -pilot and smuggler. He had commanded ships of eight hundred tons -burthen, full of East Indian commodities, and he had commanded luggers -of twenty tons burthen, deep with contraband goods, gunwale flush with -teas, brandies, laces, tobacco, and hollands. Uncle Joe had been a good -friend to me when I was a lad and an orphan. He and his wife were as -father and mother to me, and I loved them both with all the love that -was in my heart. It was Uncle Joe who had educated me, who had bred me -to the sea, who saw when I started on a voyage that I embarked with -plenty of clothes in my chest and plenty of money in my pocket; and to -Uncle Joe’s influence it was that I looked for a valuable East or West -Indian command in the next or the following year. - -I pulled the house-bell and hammered with the knocker. It was dark among -the trees; the house stood black, with a dim red square of window, -where some crimson curtains shut out the lamplight. Until the door was -opened I listened to the weather. All was hushed save the thunder. I -could hear the faint, remote beat of the surf upon the shingle, that was -all. Not a leaf rustled overhead; but though there was not more -lightning, the thunder was more frequent down in the south, as though -the clouds over France were blazing bravely. - -A middle-aged man, clad somewhat after the manner of the longshoremen of -those days--clearly a decayed or retired mariner--pulled open the door, -and, as this was done, I heard my uncle call out: - -“Is it Bill?” - -“It is,” said I, delighted to hear his voice; and I pushed past the -sailor who held open the door. - -My uncle came out of the parlor into the passage, looked up and down me -a moment or two, and extending his hand, greeted me thus: - -“Well, I’m junked!” - -He then shook my hand at least a minute, and bidding me fling my cap on -to a hall chair, he dragged me into the parlor--the snuggest room in -world, as I have often thought; full of good paintings of ships and the -sea, of valuable curiosities, and fine oak furniture. - -Every age has faces of its own, countenances which exactly fit the -civilization of the particular time they belong to. It is no question of -the fashion of the beard or the wearing of the hair. There was a type of -face in my young day which I rarely behold now, and I dare say the type -which I am every day seeing will be as extinct fifty years hence as is -the type that I recollect when I was a young man. How is this, and why -is this? It matters not. It may be due to frequent new infusions of -blood; to the modifications--do not call it the progress--of intellect; -it may be due--but to whatever it may be due it is true; and equally -true it is that my Uncle Joe had one of those faces--I may indeed say -one of those heads--which as peculiarly belong to their time as the -fashions of garments belong to theirs. - -He was clean shaven; his temples were overshot; they set his little -black eyes back deep, and his baldness, co-operating with these thatched -and overhanging eaves, provided him with so broad a surface of forehead -that he might have sat for the portrait of a great wit. My uncle had a -wide and firm mouth; the lips were slightly blue: but this color was not -due to the use of ardent spirits--oh, no! A teetotaler he was _not_, -but never would the mugs _he_ emptied have changed the color of his -lips. They were blue because his heart was not strong, and the few who -remember him know that he died of heart disease. - -He was the jolliest, heartiest figure of a man that a convivial soul -could yearn to embrace; a shape molded by the ocean, as the Deal beach -pebble is molded by the ceaseless heave of the breakers. He thrust me -into a capacious armchair and stood on rounded shanks, staring at me -with his face flushed and working with pleasure. - -“And how are you, uncle?” - -“Well.” - -“And Aunt Elizabeth?” - -“Well.” - -“And Bessie?” - -“Well.” - -“Where are they?” - -“Coming downstairs.” - -And this was true; a moment later my aunt and cousin entered--my aunt a -grave, pale gentlewoman in a black gown, black being her only wear for -these twenty years past, ever since the death of her only son at the age -of four; my cousin a handsome, well-shaped girl of seventeen with -cherry-ripe lips and large flashing black eyes, and abundance of dark -hair with a tinge of rusty red upon it--they entered, I say, and they -had fifty questions to ask, as I had. But in half an hour’s time the -greetings were over, and I was sitting at a most hospitably laden supper -table, having satisfied myself, by going out of doors, that the night -was quiet, that there was still no stir of wind, and that nothing more -was happening roundabout than a vivid play of violet lightning low down -in the sky, with frequent cracklings and groanings of distant thunder. - -I was not surprised that Uncle Joe and his family had not heard of the -arrival of the _Royal Brunswicker_ in the Downs; though I had been -somewhat astonished by his guessing it was I, when I knocked. - -“So you’re chief mate of the ship?” he exclaimed. - -“I am.” - -“How has Spalding used ye, Bill?” - -“Handsomely. As a father. I shall love Spalding till the end of my days, -and until I get command I shall never wish to go afloat with another -man.” - -“Well,” said my uncle, “it is not every skipper, as you know, that -would allow his first mate a run ashore, himself waiting aboard the -while for a slant of wind to get his anchor. No. Don’t let us forget the -weather. Bess, my daisy, there’s no call for Bill to keep all on looking -out o’ doors; get ye forth now and again and report any sigh of wind you -may hear. I’ll find out its quarter, and Bill shall not fail his -captain.” - -“What’s the news?” said I. - -“News enough,” he said; and I sat and listened to news, much of which -was extraordinary. - -I heard of the Yankees thrashing us by land and sea, of fierce and -desperate fighting on the Canadian lakes, of the landing of the Prince -of Orange in Holland, and of his being proclaimed King of the United -Netherlands, of Murat proving a renegade and suing for peace with this -country, of gallant seafights down Toulon way and in the Adriatic and -elsewhere, of the investment of Bayonne by the British army, of the -entry of the Allies into Paris, of peace between England and France, of -Louis XVIII. in the room of Bonaparte, and--which almost took my breath -away--of Bonaparte himself at Elba, dethroned, his talons pared, his -teeth drawn, but with his head still on his shoulders, and in full -possession of his bloody reason. - -“And so he was quietly shipped to Porto Ferraro,” said I, “in a -comfortable thirty-eight gun British frigate, instead of being hanged at -the yardarm of that same craft.” - -“He is too splendid a character to hang,” said my aunt mildly. - -“Junked if I wouldn’t make dog’s meat of him,” cried Uncle Joe. - -“They should have hanged him,” said I. - -“They have hanged a better man instead,” exclaimed my cousin Bess. - -“A king?” - -“No, Bill, he was not a king,” said my uncle, “he was the master of a -ship and part owner, a young chap, too--a mighty pity. They had him up -at Sandwich on a charge of casting the vessel away. He was found guilty -and hanged, and he’s hanging now.” - -“Where does he hang?” said I. - -“Down on the Sandhills.” - -“A time will come, I hope,” said I, “when this beastly trick of -beaconing the sea-coast, and the river’s bank, and the high-ways with -gibbets will have been mended. Spalding was telling me that up in his -part of the country traveling has grown twice as far as it used to be, -by the gibbets forcing people to go out of their way to avoid the sight -of them.” - -“I am sorry for the hanged man,” said my uncle, “but willfully casting a -ship away, Bill, is a fearful thing--so fearful that the gibbet at which -I’d dangle the fellow that did it should be as high as the royal mast -head of the craft he foundered! What d’ye think of that drop of rum?” - -“Is that wind?” said my aunt. - -“Thunder,” said Uncle Joe. - -Bess went to the house door: I followed. We stood listening; the noise -was thunder; there was not a breath of air, but all the stars were gone. -A sort of film of storm had drawn over them, and I guessed I was in for -a drenching walk to the beach. But Lord! rain to a man whose lifetime is -spent in the eye of the weather! - -“Bess,” said I, “you’ve grown a fine girl, d’ye know.” - -“No compliments, William, dear. I am going to be married.” - -“If I had known that before!” said I, kissing her now for the first -time, for congratulation. - -This was fresh news, and we talked about the coming son-in-law, who, to -be sure, must be in the seafaring line too, for once inject salt water -into the veins of a family, and it takes a power of posterity to flush -the pipes clear. - -“What’s wrong with Deal town?” said I. “Is it the neighborhood of the -gibbet that damps the spirits of the place?” - -“What d’ye mean, Bill?” - -“Why, there’s nothing stirring along the beach. There are some two -hundred craft off the town and the bench is as though it were in -mourning; your luggers lie grim as a row of coffins, nothing moving -amongst them but some shadow of old age--like old Jimmy Files, for -example.” - -“It’ll be the press,” said my aunt. - -“Ho!” said I. “Is the king short-handed once more?” - -“There’s not only what’s called deficiency, but what’s termed -disaffection,” said my uncle. “The vote this year was for a hundred and -forty thousand Johnnys and Joeys. They vote, and Jack says be d--d to -ye.” - -“Any men nabbed out of Deal?” said I. - -“Five boatmen last month,” answered Uncle Joe. “I should think they’d be -glad to set them ashore wherever they be. Put a pressed Deal man into -your forecastle and then fire your magazine.” - -“I’m a mate; they’ll not take me,” said I. - -“There’s been no press for some days that I’ve heard of,” said my uncle, -“but you’d better get to the beach by way of the sand hills. The Johnnys -don’t hunt rabbits. They beat the alleys out of Beach Street, and you -hear of them Walmer way and down by the Dockyard.” - -He sat deep in an armchair, smoking a long clay pipe. His face shone, -his little shining eyes followed the smoke that rose from his lips. His -posture, his appearance as he sat with a stout leg across his knee and a -shining silver buckle on his square-toed shoe, seemed to say: “What I’ve -got is mine, and what I’ve got is enough. The Lord is good; and good too -is this house and all that’s in it.” A small fire burnt briskly in the -grate, and on the hob was a bright copper kettle with steam shooting -from its split lip. The dance of the fire-flames ran feeble shadows -through the steady radiance of the oil lamp, and the colors of the room -were made warmer and richer by the delicate twinkling. My aunt knitted, -and cousin Bess, with her chin in her hand, listened to the -conversation. Upon the table was a large silver tray with glasses, -decanters of rum and brandy, and silver bowl and ladle for the brewing -of punch. These things supplied a completing and satisfying detail of -liberal and handsome comfort. What happiness, thought I, to settle down -ashore in such a house as this, with as many thousands as would keep me -going just as Uncle Joe is kept going! When are those fine times coming -for me? thought I; and there now happening a pause in the talk, whilst -my uncle, lifting the kettle off the hob, brewed with skillful hand a -small quantity of rum punch--the most fragrant and supporting of hot -drinks, and loved a great deal too well in my time by skippers and mates -whose conscience blushed only in their noses--I pulled from my pocket -the boatman’s newspaper, and turned the sheet about, not reckoning, -however, upon _now_ coming across anything fresh. - -“What have you there, William?” said Bess. - -“A north country rag,” said I, “some weeks old. The gift of a Geordie, -no doubt, to the waterman who gave it to me.” - -Such news as it contained related largely to shipping. There was a -column of items of maritime intelligence. My eye naturally dwelt upon -this column, and I read some passages aloud. At last I came to this -paragraph: - - A correspondent informs us that the brig _Black Watch_, 295 tons, - built in 1806, by Mr. W. Dixon, of Sunderland, is fitting out in - the Thames presumably for a privateering cruise. She is said to - have been purchased by a gentleman of Amsterdam, but the person who - goes in command of her is Captain Michael Greaves, who belongs to - this town. If the owner be a Dutchman, as rumor asserts, it is not - to be supposed that letters of marque will be issued. - -“What do _you_ say, uncle?” said I. - -“I cannot tell. I know nothing about letters of marque, Bill. If she’s -furrin’-owned her capers can’t be countenanced by our State, can ’ey?” - -“No,” said I. - -I looked again at the paragraph. - -“Michael Greaves--Michael Greaves.” I seemed to know the name. I -pondered, found I could get nothing out of memory, and turned my eye -upon another part of the paper. - -“Here is an account of the casting away of the _William and Jane_.” - -“That’s the ship for whose murder her skipper is swinging on the sand -hills,” said my uncle. - -I read the story--an old-world story, not infrequently repeated since. -Do not we know it, Jack? A ship mysteriously leaks; the carpenter sounds -the well, and his eyes are damned by the captain for hinting at a -started butt; all hands sweat at the pumps; the water gains; the mate -thinks the leak is in the fore-peak, and the master, who is intoxicated, -stutters with blasphemies that the mischief is in the after-hold; the -people leave in the boats: the derelict washes ashore, and is found with -four auger holes in her bottom; the master is collared and charged. At -the trial the carpenter states that the master borrowed an auger from -him and forgot to return it. Master is damned by the evidence of the -mate and a number of seamen; is condemned to be hanged by the neck, and -is turned off on the Deal sand hills protesting his innocence. - -“Why the Deal sand hills?” said I. - -“As a warning to the coast,” answered my uncle. “And look again at the -newspaper. The scuttling job was managed right abreast of these parts, -behind the Good’ns. Oh, it’s justice--it’s justice!” and he handed me a -glass of punch. - -“Is it wind or rain?” exclaimed my aunt, lifting her forefinger. - -“Rain,” said my uncle--“a thunder squall. Ha!” - -A sharp boom of thunder came from the direction of the sea. ’Twas like a -ship testing her distance by throwing a shot. You found yourself -hearkening for the broadside to follow. I looked at the clock and again -went to the house door. The earth was sobbing and smoking under a fall -of rain that came down straight like harp strings; the lightning touched -each liquid line into blue crystal; the trees hissed to the deluge, and -I stood listening for wind, but there was none. - -“I’ll wait till this shower thins,” said I, “and then be off.” - -“I’ll be a wet walk, William, I fear,” said my aunt. - -“It’s a wet life all round, with us sailors,” said I, extending my -tumbler for another ladleful of punch, in obedience to an eloquent -gesture on the part of my uncle. - -It was midnight before they would let me go, and still there was no -wind. I was well primed with grog, and felt tight and jolly; had -accepted an invitation to spend a month of my stay ashore down here at -Sandwich; had listened with a countenance lighted up with smiles to -Uncle Joe’s “I’ll warrant ye it shall go hard if I don’t help you into -command next year, my lad,” pronounced with one eye closed, the other -eye humid, and his face awork with punch and benevolence; then came some -hearty hand-shaking, some still heartier “God-bless-ye’s,” and there -being a pause outside, forth I walked, stepping high and something -dancingly, the collar of my pea-coat to my ears, the round brim of my -hat turned down to clear the scuppers for the next downpour. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE GIBBET. - - -There was plenty of lightning, some of the flashes near, and the sky -overhead was soot. But the thunder was not constant. It growled at -intervals afar, now and again burst at the distance of a mile, but -without tropic noise. It seemed to me that the electric mess was silting -away north, and that there would come a clear sky in the south -presently, with a breeze from that quarter. - -This being my notion, I stepped out vigorously, with a punch-inspired -lift of my feet, as I made for the sand hills, singing a jolly sailor’s -song as I marched, but not thinking of the words I sang. No, nothing -while I marched and sang aloud could I think of but the snug and -fragrant parlor I had quitted and Uncle Joe’s hearty reception and his -promises. - -When I was got upon the sand hills I wished I had stuck to the road. It -was the hills, not the sand, that bothered me. I soared and sank as I -went, and presently my legs took a feeling of twist in them, as though -they had been corkscrews; but I pushed on stoutly, making a straight -course for the sea, where the lightning would give me a frequent sight -of the scene of Downs; where I should be able to taste the first of the -air that blew and hit its quarter to a point; and where, best of all, -the sand hardened into beach. - -But oh, my God, now, as I walked along! think! it flung out of the -darkness within pistol shot, clear in the wild blue of a flash of -lightning. It stood right in front of me. I was walking straight for it; -I should have seen it, without the help of lighting, in a few more -strides; the sand went away in a billowy glimmer to the wash of the -black water, and a kind of light of its own came up out of it, in which -the thing would have shown, had I advanced a few paces. - -It was a gibbet with a man hanging at the end of the beam, his head -coming, according to the picture printed upon my vision by that flash of -lightning, within a hand breadth of the piece of timber he dangled at, -whence I guessed, with the velocity of thought, that he had been cut -down and then tucked up afresh in irons or chains. - -I came to a stand as though I had been shot, waiting for another glance -of lightning to reveal the ghastly object afresh. I had forgotten all -about this gibbet. Had a thought of the horror entered my head--that -head which had been too full of the fumes of rum punch to yield space -for any but the cheeriest, airiest imaginations--I should have given -these sand hills the widest berth which the main road provided. I was no -coward; but, Lord! to witness such a sight by a stroke of lightning! I -say it was as unexpected a thing to my mood, at that moment of its -revelation by lightning, as though not a word had been said about it at -my uncle’s, and as though I had entered the sand hills absolutely -ignorant that a man hung in chains on a gibbet, within shy of a stone -from the water. - -This ignorance it was that dyed the memorable rencounter to a complexion -of darkest horror to every faculty that I could collect. While I paused, -breathing very short, hearing no sound but the thunder and the pitting -of the rain on the sand, and the whisper of the surf along the beach, a -vivid stroke of lightning flashed up the gibbet; there was an explosion -aloft; rain fell with a sudden fury, and the hail so drummed upon my hat -that I lost the noise of the surf in the sound. A number of flashes -followed in quick succession, and by the dazzle I beheld the gibbet and -its ghastly burden as clearly as though the sun was in the sky. - -The figure hung in chains; the bight of the chain passed under the fork -betwixt the thighs, and a link on either hand led through an iron -collar, which clasped the neck of the body, the head lolling over and -looking sideways down, and the two ends of the chain met in a ring, held -by a hook, secured by a nut on top of the timber projection. But what -was that at the foot of the gibbet? I believed, at first, that it was a -strengthening piece, a big block or pile of wood designed to join and -secure the bare, black, horrible post from which the beam pointed like -some frightful spirit finger, seaward, as though death’s skeleton arm -held up a dead man to the storm. - -This was my belief. I was now fascinated and stood gazing, watching the -fearful thing as it came and went with the lightning. - -Do you know those Deal sand hills? A desolate, dreary waste they are, on -the brightest of summer mornings, when the lark’s song falls like an -echo from the sky, when the pale and furry shadows of rabbits blend with -the sand, till they look mere eyes against what they watch you from, -when the flavor of seaweed is shrewd in the smell of the warm and -fragrant country. But visit them at midnight, stand alone in the heart -of the solitude of them and realize then--but, no, not even _then_ could -you realize--the unutterably tragic significance imported into those dim -heaps of faintness, dying out at a short distance in the blackness, by -such a gibbet and such a corpse as I had lighted upon, as I now stood -watching by the flash and play of near and distant lightning. - -But what was that at the foot of the gibbet? I took a few steps, and the -object that I had supposed to be a balk of timber, serving as a -base-piece, arose. It was a woman. I was near enough now to see her -without the help of the lightning. The glimmering sand yielded -sufficient light, so close had I approached the gibbet. She was a tall -woman, dressed in black, and her face in the black frame of her bonnet, -that was thickened by a wet veil, showed as white as though the light of -the moon lay upon it. I say again that I am no coward, but I own that -when that balk of timber, as I had supposed the thing to be, arose and -fashioned itself, hard by the figure of the hanging dead man, into the -shape of a tall woman, ghastly white of face, nothing but horror and -consternation prevented me from bolting at full speed. I was too -terrified to run. My knees seemed to give way under me. All the good of -the rum punch was gone out of my head. - -The woman approached me slowly, and halted at a little distance. There -might have been two yards between us and five between me and the gibbet. - -“What have you come to do?” she exclaimed in a voice that sounded raw--I -can find no other word to express the noise of her speech--with famine, -fatigue, fever; for these things I heard in her voice. - -“I have come to do nothing; I am going to Deal,” I answered, and I made -a step. - -“Stop! I am the mother of that dead man. Show me how to take him down. I -cannot reach his feet with my hands. You are tall, and strong and -hearty, and can unhook him. For God’s sake, take him down and give him -to me, sir.” - -“His mother!” cried I, finding spirit, on a sudden, in the woman’s -speech and dreadful avowal; “God help thee! But it is not a thing for me -to meddle with.” - -“He was my son, he was innocent and he has been murdered. He must not be -left up there, sir. Take him down, and give him to me who am his mother, -and who will bury him.” - -“It is not a thing for me to meddle with,” I repeated, looking at the -body, and all this time it was lightning sharply, and the thunder was -frequent and heavy, and it rained pitilessly. “It would need a ladder to -unhook him, and suppose you had him, what then? Where is his grave? -Would you dig it here? And with what would you dig it? And if you buried -him here, they would have him up again and hook him up again.” - -“Oh, sir, take him down, give him to me,” she cried in a voice that -would have been a shriek but for her weakness. - -“How long have you been here?” said I, moving so as to enable me to -confront her, and yet have my back on the gibbet, for the end of my -tongue seemed to stick like a point of steel into the roof of my mouth, -every time the lightning flashed up the swinging figure and I saw it. - -“I was here before it fell dark,” she answered. - -“Where do you come from?” - -“From Harwich.” - -“You have not walked from Harwich?” - -“I came by water to Margate, and have walked from Margate. Oh, take him -down--oh, take him down!” she cried, stretching her arms up at the body. -“Think of him helpless there! Jimmy, my Jimmy! He is innocent--he is a -murdered man!” she sobbed; and then continued, speaking swiftly, and -drawing closer to me: “He was my only son. His wife does not come to -him. Oh, my Jim, mother is with thee, thy poor old mother is with thee, -and will not leave thee. Oh, kind, dear Christian sir”--and she extended -her hand and put it upon the sleeve of my coat--“take him down and help -me to bury him, and the God of Heaven, the friend of the widow, shall -bless thee, and I will watch, but at a distance from his grave, until -there shall be no fear of his body being found.” - -“I can do nothing,” said I. “If I had the will, I have not the means. I -should need a ladder, and we should need a spade, and we have neither. -Come you along with me to Deal; come you away out of this wet and from -this sight. You have little strength. If you linger here, you’ll die. I -will get you housed for the night, and,” cried I, raising my voice, that -she might hear me above a sudden roll of thunder, “if my ship does not -sail out of the Downs to-morrow, I may so work it for you as to get your -son’s body unhooked, and removed, and buried, where it will not be -found. Come away from this,” and I grasped her soaking sleeve. - -Now at this instant, there happened that which makes this experience the -most awful and astonishing of any that I have encountered, in a life -that, Heaven knows, has not been wanting in adventure. I am not a -believer in latter-day miracles; I am not a fool--not that I would -quarrel with a man for believing in latter-day miracles. We are all -locked up in a dark room, and I blame no man for believing that he--and -perhaps he only--knows the way out. I do not believe in latter-day -miracles; but I believe in the finger of God. I believe that often He -will answer the cry of the broken heart. This is what now happened, and -you may credit my relation or not, as you please. - -I have said that I grasped the woman’s soaking sleeve, intending to draw -her away from the gibbet; and it was at that moment that the body and -the gibbet were struck by lightning; they were clothed with a flash of -sunbright flame. In the same instant of the flash, there was a burst and -shock of thunder, the most deafening and frightful explosion I have ever -heard. The motionless atmosphere was thick, sickening, choking with the -smell of sulphur. I was hurled backward, but not so as to fall; it was -as though I had been struck by the wind of a cannon-ball. For some time -the blackness stood like a wall against my vision; more lightning there -was at that time, one or two of the flashes tolerably vivid, but the -play on my balls of sight, temporarily blinded, glanced dim as sheet -lightning when it winks palely past the rim of the sea. - -Presently I could see. I looked for the woman, scarce knowing whether I -might behold her dead in a heap on the sand. No; she stood at a little -distance from me. Like me, she was unable to get her sight. She stood -with her white face turned toward Sandwich--that is to say, away from -the gibbet; but even as I regained my vision so hers returned to her. -She looked around, uttered an extraordinary cry, and, in a moment, was -under the gibbet, kneeling, fondling, clasping, hugging, wildly talking -to the chained and lifeless figure, whose metal fastening had been -sheared through by the burning edge of the terrific scythe of fire! - -Yes; the eye or the hook by which the corpse had hung had been melted, -and there lay the body, ghastly in its chains, but how much ghastlier -had there been light to yield a full revelation of feature and of such -injury as the stroke of flame may have dealt it! There it lay in its -mother’s arms! She held its head with the iron collar about its neck to -her breast; she rocked it; she talked to it; she blessed God for giving -her son to her. - -The rain ceased, and over the sea the black dye of tempest thinned, a -sure sign of approaching wind, driving the heavy, loose wings of vapor -before it. In another minute I felt a draught of air. It was out of the -south. Standing on those sand hills, a familiar haunt of mine, indeed, -in the olden times, I could as readily hit the quarter of the wind--yea, -to the eighth of a point--as though I took its bearings with the compass -before me. I might be very sure that this was a breeze to freshen -rapidly, and that even now the boatswain of the _Royal Brunswicker_ was -thumping with a handspike upon the fore-scuttle, bidding all hands -tumble up to man the windlass. Spalding must not be suffered to stare -over the side in search of me while he went on giving orders to make -sail. It was very late. How late, I knew not. I had heard no clock. -Maybe it was one in the morning. - -Now, what was I to do? I must certainly miss the ship if I hung about -the woman and the body of her son. Even though I should set off at full -speed for Deal beach, I might not immediately find a boatman. Yet hurry -I must. I went up to the woman, almost loathing the humanity that forced -me closer to the body, and exclaimed: - -“Come away with me to Deal. You shall be housed if I can manage it; but -you must rise and come with me at once, for I cannot stay.” - -She was seated on the sand under the arm of the gibbet, and half of the -body lay across her, with its head against her breast. One of her arms -was around it. She caressed its face and, as I spoke, she put her lips -to its forehead. There was no cap over the face. Doubtless a cap had -been drawn over the unhappy wretch when he was first turned off, but -when they hung a man in irons they removed his cap and sheathed the body -in pitch to render it weatherproof. Pirates, however, and such seafaring -sinners as this man, were mainly strung up in irons in their clothes; -and this body was dressed, but he was without a hat. - -The woman looked round and up at me, and cried very piteously: - -“Dear Christian gentleman, whoever you may be, help me to seek some -place where I may hide my child’s body, that his murderers shall not be -able to find him. O Jim, God hath given thee to thy mother. Sir, for the -sake of thine own mother, stay with me and help me.” - -“I cannot stay,” I cried, breaking in. “If you will not come I must go.” - -She talked to the body. - -On this, seeing how it must be and hoping to be of some use to the poor -creature before embarking, I said not another word, but started for Deal -beach, walking like one in a dream, full of horror and pity and -astonishment, but always sensible that it was growing lighter and yet -lighter to windward, and that the wind was freshening in my face as I -walked. Indeed, before I had measured half the distance to Deal, large -spaces of clear sky had opened among the clouds, with stars sliding -athwart them; and low down southeast was a corner of red moon creeping -along a ragged black edge of vapor. - -When I came to the north end of the town, where Beach Street began and -ended in those days, I paused, abreast of a tall capstan used for -heaving up boats, and looked about me. I had thought, at odd moments as -I walked along, of how my uncle had explained the silence that lay upon -Deal by speaking of the press-gang; but, first, I had no fear for -myself, for I was mate of a ship, and, as mate, I was not to be taken; -and next, putting this consideration apart, the press-gang was scarcely -likely to be at work at such an hour--at least at Deal, the habits of -whose seafaring people would be well known to the officers of His -Majesty’s ships stationed in the Downs or cruising in the Channel. But -the general alarm might render it difficult for me to find a man to take -me off to the ship, and more difficult still to find anyone willing to -adventure a lonely walk by moonlight out on to the sand hills to help -the woman I had left there. - -I stood looking about me. A number of vessels were getting their anchors -in the Downs. The delicate distant noise of the clinking of revolving -pawls came along in the wind, with dim cries and faint chorusings, and -under the moon I spied two or three vessels under weigh standing up -Channel. This sight filled me with an agony of impatience, and I got -upon the shingle and crunched, sweating along, staring eagerly ahead. - -A great number of boats lay upon the beach, some of them big luggers, -and in the dusk they loomed up to twice their real size. Nothing living -stirred. This was truly astonishing. About half a mile along the -shingle, toward Walmer, lay a boat close to the wash of the water; I -could not tell at that distance, and by that light, whether there was a -man in her or near her, but I supposed she might be a galley-punt, ready -to “go off,” as the local term is and I walked toward her. A minute -later I came to a small, black wooden structure, one of several little -buildings used by the Deal boatmen for keeping a lookout in. I saw a -light shining upon a bit of a glazed window that faced me, and stepping -to this window, I peered through and beheld an old man seated on a -bench, with an odd sort of three-cornered hat on his head, and dressed -in gray worsted stockings and a long frieze coat. An inch of sooty pipe -forked out from his mouth, and I guessed that he was awake by seeing -smoke issuing from his lips, though his head was hung, his arms folded, -his eyes apparently closed. I stepped round to the door, beat upon it, -and looked in. - -“I am mate of the _Royal Brunswicker_,” said I. “She’s getting her -anchor in the Downs, and I want to get aboard before she’s off and away. -Where shall I find a couple of men to put me aboard?” - -He lifted up his head after the leisurely manner of old age, took his -pipe out of his mouth with a trembling hand, and surveyed me -steadfastly, as though he was nearly blind. - -“Where are ye from?” said he. - -“From the house of my uncle, Captain Joseph Round.” - -“Captain Joseph Round, is it?” exclaimed the old fellow suspiciously. -“I can remember Joe Round--Joey Round was the name he was known by--man -and boy fifty-eight year. He’ll be drawing on to sixty-five, I allow. -What might be yower name?” - -By this time I had recollected the old fellow, and his name had come to -me with my memory of him. - -“Martin--Tom Martin,” said I, “you are going blind, old man, or you -would know me. My name is William Fielding--Bill Fielding sometimes -along the beach here, among such of you drunken, smuggling swabs as I -chose to be familiar with. Now, see here, I must get aboard my ship at -once, and there’ll be another job wants doing also, for the which I -shall be willing to pay a guinea. Tell me instantly, Tom, of three -men--two to row me aboard, and one to send on a guinea’s worth of -errand.” - -“Gi’s your hand, Mr. Fielding. Bless me, how you’re changed! But aint -that because my sight aint what it was? You want three men? Two to put -ye aboard, and----” - -“And one to send on a guinea’s worth of errand--on a job I needn’t -explain to you here. Now bear a hand, or I shall lose my ship.” - -On this, he blew out the rushlight by which he had been sitting, shut -the door of the old cabin, and moved slowly and somewhat staggeringly -over the shingle up into Beach Street, along which we walked for, I -daresay, fifty yards. He then turned into a sort of alley, and pausing -before the door of a little house, lifted his arm as though in search of -the knocker, then bade me knock for myself, and knock loud. - -I knocked heartily, but all remained silent for some minutes. I -continued to knock, and then a window just over the doorway was thrown -up, and a woman put her head out. A crazy old lamp, burning a dull flame -of oil, stood at the corner of the alley or side street and enabled me -to obtain a view of the woman. - -“Who are ye?” said she, in a voice of alarm, “and what d’ye want?” - -“Is Dick in?” quavered old Martin, looking up at her. - -“Why, it’s old Tom!” exclaimed the woman. “Who’s that along with ye?” - -“Capt’n Round’s nevvy, Master Billy Fielding, as we used to call him. -His ship’s in the Downs, there’s a slant o’ air out of the south, and he -wants to be set aboard. Is Dick in, I ask ye?” - -“What’s that to do with you?” answered the woman, drawing her head in -with a movement of misgiving, and putting her hands upon the window as -though to bring it down. “No, he aint in, so there; neither him nor Tom, -so there. You go on. I don’t like the looks of your friend Mr. Billy -Fielding; a merchantman with hepaulets, is it? And what’s an old man -like you a-doing out of his bed at this hour? Garn home, Tom, garn -home;” and down went the window. - -“Is that woman mad?” cried I. “What does she take me to be? And does she -suppose that you, whom she must have known all her life---- I’ll tell -you what, Tom Martin, I’m not going to lose my ship for the want of a -boat. If I can’t find a waterman soon I shall seize the first small punt -I can launch with mine own hands. Hark!” - -I heard footsteps; a sound of the tread of feet came from Beach Street. -I walked up the alley to the entrance of it, not for a moment doubting -that the fellows coming along were Deal boatmen, fresh from doing -business out at sea. Old Tom Martin called after me; I did not catch -what he said; in fact I had no chance to hear; for when I reached the -entrance of the alley, a body of ten or twelve men came right upon me, -and in a breath I was collared, to a deep roaring cry of “Here’s a good -sailor!” - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -I ESCAPE FROM THE PRESS. - - -I struggled and was savagely gripped by the arm. I stood grasped by two -huge brawny men, one of whom called out, “No caper-cutting, my lad. No -need to show your paces here.” - -“I am first mate of the _Royal Brunswicker_,” I exclaimed. - -“You looks like a first mate--the chap that cooks the mate. You shall -have mates enough, old ship--shipmates and messmates.” - -“Let me go. You cannot take me; you know it. I am first mate of the -_Royal Brunswicker_--the ship astern of the frigate----” - -“Heave ahead, lads,” exclaimed a voice that was not wanting in -refinement, though it sounded as if the person who owned it was rather -tipsy. - -At the moment of seizing me the company of fellows had halted within the -sheen of the lamp at the corner of the street. They were a wonderfully -fine body of men, magnificent examples of the British sailor of a -period when triumphant successes and a long victorious activity had -worked the British naval seaman up to the highest pitch of perfection -that he ever had attained, a pitch that it must be impossible for him -under the utterly changed conditions of the sea life to ever again -attain. They were armed with cutlasses, and some of them carried -truncheons and wore round hats and round jackets and heavy belts. Two of -the mob were pressed men. - -“Heave ahead, lads,” cried the refined dram-thickened voice. - -I looked in the direction of the voice, and observed a young fellow clad -in a pea-coat, with some sort of head-gear on his head that might have -been designed to disguise him. - -“Sir,” cried I, “are you the officer in command here?” - -“Never you mind! Heave ahead, lads; steer a straight course for the -boat.” - -In a moment the whole body of us were in motion. A seaman on either hand -grasped me by the arm, and immediately behind were the other two pressed -men. - -“Tom Martin,” I roared out, hoping that the old fellow might yet be -within hearing; “you see what has happened. For God’s sake report to -Captain Round.” - -“Who’s that bawling?” angrily and huskily shouted the young officer in -the pea-coat. - -I marched for a few paces in silence, mad and degraded; bewildered, too; -nay, I may say confounded almost to distraction by the hurry of the -astonishing experiences which I had encountered within the last hour. - -“What ship do you belong to?” I presently said, addressing a big -bull-faced man who guarded me on the left. - -“The frigate out yonder,” he answered in a deep, wary voice; “keep a -civil tongue in your head and give no trouble, and what’s wrong will be -righted, if wrong there be,” and he looked at me by the light of a -second lamp that the company of us was tramping past. - -“I am mate of the _Royal Brunswicker_ now probably getting her anchor -astern of your frigate,” said I. “Cannot I make your officer believe me, -for then he might set me aboard?” - -The fellow on my right rumbled with laughter as though he would choke. -We trudged onward, making for that part of the beach upon which King -Street opens. Presently one of the pressed men in my wake began to -curse; he used horrible language. With frightful imprecations he -demanded to know why he should be obliged to fight for a king whose -throat he thirsted to cut; why he should be obliged to fight for a -nation which he didn’t belong to, whose people he hated; why he was to -be converted into a bloody piratical man-of-war’s man, instead of being -left to follow the lawful, respectable calling of a merchant seaman---- - -A mighty thump on the back, that sounded like the blow of a handspike -upon a hatch-cover, knocked his hideous speech into a single half-choked -growl, and the young gentleman with the refined but husky voice called -out: - -“If that beast doesn’t belay his jaw, stuff his mouth full of shingle -and gag him.” - -I guessed that this gang were satisfied with picking up three men that -night, for they looked neither to right nor left for more, and headed on -a straight course for their boat. After the ruffian astern of me had -been thumped into silence scarce a word was uttered. The sailors seemed -weary, as though they had had a long bout of it, and the officer, -perhaps, was too sensible of being under the influence of drink to -venture to define his state by more words than were absolutely needful. -I had heard much of the brutality of the press-gang, of taunts and -kicks, of maddening ironic promises of prize money and glory to the -miserable wretches torn from their homes or from their ships, of -pitiless usage, raw heads, and broken bones. All this I had heard of, -but I witnessed nothing of the sort among the men into whose hands I had -fallen. In silence we marched along, and the tramp of our feet was -returned in a hollow echo from the houses we passed, and the noise, of -our tread ran through the length of the feebly lighted street, which the -presence of the King’s seamen had desolated as utterly as though the -plague had been brought to Deal out of the East, and as though the -buildings held nothing but the dead. - -By the time we had arrived at that part of the beach where lay the -boat--a large cutter, watched by a couple of seamen armed with cutlasses -and pistols--my mind had in some measure calmed down. The degradation of -being collared and man-handled was indeed maddening and heart-subduing; -but then I was beginning to think this--that first of all it was very -probable I must have lost my ship, press-gang or no press-gang, seeing -that I could not get a boat to put me aboard her; next, that my being -kidnaped, as I call it, would find me such a reason for my absence as -Captain Spalding and the owners of the vessel must certainly allow to be -unanswerable. Then, again, I was perfectly sure of being released and -sent ashore when I had represented my condition to the captain or -lieutenant of the frigate; and I might also calculate upon old Tom -Martin communicating with my uncle, who would, early in the day, come -off to the frigate and confirm my story. - -These reflections, I say, calmed me considerably, though my mind -continued very much troubled and all awork within me, for I could not -forget the horrible picture of the gibbet and the prodigious flash of -fire which had delivered the dead hanging son to his wretched mother; -and I was likewise much haunted and worried by the thought of the poor -woman sitting upon the sand under the gibbet, fondling the loathsome -body and whispering to it, and often looking over the billowy waste of -glimmering sand, that would now be whitened by the moon, in the -direction I had taken, expecting, perhaps, that I should return or send -some human soul to help her bury the corpse, that it might not be hooked -up again. - -The Downs were now full of life. There was a pleasant fresh breeze -blowing from the southward, and the water came whitening and feathering -in strong ripples to the shingle. The moon was riding over the sea south -of the southernmost limit of the Goodwin Sands. She was making some -light in the air, though but a piece of moon, and a short length of her -silver greenish reflection trembled under her. Almost all the vessels -had got under weigh and were standing in groups of dark smudges east or -west. It was impossible to tell which might be the _Royal Brunswicker_, -but I could see no craft answering to her size in that part near the -frigate where she had brought up. - -When we were come to the cutter we three pressed men were ordered to get -into her. I quietly entered, and so did one of of the other two, but the -third--the man who had cursed and raged as he had walked along--flung -himself down upon the shingle. - -“What you can’t carry you may drag,” he exclaimed, and he swore horribly -at the men. - -“In with the scoundrel!” said the lieutenant. - -And now I saw what sort of tenderness was to be expected from -press-gangs when their kindness was not deserved, for three stout -seamen, catching hold of the blaspheming fellow, one by the throat, as -it seemed, another by the arm, and a third by the breech flung him over -the gunwale as if he were some dead carcass of a sheep, and he fell with -a crash upon the thwarts and rolled, bloody with a wound in the head -and half stunned, into the bottom of the boat. - -The lieutenant sat ready to ship the rudder, others of the men got into -the boat, and the rest, grasping the line of her gunwale on either hand, -rushed her roaring down the incline of shingle into the soft white wash -of the breakers, themselves tumbling inward with admirable alertness as -she was water-borne. Then six long oars gave way, and the boat sheared -through the ripples. - -The breeze was almost dead on and the tide was the stream of flood, the -set of it already strong, as you saw by the manner in which the in-bound -shadows of ships in the eastward shrank and melted, while those standing -to the westward, their yards braced well forward or their fore and aft -booms pretty nigh amidships, sat square to the eye abreast, scarcely -holding their own. The frigate lay in a space of clear water at a -distance of about a mile and three-quarters. Though the corner of moon -looked askant at her, she hung shapeless upon the dark surface, a mere -heap of intricate shadow, with the gleam of a lantern at her stern and a -light on the stay over the spritsail yard. - -The man who had been thrown into the boat sat up. He passed his wrist -and the back of his hand over his brow, turned his knuckles to the moon -to look at them, and broke out: - -“You murdering blackguards! I’ll punish ye for this. If I handle your -blasted powder it’ll be to blow you and your----” - -“Silence that villain!” cried the lieutenant. - -“A villain yourself, you drunken ruffian! You are just the figure of the -baste I’ve been draming all my life I was swung for. Oh, you rogue, how -sorry I am for you! Better had ye given yourself up long ago for the -crimes you’ve committed than have impressed me. The hangman’s work would -have been over, but my knife----” - -“Gag him!” cried the lieutenant. - -The fellow sprang to his feet, and in another instant would have been -overboard. He was caught by his jacket, felled inward by a swinging, -cruel blow, and lay kicking, fighting, biting, and blaspheming at the -bottom of the boat. In consequence of the struggle four of the oarsmen -could not row, and the other two lay upon their oars. The lieutenant, in -a voice fiery with rage and liquor, roared out to his men to pinion the -scoundrel, to gag the villain, to knock the blasphemous ruffian over the -head. All sorts of wild, drunken, savage orders he continued to roar -out; and I was almost deafened by his cries of rage, by the howling and -shouting of the man in the bottom of the boat, by the curses and -growlings of the fellows who were man-handling him. - -On a sudden a man yelled: “For God’s sake, sir, look out!” and, lifting -my eyes from the struggling figure in the bottom of the boat, I -perceived the huge bows of a vessel of some three hundred or four -hundred tons looming high, close aboard of us. She had canvas spread to -her royal mastheads, and leaned from the breeze with the water breaking -white from her stem, and in the pause that followed the loud, hoarse cry -of “For God’s sake, sir, look out!” one could hear the hiss and ripple -of the broken waters along her bends. - -“Ship ahoy!” shouted one of the seamen. - -The man in the bottom of the boat began to scream afresh, struggling and -fighting like a madman, and hopelessly confusing the whole company of -sailors in that supreme moment. The boat swayed as though she would -capsize; the lieutenant, standing high in the stern sheets, shrieked to -the starboard bow oar to “pull like hell!” others roared to the -approaching ship to port her helm; but, in another minute, before -anything could be done, the towering bow had struck the boat! A cry went -up, and, in the beat of a pulse, I was under water with a thunder as of -Niagara in my ear. - -I felt myself sucked down, but I preserved my senses, and seemed to -understand that I was passing under the body of the ship, clear of her, -as though swept to and steadied at some depth below her keel by the -weight of water her passage drove in downward recoil. I rose, bursting -with the holding of my breath, and floated right upon an oar, which I -grasped with a drowning grip, though I was a tolerable swimmer; and -after drawing several breaths--and oh, the ecstasy of that respiration! -and oh, the sweetness of the air with which I filled my lungs!--my wits -being still perfectly sound, I struck out with my legs, with no other -thought in me _then_ than to drive clear of the drowning scramble which -I guessed was happening hard by. - -The oar was under my arms, and my ears hoisted well above the surface of -the water. I heard a man steadily shouting--he was at some distance from -me, and was probably holding, as I was, to something that floated -him--but no other cries than that lonely shouting reached me; no -bubbling noises of the strangling; nothing to intimate that anything -lived. - -I turned my head and looked in the direction of the ship. Her people may -or may not have known that they had run down a boat. Certainly she had -not shifted her helm; she was standing straight on, a leaning shadow -with the bit of moon hanging over her mastheads. - -In a few moments the fellow that was shouting at some little distance -from me fell silent; but whatever his plight might have been, I could -not have helped him, for the tide was setting me at the rate of some two -or three miles in the hour into the northeast, and, to come at him, he -being astern of me as regards the direction of the tide, I should have -been obliged to head in the direction whence his voice had proceeded and -seek for him; and so, as I say, I could not have helped him. - -We had pulled a full mile, and perhaps more than a mile, from the shore -when we were run down. The low land of Deal looked five times as far as -a mile across the rippling black surface on which I floated. Yet I knew -that the distance could not exceed a mile, and I set my face toward the -lights of the beach and struck out with my legs; but I moved feebly. I -had swallowed plentifully of salt water when I sank, and the brine -filled me with weakness, and I was heavy and sick with it. Then, again, -my strength had been shrunk by the sudden dreadful shock of the -collision and by my having been under water, breathless and bursting, -while, as I might take it, the whole length of the ship was passing over -me. I knew that I should never reach the land by hanging over an oar and -striking out with my legs. The oar was long and heavy; there was no -virtue in the kick of my weakened heels to propel the great blade and -loom of ash held athwart as I was obliged to hold it. And all this time -the tide was setting me away northeast, with an arching trend to the -sheerer east, owing to the conformation of the land thereabouts; so that -though for some time I kept my face turned upon Deal, languidly, almost -lifelessly, moving my legs in the direction of the lights of that town, -in reality the stream was striking me into the wider water; and after a -bit I was able to calculate--and I have no doubt accurately--that if I -abandoned myself to my oar and floated only (and in sober truth that was -all I could do, and pretty much all that I had been doing), I should -double the North Foreland at about two miles from that point of coast, -and strand, a corpse, upon some shoal off Margate or higher up. - -I looked about me for a ship. Therein lay hope. I looked, not for a -ship at anchor, unless she hove in view right on end of the course my -oar was taking, but for a vessel in motion to hail as she came by; but I -reckoned she must come by soon, for on testing my lungs when I thought -of the shout I would raise if a ship came by, I discovered that she -would have to pass very close if she was to hear me. Indeed, what I had -undergone that night, from the moment of lighting upon the gibbet down -to this moment of finding myself floating on one oar, had proved too -much for my strength, extraordinarily robust as I was in those days: and -then, again, the water was bitterly cold--cold, too, was the wind as it -brushed me, with a constant feathering of ripples that kept my head and -face wet for the wind to blow the colder upon. - -The light was feeble, the moon shed but scant illumination, and whenever -she was shadowed by a cloud, deep darkness closed over the sea. There -were vessels near and vessels afar, but none to be of use. A large -cutter was heading eastward about half a mile abreast of me; I shouted -and continued to shout, but a drowning sigh would have been as audible -to her people. She glided on, and when the moon went behind a cloud the -loom of the cutter blended with the darkness, and when the moon came out -again, and I looked for the vessel, I could not see her. - -I afterward learned that I passed five hours in this dreadful situation. -How long I had spent hanging over the oar when my senses left me I know -not; I believe that dawn was not then far off; I seem to recollect a -faintness of gray stealing up off the distant rim of the sea like a -smoke into the sky, the horizon standing firm and dark against the -dimness as though the water were of thick black paint; and by that time -I guess I had been carried by the tide to a part of the Channel that -lies abreast of the cliffs between the town of Ramsgate and the little -bay into which the Stour empties itself. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -CAPTAIN MICHAEL GREAVES OF THE “BLACK WATCH.” - - -I found myself in the cabin of a ship. I lay in a hammock, and when I -opened my eyes I looked straight up at a beam running across the upper -deck. I stared at this beam for some time, wondering what it was and -wondering where I was; I then turned my head from side to side, and -perceived that I was in a hammock, and that I lay in my shirt under -some blankets. - -How came I here, thought I? If this be the _Royal Brunswicker_ they’ve -shifted my berth, or have I blundered into another man’s bed! I lifted -my head to look over the edge of the hammock, for the canvas walls came -somewhat high, the bolster was small and my head lay low, and I was -startled to find that I had not the power to straighten my spine into an -upright posture. Thrice did I essay to sit up and thrice did I fail, but -by putting my hand on the edge of the hammock and incurving the flexible -canvas to about the level of my nose, I contrived to obtain a view of -the interior in which I swung; and found it to consist of a little berth -or cabin, the walls and bulkheads of a gloomy snuff color, lighted by a -small scuttle or circular port-hole of the diameter of a saucer, filled -with a heavy block of glass, which, as I watched it, darkened into a -deep green, then flashed out into snowy whiteness, then darkened again, -and so on with regular alternations: and by this I guessed that I was -not only on board a ship, but that the ship I was on board of was -rolling heavily and plunging sharply, and rushing through the seas as -though driving before a whole gale of wind. - -There was no snuff-colored cabin, with a scuttle of the diameter of a -saucer, to be found on board the _Royal Brunswicker_; this ship -therefore could not be the vessel that I was mate of. I was hugely -puzzled, and my wits whirred in my brain like the works of a watch when -the spring breaks, and I continued to peer over the edge of the hammock -that I held pressed down, vainly seeking enlightenment in a plain black -locker that stood under the scuttle and in what I must call a washstand -in the corner of the berth facing the door, and in a small lamp, -resembling a cheap tin coffee-pot, standing upon a metal bracket nailed -to the bulkhead. - -As nothing came to me out of these things I let go the edge of the -hammock and gazed at the beam again overhead, and sunk my sensations -into the motions of the ship, insomuch that I could feel every roll and -toss of her, every dive, pause, and staggering rush forward as though it -were a pulse, and I said to myself, “It blows hard, and a tall sea is -running, and I am on board a smaller ship than the _Royal Brunswicker_, -and our speed cannot be less than twelve knots an hour through the -water.” - -I now grew conscious that I was hungry and thirsty, and as thirst is -pain even in its very earliest promptings--unlike hunger, which when -first felt is by no means a disagreeable sensation--I endeavored to sit -up, intending in that posture to call out, but found myself, as before, -helpless. Then I thought I would call out without sitting up, and I -opened my mouth, but my lungs would deliver nothing better than a most -ridiculous groan. However, after some ten minutes had passed, the top of -a man’s head showed over the rim of the hammock. The sight of his eyes -and his large cap of fur or hair startled me; I had not heard him enter. - -“Have you your consciousness?” said he. - -I answered “Yes.” - -“I am no doctor,” said he, “and don’t know what I am to do now that your -senses have come to you.” - -“I should like something to drink,” said I. - -“You shall have it,” he answered, “give the drink a name? -Brandy-and-water?” - -“Anything,” I exclaimed. “I am very thirsty.” - -“Can you eat?” - -“I believe I shall be able to eat,” I replied, “when I have drunk.” - -The head disappeared. Memory now returned. I exactly recollected all -that had befallen me down to the moment when, as I have already said, I -fancied I beheld the faint color of the dawn lifting like smoke off the -black edge of the sea. I gathered by the light in the cabin that it was -morning and not yet noon, and conceiving that I might have been taken -out of the water some half-hour after I had lost consciousness, I -calculated that I had been insensible for nearly five hours. This scared -me. A man does not like to feel that he has been as dead to all intents -and purposes as a corpse for five hours, not sleeping, but mindless and, -for all he knows, soulless. - -I now heard a voice. “Give me the glass, Jim.” The man whose head had -before appeared showed his face again over the edge of the hammock. -“Drink this,” said he, holding up a glass of brandy-and-water. - -I eagerly made to seize the glass, but could not lift my head, nor even -advance my hands the required distance. - -“Go and bring me the low stool out of my cabin, and bear a hand,” said -the man, and a minute later he rose till his head was stooping under the -upper deck. He was now able to command the hammock in which I lay, and -lifting my head with his arm he put the tumbler to my lips, and I drank -with feverish greediness. He then put a plate of sandwiches formed of -white loaf bread and thin slices of beef upon the blankets and bade me -eat. This I contrived to do unaided. While I ate he dismounted from the -stool, gave certain instructions which I did not catch to his companion -who, as he did not reach to the height at which the hammock swung, I was -unable to see, and then came to the edge of the hammock, and stood -viewing me while I slowly munched. - -I gazed at him intently and sometimes I thought I had seen his face -before, and sometimes I believed that he was a perfect stranger to me. -He had dark eyes and dark shaggy eyebrows, was smooth shaven and looked -about thirty-four years of age, but his fur cap was concealing wear; the -hair of it mingled with his own hair and fringed his brow, contracting -what had else been visible of the forehead, and it was only when the -hammock swung to a heavier roll than usual that I caught a sight of the -whole of his face. The brandy-and-water did me a great deal of good. It -made me feel as if I could talk. - -“You’re beginning to look somewhat lifelike now,” said he; “Can you bear -being questioned?” - -“Ay, and to ask questions.” - -These words I pronounced with some strength of voice. - -“Well, you’ll forgive me for beginning?” said he, gazing at me fixedly -and very gravely. “I want to know what sort of a man I’ve picked up. -Were you ever hanged?” - -The sandwich which I was about to bring to my mouth was arrested midway, -as though my arm had been withered. - -“Half-hanged call it,” said he, continuing to eye me sternly, and yet -with a singular expression of curiosity too. “Gibbeted, I mean--triced -up--cut down, and then suffered to cut stick on its being discovered -that you weren’t choked?” - -Weak as I was I turned of a deep red; I felt the blood hot and tingling -in my cheeks. - -“You’ll not ask me that question when I have my strength,” said I. - -“You have been delirious, and nearly all your intelligible talk has been -about a gibbet and hanging in chains.” - -“Ha!” said I. - -“I had learnt off Margate that a man had been hanged at Deal.” - -I said “Yes,” and went on eating the sandwich I held. - -“We picked you up off Ramsgate, floating on an oar belonging to a boat -of one of His Majesty’s ships. Now, should I have found anything -suspicious in that? Not at all. Your dress told me you were not a navy -Johnny. There was a story, and I was willing to wait and hear it; but -when, being housed in this hammock, you turned to and jawed about a -gibbet and about hanging in irons; when I’d listen to you singing out -for help to unhook the body, to stand clear of the lightning--‘Now is -your time,’ you’d sing out; ‘by the legs and up with it,’ ‘’Tis for a -poor mother’s sake,’ a poor mother’s sake--I say, when I’d stand by -hearkening to what the great dramatist would call the perilous stuff -which your soul or your conscience, or whatever it might have been that -was working in you, was throwing up as water is thrown up by a ship’s -pump, why----” - -The color of temper had left my face. I eyed him, slightly smiling, -munching my sandwich quietly. - -“Captain Michael Greaves,” said I, “I am no half-hanged man.” - -On hearing the name I gave him he started violently; then, catching hold -of the edge of the hammock, so tilted it as to nearly capsize me, while -he thrust his face close to mine. - -“What was that you said?” cried he. - -“I am no hanged man.” - -“You pronounced my name,” he cried, continuing to hold by the hammock -and swinging with it as the ship rolled. - -“I know your name,” I replied. - -“Have you ever sailed with me?” - -“No.” - -“How does it happen that you know me?” - -“Is not this a brig called the _Black Watch_,” said I, “and are not you, -Captain Michael Greaves, in command of her?” - -“Chaw! I see how it is,” he exclaimed, the wonder going out of his face -while he let go of my hammock. “You have had what they call lucid -intervals, during which you have picked up my name and the name of my -vessel--though who the deuce has visited you saving me and the lad? and -neither of us, I swear, has ever once found you conscious until just -now.” - -“Will you give me some more brandy-and-water? I am still very thirsty. A -second draught may enable me to converse. I feel very weak, but I do not -think I am as weak as I was a little while ago;” and I lifted my head to -test my strength, and found that I was able to look over the edge of the -hammock. - -In doing this I got a view of Captain Michael Greaves’ figure. He was a -square, tall, well-built man--as tall as I, but more nobly framed; his -face, his shape, his air expressed great decision and resolution of -character. He wore a pea-coat that fell to his knees, and this coat and -a pair of immense sea-boots and a fur cap formed his visible apparel. He -stepped out of the berth, and in a minute after returned with a glass of -brandy-and-water. This I took down almost as greedily as I had emptied -the contents of the first glass. I thanked him, handed him the tumbler, -and said: - -“You were chief mate of a ship called the _Raja_?” - -“That is so.” - -“In the month of November, 1809, you were lying in Table Bay?” - -He reflected, and then repeated: - -“That is so.” - -“There was a ship,” I continued, “called the _Rainbow_, that lay astern -of you by some ten ships’-lengths.” - -He gazed at me very earnestly, and looked as though he guessed what was -coming. - -“One morning,” said I, “a boat put off from the _Raja_. She hoisted sail -and went away toward Cape Town. A burst of wind came down the mountain -and capsized her, whereupon a boat belonging to the _Rainbow_ made for -the drowning people, picked them up, and put them aboard their own -ship.” - -He thrust his arm into the hammock and grasped my hand. - -“You are Mr. Fielding. You were the second mate of the _Rainbow_. You it -was who saved my life and the lives of the others. Strange that it -should fall to my lot to save yours; and for me to suppose that you had -been hanged! By Isten! but this is a little world. It is not astonishing -that I should not have known you. You are something changed in the face; -likewise you have been very nearly drowned. We shall be able to find out -how many hours you lay washing about in the Channel. And add to this a -very long spell of emaciating insensibility.” - -“I was never hanged,” said I. - -“No, no,” he said, “but all your babble was about gibbets and chains.” - -“If it had not been for a gibbet and a man dangling from it in chains, -in all human probability I should not now be here. I was delayed by an -object of horrible misery, and the period of my humane loitering tallied -to a second with the movements of a press-gang, or I should be on board -my own ship, the _Royal Brunswicker_ of which vessel I am mate. Where -will she be now?” I considered awhile. “Say she got under weigh at two -o’clock this morning--how is the wind, Captain Greaves?” - -“It blows fresh, and is dead foul for the _Royal Brunswicker_ if she be -inward bound.” - -“Then,” said I, “she may have brought up in the Downs again. I hope she -has. I may be able to rejoin her before the wind shifts. In what part of -the Channel are you?” - -“Out of it, clear of the Scillies.” - -“_Out of the Channel?_” I cried. “Do you sail by witchcraft? What time -is it, pray?” - -“A few minutes after eleven.” - -“You were off Margate this morning at daybreak,” said I, “and now, at a -few minutes after eleven o’clock, you are out of the Channel?” - -“I was off Margate three days ago at daybreak,” he answered. - -“Have I been insensible three days? It is news to strike the breath out -of a man. Three days! Of course the _Royal Brunswicker_ has arrived in -the Thames and---- Out of the Channel, do you say? How am I to get -ashore?” - -“We will talk about that presently.” - -I lay speechless, with my eyes fastened upon the beam above the hammock. - -“You have talked enough,” said Captain Greaves; “yet there is one -question I should like to ask, if you have breath enough to answer it -with: How came you to hear that this brig’s name is the _Black Watch_?” - -“I read of the brig in an old newspaper that I was hunting over for news -at my uncle’s house last evening.” - -“Not last evening,” said he, smiling. - -“And have I been three days unconscious?” - -“I suppose my name was given as the commander of this brig?” - -“Yes; fitting out for a privateering cruise.” - -“Did the newspaper say so?” - -“I think it did.” - -“There is no lie like the newspaper lie,” said he. “I have no doubt that -Ananias conducted a provincial journal somewhere in those parts where he -was struck dead. But we have talked enough. Get now some sleep, if you -can. A dish of soup shall be got ready for you by and by, and there is -some very fine old madeira aboard.” - -He went out, but returned to put a stick into my hammock, bidding me -knock on the bulkhead should I need anything, as the lad, Jimmy Vinten, -would be in and out of the cabin all day, and would hear me if he -(Greaves) did not. I lay lost in thought, for I was not so weak but that -I was able to think with energy, even passion, though I was without the -power to continue much longer in conversation with Captain Greaves. I -was mightily shocked and scared to think that I had been insensible for -three days, babbling of gibbets and hanged men, and the angels know what -besides; yet why I should have been shocked and scared I can’t imagine, -unless it was that I awoke to the knowledge of my past condition in a -very low, weak, miserable, nervous state. Here was I clear of the -Channel in an outward-bound brig, whose destination I had yet to learn, -making another voyage ere the long one I was fresh from could be said, -so far as I was concerned at all events, to be over. But this was not a -consideration to trouble me greatly, First of all, my life had been -miraculously preserved, and for that I clasped my hands and whispered -thanks. Next, the brig was bound to speedily fall in with some ship -heading for England, and I might be sure that Greaves would take the -first opportunity that offered to tranship me. It was very important to -me that I should get to England quickly. There was a balance of about a -hundred and fifty pounds due to me for wages, and all my -possessions--trifling enough, indeed--were in my cabin aboard the _Royal -Brunswicker_. If my uncle did not procure me command next voyage -Spalding would take me as his mate; but I must make haste to report -myself, for I might count upon old Tom Martin telling Captain Round that -I had been taken by a press-gang, and then of course all England would -have heard, or in time would hear, that a press-boat, with pressed men -aboard, had been run down in the Downs with loss of most of her people, -as I did not doubt, and Spalding, believing me drowned, would appoint -another in my place as mate. - -Well, in this way ran my thoughts, and then I fell asleep, and when I -awoke the afternoon was far advanced, as I saw by the color of the light -upon the scuttle. I grasped the stick that lay in my hammock, and was -rejoiced to find that the long spell of deep refreshing slumber had -returned me much of my strength. I beat upon the bulkhead with the -stick, and in two or three moments a voice, proceeding from somebody -standing near the hammock, asked me what I wanted. - -It was a youth of about seventeen years of age, lean, knock-kneed, -sandy, and freckled, and of a “moony” expression of countenance that -plainly said “lodgings to let.” I never saw a more expressionless face. -It made you think of a wall-eyed dab--of the flattest of flat fish. Yet -what was wanting in mind seemed to be supplied in muscle. In fact he had -the hand of a giant, and his whole conformation suggested sinew gnarled, -twisted, and tautly screwed into human shape. - -“I am awake. You can see that,” said I. - -“I see that,” answered the youth. - -“I am hungry and thirsty, and wish for something to eat and something to -drink.” - -“There’s bin pork and madeery ready agin your arousin’. Shall I get -’em?” said the youth. - -I was astonished to hear him speak of pork, but nevertheless made -answer, “If you please.” - -He returned with a tray and handed up to me a basin of excellent broth -and a slice of bread, a wineglass, and a small decanter of madeira. I -looked at the broth and then looked at the youth and said, “Do you call -this pork?” - -He upturned his flat face and gazed at me vacantly. - -“Where is the pork?” said I. - -“There aint none, master.” - -“Poor idiot!” I thought to myself. I now discovered that I could sit up; -so I sat up and ate and drank. The madeira was a noble wine; the like of -it I have never since tasted. That meal, coming on top of my long sleep, -went far to make a new man of me, and I felt as though I should be able -to dress myself and go on deck, but on throwing my legs over the edge of -the hammock I discovered that I was not quite so strong as I had -imagined; I trembled considerably, and I was unable to hold my back -straight; so I lay down again, well satisfied with my progress, and very -sure I should have strength to rise in the morning. - -The youth stayed in the berth while I ate and drank, and I asked him -some questions. - -“Where is Captain Greaves?” - -“On deck, master. We have been chased, but aint we dropping her nicely, -though! Ah! She’s _that_ size on the sea now,” said he, holding up his -hand, “and at two o’clock we could count her guns.” - -“This is a fast brig then?” - -“She’s all legs, master.” - -“What are you?” - -“I’m the capt’n’s servant and cabin boy.” - -“What’s the name of your mate?” - -“Yawcob Van Laar.” - -“A Dutchman?” said I; and then I remembered having read in the paper -that this brig had been purchased or chartered by a Dutch merchant of -Amsterdam, so that it was likely enough she would carry some Dutch folk -among her crew. “Are you all Dutch?” - -“No, master. There be Wirtz, Galen, Hals, and Bol; them four, they be -Dutch. And there be Friend, Street, Meehan, Travers, Teach, Call, and -me; Irish and English, master.” - -I was struck by the fellow’s memory. His face made no promise of that -faculty. - -“Eleven men,” said I aloud, but thinking rather than talking; “and a -mate and a captain, thirteen; and the ship’s burden, if I recollect -aright, falls short by a trifle of three hundred tons. Her Dutch owner -appears to have manned her frugally for such times as these. Most -assuredly,” said I, still thinking aloud, gazing at the flat face of the -youth who was looking up at me with a slightly gaping mouth, “the _Black -Watch_ is no privateer. Where are you bound to?” - -“Dunno, master.” - -“You don’t know! But when you shipped you shipped for a destination, -didn’t you?” - -“I shipped for that there cabin,” said the youth, pointing backward over -his shoulder with an immense thumb. - -I finished the wine, handed down the decanter and bowl, and asked the -youth to procure me a pipe of tobacco. This he did, and I lay smoking -and musing upon the object of the voyage of the _Black Watch_. The -vessel was being thrashed through the water. It was blowing fresh, and -she hummed in every plank as she swept through the sea. The foam roared -like a cataract past the scuttle, but her heel was moderate; the wind -was evidently abaft the beam, the sea was deep and regular in its swing, -and the heave and hurl of the brig as rhythmic in pulse as the melody of -a waltz. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -I VIEW THE BRIG. - - -Presently it fell dark; but hardly had the last of the red, wet light -faded off the scuttle when the youth Jim re-entered the berth and -lighted the coffee-pot-shaped lamp, and as he went out Captain Greaves -came in. - -He asked me how I felt. I told him that I was almost well, that I hoped -to be quite well by the morning, in which case I would beg him to -transfer me to the first homeward bound craft that passed, though she -should be no bigger than a ship’s longboat. He viewed me, I thought, -somewhat strangely, smiled slightly, was silent long enough to render -silence somewhat significant, and then said: “A beast of a frigate -showing no colors has kept me anxious this afternoon. We have run her -hull down, but she has only just thought proper to shift her helm. -Possibly an Englishman who took us for a Yankee.” Saying this he pulled -off his fur cap and exhibited a fine head with a quantity of thick, -black hair curling upon it; he next produced and filled a pipe of -tobacco and, removing his pea-coat, he lighted his pipe at the lamp and -seated himself on the locker in the attitude of a seaman who intends to -enjoy a yarn and a smoke. - -I was strong enough to hold my head over the edge of the hammock; thus -we kept each other in view. - -“D’ye feel able to talk, Mr. Fielding?” said Greaves. - -“Very able, indeed,” I answered. “Your madeira has made a new man of -me.” - -“How happened it,” said he, “that you should be washing about on the oar -of a man-of-war’s boat off Ramsgate, the other morning, when we fell in -with you?” - -I begged him to put a pinch of tobacco into the bowl of my pipe and to -hold the lamp to me, and when I had lighted my pipe and he had resumed -his seat I began my story; and I told him everything that had befallen -me from the time of my arrival in the Downs in the ship _Royal -Brunswicker_ down to the hour when I found myself afloat on an oar, -heading a straight course east by north with the stream of the tide. He -listened with earnest attention, smoking very hard at some parts of my -narrative, and emitting several dense clouds, which almost obscured him -when I told him how the lightning had liberated the corpse and how, as -it might seem, the fiery hand of God himself had delivered the body of -the malefactor to the weeping, praying mother. - -“It was an evil moment for me when I fell in with that gibbet,” said I. -“I had not the heart to leave the wretched mother, though my first -instinct on catching sight of her was to run for my life. But I thank -God for my wonderful preservation; I thank Him first and you next, -Captain Greaves.” - -“No more of that. We’re quits.” - -“It is clear that you keep a bright lookout aboard this brig.” - -“Had your life depended upon the eyes of my men, the perishable part of -you would have been by this time concocted into cod and crab. I’ll -introduce you to the individual to whom you owe your life.” - -He opened the door of the cabin and putting a silver whistle to his lips -blew, and in a moment a fine retriever bounded in. - -“Galloon, Mr. Fielding; Mr. Fielding, Galloon.” - -The dog wagged his tail and looked up at me. - -“Did he go overboard after me?” said I. - -“You shall hear. It was break of day, the water quiet, the brig under -all plain sail, the speed some five knots. I was walking the -quarter-deck, and there was a man on the forecastle keeping a lookout. -Suddenly that chap Galloon there”--here the “chap” wagged his tail and -looked up at me again as though perfectly sensible that we were talking -about him--“sprang on to the taffrail and barked loudly. I ran aft and -looked over, but not having a dog’s eye saw nothing. ‘What is it, -Galloon?’ said I. He barked again, and then with a short but most -piercing and lamentable howl he sprang overboard. I love that dog as I -love the light of day, Mr. Fielding, much better than I love dollars, -and better than I love many ladies with whom I am acquainted. The brig -was brought to the wind, a boat lowered, and the people found Galloon -with his teeth in the jacket of a man who was laying over an oar.” - -“The noble fellow!” said I, looking down at the dog. - -Greaves picked him up and put his head over the edge of the hammock, and -I kissed the creature’s nose, receiving in return a caressing lick of -the tongue that swept my face. - -“Why do you call him Galloon?” said I. - -“I have been dreaming of galleons all my life,” he answered. - -He relighted his pipe and resumed his seat, and the dog lay at his feet, -gazing up at me. - -“I took the liberty,” said I, “of asking the youth called Jimmy to tell -me what port this brig was bound to. He answered that he did not know.” - -“He does not know,” said Captain Greaves. “No man on board the _Black -Watch_, saving myself, knows where we are bound to.” - -“I recollect reading in that newspaper paragraph I have spoken of that -the brig is owned by a merchant of Amsterdam. I recollect this the -better because it led me to ask my uncle, Captain Round, whether a -British letter of marque would be issued to a foreigner despite his -sending his ship a-privateering under English colors.” - -“We are not a letter of marque. It is perfectly true that this brig is -owned by an Amsterdam merchant. His name is, Bartholomew Tulp, and he is -my stepfather.” - -I asked no more questions. I would not seem curious, though there was -something in Captain Greaves’ reserve, and something in the enigmatic -character of this ocean errand, which made me very thirsty to hear all -that he might be willing to tell. Never had I heard of a ship manned by -a crew who knew not whither they were going. I speak of the merchant -service. As to the Royal Navy, the obligation of sealed orders must -always exist; but when a man enters as a sailor aboard a merchantman, -the first and most natural inquiry he wishes his captain to answer is, -“Where are you bound to?” - -Greaves sat watching me, as did his dog. The captain smoked, with a -countenance of abstraction and an air of deep musing, whilst he lightly -stroked his dog’s back with his foot. - -“My mate is a devil of a fool!” he exclaimed, breaking the silence that -had lasted some minutes. “He is a Dutchman, and his name is Van Laar. He -speaks English very well, but he is no sailor. The wind headed us after -leaving Amsterdam, and, having my doubts of Van Laar, I told him to put -the brig about, and she missed stays in his hands. Worse--when she was -in irons, he did not know what to do with her. I abominate the rogue who -misses stays; but can villainy in a sailor go much further than not -knowing what to do when a ship has missed stays?” - -“I have met,” said I, “with some fine seamen among Dutchmen.” - -“Van Laar is not one of them,” he answered. “Van Laar is no more to be -trusted with a ship than he is with a bottle of hollands. He does not -scruple to own that he hates the English, and I do not like to sail in -company with a man who hates my countrymen. I took him on Mynheer Tulp’s -recommendation. I was opposed to shipping a Dutchman in the capacity of -mate, but I could not very well object to a man as a Dutchman,” said he, -laughing, “to Mynheer Tulp.” - -“Does the mate know where the brig is bound to?” I inquired. - -“No.” - -“How very extraordinary!” - -He looked at me gravely; his face then relaxed. Finding his pipe out, he -arose, put on his coat and cap, and said: - -“I will leave you for the night. What do you fancy for your -supper--what, I mean, that you, as a sailor, will suppose my brig’s -larder can supply?” - -I answered that a basin of broth with a glass of brandy-and-water would -make me an abundant supper. - -“But before you leave me,” said I, “will you tell me where my clothes -are? I must hope to be transhipped to-morrow, and to step ashore with -nothing on but a blanket----” - -“Your clothes have been dried and are in the cabin,” said he. “When -Jimmy brings your supper ask him for your clothes. And now good-night, -and pleasant dreams to you, Mr. Fielding, when it shall please you to -fall asleep.” - -The dog sprang through the door, and I lay with my eyes fixed upon the -flame of the lamp, diverting myself with inventing schemes of a voyage, -one of which should fit this expedition of the _Black Watch_. - -Early next morning I awoke after a sound, refreshing night of rest, and, -dropping out of my hammock, found that I was pretty nigh as hearty as -ever I had been in my life. Greatly rejoiced by this discovery, I -attired myself in my clothes, which had been thoroughly dried. A razor, -a brush, and one or two other conveniences were in the cabin. I was -struck by Greaves’ kindness. I seemed to find in it something more than -an expression of charitable attention and grateful memory. Now being -dressed, and now testing myself on my legs, and finding all ship-shape -aboard, from the loftiest flying pennant of hair down to the soles of my -shoes, I opened the door of the berth and stood awhile looking in upon -the cabin. It was a small snug sea-interior, well lighted, and breezy -just now with the cordial gushing of wind down the companion-hatch. A -table and a few seats comprised the furniture; those things, and a lamp, -and a stand of small-arms, and some cutlasses. - -While I viewed this interior I heard Greaves’ voice in a cabin on the -starboard side forward. - -“Not coffee, but cocoa!” on which another voice, which I recognized as -the lad Jimmy’s, shouted out, to the accompaniment of the howling of a -dog: - -“Not coffee, but cocoa!” - -“Again,” said the voice of Captain Greaves. - -“Not coffee, but cocoa,” yelled the lad, and again the dog delivered a -long howl. - -“For the third time, if you please.” - -“Not coffee, but cocoa!” shrieked the lad, and the accompanying howl of -the dog rose to the key in which the boy pitched his voice, as though in -excessive sympathy with the shouter. - -A door forward was then opened, and the youth Jimmy came out. He stopped -on seeing me, and cried out, “‘Ere’s Mr. Fielding,” and then went on -deck. Galloon bounded up to me, and while I caressed him Greaves, with -his shirt sleeves turned up, and holding a hair-brush, looked out of his -door, saw me, approached, and shook me heartily by the hand. I answered -a few kind questions, and asked if there was anything in sight from the -deck. - -“Yes,” said he, “but nothing to be of any use to you. You can feel the -heave. It blows fresh.” - -“It is a very buoyant heave,” said I; “I should imagine you are at sea -with a swept hold.” - -He continued to brush his hair. - -“Excuse me, is your lad Jimmy an idiot?” - -“Not at all. Perhaps I know why you ask. You heard me and Galloon giving -him a lesson just now. Jimmy Vinten is no idiot, but he wants a faculty, -and Galloon and I are endeavoring to create it. He cannot distinguish -dishes. He will put a bit of beef on the table and call it pudding. -He’ll knock on my door and sing out, ‘The pork’s sarved,’ when he means -pease soup. His memory is remarkable in other ways. Wait a minute, and -we’ll go on deck together.” - -I sat upon a locker to talk to Galloon, to kiss the beast’s cold snout, -and with his paw in my hand, while his tail swayed like the naked mast -of an oysterman in a quick sea, I thanked him with many loving words for -having saved my life. His eye languished up at me. Oh! if ever there was -an expression of serene and heartfelt satisfaction in the eye of a dog -that for some noble action is being thanked with caresses, it shone in -Galloon’s eyes while he seemed to listen to me. After a few minutes -Greaves joined me, equipped in his pea coat, fur cap, and top boots--a -massive privateering figure of a man, handsome, determined of gaze, yet -with something of softness in his looks, and intimations of gentleness -in the motions of his lips and in his occasional smile. He led the way -up the companion steps, and I stood upon the deck of the brig looking -about me. - -Seasoned as I was to the life which the ocean puts into the shipwright’s -plank, I should not have suspected, from the motion of the vessel only, -that so considerable a sea was running. The wind was two or three points -abaft the beam; it was blowing half a gale--a clear gale. The clouds -were flying in bales and rags of wool toward the pouring southern verge -of the ocean; the dark blue brine, sparkling with the flying eastern -sunshine, swelled in hills to the brig’s counter, and the foam swept in -sheets backward from each rushing head. The brig was under whole -topsails and a topgallant sail, but abreast, to leeward, was another -brig heading north, stripped to a single band of main topsail and a -double-reefed forecourse--ay, Jack, the square foresail and mainsail in -my time carried two and sometimes three reefs--and the beat of the head -seas obscured her in frequent snowstorms as she struggled wildly aslant -amid the dark blue billows. _We_ were roaring through the water at ten -or eleven knots. To every stoop of the bows the foam rose boiling above -the catheads, with a mighty, thunderous bursting away of the parted seas -on either hand. Ships in those times made a great noise when they went -through the water. They were all bow and beam, and anything that was -over took the form of stern, immensely square, and as clamorous when in -motion as any other part of the ship. The _Black Watch_ would be laughed -at as a cask in these days, but as vessels then went she was a clipper. -Her lines were tolerably fine at the entry; then her bulk rolled -whale-like aft, with the copper showing two feet above the water-line, -and then she narrowed into a clipper run to the deadwood and the -sternpost. Her sheer forward gave her a bold bow. I watched her for a -few minutes as she rolled over the seas--and I was sensible that Captain -Greaves’ eye was upon me as I watched--and I thought her a very smart, -handsome, powerful vessel, the sort of ship a freebooter would instantly -fall in love with, and furiously determine to possess himself of, yea, -though a pennant shook at her masthead. - -She was armed on the forecastle with a long brass eighteen-pounder, -pivoted; on the main deck with four nine-pound carronades, two of a -side; and aft with a second long brass eighteen-pounder, likewise -pivoted. She carried three boats--one stowed in another abaft the -caboose, and a big boat chocked and lashed abreast of the other two -boats. Her decks were very white; the brass pieces flashed, and there -was a sparkle of glass over the cabin, and a frosty brilliancy of brine -all about her planks as you see in white sand with sunshine upon it. -Her sails soared square with a great hoist of topsail, and the cloths -might have been stitched for a man-of-war, so perfect was the sit and -spread of the heads, the fit of the clews to the yardarms. - -I took notice of the men; half the crew were on deck cleaning -paint-work, coiling down, differently occupied. They were big, burly -fellows for the most part, variously attired, and as I watched, one of -them, a vast, square, carrotty man, called out to another in a deep, -roaring voice; I did not know Dutch, but what that man said sounded very -much like Dutch, and the other man answered him in the same tongue. - -And now, having looked at the sea, and at the brig, and at such of the -crew as were visible forward, I directed my eyes at the figure of an -individual who was walking to and fro in the gangway. He was the mate, -Van Laar; as burly as the burliest of the figures forward, his eyes -small, black, and fierce, his face a mass of flesh, in the midst of -which was set an aquiline nose, whose outline in profile was hidden by -the swell of the cheek as you lose sight of the line of a ship’s sail -past some knoll of brine. He had not the least appearance of a sailor: -was not even dressed as a sailor; looked as though he had just arrived -out of the country in a cart to buy or sell eggs and butter in Amsterdam -market. - -I observed that his behavior grew uneasy while I gazed about me, Greaves -at my side receiving from me from moment to moment with a countenance of -complacency some morsel of appreciative criticism. That Dutch mate, Van -Laar, I say grew uneasy. He darted glances of suspicion at me. I never -would have supposed that any human eyes set in so much fat should have -possessed the monkey-like nimbleness of that man’s. At the same time I -noticed that he seemed to pull himself together after the captain had -stepped on deck. He shook the laziness out of his step, directed -frequent looks aloft, eyed the men as though to make sure there was no -skulking, and in several ways discovered a little life. But his heart -was not in it; his business was not _here_. - -The captain and I paced the deck. Even as we started to walk, the -boatswain, one of the burliest of the Dutchmen, piped the hands to -breakfast. The silver notes rang cheerily through the little ship and -wonderfully heightened to the fancy the airy, saucy, free-born look of -the timber witch as she thundered along with foam to her figure-head; -her white pinions beat time to the organ melodies of the ocean wind; -smoke hospitably blew from the chimney of her little caboose; Dutch and -English sailors entered and departed from that sea kitchen, carrying -cans of steaming tea with them into their forecastle; there was a -pleasant noise of the chuckling of hens; the sun shone brightly among -the wool-white clouds; splendid was the spacious scene of sea rolling in -sparkling deeply-blue heights, and every surge, as it ran, magnificently -draped itself in a flashing veil of froth. - -“I like your little ship, Captain Greaves,” said I. - -“I have been watching you, and I see that you like her,” he answered. - -“You carry two formidable pieces in those brass guns.” - -“We may pick up something worth defending.” - -He then asked me how long I had been at sea, and put many questions -which at the time of his asking them struck me as entirely -conversational: that is to say, he led me to talk about myself, and the -impression produced was that we chatted as a couple of men would who -talked to kill time; but, afterward, in thinking of this conversation, I -found that it had been adroitly, but absolutely inquisitional--on his -part. In fact, I not only related the simple story of my career; I -acquainted him with other matters, such as my attainments as a -navigator, my ignorance as a linguist, my qualifications as a -seaman--and all, forsooth, as though, instead of killing the time till -breakfast with idle chat, I was very earnestly submitting my claims to -him for some post aboard his brig. - -While we walked and talked I remarked that he kept the Dutch mate in the -corner of his eye, but he never addressed him. Once he found the brig -half a point, perhaps more than half a point, off her course. He spoke -strongly and sternly to the man at the helm, but never a word did he say -to Van Laar, whom to be sure he should have reprimanded for not conning -the brig. I thought this silence very significant. - -Presently the lad Jimmy--I called him a lad; his age was about -seventeen--this lad came out of the caboose with the cabin breakfast. -His knock-kneed legs seemed to have been created for the carriage of a -tray full of crockery and eatables along a sharply heaving deck. Galloon -trotted out of the caboose at the youth’s heels, and they descended into -the cabin together. Presently Jimmy arrived to announce breakfast, and -with him was Galloon. - -“What is there for breakfast?” inquired Captain Greaves. - -“There’s sausage and ’am and tea,” answered the lad. - -“Nothing of the sort,” said Greaves. “There is no sausage aboard this -ship, and I ordered neither ‘’am,’ as you call it, nor tea. Say eggs and -bacon and coffee.” - -The lad put himself in the position of a soldier at attention. - -“Say eggs and bacon and coffee,” he shouted; and the dog howled in -company with the youth. - -“Again, if you please.” - -“Say eggs and bacon and coffee,” roared the lad; and the dog increased -its volume of howl as though to encourage the youth to support this -trial. - -“A third time, if you please.” - -The dog began before the lad and howled horribly while Jimmy yelled, -“Say eggs and bacon and coffee.” - -The four of us then entered the cabin, where I found an excellent -breakfast prepared. Galloon sat upon a chair opposite me, and he was -waited upon by Jimmy as the captain and I were. - -“You are treating me very hospitably, Captain Greaves,” said I. - -“I am happy to have found a companion,” he answered. “After Van -Laar”--he stopped with a look at the skylight--“Dern Mynheer Tulp, -though he _is_ my step-father and the one merchant adventurer in this -undertaking. How sullen and obstinate is the Dutch intellect! Yet who -but Dutchmen could have reclaimed a bog from the sea, dried it, settled -it, and flourished on it?” - -“I hope this weather will soon moderate,” said I. “I am anxious to get -to England.” - -“Of course you are. And so shall I be anxious presently.” - -“Where do you touch, captain?” - -“Nowhere. An empty ship has plenty of stowage room, and there are -provisions enough aboard to last such a crew as my people number as long -a time as would make two or three of Anson’s voyages.” - -“Ah!” thought I with a short laugh, with the velocity of thought -founding a fancy of his errand upon his mention of the name of Anson, -and upon my recollection of his saying that he had been all his life -dreaming of galleons. - -“What amuses you?” said he. - -“Galloon there,” said I, laughing again and looking at the dog. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -A STRANGE STORY. - - -When we had breakfasted Captain Greaves said: “Will you smoke a pipe -with me in my cabin?” - -“With much pleasure,” I answered. - -“First, let me go on deck,” said he, “to take a look around. It is Yan -Bol’s watch and I cannot trust Van Laar to see that the deck is relieved -even when it is his own turn to come below. Bol is my carpenter, bo’sun, -and sailmaker. He stands a watch; but that sort of men who live in the -forecastle and eat and drink with the sailors are seldom useful on the -quarter-deck. Yet here am I talking gravely on such matters to a man who -knows more about the sea than I do.” - -With that he stepped on deck. I kept my chair and talked with Galloon -until Greaves returned. He then conducted me to his cabin. It was a -large cabin, at least three times the size of the berth I had occupied -during the night. It was on the starboard quarter, well lighted and -cozily furnished. Here was to be felt at its fullest the heave of the -brig as she swept pitching over the high seas. Whenever she stooped her -stern the roaring waters outside foamed about our ears. The kick of the -rudder thrilled in small shocks through this part of the fabric, and you -heard the hard grind of the straining wheel ropes in their leading -blocks as the steersman put his helm up or down. - -Captain Greaves took a canister of tobacco from a shelf and handed me a -pipe. We filled and smoked. He bade me lay upon a locker and himself sat -in his sleeping shelf or bunk, which, being without a top and standing -at the height of a knee from the deck, provided a comfortable seat. We -discoursed awhile on divers matters relating to the profession of the -sea. He asked me to examine his quadrant, his chronometer (which he said -was the work of the maker who had manufactured the watch that Captain -Cook had taken with him on his last voyage), his charts, of which he had -about a score in a canvas bag, and certain volumes on navigation. These -things I examined with considerable professional interest. While I -looked his eye was never off me. He appeared to be deeply ruminating, -and he smoked with an odd motion of his jaw as though he talked to -himself. When I was once more seated upon the locker he said: - -“I shall cease to call you mister. What need is there for formality -between two men who have saved each other’s life?” - -“No need whatever.” - -“Fielding,” said he, looking and speaking very gravely, “you have -greatly occupied my thoughts since you returned to consciousness -yesterday, and since I discovered that you were not a half-hanged pirate -or smuggler, but a gentleman and an English sailor after my own heart. I -mean to tell you a very curious story, and when I have told you that -story I intend to make a proposal to you. You shall hear what errand -this brig is bound on. You shall learn to what part of the world I am -carrying her, and I believe you will say that you have never heard of a -more romantic nor of a more promising undertaking.” - -He opened the door of his berth and looked out. Van Laar was seated at -the table, eating his breakfast. Greaves closed the door and seated -himself on his bed. - -“Last year,” said he, “I was in command of a small vessel named the -_Hero_. It matters not how it happened that I came to be at the -Philippines. There I took in a small lading for Guayaquil. When about -sixty leagues to the south’ard of the Galapagos Islands we made land, -and hove into view an island of which no mention was made in any of the -charts of those seas which I possessed. There was nothing in _that_. -There is much land yet to be discovered in that ocean. I have no faith -in any of the charts of the Western American seaboard, and trust to -nothing but a good lookout. We hove this island into view, and I steered -for it with a leadsman in the chains on either hand. I hoped to be of -some humble service to the navigator by obtaining the correct bearings -of the island; but I had no mind to delay my voyage by sounding, saving -only for the security of my own ship. - -“We sighted the island soon after sunrise, and at noon were abreast of -it. It was a very remarkable heap of rock, much after the pattern of the -Galapagos, gloomy with black lava, and the land consisted of masses of -broken lava, compacted into cliffs and small conical hills, that -reminded me somewhat of the Island of Ascension. I examined it very -carefully with a telescope and beheld trees and vegetation in one place, -but no signs of human life--no signs of any sort of life, if it were not -for a number of turtle or tortoises crawling upon the beach and looking -like ladybirds in the distance. But, as we slowly drew past the island, -we opened a sort of natural harbor formed by two long lines of reef, -one of them incurving as though it was a pier and the handiwork of man. -The front of cliff that overlooked this natural harbor was very lofty, -and in the middle of it was a tremendous fissure--a colossal cave--the -shape of the mouth like the sides of a roughly-drawn letter A. Inside -this cave ’twas as dark as evening; yet I seemed with my glass to -obscurely behold something within. I looked and looked, and then handed -the telescope to the mate, who said there was something inside the cave. -It resembled to his fancy the scaffolding of a building, but what it -exactly was neither of us could make out. - -“The weather was very quiet; the breeze off the island, as its bearings -then were at this time of sighting the cave, and the water within the -natural harbor was as sheet-calm as polished steel. I said to the mate: - -“‘We must find time to examine what is inside that cave. Call away four -hands and get the boat over. Keep a bright lookout as you approach. -There is nothing living that is visible outside, but who knows what may -be astir within the darkness of that tremendous yawn? At the first hint -of danger pull like the devil for the ship, and I will take care to -cover your retreat.’ - -“To tell you the truth, Fielding, the sight of that extraordinary cave -and the obscure thing within it, along with the natural harbor, as I -call it, had put a notion into my head fit, to be sure, to be laughed at -only; but the notion was in my head, and it governed me. It was this: -suppose that huge cave, I thought to myself, should prove to be a secret -dock used by picaroons for repairing their vessels or for concealing -their ships under certain conditions of hot search? Because, you see, it -was a cave vast enough to comfortably berth a number of small craft, and -their people would keep a lookout; and who under the skies would suspect -a piratic settlement in a heap of cinders?--So I, as a good, easy, -ambling merchantman--a type of scores--come sliding close in to have a -look, and then out spring the sea wolves from their lair, storming down -upon their quarry to the impulse of sweeps three times as long as that -oar upon which Galloon saw you floating.” - -He paused to draw breath. I smiled at his high-flown language. - -“Do you find anything absurd in the notion that entered my head?” said -he. - -“Nothing absurd whatever. You sight a big cave. There is something -inside which you can’t make out. Why should not that cave be a pirates’ -lair of the fine old, but almost extinct, type, capable of vomiting -cut-throats at an instant’s notice, just as any volcanic cone of your -island might heave up smoke and redden a league or so of land to the -beach with lava?” - -“Good. Fill your pipe. There is plenty of tobacco in this brig. I -brought my ship to the wind and stopped her without touching a brace, -that I might have her under instant command, and the boat, with my mate -and four men, pulled to the island. While she was on the road we put -ourselves into a posture of defense. I watched the boat approach the -entrance to the lines of reef. She hung on her oars, warily advanced, -halted, and again advanced; and then I lost sight of her. She was a long -while gone--a long while to my impatience. She was gone in all about -half an hour; and I was in the act of ordering one of the men to fire a -musket as a signal of recall, when she appeared in that part of the -natural harbor that was visible from the deck. The mate came over the -side; his face was purple with heat and all a-twitch with astonishment. - -“‘The most wonderful thing, sir!’ he cried. - -“‘What is it?’ said I. - -“‘There’s a ship of seven hundred tons at the very least, hard and fast -in that big hole, everything standing but the topgallant masts, which -look to me as if they’d been crushed away by the roof of the cave. Her -jib boom is gone and the end of her bowsprit is about three fathoms -distant inside from the entrance.’ - -“‘Anybody aboard?’ I asked. - -“‘I heard and saw nothing, sir,’ said he. - -“‘Did you sing out?’ - -“‘I sang out loudly. I hailed her five times. All hands of us hailed, -and nothing but our own voices answered us.’ - -“‘How the deuce comes a ship of seven hundred tons burthen to be lying -in that hole?’ said I. - -“My mate was a Yorkshireman. His head fell on one side and he answered -me not. - -“‘Are her anchors down?’ I asked. - -“‘Her anchors have been let go,’ he answered. ‘The starboard cable -appears to have parted inboard. I saw nothing of it in the hawse-pipe. -There are a few feet of her larboard cable hanging up and down.’ - -“‘Swing your topsail,’ said I. ‘She will lie quiet. There is nothing to -be afraid of upon that island.’ - -“I then got into the boat, and my men pulled me to the mouth of the -piers of reef. - -“I was greatly impressed by the appearance of these reefs on approaching -them. They looked like admirably wrought breakwaters, which had fallen -into decay but were still extraordinarily strong, very rugged, imposing, -and serviceable. The width of the entrance was about five hundred feet. -The water was smooth as glass, clear as crystal, and when I looked over -the side I could see here and there the cloudy sheen of the bottom, -whether coral or not I do not know--I should say not. And now, right in -front of me, was the great face of gloomy-looking cliff, and in the -center the mighty rift, shaped like that,” said he, bringing the points -of his two forefingers together and then separating his hands to the -extent of the width of his two thumbs. “No doubt the wonderful cave was -a volcanic rupture. The height of the entrance was, I reckoned, about -two hundred feet, and the breadth of it at its base about fifty. It -stood at the third of a mile from the mouth of the natural harbor. I -could see but little of the ship until I was close to, so gloomy was the -interior; but as the men rowed, features of the extraordinarily housed -craft stole out, and presently we were lying upon our oars and I was -viewing her, the whole picture clear to my gaze as an oil painting set -in the frame of the cavern entrance. - -“She was a lump of a vessel painted yellow, with a snake-like curl of -cutwater at the head of the stem, and a great deal of gilt work about -her headboards and figurehead. I knew her for a Spaniard the instant I -had her fair. She had heavy channels and a wide spread of lower rigging. -Her yards were across, but pointed as though she had ridden to a gale, -and the canvas was clumsily furled as if rolled up hurriedly and in a -time of confusion. But I need not tease you with a minute description of -her,” said he. “It was easy to guess how it happened that she was in -this amazing situation. Perfectly clear it was to me that she had -sighted this island at night, or in dirty weather, when the land was too -close aboard for a shift of the helm to send her clear. Once in the -harbor her commander, in the teeth of a dead inshore wind, could not get -out. What, then, was to be done? Here was a place of shelter in which he -might ride until a shift of wind permitted him to proceed on his voyage. -So, as I make the story run to my own satisfaction, he let go his -anchor; but scarcely was this done when it came on to blow, the canvas -was hastily furled to save the strain, but she dragged nevertheless. A -second anchor was let go, and still she dragged--and why? Because, as a -cast of the lead would have told the Spanish captain, the ground was as -hard as rock and as smooth as marble, and there was nothing for the -anchors to grip. Dragging with her head to sea and her stern at the -cliff’s huge front, the ship floats foot by foot toward the cave, -threading it with mathematical precision. The roof of the cave slants -rearward, and as she drifts into the big hole her royal-mastheads graze -and take the roof; the masts are crushed away at the crosstrees, -otherwise all is well with the ship. She strands gently, and is steadied -by her topmast heads pressing against the roof. Thus is she held in a -vise of her own manufacture, and so she lies snug as live callipee and -callipash in their top and bottom armor. That must be the solution, -Fielding.” - -“Did the water shoal rapidly in the cave?” said I. - -“Yes; the ship lies cradled to her midship section; forward she may be -afloat. But there she lies hard and fast for all that, motionless as the -mass of rock in whose heart she sleeps.” - -“You boarded her, I suppose?” - -“Certainly I boarded her,” continued Greaves. “It is by no means so -dusky inside the cave as it appeared to be when viewed from the outside. -I left a hand to attend the boat and took three men aboard. I believe I -should not have had the spirit to enter that ship alone. By Isten! but -she did show very ghastly in that gloom--very ghastly and cold and -silent, with the appalling silence of entombment. No noise--I mean that -faint, thunderous noise of distant surf--no noise of breakers -penetrated. Well, to be sure, by listening you might now and again catch -a drowning, bubbling, gasping sound, stealthily washing through the -black water in the cave along the sides of the ship; but I tell you that -I found the stillness inside that cave heart-shaking. I went right aft -and looked over the stern, and _there_ it was like gazing into a tunnel. -How far did the cavern extend abaft? There would be one and an easy way -of finding that out--by rowing into the blackness and burning a flare in -the boat. This I thought I would do if I could make time. - -“The ship was a broad, handsome vessel, her scantling that of a -second-rate; she mounted a few carronades and swivels: clearly a -merchantman, and, as I supposed, a plate-ship. She had a large -roundhouse, and steered by a very beautifully and curiously wrought -wheel, situated a little forward of the entrance to the roundhouse. It -did not occur to me that she might be a rich ship until I looked into -the roundhouse; _then_ I found myself in a marine palace in its way. -Enough of that. The sight of the furniture determined me upon attempting -a brief search of her hold. The impulse was idle curiosity--I should -have believed it so anyway. I had not a fancy in my head of any sort -beyond a swift glance of curiosity at what might be under hatches. Yet, -somehow, before I had fairly made up my mind to look into the hold, a -singular hope, a singular resolution had formed, flushing me from head -to foot as though I had drained a bottle of wine. ‘Look if that lamp be -trimmed,’ said I to a man, pointing to one of a row of small, -wonderfully handsome brass lamps, hanging from the upper deck of the -roundhouse. No, it was not trimmed. The rest of them were untrimmed. We -searched about for oil, for wicks, for candles, for anything that would -show a light. Then said I to two of the men, ‘Jump into the boat and -fetch me a lantern and candle. Tell the mate that I am stopping to -overhaul this ship for her papers, to get her story.’ - -“While the boat was gone I walked about the decks of the vessel, hardly -knowing what I might stumble on in the shape of human remains, but there -was nothing in that way. The boats were gone, the people had long ago -cleared out. Small blame to them. Good thunder!” cried he, shuddering or -counterfeiting a shudder; “who would willingly pass a night in such a -cave as that? The boat came alongside with the lantern. We then lifted -the hatches, and I went below. Life there was here, a hideous sort of -life, too. Lean rats bigger than kittens, living skeletons horrible with -famine. They shrieked, they squeaked, they fled in big shadows. There -was not much cargo in the main hold, but cargo there was. I will tell -you exactly the contents of the main hold of _La Perfecta Casada_,” he -exclaimed, coming out of his bed, opening a drawer, and taking out a -small book clasped by an elastic band. He read aloud. - -“Five thousand serons of cocoa--” - -“A minute,” said I. “Do I understand you to mean that you counted five -thousand serons of cocoa while you looked into the hold of that ship, -the hour being about two o’clock--I have been following you -critically--and your own ship hove to close in with the land?” - -“Patience,” said he; “it is a reasonable objection, but as a rule I do -not like to be interrupted when I am telling a story. Five thousand -serons of cocoa--” he repeated. - -“Pray,” said I, forgetting that he did not like to be interrupted, “what -is a seron?” - -“A seron is a crate.” - -“Well, sir?” - -“Sixty arobes of alpaca wool----” - -“What is an arobe?” - -“An arobe is twenty-five pounds.” He continued to read: “One thousand -quintals of tin at one hundred pounds per quintal; four casks of -tortoiseshell, eight thousand hides in the hair, four thousand tanned -hides, and a quantity of cedar planks.” - -He now looked at me as though he expected me to speak. I addressed him -as follows: “What I am listening to is a very interesting story. It is -an adventure, and I love adventures. It is said that the charm of the -sailor’s life lies in its being made up of adventures. That is a lie. -Men pass many years at sea and meet with no adventures worth speaking -of. A sailors life is a very mechanical, monotonous routine.” - -“What do you think of the cargo of _La Perfecta Casada_?” - -“_La Perfecta Casada_ is the name of the ship in the cave?” - -“Yes,” he answered. - -“It is a very good cargo so far as it goes, but there is very little of -it.” - -“There is enough,” said he, with a gesture of his hand. “I should be -very pleased to be able to pay the value of that cargo into my banking -account.” - -I made no remark, and he proceeded: “When I had taken a peep into the -main hold I caused the after hatch under the roundhouse to be raised, -and here I found a number of cases. They were stowed one on top of -another, with pieces of timber betwixt them and the ship’s lining--an -awkward looking job of stevedoring, but good enough, no doubt, to -satisfy a Spanish sailor. I left my men above, and descended alone into -this part of the hold, and stood looking for a short time around me, -roughly calculating the number of these cases, the contents of which I -could not be perfectly sure of, though one of two things I knew those -contents must consist of. I called up through the hatch to the men to -hunt about the ship and find me a chopper or saw, and presently one of -them handed me down an ax. I put down the lantern, and letting fly at -the first of the cases, with much trouble split open a part of the lid. -I would not satisfy myself that all those cases were full until I had -split the lids of five as tests or samples of the lot. Then finding -that those five cases were full, I concluded that the rest were full. To -make sure, however, I beat upon many of them, and the sound returned -satisfied me that the cases were heavily full.” - -“Of what?” said I. - -“My men,” he continued, taking no notice of my interruption, “were, no -doubt, considerably astonished to observe me hacking at the cargo with a -heavy ax, as though I had fallen mad, and splintering and smashing up -what I saw through sheer lunatic wantonness. I did not care what they -thought so long as they did not form correct conclusions. I regained the -deck, and bid the fellows put the hatches on while I explored the cabins -for the ship’s papers. There was a number of cabins under the -roundhouse, and in one of them, which had, undoubtedly, been occupied by -the captain, I found a stout tin box, locked; but I had a bunch of keys -in my pocket, and, strangely enough, the key of a tin box in which I -kept my own papers on board the _Hero_ fitted this box. I opened it, and -seeing at once that the contents were the ship’s papers, I put them into -my pocket and called to my men to bring the boat alongside. But I had -not yet completed my explorations. I threw the ax into the boat, entered -her, and pulled into the harbor to look at the weather and to see where -the _Hero_ was. The _Hero_ lay at the distance of a mile, hove-to. The -weather was wonderfully fine and calm. We pulled into the cave again to -the bows of the ship, and cut off a short length of the hemp cable that -was hanging up and down from the hawse-pipe, having parted at about two -feet above the edge of the water. The cable was perfectly dry. We unlaid -the strands and worked them up into torches and set fire to three of -them--that is to say, I and two of the men held aloft these blazing -torches, while the other two pulled us slowly into the cave past the -ship. There was not much to see after all. The cavern ended abruptly at -about a hundred yards astern of the ship. The roof sloped, as I had -supposed, almost to the wash of the water, it and the walls working -into the shape of a wedge. I had thought to see some fine -formations--stalactites, natural columns, extraordinary incrustations, -and so forth. There was nothing of the sort. The cave was as like the -tunneling of a coal mine as anything I can think of to compare it with; -but how gigantic, to comfortably house a vessel of at least seven -hundred tons, finding room for her aloft to the height of her topmast -head! It was more like a nightmare than a reality, to look from the -black extremity of the cave toward the entrance, and see there the dim -green of the day--for the light showed in a faint green--with the -upright fabric of the ship black as ink against that veil of green -faintness. The water brimmed with a gleam as of black oil to the black -walls. One of my men said: - -“‘Suppose it was to come on to blow hard, dead inshore how would it fare -with that ship, sir?’ - -“‘What could happen to hurt her?’ I answered. ‘Never could a great sea -run within the barriers of reefs, and no swell to stir the ship can come -out of that sheltered space of water, and keep its weight inside.’ - -“In truth, I talked to satisfy myself, and satisfied I was. Not the -worst hurricane that sweeps those seas can stir or imperil that vessel -as she lies. She is as safe as a live toad in a rock, and will perish -only from decay.” - -“But do her people mean to leave her there?” said I. - -“We may assume so,” he answered, “seeing that she was encaved, as far as -I can reckon from the dates of her papers, in or about the month of -August, 1810.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -A STARTLING PROPOSAL. - - -Captain Greaves, having pronounced the words with which the last chapter -concludes, came out of his bed-place and opened the cabin door. Galloon -entered. The captain stood looking. Mr. Van Laar was still at breakfast. -Captain Greaves and I had been closeted for a very considerable time, -yet Van Laar still continued to eat at table, and even as I looked at -him through the door which the captain held open, I observed that he -raised a large mouthful of meat to his lips. Captain Greaves exclaimed, -“I am going on deck to look after the brig, I shall be back in a few -minutes.” He then closed the door, and I occupied the time during which -he was absent in patting Galloon and thinking over my companion’s -narrative. - -As yet I failed to see the object of his voyage. Could it be that that -object was to warp the Spanish ship out of the cave and navigate her -home? I might have supposed this to be his intention had his brig been -full of men; but Greaves’ crew were below the brig’s complement as the -average ran in those days of teeming ’tween-decks and crowded -forecastles, and they were much too few to do anything with a ship of -seven hundred tons ashore in a cave; unless, indeed, Greaves meant to -ship a number of hands when on the Western American seaboard. - -He returned after an absence of a quarter of an hour. - -“I have stripped her of the main topgallant sail,” said he; “Yan Bol has -the watch. I will tell you what I like about Yan Bol--he has the throat -of a cannon; he does not shout, he explodes. He sends an order like a -twenty-four-pound ball slinging aloft. The wind of his cry might beat -down a sheep.” - -“Van Laar enjoys his food,” said I. - -“Van Laar is a gorging baboon,” he exclaimed; “but he shall not long be -a gorging baboon in my cabin or even on board my ship.” - -He resumed his seat in his bed, and, pulling from his pocket the little -book from which he had read the particulars of the cargo in the main -hold of _La Perfecta Casada_, he fastened his eyes upon a page of it, -mused a while, and proceeded thus: - -“We left the Spanish ship, pulled clear of the reef, and got aboard the -_Hero_. I called my mate to me, told him that the island was uncharted, -and that it behoved us to clearly ascertain its situation in order to -correctly report its whereabouts. Together we went to work to determine -its position; our calculations fairly tallied, and I was satisfied. I -then ordered sail to be trimmed, and we proceeded on our voyage. When -the ship had fairly started afresh I went into my cabin and examined the -papers I had brought off the _Casada_. Those papers were, of course, -written in Spanish. Though I speak Spanish very imperfectly, almost -unintelligibly, I can make tolerable headway, with the help of a -dictionary, when I read it. I possessed an English-Spanish dictionary, -and I sat down to translate the _Casada’s_ papers. Then it was that I -discovered there were five thousand serons of cocoa among the cargo. I -did not count those serons when I was on board.” - -“I understand.” - -“The particulars I have here,” said he, slapping the book, “were in the -manifest; but there was more than cocoa and wool and tin in that -ship--very much more. The cases in the after-hold were full of silver--I -had hoped for _gold_ when I sang out to my men to seek an ax; but silver -it proved to be, and the papers I examined in my cabin told me that -those cases contained in all five hundred and fifty thousand milled -Spanish dollars of the value, in our money, of four shillings and -ninepence apiece, though I am willing to reduce that quotation and call -the sum, in English money, ninety-eight thousand pounds.” - -I opened my eyes wide. “Ha!” said I, “now I think you need tell me no -more. This brig is going to fetch the money.” - -“That is the object of the voyage.” - -“Your men as yet don’t know where they are bound to?” - -“Not as yet. I do not intend that they shall know for some time. I want -to see what sort of men they are going to prove. They shipped on the -understanding that I sailed under secret orders from the brig’s owner, -and that those orders would not be revealed until we had crossed the -equator.” - -“Van Laar knows nothing, then?” - -“No more than the lad Jimmy. If he did--but the cormorant _shan’t_ -know.” - -“Ninety-eight thousand pounds!” quoth I, opening my eyes again. - -“There are several fortunes in ninety-eight thousand pounds,” said he, -smiling. - -“You spoke of a gentleman named Tulp.” - -“Bartholomew Tulp, my step-father. I will finish my story. I had plenty -of time for reflection, for my voyage home was long. I made up my mind -to get those dollars. I was satisfied that the money would remain as -safely for years, ay, for centuries if you like, where it lay as if it -had been snugged away in some secret part of the solid island itself. -There was, indeed, the risk of others sighting the island, landing, -discovering the ship, exploring, and then looting her. That risk remains -the single element of speculation in this adventure. But what, -commercially, is not speculative in the Change Alley meaning of the -term? You buy Consols at seventy; next day the city is pale with news -which sinks the funds to fifty. Spanish dollars to the value of -ninety-eight thousand pounds lie in the hold of a ship encaved in an -island south of the Galapagos. Is fortune going to suffer them to stay -there till we arrive? I say ‘yes.’ You, as a seafaring man, will say -‘yes.’ You know that vessels sighting that island will, seeing that it -is not down on the charts, or else most incorrectly noted--for no land -where that island is do I find marked upon the Pacific charts which I -have consulted--I say you will know that vessels sighting that island -will give it a wide berth for fear of the soundings. You will suppose -that if a vessel should find herself unexpectedly close in with that -land her people will see nothing in a mountainous mass of cinder to -court them ashore. You will hold that even supposing a thousand ships -should pass the island within the date of my proceeding on my voyage -from it in the _Hero_ and the date of my arrival off the island in this -brig _Black Watch_, there are ninety-nine chances against every one of -those thousand ships so opening the land as to catch a sight of the -vessel in the cave. The cave itself looks at a distance like a vast -shadow or smudge upon the front of the cliff. You must enter the natural -harbor, and pull close to the mouth of the cavern, to behold the ship. -Yes, it is true that the telescope will at a distance resolve the -darkness of the cave into a something that is indeterminable, but that -is more than mere shadow. But that this may be done a ship must be in -the exact situation the _Hero_ was in when I happened to point the glass -at the cave, and I say there are ninety-nine chances against any one of -a thousand ships being in the exact situation. The money in the -_Casada’s_ hold is there now, has been there since 1810, and but for me, -might be there until the ship falls to pieces with decay. What do you -say?” - -“Those waters are but little navigated,” said I. “All the chances you -name are against a vessel sighting your _Casada_ as she lies in her -shell according to your description. I am of your opinion. The money is -there and will remain there. The mere circumstances of those dollars -having been a secret of the island for four years is warrant enough to -satisfy any man that the island will continue to keep what is now your -secret.” - -He looked extremely gratified, and continued: - -“How was I to proceed in the adventure that I was determined to embark -on? I am a sailor, which means, of course, that I am a poor man.” - -“Just so,” said I. - -“My mother has been dead eight years. Of late I had seen and heard but -little of my step-father. I was aware, however, that he was doing a very -good trade as a merchant in Amsterdam. It occurred to me to propose the -adventure to him, and when I had finished my business with the _Hero_ in -the Thames I went across to Amsterdam, with the _Casada’s_ papers in my -bag, and passed a week with Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp. I needed a week, -and a week of seven long days, to bring the old man into my way of -thinking. Tulp has Jewish blood in him, and the blood of the Jew is as -thick as glue. A Tulp, four generations ago, married a Jewess. The -descendants have ever since been marrying Christians, but it will take -many generations to extinguish in the Tulps the Mosaic beak, the Aaronic -eye, the Solomon leer, the Abrahamic wariness which entered into the -Tulps, four generations ago, with honest Rachael Sweers. First Tulp -wanted to know how I proposed to get the money. By hiring a small vessel -and sailing to the island. How much was he to have? He must make his own -terms. How much would I expect? I was in his hands. Supposing, when the -money was on board, the crew rose and cut my throat? That was a peril of -the sea. He could protect his outlay by insurance, the cost of which he -was welcome to deduct from my share of the dollars should I bring the -spoil home in safety. - -“He was so full of objections that on the morning of the sixth day of my -stay at his house I flung from him in a rage. ‘I know what you _want_,’ -I told him: ‘you want the silver and you don’t want to pay for it. I -will see you----’ and I damned him in the names of Abraham, Isaac, and -Jacob. He is a little man: he arose from a velvet armchair, and -following me on tiptoe as I was leaving the room, he put his hand upon -my shoulder and said in a soft voice, ‘Michael, how much?’ To cut this -long yarn short, he commissioned me to seek a vessel, and when I had -found the sort of ship I wanted I was to enter into a calculation of the -cost of the adventure and let him know the amount I should need within -as few guilders as possible. That is the story.” - -“It is a very remarkable story. I am flattered by your confiding this -secret to me.” - -“It was necessary,” he answered. - -I did not see _that_, but I let the remark pass. “Where did you meet -with this brig?” - -“She is owned by a friend of mine who lives at Shadwell. I was thinking -all the way home of the _Black Watch_ as the ship for my purpose, and -strangely enough, among the vessels lying near me in the Pool when I -brought up was this brig. In London I shipped the English sailors we -have on board and sailed for Amsterdam at the request of Tulp, who -desired to victual and equip the ship himself. He put Van Laar upon me, -on some friend’s recommendation, and the remainder of the hands--much -too few, but the spirit of Rebecca Sweers sweats like a demon in Tulp -when there is a stiver to be saved--I shipped at Amsterdam.” - -“But will not this be strictly what the longshoremen would term a -salvage job?” - -“I do not intend that it shall be a salvage job. What? Deliver up the -dollars to the Dutch or British Government and be put off with an award -that would scarce do more than pay wages?” - -“You mean to run the stuff?” - -He nodded. “There is time enough to talk over that,” said he; “and yet -perhaps it’s right I should tell you that Tulp and I have arranged for -the running of the dollars so that we shall forfeit not one farthing.” - -“Well, I heartily wish you joy of your discovery,” said I. “This voyage -will be your last, no doubt, if the dollars are still where you saw -them.” - -I looked at a little clock that was ticking over a table; it was a -quarter after eleven. I then looked at the small scuttle or window which -swung with regular oscillations out of the flash of the flying foam into -the light of the blowing morning. I then looked at Galloon, and wondered -quietly within myself how long it would take me to get home; for the -speeding of the brig was continuous; the heave of the sea that rushed -her forward was full of the weight of a sort of weather that my -experience assured me was not going to fail us on a sudden. When, then, -was I going to get home? and while I kept my eyes fastened upon Galloon, -I mused with the velocity of thought upon my uncle Captain Round; upon -my adventure with the press-gang; upon the _Royal Brunswicker_, and her -arrival in the Thames; upon my little property in the cabin I had -occupied aboard her, and on the wages which Captain Spalding owed me. - -Greaves glanced at the clock at which I had looked. He then said, “Will -you be interested to know how Mynheer Tulp proposes to divide the -money?” - -I begged him to acquaint me with Tulp’s proposal. - -“There are five hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” said Greaves. “Of -this money the ship takes half. For ship read Tulp; Tulp’s share, -therefore, is two hundred and seventy thousand dollars or fifty-five -thousand pounds.” - -“These are big figures,” said I. “They slide glibly from the tongue. I -suppose a man could behold another fellow’s fifty-five thousand pounds -without feeling faint; but call a poor sailor into a room and show him -fifty-five thousand pounds in gold and tell him it is his, and I believe -you would find a large dose of rum the next thing to be done with him.” - -“The ship gets half,” continued Greaves. “I as commander get two-thirds -of the remainder.” - -“How much is that?” - -“Thirty-six thousand pounds.” - -I whistled low and long. - -“The mate,” proceeded he, “not Van Laar, but the mate--” he paused and -looked at me with an expression of significant attention; “the mate gets -one-third of the remainder--thirty thousand five hundred and fifty-six -dollars, or six thousand one hundred and eleven pounds.” He read these -figures from his little book. - -“A good haul for the mate,” said I. - -“The balance of sixty-one odd thousand dollars,” he went on, “goes to -the men according to their rating. This they will receive over and above -their wages, which average from three to six pounds a month.” - -“I think Mr. Tulp’s division into shares very fair,” said I. - -“Now,” said he, “why do I tell you all this? Why am I revealing to you -what not a living soul on board knows or even suspects?” - -I regarded him in silence. - -“Cannot you anticipate the proposal I intend to make? Will you take Van -Laar’s place on board my brig, and act as my mate?” - -I started from my chair. Not for an instant had I suspected that his -motive in telling me his story was to enable him to make this offer. I -started with so much vehemence that Galloon growled, stirred, and -elevated his ears. - -“It is a magnificent proposal,” said I. “It is an offer of six thousand -pounds.” - -“More,” he interrupted. “Your wages will be ten pounds a month.” - -“I do not like the idea,” said I after a pause, “of taking Van Laar’s -place.” - -“From him, do you mean?” - -“From him, of course. The post is another thing.” - -“It is I,” said he, “not you, who take it from him. Now, pray, -distinctly understand this, Fielding, that, whether you accept or not, -Van Laar will shortly cease to be my mate. If you refuse then Yan Bol -comes aft, and Laar either takes his place or goes home in the first -ship we meet.” - -He spoke with a hard face and some severity of voice. It was quite clear -that his mind was resolved, so far as Van Laar’s relations with the brig -was concerned. - -“It is a fine offer,” said I. “You will give me time to think it over, I -hope?” - -“What time do you require?” - -I again looked at the little clock. - -“I shall be able to see my way in a few hours, I hope.” - -“That is not sailor fashion,” said he, stepping to a quadrant case and -taking the instrument up out of it. “A sailor jumps; he never -deliberates.” - -“I have no clothes save what I am wearing,” said I. - -“We are well stocked with slops,” he exclaimed. “Dutch-made, to be sure, -but they are good togs.” - -“I am without nautical instruments,” said I, looking at the quadrant -which he held. - -“I have three of these,” he answered, “and one is at your service.” - -I rose and took a turn, full of thought, wishing to say “Yes” but -wishing to consider, too. - -“Even were Van Laar,” said he, “as good and trustworthy a seaman as ever -stepped a deck, I would rather have a fellow-countryman for a mate than -a Dutchman, though the Dutchman were the better man. In this case it is -wholly the other way about. Here are you, fresh from a long voyage, with -the experiences of the sea green upon you. You are young; you are -English. I owe you my life; and what a debt is that! Together we can -make this voyage not only a rich but a jolly jaunt. On the other hand, -is Van Laar--no, plague on him, he is not on the other hand, he is out -of it. Well, I must now go on deck to take sights. Let me have your -answer soon.” - -He extended his hand, received mine, pressed it cordially, and quitted -the cabin. - -I followed with Galloon, and, entering the stateroom, paced the deck of -it and turned Greaves’ proposal over. While I paced, Van Laar, with a -quadrant in his hand, came out of a cabin abreast of the captain’s. He -stared me full and insolently in the face, and said in a tone of irony: - -“Vell, how vhas it mit you? Do you feel like going home now?” - -“The sun will have crossed his meridian if you don’t hurry up,” said I. - -“Vot der doyvel vhas der sun to you, sir?” - -I turned my back upon him and continued to pace the deck, not choosing -that he should fasten a quarrel upon me--as yet, at all events. - -His insolence, however, helped me in my reflections by extinguishing him -as a condition to be borne in mind. I had been influenced by -compunction; now I had none. I watched the fat beast climb the companion -ladder, and after him, and then over the side into the seething water to -lie drowned forever, went all compunction. How could Greaves work with -such a man? How could he live in a ship with such a man? So, opening the -door of my mind, I kicked Mate Van Laar headlong out of my -contemplation, and resolution did not then seem very hard to form. - -I sat down, and said to Galloon: - -“What shall I do?” - -Galloon stood upon his hind legs, and, resting his fore feet upon my -knees, looked up at me with eyes which beamed with cordial invitation -and affectionate solicitude. - -“What shall I do, Galloon?” said I. “Six thousand pounds is a large sum -of money for a man of my degree. Can I doubt that the dollars are in the -ship inside the cave? If Tulp is to be convinced, I should. There was -the Spanish manifest; there were the cases beheld by Greaves’ own eyes. -Why should Greaves invent this yarn? I will stake my life, Galloon, upon -its being true. Six thousand pounds! And d’ye know, my noble dog, that -there is more money in six thousand pounds than your master’s reckoning -of the Spanish dollar swells the amount to? In Jamaica the Spanish -dollar passes for six-and-eightpence; in parts of North America for -eight shillings; and in the Windward Islands for nine shillings;” and -then I told Galloon what I should do when I received the six thousand -pounds: how I would buy me a little house at Deal and a boat, live like -a gentleman on the interest of what was left, and spend the time merrily -in fishing and sailing. - -The dog listened with attention. At times I seemed to catch a slight -inclination of the head, as though he nodded approvingly. I counted upon -my fingers all the advantages, which must attend my acceptance of -Greaves’ offer. First, the post of mate at ten pounds a month, with a -voyage before me of at least twelve months; then my association with a -man whose company was exceedingly agreeable to me, between whom and me -there must always be such a bond of sympathy as nothing but the -prodigious and pathetic services we had done each other could -establish; then the possibility--nay, the more than possibility, of my -receiving six thousand pounds as my dividend of the adventure. These and -the like considerations I summed up. What was the _per contra_? The -forfeiture of a few weeks of holiday ashore! Spalding’s debt to me stood -good, and would be paid whenever I turned up to receive the money. My -being seized by the press-gang, the boat being stove, and my being -picked up insensible and carried away into the ocean--all this was no -fault of mine. Therefore Spalding would pay me the money. - -“Galloon, I will accept,” said I, and jumped up; and the dog fell to -cutting capers about me, springing here and there, like a dog in front -of a trotting horse, and barking joyously. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -I FIGHT VAN LAAR. - - -About the hour of four, that same afternoon, I followed Greaves out of -his berth into the state cabin and living room. We had been closeted for -an hour, and during that hour our discourse had related wholly to the -voyage. I followed him into the cabin. There had been no change in the -weather since the morning. The brig was rushing through the swollen seas -under whole topsails and some fore-and-aft canvas, to keep her head -straight, for now and again she would yaw widely with the swing of the -surge, and, indeed, it needed two stout fellows at the wheel to keep the -sheet of rushing wake astern of her a fairly straight line. - -We had not entered the cabin five minutes when Van Laar descended the -companion steps. It was four o’clock. Yan Bol had come on to the -quarter-deck to relieve the mate until the hour of six, and Van Laar, -descending the ladder, was rolling in a thrusting and sprawling walk to -his berth, without taking the least notice of the captain and me, when -Greaves stopped him. - -“Van Laar, sit down. I have something to say to you.” - -The Dutch mate rounded suddenly. The insipid and meaningless layers of -fat which formed his face were quickened by an expression of surprise. -He had pulled his cloth cap off on entering, and now worried it between -his hands as he stared at Greaves. His mind worked slowly. Presently he -gathered from the looks of Greaves that he was to expect something -unpleasant, on which he said: - -“I do not wish to sit down. Vy der doyvil should I sit down? Vot hov you -to say, Captain Greaves?” - -“You are already aware that I am dissatisfied with you,” said Greaves. - -“‘Ow vhas dot?” - -“I desire no words. Enough if I tell you _simply_ that you do not suit -me.” - -“Vy der doyvil did you engage me, den?” - -“I was misled by Mynheer Tulp, who was misled by Mynheer somebody else,” -answered Greaves, admirably controlling his voice, but nevertheless -sternly surveying the man whom he addressed. “I was told that you knew -your duty as a seaman and as a mate, but you are so ignorant of your -duty that I will no longer trust you on my quarter-deck.” - -“Vy der doyvil did you ask me to schip? If I do not know my duty, vhas -dere a half-drown man ash we drag on boardt dot can teach her to me?” - -“I do not choose to go into that,” exclaimed Captain Greaves calmly. “I -presume you are not so ignorant of the sea but that you know what my -powers as a commander are?” - -“Hey! you speaks too vast for me.” - -The captain slowly and deliberately repeated his remark. - -“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Van Laar, with a slow sideways motion of the head. -“I need not to be instrocted as to dere powers of a commander, nor do I -need to be instrocted as to dere rights of dose who sail oonder her. I -vhas your mate; vhat hov you to say against dot?” - -“Which will you do,” said Greaves, with a note of impatience in his -voice, “will you take the place of second mate, in the room of Yan Bol, -who will be glad to be relieved of that trust, or will you go home by -the first ship that’ll receive you?” - -Van Laar looked from Greaves to me, and from me to Greaves, and putting -his cap upon the table, and thrusting his immensely fat hands into his -immensely deep trousers’ pockets, he exclaimed, with a succession of -nods: - -“Dis vhas a consbiracy.” - -“Conspiracy or no conspiracy,” said Greaves, scarcely concealing a -smile, “you will give me your answer at once, if you please. My mind is -made up.” - -“Dis vhas your doing,” said Van Laar, looking at me; and he pulled his -right hand out of his pocket and held it clenched. - -“Make no reference to that gentleman,” cried Greaves, “I am the captain -of this ship, and all that is done is of _my_ doing. I await your -answer.” - -“Vy der doyvil,” said Van Laar deliberately, with his eyes fastened upon -my face, “vhas not you drown? Shall I tell you? Because you vhas reserve -for anoder sort of end,” and here he bestowed a very significant nod -upon me. - -I felt the blood in my cheeks. I could have whipped him up the steps and -overboard for talking to me like that. I looked at Greaves, met his -glance, bit my lip, and held my peace. - -“Which will you do, Mr. Van Laar?” said Captain Greaves. “If you do not -answer for yourself I will find an answer for you.” - -“Gott, but I hov brought my hogs, as you English say, to a pretty -market. I am dere servant of Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp.” - -“I am master of this ship and you are my mate. I can break you and send -you forward. I can have you triced up and your broad breech ribbanded. I -can swing you at the yardarm till your neck is as long as an emu’s. Why -do I tell you this? Because you are ignorant of the sea and must learn -that my powers are not to be disputed by any man under me, from you -down, or, as I would rather say, from you up,” he added, with a -sarcastic sneer. - -“Vhat vhas your offer?” said the mate. - -There was a perversity in this man’s stupidity that was very irritating. -The captain quietly named again the alternative. - -“Vat vhas dis voyage about?” inquired the mate. - -“That is my affair.” - -The Dutchman stood gazing at one or the other of us. He then put on his -cap and saying, “I vill schmoke a pipe in my bed und tink him out,” he -made a step toward his berth. - -“I must have your answer by six o’clock,” said the captain. - -The mate, taking no notice of Greaves’ remark, entered his berth and -closed the door. - -Greaves and I were silent upon the man’s behavior; he was so absolutely -and helplessly in the power of his captain that the sense of fairplay -would not suffer us to speak of him. - -“I will tell Jimmy,” said Greaves, “to get the slop chest up, and you -can overhaul it for the clothes you require. You will want a chest; -_that_ can be managed. What else will you require? Your bedroom needs -furnishing. I can lend you a razor and give you a hairbrush. Linen and -boots you will find among the slops. As to wages--we will arrange it -thus: I shall give a written undertaking to each of the crew, on -announcing to them the purpose of this voyage. In my undertaking to you, -in which I shall state your share, I can name the wages agreed upon--ten -pounds a month, starting from to-day, which of course, I will make a -note of in my log book. Does this meet your views?” - -“Handsomely,” I answered. - -He left his seat. - -“With your leave, captain,” said I, “it is _captain_ now; it shall be -_sir_ anon.” - -“No, no,” he interrupted, “not the least need; not as between you and -me, Fielding. In the presence of the crew and in the interests of -discipline, why, perhaps it had better be an occasional _sir_ for me, -you know, and a _mister_ for you, d’ye see? But the words may be uttered -with our tongues in our cheeks. What were you going to say?” - -“That with your leave, I will at once write a letter to my uncle Captain -Joseph Round, relating my adventures, telling him where I am, but not -where I am bound to, and requesting him to communicate with Captain -Spalding, that my wages may be sent to my uncle at Deal. We may fall in -with a ship in any hour and I will have a letter ready.” - -“Right,” he exclaimed, “you will find pen and ink and paper in my -cabin;” and he sprang up the hatch, whistling cheerily, as though his -mind were extraordinarily relieved, not indeed through my agreeing to -serve under him--oh no, I am not such a coxcomb as to believe -_that_--but because he had as good as cleared Van Laar off his -quarter-deck. - -I entered his berth, and finding the materials I required for producing -a letter, I returned to the cabin, seated myself at the table, and began -a letter to my uncle Joseph. The chair I occupied was at the forward end -of the table, and when I raised my eyes from the paper, I commanded both -the captain’s and the mate’s berths. It was about half-past four. There -was plenty of daylight; the windy westering sunshine came and went upon -the cabin skylight with the sweep of the large masses of vapor across -the luminary. The roar of frothing waters alongside penetrated dully. -The lift of the brig was finely buoyant and rhythmic, insomuch that you -might almost have made time out of the swing of a tray over the table, -as you make time out of the oscillations of a pendulum. - -I had nearly completed my letter when, happening to lift my head to -search the skylight for a thought, or perhaps for the spelling of a -word, I beheld the fat countenance of Van Laar surveying me from his -doorway. On my looking at him he withdrew his head, with a manner of -indecision. I went on writing. The lad Jimmy came into the cabin, -followed by Galloon. The boy, as I call him, busied himself, and I went -on with my letter, the dog jumping on to the chair which he occupied at -meals, and watching me. Presently, looking up, I again perceived Van -Laar’s head in his doorway. Once more he withdrew, but at the instant of -signing my letter, I heard a strange noise close beside me; I seemed to -smell spirits; I raised my eyes. Van Laar stood at the table, leaning -upon it, and breathing very heavily; his breathing, indeed, sounded like -a saw cutting through timber; his little eyes were uncommonly fierce and -fiery, and the flesh of his face of a dull red. The moment my gaze met -his, he exclaimed: - -“You vhas a broodelbig!” - -His accent was so much broader than the spelling which I have endeavored -to convey it in that I did not understand him. I believed he had applied -some injurious Dutch word to me. - -“What do you say?” I exclaimed. - -“I should like to know,” said he, fingering the cuffs of his coat as -though he meant to turn them up, “vhat sort of a man you vhas. Who vhas -you? ’Ow vhas it you vhas half drown? ’Ow comes you into dere water? -Vhas you chooked overboart? Maype you vhas a pirate? I should like to -know some more about you. Vhat schip vhas yours? Have you a farder? Vere -vhas you porn?” - -“Return to your cabin and finish your pipe and bottle,” said I. “Do not -meddle with me, I beg you.” - -“Meddle! Vhat vhas dot? Meddle; I must hov satisfaction of my questions. -My master is Mynheer Tulp. Am I to give oop my place to a half-drown -man, vhen I hov agree for der voyage mit Mynheer Tulp’s consent?” He -swelled his breast and roared--“No beast of an Englishman shall take -dere place of Van Laar in a schip dot vhas own by Mynheer Tulp.” He then -smote the table furiously with his fist, and, putting his face close to -mine, he thundered out--“You are a broodelbig!” _Now_ I understood him -to mean “a brutal pig,” my ear having, perhaps, been educated by his -previous speech. - -“Jimmy,” I exclaimed, “hold the dog!” and, with the back of my hand, I -slapped the Dutchman heavily on the nose. - -The dog growled. Jimmy sprang and clasped the creature round the neck, -holding him in a vise, and grinning with every fang in his head between -the dog’s ears. A fight to an English lad, himself clasping a growling -dog to his heart! Match him such another joy if you can! - -Having struck Van Laar, I stood up and immediately pulled off my coat -and waistcoat. Van Laar also undressed himself, and, while he did so, he -bawled out: - -“I vhas sorry for you. Better for you had you never been porn. If I vhas -you, I like some more to be drown or hang dan to be you.” - -He stripped himself to his flesh, keeping nothing but his trousers on, -and stood before me like a vast mass of yellow soap. He was drenched -with perspiration. Galloon barked hoarsely at him. I was almost disposed -to regard this exhibition of himself as an appeal to my sensibility. He -was shaped like a dugong--after the pattern, indeed, of one of the most -corpulent of those interesting marine epicenes. He opposed to me a ton -of infuriate flesh. How could I strike it, or rather _where_? It would -be like plunging my fist into a full slush-pot. - -“Dere better der man dere better der mate!” he roared. “call upon Cott, -if you belief in Him, to help you. Dere better der man dere better der -mate! Goom on!” - -Poising his immense fists close against his face, he approached me, and -then, hoping perhaps to end the business at a _coup_ he rushed upon me, -whirling both his arms with the velocity of a windmill in a strong -breeze. I took a step and planted a blow, but not without compunction, -for I saw that the poor devil had no science. I say I planted a blow in -his right eye, which instantly took a singular expression of leering. I -backed and he followed, still swinging his arms; and certainly, had I -permitted one of those rotary fists to descend upon my head, I must have -gone down as though to the blow of a handspike. But alas! for poor Van -Laar. He knew nothing of boxing, and I was well versed in that art. I -dodged him for a while, hoping that, by winding him, I should be able to -bring the battle to a bloodless close. But the fellow had very -remarkable staying powers; he seemed unnaturally strong in the wind -considering his tonnage. He continued to thrash the air, seeking to rush -upon me, while he thundered: - -“Dere better der man, dere better der mate!” - -So, to end the business, I knocked him down. He fell flat and heavily -upon his back. Jimmy roared with laughter, and Galloon barked furiously -at the yellow heap on the deck, straining in the lad’s arms to get at -it. Greaves came into the cabin. He stopped when in the companion way, -and stared at the motionless figure of Van Laar. - -“Is the man killed?” cried he. - -“Oh, dear, no,” I answered. “He’s only resting.” - -“What is all this about?” he demanded. - -I told him how it had come about, but when I repeated the insulting -expression which had been twice made use of, Van Laar sat up and said: - -“It vhas true, but I will fight no more mit you. I allow dot you are der -better man. I said, ’Dere better der man, dere better der mate,’ and dat -shall be as Cott pleases.” - -“Go to your cabin, sir!” cried Greaves, looking at him with disgust; -but, on Van Laar turning his face, the captain’s countenance relaxed. - -The Dutchman’s eye was closed, and it painted upon his countenance the -fixed expression of a wink; otherwise he was not hurt. I had known how -to fell him without greatly injuring him or drawing blood, and the worst -of the knockdown blow I had administered lay in the shock of the fall of -his own weight. - -“Go to your cabin, sir,” repeated the captain, “and keep to it. Consider -yourself under arrest. Your brutal conduct now determines me to clear -the ship of you, and you shall be sent home by the first vessel that I -can speak.” - -“You vhas in a hurry,” said Van Laar, getting on to his legs, and -beginning to pick up his clothes: “had you vaited you would have foundt -me first. It vhas me,” he roared, striking his fat chest, “who tell you, -and not you who tell me, dot I leave for goot dis footy hooker. But -stop,” cried he, wagging his fat forefinger at the captain, “till I see -Mynheer Tulp. Den I vhas sorry for you,” and thus speaking he went to -his cabin, bearing his clothes with him. - -I put on my coat and waistcoat, and exclaimed, “I am truly grieved that -this should have happened. Yonder lad Jimmy witnessed the fellow’s -treatment of me.” - -“There is nothing to regret,” said Greaves. “Yes, I regret that you did -not punish him more severely. He knows that you have been insensible for -three days, and the coward, no doubt, counted upon finding you weak -after your illness.” - -“It is well for him,” said I, “that he should have made up his mind at -once that I am the better man. I felt a sort of pity for the shapeless -bulk when I saw it rushing upon me, with its arms whirring like the -flails of a thresher upon a whale. A fellow apprentice of mine, in the -third voyage I made, was the son of a prize-fighter. He had learnt the -art from his father, and claimed to have his science. Many a stand-up -affair happened between this youth and me, during our watches below. He -showed me every trick at last, though the education cost my face some -new skins.” - -“If Van Laar shows himself on deck, or indeed, if he leaves his berth, -I’ll clap him in irons,” said Greaves. “Meanwhile, Fielding, you will -enter upon your duties at once, providing you feel strong enough.” - -“Perfectly strong enough,” said I. - -“Very well,” said he, “you will relieve Yan Bol at four bells, and I -will call the crew aft and tell them that you are mate of the _Black -Watch_.” - -So here now was I chief mate of a smart brig, with ten pounds a month -for wages, not to mention the six thousand pounds I was to take up if we -brought our cargo of dollars home in safety. Truthfully had I told -Greaves that my adventures at sea had been few, but surely now life was -making atonement for her past beggarly provision of strange, surprising -experiences, by the creation of incidents incomparably romantic and -memorable, as I will maintain before the whole world, was that incident -of the gibbet, on the sand hills near Deal. - -When I reached the deck I found a noble, flying, inspiriting scene of -swelling and cleaving and foaming brig and ocean curling southward. -Through the luster of an angry, glorious sunset, the froth flew in -flakes of blood, and every burst of white water from the courtesying -bows was crimson with sparkles as of rubies. I wondered, when I looked -at the see-saw sloping of the deck, how on earth the Dutchman and I had -managed to keep our pins while we fought. Yet, why did I wonder? I found -myself standing beside the captain, no more sensible than he of a swing -and sway that when it came to a roll was roof-steep often, gazing -forward with him at the crew, who were assembling in response to the -boatswain’s summons, preparatory to laying aft. - -This was a small business and promptly dispatched. Two men were at the -wheel, and eight men, leaving Jim Vinten out, came to the mainmast to -hear what the captain had to say. He said no more than this: “Yan Bol, -and you men: Mr. Van Laar is under arrest in his cabin, and Mr. William -Fielding here is and will be the mate of the _Black Watch_. He is a much -better man than Van Laar. You would split your throats with huzzas did -you know how very much smarter Mr. Fielding is than Van Laar. We want -nothing but sharp and able men aboard the _Black Watch_. You’ll know why -anon--you’ll know why anon. I have my eye upon ye, lads, and so far, I’m -very well satisfied. You seem a willing crew; keep so. A man, after he -has heard our errand, would sooner have cut his throat than fail me. -Heed me well, hearts, for this is to be a big cruise. Here’s your mate, -Mr. William Fielding,” and he put his hand upon my shoulder. - -The fellows stared very hard. They were strangers to me as yet, and I -knew not which were Dutch and which were English; but some exchanged -looks with a half-suppressed grin, and those I guessed were English. Yan -Bol stood forward--Yan we called him, though he spelt his name with a J. -He was, as you have heard, boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker, a stern, -bearded, beetle-browed man, heavily clothed with hair--leonine--indeed, -in the matter of hair. - -“I beg pardon, captain,” said he, “does Herr Van Laar goom forward?” - -“No,” answered the captain, “he goes over the side presently, when -there’s a ship to pick him up.” - -“I vhas to be second mate still?” - -“Yaw, it is so, Yan. We want no better man.” - -But the compliment was not relished. Methought Yan Bol, as he fronted -the stormy western light, looked sterner and more beetle-browed, -hairier, and more bearded than before, when he understood that he was to -remain second mate. - -“There are three Dutchmen aboard not counting you, Bol,” said the -captain, “and seven Englishmen. I want such a distribution of watches, -as will put the three Dutchmen under you, Yan. Wirtz, you and Hals will -come out of the starboard into the larboard watch, and Meehan and -Travers will take their place. That’s all I’ve got to say, excepting -this--pipe for grog, Bol, to drink the health of the new mate.” - -This dismissed them chuckling. Bol sounded his whistle, and Jimmy -presently came out of the cabin and went forward with a can of black rum -swinging in his hand. - -“I am lumping the Dutchmen together under one head,” said Greaves, as we -paced the deck, “to give their characters a chance of developing, -before they learn the motive of this voyage. Not that I have more or -less faith in Dutchmen than in Englishmen; but sailors of a nationality -do not distrust one another, therefore whatever is bad will quickly -ripen: but mix them with others and you arrest rapid development by -misgiving; and a difficulty, that might come to a head quickly, is -delayed until a remedy becomes difficult or impracticable.” - -“I understand you, sir.” He smiled on my giving him the _sir_ for the -first time. “You want to get at the character of your crew as promptly -as may be.” - -“That I may clear my forecastle of whatever is doubtful. A cargo of five -hundred and fifty thousand dollars makes a rich ship, and a rich ship is -a wicked temptation to wicked men. It is a pity we could not manage with -fewer hands; but death, sickness, many disabling causes are to be -considered; the voyage is a long one--there is the Horn; we could not -have done with less men.” - -“I wonder what notion of this voyage the men have in their heads,” said -I. “I watched them while you talked. I could not see that they made sign -by grin, or stare, or look.” - -“They would not be sailors if they were not careless of the future,” -said Greaves. “What’s for dinner to-day? _That’s_ it, you know. Is there -a shot in the locker? Is there a drop of rum in the puncheon? Is there a -fiddle aboard? and if the answer be yea, marry, a clear, strong, manly -bass voice sings out, ‘All’s well.’ Those men don’t care, because they -don’t think. Can’t you hear them talk, Fielding?--‘Where the blazes are -we bound to, I wonder?--Hand us that pipe along for a draw and a spit, -matey.’--‘I’m for the land o’ shoe-shine arter this job, bullies’--‘Der -bork in dis schip vhas goodt,’ says a Dutchman. Then grunt goes another, -and snore goes a third, and the rest is snorting. Don’t it run so, -Fielding? _You_ know sailors as well as I. But I’ll tell you what; it’ll -put gunpowder into the heels of their imaginations, to learn that we’re -going to load dollars out of a derelict. They shan’t know yet a bit. -Well it is that Van Laar doesn’t know either. Tulp was for having me -explain the nature of our errand to him. ‘No, by Isten,’ said I--which I -believe is Hungarian--‘no, by Isten,’ I exclaimed, ‘no man shall know -what business we’re upon till I have gained some knowledge of the -character of the company of fellows who are under me.’” - -“All this makes me feel your confidence in me the more flattering, sir,” -said I. - -“Don’t _over_ sir me. I must replace a guzzling and gorging baboon of a -Dutch mate--a worthless mass of unprofessional fat--I must replace this -hogshead of lard by a _man_, and Galloon finds me the man I need lying -half-drowned off Ramsgate. I want him very earnestly, very imperatively. -I must have a mate--a smart, English seaman. Here he is; but how am I to -keep him? He is not going to be detained by vague talk of a voyage -whose issue I decline to say anything about, whose motive is -mysterious--criminal, for all he is to know--imperiling the professional -reputation of those concerned in it, with such a gibbet as that which -stands upon the sand hills at the end of it all. No; to keep you I must -be candid, or you wouldn’t have stayed.” - -“That is true.” - -“See to the brig, Fielding. She’s a fine boat, don’t you think? If she -didn’t drag so much water--look at that lump of sea on either -quarter--she’d be a comet in speed. Why the deuce don’t the shipwrights -ease off when they come aft, instead of holding on with the square run -of the butter-box to the very lap of the taffrail?” - -He looked aloft; he looked around the sea; he walked to the binnacle and -watched the motion of the card; he then went below. - -It was nearly dark. The red was gone out of the west, but the dying -sheen of it seemed to linger in the south and east, whither the -shapeless masses of shadow were flying across the pale and windy stars, -piling themselves down there with a look of boiling-up, as though the -rush of vapor smote the hindmost of the clouds into steam. - -Why, thought I, it was but a day or two ago that I, mate of the _Royal -Brunswicker_, was conning that ship, with her head pointing t’other way, -in these same waters; and then I was thinking of Uncle Joe, and of some -capers ashore, and of the relief of a month or two’s rest from the -derned hurl of the restless billow, as the poets call it, with plenty of -country to smell and fields to walk in, and a draught of new milk -whenever I had a mind. Only a day or two ago--it seems no longer. -Insensibility takes no count of time. In fact, whether I knew it or not, -I went to sea again on this voyage on the same day on which I arrived in -the Downs, after two years of furrin-going. How will it end? I shall -become a fish. But six thousand pounds, thought I, to be picked up, -invested, safely secured betwixt this and next May, I dare say! Oh, -it’s good enough--it’s good enough; and I whistled through my teeth, -with a young man’s light heart, as I walked, watching the brig closely, -nevertheless, and observing that the fellows at the helm kept her before -it, as though her keel was sweeping over metal rails. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -WE TRANSHIP VAN LAAR. - - -It blew fresh all that night and all next day. I was for carrying on, -and shook a reef out of the forecourse and set the topgallant sail; and -when Greaves came on deck he looked up, and that was all. He would not -trust the brig with too much sail on her in a staggering breeze when Van -Laar had charge of the deck; but he trusted her now, and trusted her -afterward to Yan Bol when he came to relieve me; and hour after hour the -_Black Watch_ stormed along, bowing her spritsail yard at the bowsprit’s -end into the foam of her own hurling till it was buried, and every -shroud and backstay was as taut as wire, and sang, swelling into such a -concert as you must sail the stormy ocean to hear, with a noise of drums -rolling through it out of the hollow of the sails, and no lack of bugle -notes and trumpeting as each sea swept the brig to its summit. - -On the third day the weather was quiet. It was shortly before the hour -of noon. A light swell was flowing out of the north, but the breeze was -about northwest, and the brig was pushing through it under -studding-sails. The men were preparing to get their dinner, one of the -Dutch seamen at the wheel, and Greaves and I standing side by side, each -with a quadrant in his hand. - -“I wish,” exclaimed the captain, “that something would come -along--something to receive Van Laar! The fancy of that fellow confined -in his berth is not very agreeable to me. Jimmy tells me that he smokes -all day; that he removes the pipe from his mouth merely to eat. Then, -indeed, the pipe is for some time out of his mouth.” - -“Sail ho!” I exclaimed at that instant; for, while he addressed me, my -gaze was upon the sea over the lee bow, and there, like a hovering -feather, hung a sail. - -Greaves looked at her, and exclaimed: - -“I hope she is coming this way. I hope she is homeward bound, and that -she will receive Van Laar.” - -We applied our eyes to our quadrants, made eight bells, and, leaving Yan -Bol to keep a lookout, went below. - -“How am I to foist Van Laar upon a ship’s captain?” said he, as we -entered his berth to work out the latitude. “Is he a passenger? Then he -must pay. But Van Laar is not a man to pay, and not one doit shall I be -willing to pay for him. Is he a distressed mariner whom we have picked -up? No. What is he but an inefficient officer, full of mutiny, beef, -tobacco, and schnapps? I may find difficulty in persuading a captain to -take him. I hope it may not come to it, but I fear I shall be forced to -throw him overboard.” - -We worked out the latitude and entered the cabin. Galloon sat upon his -chair at the table, watching Jimmy lay the cloth for dinner. - -“What are you going to give us to eat, Jimmy?” said the captain. - -“Oh, I know, master,” replied the lad with his foolish smile; and here I -observed that Galloon looked at him. “It’s roast beef to-day, master.” - -“There is no fresh beef in the ship; therefore we are not going to have -roast beef for dinner. Corned beef it is, not roast beef. Say corned -beef, not roast beef.” - -The boy, stiffening himself into the posture of a private soldier at -sight of his officer, cried in a groaning voice: - -“Say corned beef, not roast beef!” and Galloon howled in sympathy. - -“Again, if you please.” - -“Say corned beef, not roast beef!” bawled the youth; and Galloon’s howl -rose high in suffering. - -“Once more.” - -The boy bellowed, and the dog’s accompaniment made a horrible duet. - -Scarcely had the noise ceased when Van Laar opening his door, put his -head out, and cried: - -“Vhas dere cornedt beef ready?” - -“You will give that man ship’s bread for his dinner,” said Greaves -calmly. “If he shows his nose again I will have a hammock slung for him -in the lazarette--the lazarette or the fore-peak--he may take his -choice; but the hatch will be kept on.” - -These words had no sooner left the captain’s lips than Van Laar came out -of his berth. - -“You debrive me of my liberty,” he shouted in his deepest tones, “and I -vhas content till ve meets mit a schip to take me out of dis beesly -hooker. But, by Cott! mine dinner vhas to be someding more dan schip’s -bread, or I vhas sorry for you, Dis is Mynheer Tulp’s schip. I oxpects -my full rations. If not, I goes to der law vhen I gets home, and I takes -der bedt from oonder you und your vife. A pretty consbiracy--first -against mine liberty and now against mine appetite. I have brought my -hogs, as you Englishmen say, to a nice market indeedt.” - -“Mr. Fielding,” said Captain Greaves quietly, “step on deck, if you -please, and send Yan Bol to me with the bilboes. You will keep the deck -till Yan Bol returns.” - -I hastened up the ladder, and found Yan Bol tramping to and fro. I -repeated the captain’s instructions to him. - -“Who vhas der bilboes for?” said he, in a voice that trembled upon the -ear with the power of its volume. - -“Van Laar,” said I. - -He looked not in the least surprised. - -“For Herr Van Laar. I shall hov to pick out der biggest;” and he went -forward to fetch the bilboes, as the irons in which sailors’ legs were -imprisoned were in those days termed. - -We had considerably risen the sail that I had made out shortly before -eight bells, and I took the telescope from the companion way to look at -her. She was apparently a small brig, smaller than the _Black Watch_, -visible as yet above the horizon to the line of her bulwark rails only. -I found something singular in the trim of her canvas, but she was too -far off at present to make sure of in any direction of character, -tonnage, or aspect, and I returned the glass to its brackets, satisfied -at all events to have discovered that she was heading to cross our -hawse, and would be within easy speaking distance anon. - -Bol came aft with the bilboes and descended into the cabin, whence very -soon afterward there arose through the open skylight a great noise of -voices. Van Laar was giving trouble. He declined to sit quietly while -Yan Bol fitted him. His deep voice roared out Dutch oaths, intermingled -with insults in English leveled at Captain Greaves. - -Galloon barked furiously, and Yan Bol’s deeper notes rolled upward like -the sound of thunder above the explosions of artillery. Presently I -heard a noise of wrestling; then Van Laar called out: - -“All right, all right! Let me go! Put her on! I vhas quiet now, but -after dis, if I vhas you, I vould hang myself.” - -His voice was then muffled, as though he had been dragged or carried -into his cabin, and a few minutes later Yan Bol came on deck, lifting -his hair with one hand and wiping the sweat from under it with the -other. - -“He gifs too much trouble,” said he, with a massive shake of his head, -“it vhas not right. He vhas a badt sailor, too. I could have told -Captain Greaves dot before we sailed from Amsterdam. Van Laar put a ship -ashore two years ago. He vhas too fat and lazy for der sea. He vhas -ignorant, and has not a sailor’s heart in him.” - -“I do not know what sort of a sailor he is,” said I, “but a more -insulting son of a swab I never met in my life.” - -“Dere’s a ship dot may take him,” said Bol, leveling a hand as big as a -shovel at the sea. - -“Mr. Bol, please to keep your eye upon her while I am below,” said I; -“one needs to be wary in these waters.” - -“Let me look at her,” said he, and he fetched the glass. “Dere vhas -noting for dis brig to be afraid of in _her_,” said he, after a slow -Dutch gaze and ruminating pause; “it vhas not all right, I belief, but -vhat vhas wrong mit her vhas right for us.” - -Jimmy passed with the cabin dinner from the galley. A minute later he -arrived to report it served. I went below, and was about to sit down -when I suddenly exclaimed: - -“Hark, what is that?” - -“Van Laar singing,” said Greaves. - -He took his seat, looking very severely, but on a sudden his face -collapsed, and he burst into a fit of laughter. - -“Ye Gods, what a voice!” he cried. “He is improvising, and pretty -cleverly too. He is asking in Dutch for his dinner, _rhyming_ as he goes -along and shouting his fancies to a Dutch air. Yet shall he get no beef, -though he should sing till his windpipe splits. I am getting mighty sick -of this business. What of the sail?” - -“We are rising her fairly fast and she’s heading our way. The wind is -taking off and I don’t think we shall be abreast much before another -hour.” - -Van Laar ceased to sing. - -“Is Jimmy an idiot?” said I, when the lad’s back was turned. - -“Not at all. He is a very honest lad, with the strength of two mules in -his limbs. He has sailed with me before. I have carried him on this -voyage because of his foolishness. I did not want too much forecastle -intelligence to be dodging about my table.” - -“Hark!” said I, “Van Laar is calling.” - -“Captain,” roared the voice of the Dutchman, in syllables perfectly -distinct, though dulled by the bulkhead which his lungs had to -penetrate, “vhas I to hov any dinner? Dis vhas Mynheer Tulp’s ship. I -vhas sorry for you if you starf me.” - -Jimmy returned. - -“When did Mr. Van Laar breakfast?” said Greaves to him. - -The youth looked up at the clock in the skylight, and answered -instantly: - -“At one bell, master,” meaning half-past eight. - -“What did he have?” - -“A trayful, master,” and I noticed that the boy talked with his eyes -fixed on Galloon, while the dog looked up at him as though ready to howl -presently. - -“But what did he have?” - -“He had coffee, mutton chops, sights of biscuits, a tin of preserved -pork, more biscuit, master, ay, and fried bacon--twice he sent me to the -galley for fried bacon, and he was eating from one bell till hard upon -fower.” - -“There are no mutton chops on board this ship,” said Greaves, “and as to -tins of preserved pork--but you will guess,” said he, looking at me, -“that the hog’s trough was liberally brimmed; and still the beast -grunts. Listen!” - -Van Laar was now singing again. Presently he ceased and talked loudly to -himself. He then fell silent; but by this time Greaves and I had dined -and we went on deck. - -The brig, that had seemingly shifted her course, as though to stand -across our hawse, was lying hove-to off the weather bow. There was a -color at the peak. I brought the glass to bear and made out the English -ensign, union down. She had a very weedy and worn look as she lay -rolling and pitching somewhat heavily upon the light swell. Her sails -beat the masts with dislocating thumps, and in imagination I could hear -the twang of her rigging to the buckling of her spars. She was timber -laden; the timber rose above her rails. - -“What on earth is she towing?” exclaimed Greaves, looking at her through -the glass. - -I could not make the object out; something black, resembling a small -capsized jolly-boat, rose and fell close astern of her. It jumped with -a wet flash, then disappeared past the brow of a swell, jumped again and -vanished as though hoisted and sunk by human agency. We ran the ensign -aloft and bore slowly down, and when we were within speaking distance -hove to. - -Presently we made out the queer flashful object astern of the dirty, -woe-begone little brig to be nothing more nor less than a large cask, -suspended at the end of the trysail gaff; the line was rove through a -big block up there and led forward, but into what part of the ship I -could not then perceive. Three men were squatted on the timber that was -built round about the galley chimney; their hands clasped their knees, -they eyed us with their chins on their breasts. The melancholy appeal of -the inverted ensign was not a little accentuated by the distressful -posture of those three squatting men. A fourth man stood aft. He was -clad in a long yellow coat, and wore a red shawl round his neck, and a -hat like a Quaker’s. When we were within speaking distance, and silence -had followed the operation of bringing the brig to a stand, the man in -the yellow coat called in a wild, melancholy voice across the water: - -“Brig ahoy!” - -“Hallo!” - -“Will you send a boat?” - -“What is wrong with you?” - -“Anan?” - -“What is wrong with you?” roared Greaves. - -“There’s nothen’ that’s right with us,” was the answer. - -“What ship is that?” - -“The _Commodore Nelson_.” - -“Where are you from, and where are you bound to?” - -“From Quebec to the Clyde.” - -“The Clyde!” exclaimed Greaves, looking at me. “Where does he make the -Clyde to flow? But he’s homeward bound, and you shall induce him to take -Van Laar. Go over to him, Fielding, and see what is wrong;” and he -called across the water to the man in the yellow coat, “I will send a -boat.” - -A boat was lowered; four men and myself entered her. We pulled alongside -the wallowing little brig, and I clambered aboard. It was like -hearkening to the sound of a swaying cradle. She creaked in every pore, -creaked from masthead to jib boom end, from the eyes to the taffrail. -She was full of wood and rolled with deadly lunges. The three men -continued to sit upon the timber that was piled round about the galley -chimney. They turned their eyes upon me when I stepped on board, but -seemed incapable of taking more exercise than that. - -I made my way over the deck cargo to where the man in the yellow coat -was standing, and as I went I observed that the end of the line which -was rove through the block attached to the gaff led through another -block, secured near one of the pumps and fastened--that is to say, the -end of the line was fastened--to the brake or handle of the pump, which -was frequently and violently jerked, causing water to gush forth, but -intermittently and spasmodically. - -“What is wrong with you?” said I, approaching the man who awaited me -instead of advancing to receive me, as though he had some particular -reason in desiring to converse with me aft. - -“Everything is wrong,” he answered, in a patient, melancholy voice. -“First of all, will ye tell me what’s to-day?” - -“Do you mean the day of the week or the day of the month?” - -“Both,” he answered. - -Not a little astonished by this question, I supplied him with the -information he desired. - -“Thought as much,” said he, mildly jerking his fist. “Two days wrong. -Yesterday was my birthday and a’ never knew it.” - -“Did you say that you are bound to the Clyde?” - -“That’s where this cargo’s consigned to,” he answered, “and of course us -men go along with it.” - -“What are you doing down in these latitudes?” - -He gazed round the sea with a lost-my-way expression of eye, and -replied: - -“I don’t know where we are.” - -“The Canary Islands bear about thirty leagues east-southeast,” said I. - -He stared at the horizon as though, by looking hard, he would see the -Canary Islands. - -“Pray, what are you?” said I, looking at him and then glancing at his -little ship and the three men who sat disconsolately clasping their -knees on top of the deck-load. - -“I am the second mate and carpenter.” - -“Where’s your captain?” - -“Gone blind and mad,” he answered. - -“And your mate?” - -“Gone dead,” he replied, “it’s been an uncomfortable voyage so far,” he -continued, speaking with patient melancholy and with an odd expression -of expectation in his eyes. “We left Quebec, and the mate he takes on -and dies. He couldn’t help it, poor chap, but t’other----” He gazed at -the deck as though to direct my imagination below. “It was drink, drink -all around the clock with him; no sharing--a up-in-the-corner job; -cuddling a bottle all day long and the blinds drawed. Then he goes mad. -That aint enough. Then he goes blind. _That_ aint enough. What must he -do but break a leg! And there he lies,” said he, pointing straight down -with a forefinger pale as though boiled, like a laundress’s hand. “The -navigation was left to me--‘deed, then; it had been left to me for some -time--but _I_ never shipped to know navigation. No fear. Me, indeed!” he -exclaimed, laughing dully. “I’m a carpenter by trade. However, here I -was; so I hove the log and steered east, and here I am!” he exclaimed -with another patient, forlorn look around the ocean. - -“You have lost your way,” said I. “You are not the first sailor who has -lost his way. But have you never sighted anything with a skipper to give -you the latitude and the longitude and a true course for the Clyde?” - -“Plenty have we sighted, but nothing that would speak us. The only thing -that showed a willingness to speak us turned out a privateer, and night -drawing down,” he exclaimed, slightly deepening his voice, “saved our -throats.” - -“That cask astern of you,” said I, “is a novel dodge for keeping your -ship pumped out.” - -A little life came into his melancholy eye. - -“The men took ill,” said he. “Five of them were down, and still are -down, and the nursing of ’em all, including of the captain, blind and -mad, and the cook unable to stand with dropsy, is beginning to tell upon -my spirits.” - -“That I can believe.” - -“There was but four men left. There sits three of ’em. Who was to do the -pumping? The swinging of a yard’s pretty nigh as much as we can manage. -I didn’t want to get water-logged: I wish to get home. My wife’ll be -wondering what’s become of me. So, after thinking a bit, I rigs up this -here pumping apparatus, as ye see, and if the weather holds fine, and -the drag of the cask don’t jump the pump out, I think it’ll answer.” - -“Well,” said I, “what can we do for you?” - -“I should like to be put in the way of getting home, sir,” he answered. -“We don’t want for food and water. There aint no purser like sickness,” -he exclaimed with a melancholy smile. “When I fell in with your brig I -was a-steering east, with the hope of making the land and coming across -some village or town where I might larn what the day of the month was, -and how to head. It’s one thing not to know what’s o’clock, but I tell -ye it makes a man feel weak in the mind to lose reckoning of the day of -the week and not know what the date of the month is.” - -“What is your name?” - -“Tarbrick, sir.” - -“Well, Mr. Tarbrick, we shall be able to be of service to you, I -believe. We have a Dutchman on board who wants to get home. He and the -captain have fallen out, and the Dutchman desires to return by the first -passing ship. You may guess that he speaks English, and that he is a -navigator, when I tell you he was mate of that vessel. Will you receive -him?” - -“Will I?” he cried, his face lighting up. “Why, he’s just the man we -want.” - -“Is there nothing else we can do for you?” - -“No, sir; and I never reckoned on getting so much,” he answered mildly -and sadly. “I reckoned only on larning the day of the week and the date -of the month, and getting the course for a straight steer home.” - -“Keep all fast as you are,” said I, “and I will return to you.” - -I dropped into the boat and was rowed aboard the brig. Greaves was -impatiently walking the deck. He came to that part of the rail over -which I climbed, and said: - -“Will the brig take Van Laar?” - -I answered, “Yes.” - -His face instantly cleared. I gave him the story of the _Commodore -Nelson_, as it had been related to me by Mr. Tarbrick, and explained the -object of the cask under the stern and the lines rove from it to the -pump handle. He laughed, but there was a note of admiration in his -laughter. - -“That Tarbrick is no fool, spite of his thinking the Clyde lies down -this way. I have heard of worse notions than that of making a ship pump -herself out. The cask is half full of water, I suppose?” - -“It would not be heavy enough for the down-drag unless it were half full -of water,” said I. - -“And it is guyed to either quarter, of course,” he continued, -“otherwise, when the brig moves, it must be towed directly from the -gaff-end, which would never do. A clever notion. Bol!” - -The boatswain, who was standing forward looking at the brig, immediately -came aft. - -“Come below with me,” said the captain, “and free Van Laar. That brig -will receive him. Keep your boat over the side, Mr. Fielding, and stand -by to receive Van Laar and his clothes.” - -They entered the cabin. In a few minutes I heard a confused noise of -voices. Van Laar’s tones were distinguishable, but I could not collect -what he said. Bol came under the skylight and asked me to send down a -couple of hands to bring up Van Laar’s chest. Presently Van Laar cried -out, “Dis vhas Mynheer Tulp’s schip, and you vhas kicking me out of -her.” - -“You leave at your own request,” I heard Greaves say. - -“Dot vhas valse,” shouted the Dutchman. “But you are a whole ship’s -gompany to von man. Yet vill I have der bed from oonder you und your -vife.” - -“Now step on deck, if you please.” - -“Dere law----” but the rest was lost to my ear by the Dutchman getting -into the companion way. He emerged, looking very pale, greasy, even -fatter than he had before shown; scowled when he met my glance, stared -around him with the bewilderment of a newly-released man, and called -out, “Vere is der schip?” He saw her as he spoke, shaded his eyes while -he looked at her, and, falling back a step, exclaimed, “I vhas not going -home in dot schip.” - -“That is the ship, and you are going home in her,” said Greaves. “The -boat is alongside, and Mr. Fielding waits for you to jump in.” - -“You vhas sorry for dis by an’ by. Do you inten’ dot I should drown by -your sending me to dot footy hooker? Who has been on boardt her?” he -shouted, looking around him with a frown; “you, sir?” cried he to me. -“Vot vhos dot oonder her taffrail? I must know vot dot vhas before I -stir!” - -“It’s nothing that will hurt you,” answered Greaves, who, as I might -see, dared not meet my gaze for fear of laughing. - -“Vhat vhas it, I ask? I hov a right to know;” and here the poor fat -fellow, for whom I was beginning to feel a sort of pity, made spectacles -of his thumbs and forefingers, and put them to his eyes to stare at the -cask and repeated, “Vhat vhas it? Sir, oblige me by handing me dere -glass.” - -“Mr. Van Laar,” said Greaves, “I should regret to use force, but if you -don’t instantly get into that boat I shall have you lifted over the side -and dropped into her.” - -“Who vhas it dot has been on boardt? Vhas it you, sir?” cried the -Dutchman, again addressing me. “Dos she leak? Vot vhis her cargo? Vot -are her stores? I have had no dinner, and you are sending me to a schip -dot may be stone proke.” - -All this while the crew of the brig, saving those in the boat, had been -standing in the fore-part, looking on. I thought to find some signs of -sympathy with Van Laar among the Dutch seamen, but if sympathy were -felt, it found no expression in their faces or bearing. The grinning had -been broad and continuous, but now I caught a murmur or two of -impatience that might have signified disgust. - -“Will you enter the boat?” cried Greaves. Van Laar began to protest. -“Aft here, some of you,” exclaimed Greaves, “and help Mr. Van Laar over -the side.” - -The Dutchman immediately went to the rail, crawled over it, breathing -heavily, then pausing when he was outside, while he still grasped the -rim, and while nothing was visible of him but his fat face above the -rail, he roared out: - -“Down mit dot beastly country, England! Hurrah for der law! Hurrah for -der right! Ach, boot I vhas sorry for you by an’ by.” - -He then dropped into the boat, I followed, and we shoved off. Galloon -barked at the Dutchman as we rowed away. Van Laar talked aloud to -himself, constantly wiping his face. His speech was Dutch, and I did not -understand what he said. Presently he broke out in English: - -“Yaw; a timber cargo. Dot vhas my fear. Dere you vhas, and dot’s to be -my home, and vot oonder der sky is dot cask oonder der taffrail? Der -schip’s provisions? Very like, very like. She hov a starved look. And -who vhas dose dree men sitting up dere? Vhas dot der captain in dere -yellow coat? He hov der look of a man who lives on rats. An’ I ask vhat -dos a timber schip do down here? By Gott! I do not like the look of -her.” - -I paid no attention to his words, and put on a frowning face to preserve -my gravity, which was severely taxed, not more by Van Laar’s talk and -appearance than by the grins of the men who were rowing the boat. We -approached the brig, and Mr. Tarbrick came to the main rigging, as -though he would have me steer the boat alongside under the main chains. - -“Brick, ahoy!” shouted Van Laar, standing up, and setting his thick legs -apart to balance himself; for the boat swayed with some liveliness upon -the swell that was running. - -“Hallo!” responded Tarbrick, with a flourish of his hand. - -“Vhat vhas dot cask oonder your shtern?” - -“It keeps the pump a-going,” cried Tarbrick. - -“Goot anchells!” cried Van Laar, “do I onderstand that you hov not a -schip’s gompany strong enough to keep der pumps manned?” - -“We are four well men and myself,” shouted Tarbrick; “the rest are -sick.” - -“I do not go home in dot schip,” said Van Laar, sitting down. - -“Oars!” I cried, as we swept alongside. “Mr. Van Laar, I beg you will -step on board. Pray give us no trouble. You _must_ go, you know, though -it should come to my having to send for fresh hands to whip you aboard,” -by which word _whip_ he perfectly well understood me to mean a tackle -made fast to the yardarm, used for hoisting. “Mr. Tarbrick, call those -three fellows of yours aft to get this chest over the side.” - -The three men rose in a lifeless way from the top of the timber, -shambled to abreast of the boat in a lifeless way, and in a lifeless way -still dragged up Van Laar’s sea-chest, to the grummet handle of which a -rope had been attached. - -“On deck dere,” called Van Laar, getting up again and planting his legs -apart, “how moch do you leak in der hour?” - -I winked at Tarbrick, who was leaning over the rail, but the man was -either a fool or did not catch my wink, for he answered, in his -melancholy voice: - -“It’s a-drainin’ in very unpleasantly. I han’t sounded the well since -this morning, but,” he added, as though to encourage Van Laar, “we’re -full of timber and can’t sink.” - -Down sat the Dutchman again, with a weight of fall upon the thwart that -made the boat throw a couple of little seas away from her quarters. - -“Here I sthop,” he said, doggedly folding his arms. - -“You will force me to row back to the brig, obtain fresh hands, and whip -you aboard, Mr. Van Laar.” - -“You vhas a big,” he said, without looking at me. - -“Men,” he exclaimed, addressing the seamen in the boat, “dere _Black -Vatch_ belongs to Mynheer Tulp. I vhas mate of her by Mynheer Tulp’s -consent. Vill you allow your lawful mate to be put into dis beast of a -schip, to starf, to drown, to miserably perish?” - -“You had better jump on board,” said one of the men. - -“Cast off!” I exclaimed. “I must return to Captain Greaves for further -instructions.” - -“Shtop!” shouted the Dutchman. “On deck dere, how vhas you off for -provisions?” - -“Very well off,” answered Tarbrick. “There’s plenty to eat aboard this -here brig.” - -“And how vhas you off for drink?” - -“Come and judge for yourself, sir. There’s been too much drink. It’s -been the ruin of us,” exclaimed Tarbrick. - -On this Van Laar, putting his hands upon the laniards of the main -rigging, got into the chains. We instantly shoved off and were at some -lengths from him while he was still heavily clambering on to the deck. - -“Blowed if his weight don’t make the little craft heel again,” exclaimed -one of the men. “See what a list to larboard she’s took.” - -I regained the _Black Watch_ mightily rejoiced that the Dutchman was off -my hands. So vast a mass of flesh had made the transferring of it a very -formidable undertaking. He was an elephant of a man; it needed but an -impassioned gambol or two on his part to capsize a boat three times -larger than anything the _Black Watch_ carried. Besides, Van Laar was -not the sort of man that one would care to sacrifice one’s life for. As -we pulled away I looked over my shoulder, and now the Dutchman had -cleared the rail and was wiping his face, with Tarbrick in the act of -approaching him. When he saw that I looked he shook his first and -roared. His words fell short; his tones alone came along like the low of -a cow. My men burst into a laugh, and a minute later we were alongside -the _Black Watch_. - -The moment the boat was hoisted we trimmed sail and were presently -pushing through the quiet glide of the dark blue swell, and very soon -the magic of distance was dealing with the poor little craft in our -wake. The afternoon was advanced, the light in the heavens and upon the -water was soft and red and still. In the south clouds were terraced upon -the horizon, every towering layer of radiant vapor defined with an -edging of gilt. There was wind enough to keep the water sparkling -wherever the light smote it; our sails soared like breasts of yellow -silk breathing without noise to the courtesying of the craft. - -A rich ocean afternoon it was, and the beauty of it entered the little -vessel which we were leaving astern of us even as a spirit might, -vitalizing her with colors and with a radiance not her own, converting -her into a gem-like detail for the embellishment of the wide, bare -breast of sea. Greaves and I stood looking at her; but the instant I -leveled the telescope the enchantment vanished, for then she showed as a -crazy old brig once more, a cask in tow of her, her sails ill-set, and -the bulky figure of Van Laar striding here and there, with many marks of -agitation in his motions. - -“The captain mad and blind in the cabin,” said Greaves; “five men sick -in the forecastle and the others crushed in spirits, forecastle fare for -cabin fare, and bad at that; the water draining into the hold; and the -vessel fearfully to the southward of her destination. I do not envy Van -Laar.” - -However, long before we ran the little vessel out of sight, they had got -her head pointed in a direction that was right for the British Channel, -if not the Clyde. The breeze had freshened, she was leaning over, and -the cask astern had been cut adrift. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -THE “REBECCA.” - - -Now, when Van Laar was gone all hands of us seemed to settle down very -comfortably to the rough, hard, simple discipline of the sea-life. The -more I saw of Greaves, the more I saw of the brig, the better I liked -both. Over and over again I congratulated myself upon my good fortune. I -seemed to trace it all to that gibbet on the sand hills. I know not why. -What more ghastly, what more hideously ominous, you might say, could the -mind of man imagine than a gibbet and a dead felon hanging from it in -irons, and a mother receiving the horrible burthen of the beam from the -fire-bright hand of the storm, and nursing the fearful object as though -it were once again the babe that she had suckled? What more hideously -ominous than such things could man ask of Heaven to initiate his career -with, to inaugurate a new departure with? But that gibbet it was which -kept me waiting when by walking I must have missed the press-gang and, -for all I can now tell, have safely got me aboard the _Royal -Brunswicker_. - -Be this as it will. I liked Greaves; I liked his little ship; I liked my -position on board of her; and I could find no fault with the crew. The -people of my watch ran about without murmurs. Yan Bol seemed to have -the whole company well in hand. The spun-yarn winch was often a-going; -we were a very clean ship; the complicated machinery aloft was carefully -looked to; the long guns were kept bright. I had overhauled the -slop-chest and taken what I wanted, and there lay, in a big sea-box -which Greaves had somewhere fished out for me, as comfortable a stock of -clothes as ever I could wish to sail out of port with. - -I did not imagine, however, that the crew would long content themselves -with what, while Greaves remained dumb, must be to them no more nor less -than an aimless sailing over the breast of the ocean. Sailors do not -love to be long at sea without making a voyage. Our crew might look at -the compass and note that the course was a straight one for cutting the -equator; but what imaginations were they to build up on the letters -S.S.W.? We were not a king’s ship. There was no obligation of -_passivity_. The sailors were merchant seamen, claiming all the old -traditional rights of their calling; of exercising those rights, at all -events, whenever convenient: the rights of grumbling, cursing, laying -aft in a body and expostulating, holding forward in a body and turning -deaf ears to the boatswain’s music. “Surely,” I would sometimes think, -while I paced the deck, eyeing the fellows of my watch at work, “those -men will not wait till we are south of the line to hear what the errand -of this brig is!” - -It came to pass that, a few days after we had got rid of Van Laar, I -went on deck at midnight to take charge of the brig until four in the -morning. The noble wind of the northeast trade was full in our canvas--a -small, fresh, quartering gale--the sky lively with the sliding of stars -amid the steam-tinctured heap of the trade-cloud swarming away -southwest. Studding-sails were out and the brig hummed through it, -shouldering the seas off both bows into snowstorms. The burly figure of -Yan Bol stood to windward, abreast of the little skylight. He waited for -me to relieve him, and, while he waited, he sang to himself in a deep -voice, like the drumming of the wind as it flashed into the hollow of -the trysail and fled to leeward in a hollow roar under the boom. - -“Is that you, Bol?” - -“Yaw, it vhas her himself,” he answered. - -“This will do,” said I, stepping up to him. - -“Yaw, dis vhas a nice little draught,” he replied. - -I made a few quarter-deck inquiries relating to the business of the -brig during his charge of the deck since eight o’clock, and was then -going aft to look at the binnacle, but stayed on finding that he -lingered. - -“Do you know,” said he, “I vhas not very gladt to be second mate.” - -“Why not?” - -“Vell, I believe dot der men vouldt hov more respect for me if I vhas -one of demselves.” - -“But you are bo’sun, anyway, and your rating, therefore, is higher than -that of the others.” - -“Dot may be,” he replied, “but a bo’sun in der merchant service vhas no -better dan vhat you call in your language a common sailor. He blows a -whistle; dot, and a dollar or two more money, and dere you hov der -difference.” - -“Who else could be second mate?” said I. “As bo’sun of this vessel it -would not please you to be ordered about by an able seaman.” - -He was silent. It was too dark to see anything of the man save the -shapeless lump of shadow which he made against the stars over the sea. - -“Mr. Fielding,” said he, “can you tell me vhere dis brig vhas boun’ to?” - -“I know where she is bound to,” I answered. - -“Ho, _you_ know, sir!” he exclaimed, with a tone of surprise trembling -through his deep voice; “Ve all tink dot she vhas der captain’s secret.” - -“If you all did think that,” said I, “why do you ask me where the brig -is bound to.” - -“It vhas about time dot ve knew vhere ve vhas boun’ to,” said Bol. “Dis -vhas a larsh verld. Dere vhas many places in him. Some of dose places I -have visited and vish never to see again. Derefore I likes to know vhere -ve vhas boun’ to.” - -“It is for the captain, not for me, to tell you that,” said I. - -“Vhen shall he speak?” said Bol. - -“In good time, I warrant you.” - -“I vhas villing to agree dot vhere we sailed to should be der captain’s -secret for a leedle time; but now ve hov been somevhiles at sea, und -still she vhas a secret, und I belief dot der men did not suppose dot -she vouldt be a secret so long. Dere vhas no cargo. Nothing vhas -consigned. Derefore, if ve vhas boun’ anywhere it vhas to a port to call -for orders. Und after----” - -“The captain will not keep the crew in ignorance much longer,” said I. - -“But you can tell us, Mr. Fielding, vhere ve vhas boun’ to?” - -“I know where we are bound to.” - -“Dot vhas strange! You come on board as a shipwreckt man, vhich vhas -quite right; und you take Heer Van Laar’s place, vhich vhas also quite -right; and of all der crew, excepting der captain, you alone know vhere -der brig vhas boun’ to! Mr. Fielding, oxcuse me, I mean no offense, but -I say again dot vhas dom’d strange.” - -There was jealousy here which I witnessed, understood, and, to a degree, -sympathized with. Here was I, a stranger to the brig--a stranger, I -mean, in the sense of not having formed one of her company when she -sailed from Amsterdam; here was I, not only installed in the room of Van -Laar, and, for all I knew, regarded by the crew as the cause of that -man’s expulsion from the ship, but in possession of knowledge withheld -from all hands. This might excite a feeling against me among the men, -which would be unfortunate. The voyage had opened with so much promise -that I had resolved to spare no effort to make a jolly jaunt of it to -the uttermost end of the traverse, whether that end was to be called the -Downs, or Amsterdam. Preserving my temper, and speaking in the kindliest -voice I could command, I said to the big figure alongside of me: - -“Yan Bol, I do not wonder you are surprised that I should know what is -hidden from you. You are an officer of this ship as well as I.” - -“Nine, nine!” he exclaimed in a voice as deep as a trombone. - -“But why am I intrusted,” I continued, “with the secret of this voyage a -little while before it is communicated to the crew? I will tell you. -Captain Greaves wanted a mate in the room of Van Laar. It was not to be -supposed that I would accept the offer of the post of mate unless I knew -where I was bound to. Therefore, to secure my services, Captain Greaves -explained the nature of this expedition. With the others of you it was -different. You agreed to sail in this brig, and you were willing, when -you agreed to sail, to be kept in ignorance of the brig’s destination. -Had I been at Amsterdam when a crew was wanted for the _Black Watch_, -and had I been invited to join her as able seaman, boatswain, chief -mate, what you will, I should have answered: ‘Tell me first where you -are bound to, for I will not join your ship until I know where she is -going and what her business is?’” - -“Vell, dot vhas right,” he exclaimed, half smothering a huge yawn. “I -hov noting to say against dot. But you hov der ear of your captain. You -vhas his countryman: you vhas old friendts, I hov heard. You vill make -us men tankful to you if you vill ask him to let us know vhere ve vhas -boun’ as conveniently soon as may pe.” - -“I will speak to him as you wish,” said I. - -He bade me good-night very civilly, and his great shape rolled forward -and vanished in the blackness that lay upon the fore part of the brig. - -I paced the deck, musing over this conversation. It seemed to me to -justify Greaves’ resolution to withhold all knowledge of the ship’s -errand from the men until their characters lay somewhat plain to his -gaze; but on the other hand, I conceived that it would be a mistake to -irritate them by keeping silence too long. They had a right to know -where they were going. Then the provocation of silence might lead to -murmurs and difficulties, and what would _that_ mean. - -I was again on deck at eight o’clock in the morning. One of the most -comfortless conditions of the sea-life is this ceaseless turning in and -turning out. It is called watch and watch. The ladies will want to know -what watch and watch means. Ladies, watch and watch means this: Snob is -chief mate. He takes charge of the ship from midnight until four o’clock -in the morning. Nob, who is the second mate, is then roused up, comes on -deck, and looks after the ship until eight o’clock in the morning. At -this hour Snob’s turn has come round. He arrives, and takes over the -ship until noon. Another four hours brings the time to four o’clock, -when the ordinary watch is split in halves, and each half, called a -dog-watch, lasts two hours. This provides change and change about, so -that Snob, who last night had charge from twelve to four, will to-night -be in bed during those hours, weather permitting. - -When I stepped on deck at eight o’clock I found a brilliant morning all -about, but a softer sea, a lighter wind than I had left, a languider -courtesying of the brig, even a dull flap at times forward when the -cloths of the heavy forecourse hollowed into the stoop of the bows as a -child’s cheek dimples when it sucks in its breath. The trade-wind was -not taking off. Not at all. The heavens were gay with the flight of the -trade-cloud, as gay as ever the sky could be made by a dance of sea-fowl -on the wing; and while that vapor flew, one knew that the wind was -constant. Only we had happened just now to have washed with foam rising -in thunder to each cathead into a pause or interval of the inspiring -commercial gale of the North Atlantic; the strong, glad rush of air -which had hoarily veiled every deep blue hollow with white brine, torn -flashing from each curling head, had sunk for a little into a tropic -fanning, and the swell of the sea was small and each surge no more than -a giant ripple, with scarce weight enough in its run to ridge into foam. - -But, bless me, had a week of stark calm descended upon our heads we -should still have done uncommonly well. Our average progress, since the -day on which I had recovered consciousness on board the _Black Watch_, -had come very near to steam as steam is in these days in which I am -writing, though to what velocities the boiler may hereafter attain I am -not here to predict. - -Greaves stood abreast of the wheel. He was looking through a telescope -at some object that lay about three points on the weather bow. He -continued to gaze with a degree of steadfastness that rendered him -insensible of my presence. I looked and seemed to see some small vessel -upon the edge of the sea; but I could not be sure. She was above a -league distant, and the morning light was confusing that way with the -blending of the shadowy lift of the swell, the violet shadows of the -clouds, and the hazy splendor of the early morning distances. My -caressing and speaking to Galloon, who lay near his master, caused -Greaves to bring his eye away from the glass. - -“Good-morning, Fielding. The breeze has fallen slack. I am trying to -make out the meaning of that little schooner down there;” and he pointed -over the bow with his telescope. “Look for yourself.” - -I leveled the glass, and beheld a schooner of about a hundred tons, -rolling broadside to the sea, abandoned, or, if not abandoned, then -helpless. Her jib boom was gone; so, too, was her fore topmast; -otherwise she seemed sound enough, saving that for canvas she had -nothing set but her gaff foresail, though, as I seemed to find, when I -strained my gaze through the glass, her mainsail was not furled, but lay -heaped upon the boom, as though the halliards had been let go and -nothing more done. - -“She’ll be worse off than the craft that Van Laar’s gone home in,” said -I, returning the telescope to Greaves. - -“Do you believe in dreams?” said he. - -“No,” I answered. - -“Do not be in too great a hurry with your ‘noes,’” he exclaimed. “I like -a man to reflect when he is asked a question in metaphysics.” - -“I know nothing about metaphysics,” said I, “and I do not believe in -dreams.” - -“I believe in the unseen,” said he, putting down the glass, and folding -his arms and leaning back against the rail, as though settling himself -down for a talk or an argument. “The materialist tells you not to put -your faith in anything you can’t see, or handle, or smell, that you -can’t bring some organ or function of sense to bear upon, in short. -Throw yourself down upon your back, and look straight up into the sky. -What do you see? Hey? But do you see it? Yes. Do you understand it? No. -It is visible, and yet it is the unseen; for at what does a man look -when he gazes straight up into the sky?” - -“There are few things worth going mad for,” said I, “and two things I am -resolved shall never send me to Bedlam.” - -“What are they?” - -“One of them’s that,” said I, pointing straight up. - -“What do you make of yonder schooner,” said he. - -I described such features as I had observed. - -“She has a black hull, and a thin line of painted ports,” said he. - -“She has.” - -“She has lost her fore topmast and jib boom.” - -“That’s so.” - -“It is very extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “I dreamt last night, or in -one of this morning watches, that I sighted that schooner. I saw her in -my dream as I have been seeing her in that glass there. She was wrecked -forward, she lay in the trough, she showed no canvas but her gaff -foresail. There it all is!” he said, pointing; “and yet how quick you -are with your ‘No’ when I asked if you believed in dreams!” He smiled -and continued, “But my dream carried me further than I intend to go in -these waking hours; for, in my dream, I launched a boat, where from I -can’t tell ye, and went aboard that schooner. I looked about me, her -decks were lifeless. I stepped below into her little cabin, and what -d’ye think I saw? The figure of Death seated in an armchair at the table -with a pack of cards in one skeleton hand. He pointed to a chair and -began to deal. I awoke, and wasn’t sorry to wake. There lies the -schooner. How very extraordinary! Is old Death below, waiting for a -partner? You shall find out, Fielding. I’ll lay you aboard. By thunder, -rather than go myself I would forfeit all the money I hope to take up at -the end of this run.” - -Many lies are told of us sailors by landsmen, but when they call us a -superstitious clan they speak the truth. Superstitious, indeed, are -sailors. I am talking of the Jacks of my time; I understand that the -mariner is more enlightened in these days. I looked at the little -schooner anxiously. I felt no reluctance to board her; but, though I had -told Greaves that I did not believe in dreams, I discovered, -nevertheless, that this dream had communicated a particular significance -to the little craft. I had meant to talk to him about my chat with Yan -Bol at midnight, and the subject went out of my head while I looked at -the schooner and thought of Greaves’ dream. - -“I will board her,” said I, “and enter her cabin.” - -“Oh, yes,” said he, “I shall want you to do that. My dream was so vivid -that I shall ask you to take notice of the fittings of that cabin for -the sake of corroboration, and let me be first with you----” - -He shut his eyes as one seeking strongly to realize his own -imaginations, and said: “It is a square cabin with a square table -directly under an oblong skylight. There is a chair at the head of the -table. In that chair sat the skeleton, not answering to Milton’s -magnificent fancy: - - “What seemed his head - The likeness of a kingly crown had on. - -No, the thing was uncrowned. It was a skeleton, but it lived, and made -as though it would deal the cards it held. Opposite is another chair; on -either hand are lockers. There are sleeping berths at the foot of the -companion ladder, and that’s all that I can remember,” said he, opening -his eyes. - -Jimmy announced breakfast. Yan Bol came aft to take charge while I went -below. The burly Dutchman looked at me meaningly, and then I recollected -my talk with him; but I resolved to say nothing to the captain this side -my excursion to the schooner. - -Before we sat down Jimmy received one of his lessons. There was a ham -upon the table, and he called it a leg of mutton. I had long ago -discovered that the boy was honestly wanting in the power to distinguish -between articles of food. Sometimes I supposed he blundered on purpose -to divert his master, who appeared to enjoy the concert that was part of -the lesson, but I was now convinced that though he had the names of -many varieties of meats, and even dishes, at his tongue’s end, he was -utterly unable to correctly apply them. His confidence in his own -indications was the extraordinary part of his misapplications. He spoke, -for instance, of the ham as a leg of mutton as though quite sure; then -to the first syllable of correction that fell from Greaves, and to a -faint, uneasy groan which the dog always gave when Greaves spoke on -these occasions--as though the noble beast knew that the boy had -blundered and that the duet was inevitable--Jimmy stiffened himself into -a soldier-like posture, nose in the air, hands up and down like a pump -handle, and the dog looking at him ready to howl. The lesson ended, we -sat down and fell to. - -“Your teaching does not seem to make the lad see the difference between -meats,” said I. - -“I have hopes of him,” he answered, “and Galloon’s face is good on these -occasions.” - -He then talked of the schooner, of his dream, and his discourse ran in -such a strain that I discovered that secretly he was not only of a -serious and religious cast of mind, but superstitious beyond any man I -had ever sailed with. Thought has the speed of the lightning stroke, and -I remember as I sat listening to him, saying very little myself--for I -had but the shallowest understanding of the subject he had got upon; I -say that I remember thinking: Suppose this voyage should be the -consequence of a dream? Suppose this Pacific quest for hard Spanish -milled dollars should be an effect of superstitious fancy? Suppose the -whole scheme should be as unsubstantial in fact as the actors in the -revels in the ‘Tempest’? But the image of Mynheer Tulp swept as an -inspiration of support into my mind. I had entertained myself by -figuring that man. In thinking over this voyage I had depicted its -promoter, and my fancy gave me the likeness of a little withered -Dutchman in a velvet cap, with a nose of Hebraic proportions, a keen -black eye, a wary, sarcastic smile, and a mind whose horizon was the -circumference of a guilder. I seemed to see the little creature looking -over Greaves’ shoulder at me as I mused upon my companion’s somewhat -foggy talk, and I said unto myself, “Tulp believing, all’s well.” - -When we went on deck the schooner was within musket shot. She had -seemingly been in collision with another vessel, though her hull looked -perfectly sound; nor did she sit upon the sea, nor rise with the slope -of the swell, as if she had more water in her than was good for -buoyancy. Nothing alive was visible aboard. - -I know not a more forlorn object, the wide world over, than an abandoned -vessel encountered deep in the heart of an ocean solitude. She sucks in -the desolation of the sea and grows gray, lean, and haggard with the -melancholy that sometimes raves and sometimes sleeps, but that forever -dwells upon the bosom of the deep. There is no fancy in this. Many ways -are there in which loneliness may be personified or illustrated: the -widow weeping upon the tomb of her only child, a blind man in a crowd, a -prostrate figure on some wide spread of midnight moor, over whose vague -and distant edge a red eye of moon is glancing under a lid of black -cloud. In many ways may loneliness be represented, but there is no -expression of it that equals, to my mind, the abandoned ship. Is it -because the movement of the sea communicates a fancy of life to the -vessel? She looks to be sentient as she sways, to be sensible that she -is the only object for leagues upon the prodigious liquid waste over -which the boundless heavens are spread. Some unfurled canvas flaps; the -wheel revolves, or the tiller shears through the air to the blows of the -seas upon the rudder: there may be the ends of gear snaking overboard; -they move, they writhe like serpents; they seem to _pour_ as though they -were the life blood of the vessel draining from her heart. And terrible -is the silence of the decks. It is not the silence of the empty house -that was yesterday full and clamorous with merry voices. It is such a -silence as you meet with nowhere else, deepened to the meditative mind -by sounds which would vex and break in upon and destroy all other -silence. Yes, to my mind the abandoned ship at sea is the most perfect -expression of human and inanimate loneliness. - -This I thought as I gazed at that little schooner. Greaves watched her -with a look of uneasiness. He came to my side and said, in a low voice: - -“Take a boat, will ye, Fielding, and explore that craft? She’s been -abandoned for weeks; I am sure of that. You’ll find nothing alive, and -if it wasn’t for that dream of mine last night I’d pass on. But I _must_ -find out whether the cabin furniture is as I beheld it in my sleep.” - -A boat was lowered; three men jumped in. I followed, and gained the side -of the schooner. We pulled under her stern to see her name, and read in -big white letters on the slope of her counter the word _Rebecca_. I -fastened a superstitious eye upon the two little starboard portholes, -which, as I might guess, illuminated her cabin. What was inside? - -“Two of you,” said I to the men, “come aboard with me. You, Travers, -remain in charge of the boat.” - -The men who scrambled over the side were Friend and Meehan. We stood -gazing and listening. The foresail occasionally flapped as the little -vessel heaved to the swell, but the water washed along the bends -noiseless as quicksilver. Saving the wreckage forward, I could see -nothing wrong with the schooner. There were signs of confusion, as -though she had been abandoned in a hurry: the sails had come down with a -run, and lay unfurled; the decks were littered with ropes’ ends. But all -deck fixtures were in their place; nay, there was even a small boat -chocked under the starboard gangway forward, but the bigger boat, which -such a craft as this would carry, was missing. - -My eye went to the skylight, and I started. It was oblong. “What more of -the dream remains to be verified?” thought I. The skylight was closed, -the frames secured within, the glass filthy. I peered and peered to no -purpose. On this I stepped to the companion, while the two seamen moved -forward to look down the hatches in obedience to my orders; but I paused -when I was in the companion way. I seemed to smell a damp odor as of a -vault. “Good God!” thought I, “if there _should_ be anything horrible at -the head of the table, with a pack of---- Chut! ye fool!” I said to -myself, “say a prayer and shove on, and be hanged to you!” and down I -went. - -Well, there was no skeleton; there was nothing horrible to be seen. If -the grim Feature had ever occupied the head of that table, he had found -a companion; he had played his trump card: he had won of a surety, and -he and his opponent were gone. But had I veritably beheld a living -skeleton seated at the table and motioning as though it would deal, I -could not have been more scared--no; let me say I could not have been -more impressed than I was--by the sight of the furniture. of the cabin. -It was precisely as Greaves had described it. It was the plainest sea -interior in the world--nothing whatever worth looking at, nothing in it -to detain the attention for an instant; yet it was all exactly as -Greaves described it. I was revisited by the misgiving of an earlier -hour. “The man is an extraordinary dreamer,” I said to myself. “He may -be a little mad. A few people dream as this man has dreamt, and those -few, I suspect, will be found somewhat mad at root. Has he dreamt of the -ship in the island cave? Did he, that he might justify to _himself_ his -faith in his extraordinary vision by sailing on this quest--did he -_forge_ that manifest which, backed by his eloquent advocacy, no doubt, -induced old Bartholomew Tulp to put his hand in his pocket?” - -I stood thus thinking when I heard my name called. - -“Hallo!” I exclaimed. - -“There’s somebody alive forrad!” cried one of the men. - -I ran on deck. - -“What is it?” - -“This way, sir,” shouted Meehan. - -I followed the fellow to the forecastle--that is to say, to the hatch by -which the forecastle was entered and quitted. - -“There’s somebody knocking,” cried Friend. - -“Thump back and sing out,” I cried. - -The man did so, and we heard a faint voice, feeble as a sweep’s -call-down from the height of a tall chimney. - -“Don’t you see what has happened?” cried I. “Why, look! This vessel has -been in collision--struck some vessel on end. Her bowsprit has been run -in by the blow, and _the heel of it has closed the slide of the hatch -over the people who are below here_!” - -I thumped and sang out. A voice dimly responded. I thumped again, and -roared at the top of my lungs: - -“We’ll have you out of this, but you must wait a bit. Do you hear me?” -and there was a note in the faint, inarticulate response that made me -know I was heard. - -I looked about, but my eye sought in vain for such machinery of tackles -as I required to free the men below. I did not choose to waste time by -hunting, and told Meehan to jump into the boat and pull, with Travers, -over to the brig. By this time the two vessels had so closed to each -other as to be within easy speaking distance. I hailed the _Black -Watch_, and Greaves stood up and made answer. - -“There are two men locked up in this schooner’s fok’sle, and the heel of -the bowsprit----” and I explained how it happened that the hatch was -closed and immovably secured. He flourished his arm. I then requested -him to send me the necessary gear for clearing the hatch by running out -the bowsprit; I likewise asked him for a couple more men. Again he -flourished his arm. By this time the boat was alongside the brig. - -“What have you found aft in the cabin?” shouted Greaves. - -“Nothing but ordinary furniture,” I answered. - -“I see,” he cried, “that the skylight is oblong. Is the table square?” - -“It is, sir.” - -“A chair at the head and foot?” - -“Ay, sir, and lockers on either hand.” - -His figure hardened into a posture of astonishment. He stood mute. I -could readily imagine an expression of superstitious dismay on his face; -or rather, let me say, that I _hoped_ this, for methought it would be -ominous for our faith in those distant South Pacific dollars if he -should accept the startling realization of this dream with the -tranquillity of a man who dreams much, and who believes in his dreams, -and whose actions are governed by them. - -The boat returned with the additional assistance I required, and with -the necessary gear for freeing the forecastle hatch. The business was -somewhat tedious. It was a case of what sailors know as _jam_. It -involved luff upon luff, much sweating and swearing, much hard straining -and hoarse chorusing at the little forecastle capstan. At last we -started the bowsprit, the heel ran clear of the hatch, and two of the -men, grasping the hatch cover, swept it through its grooves. - -The moment the hatch was open a figure rose up out of the darkness -below; another followed at his heels. I looked for more, but there were -but two, and those two stood blinking and rubbing their eyes, and -turning their heads about as though their motions were produced by -clockwork. One of them was the strangest looking man I had ever seen. -Did you ever read the story of Peter Serrano? If so, then figure Serrano -with his beard cropped, his hairy body clothed in a sleeved waistcoat -and a pair of short pilot breeches, the hair of his head still long, and -rings in his ears, the whole man still preserving a good deal of that -oyster-like expression of face and sandy grittiness of complexion which -Peter got from a long residence upon a shoal. - -This man might have been Peter Serrano after he had been trimmed, -washed, and cared for ashore. His eyes were small and fiery, the edges -of the lids a raw red. He was about five feet tall, with the smallest -feet that ever capered at the extremities of a sailor’s trousers. His -companion was of the ordinary type of merchant seamen, red-haired, of a -heavy cast of countenance; the complexion of this man was of the hue of -sailors’ duff--which you must go to sea to understand, for there is no -word in the English language to express the color of it. They had risen -through the hatch with activity; as they stood they seemed fairly strong -on their pins. But the light confounded them, and they continued to rub -and to weep and to mechanically rotate their heads for some few minutes -after I had begun to talk to them. - -“Well, my lads,” said I, “this is a stroke of fortune for you. Talk of -rats in a hole! How came ye into this mess? But, first, are ye English?” - -“English both,” said the little man. - -“How come ye to be locked up after this fashion?” - -The little chap looked round at us with streaming eyes and said, in just -the sort of harsh, salt, gritty voice that my imagination had fitted him -with before he opened his lips--a voice that was extraordinary with its -suggestion of sand, the seething of surf, and the spasmodic shriek of -the gull: “Tell us the time, will yer?” - -I looked at my watch and gave him the hour. He lugged out a great silver -turnip from his breeches’ band; the dial plate of that watch was about -the size of a shilling, and the back of it came nearly to the -circumference of a saucer. - -“What does he say?” he exclaimed, holding up the watch. “This here blaze -is like striking of a man blind.” - -“The time by your watch,” said I, looking at it, “is seven o’clock.” - -“Is he right?” asked the little man eagerly. - -“Not by nearly four hours,” said I. - -“If he aint furder out it’s all one,” exclaimed the other sailor. - -“Me and my mate,” said the little man, “has had a good many arguments -about the time while we’ve been locked up below, but I think my tally’ll -come out right.” - -“How long have you been locked up below according to your tally?” said -I. - -“This here’s a Wednesday, aint it?” he inquired, once again straining -the moisture out of his eyes with his knuckles, and blinking at me. - -“No,” said I; “it’s Thursday.” - -“Nearer than you, Bobby, anyway!” he cried. “Your tally brought it to -Saturday.” - -“How long have you been locked up, men?” - -“Why,” he exclaimed, “if this here’s a Thursday”--his voice broke like -that of a youth entering manhood, as he continued--“we’ve been locked up -a fortnight when it shall ha’ gone nine o’clock.” - -A murmur of pity and amazement escaped my men. - -“And it happened like this,” continued the little fellow, beginning to -walk swiftly in a small circle: “Me and Bobby was in the same watch. We -had come below and turned in. We was waked by a crash, and I heerd the -hatch cover closed. There went eight of us to a crew, but when I sings -out only Bobby answers. The others who was below may have heard the -capt’n or mate singing out on deck afore the collision. They was gone. -Bobby and me tries to open the hatch. No fear! Eh, Bobby?” exclaimed the -little fellow, who continued to walk very rapidly in a circle. “And how -did it happen that that there hatch was closed? Why, I don’t know _now_. -How did it happen?” he yelled. - -I explained. The little fellow looked at the bowsprit heel, at the -hatch, and then his mate, and exclaimed: - -“Wrong again, Bobby! Bobby was for having it that the hatch had been -closed ’spressly to drown us by one of the sailors as him and me hated, -as him and me had fought with and licked times out o’ counting.” - -I was about to ask the fellows how they had managed to breathe in their -black hole of a forecastle during their fortnight’s imprisonment, when I -caught sight of a stove funnel piercing the forecastle deck and rising a -few feet above it. That funnel was all the answer my question needed. I -inquired how they managed to obtain food and the little sore-eyed man -answered that they had lifted the hatch of the forepeak and found oil -for their lamps and water to drink, some barrels of bread and flour, and -a piece or two of beef; for, luckily for them, the provisions in this -schooner were stowed forward. There was coal in the forepeak. They -lighted the forecastle stove and so dressed their victuals; but they -were always forced to be in a hurry with their cooking, for the fire -carried the fresh air up with it; and when they had raked the coals out -they would sit with their heads close in to the stove to breathe the air -as it gushed in again through the flue. - -“Did you never try to break out?” said one of my men. - -“Time arter time, mate. There was sights o’ trying, and you see what -it’s comes to,” exclaimed the little fiery-eyed man, starting to walk in -a circle again. - -At this moment I was hailed by Greaves: - -“How many men have you released?” - -“Two, sir; there are no more.” - -“Then bring them aboard, Mr. Fielding. I wish to proceed.” - -“Get your clothes,” said I to the little man, “and come along.” - -He stopped in his circling walk and looked at the fellow he called -Bobby; then, as if influenced by the same thought, they both cast their -eyes over the schooner, first staring up at the broken topmast, then at -the bowsprit, then running their gaze over the decks. - -“Have you sounded the well?” cried the little man to me. - -“No, I have not,” I answered. - -He flew to the pumps; his feet twinkled as he fled. I never witnessed -such activity; it seemed impossible in a man who had been suffering from -a fortnight of black hole. He pounced upon the sounding-rod, dropped the -bar down the well, whipped it up, looked at it, uttered a gull-like cry, -flung the iron down, and was with us in a jiffey. - -“Bobby,” he exclaimed, “nut dust aint in it with her.” - -“Don’t I know her for a corker?” responded Bobby. “Froth and pop when it -blows, and a dead marine at heart.” - -“Bobby, what d’ye think?” said the raw-eyed little man, questioning his -mate as though the suggestion had been made. - -The man looked round the sea, looked up aloft, and answered: - -“Agreeable.” - -“We’ll carry the schooner home, sir,” said the little fellow, addressing -me. - -“You two?” - -“Say us four, sir. There’s a two-man power for each hand a-coming out of -such a salvage job as this.” - -I observed some of my men gaze about them thirstily and enviously and a -little gloomily. - -“Are you resolved?” said I, looking at the fellow, doubting my right to -suffer them to embark on such an adventure after their long, weakening -spell of imprisonment. - -“It’s two blocks, aint it, Bobby?” said the little man. - -“Ay,” answered Bobby, “nothing wanting but this: First, that this kind -gentleman will help us to secure the bowsprit afore he takes away his -men; and, next, that he gives the course to steer for the Henglish -Channel.” - -I was again hailed impatiently by Greaves, on which I got upon the rail -and told him that the two men wished to carry their schooner home. -Should I permit them to do it, considering---- - -“Certainly,” he shouted; “they’ll pick up help as they go along.” - -I then called out that I would stay a little while longer, that I might -secure the bowsprit and set them a course; and I then bade the little -man with the fiery eyes go below and rummage the cabin that had been -occupied by his captain for such charts as might be there. He was off -like a hare, and returned in a few minutes with a small bag of charts, -one of which represented the North Atlantic Ocean; and, while my people -were busy with the bowsprit, I, with a pencil, marked upon the chart the -track and courses for the red-eyed man and his mate to pursue. We then -made sail on the schooner, shook hands with the two fellows, and entered -the boat. - -As I was about to drop over the side I overheard one of my men, in a -grumbling voice, say: - -“Is this here traverse of ourn going to consist of rummaging jobs, I -wonder. Nothen but boarding so far, and what for?” - -“Vere vhas ve boun’?” said another. “By Cott! boot I like to know by dis -time vere ve vhas goin’.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -THE ROUND ROBIN. - - -There was business to be done in getting the boat aboard and in starting -the brig afresh upon her course. Nevertheless, I found moments for a -look at the retreating schooner, and, while she still lay plain to the -naked sight, I saw the little man with the fire-ringed eyes seize the -tiller, while the other fellow who had been called Bobby clumsily -sprawled aloft, and fell to hacking at the rigging of the wrecked fore -topmast, which presently went overboard with its two yards. - -By this time eight bells had been made by Greaves. It was Yan Bol’s -watch. I went below to wash and shift myself; dinner was then ready. -Galloon took his seat, and Greaves occupied the head of the table with -Jimmy behind him to wait upon us. - -“I wish my dream had not proved so accurate,” said Greaves. - -“It was extraordinarily accurate,” said I. “Nothing was missing in that -little cabin but the figure of Death.” - -“I shall grow superstitious,” he exclaimed, “and little things will -trouble me.” - -“It was a providential dream, captain,” said I. “It has saved the lives -of two men.” - -“Well, perhaps it has,” he answered a little complacently. “Certainly, -but for my dream, I should not have sent you aboard the schooner.” - -“I know but of one instance like it--at sea,” said I. “The nephew of a -French skipper dreamt three times in succession that some castaway -wretches were lodged upon a lonely rock--where, I forget. The captain -yielded to the influence of the third time of dreaming, and shifted his -helm, made the rock, saw the men, and brought them off in a dying -state.” - -We continued to talk of the schooner, of the chances for and against the -two men navigating her home unless they picked up help on the road, of -dreams, and such matters. Jimmy withdrew. It was my watch below, and I -was in no hurry to leave the table. - -“This seems a voyage of overhauling,” said I. “First we board the -melancholy Tarbrick, who doesn’t know the day of the month; then we -board the little _Rebecca_, whose two forecastle rats of sailors don’t -know what o’clock it is. What further in the boarding line lies between -this time and our business t’other side the Horn?” - -“We want nothing further in the boarding line,” Greaves answered; “our -port is south of the Galapagos, and we are in the North Atlantic and in -a hurry.” - -“Has it ever occurred to you to imagine what became of the people of -that locked-up ship of yours?” - -“No; why should I trouble myself to imagine? She has been in that cave -since 1810.” - -“You may be sure,” said I, “that if any of her people came off with -their lives they’d report her situation. The ship then would long ago -have been visited, and the cargo and the half-million dollars taken out -of her.” - -“Long ago.” - -“Strange that you, who have been dreaming of galleons all your life, as -I remember you told me, should have lighted upon what is much the same -as a galleon--not, indeed, worth Candish’s or Anson’s treasure ships, -but all the same a very pretty little haul.” - -“It is quite true,” said he, smiling gravely, “that I have been dreaming -all my life of galleons. I read about the Spanish plate and treasure -ships when I was a boy; about the cargoes of gold and silver, of -precious gems, of massive and splendid commodities which the Pacific -breezes used to solemnly blow over the seas, betwixt Acapulco and the -Philippines. I used to read of the buccaneers and their marvelous doings -on the western American seaboard, north and south of Panama, wherever -there was a town to sack, a village to plunder. It was a sort of reading -to fire my spirits. It sent me to sea. Yes, truly I believe I went to -sea through reading about the old rovers. It is strange, as you say, -that I should have lighted upon something locked up in a cave--something -that comes as near to my notion of a galleon _now_ as it would have been -remote to me when I was a boy, had I heard of her with her half a -million of silver dollars _only_; for then nothing could have satisfied -me under a couple of millions in gold!” - -He eyed me somewhat dreamily as he spoke. We were smoking; I chipped at -my tinder-box for a light. - -“What do you think of the crew?” said he suddenly. - -“I can find no fault.” - -“D’ye think they are trustworthy?” - -“Are they to be trusted on board a ship with half-a-million of dollars -in her hold?” - -He nodded. - -“I don’t see why they are not to be trusted,” said I. “You must trust a -crew of some sort; you can’t work this brig without men. Should you -doubt these fellows, what’s to be done?” - -“Done!” cried he, with his eyes sparkling; “you don’t suppose that I -would carry them to a shipload of silver if I _didn’t_ trust them? I’d -visit port after port, ay, if it had to come to my going away for New -Holland, until I had collected such a crew as I felt I _could_ trust.” - -“It might take years.” - -“So it might. But how many years would it take in this beggarly calling -of the sea, to amass such a fortune as lies waiting in a hole in an -island to be divided betwixt Tulp and me and you and the men?” - -“No years of the sea calling could compass it.” - -After a pause, he exclaimed: - -“Yet I am struck by one remark you have made. This brig cannot be -navigated without men. It must, therefore, come to my trusting the crew, -and perhaps I might find no honester fellows than those on board.” - -“They are beginning to want to know, pretty earnestly too, I guess, -where they are bound to.” - -“_That_ I suppose,” he answered; “but how do you know what’s in their -minds?” - -I repeated the conversation I had held with Yan Bol in the night. He -listened attentively. - -“With what sort of manner did he express himself?” he asked. - -“He was respectful, sir,” I answered, for now I would often _sir_ my -friend out of habit. - -He sat for awhile in silence, thinking and drumming upon the table. -Shortly afterward we went to our respective berths, and I lay reading in -a book he had lent me until four o’clock. That book--what was it? It was -the “Castle of Otranto.” I recollect nothing of it saving the gigantic -helmet. But what a wizardry there is in names! Memories for me are -imperishably wreathed round about the title of that old-fashioned, all -but forgotten novel. Never do I hear the name of that book pronounced -but there arises before me the picture of the interior of the brig -_Black Watch_. I behold the plainly-furnished cabin, the stand of arms, -the midship table upon which Greaves and I would lean, heads supported -on our elbows, for an hour at the time, yarning over the past, talking -about the future. There is a finer magic in names, even than in -perfumes--a subtler power of evocation. I forget the story that that old -book tells, but the simple utterance of the name of it will yield me a -vision as sharp in detail, as brilliant in color, as though it were the -reality beheld at noontide. - -The trade wind freshened again in the evening. At sundown it was blowing -too strong for a topgallant studding sail. There was the promise of a -gale in the windward sky, though I felt pretty sure that no gale was -meant; and the mercury hung steady in the cabin. But such a sky as it -was! bronzed with the western light, and the green seas shaping out of -it in dissolving heaps, and on all sides a wilderness of confused airy -coloring that sobered, as the eye watched, to the stemming of the shadow -out of the east. I never beheld such a wreckage of cloud. All northeast -it was like the ruins of a vast continent of vapor, huge heaps of the -stuff, mighty pyramids, round-backed mountains staring with copper -countenances sunward, and of a milk-white softness in their skirts. I -thought I spied twenty ships among them, low down, where the sea line -worked against the ridged and rising and breaking stuff, and every ship -was a pinion of cloud that soared into a Teneriffe, then went to pieces, -and sailed in rent and rugged masses over our mastheads. - -I spent my dog-watch alone, and paced the deck, keeping an askant eye -upon the crew, who were lounging about the galley. I admired the -postures of the men. How long does a man need to follow the sea to -acquire the art of leaning? The boatmen of our coasts are artists in -this picturesque accomplishment; but there is no man leans with the art -of the old, deep-water sailor. Not a bone in him but lounges. The very -pipe in his mouth loafs. - -And of the several loafing, lounging pictures upon which my eye rested -the completest were the Dutchmen’s. But _they_ were built for it, -bolstered as they were by a swell of stern that pitched their bodies -into an attitude unattainable by the English Jacks, who, like all -British sailors, were remarkable for flatness _there_. Yan Bol walked to -and fro abreast of the row of loungers, his hands buried in his pockets, -a pipe inverted betwixt his lips, his deep voice rumbling at intervals. -The tones of the men--I could not hear their speech--the looks of them, -one and all, hinted at a sort of dog-watch council. - -’Twas a perfect ocean picture in that dying light. The brig pitched -heavily as she rushed forward, and under the wide yawn of the swollen -foresail you saw, as her bows came down, the streaming rush of the white -waters set boiling by her steam, and sweeping up the green and freckled -acclivity into whose hollow she had swept. You saw the figures of the -men dimming to the deepening shadow, one clear tint of costume after -another waning, the red shirt growing ashen, the blue blending with the -gloom, here and there a face stealing out red against the light of a -flaming knot of ropeyarns handed through the galley door for lighting a -pipe. - -Oh, but I felt weary of it, though! That salt hissing over the side, -that sullen thunder of smiting and smitten surge, that ceaseless -shrilling and piping aloft, the buoyant rise, the roaring fall--I was -fresh from two years of it, and here it was all to do and to hearken to -and to suffer over again, for how many months? But, courage! thought I, -whistling “Tom Bowling” in time with the lift of the seas; there should -be plenty of land in sight from the height of such a heap as six -thousand pounds will make. Only is it a dream? is it a dream? is it a -dream? and the melody of “Tom Bowling” sped through my set teeth -shriller than the song of the backstay that my hand had grasped. - -The night passed. Nothing of moment happened. The brig throughout my -watch had averaged over eleven knots an hour, and once, on heaving the -log when the wind freshened into a squall, the fore topmast studding -sail being on her, the speed rose to thirteen. It was noble sailing. The -race of the milk astern was so glaring white that in the darkest hour -one could almost have seen to read by it as by moonlight. Let what will -come along, thought I, here be your true heels for scornful defiance. -What was likely to come along of a perilous sort? Well, it was -impossible to say. Prior to the peace two stout French frigates had been -dispatched on a six months’ cruise off the African coast; they had -stretched across to the Western Islands; they had picked up a Guineaman -or two; but we did not know then that their fate had overtaken them in -the shape of a two-decker glorified by bunting that was, is, and forever -will be abhorred by the French. We did not know, I say, that the two -Crapeaux had been carried away, tricolors under the Union Jack, all in -correct keeping with historic teaching, to enlarge, by two fine ships, -the fighting powers of Britannia. But, supposing those two frigates -afloat; we were at peace with France, though, to be sure, the frigates -might not have got the news of peace. What was there to be afraid of on -the ocean? The Yankee--the jolly privateersman on his own hook! For -those two we needed to keep a bright lookout until we should be well -south of the equator. Yet could I not imagine anything afloat likely to -beat, I will not say to match, the _Black Watch_. _That_ I felt, as I -counted the knots on the log line by the feeble light of a lantern, -while the brig washed roaring before the trade squall, and whitened out -the dark ocean till it looked sheer snow astern. - -Next morning I was in my cabin after breakfast when the lad Jimmy -brought me a message from Greaves. I put down my book and pipe, got out -of my bunk, pulled on my coat, and went to the captain’s berth. He was -holding a sheet of paper before him, with an expression of amusement on -his face. - -“Here’s a Round Robin,” said he. “You may judge of the quantity of -literature that freights our forecastle by observing the number of ‘his -marks.’ It seems there are but two that can write their names.” - -He extended the sheet of paper. On inspecting it I found that it was -formed of several sheets--spotted, fly-blown, and moldy--seemingly blank -fly leaves from two or three old volumes. These fly leaves were stuck -together by glue, and the artist who had fashioned the sheet had thought -proper to clothe the sailors’ sentiments with crape, by ruling broad -lines of tar along the margins. This strange Round Robin ran thus: - -[Illustration] - -The ink with which this Round Robin was manufactured was pale, and might -have been compounded of lampblack mixed with water. The handwriting was -extraordinary--a Dutch scrawl, scarcely decipherable here and there. -When I had read it through, and twisted the thing round so as to peruse -the names, I burst into a laugh. - -“It is Yan Bol’s dictation,” said Greaves, “and Wirtz took it down. -Probably a whole book of ‘Paradise Lost’ gave Milton less trouble than -this composition of the poor devils forward.” - -“What shall you do, sir?” said I, putting the paper down on the table. - -“Oh, the petition forces my hand. It is the whole ship’s company, you -see, barring Jimmy, who delivered it. I will ask you to step on deck and -tell Bol that I’ll communicate the business of the voyage to the men -this afternoon at eight bells.” I was about to leave the berth. “I’ll -frankly own, Fielding,” he exclaimed, “that I am influenced by you in -this matter. If you were in my place you would no longer withhold the -secret of this errand from the crew?” - -“I would not. My argument is that this brig must, under any -circumstances, be navigated by a ship’s company. A time must come when -you will be obliged to trust your crew, and the present crew seem to me -as likely and trustworthy a lot as a man must hope to meet with in the -republic of the merchantman’s forecastle.” - -“I lack decision,” he exclaimed, “and why? The stake is a huge one. -Well, give Yan Bol my message, will you?” - -I left him, fetched my cap, and went thoughtfully on deck. I had -reckoned him, when we first met, a man of strong and energetic -character--a person in the first degree qualified for the control of a -ship bound on such a mission as this of gathering dollars from a hole in -a rock. His indecision now was a disappointment, and it puzzled me. It -did not please me that my views should influence him. I wished that he -should stand bolt upright under his own burden. That my views would -_not_ have influenced him in any other direction than this, which -concerned the trustworthiness of the men, I fully believed, and my -opinion weighing with him in this matter increased my suspicion of the -credibility of his story of the ship imprisoned in the cave; for I felt -that, if he had no doubts at all that his ship with her cargo of dollars -was as matter of fact a reality as the _Black Watch_ herself, his method -of approaching her would be based on iron-hard resolutions; whereas, if -he had _dreamt_ of the ship--if his hope and faith were those of a dream -only--then might there, then would there, be an element of uncertainty -in his views; and such an element of uncertainty I seemed to find in his -first resolution not to impart the secret of the voyage to the men until -the brig was south of the equator, and in his sudden determination _now_ -to communicate that secret at four o’clock this afternoon. - -I gained the deck. Yan Bol stumped the planks. He was clad in heavy -clothes, and his figure looked more than half its usual size. In fact, -the further we drew south the more clothes did Yan Bol heap upon his -back. His notion was that what was good to keep out the cold was good to -keep out the heat. It was a Dutchman’s notion of apparel, like to the -Frenchman’s idea of washing: “Why should I wash myself? I shall be dirty -again.” - -Yan Bol came to a stand when I rose through the hatch. He wore a fur cap -with flaps, which the wind shook about his ears. I did not choose to be -in a hurry, though he seemed to guess my mission, and eyed me out of the -flat expanse of his face with a civil, or at least unconscious, frown of -expectation. I looked up at the canvas; I gazed round upon the sea; I -walked very deliberately to the binnacle, and stood for some moments -with my eyes upon the compass-card, observing the behavior of the brig -as she was swung along her course by the quartering seas. I then -leisurely approached Bol. - -“The captain,” said I, “has received the men’s Round Robin and has read -it.” - -“Mr. Fielding, I like to learn vhat he tinks of her as a Roundt Robin?” -exclaimed Bol. - -“Wouldn’t you first like to hear what his answer is?” - -“Yaw, certainly. But she vhas a first-class Roundt Robin, and I likes to -know vhat der captain says to him.” - -“At four o’clock this afternoon you will pipe the crew aft, and the -captain will then tell you all what errand this brig is bound on.” - -“Vell, dot vhas as he should be,” he exclaimed. “Ve like to know by dis -time vhere ve vhas boun’. Did you read dot Roundt Robin?” - -“I did.” - -“Vhas she goodt?” - -“Good enough to make me laugh.” - -“She vhas serious, by Cott, Mr. Fielding. Vere could her laughter be? -Dot is vhat I like to hear now.” - -“A Round Robin is not a thing to be criticised,” said I. “No man is -supposed to have had a particular share in the manufacture of it. If you -want me to praise this Round Robin I shall suppose you the author of -it.” - -“Dot vhas right, but still I ox,” said he, in his deep voice, slouching -his cap to scratch his head, “vere could her laughter be?” - -“You have the captain’s message,” said I, “and you will repeat it to the -men.” - -I then took another leisurely look round, and returned to my berth, my -pipe, and my book. - -At eight bells in the afternoon watch, the trade wind blowing freshly on -the quarter, the sea running in dark blue heights with the frequent -sparkle of silver flying fish at the coppered forefoot of the brig, and -the sun sliding moist and warm and misty amid the breaks in the clouds -southwest, Yan Bol, coming out of the caboose, where no doubt he had -been smoking a pipe in company with the cook, who was a Dutchman, Hals -by name, stood upon the forecastle, and putting his whistle to his lips -blew a piercing summons, which, methought, found an echo in the very -hollow of the distant little main royal itself, and then, opening his -mouth, he delivered, in a voice of thunder, an order to all hands to lay -aft. - -The men were awaiting this command; they did not need to be urged aft. I -had noticed the impatience with which they followed the chiming of the -bell denoting the passage of time in ship fashion. On board the _Black -Watch_ we kept our little bell telling the hours and the half-hours as -punctually as though we had been a ship-of-war. - -The crew came swiftly and gathered abaft the mainmast, whence the -quarter-deck went clear to the taffrail. Greaves had been on deck for -above half-an-hour past, and I had been watching the ship since noon. No -man can look so expectant as a sailor. He it is who above all men -reaches to the highest possibilities of expression in the shape of -expectation--that is to say, when at sea, when some weeks of shipboard -are between him and the land he has left; when the full spirit of the -monotony of the life possesses him, and when a very little thing becomes -a very great thing merely because there is very little indeed of -anything. - -I had some difficulty to hold my countenance when I looked at the crew. -They were going to hear a secret; it was a time of prodigious -excitement, and every face was shaped by rough sensations and feelings. -Greaves was smoking a long paper cigar; he flung what remained of it -overboard, and with a glance behind him, as though calculating the -distance of the man at the helm, that the fellow might hear what was -said, he approached the sailors. - -“I received the Round Robin, men,” said he, “and I read it. You want to -know where this brig is bound to? I don’t blame ye. Mind,” he added, -wagging his forefinger kindly at them, “I don’t blame ye. But you will -remember, my lads, that when you agreed with me for the round voyage, -whether at London or at Amsterdam, it was understood as a part of our -compact that nothing was to be said about the destination of this brig -until we were south of the equator.” - -“Dot vhas right enough, sir,” said Yan Bol, “ve all say yaw to dot.” - -“We are not south of the equator yet,” said Greaves. - -“Dot vhas still very right,” returned Bol. - -“Why should you expect me to break through my understanding with you?” - -“Captain, it’s like this,” exclaimed one of the Englishmen, named Thomas -Teach. “Had the secret of this here expedition remained yourn and yourn -only, we should have been willing to wait for your own time to larn -where we was going to. We’ve got nothing to say against Mr. -Fielding--quite the contrairy; he’s a good mate, and I reckon as he -finds us men that are under him willing and civil.” - -“True,” said I loudly. - -“But,” continued Teach, “Mr. Fielding wasn’t one of the original ship’s -company. With all proper respect, sir, to him and to you, us men -consider that since he knows where we’re a-going to, it’s but fair that -we, as the original company, should likewise be told where we’re a-going -to without waiting to receive the news till we cross the equator.” - -He looked along the faces of his mates, and there was a general murmur -of assent, Bol’s grunt deeply accentuating the forecastle note of -acquiescence. - -“Enough!” cried Greaves, “I am not here to reason with you, but to keep -my promise. You want to know where this brig is bound to? Now attend, -and you shall have the whole secret in the wag of a dog’s tail. D’ye -know the Galapagos, any of you?” - -“I’ve sighted them islands,” answered the seaman named Friend. The rest -held their peace. - -“Well,” continued Greaves, “south of the Galapagos there’s an island, -and in that island there’s a cave, and in that cave there stands, -grounded, with the heads of the topmasts hard pressed against the roof -of the cave, a large full-rigged ship, and in the hold of that large -full-rigged ship, there lies, stowed away, a number of cases filled with -Spanish dollars. Those cases we are going to fetch, and _that’s_ the -brig’s errand.” - -The four Dutch seamen gazed slowly at one another; the Englishmen’s -glance had more of life, but it was easy to see that every man marveled -greatly, each according to his powers of feeling astonished. I seemed to -notice that one or two doubted their hearing, by their manner of gazing -about them as though to make sure of their surroundings. After a pause -Yan Bol said: - -“She vhas roundt der Hoorn.” - -“Where else, Yan?” exclaimed Friend. - -“A ship in a cave!” cried William Galen; “dot vhas funny, captain.” - -“Fire away with your remarks, and ask your questions,” said Greaves -good-naturedly, and he plunged his hands in his pockets, and walked to -and fro abreast of the men. - -“Ship or no ship,” exclaimed Travers, “I allow that that there island’s -to be our port--there and home a-constitooting the voyage?” - -“That’s so,” said Greaves; “any more questions?” - -“A ship in a cave! Dot vhas strange,” said Bol. “Suppose dot ship hov -gone proke, und you findt der cave mit noting inside? Ve go home all der -same?” - -“All the same,” echoed Greaves. - -“And if the vessel’s there, sir, _and_ the dollars?” said a man named -Call, in a thin voice. - -“What do you want to know?” demanded Greaves. - -The fellow, with some hesitation, brought out his question. - -“Was the job going to bring more money than the wages that was to be -took up?” - -“When the divisions have been made,” replied Greaves, looking at Bol, -“there will remain a trifle over sixty-one thousand dollars--about -twelve hundred and twenty pounds--to be divided among the eleven of ye -according to your ratings.” - -Again the sailors gazed at one another with looks of astonishment, -which, in several of them, quickly made way for broad grins. - -“That’s a hundred pounds a man,” said Call, in his thin voice. - -“The divisions will be according to your ratings, I told you,” exclaimed -Greaves. “Bol would get more than the cabin boy. He would expect more.” -Bol gave a short, massive nod. “You have now heard the nature of this -voyage,” said Greaves, coming to a pause in his walk to and fro abreast -of the men, “does any man among you find anything to object to in it? Is -there any man among you,” he continued, after a considerable interval of -silence, during which I had observed him regard the men steadfastly one -after the other, “who feels disinclined to make the voyage round the -Horn to the island and home again with a small cargo of silver money?” - -“She vhas a voyage to suit me,” said Bol, “I likes der scheme.” - -Several of the men made observations to the same effect. - -“May we take it, sir,” said the small-voiced Call, “that we receive the -wages we agreed for as well as this here hundred pound a man, to call it -so?” - -“You _may_ take it,” said Greaves shortly. - -“Beg pardon, cap’n,” said Hals, the cook, knuckling his forehead, and -contriving a clumsy sea bow with a scrape of a spade-shaped foot, “how -long might dot ship hov been in der cave?” - -“How long? Since 1810.” - -“Who see her, cap’n,” said Bol. - -“I did.” - -“And did you see der dollars?” said Hals, again knuckling his brow and -again scraping his foot. - -“Yes; but you now know the motive of the voyage, and there’s an end. If -any man is not satisfied let him say so. We can make shift, no doubt, -with fewer hands, and the fewer the crew the larger each man’s share. -Note that. The fewer----” and he repeated the sentence. “I have -agreements in my pockets for each of you, in which Heer Bartholomew -Tulp, the charterer of this brig and the promoter of this expedition, -agrees to divide the sum of sixty-one thousand dollars--supposing the -ship to be still in the cave and the money to be still on board of -her--in which Mr. Tulp, I say, agrees to divide sixty-one thousand -dollars among the crew who return home in the ship, the proportions -according to their ratings to be determined.” He put his hand upon his -breast. “But, before I hand you these documents, I must know that you -are satisfied with the intention of the voyage.” - -“We are satisfied,” was the answer delivered by a number of voices, as -though one man had spoken. - -On this, without saying another word, he pulled out a little bundle of -papers, and, glancing at each--all being inscribed with the respective -names of the men--he handed one to Yan Bol, and a second to Friend, and -a third to Meehan, and so on, until every man saving the fellow at the -wheel had a paper. - -“Give this to Street, Mr. Fielding,” said Greaves; and, taking the -paper, I went to the wheel and gave it to the man who grasped the -spokes. - -The only two sailors who could read, Bol and Wirtz, opened the papers -and looked at them. The others put theirs in their pockets. - -“There is nothing more to be said,” exclaimed the captain; “but should -any man feel dissatisfied--whether to-day, after you have talked over -what I have told you, or later on, when you have had plenty of leisure -to think--let him come to me. He shall have his wages down to date, and -be transhipped or set ashore at the first opportunity; for the fewer we -are the richer we are. You can now go forward.” - -He turned and stepped aft, calling to me. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -A MIDNIGHT SCARE. - - -Captain Greaves stepped aft, calling to me, as I have said, and I -followed him below to his berth, after pausing to make sure that Yan Bol -had taken charge of the brig; for it would be his watch till six, and -mine till eight, and his again till midnight. - -The captain closed the door of his berth, and exclaimed: - -“I have no bond or agreement bearing Tulp’s signature to offer you, -because the document he signed was made out in the name of Van Laar, and -is, consequently, worthless; but _my_ undertaking will secure you as -effectually as though it bore Tulp’s name; and I now propose to make out -such a bond for you.” - -He took a sheet of foolscap from a drawer, seated himself, dipped a -quill into an ink-dish, and wrote. - -I have lost that paper. Years ago I mislaid it, though there were few -memorials of my life that I could not have better spared. Its substance, -however, I recollect, of course, and what Greaves wrote was to this -effect: - -That having appointed me chief mate of the brig _Black Watch_, in the -room of Jacob Van Laar, he agreed that the share in dollars--to wit, -30,556--that was to have been Van Laar’s had he proved himself a -competent mate and remained in the ship, should be paid to me--that is -to say, to William Fielding; and here he entered certain particulars -stating my age, place of birth, my professional antecedents; and he -likewise sketched very happily in words my face and appearance, “that -Tulp,” said he, “shall not be able to pretend you are not the right man, -and so wriggle out of what this document commits him to, in case I -should not live to reach home.” - -More went to this document than I need trouble you with. I watched him -while he wrote. There was an expression of enthusiasm in his face, as -though he found a sort of joy in writing freely about thousands of -dollars. “Should it prove a dream,” thought I, stooping to caress -Galloon, who lay at my feet, “what will the jolly Dutch and English -hearts of this brig say when we arrive at the island--if such an island -exists!--and find not only no ship, but not even a cave?” But the vision -of Tulp came to the rescue again. A specter, formed mainly of a leering -eye, a sleek and wary grin, and a velvet cap, seemed to gaze at me from -behind Greaves; and I pocketed the document with a feeling that almost -rose to conviction after I had read it, at my friend’s request, and -thanked him very warmly for his kindness and for his friendly and -particular interest in me. - -We sat talking over what had passed between him and the crew. - -“One point,” said he, “I believe I have scored: I have made them -understand that the fewer they are the richer they will be. I hope this -notion may not lead to some of them chucking the others overboard. -They’ll all stick to the ship till the island is reached and the dollars -are stowed. _Afterward_ will be my anxious time. But the adventure must -be gone through, and it remains also to be seen whether the brig is not -to be navigated during the homeward run by fewer men than we now carry. -The fewer the better. I should wish to see six men forward--no more--and -three of us aft, for Jimmy is to be reckoned as a cabin hand, and, -saving Bol and Wirtz, there’s not a man, in my humble opinion, whose -spine that knock-kneed, shambling, slobbered Cockney lad--a creature you -would set down as a funeral-and-wedding idiot merely--has not the -strength to snap.” - -Soon afterward we went to supper, for at sea the last meal is so called, -and in the cabin we supped at half-past five; at six I relieved Yan Bol. -The men seemed to be waiting for him to come off duty. They were smoking -and talking round about their favorite haunt--the caboose. Some of them -were so hairy and some of them so flat of countenance that it was -impossible to gather what was in their minds from the looks of them. Bol -went into the caboose, whence presently issued a quantity of tobacco -smoke in a procession of puffs. I heard his voice rumbling; it was like -the groaning of a distant tempest. I was too far aft to hear what he -said, and there was likewise much noise of wind in the rigging, and a -shrill lashing of brine alongside. - -The sailors made a press at the caboose door, some in and some out, and -those who were out stood in hearkening postures, their heads eagerly -bent forward, the hand of the hindmost upon the shoulder of his fellow -in front of him. Bol’s voice rumbled. It was clear he was reading aloud, -so continuous was the rumbling, and presently I found that I had guessed -right when I saw the outermost man hand his paper in through the caboose -door. In short, every sailor wanted his document read aloud, two men -only being able to read, and of these two Yan Bol was the more -intelligible to the Englishmen. - -Well, after this for some days I find nothing worth noting. A thing then -happened, a trifling ocean incident some might deem it, but it left an -odd strong impression upon me, and after all these years I can live -through it again in memory as though now was the hour of its happening. - -We had sailed out of the northeast trade wind, and had entered that zone -of equatorial calms and baffling winds which is termed by sailors the -doldrums. To this point we had made a fine run. Such another run down -the South Atlantic must promise us a prompt arrival at the island, -unless we should meet with the Dutchman Vanderdecken’s devil’s luck off -the Horn. Neither Bol nor I spared the men, when our forefoot smote the -greasy waters of the creeping and sneaking parallels. To every breath -that tarnished the white surface of the sea we braced the yards, making -nothing of running a studding sail aloft, though five minutes afterward -the watch might be hauling it down with all aback forward and the brig -going astern. By this sort of watchfulness, and by the willingness of -the men, and by the slipperiness of our coppered bends, we sneaked our -keel forward, every twenty-four hours showing what sometimes rose to a -“run.” - -It was in about one degree north, that down east at sunrise, in the -heart of the dazzle there, we spied a sail, a topsail schooner, that as -the morning advanced lifted toward us as though she were set our way by -a current, for, often as I looked at her, I never could see that she -shifted her helm to close us whenever a draught of air swept the shadows -out of her canvas and held them steadily shining and gave her life for a -while. - -A serene cloudless day was that, the light azure of the sky whitening -into a look of quicksilver where it sloped to the brim of the sea, and -the sea floating thick and hushed and white, with a long and lazy heave -that ran a drowsy shudder through our canvas. Greaves thought the -schooner a man-of-war, something British stationed on the West African -coast, well out in the Atlantic for a sniff of mid-ocean air, brought -there by a chase, and now bound inward again, though subtly lifting -toward us at present, attracted by the smartness of our rig, and -inspired by a dream of slaves. But I did not think her a man-of-war, I -did not believe her English. A Yankee I did not reckon her. In short, I -seemed to know what she was not. - -The morning wore away. At noon the schooner was showing to the height of -her covering board, that is to say, she had risen her bulwarks above the -line of the horizon, but the refraction was troublesome; she swam in the -lenses of the telescope, she was blurred as though pierced with -fragments of looking-glass along the risen black length of her, and -sometimes I seemed to see gun-ports, and sometimes I believed them an -illusion of the atmosphere. - -“What do you think of her, Fielding?” said Greaves, while we stood at -noon, quadrants in hand, taking the altitude of the sun. - -“I don’t like her looks, sir,” I answered. - -“Nor I. I believe now that she is a large Spanish schooner with hatches -ready at a call to vomit cut-throats in scores. We’ll test her.” - -A light breeze was then blowing off the starboard quarter. Our helm was -shifted, the yards braced to the air of wind, and the brig was headed -about west. We made eight bells, and grasped our quadrants, waiting and -watching. For about ten minutes the schooner, that was now dead astern, -held steadily on; her broad spaces of canvas then came rounding and -fining down into a thin silver stroke, somewhat aslant. Greaves picked -up the glass and leveled it at her. - -“She is after us,” he exclaimed, “and, blank her, it won’t be dark for -another seven hours!” - -“She may yet prove an English man-of-war,” said I. - -“I wish I could believe it now,” said he; “we must make a stern chase of -it. Our heels are as smart as hers, I dare say, and this is good weather -for dodging until the blackness comes, unless the beast should send -boats, in which case there are thirteen of us; mostly Englishmen.” - -He went below to work out the sights, leaving me to put our brig into a -posture of defense, and to make the most of the weak catspaws which -breathed and died. Ammunition was got up, the two long brass guns loaded -with round shot, the carronades with grape to slap at the first boat -that should come within range. In a very little while our decks -presented a somewhat formidable appearance with chests of muskets and -pistols loaded with ball and slugs, round and grape shot ready for -handling, a cask full of cartridges, a sheaf of boarding-pikes, -cutlasses at hand to snatch, and so on, and so on. - -It is old-fashioned stuff to write about! yet your grandfathers managed -very handsomely with it, _somehow_, old stuff as it is. It’s the city of -Amsterdam that is shored up and held on end by piles; so does the -constitution of this country rest on the boarding-pike. You clap a -trident in the hand of your goddess of the farthing and the halfpenny. -Why not a boarding-pike? _That_ is Britannia’s own symbol. It was not -with a trident that this invincible goddess charged into the channels, -and swarmed over the bristling and castellated sides of her -thrice-tiered thunderous enemies, and swept all opponents under hatches -and battened them down there. It was the boarding-pike that did _that_ -work. But a weapon, the most victorious of all in the hands of the -British tar, is doomed, I fear. Its fate is sealed. The giant Steam has -laid it across his knee, and waits but to fetch a breath or two to break -it in twain. Be it so. But laugh at me not as an old-fashioned proser -when I say that it will be an evil day for England when the -boarding-pike shall have been stowed away as a weapon that can be no -longer serviceable in the hands of the British Jacks. - -We ran the ensign aloft; the schooner took no notice. Some breathing of -air down her way enabled her to slightly gain upon us. She sneaked her -hull up the sea to the strake of her water line, but she was end on, and -little was to be made of her. It then fell a sheet calm, and the -stranger at that hour might have been about five miles astern of us. It -was a little after four in the afternoon. The heat was fierce. The -planks of the deck burnt like hot furnace-bricks through the soles of -the shoes, the pitch bubbled between the seams, and in the steamy vapor -that rose from the brig’s sides the lines of her bulwark rails snaked -faking to her bows as though they were alive. The very heave of the sea -fell dead; at long intervals only came a rounded slope sluggishly -traveling to us, brimming to the sides of the brig, slightly swaying -her, and making you think, as it rolled dark from t’other side of the -vessel, of the sullen rising of some long, scaly, filthy monster out of -the ooze to the greasy chocolate surface of a West African river. - -“What is that?” suddenly exclaimed Greaves, who had been standing at my -side looking at the schooner. - -I pointed the glass. - -“A boat, sir,” said I. “A minute--I shall be able to count her oars. -Five of a side. She is a big boat and full of men.” - -He took the telescope from me and leveled it in silence. - -“She is a privateersman,” said he. “There’s nothing of the man-o’-war in -the rise and fall of those blades; and if yonder oarsmen are not -foreigners, my name is Bartholomew Tulp. Fielding, those scoundrels must -not arrest this voyage, by Isten! There is nothing for them to plunder. -They will cut our throats and fire the brig. Oh, blow, my sweet breeze! -What sort of a gunner are you?” - -“A bad gunner,” I answered. - -“I’ll try ’em myself. I’ll try ’em with the first shot!” he cried, with -his face full of blood and his eyes on fire. “There will be time to load -and slap thrice at them before they’re alongside, and then----” He -turned, and shouted orders to the men to arm themselves to repel -boarders and to prepare for a bloody resistance. “Every man of ye will -have to fight as though you were three!” he roared. “You will know what -to expect if you let those beauties board you. Yan Bol----” and he -shouted twenty further instructions, which left the men armed to the -teeth, ready to leap to the first syllable of order that should be -rendered necessary by the movements of the boat. - -But at this moment I caught sight of a dim blue line on the white edge -of the sea in the north. It was a breeze of wind, something more than a -catspaw. The color was sweet and deep, and it spread fast; yet not so -fast but that it was odds if the boat were not alongside before our -sails should have felt the first of the wind. - -Greaves sighted the long brass stern-piece, lovingly smote it, and then -directed it on its pivot as though it were a telescope. - -“Stand by to load again, men!” he cried to a couple of sailors who were -at hand, and applied the match. - -The explosion made a noble roar of thunder. The gun might have been a -sixty-four pounder for _that_--nay, big as one of those infernal pieces -which worried well-meaning Duckworth in the Dardanelles. The ball flew -ricochetting for the boat, rhythmic feathers of water attending its -flight, as though it chiseled chips of crystal out of the mirror it -fled along. It missed the boat, but it fell close enough to flash a -burst of white water that may have wetted some of the rogues; and, -indeed, it was so finely aimed that our men roared out a cheer for the -marksman. - -That round shot achieved an unexpected result. The oars ceased to -sparkle, the boat came to a stand; and this while our piece was loading -afresh. - -“Oh, ye saints, one and all, give it to me to smite ’em this time,” -prayed Greaves through his teeth. - -Wink went a gun in the bows of the boat; a puff like a cloud of tobacco -smoke out of Yan Bol’s mouth rolled a little aside, and floated -stationary and enlarging. The report came along like the single bark of -a dog, but we saw nothing of the ball. - -“Oh, come nearer--oh, come nearer!” groaned Greaves in his throat; and -again he laid the piece, and again he applied the match, and a second -volcanic burst of noise followed the fiery belch. - -The final flash of water was astern of the boat this time; but Greaves’ -second dose, leveled with amazing precision, considering the range, -coming on top of the wind, the fresh, dark blue shadow of which would -now be visible to the fellows astern, satisfied them. With mightily -relieved hearts we beheld them pull the boat’s head round for the -schooner, and, some minutes before they were got within the shadow of -her side, the breeze was rounding our canvas, and the brig was wrinkling -the water as she gathered way to the impulse aloft. - -“Those gentry have not yet arrived at the Englishman’s notion of -boarding,” said Greaves. “Your brass gun always speaks loudly. There was -a note in the voice of this chap that deceived them. Their own schooner, -probably, carried nothing so heavy.” - -He slapped the breech of the brass piece, sent a contemptuous look at -the schooner, and fell to pacing the deck. - -The breeze slightly freshened and we drove along--considerably off our -course, indeed, but that could not be helped: for the blue shadow of the -wind was over the schooner; she was heeling to the small, hot gush of -the draught; she had picked up her boat and was in pursuit of us. We -waited awhile, and then, finding that she held her own--nay, that she -was very slowly closing us, indeed--we put our helm up and squared away -dead before it, leaving her to follow us as best she might with nothing -more that would draw than a square topsail and topgallant sail and a big -squaresail. - -By sunset we had run her into an orange-colored star on the edge of the -dark blue sea in the north; yet the cuss was still in chase, and, when -the dusk came, we braced up on the larboard tack, with the hope of -losing her, and steered southeast. - -It was dark at eight o’clock, and a strange sort of darkness it was. All -the wind was gone, and the sea gleamed like black oil smoking. The -atmosphere had that smoky look; spiral folds of gloom seemed to stand up -on the ocean, stretching tendrils of vapor athwart the stars and hiding -most of them. ’Twas a mere atmospheric effect; yet all this blending of -dyes, this thickening and thinning of the dusk, this heavy and stagnant -intermingling of shadow around the sea produced the very effect of -vapor. Sight was blinded at the distance of a pistol-shot, and the ocean -lay as though suffocated under the burden of the hush of the night. - -We kept all lights carefully screened, and the lookout was told to keep -his ears open; but neither Greaves nor I felt uneasy. The schooner had -been far astern when the evening fell, and our shift of helm, with a -pretty considerable run into the southeast, could scarcely fail to throw -her off the scent. But it is true, nevertheless, that vessels in -stagnant weather have a human trick of turning up close together. I have -been in a flat calm with a ship a long mile and a half distant from us, -and in a few hours both vessels have had boats out towing, to keep the -ships clear. Have vessels sexes? I believe so. It will not do to talk of -the magnetic influence of _wooden_ fabrics. Ships are sentient; the male -ship with the nostrils of her hawse-pipes sniffs the female ship afar, -and the twain, taking advantage of a breathless atmosphere, and of the -helplessness of skippers--which there is no virtue in cursing to -remedy--all imperceptibly float one to the other till, if permitted, -they affectionately rub noses, then, lover-like, quarrel, snap jib -booms, bring down topgallant masts, and behave in other ways humanly. - -It was somewhere about ten o’clock that night that Greaves and I were -seated on the skylight, smoking and talking, but all the while keeping -an eye upon the deep shadow in whose heart the brig was sleeping, and -listening for any sound upon the water. All hands were on deck. They lay -about, dozing or mumbling in conversation; but they were in readiness, -armed as when the boat had been approaching, and the carronades and two -great guns were loaded and deck lanterns were alight below, hidden. The -brig was prepared, nay, doubly prepared; for it was no man’s intention -to let the boats of the schooner take us unawares. Our voyage and our -lives were not to be brought to a hideous and untimely end by a -scoundrel picaroon. - -I had seen Yan Bol that afternoon before the dusk closed in, after -looking at the schooner, advance his fearful fist and writhe it into an -incomparable suggestion of throttling, with such an expression of -countenance as was as heartening as the accession of a dozen picked men. -And this little circumstance was I relating to Greaves as we sat -together on the edge of the skylight, smoking. - -“He is a heavy, terrible man,” said Greaves. “If the schooner’s people -are Spanish, as I believe, I shall reckon Yan Bol good for ten of them, -at least. The other Dutchmen would be good for four apiece, and the -remainder may be left to our own countrymen of the jacket.” - -“The Dutch fight well,” said I. - -“Deucedly well,” he answered; “often have they proved our match. I would -rather have fought the combined fleets at Trafalgar than De Winter’s -ships. Duncan’s was a more difficult, and, therefore, a more splendid -victory than our nation seems to have realized. But the truth is, little -Horatio’s flaming sun filled the national sky at that time with its own -blazing light, and all was sunk in the splendor, though there were other -suns; oh, yes, there were _other_ suns!” - -“Hark!” I cried, “we are hailed.” - -“Hailed?” he echoed in a whisper. - -We listened. A figure came out of the darkness forward and said in a low -voice, “There’s something hard by, hailing us.” Greaves and I went to -either rail and searched the thick and silent darkness, over which -hovered a faint star or two, pale and dying. I strained my ears. I could -hear no sound of oars, not the least noise of any kind to tell that a -vessel was near us. I looked for a sparkle of phosphorus, for any blue -or white gleam of sea-glow, such as the stroke of an oar, whether -muffled or not, will chip out of the water in those parts. The hail was -repeated. It was the same hail I had before heard. It sounded like “Ship -there!” and seemed to proceed out of the blackness over the larboard -bow. - -Galloon barked sharply and furiously. - -“Silence, you scoundrel!” hissed Greaves at the dear old brute, and the -dog instantly ceased to bark. “Do you see anything, Fielding?” - -“Nothing, sir,” I answered, crossing the deck. “The cry seemed to me to -come from off the water on the larboard bow, and if it is our friend of -to-day or any other ship, she is _there_.” - -He went forward and I lost his figure in the blackness. - -All hands were now wide awake. The gloom was so deep betwixt the rails -that nothing was to be seen of the men, but I gathered from their voices -that they were moving briskly here and there to look over the side and -to peer into the smoky gloom over the bows. I went right aft, and first -from one quarter and then from the other of the brig I stared and -hearkened, straining my vision against the blackness till my eyeballs -ached, straining my hearing against the incommunicable hush upon the -ocean until I felt deaf with the sound of the beat of the pulse in my -ear. Oh, it was such a night of wonderful silence that, had the full -moon been overhead, the imagination might have heard the low thunder of -the orb as it wheeled through space. - -Greaves arrived aft. - -“Is that you, Fielding?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“I can see nothing, and the sea is as silent as a graveyard o’ night. Is -that hail some piratic trick? I tell you what: the words might have been -English, but they were not delivered by an English throat. I shall make -no answer. There is nothing to be done but to watch for fire in the -water; should it show, to hail _then_, and to let fly if the answer is -not to our liking.” - -He called for Yan Bol. The Dutchman’s deep voice responded, but even -while he approached us the hail was repeated. - -“There again!” cried I. - -“Was it in English?” said Greaves. - -“It was ‘ship ahoy,’ sir, very plain indeed, but thin, more distant than -before, I fancy, and still off the larboard bow.” - -At this instant there was a great commotion forward; I heard laughter, -the cackling of affrighted cocks and hens, followed by a shout in the -voice of the boy Jimmy: - -“Here’s the chap as has been a-hailing, master.” - -A singular noise of the beating of wings approached us, and I discerned -the figure of the boy Jimmy, as he stood before us grasping something. - -“Shall I wring un’s neck, master?” he cried, with a note of idiotic -mirth in his voice. - -“What the devil is all this about?” shouted Greaves. “What have you -there?” - -“The big Chaney cock with the croup, master,” answered the boy. - -I burst into a laugh, but a laugh that, perhaps, was not wanting in a -little touch of hysteria, so poignant was the feeling of relief after -the deep uneasiness of the last quarter of an hour. The men, heedless of -the discipline of the vessel, had come pressing aft in the wake of the -boy, and forward there continued a wild concert of cocks and hens -cackling furiously. - -“Fetch a lantern, one of you,” bawled Greaves; “curse that poultry! Who -started them all? That row’s as bad as a flare if there’s anything near -on the lookout for us.” - -A lantern was brought and the glare of it disclosed the tall, muscular, -knock-kneed form of the youth Jimmy, grasping by the neck a huge, -long-legged, ostrich-shaped cock, of the kind known as Cochin China. The -faces of the seamen crowding aft to hear and see showed past him in -phantom countenances, contorted out of all resemblance to themselves by -their grins and stare of expectation, and by the dim light that touched -them, and by the deep darkness behind them. - -“What have you got there?” cried Greaves. - -“It’s the big cock, master. He’s croupy,” answered the lad in his -imbecile voice, continuing to grasp the fowl so tightly by the neck -that, croup or no croup, the thing hung silent, as though dead, save -that now and again it would give an uneasy, sick, protesting flap of its -wings. “He wasn’t well this afternoon no, master. I was passing the -coop, when I heard him sing out, ‘Ship ahoy!’ and I stopped to listen, -and he sung out, ‘Ship ahoy!’ again. He was standing on one leg and the -skin of his eyes was half drawed down, and I speaks to the cook about -him, who tells me to go and be d----d.” - -“He gooms, captain, vhen I vhas busy mit der crew’s supper; I had -shcalded myself. No vonder I spheaks short,” exclaimed the voice of the -cook among the crowd behind the lad. - -“Bear a hand with your yarn, Jimmy!” cried Greaves. - -“Well, master, when I hears that we was hailed, I came out of the bows, -where I was lying down, and I listened, and I hears nothing; but by and -by the hail comes, and I says to myself, ‘Aint I heard that woice -before?’ and I stands listening till it sounds again. ‘It’s old -Chaney,’ says I, and steps aft to the hen-coop, knowing in what part he -lodges, and here he is, master. Shall I wring un’s neck?” - -“Cook,” exclaimed Greaves, “take that cock from Jimmy and put it back in -its coop. Go forward, men, but keep your eyes lifting till this -thickness slackens. That hail _may_ have come from a cock with the -croup, as the lad says, but all the same, be vigilant till we can use -our eyes. There may be something damnably close aboard even while I’m -talking.” - -The men answered variously in their gruff voices, and the mob of them -rolled forward and vanished in the deep obscurity. The lantern which had -been brought on deck was again taken below, and all now being silent -fore and aft, Greaves and I lay over the side, listening and straining -our sight into the murkiness; but not a sound came off the sea. No -sparkle anywhere showed the life of a lifted blade; no deeper dye of ink -indicated the presence of anything betwixt us and the horizon. - -For an hour Greaves and I patrolled the deck, talking over the cock with -the croup, over false alarms at sea; taling about the preternatural hush -and sepulchral repose of the night; and then we talked of the voyage, of -the island, of the ship in the cave; and on such matters did we -discourse. And while we were conversing--an hour having passed since the -incident of the croupy cock--we heard afar the tinkling and musical, -fountain-like rippling of water brushed by wind, and a few minutes -later, a pleasant breeze was cooling our cheeks, steadying our canvas, -and propelling the brig, whose wake, as it streamed from her, trailed -like a riband of yellow fire, while the wire-like lines which broke from -her bows shone, as though at white heat, with the beautiful glow of the -sea. The wind polished the stars and cleansed the atmosphere till you -could see to the gloomy line of the horizon. By midnight the moon was -shining, the heavens were a deep blue, and Greaves had gone below, -satisfied that the brig was the only object in sight within the whole -visible compass of the deep. - -Though it had been Yan Bol’s watch from twelve to eight, yet, while the -captain and I remained aft, he had kept forward. Now that Greaves had -gone below, and my watch would be coming round shortly, Yan Bol came -along to the quarter-deck. - -“She vhas an oneasy time, Mr. Fielding,” he exclaimed in his trembling, -deep voice, that made one think of thunder heard in a vault. - -“It was,” said I; “but the sea is clear, and there’s an end to the -trouble.” - -“We should hov fought, by Cott,” said he, “had der needt arose. Ve did -not like dot dis voyage should be stopped by a bloydy pirate. It vhas -strange, Mr. Fielding, dot der cock should cry out in English.” - -“It sounded English,” said I. - -“Oh, she vhas goodt English. I like,” said he, broadly grinning, “dot my -English vhas always as goodt. She vhas an English cock, maype, though -schipped at Amsterdam. Had she been Dutch she vouldt hov spoke my -language.” - -At this moment eight bells--midnight--were struck. I thought to see Yan -Bol instantly trudge forward with the alacrity of a seaman whose watch -below has come round, but he evinced a disposition to linger, as on a -previous occasion. - -“I likes to findt a ship in a cave full of dollars, Mr. Fielding,” said -he. - -“There is a very great deal that one would like,” said I. - -“Sixty-von tousand dollar,” he continued, “vhas a goodt deal of money. -Dot money us men vill take oop. Und how much vill she leave, I vonder?” - -“Eh?” said I. “Yes, Bol, that will be a matter of counting, won’t it?” - -“I like to know, Mr. Fielding, vy she vhas sixty-one tousand dollar? Vy -not a leedle more or a leedle less, or much more, or some tousands less? -Dot’ll mean,” he continued after a pause, during which I remained -silent, “dot dere vhas a large share ofer und aboove der sixty-one -tousand dollar; but how vhas us men’s share arrived at I like to know?” - -“Why do you not ask the captain? Why do you ask me these questions? I am -not the captain.” - -“No, dot vhas very right. But you hov der captain’s confidence; und vy -do I ox, Mr. Fielding? Because der captain’s yarn is vonderful----” He -broke off, looking at me very earnestly. - -“Do you distrust the story?” said I. - -“Hov I said so, hov I said so, Mr. Fielding? But she vhas vonderful all -der same.” - -I was silent. He continued to look at me for some moments in a dull -Dutch way, then, seeming to check some observation he was about to make, -he exclaimed: - -“Veil, der coast vhas clear. I feel like sleeping. Good-night, Mr. -Fielding.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -I SEND MY LETTER. - - -At sunrise nothing was to be seen of the schooner, though a seaman was -sent on to the main royal yard with a telescope, where he swept the sea -in all directions. - -We crossed the equator before noon and drove into the South Atlantic, -with a pleasant breeze of wind out of the east. A day or two of such -sailing would send us clear of the zone of calms and catspaws, and then, -with the southeast trade wind strong on the larboard bow, the yards -braced forward, the blue seas breaking in foam from the sides, we might -hope for a smart run southwest, with weather enough to follow to bring -that wonderful island of Greaves within reach of a few days of us; -instead of a few months of us, as it had been and still was. - -I considered very seriously whether I should repeat to the captain my -brief conversation with Yan Bol--that chat, I mean, which I have related -at the end of the last chapter. For my own part I could not comfortably -settle my views of Yan Bol, yet I saw nothing to object to in the man. -Nothing could I recollect him saying of a kind to excite misgiving. -Though he was acting as second mate, he associated with the seamen as -one of them, slept and ate with them in their forecastle, and yet had -their respect. This I observed and thought well of. He was a bold and -hearty seaman--a practical sailor. Of navigation he knew nothing; -indeed, he once owned that he could never understand how it happened -that the progress of a ship altered time; the reason, he said, had been -explained to him on several occasions, but it was all the same--it was a -mystery “und it vhas vonderful dot any man vhas born mit brains to -understand him.” - -And yet I could not arrive at any conclusion to satisfy me. “Am I -influenced almost unconsciously against him,” thought I, “by his Dutch -airs and graces? Am I moved to an inward, secret dislike by a certain -freedom of speech and accost, by a sort of familiarity I have noticed -among Germans, and thought particularly detestable in Germans?” though I -had heretofore found such Dutchmen as I had encountered too stodgy and -stolid, too insipid and inexpressive, too torpid in mind and laborious -in perception to be readily capable of vexing one by that kind of -freedom and easiness of address and bearing which makes you thirsty to -kick the beast whose burden it is. No, I could not trace my doubts of -Yan Bol to my dislike of his behavior to me. Indeed, I could not trace -any doubts at all. And yet I never thought of him quite comfortably. If -Greaves’ dollar-ship was no vision of his slumbers, if Greaves’ chests -of milled silver were veritably aboard _La Perfecta Casada_ in the cave -he had described, then we should be a rich brig when we set sail from -the island; we should need an honest crew to carry us safely home. Was -Yan Bol honest? If a doubt of him arose he was the one man of the whole -ship’s company whom it would be Greaves’ policy to get rid of as soon as -possible, because he was the one man of all our little ship’s company -the most capable, should he take the trouble to exert himself, of -obtaining an ascendancy over his mates, and of directing them for good -or ill as he decided. - -These being my thoughts I resolved to repeat to Greaves the questions -which Bol had put to me touching the money in the island ship. He -listened to me anxiously and attentively. - -“I hope that man will not go wrong,” said he, when I had concluded; “I -like him.” - -“He is a good man in the forecastle-sense of the word,” I answered. - -“I like him,” he repeated. “He controls his mates; he is the sort of man -to keep them straight if he chooses, and I am almost resolved to make -him choose, by promising him a handsomer share than his bond states--not -at the expense of the crew, no; but by drawing on my own and the ship’s -share. Tulp must do what I want when I plan for the interests of all.” - -“That is a hammer to drive the nail home,” said I, “for this has to be -considered, captain; your cases of dollars will be handed over the side. -The men are not fools; they will count them and roughly calculate the -value of every case. As we sail home there will be much talk forward. -The amount of money on board will, of course, be exaggerated. Bol will -say, ‘I am second mate and boatswain, and my share is to come out of -sixty-one thousand dollars, eleven sharing. How much does the Englishman -get, the stranger that did not sail with us from Amsterdam, who is -merely a shipwrecked man, and not one of us?’ He will wish to know how -much, and he may breed trouble if he does not learn how much. On the -other hand, if he gets the truth and compares it with _his_ share----” - -“All this has been in my head. I will confirm him in such honesty as he -has by a written undertaking to pay him more dollars.” He added, after -thinking a little while, “I wish he had not asked you those questions. -But the fellow may doubt my story. All hands may doubt it.” He gazed at -me significantly for a moment, and continued: “He might have hoped to -get you to tell him something that he could repeat to the others, and -that would hearten ’em. Should he question you again, encourage him to -talk.” - -“Very good, sir.” - -“You are not to know the value of the freight of dollars.” - -“I will know nothing when I converse with him.” - -“But I shall want you to persuade him that my yarn is true,” said he -with a faint smile, but with a gleam in his eyes which neutralized that -weak expression of good humor. - -The relations between the master and the mate--between the captain and -the lieutenant--instantly made themselves felt by me. I looked him in -the face awaiting instruction. - -“You will be able to convince him that my yarn is true,” said he. - -“He has all the reasons which I have for believing it.” - -“Do you believe it?” - -“Why, yes! Mynheer Tulp’s promotion of this voyage is all the proof that -one wants.” - -He cast his eyes upon the deck, and a light smile twitched his lips. -When he next spoke it was to ask me some question that had no relation -to the subject we had been conversing upon. - -After this I created opportunities for Yan Bol to question me. I -lingered when he came on deck to relieve me. I sought to coax him into -asking about the ship in the cavern, by loitering in his company instead -of at once going below, and by speaking of the voyage, of the Galapagos -Islands, of the uncharted island to which we were bound; but his mind -appeared to have suddenly and completely turned round; what was before -an eager, was now a blank countenance; indeed, he would look at me -suspiciously when I talked of the voyage and the dollar-ship as though I -had a stratagem in my head which must oblige him to mind his eye. -Thereupon I ceased to trouble myself to attempt to convince Yan Bol that -the captain’s story was true, and that our errand was as real as a -silver dollar itself is; and it was as well, perhaps, that this Dutchman -found me no occasion to tax my wits by the invention of proofs for what -I could by no means prove to myself. I did not like Greaves’ looks when -he talked of his dollar-ship; I did not understand his half-smiles at -such times; I was puzzled by the dreamy expression of his eye, and by -the light that had kindled in his gaze when he asked me, with an -unspoken doubt behind his words, to convince Yan Bol that his story was -true, in order that the crew might be satisfied. - -It was a few days after my chat with him about the Dutch boatswain’s -questions that he asked me if I had succeeded in satisfying the fellow -that there was a vessel, with a lazarette full of dollars, locked up in -an island off the Western American coast? I told him that the man had -bouted ship and was on the other tack now; that he shifted his helm when -I approached him, exhibited no further curiosity, but, on the contrary, -shrunk from the subject as though it vexed him. He made, or seemed to -make, little of this. But that same evening, when I was sitting at -supper with him, he said: - -“Yan Bol will go to the devil for me now. I walked with him for an hour -this afternoon, while you were below. He was frank. I like him none the -less for being frank. He is a bit jealous of you. Mind ye, he said not -one word against you, Fielding, not a syllable--though at the first -syllable I should have brought him up, all standing. But the spirit of -jealousy was strong in his remarks; it smelt in his words like a dram in -a man’s breath. ’Tis natural. You are an Englishman--he is a darned -Dutchman. You came aboard through the cabin window, and his countryman, -Van Laar, goes out as you walk in. But a plague upon forecastle -passions! He was frank, as I have said, and told me that he had some -doubts of the truth of my story, and that the rest of the men had not -yet made up their minds about it. ‘And what the deuce,’ said I, ‘is it -to you or to the men whether my story be true or false? You were engaged -for the voyage. It was a question of wages with you, and your wages will -be paid.’ ‘Dot vhas right,’ said this Dutchman. But I talked of the -_Casada_, nevertheless, described her in the cave, gave him, in short, -the story of my discovery that it might go the rounds forward; and then -I told him that I had made up my mind to increase his share of the -booty; his share of the sixty-one thousand dollars, I said, was to be -according to his rating, which was the highest next yours; but I added -that if he chose to work with a will and aid me and you to the utmost to -carry this brig in safety to the Downs, I would give him a written -undertaking to pay him a percentage on the whole value of the property, -which sum would be over and above what he would receive in money as -wages and as his share in the sixty-one thousand dollars.” - -“What did he say to that, sir?” - -“He smiled, he thanked me, he let fall several Dutch words, swore that I -was the finest captain that he had ever sailed under, and that his -earnings out of this voyage would set him up for life in his native -town. He was a fairly trustworthy fellow before. He is as honest now as -is to be reasonably expected of human flesh. I am satisfied; and you -need give yourself no further trouble, Fielding, to convince him that my -story is true.” - -Well, thought I, this, no doubt, is as it should be, though it seemed to -me that Greaves was making too much of Yan Bol, too much of his own -anxieties, indeed, sinking the skipper in the adventurer, and a little -heedless of Nelson’s axiom that at sea much must be left to chance. If, -thought I, he is cocksure that his ship and her dollars are where he -says he beheld them, then how can it matter to him one jot whether his -crew believe in his story or not? But conjecture and speculations of -this sort were to no purpose. In a few weeks the problem would be -solved; either the money would be aboard, or we should have found the -ship broken up and everything gone out of her to the bottom--to such -bottom as she rested upon, twenty or thirty feet, maybe, but as -unsearchable to us, without diving equipment, as the floor of the -mid-Atlantic; or we should have discovered that there was no ship and no -island, and that ours had been the expedition of a dream. And still no -matter, I would think. There are wages to be pocketed in the end, and I -can only be worse off _then_ by being so many months older than I was -when I was fished up out of the Channel by the people of the brig. - -The letter I had written to my uncle Captain Round, when I agreed to -sail in the _Black Watch_ in the room of Van Laar, I had not yet been -able to send. I forgot all about that letter when I went aboard -Tarbrick’s ship to arrange for the reception of the Dutch mate, and I -had not witnessed in the little _Rebecca_, with her two of a crew, a -very likely opportunity for communicating with Uncle Joe. But when we -were somewhere about six degrees south we fell in with a large snow -homeward bound. She was from round the Horn and proceeding direct to the -Thames. I had several selfish as well as respectable and honorable -motives for desiring to send the news of my being alive to my uncle, not -to mention the pleasure it would give him and my aunt and cousin to -learn that I was alive; I was down in his will for what you might call a -trifle, but such a trifle as would prove very acceptable to me should it -come to my having to continue the sea life for a living. There were -other reasons why I desired that my uncle should know that I was alive, -and let the one I have given suffice. - -Our meeting with that snow was rendered memorable by a phenomenal -caprice of wind. It was blowing a light breeze off our starboard bow; -the hour was about two, the sky was like a sheet of pale blue silver, -here and there shaded with curls and plumes and streamers of -high-floating yellow-colored cloud. There was wind enough to keep the -ocean trembling, but at intervals, and at fairly regular intervals, -there ran north and south a number of glassy swathes, oil-calm paths -from the remotest of the northern airy reaches to the most distant of -the recesses of the south. It was my watch below when we sighted the -sail; I had dined. It was soul-consumingly hot in the cabin, and I came -on deck to smoke a pipe and lounge amid the brine-sweet draughts of air, -and in the pleasant shadows cast upon the white and glaring planks by -the quietly breathing sails. Greaves was below. Presently Yan Bol, who -was in charge of the brig, approached me. I had watched him staring at -the approaching vessel through the ship’s telescope, his vast chest -rising and falling under his extended arms, which, clothed as he -went--in pilot cloth, though the sun made him no shadow--looked as big -as the thighs of an ordinary man. He approached me and said: - -“Mr. Fielding, didt you belief in impossibilities?” - -“No, Bol, I don’t; do you?” - -“By de tunder of Cott, den, I shall for effermore after dis, onless, -indeedt, I hov lost der eyes I schipped mit at Amsterdam.” - -“What’s the matter?” said I. - -“Coom dis vay, Mr. Fielding, und you see for yourself.” - -He crossed the deck. I followed him. He put the telescope into my hands -and leveled a square fat forefinger at the sail that was now at no great -distance. I viewed the vessel through the glass, but saw nothing -remarkable. She was a motherly tub of a ship, with big topsails and -short topgallant masts, and a cask-like roll in the sway of her whole -fabric as the silver blue undulations took her. - -“Well, what is there to see?” - -“Tunder of God?” cried he in Dutch. “Lok, Mr. Fielding, how her yards -vhas braced.” - -And now, indeed, I beheld what Jack might fairly call a miraculous -sight. The wind, as I have said, was off our starboard bow, and we were, -therefore, braced up on what is termed the starboard tack; but the -stranger that was coming along was also braced up on the starboard tack, -showing that she, like ourselves, had the wind on her starboard bow. For -what did our two postures signify? This--that the wind with us was -directly west-southwest, while the wind with the stranger was directly -east-northeast. Here, then, were two vessels within a couple of miles of -each other, so heading that one would pass the other within a -biscuit-toss; here, I say, were two vessels steering in exactly opposite -directions, but each braced up on the same tack, and each with the wind -off the same bow! - -“May der toyfell seize me if I like him!” exclaimed Bol, looking aloft -at our canvas and then around the sea. - -The sailors at work about the deck stared aloft and then at the -approaching ship. They bit hard upon the tobacco in their cheeks. One of -the Dutchmen called to an English seaman in the fore rigging: - -“Dis vhas der ocean of Kingdom Coom. Der anchells vhas not far off vhen -efery schip hov a vindt for himself.” - -The English sailor, with an uneasy motion of his body, swang off the -rigging to spit clear into the sea. - -“Arter this, mate,” he called down to the Dutchman, “I shall give up -drinking water when I gets ashore.” - -I looked into the cabin skylight, and, seeing Greaves at the table, -begged him to step on deck and behold a strange sight. By this time both -vessels had hoisted their ensigns, and each flag blew in an opposite -direction. - -“I have heard of this sort of thing,” said Greaves, “but never before -saw it. Lord, now, if every ship could have a wind of her own, as we and -yonder craft have! There would be no weather gauge then--no complicated -dodging for advantageous positions. Ha! Look at that now. She has taken -our wind!” - -The sails of the approaching vessel fell and trembled. A minute later, -the yards were slowly swung, and the canvas shone like white satin as it -swelled to the same breeze that was breathing off our bow. - -“I should be glad to send my letter home by that ship,” said I. - -“It may be managed,” he exclaimed, “and without bothering to back yards -or lower a boat. Get your letter.” - -I ran to my berth and returned with the letter, which Greaves posted for -me on the passing ship in the following manner: - -He sent me to procure a piece of canvas, a small number of musket balls, -some twine, and an end of ratlin stuff. He put the balls and my letter -into the canvas, and, with the twine, bound the cloth into a small, -heavy parcel, to which he secured the end of the piece of ratlin stuff; -then, giving directions to the man at the helm to starboard, so as to -close the stranger, he sprung upon the rail and waited for the two -vessels to draw together. - -“Oh, the snow ahoy!” he shouted. - -“Hallo!” responded a man who stood on the quarter of the vessel. - -“Where are you bound to?” - -“London.” - -“Will you take a letter for me?” - -The man motioned assent and looked aloft, as though about to order his -topsail to be backed. “I will chuck the letter aboard,” said Greaves, -swinging the parcel by its line, that the man might guess what he -intended to do. “Stand by to receive it!” - -Again the fellow, who was, probably the captain, motioned; and then, -waiting until the two craft were abreast, Greaves, with a dexterous -swing of his arm, sent the parcel flying through the air. It fell on the -deck of the passing vessel just abaft her mainmast. The fellow who had -answered Greaves’ hail, running forward, picked it up, and held it high -in his hand that we might see he had it. After this there was no -opportunity for further communication; for scarce were the two vessels -abreast when they were on each other’s quarter, rapidly sliding a -widening interval betwixt their sterns. - -The snow was the _Lady Godiva_. I read her name under her counter. But -her being bound to London, now that my letter was aboard, was -information enough about her to answer my turn. - -From this date down to the period of our arrival off the west coast of -South America my clear recollection of every particular of this voyage -yields me little that is good enough to record. Incidents so far had not -been lacking, but south of the equator our sea life grew as dull as ever -the vocation can be at its dullest. Heavens! how incommunicably tedious -is the mechanic round of shipboard days! Wonderful to me is it that -sailors in those times, when a single passage kept them afloat for -months, remained human. And less than human some of them were, I am -bound to say. Think of their lodging--a small, black hole in the bows of -the ship, dimly lighted by a lamp fed with slush skimmed from the -coppers in the galley, no fire in bitter weather, no air in hot; every -straining timber sweating brine into the dark interior, till the floor -in a headsea was a-wash; till every blanket was like a newly wrung out -swab; till there was not a dry rag in the hole of a living room to -enable the poor devils to shift themselves withal. Think of their -food--salted meat, out of which they could have sawn and chiseled blocks -for reeving gear to hoist their sails with; biscuit that crawled on the -innumerable legs of vermin, alive but unintelligent, for it came not to -your whistle nor did it elude your grasp; tea from which the thirstiest -of the fiery-eyed rats in the fore peak are known to have recoiled with -lamentable squeaks and dying shrieks of disappointment. Think of their -labor--the scrubbing, the tarring, the greasing, the furling and reefing -and stitching, the kicks, the blows, the curses which accompanied the -toil. Think of their pleasures--an inch of sooty pipe to suck, an -ancient story to nod over, a song at long intervals. - -Alas, poor Jack! What is it that carries thee to sea in the first -instance? The love of freedom? Hie thee to the nearest jail; there is -more freedom in it; better food, kinder words. The desire to see the -world? What dost see unless thou runnest from thy ship? for in harbor -all day long thou art sweating in the hold and stamping round and round -to the music of the pawls; and when the night comes and thou goest -ashore, if thou hast a shot in thy locker thou gettest drunk, and with -whirling brains and blistered lips art thrust rather than conveyed to -thy toil in the morning by the constable whom thy skipper hath sent in -search of thee. And so much, therefore, Jack, dost thou see of foreign -parts. But whatever may have been the cause that sent thee to sea, my -lad, this will I affirm; that when once thou art afloat, there is -nothing clothed in flesh, with an immortal spirit to be saved or damned, -more deserving of pity. - -But though we were a dull, we were a comfortable little ship. I never -heard of any falling out among the crew. They worked well together. The -common hope of the dollar that lay on t’other side the Horn was strong -in them. It kept them well meaning. It was clear they all had full -confidence in the captain’s yarn, and their spirits danced with -anticipation of the money they would jingle when they got home--the -money in wages and share per man. This I used to think. - -They made much of their dog watches when the weather was fine. One of -the Dutchmen played on the flute; one of the Englishmen had a fiddle. -The fellows would save their noon-tide grog for a dog watch, and make -merry. Yan Bol sang as a bull roars, but his singing was vastly enjoyed. -Never did any mariner better dance the sailor’s hornpipe than the -English sailor, Thomas Teach. He went through it grim and unsmiling, but -his postures were full of that sort of elegance which is the gift of old -ocean to such men as Teach. It is old ocean alone that can animate the -limbs with the careless beauty of motion that Teach’s arms and legs -displayed when he danced the hornpipe. - -And there was a sailor named Harry Call. He had served in American -ships, and knew the negro character, and when he blacked his face he was -good entertainment. Greaves liked his fooling so well that he would call -him aft, send for the men, order Jimmy to mix a can of grog, and Call -with his spare voice and negro pleasantries would agreeably kill an -hour. - -My own life was as pleasant as a seafaring life can very well be. -Greaves had much to talk about. He had looked into books. He had -traveled widely and observed closely. He was a person of much good -nature. In truth, a more genial, informing man I could not have prayed -for as a shipmate. Yet I would take notice of a certain haziness on one -side of his mind. He loved metaphysical speculations, and would wriggle -out of a homely topic to start a religious discussion. I humored him for -some time, but religion being one of those subjects that I did not much -care to talk about, I soon ceased to argue, and then all the talking was -his. He entertained some odd notions for a sailor, believed that every -man had a good and bad angel, that when a man died his spirit slept with -his dust. “Otherwise,” he asked, “what is to bring the parts together -again, inform them with mind, and render the whole sensible of what is -happening?” I found that he had a leaning toward the Roman Catholic -faith. I asked him if he was married. He answered “No.” I then inquired -why Van Laar had threatened to take the bed from under him and his wife. -“To vex me,” said he. - -He would be talking of religion and metaphysics, of dreams and a future -life, of the state of his soul a million years ago, and of the -inhabitants of certain of the stars, when I would be thinking of his -ship in the cave and the dollars aboard of her. But as our voyage -progressed, as we drove southward toward the Horn, he found little or -nothing to say about his ship in the cave. You would have said he was -done with the subject. He had so little to say, indeed, that I would -wonder at times whether the purpose of this expedition was not slipping -out of his memory as a dream, that is vital and brilliant on one’s -awaking from it, fades ere nightfall, and is effaced by the vision of -another slumber. “It will be a confounded disappointment should it prove -false after all,” I would think; for, spite of my misgivings which -sometimes I would nourish and sometimes spurn, I, during those tedious -days and weeks running into months, I, in many a lonely watch on deck, -in many a waking hour in my hammock, had built my little castles in the -air, had furnished them handsomely for one of my degree, had gazed at -them with fondness as they glittered in the light of my hope. Six -thousand pounds! The money was a bigger pile in those days than it is -now; to be so easily earned too! Why, in imagination I had bought me a -little house, I had married a wife, I was gardening often in mine own -little estate, and every quarter I was receiving dividend warrants; and -there was good ale in my cellar, and no stint at meal times; and I was a -happy young man, in imagination sitting, as I did, on the apex of that -pyramid of promised dollars, whence I commanded a boundless prospect for -a mariner’s eye. And now if it was all to end in a hoaxing dream! Bless -me! While I was on this side of the Horn how I pined for t’other side, -how I thrashed the old brig through it in my watch on deck! With what -ardor of expectancy did I every day sit down to work out the sights! - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -THE WHITE WATER. - - -The _Black Watch_ had sailed through the Downs in the middle of -September, and on the morning of December 12, 1814, she was upon the -meridian of Cape Horn, and in about fifty-seven degrees south latitude. -This passage, for so swift a keel, was a long one. It was owing to -diabolical weather between the degrees of forty and fifty south. - -Greaves and I would sometimes say that the devil was afloat in a craft -of his own within that belt of ten degrees. Head winds more maddening to -the most angelic soul, calms more provocative of impious and affrighting -language, it is not in the imagination of the most seasoned mariner to -conceive. - -But enough. We were off the Horn at last. Our bowsprit would be heading -north presently, and, when our ship’s forefoot cut this meridian again, -the little fabric would (but would she?) be deeper in the water (by what -division of a strake?) with a cargo of minted silver! - -In 1814 much was made of the passage of the Horn. The doubling of that -bleak, inhospitable, deep-seated rock was accepted, on the whole, as a -considerable adventure. The old traditions of mountain-high seas and -gales of cyclonic fury survived. The traffic down there was small; the -colonies of New Holland were still raw in their making; and ships bound -for Europe from that distant continent chose the mild but tedious -passage of the South African headland. - -The old dread has vanished. Experience has footed prejudice out of time. -In furious weather the ocean off the Horn is as terrible as the North -Atlantic, as the Southern Ocean, as any vast breast of water is in -furious weather; and that is the long and short of it. Oh, yes; off the -Horn you get some monstrous seas, it is true. I have known what it is to -be running off the Horn before a westerly gale and to be -afraid--seasoned as I then was--_to look astern!_ But there is a safety -in the mighty swing of those wide Andean heaps of brine which the -sharper-edged surge of the smaller ocean does not yield. - -The old freebooters and the early navigators are responsible for the -evil reputation of the Horn. They returned from the wonders of foreign -sight-seeing, from the joys of plunder and the delights of discovery, -with their hearts full of astonishment and their mouths full of lies. -There is Shelvocke’s description of the Horn; it is heartrending reading -in these days. The ice forms upon the page as you read; the atmosphere -darkens with snow. And what, on the testimony of such a record, did -Wapping think of that distant, ice-girt, howling navigation, with its -enchanted islands and bergs, whose spires seemed to pink the moon? What -did Wapping think when there was never a man in every company of a -thousand jackets who had rounded the Horn and could tell of it? - -We, passing the Horn on December 12, found the southern hemisphere’s -midsummer there. We met, for the most part, with bright skies, a -cheerful sun, not wanting in warmth, coming soon and going late, and a -noble field of swelling blue seas. One iceberg we sighted. It was -infinitely remote--a point of pearl on the sea-line. - -“She vhas like a babe’s milk tooth,” said Yan Bol, pointing to it. - -There was a fancy of milk in the whiteness of it; but, when I brought my -eyes from the distant berg to Bol’s face, I said unto myself--“What -should _that_ man know of a babe’s milk tooth?” - -Two disappointments await those who round the Horn with expectations -bred of the reading of books. First, the weather. Often is it as placid -as any quiet day that sleeps over the Straits of Dover, when the sky is -streaked with the lingering smoke of vanished steamers and the white -cliffs of France hang in the air. No; the weather off the Horn is not -the everlasting saddle of the Storm Fiend. The seas are not always -boiling, the hurricanes of wind are not always black with frost, heavy -with snow, man-killing with ice-darts. - -Next, the constellation called the Southern Cross. It hangs over you -when you are off the Horn; often have I looked up at it, and never have -I thought it beautiful. The smallest of the gems of the English skies is -a richer jewel than the Southern Cross. A singular superstition is this -widespread faith in the beauty of the Crux of the ancient mariner. The -stars are unequally set; one is disproportionately small. - -But now came a morning when we struck a meridian that enabled us to -shift our helm for a northern passage, and then we had the whole length -of the mighty seaboard of South America to climb. We were in the South -Pacific at last. The island was hard upon three thousand miles distant; -but it was over the bows--it was ahead! We had turned the stormy corner, -and the verification of Greaves’ yarn could be thought of as something -that was about to happen soon. - -Day by day we climbed the parallels, and all went well. Certain stars -sank behind the edge of the sea astern of us, and as we sailed northward -many particular stars which were familiar to our northern eyes rose over -the bows and wheeled in little arcs. We made some westing that we might -give the land a wide berth, for whether Great Britain was or was not at -war with Spain, the Spaniards of that vast seaboard were scarcely less -jealously and passionately tenacious in those days of their dominion in -the South Sea, and under the Line to beyond Panama, than they were in -the preceding century; and though we could not positively affirm that -there was anything to be afraid of, anything curiously and sneakingly -dangerous to be shunned (if it were not Commodore Porter, whose ship the -_Essex_ was believed to lie prowling hereabouts at this time), yet -Greaves was determined to provide his bad angel with the slenderest -possible opportunity for delaying or arresting the voyage to the island. - -So we kept well out to the west, and fine sailing it was. For days we -hardly touched a brace; the steady wind, growing daily warmer, sweetly -blew the little brig along. It was the South Pacific Ocean. Many reports -are there of the various tempers of that sea, but, for my part, -northward of the parallel of forty degrees I have ever found it a gentle -breast of ocean. Long and lazy was the blue swell brimming to our -counter, drowsy the flap of the sunny canvas, soft the cradled motion of -the ship. Once again the silver flying fish glanced from the slope of -the violet knolls. The wet, black fin of a shark hung steadfast in our -wake. What a world of waters it was! Never the gleam of a ship’s canvas -for days and days to break the boundless continuity of the distant -sea-line. The men relaxed their labors, Yan Bol took no notice, and I, -who was never a “hazer,” was willing that they should lounge through -their toil of the hours in a climate so enervating that one yearned to -sling a hammock in some cool corner of the deck, to lie in it all day, -to smoke and doze while the imagination slided away on the stream of the -rippling music made by the broken waters and passed into the fairy -harbors of dreams. - -“By this time to-morrow,” said Greaves to me one evening, “if this -breeze holds, and our reckoning is true, and the island has not been -exploded by a volcano or an earthquake, you will be having a good view -of the ship in the cave--no, I am wrong, a good view of her you will not -obtain from the sea, but you will be having a good view of the cave in -which she lies, and I shall be very much surprised if you are not -mightily impressed by the magnitude and beauty of that great hole or -split in the rock, and by the indescribable complicated atmosphere or -shadow within, caused, as I long ago explained to you, by the -interlacery of the ship’s gear and spars, visible and indeterminable.” - -“Visible and indeterminable! Captain, you put it as though it were some -mystery of religion.” - -“Do you object, Fielding,” said he, “to sailors, I mean quarter-deck -sailors, expressing themselves as educated men would, nay, as average -gentlemen would? Are you for keeping the quarter-deck sailor down to -Smollett’s platform of Hatchway and Trunnion? Must we swear, must we -drink, must we behave when ashore like lascivious baboons and at sea -like Newgate felons, who have burst through the iron bars and are -sailing away for their lives, merely to justify the landgoing notion -that the best of all sailors are the most brutal of all beasts.” - -“I beg your pardon,” said I; “I meant nothing.” - -“Visible and indeterminable. Are they not good words? Do they not -exactly express what I want to convey to your mind? How ‘der toyfell’ -would you have me talk?” - -He looked at me and I looked at him. He then burst into a laugh, and we -stepped the deck for a little while in silence. The time was something -after half-past seven. The sun was gone, and night had descended upon -the sea. It was a tropic night. The dark sky was full of splendid -brilliants. A mild air blew from the westward and the brig, with her two -spires of canvas lifting pale to the stars, dreamily floated over the -black water that here and there shone with a little cloud of sea-fire, -as though some luminous jelly fish was riding past, while here and there -it caught and feathered back the flash of some large star, whose silver -in a dead calm would have made an almost moon-like wake. Galloon marched -by our side. Jimmy, forward, with a pipe in his mouth, lay leaning over -the windlass and gazing aft, seemingly at the shadowy form of the dog, -as though he hoped to coax the brute that way by persistent staring and -wishing. The men, in twos and threes, trudged the forecastle. So still -was the evening, so seldom the flap of canvas, so unvexing to the -hearing the summer sound of the water lightly washing in the furrow of -bubbles and foam-bells astern, that the voices of the men fell -distinctly upon the ear; by hearkening one might have caught the -syllables of their speech. - -It had gone forward--taken there by Yan Bol, or whispered by the lad -Jimmy, who by listening to the captain and me, as we discoursed at the -cabin table at meals, would be able to pick up news enough to repeat; it -had gone forward, I say, that, the weather holding as it was, and all -continuing well, by some hour next day we should be having the island on -the bow or beam, perhaps hove to off it, or with an anchor down. -Expectation was strong in the men’s voices. It was the very night for -their flute or fiddle; for “Tom Tough,” or “Britons, strike home!” or -for some boisterous Dutch song in Yan Bol’s thunder, for Call’s -lamp-blacked Jack Puddingisms, for Teach’s hornpipe, for general -caper-cutting, in a word, with a can of grog betwixt the knight-heads, -and the fumes of mundungus strong in the back-draughts. But the humor of -the sailors, this night, was to walk up and down the deck in twos and -threes, and to talk of to-morrow and of dollars. - -“If _La Perfecta Casada_--a fine-sounding name, by the way, captain,” -said I, “what is the English of it?” - -“The Perfect Wife.” - -“The Spaniards,” said I, “choose strange names for their ships. They -have many _Holy Virgins_ and _Purest Marias_ at sea. I knew a Spanish -ship that was called the _Holy Ghost_. Figure an English vessel so -called. She meets another English vessel, which hails her: ‘Ship ahoy!’ -‘Hallo!’ ‘What ship’s that?’ ‘The _Holy Ghost_.’ There is a looseness in -this sort of naming that is not very pleasing to Protestant prejudice. I -asked the mate of the _Holy Ghost_, ‘Why is your ship thus named?’ ‘That -she may not sink,’ he answered. ‘Hell lies downward. If the _Holy Ghost_ -goes anywhere, ’tis upward.’” - -“You are in a talkative humor this evening.” - -“Well, it is like being homeward bound when the end of the outward -passage is within hail.” - -“What were you going to say about the _Casada_?” - -“I have never clearly gathered--supposing her to be still lying in that -cave where you saw her----” - -“She is still lying in that cave where I saw her,” he interrupted, -repeating my words in a strong voice. - -“I have never clearly gathered,” I continued, “whether it is your -intention to tranship her cargo--I mean the cocoa and wool?” - -“I cannot make up my mind whether or not to meddle with those -commodities,” said he, “and so, because I have not been able to form an -intention, you have not been able to gather one from our conversation. -The weather will advise me. Then I shall want to know the condition of -the cargo. The wool, cocoa, and hides in the hair may not be worth -lifting out of a hold that has been aground in a cave since 1810. But -there are a thousand quintals of tin, and there are some casks of -tortoise shell--we shall see, we shall see.” - -“Mynheer Tulp,” said I, “will, no doubt, be able to find room for all -that you can carry home.” - -“Room and a market. But I am here for dollars. I believe I shall not -meddle with the other stuff. We’ll tranship as fast as the boats can -ply, and then away.” - -I made no answer, being occupied at that instant with admiring the -effect of a flash of lightning in the southwest--a clear and lovely -blaze of violet which threw out the horizon in a black, firm, indigo -line. - -I went below with Greaves, at eight o’clock, to drink a glass of cold -grog before turning in. Greaves had brought the chart of this part of -the American coast out of his cabin, and we sat together conversing and -looking at it. At intervals I was sensible of the burly figure of Yan -Bol pausing near the open skylight, under which we sat, to peer down and -to listen. But there was nothing Greaves desired to withhold from the -crew, nothing he was not willing that any man of them should overhear if -it were not, perhaps, the value of the money on board the _Casada_; -though even their overhearing of this would be a matter of indifference, -since they were bound to form an opinion of their own of the contents -and value of the cases of dollars when they came to handle them. - -Greaves had marked down upon the chart the position of the island in -accordance with his observations when he hove to off it and sighted the -ship in the cave on his way to Guayaquil. The position of the brig by -dead reckoning since noon brought us, at this hour of eight, within -twenty leagues of the spot, and, therefore, supposing Greaves’ -observations to have been correct, and supposing that the weak wind that -was flapping us onward continued to blow throughout the night, we had -good reason to hope that the bright morning light would give us a view -of the tall heap of cinder cliffs before another twelve hours should -have gone round. - -Greaves was making certain calculations with a pencil on a sheet of -paper, and I, with a pair of compasses, was measuring the distance of -the island from the mainland, when we were startled by the roaring voice -of Yan Bol, whose full face was thrust into the open skylight. - -“For der love of Cott, captain, goom on deck und see vhat vhas wrong! -Der sea vhas on fire. Quick! or ve vhas all burnt up.” - -“What does he say?” cried Greaves, who had been unable to promptly -disengage his attention from his calculations. - -“He says that the sea is on fire and that we shall all be burnt up,” I -exclaimed, picking up my cap; and, in a moment, we were both on deck. - -“Der sea vhas on fire!” thundered Yan Bol as we stepped through the -hatch. - -I looked ahead over the bows of the brig, and the sea all that way was -splendid and terrible with light. I call it light, but light it was -_not_, unless that be light which is made by snow in darkness. It was a -wonderful whiteness that seemed a sort of fire. It blended the junction -of sea and sky into a wide and ghastly glare, and the light of the white -water rolled upward into the sky as the clearly-defined edge of the -milky surface advanced, as you see a blue edge of breeze sweeping over a -silver surface of dead calm. The sea where the brig was sailing was -black, as it had been before we went below, and in the deep, soft, -indigo dusk over our mastheads the stars were shining; but the sparkling -of the luminaries languished over our fore yardarms, and it was easy to -guess that, if the coming whiteness spread, the sky and all that was -shining in it would be hidden. - -“Captain,” cried Bol, “vhat in der good anchel’s name vhas she?” - -“A star has fallen,” answered Greaves, “and is shining at the bottom of -the sea.” - -“A star? Vhat, a star from der sky?” - -“Where do stars grow?” said Greaves. - -“Do you mean a shooting star, captain?” cried Bol. - -“Yan Bol,” said Greaves, nudging me as we stood side by side, “you have -much to learn. Do not you know that the stars are often falling? They -drop into other worlds than ours. Sometimes they plump into our earth, -fizz into the sea, and lie on the ooze, shining for awhile and making -queer lights upon the water like that yonder.” - -Bol breathed deeply. He could read, indeed; but he was as ignorant, -prejudiced, and grossly superstitious as most forecastle hands in his -day--fitter for the faiths of a Finn than a Hollander. He stared at the -advancing whiteness, and seemed not to know what to make of the -captain’s discourse. “Yes,” continued Greaves, “they are frequently -falling. They are the stars which were loosed in the pavement of heaven -when the angels fell. There should be many more stars than there are. -Unhappily, when Lucifer was hurled over the battlements he swept away a -number of stars with his tail and loosened many more, and it is those -which drop.” - -“Der toyfell!” muttered Bol. “Von lifs und larns.” - -“It is a wonderful sight,” said I, gazing with astonishment, not wholly -unmixed, at the mighty whiteness that was coming along. - -Already on high the verge of the startling milky reflection was over our -fore royal masthead. You might look straight up now and see no stars. -The line of the flaring whiteness upon the sea was a little more than a -mile distant. The wind blew softly, and before it the brig floated -onward, meeting the coming whiteness with an occasional flap of canvas -that fell upon the ear like a note of alarm from aloft. - -“Did you never before see the white water, Fielding?” exclaimed Greaves. - -“Never, sir.” - -“I have sailed through it three times,” said he. “Once off Natal, once -in Indian, and once in China seas. I did not know it was to be met with -on this side the world; but everything is probable and possible at sea. -I tell you what, Bol,” he exclaimed, calling across to the Dutchman, who -had gone to the side to stare, and was holding on to a shroud, or -backstay, with his big body painted black as ink against the whiteness -that was coming along, “I believe I am mistaken, after all. It is not a -star; it is an insect.” - -“I likes to handle dot insect. I likes her in der forecastle to read by -und light my pipe by,” said Bol, with a coarse, heavy, uneasy laugh, -that sounded like the bray of an ass. - -“It is a subglobular insect,” said Greaves, nudging me again, -“compressed vertically, convex above, concave beneath, wrapped in a -transparent coriaceous envelope, containing a white, gelatinous -substance. Repeat that to the men, Bol, will you, should the whiteness -make them uneasy. Very few sailors,” said he, addressing me, and talking -without appearing in the least degree sensible of the wonderful and -alarming milk-white light that was now almost upon us, “take the trouble -to scientifically examine what passes under their noses. What, for -example, is more often under a sailor’s nose than bilge water? An Irish -skipper once asked me what bilge water was. I told him that it was -sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrosulphate of ammonia, oxide of iron, and -compounds of lead and zinc. ‘Jasus,’ said he, ‘and is that how you spell -shtink in English?’” - -As he spoke the brig, with a long-drawn flap up aloft, smote the -sharply-defined white line, and in an instant was bathed in the -unearthly light. We had not been able to see each other’s faces before. -Now the very expression of countenance was visible. The whole body of -the brig was revealed as though by the light of the moon, and the -ghastliness of the light lay in its making no shadow. The seamen stood -staring and gaping; withered, they seemed, into a posture of utter -lifelessness. But no shadows lay at their feet, no shadow stretched from -the foot of the mast; I looked down, the planks lay plain, the seams -clear, but I made no shadow. Nor did this magic light mirror itself. I -glanced at the polished brass piece aft, but no star of reflection burnt -in it, no gleam lay up on the cabin skylight. It was light and yet it -was not light, and the wonder of it, and, perhaps, the fearfulness of -it, to me, who had never beheld such a sight before, lay in _that_. - -And now, by this time, the whole sea was as though covered with snow or -milk, as far as we could extend the gaze. The sky reflected the light -and the stars were eclipsed, but the reflection on high had not the -glare of the ocean surface. I went to the side and peered over; the brig -seemed to be thrusting through an ocean of quicksilver. The water broke -thickly and sluggishly in small heaps from the bows, and the patches, as -they came eddying aft, were like clots of cream. - -The sensation induced by the progress of the vessel was as though she -were forcing her way through a dense jelly. The slight heave of the sea -was flattened; there was not the least visible motion in this surface of -whiteness; the brig stood upright on it and the swing of the trucks -would not have spanned the diameter of the moon. There was no fire in -the water, no corruscation of sea glow, no green gleam of phosphor. To -the very recesses of the horizon went sheeting this marvelous breast of -milk-white softness that, though it was not luminous, yet flung an -illumination as of the radiance of a faint aurora borealis upon the -heavens. - -“This is a beautiful sight,” exclaimed Greaves. - -“It will be a memorable one,” I answered. - -“I have never before,” said he, “seen the white water so white, but the -like of this phenomenon which I witnessed off the coast of Natal was -heightened and beautified by a strange light in the heavens to the -northward. It was a delicate, rosy light. I should have imagined it was -the moon rising, had not the moon been up.” - -“Do I understand,” said I, “that this sublime light is produced by a -marine insect?” - -“By nothing more nor less--so ’tis said. It is the marine insect that -will sometimes give you an ocean of blood, and sometimes an ocean of -exquisite violet, and sometimes, as I have heard, though it is something -rare to witness, an ocean of ink.” - -“An insect!” I exclaimed. “And how many go to this show?” - -“Oh, for a shipload of infidels now!” cried he. “D’ye see them looking -up to God after gazing, white as the water itself, at the ocean?” - -By this time the watch below had turned out, aroused, no doubt, by one -of the sailors on duty. The men in a body had gradually worked their way -from the forecastle to the gangway. They were all as plainly to be -viewed as by the sickly light of a foggy day. No man spoke; not for -minute after minute did the grunt or growl of any one of their hurricane -throats reach my ears. The wild vast scene of whiteness terrified them. -The impression produced was the deeper because this was the night before -the day that was to heave Greaves’ island out of the sea for our sight -to feast on. For let it be remembered at least that the adventure we -were on was highly romantic; the plain, illiterate Jacks would find -something almost magical, something a little out of nature, according to -their scuttle-butt and harness-cask views of life, in Greaves’ discovery -of an uncharted island, with a ship full of dollars in a hole in it. -Also in these seas stood the Galapagos, islands of mystery and darkness, -whose dusky rocks had not width enough of front to receive from the -chisel or the knife the records of the bloody and diabolical tragedies -of which they had been the theater. - -A man stepped out of the group; he coughed hoarsely and spat. His hand -went to his forehead, and he scraped the sea bow of those times. - -“Capt’n, I beg your honor’s pardon,” he said, “us men would like to know -what sea this here is?” - -“The South Pacific--always the South Pacific,” answered Greaves. - -“Will your honor tell us what’s the meaning of this here chalkiness?” - -“My lads, some clumsy son of a gun has capsized a milk can. Look for his -ship, my hearts; she can’t be far off.” Some of the men stupidly gazed -seaward. - -“Vhas der island vashed by dis milkiness, captain?” exclaimed Wirtz. - -“It stands in the bluest sea in the world,” answered Greaves. - -“This here’s a sight,” said Travers, “that may be all blooming fine to -read about, but ’taint lucky, to my ways of thinking. Give me natur, -says I.” - -He did not use the word _blooming_. This elegant expression was not to -be heard in those days; but let it stand. - -“Has none of you ever seen such a sight as this before?” called Greaves. - -After a pause, “Ne’er a man,” answered Teach. - -“Then gaze your eyes full! drink your hearts full! Never again may you -behold the like of this field of glory. Look thirstily! look till ye -burst with the beauty that’ll come into you by looking! Fear not, my -sons--we shall be out of it all too soon. Gaze, my livelies, and silver -your souls with this brightness as it silvers your cheeks. Bol, out -whistle and pipe grog, that we may watch with enjoyment.” - -Bol blew. Jimmy, with Galloon at his heels, arrived with the can; the -tot measure was dipped into the black liquor, lifted and emptied, and -the dram seemed to give every man heart enough to look about him with -common curiosity. One of the fellows fetched a bucket, dropped it over -the side, and hauled it up full. I drew close. It was as though a pail -of cream had been handed aboard. - -I put my finger into the whiteness. It was as thin as salt water, -nothing gluey or cheesy about it, though from the bows the whiteness -rolled away from the rending slide of the cutwater as thickly and -obstinately as melted ore, and astern there was no wake; it might have -been oil. - -For an hour we sailed through this sea of cream and under a dimmer sky -of white. Bald and ghostly was that passage rendered by the -shadowlessness of our decks. The sails swelled dark against the -paleness; so clear was the tracing of the fabric of mast and canvas -against the sky, that the course of so delicate a rope as the royal -backstay could be traced to the head of the mast, and you saw the jewel -block at each topsail and topgallant yardarm, clean cut as a pear on a -bough against a sunset. Greaves came to a stand opposite me and looked -me in the face. - -“You make me think of my dreams of the dead,” said he; “the dead are -always pale when they come to me in dreams. Most people who dream of the -dead dream of them as they remember them in life. There is light in the -eye, and color on the cheek. They always rise before me pale from their -coffins.” - -“Inspiriting talk, captain,” said I, “at such a moment! But I hope I -look no more like a dead man than the rest of us.” - -“If I were an artist,” said he, “I would give many guineas out of my -earnings for the chance of beholding such a light as this; this is the -sort of light through which I would paint the Phantom Ship sailing. -Figure that wondrous ghost out upon those white waters, the pallid faces -of her men, to whom death is denied, looking over her side at the white -sky, every timber in her glowing with the jewelry of rottenness--you -know what I mean--the green phosphoric sparkling of decay. Cannot you -see her out yonder, dully gleaming with dim green crawlings of fire as -she steals noiselessly through this frothy softness, the hush of living -death upon her, the silence of catalepsy? But what is the name of the -painter, I should like to know, who is going to give us this light upon -canvas? Oh, tell me his name, Fielding, that I may offer him all the -ducats I hope to be in sight of to-morrow for his secret.” - -“Less my whack.” - -“Less yours. But mine, plus Tulp’s. Damn Tulp; I’ll drink his health.” -He called to Jimmy: “Two glasses of brandy-and-water, three finger-nips, -James.” - -The liquor was brought, we chinked glasses, and down went the doses, to -the benefit of _one_ of us certainly; for I had not liked his talk of my -looking like a dead man, and his fancies of the Phantom Ship with her -crawlings of fire and cheese-like faces overhanging the side. Jack, if -you are reading this, bear with me. I was a sailor, and, as a sailor, -_you_ will know that I would not relish such talk at such a time. - -On a sudden the wind slightly freshened, with a melancholy cry, across -the white water, and, as if by magic, the sea ahead opened black, with a -few stars hovering over it. Some minutes later, the northern edge of the -milky surface came streaming to our bows, and swept past us as though -’twas the edge of a mighty white sheet dragged by giant hands down in -the south over the surface of the ocean. I watched the marvelous -appearance receding astern, the sky unveiling its stars as the whiteness -dimmed away, till it was pure nature once again, the heavens shining, -the swell coming into the ocean with its long and lazy lift of the brig, -the pleasant hiss of foam under her bow, and a little dance of jewels in -the furrow astern. - -It was my watch below, and I went to my cabin. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -GREAVES’ ISLAND. - - -I pulled off my coat and lay down. Eleven o’clock was struck on deck -before I closed my eyes. I was much excited. The prospect of the dawn -disclosing the island kept me restless. Was there an island in this part -of these seas for the dawn to disclose? and, if an island existed, would -there be a cave in it, and would that cave contain a large Spanish ship, -with five hundred and fifty thousand dollars stowed away in cases in her -lazarette? - -I reviewed Greaves’ behavior. He had been cool, I thought, seeing that -this was the eve of the day that was to bring us off the island and put -the dollars within reach of our oars. He had joked at the overwhelming -apparition of the white water; he had talked of worms and fallen stars; -he had treated a magnificent phenomenon without reverence; and, in one -way or another, he had acted as though to-morrow were to be charged with -no more than what to-day had held. These and the like reflections kept -me awake. Shortly after six bells had been struck I fell asleep. - -At midnight Bol aroused me to take his place, and I went on deck to keep -watch until four o’clock. It was a quiet, rippling night; the moist -breath of old ocean gushed pleasantly over the larboard quarter, and the -brig slipped softly forward, clothed with studding sails. Several -shadowy figures of the crew moved about the deck; their motions were -restless; they’d go to the side, bend over, and peer ahead. At any other -time it was just the night for a quiet snooze about the decks, with a -coil of rope for a pillow, and the stars right overhead to watch until -they winked one asleep. But the men were too restless to “plank it” this -night. They guessed the island to be somewhere away out yonder in the -dusk. They might hope at any moment for an order from the quarter-deck -to back the main topsail yard. They were under the spell of the almighty -dollar! - -Bol hung near, waiting for me to arrive. - -“Anything in sight, Bol?” - -“Noting, Mr. Fielding,” he answered out of the depth of his lungs; “but -dere vhas time. She vhas not to-morrow yet.” - -“No more white water?” - -“No, by tunder, Mr. Fielding. Enough vhas as goodt as a feast. I like -der captain’s notion of a star. She vhas a fine idea. Der verm vhas -silly. How shall a verm shine in vater. Vill not der vater put her light -out?” - -I was in no humor to talk to him about phosphorus. - -“You had better go forward and get some rest,” said I. “Should daylight -give us the island there will be plenty to do for all hands.” - -He grunted and moved forward, but not to turn in. His unwieldy shape -joined other flitting forms, and I heard his deep voice rumbling first -on one bow and then on t’other as he crossed the deck. - -Greaves made his appearance three or four times during this middle -watch. He did not stay. He would come up to me and say: - -“Well, what do you see?” - -“I see nothing.” - -“All the same, it’s in sight, but you’re not a cat, Fielding. Mind your -helm. The difference of a quarter of a point might sink the island for -us by daybreak.” - -He would then go to the binnacle and stand looking upon the card, -address the helmsman, and after running his eyes over the canvas and -stepping to the side, not to peer ahead like the men, but to judge of -the rate of sailing by the passage of the sea fire through the deep -shadow made by the hull, disappear through the companion way. - -It was very dark at four o’clock in the morning, at which hour my watch -ended. When eight bells were struck I went into the head and sunk my -sight into the obscurity forward, running my gaze from beam to beam, for -though it was very black there were stars sparely shining over the sea -line, and by the obliteration of a handful of them might I guess the -presence of land; but I saw nothing. I went aft and found Bol near the -wheel and Greaves in the act of stepping through the hatchway. Eight -bells had not long been chimed and the larboard watch had not yet gone -below. - -“While all hands are on deck reduce sail, Mr. Fielding,” said Greaves. -“Take in your studding sails and ease her down to the main topgallant -sail.” - -“Ay, ay, sir.” - -Nothing more was said. Yan Bol went forward, I remained aft, whence I -delivered the necessary orders. The heavier canvas was rolled up by all -hands; the watch was then called--that is to say, the larboard watch -were sent below. Daybreak was still an hour off. I said to myself, if -the island is hereabouts there will be plenty to do when daylight comes. -Let me sleep while I can; and for the second time that night I withdrew -to my cabin and lay down, “all standing,” ready for a call. - -I slept well, and was awakened by a beating upon the door. The voice of -the lad Jimmy called out: - -“It’s eight bells, sir.” - -“Any news of the island?” I cried. - -I received no reply; in fact, the lad had run on deck the instant he had -called the time to me. The berth was full of light and the glass of the -scuttle was a trembling, brilliant, silver-blue disk, with the ocean -splendor flowing to it. I stepped on deck, and the moment my head was -clear of the companion way I beheld the island. It stood at a distance -of about seven miles upon the lee or starboard bow. Greaves was pacing -the deck, with his hands locked behind him and his head thoughtfully -bent. Yan Bol stood in the gangway and all hands were forward -breakfasting in the open; they grasped pannikins of steaming tea; they -sawed with jack-knives at cubes of beef, blue with brine, locked by -their hairy thumbs to biscuits, which served for trenchers; the muscles -of their leather cheeks moved slowly as they chawed, chawed, chawed, -cow-like; and cow-like still they moved their eyes slowly in their -sockets to direct them at the island over the bow. - -The morning was a wide field of day, a full heaven of tropic splendor, -with a light breeze off the larboard beam blowing you knew not whence, -for there was never a cloud for the wind to come out of. They had made -all plain sail on the brig; she was floating forward, spars erect, under -royals; the studding sails were stowed and the booms rigged in. - -I stood staring for some moments, with my mind in a state of confusion. -_There_ was the island! The mass of it standing upon the light blue -glory of water northeast was a hard rebuke to my skepticism. Yet--shall -I say it--not the most mercenary of the munching Jacks in the bows could -have felt a keener delight at the sight of that island than I. It -signified dollars and independence to my ardent hopes. I had thought -much upon my share of six thousand pounds, dreamt of the money often, -had builded many fancies tall and radiant upon Greaves’ bond, and, -sometimes had I believed that Greaves’ story was true, and sometimes had -I believed that Greaves’ story was a dream, and therefore a lie. And -now there was the island, down away over the starboard bow, a lump of -shadow against the blue, to verify Greaves’ assurance of an island being -thereabout anyhow, and on the merits of that verification to warrant all -the rest of the wonder of cave, of ship, and of a lazarette full of -dollars! - -For a few moments only I stood staring. Thought hath wondrous velocity, -and in a few moments much will pass through the mind. I stepped up to -Greaves as his walk brought him to me. I should have wished to give him -my hand, but the etiquette of the quarter-deck forbade that. - -“Captain,” said I, in a low voice, full, nevertheless, of cordiality and -enthusiasm, “I warmly congratulate you.” - -“And yourself,” said he dryly. - -“And myself,” said I, “and all hands, including Mynheer Tulp.” - -“Seeing is believing,” said he, still dryly. I looked at the island. -“And yet,” continued he, “though that land be there the ship and her -cargo may be nothing more than a dream.” - -He had seen a little deeper into me than I had supposed. Finding him -sarcastic I held my peace, and the better to cover my silence stooped to -caress Galloon. He changed his voice and manner. - -“My observations,” said he, “of the latitude and longitude of that -island were perfectly correct, you see.” - -“Perfectly correct, indeed,” I echoed. “It is strange that so big a rock -should remain uncharted.” - -“Nothing is strange at sea--in this sea particularly. The Spaniards are -always for making their journeys by one road. Anything lying off that -road they miss, unless they happen to be blown on to it, when one of two -things happens; they perish, or they petition the Madonna and escape. If -they escape, they have no more to tell about the rock or coast from -which they narrowly came off with their lives than if they had perished. -Why is that island uncharted by the Spaniards? Is it because no mariner -among them has fallen in with it? Oh, they are lazy rogues all, they are -lazy rogues all; timid, fearful navigators, execrable hydrographers.” - -“It is odd that no Englishman should have fallen in with it.” - -“That is as it happens to be.” - -I fetched the glass, and steadied it upon the rail, and looked. The -island stood up large and livid, tawny in patches, a huge cinderous -heap. The hue, and even the appearance of it, somewhat reminded me of -Ascension viewed at a distance. One or two parts were robed with green. -There was a tremble and flash of surf at the extremities, and I guessed -that when the sea ran high, it would break very fiercely and dangerously -against all weather-fronting corners of that lonely rock. Greaves came -and stood beside me. I was conscious of his presence, and talked to him -with my eye at the telescope. - -“In what part of the island is the cave situated, sir?” - -“Do you observe a lump of land swelling above the edge of the cliff to -the left?” - -“Yes.” - -“That lump or mound is the summit of the front of the rock in which lies -the cave. We are opening it from the southward. I opened it, when I fell -in with that land, from the westward.” - -“It is a volcanic pile,” said I. “I observed points of rocks like -chimneys. They may have smoked once upon a time.” - -He took the glass from me, leisurely inspected the island, and walked -the deck his earlier thoughtful posture, head bowed, hands locked behind -him. I understood what was in his mind, and held off; he would have -nothing to say until the wreck of the Spaniard stood before him in its -dusky tomb. He mastered his anxiety, but would now and again pause and -direct at the island a look that, with its accompanying play of face, -expression of lip, suggestion of posture, told more of what was passing -in him than had he talked for an hour. - -He ordered the boy Jimmy to put breakfast on the skylight; and we ate, -standing or walking, but exchanging very few words. Thus slipped the -time away, and so slipped we through the water. The brig bowed as she -went; a long breathing spell followed her astern, and the sails came in -to the mast as she rose with the heave of the dark blue brine. The -sailors lay over the forecastle head, waiting for the approach of the -island and for orders. Now and again one would point and one would -speak, but expectation lay as a weight upon their minds. It subdued -them. For there was the island, to be sure, and the cave, no doubt, was -round the corner, and in that cave might be the ship. But the dollars, -the dollars, ah! Lay they there still massive, good tender as the -guinea, plentiful as roe in the herring, noble coins to tassel a -handkerchief with, to clink out the sweetest music in the world with to -the accompaniment of deck-blistered feet marching across the gangway to -the wharf, to the joys of the alley boarding house, to the delights of -the runner’s parlor--lay they there still in the moldering hold within -the cave? - -So did I interpret the thoughts of the sailors, and I would have bet the -last dollar of my share upon the accuracy of my construction of their -several countenances and attitudes. - -“Let her go off,” said the captain. - -The man at the helm put the wheel over by two or three spokes. - -“Steady!” exclaimed Greaves. He viewed the island through the glass. “We -are opening the reef,” said he; and, taking the telescope from him, I -instantly discerned the sallow line of a projection of rock, with a -dazzle of sunshine coming and going along the base of the formation as -the swell rose and sank there. - -Deep silence fell upon the brig. All hands of us--nay, my beloved -Galloon and the very brig herself--seemed to know that in a few minutes -the cave would lie open before us. - -And a few minutes disclosed it. I viewed the picture as though I had -beheld it before, so clearly had Greaves painted it in his description, -so familiar had it grown by frequent meditation. Almost abreast of us -now, within a mile, lay a very perfect little natural harbor. The reefs -swept out from either hand the island. They looked like piers. They -needed but a lighthouse to have passed, at a glance, for roughly -constructed artificial piers. Within their embrace lay a wide, smooth -surface of dark blue water. A flat, livid front of rock overlooked, on -the left, this placid expanse. Low down on the right of this rock ran a -herbless and treeless beach, without scintillation as of sand or gleam -as of coral--a dead ground of foreshore, mouse-colored; a sort of -pumice, with a small shelving to the wash of the water. But I had no -eyes for that beach then, nor for any other portion of the island saving -the vast, sullen, gloomy fissure which denoted the entrance of the cave -right amidships of the tall face of flat rock. - -Greaves let fall the glass from his eye. He swung it with an odd gesture -of irritable triumph. - -“Back the main topsail, Mr. Fielding.” - -I instantly delivered the necessary orders for heaving the ship to. The -men sprang out of the bows, and rushed to the braces and clew garnets as -though to a summons which signified life or death to them. The brig’s -way was arrested. She came with her head to the southwest, bringing the -island upon her starboard quarter. All the time, while I sung out orders -and while the men were hauling upon the braces, Greaves stood at the -rail, his eye glued to the glass that was pointed at the cavern. He -turned his head when the noise about our decks had ceased, and, -observing me standing at a little distance regarding him, he beckoned. - -“Look for yourself,” said he. - -I brought the tube to bear upon the cave, and for some moments saw -nothing but the darkness of the interior. A singular appearance of -darkness it was, burnished to the gleam of a raven’s wing by the -silver-blue atmosphere, by the azure glory floating off the surface of -the natural harbor through which I viewed it. But after a little I -seemed to make out a sort of intricacy of pale lines in that gloom. -Well, _pale_ I will not call them. They were of a lighter hue than the -dusk out of which they stole to the eye. Then, knowing very well that -that complication of shadow signified the spars, yards, and rigging of a -large ship, I seemed to distinguish the form of the fabric; could almost -swear to her bowsprit, to the tops, to the side she showed, to the -crosses of the lower masts and fore and main yards. - -“What do you see?” said Greaves. - -“A ship,” said I. - -“Oh, you have no doubt?” - -“I should have plenty of doubt,” said I, “if you had not told me how to -name, how to define that bewildering muddle of shadow.” - -“Give me the glass!” cried he suddenly, with a change and vehemence of -voice that made the abrupt note of it wild as madness itself to my ears. - -I started, gave him the glass, and watched him. - -“My God!” he cried, “I fear we are too late.” - -“Captain,” called Bol from the gangway, “dere vhas people valking on der -beach.” - -The telescope fell with a crash from Greaves’ hand. He gazed at me with -an ashen face. “It was my _only_ fear!” he cried. “Are we too late?” - -“I see three people,” said I, after looking awhile. “One of them is a -woman.” - -“Are you sure of that?” he shouted. - -“One of them is a woman,” I repeated. “Two men and one woman. I see no -more. One of the men is waving his hat, and now the woman is waving -something white--a handkerchief. They are castaways.” - -Greaves snatched the glass from me. - -“You are right, I believe,” he exclaimed, after looking. “What should a -woman be doing in a salvage or wrecking job? Yes; they are flourishing -to us. I did not before observe that one was a woman. Get a boat manned, -Mr. Fielding, and bring them aboard. I am mad till I learn what their -business is there, who they are, what has brought them to _this_ of all -the hundred rocks of the Pacific.” - -“Which boat shall I take, sir?” - -“The cutter. Let the crew go armed. Those two fellows and the woman may -prove a piratical decoy, for all you know. Mind your eye as you enter -the reefs, and hold on your oars to parley. There may be a big gang in -ambush round the corner at the extremity of the flat there.” - -I have elsewhere told you that we carried three boats--a little one, -which we termed a jolly-boat, stowed in a big one amidships, and abreast -of these boats lay a third boat in chocks. This boat, whose capacity -rose to a lading of from twenty to five-and-twenty people, we termed the -cutter. Tackles were swiftly carried aloft. While this was being done -the fellows who were to man her armed themselves with cutlasses and -pistols. The boat was then swayed over the side, six men and myself -entered her, and we headed for the island. - -We gained the entrance of the natural harbor, and I bid the men pause on -their oars while I looked and considered. I gave no attention to the -singular aspect of the island, nor to the wondrous revelation of the -ship in the vast cave. I could think of nothing but the three people on -the beach. Were they decoys, as Greaves had suggested? Was there a crowd -of formidable ruffians somewhere in hiding, close at hand but ready for -a rush when the moment should arrive? I gazed carefully around, but saw -nothing resembling a boat. We might be quite sure that there was no -vessel in the neighborhood; the island was small, we had sailed half -round it before heaving to. It was impossible to imagine that any craft -with masts could be lying off the north side of the island without our -having caught sight of her as we approached. But then it might matter -nothing that no vessel should be in sight. Likely as not the ship in the -cave had been discovered and explored, in which case the discoverer had -acted as Greaves had--sailed away for a port to re-embark in a properly -equipped expedition; a number of men had been thrown ashore to work at -the caverned Spaniard, while the vessel to which they belonged to went -away to put the horizon betwixt her and the rock, lest, by hovering and -lingering close to, she should invite the attention of anything that -passed. - -These were my thoughts as I stood up in the stern sheets staring around. -But the woman? Truly, methought, had Greaves conjectured that fellows -engaged on such an errand as this of clearing the Spaniard’s hold, would -not burden themselves with a woman ashore, at all events. No noise came -from the island. A low note of the thunder of the surf hummed from the -north side, a great number of sea birds were wheeling about in the air -over that northern part at too great distance for their cries to reach -us. - -“Give way,” said I. - -We pulled into the middle of the harbor, halted afresh, and now we had a -good view of the three people, who, throughout this time of our tardy -approach, continued to flourish to us, but without calling. The two men -were apparently forecastle hands--foreigners. They wore grass hats, -wide-brimmed, sombrero fashion; their clothes were loose blue shirts or -blouses and blue trousers; they were barefooted; they were both of them -hairy and dark, one of them of the color of coffee. Their hair lay upon -their backs in a snaky shower, and I caught a glance of earrings as they -moved their heads. - -The woman I could not very clearly make out. Her gown was of some -pearl-colored stuff--it had a look of shot silk, but I dare not attempt -any descriptions in this way. She wore a large white hat with a white -veil coiled round the crown of it, ready for dropping over the face. -Some sort of mantilla she had on. She was a tall and graceful figure of -a woman, and, as she stood a little apart from the men I observed the -grace of a dancer in her attitudes of entreaty, in her gesticulations to -us to approach. - -We pulled closer in to the beach upon which those three were standing. -One of the men cried out to us, the other clasped his hands, and the -woman stood motionlessly, gazing. - -“What language is that?” said I. - -None of my men could tell me. The man continued to exclaim, -gesticulating very eagerly and wildly. I listened, and thought he spoke -in French. - -“Are you French?” I sung out. - -“Spaniards, señor, Spaniards,” he answered, in Spanish. - -“Do you speak English?” - -He cried back that he understood a little English. - -“Are there others, besides yourselves, on this island?” - -He answered “No.” - -“What are you doing here?” - -“We are shipwrecked,” he answered, but in an accent I cannot imitate; -the spelling would be meaningless to eye and brain. - -“How long have you been here?” - -He held up his right hand, the thumb pressed into the palm, that his -four fingers might answer my question. - -Here the woman exclaimed in Spanish. Her voice was clear, sweet, and -rich. It came to the ear like music from the beach. There seemed no -harshness of shipwreck, no weakness of privation or despair in it. She -spoke with her face directed to the boat, but I could not understand one -word she uttered. - -“Do you wish to be taken off this island?” I cried. - -“Yes, señor, yes,” shouted the man who had answered throughout. “We -starve here--we die here if you do not take us off.” - -I again looked very carefully about, fearful still lest some deadly -trick was intended, but could see no sign of anything elsewhere on the -island living or stirring. All was motionless; nothing came along with -the wind but the sound of the creaming of waters, the throb and hum of -surf at a distance. - -“Back in, men,” said I. - -We got the boat stern-on to the beach. It was like a lake for the quiet -lipping of the water there. The men held their places on the thwarts, -ready at the instant of a cry to give way. - -“Come, madam,” said I to the lady. - -She approached, comprehending my gesture. I took her by the hands and -helped her to spring over the stern; then seated her. The two men jumped -in, and we shoved off. I looked back and around as we pulled away for -the opening betwixt the reefs. Nothing stirred. - -The woman had very fine features. Her eyes were large, dark, and full of -fire; her complexion a very delicate, pale olive; her mouth small and -firm. Indeed, her mouth wanted but a corresponding and helping -expression of sweetness and of tenderness in the other lineaments to be -a lovely feature. She was clearly a lady. Her hands were small--models -of hands to the finger-tips; her hair was extraordinarily thick, -plentiful beyond anything I ever saw in a woman, and of a rich dead -blackness. She wore a pair of long gold earrings, bulb-shaped, with a -ball at each extremity in which sparkled a little star of diamonds. Some -rings, too, she had--one on the forefinger of her right hand was a -cross, formed of a sort of dark stone set upon gold, probably a signet -ring. No other jewelry did she carry. Her clothes were of some rich -stuff, but I could not give a name to the material; a magically -contrived combination of dyes, swiftly blending and alternating with -every move, and cheating the eye kaleidoscopically--the product of some -Asiatic loom, an art that may have ceased as an art, and that has been -extinguished by the neglect of taste. So much for my observations of -this Spanish lady while we were making for the brig. - -I found nothing remarkable in the two seamen. One had a pinched look; he -was hollow in the eyes, and an expression of fear lay on his face. In -appearance they answered to the beachcomber of the present day. They -were hairy, dirty, and wild. A small silver crucifix gleamed in the moss -upon the chest of the fellow who spoke English. - -I had no time to ask questions. The men swung upon their oars with a -will, and the brig lay scarcely a mile distant. I inquired of the lady -if she spoke English. She bent her fine eyes very wistfully upon me, and -shook her head on the Spanish sailor explaining what I had said. I again -inquired of the fellow who understood my speech if there were others -upon the island, and he answered, with energy and with passion, that -there had been but three, as though he understood me to refer to his -shipwreck. I asked if they had found water on the island. He answered -“Yes,” and pointed to some cliffs past the beach, where stood a small -grove of trees and vegetation, resembling guinea grass, along with a -thickness of green bushes coming down the slope. - -But now we were alongside the brig. I helped the lady up the side; the -two Spanish seamen followed. Greaves called down an order for the boat -to keep alongside, and for two hands to remain in her. He then -approached us, holding his hat while he bowed to the lady, who returned -his salutation with a slow, very stately, elegant gesture, -irreconcilable with the horrors from which she was newly rescued, and -with the distress and apprehension in which she must continue until she -reached her home, wherever _that_ might be. - -“She is Spanish, sir,” said I, “and understands not a syllable of our -tongue.” - -He called to Jimmy to bring a chair from the cabin, and placed it for -her in some square of shadow cast by the canvas. The crew of the brig, -saving the two men over the side, were collected in the bows, and talked -eagerly, and often looked our way and then at the island. Yan Bol, pipe -in mouth, towered among the men. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -THE SHIP IN THE CAVE. - - -Greaves read Spanish, but spoke it ill. He was a North-countryman, and -was without musical accents for soft or swelling or voweled tongues. On -seating the lady, he looked at her and pronounced some words in her -speech. My ear told me they were barbarous. They might have been Welsh -or Erse. - -“This man,” said I, pointing to one of the Spanish seamen who stood -near, “understands English.” - -Greaves was about to address the sailor; he broke off, and beckoned to -Bol. The lumbering Dutchman came pitching aft like one of the bum-bowed -boats of his own country over a swell. - -“Station a man on the fore royal yard, Bol,” said Greaves, “to instantly -report anything that may heave into view.” - -“Ay, ay, sir.” - -The Dutchman went forward again, and a minute later the sailor named -Meehan ran patting aloft. - -“Fielding, should a sail be reported when I am ashore,” said Greaves, -speaking as though the lady and the Spanish seamen were not present, -“fill on your topsail and stand away under easy canvas in a direction -opposite to what the stranger may be taking. Keep your eye on her, and -haul in again for the island as she settles away. Nothing must observe -us hanging about here until we have got what we have come to take. I do -not think it likely that anything will heave into view. I give you these -directions while they are present to my mind.” - -I replied in the customary affirmative of the sea. - -“Now for our friends,” he exclaimed; “I will give them ten minutes to -make sure of them.” He looked at his watch, and turned to the Spanish -sailors. “Which of you speaks English?” - -“Me--Antonio. I speak a little English,” answered the sailor. - -“Have you enough English to make me understand how it comes to pass that -you are on this island? You may use a few Spanish words.” - -The Spaniard told this story. Their ship was _La Diana_. They had sailed -from Acapulco--the date of their departure escapes me. Their ship was -bound to Cadiz. She was a rich ship, and a vessel of six hundred tons. A -few passengers went in the cabin, and her company of working hands, from -captain to boy, numbered thirty-eight souls. They steered straight south -down the meridian of 100° W., and all went well till they were in about -3° S. of the equator, when a hurricane struck the ship. Neither I nor -Greaves could clearly understand from the man’s recital what then -happened. The memory of suffering and horror worked him into passion. He -talked in Spanish, forgot that he was talking to us, addressed the lady, -who frequently sighed and moaned and lifted her eyes to heaven, while -the other Spanish sailor, holding his clenched fists a little forward of -his hips, shook them, nodding his head with a miserable, convulsed grin -of temper, and horror, and tears. - -We gathered that the ship’s masts were swept out of her, that most of -the seamen made off in the boats, that the captain ordered Antonio and -his companion, whose name was Jorge, together with other seamen, to -enter a boat to receive the passengers. This we understood. Then it -seemed that though Jorge and Antonio got into the boat that lay lifting -and beating alongside, threatening to scatter in staves at every moment, -others of the crew did not follow. A lady was handed down--“the Señorita -Aurora de la Cueva,” said Antonio, with a nod of his head in the -direction of the young lady--and scarcely had the two fellows grasped -her when the boat’s line parted and the fabric blew away. - -What followed was just the old-world, well-worn story of a couple of -days and a couple of nights of suffering in an open boat. Often has this -form of misery been described; and a changeless condition of ocean life -it must ever be, let the marine transformations of the coming ages be -what they may. They fell in with Greaves’ island. A heave of swell was -running from the west; the two fellows were half dead with thirst and -with the fear of dying. Spineless creatures they looked. If _they_ were -examples of the fellows who fought us at St. Vincent and Trafalgar, what -was there in the victories of our beef-fed pigtails to brag about? They -aimed for a head of reef to spring ashore, dragging the lady with them, -heedless of their boat, the wretches, thinking only of a drink of water, -and the boat went to pieces while they staggered inland. - -Here Antonio swore horribly in Spanish. He smote his hands together, -squinted fiercely at Jorge, and abused him with a torrent of words. The -other hung his head and occasionally shrugged his shoulders. The lady -kept her fine eyes fastened upon me. Her face worked slightly in -sympathy with the speech of Antonio when he spoke in Spanish, and -occasionally she sighed and moaned low; but her eyes rarely left my -face. Never before had I been honored by the intent regard of eyes so -liquid, so beautiful, so full of fire, eyes whose lightest glance, when -all was well with the owner, could hardly fail to be impassioned. - -“Who is this lady?” said Greaves, breaking in upon Antonio. - -The man again pronounced her name. - -Greaves said: “She was a passenger?” - -“With her mother, my captain. Both were proceeding to Cadiz for Madrid.” - -“With her mother! Then she is separated from her mother by the -shipwreck?” - -“The boat would have received the mother, but the line parted.” - -“Did the people you left behind perish, think you?” - -Antonio replied with a shrug. - -“You have been four days on the island, I understand, and there is water -in abundance?” - -“There is good water among those trees,” said the Spaniard, pointing. - -“And what food have you met with?” - -He succeeded, with much difficulty, in making us understand that they -had lived upon terrapin, crabs, and iguanas. - -“Did you get fire for dressing your food?” - -Antonio put his hand in his pocket and produced a little burning-glass. - -“Fielding,” said Greaves, “I am going ashore. Look to the brig and see -to the lady. Take her below; let Jimmy put meat and wine upon the table. -There’s a spare berth for her, and by and by we will make her -comfortable and keep her so till we can dispose of her. I wish she were -not here, though.” He made a face. “Go along forward, Antonio, with -your companion. D’ye see that big man there? His name is Yan Bol. Ask -him to feed you. Hold!” - -Antonio and his mate faced about. - -“Did you go on board the ship in the cave?” - -“What ship, señor?” - -“There is a ship in that cave,” said Greaves, pointing. “Did you go on -board of her?” - -The man placed the sharp of his hand against his brow and looked at the -island. - -“I know no ship--I know no cave, señor,” said he. - -“Go forward and ask that big Dutchman to feed you,” exclaimed Greaves. - -“When you think of it,” he continued, addressing me as the men walked -forward, “they would not be able to see the cave when on the island. It -is clear that they did not notice the ship when they landed on the reef; -they were too thirsty, poor devils.” - -“And how could they board the ship without a boat, sir?” said I. - -“True,” he answered. “I see too much, Fielding. I put on glasses and -they magnify my meat, but they don’t cheat my appetite. See to the -lady.” - -He called to Bol to put a couple of lanterns into the boat and to send -the crew of the cutter aft, and walked to the gangway. In a few minutes -he was making for the island. - -“Hail the masthead, Bol,” cried I, “and ascertain if all is clear round -the horizon.” - -The answer fell from the lofty height in thin syllables--there was -nothing in sight. I beckoned to the lad Jimmy, who was standing by the -caboose, and bade him furnish the cabin table with the best meal he -could put upon it and to look alive. I then turned to the lady, and, -with my hat in my hand, exclaimed: - -“Will you let me take you below?” - -She viewed me anxiously. Her fine eyes made a passion of even a trifling -emotion in her. She did not understand, and so I had to fall to Robinson -Crusoe’s old trick of gesticulating. Heavens, how doth ignorance of -another’s tongue seal the lips! You are as one who walks dumb through -many lands. Had this poor lady had power of speech in English, or could -I have understood her Spanish, how would she have given vent to her full -breast? I could see in her lips, in her eyes, in the movement of her -features, how grievously was her heart in labor. Yes; in her face -worked the anguish of enforced silence. I pointed to the cabin, made -signs of eating, extended my hand to take hers, on which she rose, gave -me a low bow, put her hand in mine, and I led her through the companion -way. - -Jimmy had not yet arrived with the meal. Still holding her hand, to -deliver myself from the absurdity of gesticulating, I conducted her to a -berth on the starboard side in the fore-part of the living room, opened -the door, and sought, with a flourish of my fist, to make her understand -that it was at her disposal. - -“_Yrá ó harâ muy bien_”--It will do very well--said she. - -I afterward understood this to be her remark; _then_ it was darker than -Hebrew. In fact, I thought she referred to the emptiness of the berth. -The bunk was without bedding; and that bare bunk and a little naked, -unequipped semicircle of wooden washstand, screwed into the bulkhead, -formed all the visible furniture of the interior. - -I knew a few words in French, and tried her with a “_Parlez-vous -Français_, señorita?” - -“_Nó, caballero_,” she answered. - -I made a step into the berth, and motioned toward the bunk and the -washstand, in the hope that she would be able to collect from my -contortions that her comfort would be presently seen to. She inclined -her head and slightly smiled, and the flash of her teeth was like -sunshine betwixt her lips. Again I presented my hand, and she gave me -hers; and I led her into the cabin where Jimmy was now busy. Galloon sat -upon his chair, watching the lad lay the cloth. He pricked his ears and -growled at the Spanish lady. I shook my fist at him, and his eyes -languished, though his ears remained pricked. The lady exclaimed in -Spanish, and fearlessly walked round to the dog and patted him. Galloon -wagged his tail, but his ears remained elevated, as though one end of -him was in doubt while the other end was satisfied. I again noticed the -beauty of the lady’s hand, as she laid it on the dog, and the sparkling -of the rings upon her fingers. Jimmy breathed fast and grinned much, and -could scarcely proceed in his work for staring. I abused him for a lazy -cub and bade him bear a hand. - -The meal was spread. I motioned the lady into the chair occupied by -Greaves, with further gesticulations desired her to help herself, and -poured out a bumper of claret, of which wine Greaves had laid in a -handsome stock, whether at Tulp’s cost or not I could not say. I was -greatly impressed by the self-control and dignity of this lady Aurora, -as I understood one of her names to be. Hungry I could not question she -was. Tempted, I might also feel sure she would be, by the food before -her after four days of such living as the island beach and the grove of -trees provided. Yet she helped herself to but a little at a time, first -crossing herself with great devotion before lifting her fork, then -eating with the well-bred leisureliness you would have looked to see in -her at her mother’s table. But the silence grew momentarily more -oppressive. - -“Jimmy,” said I, “go forward and bring that Spanish sailor, Antonio, aft -with you, unless he’s still eating.” - -At the expiration of five minutes Antonio followed Jimmy into the cabin. - -“Have you had plenty to eat?” said I. - -His earrings danced while he nodded--he wore earrings like those you see -on a French fishwife--his blood-stained, dark eyes searched the cabin. - -“A very good ship--very kind men,” said he. “When do you sail, señor?” - -“I have not sent for you to question me,” said I. “I desire you to -interpret my speech to this lady. Tell her----” and, in few, I bade him -inform her that instructions would be given for her cabin to be -comfortably equipped, and that whatever the brig could supply was at her -service. - -She smiled and bowed to me on this being interpreted, and then addressed -Antonio, who, however, found himself at a loss, and was obliged to act -to make me understand. He feigned to wash his face, and unnecessarily -passed his fingers through the length of his hair, and then, finding -words, made me understand that the lady was weary, that she had slept -but little, and then on the hard ground, and that she would be thankful -to lie down and sleep. Thereupon I told Jimmy to convey my bedding to -her bunk, also to place one or two toilet conveniences of my own in her -cabin; and, after waiting to see my instructions carried out, I bowed -low and sprang on deck, with my mind full of the dollars ashore, -wondering likewise what Greaves’ report would be, whether the dollars -were still in the ship’s hold, and when he meant to go to work to -discharge the vessel of her silver. - -My first look was at the weather. It was boundless azure down to the -lens-like brim of the sea--not a feather-sized wing of cloud--and a -light air of wind with just enough of weight in it to hold the backed -topsail steady to the mast. I looked at the island; the boat had entered -the cave and was lost in the shadow. I picked up the glass, and leveled -it; the dark lines of rigging and spar were faintly discernible, but the -boat was deep in the dusk and not to be seen. It was the ugliest rock of -island I had ever viewed, swart, sterile--save where the trees -stood--gloomy, menacing with its suggestion of arrested fires. A few -terrapin, or land tortoises, crawled upon the beach. Many birds, most of -them white as shapes of marble, wheeled and hovered over the further -extremity of the land with frequent stoopings and dartings, like our -gulls over a herring shoal. I swept every foot of the visible surface of -land with a telescope, but witnessed no signs of life of any sort. -Nevertheless, the two long arms of the reef strangely civilized the -beach and the face of cliff where the cave was, by their likeness to -artificial piers. They formed a very perfect, spacious harbor in which, -during a heedless moment or two, I caught myself looking for a cluster -of rowboats, for some group of shipping, for cranes and capstans, for -men walking, as though, forsooth, I gazed at the piers of a dock! - -How it had come to pass that a big ship of seven or eight hundred tons -should have backed and neatly threaded an eye of cave, and fixed herself -within, Greaves had, doubtless, correctly explained. The commander of -her had stumbled upon this island in thick weather; or he may have found -the island aboard of him on a sudden in a black night. He had a reason -for bringing up in the shelter of that harbor, and when his anchors were -down it came on to blow dead in-shore. The ship dragged. Her stern made -a straight course for the opening in the cave. Would they seek to give -her a sheer to divert her from that entry? No. For there might be safety -in that cave, but outside it was certain destruction. To touch was to go -to pieces against such a steep-to front of cliff as that. But many are -the conundrums submitted by the ocean, and victoriously insoluble are -they for the most part. You may theorize as you will. Nothing is certain -but this: - - There was a ship! - -While I waited for the return of Greaves, I called to Bol to get a cast -of the deep-sea lead. There was no bottom at eighty fathoms. I had -expected from the appearance of the island to find a great depth of -water to the very wash of the surf. No need, therefore, to bother with -our ground tackle. And so much the better! Nothing like having your ship -under control when the land is aboard. With an offing of a mile it would -be easy to “ratch” clear any point of the island, even should it come on -to blow with hurricane power; then it would be up-helm and a brief run -for it, and a heave-to till the weather mended. - -The two Spanish sailors sat, Lascar fashion, against the caboose. They -sucked alternately at a short pipe which one of them had probably -borrowed. When the lead-line was coiled away, Yan Bol rolled up to me -and said in his voice of thunder, but very civilly: - -“Dot vhas a scare.” - -“What was a scare?” said I. - -He leveled a massive forefinger at the two Spaniards. I nodded. “Der -captain vhas some time gone,” said he. “I hope no man vhas before her.” - -“And that’s my hope.” - -“How many cases of dollars might der be, Mr. Fielding?” - -“I don’t know.” - -He looked as if he did not believe me, and said, “Vell, der more, der -better for Mynheer Tulp und oders.” He paused upon this word, _oders_. I -gazed at the island. “Der more der better, certainly,” continued he, -“yet dey vhas not so plentiful but dot efery dollar might be shipped -before dark. Tell me dey vhas plentiful some more dan dot, and, by Cott, -Mr. Fielding, der crew’s share vhas as a flea upon der dog dot scratch -her.” - -“My name is Fielding, not Greaves, Yan Bol,” said I. - -“Oh, yaw, dot vhas right. But I likes to tink aloud sometimes, Mr. -Fielding.” - -“Are not you satisfied?” cried I, suddenly rounding upon him and looking -him full in the face. - -“Perfectly satisfied, Mr. Fielding.” - -“Then why, by that devil who always seems to be busy in ship’s -forecastles, come you to me now with your growlings and your questions -and your dots, and your Cotts and your dollars, Yan Bol.” - -“Growlings--questions! I likes to know vhen we get der dollars on board -und make sail, dot vhas all.” - -“Strike a light with your eyes and keep a lookout for yourself, and hail -the fore royal yard, will ye, and receive the man’s report.” - -He went forward, and his roar swept straight aloft like a blast from the -mouth of the cannon. There was nothing in sight at sea, the man called -down. I looked toward the island and saw the boat at that moment -stealing out of the cave. I mused on Bol while the boat swept across the -satin calm surface of the natural harbor, the oars swinging like lines -of flame in the men’s hands. Was Bol going to give trouble? It was late -in the day to ask that question. It would be impossible to rid the ship -of him on this side the Horn, and by the time it came to t’other -side---- - -The boat arrived, and Greaves rose in the stern sheets; he rose, but he -was supported too. A sailor grasped him by either arm, and he was helped -with difficulty over the side of the brig. I was at the gangway to -receive him, and assisted by seizing his hands as the men helped him to -climb. He was pale as milk, and his mouth was drawn with pain. - -“What is the matter?” I asked. - -“I have had a fall,” he said, speaking with a labored breath. “I tripped -and drove my whole weight against the sharp edge of a case in the -lazarette of the ship yonder. I wish I may not have broken a rib. Help -me, Fielding.” - -I took him by the arm, and Jimmy, who stood near, grasped him in -obedience to my gesture by the other arm, and together we got him into -the cabin and to his berth. He asked for brandy-and-water and drank a -tumblerful, and then requested me to help him to strip, that he might -see if he had broken any bones. He had hurt himself over the right hip, -and the skin was somewhat darkened there, but the ribs were unbroken. He -felt over himself anxiously, occasionally groaning, and said: - -“No, my good angel be praised, the bones are sound. I am in torment from -the pain of the blow. That must be it, and it will pass--it will pass.” - -“I would recommend you to lie perfectly still.” - -“No; I must be on deck. I can sit and keep watch and look about me while -you go ashore.” - -I helped him to dress, and he seemed unable to speak for pain while he -put his arms and body in motion. He then asked for another glass of -brandy-and-water and sat, saying he would rest and talk to me for ten -minutes. - -“Are you in pain when you are still?” said I. - -“No. I was too eager, and consequently careless, pressed forward, -tripped, and should have set fire to the ship had I swooned, for I was -alone and the fall flung the lighted lantern from me, and the candle -lay naked and burning among the cases.” - -“Lord, how suddenly will a trifle become a frightful thing at sea!” said -I. - -“Where is the Spanish lady, Fielding?” - -“In her berth, and perhaps asleep, sir.” - -“Well,” said he, after a pause, “the dollars are there.” - -“I am glad to hear it, sir,” said I, feeling the blood in my cheek, for -I own that the news worked as a sort of transport in me. - -“This cursed accident will hinder me from superintending the unlading of -the vessel. You must undertake that job.” - -“You can trust me, captain.” - -“Up to the hilt I do. Open that drawer, and hand me the pocket-book -you’ll see.” His extending his hand to receive the book made him wince. -“There are a hundred and forty cases,” said he. “You will take slings -and tackles to hoist the cases out and lower them over the side into the -boat. Be careful not to overload your boat. The money may be safely -transhipped in three journeys; so divide one hundred and forty by three -and your quotient is your lading for each trip.” - -“Ay, ay, sir.” - -“Be careful with your fire. I split open some of the boxes, as I told -you, to make sure of their contents. Take tools and nails and battens -with you for securing the riven cases. Be yourself in the lazarette -while this is doing.” - -“Right, sir. Where will you have the cases stowed aboard us?” - -“Oh, in the lazarette. I was prevented by my fall,” he exclaimed, “from -examining the rest of the cargo. Do you that when the money is -transhipped. I will act on your report if the weather allows. But should -there come a change when we have got the money, then damn your cocoa and -tin--we’ll be off.” - -“Shall I remain in the ship during the trips, or take charge of the -boat?” - -“Take charge of the boat, but see all your men in first.” - -I faintly smiled, for here was a direction that was a little particular, -methought. - -“Help me on deck, now, Fielding, and then go to work.” - -I thought to myself: “It is no time, this, to speak of Yan Bol. The -matter must stand.” - -He leaned upon me, and, with pain and difficulty, gained the deck. All -the men but one had come out of the boat, and the ship’s company, saving -that man and Jimmy and the fellows at the wheel and masthead, were -assembled in the gangway. They hung together in a little crowd. -Impatience burnt like fire in them--impatience and expectation and -anxiety, now complicated by the injury their captain had met with. When -we made our appearance they stared and shuffled, one and all, as though -they were mutineers, scarce masking a madness of bloody intention, and -about to make a rush aft to its execution. Is not the insanity that -drink will run into the veins and brains a sweet little cherub compared -with the demon that enters the soul of man out of the coin of gold or -silver? - -“Captain,” cried Yan Bol, “I shpeaks for all handts. You vhas not hurt -much, all handts hope?” - -“Not much, my lads--not much, I thank you,” answered Greaves, whom I had -helped to seat in the chair Jimmy had placed for him, and who, while he -remained motionless, seemed free from pain. - -“Captain,” again cried Yan Bol, in tones like to the noise of breakers -heard in the hollow of cliffs, “again I shpeaks for all handts. Vhas der -dollars safe?” - -“Yes,” answered Greaves. - -The men roared out a cheer--a roaring cheer it was. It seemed to be -repeated on the island a mile off, as though there was a crew ashore -there. - -I now began to sing out the instructions which Greaves had given me. -Pieces of planking for nailing over the cases were flung into the boat; -lines for slings, tackles, tools, lanterns, and the like were handed -down. The crew took their seats, and we shoved off, followed by a cheer -from the fellows who remained behind. There went with me six men--two -Dutch, the others my countrymen. The drift of the brig, though very -inconsiderable, owing to the lightness of the breeze and the apparent -absolute tidelessness of the sea, had veered the island a trifle -southerly, and the brig lay on a line with the edge of the cliff where -the cave was. The cave was, therefore, hidden from me. I stared with -great curiosity at the island as we neared it, making for the head of -the westerly reef to round into the lake-like expanse within. A more -hideous heap of rock shows not its head above the water. The cliffs of -it, where they run to any noticeable altitude, come down to the sea in -twisted masses. You would have thought the process of this island’s -formation had been arrested at some instant when the red-hot mass of it -was writhing and pouring into the ocean over the edges of its own -heaped-up stuff. No iceberg ever submitted a more fanciful sky-line; but -its toad-like hue, its several hideous complexions, made it a loathly -sight. The spirit shrinks from this bit of creation as from some -disgusting creature. - -The cave was situated in the highest front of this island. The height of -this front was above two hundred feet; how much above that elevation I -know not. It was smooth and sheer, pumice-hued like the beach that swept -from it into the northeast; so smooth and sheer was it that you would -have said it had been split in twain from a like mass that had fallen -and vanished. Assuredly some enormous convulsion had gone to the -manufacture of that prodigious fissure or cave. - -We pulled through the opening of the reefs, and I headed straight for -the cave. So strong was my excitement that it felt like a sort of -illness. I breathed with labor; the sweat lay like oil in the palms of -my hands, though my hands were cold. It was not now the thoughts of the -money. My excitement was no dollar madness then. I was oppressed, to a -degree I find incommunicable, by the marvelous picture, as I was now -beholding it for the first time, of the big ship clothed in the dusk of -the mighty tomb into which she had backed and where she had brought up. -I had had no leisure for the sight during my first excursion; had but -glanced at it, my head being then full of the shipwrecked people we were -bringing off, and of fancies of what might be lurking on shore. But now, -our approach being leisurely, the expanse of water to be measured -considerable, I could gaze, wonder, realize, until emotion grew -overwhelming and became a sensation of sickness in me. - -Were you to split a big stone open and find a live toad in it you would -marvel. Hundreds would assemble to view the wonder, and a poor man might -get money by exhibiting it; but how many much stranger things than a -live toad imprisoned in a stone would I, as a sailor, exact the relation -and sight of, ere admitting that half the sum of that marvel of a great -ship at rest in a huge cave was approached? - -At first sight the fabric looked like a piece of nature’s handiwork as -it lay in the gloom of the interior it had miraculously penetrated. It -looked, I say, as though the volcanic spasm, which had shorn the lofty -cliff into its bald front and wrought the prodigious fissure, had -contrived the hundred fragments and ruins of rocks, the splinters, the -serpentine lengths, the massive bulks, the pillar-shaped fragments into -the aspect of a ship, building the wonder in a sudden roar of -earthquake, and leaving it a faultless similitude. - -“Oars!” cried I. - -We floated forward with the arrested blades poised over the water. It -was burning hot; the sun stood nearly overhead, and the surface of this -strange natural harbor shone like new tin, tingling in fibers and -needles of white fire back again into the light that it reflected. We -were within a musket-shot of the entrance of the cave. - -“On which side did you board, men?” - -“To starboard, sir.” - -“Give way gently, and, bow there, stand by with your boathook.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -WE TRANSHIP THE DOLLARS. - - -Although the hour was approaching high noon, and the day very glorious, -no light was in the cave beyond the length of the ship’s bowsprit. A -wall of darkness came to the bows of the ship; it might have been -something material, something you could lean against or stick with a -knife; the daylight touched it and made a twilight of it at the mouth, -then died out. The long and short of it is--it is my way, anyhow, of -explaining the strange thing--the filthy colored scoriæ, the gloomy -masses of cinder, pumice, lava--call it what you will--were -unreflective; light smote the stuff and perished, or was not returned, -so that a thin veil of dusk clothed with deepest obscurity any hollow it -lay in. - -The water brimmed blue to the mouth of the cave, and then, at a few -boats’ lengths, slept black and thick as ink, wholly motionless this -day; though I might suppose that when a large swell ran outside the -breakwaters, the smaller swell of the harbor put a pulse into the black -tide of the cave, though without weight enough to stir the -stern-stranded ship. Yet you saw much of her when you were still on the -threshold of the cavern. Her huge bows sprawling with head-boards loomed -out of the darkness, advancing the yellow bowsprit till the cap of it -was almost flush with the sides of the opening. Had the jib booms stood, -they would have forked far into daylight and, perhaps, long ago have -challenged the attention of a passing ship, and brought her people to -explore the Spaniard and enrich themselves. Her lower masts were yellow, -and they showed ghastly in the gloom. She had immense round tops, black -and heavy, and shrouds of an almost hawser-like thickness, with a wide -spread of channels and massive chain plates. Most of the yards were -across, and squared as though the machinery of the braces had worked to -the music of the boatswain’s pipe. Her sides were tall; she carried some -swivels on her poop rail, and a few pieces calked with tompions crouched -through a half dozen of ports, like motionless beasts of a strange shape -about to spring. - -To look up! To behold that lofty fabric and complication of mast and -spar and rigging soaring to the dark roof, against which the topgallant -masts had been ground away to the topmast heads! - -Be seated in a small boat alongside a ship of six hundred or seven -hundred tons, with such a height of side as this Spaniard had, lifting -her platform of deck a full eighteen feet above the water for the eye to -follow the ascent of the lower masts from; I say from the low level of a -small boat, look up to the altitude of the starry trucks of such a ship -as this _Perfecta Casada_; if you be no sailor, your eye will swim as -you trace the mastheads to their airy points. To an immeasurable height -will those spars seem to soar above you, yea, though they rise no higher -than the cross-trees. But here was a vast cave in which a great -ship--and a ship of seven hundred tons was a great ship in my -time--could lie; and in this cave a lofty ship _was_ lying, partly -afloat, partly stranded; the darkness in which she slumbered magnified -her proportions; she loomed upon the sight as tall again as she was, and -half the wonder of this wonderful show lay in the height of the black -ceiling against which her topmast heads were pressed, jamming her into -the position she had taken up, as though a shipwright and his men had -dealt with her. - -The atmosphere struck cold as snow after the outer heat. A hush fell -upon us as we floated in, with the bowman erect ready to hook on, and -the silence was horrible, and the more horrible for the sound thrice -heard in the hush that fell upon us, of a greasy gurgle of water, like a -low, villainous, chuckling laugh. - -But all this is description, and it takes me long to submit to you what -I beheld in a few breathless moments of wonder, and awe, and -admiration. We were here to load dollars, not to muse and marvel. - -“Sort o’ ole penguin smell knocking round, aint there?” said one of the -crew. - -“Only a Dago could have managed this job,” said another. “Why don’t -Dagoes stay ashore? Blast me if even a Dutchman would have made such a -muck of it.” - -“Hold your jaw!” I roared, in a rage; and my cry went in an echo through -the cave, rebounding as a billiard ball from its cushion. - -What is more diabolically and instantaneously fatal to sentiment than -the vulgar talk of a vulgar Englishman? A Spaniard, an Italian, a -Portuguese, a Greek--blasphemes in your presence, and his coarseness -adds to the romantic colors of the idealism you are musing on; but let -an Englishman come alongside of you, and drop an _h_, and emotion is -shivered as by a thunderbolt. - -The remarks of the sailor woke me up. We were alongside the ship, and -the fellow in the bow had hooked on to one of the huge main-chain -plates. I crawled into the channel, and over the rail, and dropped upon -the deck. It was like entering a vault, and there was an odd, damp, -earthy flavor in the air. I wonder, thought I, if there are two dead men -in the forecastle, locked in each other’s arms? But why locked in each -other’s arms? Ah, why? Fancy will give body to wild conceits at such a -time and on such an occasion as this. - -I stood a moment at the rail; the water flowed black as ink into the -blackness over the stern. In the mysterious twilight that shrouded the -ship, her decks and masts looked unearthly; it was hard to conceive that -human hands had fashioned her, that the echoes of the mortal calker had -resounded through her. I thought of the ship in Lycidas - - Built in th’ eclipse and rigged with curses dark. - -Sternward the craft died out in gloom. The roundhouse, or some such -contrivance of deck structure, hung in a swollen shadow with the yellow -shaft of the mizzen mast shooting straight up out of it. I seemed to -catch a faint gleam of glass, a dim and ghostly outline of doorway, of -skylight, of crane-like davits. The deck of a ship viewed at midnight, -by the light of froth breaking round about, would shadowily and -glimmeringly show as this Spaniard did from the gangway to the taffrail. -But forward there was light; the radiance of the day hung, like a sheet -of blue silver, in front of the opening of the cave, and against that -brilliance--compact and undiffused, like the light upon the object glass -of a telescope--the bows of the ship stood out in indigo, the tracery of -the rigging exquisitely marked till it vanished in the gloom overhead. - -I bade one man remain in the boat, and the rest to come on board and -bring the lanterns, tackles, slings, and materials for securing the -damaged chests of dollars. I then lighted one of the lanterns and walked -aft, looking with the utmost curiosity around me, as though this ship, -forsooth, instead of being a vessel of my own time, was coeval with this -cave, and but a little younger than Noah. - -The dollars were, I knew, stowed away down in the lazarette. This queer -name is given to a part of a ship’s after-hold. It is a compartment or -division, and commonly used for the stowage of stores and provisions. -The hatch that conducted to this place was in the cabin. I entered the -cabin--a sort of deckhouse--and paused, holding my lantern high, and -gazing about me. I observed a row of cushioned seats or lockers, three -or four round scuttles on either hand, with dim oil paintings let into -or framed to the panels between; lamps which, when lighted, might shine -like the starry crescents of the poet, and two square tables, one at -each end. The hatch was open. I descended and passed through a -’tweendecks, black as ink. The lantern light gleamed along a corridor, -and revealed a short row of berths to starboard and larboard. And now, -passing through the hatch in this deck, I stood in the lazarette. The -floor was shallow; there were numerous stanchions, and the white cases, -which contained the dollars, were stowed between those uprights. I -approached a range of cases and found the top one split open. I squeezed -my hand through and felt the dollars, packed in large rolls. They were -as rough to the touch of the finger, with their milled edges, as any big -surface of file, and cold as frost. There looked to be a great number of -cases. I do not suppose that Greaves had attempted to count them. He -abided by the declaration of the manifest, and since it was certain the -cases had not been meddled with, no doubt the number and value were as -the manifest set forth. - -I halted inactively here for, perhaps, a minute, while, with lantern -upheld, I ran my eye over the cases. The silence was horrible--no -dimmest sob of water penetrated, no distant squeak of rat afforded -relief to the ear. But here were the dollars! They were now to be -secured, got into the boat, and conveyed to the brig. I called to the -men, and they came below with the battens and hammer and nails. We had -four lanterns burning, and there was plenty of light. In a few minutes -this dead vault of hold was ringing to the blows of the hammers. I -overhauled the cases and saw that every split lid was carefully repaired -before ever I dreamt of suffering a box of the metal to be lifted. The -men spoke not one word, unless it were an “ay, ay, sir,” in response to -a call from me. They chewed and spat with excitement, hammered and -toiled with eagerness, and often did they roll their eyes over the -cases, but they held their tongues. When the last of the boxes was -repaired, slings were procured, a tackle rigged, and I, standing in the -lazarette, tallied a quantity of the cases on deck, some of them large, -and holding, as I should have reckoned by the weight, not less than -three thousand to five thousand dollars apiece. I then followed the men, -the gangway was cleared, and the chests lowered by tackles into the -boat, where they were received and trimmed by three of the crew. - -We pulled out of the harbor, deep, but not perilously deep, with silver, -and when we rounded the reef I spied the brig at a distance of about a -quarter of a mile away from the spot where we had left her. They had -wore her and got her head round on the other tack, and clapped her aback -afresh. There was a fellow stationed on the fore royal yard; I see him -in my mind’s eye, as mere a pigmy as ever Gulliver handled, as he sat -jockeying the yard in the slings, one hand on the tie, his legs -dangling, and the loose white trousers trembling, and a hand to his brow -as he sent his gaze into the remote ocean distance. The sun made a blaze -of the white canvas, and their reflection trembled in sheets of -quicksilver, deep in the clear cerulean beneath the shadow of the -vessel’s side. - -The _Black Watch_ looked but a little ship after the lumping fabric in -the cave. Yes, she looked but a little ship for the hundreds of leagues -of ocean she had measured, since the hour when I was lifted over her -rail nearly dead of Channel water. But small as she was, she sat in -beauty upon the sea; the long passage had not roughened her, her sides -showed like the hide of some freshly curried mare of Arabia. She rolled -lightly, sparkles leapt from her, the colors about her deepened, paled -and deepened again, and fingers of shadow swept through the blaze of her -canvas. - -As we approached I saw Greaves sitting in the chair in which I had left -him; he sat under a short awning. There was a tray upon the skylight, -and bottles and glasses, and I guessed he was eating his dinner. I -looked for the lady, but saw nothing of her. Galloon watched our -approach, seated like a monkey upon the rail with half a fathom of red -tongue out. Bol and the others and the two Spaniards were congregated in -the gangway. The big Dutchman waited until the boat drew close, he then -roared in a voice that could have been heard on the other side of the -island, “Hurrah, my ladts! Tree sheers for Capt’n Greaves.” And when the -men had cheered, he roared out again, “Und three sheers more for der -dollars!” - -By the time this unwarrantable uproar--but it was scarce worth -correcting, seeing the occasion of it--had ceased we were alongside, and -I sprang on deck. “How have you got on, Mr. Fielding?” called Greaves -from his chair, without attempting to rise. - -“Very well, sir.” - -“How many cases?” - -I gave him the number. - -“Get them aboard at once,” he exclaimed, “and leave them on the -quarter-deck till all are shipped. See those cases aboard, and then step -aft.” - -The men speedily hoisted the cases out of the boat. Yan Bol was -conspicuously forward and energetic in the hand he gave. I stood near, -and heard him say, “I vhas pleased mit der Spaniards for leaving dis -money. Dere vhas house, vife, beer, bipes, mit songs und dances in dese -cases. Cott, vhat a veight! I likes to find more ships in a hole. Vhat -drinks, vhat larks in von case only.” - -The sailors rumbled with laughter at the fellow, and some of the -Englishmen eyed me askant to guess my mind. I was willing, however, that -Bol should run on. Greaves was near, and able to hear and judge for -himself. When the last case was out of the boat I walked aft. - -Greaves said, “Send your boat’s crew to dinner, and let others take -their place for the next boat.” - -“With your leave, sir, I’ll keep the men I have just returned with. They -know the ropes and have nothing to learn.” - -“Be it so. Send the crew to dinner, but let them bear a hand; and you -can make a meal off this tray here.” - -There was food in plenty, and wine. Having told the boat’s crew to go to -their dinner, I sat down with Greaves, and ate and drank. The weather -continued extraordinarily beautiful, but the wind was failing, long -glassy lines of calm were already snaking along the surface of the sea, -and it was fiercely hot. The horizon swam in a film; you could have seen -ten miles in the morning, and not five miles now from the deck. No -sights had been taken; no sights were needed when there was an island, -whose situation had been accurately observed, close alongside. - -“We shall have the dollars aboard by four?” said Greaves. - -“Easily, sir.” - -“Do you believe in the dollars now, Fielding?” said he, with a smile. - -I answered, “Yes,” coloring, and asked him how he felt. - -“Easier,” said he; “there is no pain when I sit. A severe bruise--no -more.” - -“Yan Bol is a bit forward and outspoken for a foremast hand, don’t you -think, captain?” - -“He is a Dutchman, and all Dutchmen are cheeky. The word _cheek_ -originates with the Dutch. Look at their sterns and look at their faces, -if you want the etymology of the word _cheek_.” - -“I hope he’ll remain cheeky only. For my part, I don’t feel sure of the -man.” - -“Too late--too late,” said Greaves irritably and impatiently. - -“I do not like that he should ask me the value of the treasure that is -to come aboard, and I do not like that he should say that as the size of -a flea is to the size of the dog that scratches it, is the proportion of -the forecastle share to the whole of the money.” - -“If he gives me trouble,” said Greaves, “I will shoot him. I will show -you the rising moon through a slug-hole in the devil’s skull. But do not -accept Yan Bol too literally. Dutchmen will say without significance -that which, in the mouth of an Englishman, might sound brutally -malevolent and sinister.” - -“That may be, sir. I don’t know the Dutch.” - -“I have made up my mind not to meddle with the cargo. Do not trouble to -examine it. The money will be risk enough. Shrewd as old Tulp believes -himself to be, and really is, the anxiety of running a quantity of tin -won’t be worth the purchase. If the cocoa is sweet, bring some of it off -for the ship’s use, and if you can meet with the four casks of tortoise -shell, we’ll find room for the stuff. Four casks are easy of -transhipment, but the rest we’ll let be.” - -This was good sense. It must have taken us some time to break out and -tranship the tin and the wool and the hides in hair. The smuggling of -such stuff, on our arrival home, would have taxed even the many-sided, -hard-salted cunning of a Dealman; and, smuggling apart, without papers, -how were these commodities to have been passed? - -I allowed the boat’s crew a quarter of an hour for their dinner, then -summoned them; and, not to repeat the story of our first visit, by -something after three o’clock that afternoon, the weather still holding -marvelously radiant and all the wind gone, I had tallied the last of the -cases of dollars over the side of the _Black Watch_, along with some -crates of cocoa; but the four casks of tortoise shell I had been unable -to meet with. Whether they had been omitted, or stowed in some secret -place, I know not. Then, for an hour, I was busy in superintending the -stowage of the cases of dollars in the brig’s lazarette. While I was -thus occupied, Yan Bol, with a few seamen, was sent by the captain in -the longboat to procure fresh water and fill up with terrapin and all -else catchable that was good for the saucepan. The Dutch boatswain made -two journeys before I was done, and was gone ashore again for more water -and turtle when I arrived on deck after a wash and a clean-up. I -reported the dollars stowed to the captain. - -“Ninety-eight thousand pounds,” said he. “It is worth the venture, I -think.” - -“I can scarcely credit the reality now it has happened and all’s well,” -said I. - -“There are many men,” said he, “who would be willing to be pressed, -run-down, half-drowned, and picked up for six thousand pounds.” - -“Ay, indeed,” said I; “and when I take up that money, Galloon, how much -of it is to be your share, dear doggie?” - -“The Spanish lady sleeps well.” - -“After four days of that island!” said I. - -“What is to be done with her? I certainly cannot land her in a Spanish -port. It will end, I believe, in our carrying her to England. I intend -to court no unnecessary risks, and I should be courting a very -unnecessary risk by looking close enough into a port to land her. No; -she will sail with us to England. I hope she is amiable. I scarcely -noticed that she was good-looking. I am no ladies’ man--I do not care -for women; and the deuce of it is, neither you nor I speak Spanish.” - -“She is a woman of degree,” said I; “has fine manners, fine rings, and -beautiful hands.” - -“You may have found a wife as well as a fortune in these seas, -Fielding.” - -“Marry a Spanish woman for money!” said I. “Who’d lick honey off a -thorn?” - -“And why would not you marry a Spanish woman, money or no money?” said -he. “Do not you know that the best and oldest blood in the world runs in -Spanish veins? You seem to sneer at the mention of old blood.” - -“Not at all.” - -“Give me old blood in a woman. With old blood you associate all the -elegances, all the graces and aromas in the bearing and conduct of human -nature. Vulgarity makes a toad of beauty itself. Think of Venus saying -‘’Ave done,’ and bragging of her jewelry.” - -“What is a lady?” - -“I expected that question. Cannot you define what any chambermaid or -boots can distinguish; what any shopman, waiter, poor sailor man like -you or me, can instantly _recognize_? Marry, come up. What is more -teasing than the question, ‘What is a gentleman?’ Cocky Mr. Macaroni, -with his hat over his eye and his hair dressed in imitation of his -betters, says, ‘Vat’s a gentleman?’ and the beast knows the thing every -time he sees it.” - -“How is the pain in your side?” - -“Well, it makes me wince when I move as I did then. How strange,” said -he, sinking his voice and looking at the island, “that I, who have been -dreaming of galleons all my life, should, of the scores whose keels have -cut these waters, be the one chosen to light upon yonder ship of -dollars.” - -“Shall you fire her before sailing?” - -“No. We will leave her for the next man who may come along--for some -poor devil to whom a few serons of cocoa and a thousand quintals of tin -may be what the Cockney calls an ‘object.’” - -The sun was now low, and the west was on fire. The sea came like blood -from the rim of the western line to midway the ocean plain, where the -fierce light drained into thin blue that went darkening into melting -violet eastward. The brig had drifted very nearly due south of the -island, opening the reefs, and baring the harbor to our sight, and -disclosing the verdure that clothed a portion of the northern rocks. The -longboat lay alongside the beach, and the figures of her people came -and went. I thought to myself, a pity if Yan Bol and his sweet and manly -fellows don’t take a fancy to the derelict, agree among themselves to -attempt to warp her afloat, and consent to remain on the island if -Greaves will give them the boat; food enough they will find in the ship -and on the beach. - -Though the island stood steeped in the red light of sunset, it reflected -nothing of the western splendor. Grimy, melancholy, livid--an ocean -cinder heap did it look in that fair evening radiance, a spadeful out of -Neptune’s dust bin. I picked up the telescope to view the ship in the -cave before the shadows closed the wondrous object out, and with the -tracery of the spars and rigging, dim in the lens, I conceived myself on -board. I imagined the hour of midnight, I heard in fancy the distant -groan of surf, I heard the sobs of the black water within the cave, a -faint creak from the heart of the sepulchered vessel; and I figured fear -growing in me even unto the beholding of apparitions, until a shiver ran -through me as chill as though it had come out of the cold hold of the -ship herself. - -I put down the glass, meaning to laugh away my fancies to Greaves, and -beheld the lady Aurora de la Cueva in the act of rising through the -companion way. - -Though Greaves and I had only just now been talking about her, I stared -as though I had not known she was aboard. It was indeed strange, after -all the months of Greaves and Yan Bol and the Dutch and English beauties -forward, to find a woman in the brig; to see a fine, handsome, -sparkling-eyed girl stepping out of the cabin as though she had been -there from the hour of leaving the Downs, but secret. She bowed, I -lifted my cap, Greaves struggled to his feet with his face full of pain. -I begged him to sit, and ran below for a chair, which I placed near his -for the lady Aurora. She had found out that he was in pain, that he had -met with an accident, and was addressing him as I put her chair down, -her large, Spanish, glowing eyes very wistfully fastened upon his face. -He understood her, for, as I have told you, Greaves read Spanish -indifferently well, and faintly understood it when spoken, but he wanted -words and could not utter the few he possessed. He smiled and touched -his hat, and then pointed to the island. - -It was not for me to linger near them. I went to the rail and watched -the boat and the movements of the fellows upon the beach, but I also -found several opportunities in this while for observing the lady Aurora. -She had slept and was refreshed. The fine, delicate, transparent olive -of her complexion--I may say it was a very pale olive, well within the -compass of the admiration of those whose love is for the white and -yellow part of the sex--was touched slightly with bloom as from recent -slumber. Her eyes were large and splendid with light, remarkable for -their long lashes, and of a shade that made you think of the sea at -night, black and luminous, their depths filled with wandering fires as -she struggled with the oppression of silence or gazed at you as though -she would speak. Her nose was slightly Jewish, rather small than big for -her face, the nostrils the daintiest piece of graving I ever saw in that -way. Her teeth were very good, strong and white, a little large. The -quality of her clothes might have been very grand; one would judge of -_that_ perhaps by the rings, for this sort of thing goes on all fours as -a rule; but the fit or fashion was monstrously vile to my taste. You -guessed that underlying all that spread and sprawl of skirt and bodice -there sat, or stood, or reposed the figure of a Hebe. Hints of secret -perfections there were in plenty; but all grace of shape was overwhelmed -by the cut of her gown; it stood upon her like a candle extinguisher, -and in shape was not even fit for a nun. - -“I am unable to understand the lady, Fielding,” exclaimed Greaves. “Is -Antonio forward?” - -I spied the Spaniard leaning over the bows looking toward the island. He -had gone away in the boat on the first journey to show the men where the -water was. On her return with her freight of fresh water, he had crept -over the side and sneaked forward to loaf and lounge and smoke in Jack -Spaniard fashion. How did I know this? Because I knew that Antonio had -been sent in the boat to point out the spring, and his lounging in the -bows with a pipe betwixt his lips _now_, while the boat was ashore and -the men busy, told me the little yarn of loafing from start to finish. - -I called, and he put his pipe in his pocket and came aft. - -“Interpret what this lady says,” exclaimed Greaves. - -She poured forth some sentences of Spanish. I could trace no fatigue, no -reactionary debility, such as might attend the strain and passion of -deliverance from peril tremendous above all words to her as a woman. - -“The señorita,” translated Antonio in effect--but, as I have before -said, I will not attempt a written description of his articulation or -phrases; I write that he may be intelligible--“wishes to know how long -you intend to remain in this situation, and to what part of the world -you are proceeding when you sail?” - -“To England!” cried the lady, when Antonio had made answer out of the -mouth of Greaves. “_Santa Maria purissima!_ How shall I find my mother? -If she has been rescued she will have been conveyed to some port on the -South American coast, whence she will return to Acapulco, and there -await news of me. To England! _Ave Maria!_ The world will then divide me -from my mother. Blessed Virgin! I did think this ship was proceeding to -a South American port. To England! I shall never see my mother again.” - -She exclaimed awhile in this sort of language, but untheatrically. Nay, -there was a dignity in her astonishment and concern; very little tossing -of hands and uprolling of eyes. The main article in the outward -expression of her grief and alarm lay in the piteous look she fastened -on me, as though she would rather appeal to me than to the captain; as -though, indeed, she considered that since I was the first to take her by -the hand on the island, and to bring her off from a situation of horror, -she was entitled to look to me for all further kindnesses. - -“The señorita’s mother,” said Greaves, “was, of course, rescued, and is, -no doubt, safe and well?” Antonio turned his back upon the lady that she -might not see him squint, and he shrugged his shoulders. “But we have no -right to suppose,” continued Greaves, looking sternly at the Spaniard, -“that the ship which rescued the señora conveyed her to a port whence -she could easily reach Acapulco. On the contrary, in all probability the -ship was bound round the Horn, in which case the lady may be now on her -way to Europe.” - -Antonio translated; the lady Aurora gazed at him somewhat passionately, -and beat the air with a gesture of irritation, clearly unable to collect -the captain’s meaning from the fellow’s interpretation of it. Antonio -talked much and gesticulated with singular energy. The lady then -appeared to comprehend. - -“She says that her mother is rich,” said Antonio, “and is well known as -the widow of Don Alonzo de Cueva, the merchant of Lima. She will pay -liberally to be conveyed to Acapulco, where she has a brother who is a -priest. She will return to Acapulco because she is sure to believe that -the señora, her mother, will seek her there.” - -“Tell the lady,” said Greaves, “that I am truly sorry not to be able to -put her ashore at any port where she would be within easy reach of -Acapulco. When I have filled my water casks I am proceeding to England -as straight as the rudder can steer the ship, touching nowhere, and -giving everything that passes plenty of room. Yet this tell her, -likewise, that on our way to England we may chance to fall in with a -vessel bound to a port on this side the South American coast. Should we -fall in with such a vessel, I will transfer the lady to her.” - -He spoke slowly, with the deliberateness of a man who is in pain while -he discourses. Antonio made shift to render the captain’s words -intelligible to the lady. She asked, through the Spanish seaman, what -Captain Greaves would charge to put her ashore at Lima or Valparaiso. - -“It is not to be done,” said Greaves; “beg her not to repeat that -request.” - -She seemed to gather the matter of his speech by his manner. Her eyes -came to mine, earnest, pleading, with a deeper shadow in their dark -depths as though tears were not far off. It was a look that made me -curse my ignorance of the Spanish tongue. Much could I have said to -comfort and hearten her; but though I had been able to talk as fluently -as she, it was not for me to intrude _then_. I was mate, and Greaves was -captain; and I stood at the rail seeming to watch the island as it -blackened to the fading crimson light, and to be keeping a lookout for -the return of the longboat. - -“Was not the lady’s mother proceeding to Madrid?” said Greaves. - -“Yes, capitan,” answered Antonio. - -“If the vessel which may have picked her up is going that way, why -should she desire to return to Acapulco?” - -“You have heard, my capitan, that the señorita believes her mother will -return to Acapulco and wait for her there.” - -“How is the mother to know that the daughter is alive?” - -Again Antonio squinted fiercely and shrugged. - -“Is there reason to suppose that, the widow imagines her daughter is -saved? Is there reason to believe that the widow herself is saved? -Supposing her to have been picked up by a ship bound south, why should -not she proceed in the direction that, if pursued, must ultimately land -her at Cadiz, or put her in the way of very easily reaching Madrid, for -which city, as I understand, she and her daughter embarked at Acapulco? -Interpret all this, will you?” - -Antonio began to translate. - -“Fielding!” exclaimed Greaves. - -“Sir.” - -“Call Jimmy aft.” - -The boy arrived. - -“I am going below, Fielding,” said Greaves. “My ribs ache consumedly. I -may get some ease by lying flat. Is the longboat coming off?” - -The tall bulwarks prevented him from seeing the lower ranges of the -island. I looked a moment; then, to make sure, leveled the glass, and -said: - -“They are at this instant shoving off, sir.” - -“Get in the water and then hoist your boat in,” said he. “You can fill -on the brig and stand north for an offing of about three miles; then -heave-to afresh, and carefully observe the bearings of the island, lest -it should roll down black or thick. If heavy weather happens in the -night we will proceed, for we have fresh water enough aboard to carry us -along. Otherwise, we will complete our watering in the morning, for I -want to make a steady run of it to the Channel without need of a halt on -any account whatever.” - -While Greaves was giving me his instructions, Antonio was interpreting -to the lady Aurora, who frequently broke into short exclamations of -“_Qué!_” “_Es esto!_” “_Será posible?_” and, while she thus exclaimed, -she would look with an expression of dismay and reproach at the captain. - -“If I rest my bones through the night,” said Greaves, “I shall be easier -or well again in the morning. Look in upon me with a report from time to -time, Fielding, and tell Bol to visit me during his watch.” - -He rose from his chair with a face of pain, put his arm upon Jimmy’s -shoulder, and went below. I stepped to the gangway, calling to the -fellows who were hanging about in the head to lay aft and stand by to -discharge the boat and get her aboard. She came alongside deep, and it -was dark before we had hooked the tackles into her. When she was stowed, -the topsail was swung and the brig headed about north. There was a light -wind out of the southwest. It set the water tinkling alongside with the -noise as of the bells of a sleigh heard afar. The young moon lay in a -red curl in the west, as though, up there, she was still colored by the -flush of the sunset that had blackened out to our sight. There was not a -cloud. The stars were plentiful and bright, and the dusky ocean, flat -and firm, showed as wide as the sky. - -All this while the lady had remained on deck. It was about eight -o’clock, and very dark. My watch had come round, and the brig would be -in my charge till midnight; but, watch or no watch, I should have kept a -lookout until I had secured the three-mile offing. The island was on the -starboard quarter, scarcely distinguishable now--a dim smudge, like -smoke. - -Happening to look through the skylight, I saw the cloth laid for supper. -Indeed, supper was ready. Salt beef and ham were on the table, together -with biscuits, pickles, and a pot or two of preserves, a small decanter -of rum for my use, and a bottle of Greaves’ red wine for the lady. She -had tasted nothing, as I presumed, since her arrival on board in the -morning. She stood at the rail, looking out to sea, a pathetic figure of -loneliness, indeed, when you thought of what she had suffered, what she -was freshly delivered from; when you thought again of her solitude of -dumbness, as you might well term her tongue’s incapacity aboard this -brig of English and Dutch. Most heartily did I yearn to speak soothingly -and hopefully, to bid her be of good cheer when she thought of her -mother, to beg her persuade herself that her mother was rescued and -sailing to Europe, even as she, the señorita, was thither bound. - -“Weel, weel, there’s Ane abune a’!” says the gypsy in the Scotch novel, -and that was the substance of what I wanted to tell the lady Aurora. - -And what did I say? Why, I just coughed to let her know that I was at -her elbow. I had no other language than a cough. - -She quietly looked round and began “_Yo no lo_----” then broke off, -arrested by remembering that I knew not one syllable of her tongue. - -I motioned to the skylight and pointed down, and made signs for her to -go below and sup. She signed to me to accompany her. I shook my head, -pointing to the sails and to the sea, and cursing my ignorance that -obliged me to make a baboon of myself with my limbs and head. - -She bowed and went to the companion hatch, and on looking down a few -minutes later I saw her seated at the table. She had removed her hat; -her brow showed white in the lamplight under the magnificent masses of -her dead black hair. The jewels upon her fingers sparkled as, with a -leisureliness that had something of stateliness in it, she helped -herself to the food before her. Once again I admired the beauty of her -hands, and then I turned my back upon the novel and beautiful picture of -this fine Spanish woman to look to the brig. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -OFF THE ISLAND. - - -The brig slipped cleverly through the sea. It was like gently tearing -through silk with a razor to listen to the noise that floated aft from -her cutwater. When I guessed the island to be about three miles distant -I hove the vessel to. Yan Bol’s pipe shrilled with an edge that seemed -to fetch an echo from the furthest reaches of the dark sea. When the -sails were to the mast the brig lay motionless under her topsails and -standing jib. - -I was about to go below to make a report to the captain, when the -lumping shadow of Bol’s bulky shape came along the deck. - -“Beg pardon, Mr. Fielding,” said he, with a loutish lift of his hand in -the direction of his forehead, “how might der captain be, sir?” - -“I am about to inquire.” - -“Dere vhas noting wrong, all handts hope?” - -“No; a severe bruise. Nothing more serious, I trust.” - -“Vhas der brick to be hove-to all night?” - -“Yaw.” - -“To gomblete der vatering in der morning, I zooppose?” - -“Yaw.” - -“Vel, Mr. Fielding, der men hov oxed me to say dot if der captain vill -give leave and she vhas not too sick to be troubled by der noise, dey -vould like to celebrate der recovery of der dollars by two or dree -leedle songs before der vatch vhas called.” - -This was another way of asking for a glass of grog for all hands. There -could be no objection. The men had been much exposed throughout the heat -of the day, and what could more righteously warrant a harmless festal -outburst than the recovery and transhipment of a hundred and forty cases -of Spanish dollars? - -I entered the cabin. The lady Aurora was still at table, but had long -since ceased to eat. She lay back in her chair, her head drooped, her -hands folded in the posture of one waiting. When I entered she lifted -her head and smiled, her eyes brightened, her lips moved in the first -framing of a sentence; no word escaped her; she pointed to a seat, and -half rose from her own chair as though in doubt where I was used to sit. -I shook my head, nodded toward the door of the captain’s berth, then at -the clock under the skylight, holding up my fingers that she might guess -I would join her in ten minutes; and so I passed on, hot in the face, -and wondering whether it would be possible for me to communicate with -her without making a fool of myself--for a fool I felt every time I -gesticulated, which now I think must have been owing to my hatred of the -French. - -Greaves lay in his bunk motionless, on his back, but he was free from -pain. Galloon sat on a chest near his head. I reported the affairs of -the brig, the distance and bearings of the island, and the like. He -asked how the weather looked. - -“It is a heavenly night,” said I. - -“It is hot in this hole,” said he. “Plague seize the awkwardness that -tripped me and has floored me thus! One knows not what to do for a -bruise of this sort. But patience--that’s the physic for every sort of -bruise, whether of the bones or of the soul. Jim tells me the lady has -supped.” - -“She has, sir.” - -“I am sorry for the poor thing; but where is the woman that does not -always want something more than she has? This time yesterday she would -have given her hair--angels alive! what would she _not_ have given? to -be as she now is, safe aboard such a vessel as this; and now that she is -safe aboard--rescued from raw terrapin and the risks of the society of -two Spanish sailors (and I must like their looks better before I give -them a handsomer name than _that_)--she craves to be with her -mother--very natural, of course--who is, probably, at the bottom of the -ocean, and she wants to be put ashore at Lima.” - -I delivered the request of the men, as expressed by Yan Bol. - -“Oh, yes. Let grog be served out to all hands; and the men may sing, -certainly. Disturb me? Not down here. And I like my people to be merry. -Fortune has fiddled to-day; let the beggars dance.” - -Jimmy was in the cabin. I bade him carry a can of rum to the men, and -went on deck, receiving, without knowing how to answer, a look of -inquiry from the lady Aurora as I passed her. - -“The men may make merry,” said I to Bol. “There is grog gone forward. -Tell them that the captain is free from pain; and will you keep a -lookout in the waist--or in the head if you like, ’tis all one--while I -get a bite in the cabin?” - -“Yaw, dot vill I. By der vay, Mr. Fielding, vhas dere von hoondred und -dirty, or vhas dere von hoondred und twenty, cases prought on boardt? -Vertz swears to von hoondred und dirty; Friendt, von hoondred und -twenty. I myself gounts von hoondred und dirty-two. Dere vhas a leedle -vager in dis--shoost von day of a man’s grog, dot vhas all.” - -“I made one hundred and forty cases,” said I. “But are they all -dollars?” - -And bursting into a laugh, I left him to chew upon that thought, and -returned to the cabin. - -I bowed to the lady, and took the chair I usually occupied at the table. -She rose, came to my side with a bottle of claret, poured some into a -glass, and made as if she would wait upon me. I was not a little -confounded. Her handsome presence, her fine person embarrassed me. My -career had but poorly qualified me for an easy address in conversing -with ladies. Much of my life had been spent upon the ocean, in the -society of some of the roughest of my own calling. For months at a -stretch I had never set eyes on a woman, and when I was ashore, whether -in foreign parts or in my own country, the girls I fell in with were not -of a sort to teach me to know exactly what to do when I chanced upon the -company of a Señorita Aurora. - -I did the best I could with the imperfect and monkey-like speech of the -hands and shoulders to induce her to desist from waiting upon me and -return to her chair; and in this I was helped by the arrival of Jimmy, -to whom I gave several unnecessary orders, merely to emphasize to the -lady the desire. I gesticulated that she should sit, and cease to do me -more honor than I had impudence to support. - -Presently she pointed to the bottle of claret--there stood but one -bottle on the table--and looked at me in silence, but with an expression -of such eloquence as Jimmy himself could not have missed the meaning of. - -“Wine,” said I. - -“Vine,” she repeated; and then to herself, “_Vino_--vine; _vino_--vine.” - -She next pointed to the piece of salt beef. - -“Meat,” said I. - -“Meat--_carne_; meat--_carne_,” she repeated. - -She pointed to several objects. I gave her the English names, and she -pronounced them deliberately, in a rich voice, invariably tacking the -Spanish equivalent to the word, as though she wished me to observe it. I -sat for about a quarter of an hour over my supper, and then, looking at -the clock significantly, and then up through the skylight, that she -might gather my intention, I arose, giving her a little bow. She rose -also, and, pointing upward, tapped her bosom, most clearly saying in -that way--“May I accompany you?” - -“_Si, señorita_,” said I, expending, as I believe, in those words the -whole of my stock of her tongue. - -A fine smile lighted up her face, and she addressed me; and what I -reckon she said was that it would not take me long to learn Spanish. She -picked up her hat, and then, looking at the table, pointed, and showing -her white teeth, said, “Bread--_pan_; meat--_carne_; vine--_vino_;” and -so on through the words I had interpreted, making not one blunder either -of pronunciation or indication of the object, saving that she called -wine _vine_, and ham _yam_. - -I conducted her on deck; I believe Yan Bol had been surveying us from -the skylight; I perceived his big figure lurching forward when I -emerged, and his way of going made me suppose that he had been looking -through the skylight with his ear bent. “An old ape hath an old eye,” -thought I, as I watched him disappear in the darkness. - -The crew were assembled on the forecastle and singing songs there. They -had rigged up two or three lanterns and sat in the light of them, -drinking rum-and-water out of mugs, and smoking pipes. A strange voice -was singing at that moment; I listened, and guessed it to be one of the -two Spaniards. The girl paused and listened too. She then ejaculated, -“_Ay! Ayme!_” and went to the rail, and gazed out to sea. - -There blew a soft wind, cool with dew, out of the southwest. I looked -for the island, but the shadow of it was blent like smoke with the -darkness. The ripples ran in faint, small ivory curls, and the water was -full of roaming glows of phosphorus. The Spanish sailor ceased to sing. -A fiddle struck up, screwing and squeaking into a tune which immediately -set my toes tapping; a hoarse cough succeeded, and then rang out the -roaring voice of Travers: - - “Eight bells had struck, and the starboard watch was called, - And the larboard watch they went to their hammocks down below; - Before seven bells the case it was quite altered, - And broad upon our lee-beam we sight a lofty foe. - Up hammocks and down chests, - Oh, the boatswain he piped next, - And the drummer he was called, at quarters for to beat. - We stowed our hammock well - Before we struck the bell, - And we bore down upon her with a full and flowing sheet! - (_Chorus_) And we bore down upon her with a full and flowing she-e-t!” - -There were more verses. The chorus was always the same; it burst with -hurricane power from the lips of the English seamen, who sang with -passion, as though in defiance of the Dutch and Spanish listeners; and, -indeed, the matter of the song was headlong and irresistible. The lady -standing at the bulwark turned her head to listen, but when the noise -had ended she sank her face afresh, put her elbow on the rail, leaned -her chin upon her hand, and so gazed straight out into the darkness. - -Much had she to think of, and her weight of memory would be the heavier, -and the color of it the sadder for her inability to communicate a -syllable of what worked in her brain, when she thought of the wreck in -which her mother may have perished, or of the livid cinder of an island -on which she had been imprisoned for four days, of her present -condition, and of her future. I wondered as I looked at her whether, if -she had my language or I hers, she would be impassioned and dramatic in -the recital of her adventures, or whether she would talk quietly, -describe without vehemence of speech or motion, prove herself, in short, -the dignified, apparently cold woman I found her in her compelled -silence or speech? This I wondered while I watched her with an irritable -yearning after words that I might speak. What had been the two sailors’ -behavior to her on the island? Where and how had she slept of nights -there? What had been her sufferings in the open boat? Who was she? Was -she visiting Madrid to presently return to South America? She troubled -my curiosity. She was as a book written in an unintelligible tongue, but -curiously and beautifully embellished with plates which enable you to -guess at the choiceness and profusion of the feast you are unable to sit -at. - -Now Yan Bol sang a song. His voice rent the night, and I observed the -lady erect her figure as though she hearkened with astonishment. I -walked aft to take a look at the compass, and to see that the binnacle -lamp was burning well. - -“Who is this at the wheel?” - -“Jorge, señor.” - -“You don’t speak English, do you?” - -The man understood me, and shook his head. “Pretty cool fists,” thought -I, “to send this poor devil aft, while _you_ enjoy yourselves with your -songs and pipes and grog! Here is a shipwrecked man; what care you? He -is a poor rag of a man, and very fit to be put upon; so it has been, -’Aft with ye and grip them spokes, while a better man than e’er a -mumping Spaniard in all Americay comes for’ard and enjoys himself.” But -it was not a matter to be mended while the fellows were in the full of -their jollification. - -“_Como se llama esto?_” exclaimed a voice at my elbow, and a small hand, -gleaming with rings, was projected into the sheen of the binnacle lamp. - -I started, conceiving that the lady was still at the bulwark rail, deep -in thought or listening to the singing. - -“I do not understand,” said I. - -“Ow you call, señor?” exclaimed Jorge. - -She pointed to the compass, wanting its name in English. - -I pronounced the word and she echoed it very clearly; then lightly -laying her hand upon my arm she took a few steps forward, and, pointing -to the sea, asked again in Spanish what that was called. In this way I -gave her some dozen words; and when I believed she was about to ask for -more terms she, with her hand laid lightly on my arm, led me back to the -wheel, and, pointing to the compass, pronounced its name in English, -then indicated the sea, uttering the word, and so she went through the -list she had got, blundering but once, at the word “star,” which she -pronounced _zar_. - -By this time the singing had come to an end; the starbowlines, as the -starboard watch were then termed, were dropping below; the lady went to -the skylight and looked at the time; then, coming up to me, she put her -hand out and said: - -“_Buenas noches, caballero._” - -I answered, “Good-night, señorita.” - -She shook her head; by the cabin lamplight flowing up through the open -frames I saw her smiling. She repeated, “Good-night, _caballero_” in -Spanish. Seeing her wish, I said good-night in the same language, -imitating her accent. - -“_Es admirable!_” she exclaimed, and then went toward the companion way, -meaning to go below. - -But I had resolved that this handsome, amiable, lovely Spanish lady -should be made as comfortable on board us as the resources of the brig -permitted, and I detained her by a polite gesture while I called to one -of the men forward to send Antonio aft. The fellow was turned in and he -kept us waiting ten minutes, during which the lady and I stood dumb as a -pair of ghosts, she no doubt wondering why I held her on deck, though -she did not exhibit the least uneasiness in her bearing so far as I was -able to make out in the starlit darkness. When Antonio appeared I -requested him to ask the lady if she wished for anything the brig could -supply her with. Antonio translated sulkily and sleepily. - -“No, señor,” said he, “the lady wants for nothing. She is wearied and -entreats permission to retire to rest.” - -I was convinced that the villain had manufactured this answer to enable -him to return speedily to his own bed. But I was helpless. - -When the lady went below I told Antonio to send one of the men out of my -watch to relieve Jorge at the wheel, and I then descended into the cabin -to make a report to Greaves and to hear how he did. Jimmy was clearing -up for the night. I inquired after the captain, and the youth told me he -was asleep. - -“Has he complained of pain?” - -“No, master.” - -“Where’s Galloon?” - -“Along with the captain, master.” - -“Has the dog been fed to-day?” - -“Oh, yes. He had a copper-fastened buster at noon--a heart o’ oak -blow-out.” - -“What did you give him?” said I, not doubting the lad’s affection for -the dog, but fearing that the poor brute might have been overlooked in -the hurry and excitement of the day. - -“As much beefsteak as he could swallow, master.” - -“There are no beefsteaks on board this ship,” said I. “If the captain -and Galloon were here we should have a concert. But I believe you when -you tell me you have fed the dog.” - -“More’n he wanted, master.” - -I bade him put a spare mattress into my bunk--we carried a stock of -spare bedding, a slop lot of Amsterdam stuff--and I then returned on -deck. Two hours of watch lay before me, and my heart went in a gallop -and my brain in a waltz through the earlier part of that time. I found -leisure for thought now; the hush of the ocean night was upon the brig; -no sound reached me from the forecastle. The stars shone brightly in the -dark sky, and many meteors of crystal white fires ran and broke over our -mastheads, bursting like rockets immeasurably distant, and leaving -glowing trails, which palpitated for some minutes. - -The hope of the voyage was realized. Underfoot lay half a million of -dollars, and six thousand pounds of it were to be mine! Is it wonderful -that my spirits should have sang, that heart and brain should have -danced? But with this noble fulfillment of the half-hearted hope of many -weeks was mixed the romance of the presence of a handsome Spanish woman -in the ship. One thought of her as coming on board with the dollars--as -the princess of the island pining for civilization and shipping herself -and the treasure of her little dominion for the life and delights of a -great and populous city of the Old World. She it was, I think, that set -my brain a-waltzing, if it were the dollars which made my heart gallop -and my spirit shout within me. - -I tell you it was an odd, intoxicating mixture of the picturesque, the -heroic, the romantic for a plain young sailor man like me to put his -lips to and drain down. To be sure the influence of the Spanish lady -upon me was no more than the influence of bright eyes, of white teeth, -of a fine person, of a head of magnificent hair. And what sort of -influence would that be, pray? Why, heart alive! Oh! what but a mingling -of light with thought, an aroma to haunt all fancy of other things, -giving a sparkle to the commonplace, putting foam and sweetness into -cups of flatness. Do you who are reading this know how deep, know by the -experience of months of weevils, corned horse, and the curses of -constipated sailors, how deep is the deep monotony of life on shipboard? -If the depth of this monotony be known to you, then will you understand -why it should be that the presence, yea, the presence _merely_ of a -handsome woman, her glances, the flash of her white teeth, the eloquent -hinting by movement and posture at a hidden shape of beauty, should -mingle a few threads of gold with the coarse gray, brine-drenched -worsted of the sailor’s daily life--of such a daily life as mine; should -touch with luster his mechanic habits and trains of thought as the wake -of his ship in the night of the tropic ocean is beautified with the -fiery seeds and radiant foam-bells of the sea glow. - -And now I have intelligently and poetically explained why it was that I -walked out some time of the remainder of my watch on deck, with my blood -in a dance and my spirits singing clearly. But as I paced I grew grave -under the shadow of a fancy--not yet to call it fear. Suppose the crew -should rise and seize the brig? This was a _notion_ that was fixedly -present to Greaves during the outward passage, because he had _known_ -when I doubted, that the half million of dollars were in the ship in the -cave, and upon that conviction he could base acute realization of what -_might_ happen when the money was transhipped. I, on the other hand, had -never seriously considered the possibility of piracy. The money must be -in the brig before I could solemnly compass all the responsibility its -possession implied. But the money was now on board, and six thousand -pounds of it were mine, and my spirits fell as I paced the quarter-deck -looking around the wide gloom and saying to myself: “Suppose this -treasure of half a million of dollars should presently start the men -into a determination to seize the brig! There were but two of -us--Greaves and I--at our end of the ship. Could we count upon Jimmy? At -the other end was now an addition of two Spaniards--cut-throats at heart -for all one knew--with knives as thirsty for blood as an English -sailor’s throat for rum.” - -Why should I have thought thus? Nothing whatever had happened to put -fancies of this sort into my head. Was it not the being able to -understand that thirty thousand of the thousands in the lazarette were -to be mine that set me reflecting with a sudden dark anxiety, when the -question arose: Suppose the crew should rise and take the brig? - - The needy traveler, serene and gay, - Walks the wild heath, and sings his toil away. - Does envy seize thee? Crush the unbraiding joy, - Increase his riches, and his peace destroy: - New fears in dire vicissitude invade, - The rustling brake alarms, and quivering shade; - Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief, - One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief. - -There was comfort, however, if not safety in this consideration: not a -man forward, from Bol down to Jimmy, had any knowledge of navigation. -What, then, would they be able to do with the brig if they seized her? -They might spread a chart of the world and say: “Here we are _now_, and -there is America, and there are the East Indies, and down there is New -Holland, and up there is China, and if we steadily head in one -direction, no matter at what point of the compass the bowsprit looks, we -are bound to run something down, whether it be a continent or one of the -poles.” - -Well, that is how sailors might talk in a book designed for the young. -Before the seamen forward rose and seized this brig, that was now a very -valuable bottom, as cargoes then went, they would ask of one another: -“What are we going to do with the ship when we have her? Where are we -going to carry her, and, having hit on a spot, how are we going to -navigate her there?” This I chose to think, and, indeed, I had no doubt -of it, and I drew comfort from the conclusion; but all the same, my -spirits, having sunk, remained low throughout the rest of my watch. - -I was uneasy. I caught myself arresting my steps when my walk carried me -toward the gangway, whenever I heard the sound of a man’s voice. O God, -to think of what a hell of passions this tiny speck of brig was capable -of holding! To think of the large and bloody tragedy this minim of the -building yards could find a theater for! Never had I so utterly felt -human insignificance at sea as I did this night, when I looked over the -rail and searched the smoky void of the horizon for the smudge of the -island, till, for the relief of my sight, I watched a star. - -“I’ll tell you what it is, William Fielding,” said I to myself, “your -blood is over-heated, your spirits are over-excited. By this picking up -to-day of a fortune--a noble fortune to you, my boy--of six thousand -pounds, and by the sudden and novel companionship of a dark and splendid -lady, the pulses of your body have been set a-hammering too fast. They -must sleep, or excitement will make you sick.” - -Eight bells were struck. Bol came along, and I went below to see if the -captain was awake. He addressed me on my entering his cabin. I reported -the little there was to tell. He said that the pain in his side was -easier; that he could move without the anguish of the afternoon. - -“I shall lie by all night,” said he, “and hope to be up and about again -in the morning.” - -He then inquired about the situation of the island, the appearance of -the weather, the sail under which the brig lay, whether any vessel had -hove in sight, and added: - -“If you should awaken in your watch, go on deck and take a look round; -though I trust Bol.” - -I went on deck to give the Dutchman the bearings of the island and our -distance from it. He was sullen with sleep. Likely as not, the can which -Jimmy had filled contained more liquor than should have gone forward at -once. - -“Keep a bright lookout,” said I. “There may come a shift of wind that -will put the island under our lee, with nobody to guess that it’s at -hand until we’re upon it.” - -“Ow, I’ll keep a bright lookout,” he answered; “but vould to Cott dere -vhas no more lookouts for me! I vhas dam’d sick of looking out. I hov -been looking out, by tunder, for ofer twenty year, and hov seen noting -till dis day; and den she vhas to be carried round der Hoorn to -Amsterdam before she vhas all right.” - -I went to my berth. Excitement had subsided since my few words with -Greaves. I pitched into my bunk, and was sound asleep in a minute. I was -awakened by the weight of a heavy hand and by the sound of a deep voice. - -“Mr. Fielding, I do not like der look of der veather. I believe dere -vhas a gale of vind on her vhay here.” - -“What is the hour, Bol?” - -“She vhas a quarter-past dree.” - -I went on deck, and observed that the sky in the north was as black as -pitch. Overhead the stars were dim and few, but they burnt freely and -brightly in the south. I caught a moaning tone in the wind, that had -considerably freshened since I left the deck; and the brig, hove-to -under whole topsails, was lying over somewhat steeply, with the seas to -windward slapping at her rounded side, hissing off in pale yeasty -sheets, and flickering snappishly into the gloom to leeward. - -“Call all hands and close-reef both topsails,” said I. - -I ran below to report to Greaves. A bracket-lamp burnt feebly in his -cabin. He was wide awake, and his dark eyes, with the glance of the -small yellow flame upon them, looked twice their usual size. - -“It is coming on to blow, sir.” - -“Well, snug down and put yourself to leeward of the island, anyhow.” - -“Shall I heave her to, then, for watering?” - -“Judge for yourself. The brig is in your hands. If it comes hard let her -go. Keep a sharp lookout for the island. Have you its bearings?” - -“Bol should have them,” said I. “I have been turned in since midnight.” - -I regained the deck. The crew were yawling at the reef-tackles and -singing out at the main braces to trim the yards for reefing. There was -much noise. The wind was steadily freshening, and through the groans and -pipings of it aloft ran the sharp, salt hiss of small seas, bursting -suddenly and with temper under the level lash of the wind. I shouted to -Bol, who came out of the blackness in the waist. - -“Where do you make the island?” - -“She’ll bear sou’east,” he answered. - -I stepped to the compass. - -“There’s been a shift of wind since midnight. It was nor’-nor’west, and -now it’s come north. Since when?” - -“Ow, she freshened out of der north in a leedle squall. Dot vhas vhen I -called you.” - -I swept the wide, dark reach of the southern line of sea with the glass; -but had the island been as big as England it would have been sunk in the -peculiar smoky thickness of the dusk that yet, strangely enough, formed -a clear atmosphere for the stars to shine through. I say I swept the -ocean with the glass, but to no purpose. An old sailor once laughed at -me for using an ordinary day telescope at night. I told him that what -would magnify a colored object would magnify a shadow; and he afterward -owned that he talked out of prejudice; had looked through a telescope -since in the darkness and discovered that I was right. - -The men reefed the topsails smartly, and not being able to see the -island, and not choosing to trust Bol’s conjectures as to its situation, -I headed the brig due east, setting the reefed foresail and trysail -along with some fore-and-aft canvas to give her heels. It blackened -rapidly overhead; every star perished. In a few minutes there was not a -light visible up in God’s heights; all the fire was below, and the sea -was beginning to run in flames like oil burning. This shining in the sea -was a blindness to the sight, for it brought the sky down black as a -midnight fog to the very sip and spit of the surge. We held on, crushing -through it, for the wind having swiftly swept up into a fresh breeze, -had on a sudden roared into half a gale, and the brig was smoking -forward as she plunged, with a heel to leeward when the sea took her, -that brought the white and fiery smother within hand-reach of the -gangway rails. - -I stood at the binnacle; Bol was at my side; two hands were stationed on -the lookout; the crew remained on deck. They had got to hear that Bol -had lost the bearings of the island, and though the watch might be -called, no man was going below on such a night of sudden tempest as -this, with a hurricane away behind the windward blackness, for all we -knew, and this side the horizon as deadly a heap of fangs as ever bit a -ship in twain. - -“I vhas glad if he lightened,” said Bol. “It vhas strange if der island -did not show on der starboard quarter there.” - -“It was strange,” said I, mimicking him in my temper, “that you should -fall asleep in your watch on deck with land close aboard ye.” - -“By Cott, den----” - -Rain at that instant struck the brig in a whole sheet of water. It came -along with a roar and shriek of wind and wet. The cataractal drench was -swept in steam off our decks by the black squall it blew along in; the -fierce slap of it fired the sea, and we washed through an ocean of -light, pale and green. - -“By Cott, den----” bawled Bol. - -“Breakers ahead!” roared a voice from the forecastle. - -“Breakers on the lee-bow!” cried another voice. - -It was like being blinded and shocked by lightning to hear _those_ -cries. They were paralyzing. For an instant I looked and listened idly. - -Then--“Hard a-starboard every spoke! Hard a-starboard every spoke!” I -shouted, and flung myself upon the wheel to help the men there, roaring -meanwhile to Bol to call hands to the main braces and to get the fore -tack and sheet raised. He rushed forward, thundering. Never had Dutchman -the like of such a voice as Bol. - -The brig was in the wind; she was pitching furiously head to sea, the -canvas thrashing in the blackness, the gale splitting in lunatic shrieks -upon every rope and spar, the strange, hoarse shouts of the seamen -rising and falling in shuddering notes upon the clamor that surged above -as the water rolled below. - -I had fled from the wheel to the side to look for the land, and was -straining my vision against the wet obscurity in vain search of the -white water of breakers, or of the overhanging midnight shadow that -should denote the island close aboard, when--the brig struck! a violent -shock ran through the length of her; every timber thrilled as though a -mine had been sprung under her keel. “O God, that it should have _come_ -to it!” I thought. - -“Round with that fore yard, men,” I roared; “don’t let her hang! _don’t_ -let her hang!” Again the brig struck. A sort of raging chorus full of -curses and the passion of terror broke from the seamen as they dragged. -The rain cleared as suddenly as it had begun, the brig’s head was paying -off, and my heart swelled in thanks as she listed over to larboard, -trembling to a blow of sea that rose in a mountain of milk upon her -bow. - -“Where are you, Fielding?” shouted the voice of Greaves. - -“Here, sir.” - -He was standing in the hatch, gripping the companion for support, but -his voice had the old ring. “What have you done with the brig?” - -“White water was just now reported. I don’t see it. I don’t see the -land--yet we struck.” - -“No,” he answered coolly, “it was we who were struck. There is no land. -Look there--and there--and there! Those are your shoals!” - -At the moment of his speaking one of the sublimest, most beautiful -sights which the ocean, prodigal as she is in marvels of terror and -splendor, can offer to the sight of man was visible round about us. In -at least a dozen different parts of the blackness that stooped to the -luminous peaks of the seas I beheld flaming fountains, glittering lines -rising and feathering to the gale, coming and going, blowing pale and -yet splendid--every jet so luminous that the scoring of the darkness by -it was as defined as the track of a rocket. They soared and fell in a -breathing way, some near, some afar, ever varying their distances, and -one snored like an escape of steam within a biscuit-toss of our weather -beam, and the fiery shower flashed on the wind betwixt our masts with a -hiss like a volley of shot tearing the surface of water. - -“A school of whales,” shouted Greaves. “One of them plumped into us. -Now, get your topsail aback, Fielding, get your topsail aback, and stop -her till the beasts go clear, or they’ll be butting us into staves. Jump -for the well and get a cast.” - -The men, hearing their captain’s voice, were quieted. They came to the -braces, and, without disorder or any note of cursing terror in their -voices, brought the brig to a halt. I dropped the rod and found the -vessel stanch; sounded the well four or five times, and always found her -stanch. The wondrous luminous appearances vanished, and the blacker -hours of the night before the dawn closed upon us in an impenetrable -dye, but with less weight in the wind and with less fire in the sea. - -“Furl the foresail and let the brig lie as she is till dawn,” said -Greaves, and walked slowly from one side of the deck to the other, -looking forth, pausing long to look; then, with slow motions, he went -below, and stretched himself at full length upon a locker, with a hand -upon his side. - -My watch came round at four; but, in any case, I should have watched the -brig through the darkness. Some while before dawn the wind was spent, -the stars glowing, the sea fast slackening its heave, with the muck that -had troubled and drenched us settling away in a shadow south and west. - -At last broke the day. Melancholy is daybreak at sea. There is nothing -sadder in nature; nothing that so sinks the spirits of the watcher who -suffers himself to be visited by the full spirit of the sight. On shore -there is the chirrup and harmonies of birds, the rosy streaking of the -sky over the hilltops; the vane of the church spire burns, the cock -crows heartily, the farmyard is in motion, the smell of the country -rises in an incense as the sun springs into the sky. But at sea the cold -iron-gray of the breaking morn is reflected in the boundless waste. -There is nothing to catch the light of the springing sun save the -clouds. The vast solitude brims into the unbroken distance, and cold is -the ashen sky and cold the picture of the ship, as it steals out of the -darkness of the night. The melancholy, however, is but in the dawn’s -beginning. When the sun rises, there is a splendor of colors at sea -which you will not find ashore. The ocean is a mirror that reverberates -the light of day. Times are when the deep flings its own prismatic -glories upon the sky. This have I marked at sunrise, when the flash of -the luminary has sunk into the heart of the sea, when all is blueness -and dazzle below, and, above, a sky of high-compacted cloud, delicate as -flowers and figures of frost and snow upon a windowpane, charged with -the colors of the great eye of ocean looking up at it. - -“There’s the island,” said I to myself. - -I snatched up the glass, and resolved the tiny piece of shading upon the -horizon into the proportions of the ugly rock of cinders. It was twelve -or fourteen miles distant down on the lee quarter. - -“The deuce!” thought I. “What has been our drift? Where has the brig -been running to? And yet Greaves told me he could trust Bol!” - -I looked through the skylight, and immediately the captain, who lay upon -the locker, opened his eyes and fastened them upon me. - -“The island is in sight, sir.” - -“How far distant?” - -I made answer. He asked a few questions, then bade me shift the brig’s -helm for the rock to complete our watering. Twenty minutes later we were -standing once more for the island, with all plain sail heaped upon the -brig, and a quiet air of wind blowing dead on end over the taffrail. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -WE START FOR HOME. - - -We were off the island again by nine o’clock. Greaves was wise to fill -his casks; the water was sweet, the road home long, and our peculiar -care was not to be forced to look in anywhere for supplies of any sort. -Yet it was as depressing as a disappointment to return to the island. Is -there an uglier heap of rock in the wide world? The black lava of the -scowling Galapagos yields nothing more horrid. And the spirit of its -dark and horrible solitude visited you the more sharply because of the -crawling, stealthy life you beheld low down by the wash of the beach, -remote from the inland loneliness; the creeping shape of the elephant -tortoise, of the black lizard, of crabs as huge as targets, and no -further motion save what’s in the air, where the ocean fowl are -glancing. That island was a fit tomb for the ship which it caverned. You -thought of it as a grave, of the ship as a corpse; and the ugly heap of -flat split cliff and black lava climbing into spires, and front of -cinderous rock corrugated by the arrest of their glowing cataracts, fell -cold upon the sight, and colder yet upon the heart. - -We sent a hand aloft as before to keep a sharp lookout. The island lay -square in the north, and while we hung hove-to off the reefs, at any -hour something large and armed might come sailing up from the horizon at -the back, and heave the breast of a royal over the western or eastern -point ere we could guess that there was anything within leagues and -leagues of us. Yan Bol took charge of the longboat and went ashore. It -was a fine morning, but the sky looked dim, like a blue eye after tears; -the sun had his sting of yesterday, but not his flash. A long swell -swung through the sea, but the heave was out of the north, and we lay -south, the land between; it was smooth here or we could have done little -in the way of watering. The corners of the land illustrated the weight -of the swell; the white water burst in clouds there, and the noise of it -came along with the voice of a gathering storm. - -Greaves was so much better of the pain in his side that he sat at -breakfast and took a chair upon the deck afterward. He called me to his -cabin, while we were heading for the island, and asked me to look at his -ribs. There was a little discoloration, such as might attend a -bruise--no more. I pressed the bones, but he did not wince. I dug -somewhat deep in the soft part just under the liver, but he uttered no -sound. The pain was very nearly gone, he told me; yet he looked pale, -and his eyes wanted their former light and old activity of glance. - -I was busy in bringing the brig to a stand while Greaves was at -breakfast, and on passing the skylight and looking down, I saw the lady -Aurora seated at table with him. When he came on deck after breakfast, -she followed; Jimmy placed chairs and she was about to sit, but catching -sight of me she approached, bowing low, with a fine arch smile, and her -hand extended. I supposed she meant merely to shake me by the hand, but -on grasping my fingers she retained them, and I felt a foolish blush -upon my face, as she drew me to the binnacle stand, at which she -pointed, saying, “compass.” She then led me to the side, and projecting -her glittering hand over the rail, said “sea.” Then, looking aloft, she -laughed and shook her head, and cried: - -“No sar, señor.” - -“Star,” said I. - -“_Si_--star--_gracias_,” she exclaimed. - -“Had you not better mind your eye?” exclaimed Greaves, as we approached -him. “Somebody’s told her the value of your share in the chinks below. -She’s no clipper, but she’s got a devilish fine bow and run, and you’d -find her bends sweetly good, I’ll warrant you, were you to careen her -and clear her sides. By Isten! Fielding, she’ll be forging ahead and -taking you in tow if you don’t mind your helm.” - -I made no reply. I did not greatly relish Greaves’ humor. The girl’s -ignorance of our tongue was an appeal to our respect. But then I was -twenty-four--an age of sensibility. Greaves was an older man, and though -I love his memory, I must say the sea had a little blunted some of the -finer points of feeling in him. - -Madam Aurora took the chair which Jimmy had placed, and she and Greaves -sat together, but in silence. Some business of the brig occupied my -attention. Presently Greaves told me to go below and breakfast. - -“I will look after the ship,” said he. - -I went below and made a good breakfast. There was a dish of terrapin; -the Dutch sailor Wirtz, the burly, carroty man, with the deep roaring -voice--but all our Dutchmen had deep voices--had somewhere learnt the -art of cooking terrapin. He had stayed in the brig to dress this -delicious meat, and Frank Hals, the cook, had gone ashore in his place -in the longboat. I fared sumptuously, washing the delicate morsels down -with some of the _Casada’s_ cocoa, which had been prepared for the pot -by Thomas Teach, who professed to have learnt what he knew under this -head in two voyages he had made to the Dutch Spice Islands. - -Galloon had followed me into the cabin, and bore me company. He sat upon -his chair and gazed at me affectionately when I talked to him. Often had -I talked out my mind to Galloon. Often in quiet, lonely watches, during -the outward passage, had I held his ears, while his fore paws rested -upon my knees, and given loose to the imaginations which the prospect of -the promise of realizing thirty thousand dollars raised up in me. And -then, again, I loved this dog as the savior of my life. Never could I -look into his affectionate, liquid, intelligent eye, but that I would -think to myself, and often say aloud to him, dog as he was, a poor -four-footed beast, soulless, as it is commonly supposed, of affections -to be best won by kicks and curses--that he had, by saving my life, -become in a sense the creator of a man, the renewer of a being deemed by -his own species immortal in spirit, so that whatever I did a dog would -be answerable for; the existence of all passions in me, my pleasures and -hopes and griefs; nay, my marriage, should ever I marry, and the -children I begot, would be all chargeable upon a poor dog, God wot! a -strange thing to reflect on by one who has been made to believe, all his -life, that he is only a little lower than the angels, and yet true as -the blessed sunlight itself; for if it had not been for Galloon, long -ago I should have been--what? the roe of a herring, perhaps, the liver -of a cod--instead of a man, capable of looking back, through a long -avenue of years, and of moralizing thus. - -When I came on deck I found Antonio standing in front of Greaves, cap in -hand, translating for him and the lady. On my appearing, Miss Aurora -exclaimed quickly and eagerly to the Spaniard, who turning to me, said, -squinting as he spoke: - -“The señorita has met you before.” - -“Where?” said I. - -“At Lima, señor.” - -“Never was at Lima in my life.” - -He translated; she made a little dignified gesture of impatience. - -“The lady says that she has met you at the house of----” and here -Antonio named a Spanish merchant of Lima. - -“No,” said I, looking at her and shaking my head. - -“Yes,” she cried in English, and spoke rapidly to Antonio. - -“She is not mistaken, _caballero_. Two thumbs are alike, but two faces -never.” - -“You never were at Lima?” said Greaves. - -“Never,” I exclaimed, laughing. - -“Let her have her way,” said Greaves. “Contrive to have visited Lima, -and to have been a bosom friend of Don----,” and he named the Spanish -merchant. “What does it signify? May it not mean that she is in love -with you, and that her professing to have met you is a Spanish maiden’s -device to cover an advance, as a soldier would say.” - -Antonio continued to squint. I viewed him narrowly, and was satisfied -that he had not understood the captain’s words. - -“Beg the lady to continue her narrative,” said Greaves. - -She addressed Antonio in a few sentences at a time. Occasionally her -language was above his understanding; he would look at her stupidly, -until she gave him another nod. How rich was her Spanish, how -honey-sweet her utterance! It was like listening to singing. The -memories which thronged her recital delicately colored with blood her -pale olive cheek; her eyes moistened or sparkled as she spoke, or -watched while Antonio interpreted. Most of the time her gaze was -fastened upon me. It seemed as though she put me before Greaves, as -though the incident of my having had charge of the boat which brought -her off the island, had established me in her gratitude as her -deliverer. - -Her story, however, was little more than a repetition of what has -already been related. Her mother had been absent twenty years from Old -Spain. On the death of her husband, she sold the estate and all her -interest in the business, and went to Acapulco with her daughter, on a -visit to her brother, who was a priest at that place; thence she and -Aurora took shipping for Cadiz. - -The lady broke off at this to implore us, through Antonio, to tell her, -as sailors, whether we believed her mother’s life had been preserved. -Greaves answered that he considered it very probable that her mother was -alive. Who was to tell that the ship had foundered? Who was to say that -she had not outweathered the gale, been jury-rigged and worked by the -survivors into port, the Señorita Aurora’s mother being on board? - -The girl’s eyes glistened when this was translated. She smiled at -Greaves and thanked him in Spanish. An expression of pleading then -entered her face, and her look took a peculiar color of beauty from the -wistfulness and plaintiveness of it. Why would not the captain set her -ashore at Lima, that she might rejoin her mother, who, on landing--it -mattered not at what port on the coast--was sure to make her way to -Acapulco? - -But Greaves shook his head, smiling into her eyes, which were -impassioned with entreaty. - -“I must go straight home,” said he. “Do not you know that there is a -treasure in our hold, which obliges me to make haste to reach England? I -will take care that you safely arrive at Madrid, even should it come to -myself escorting you, señorita.” - -She bowed, looking sadly. - -“Or here,” said he, extending his hand toward me, “is a cavalier who -will be honored by conducting you to Madrid.” - -She slightly glanced at me, then fastened her eyes upon the deck and -mused for a few moments; then addressed Antonio, who, turning to me, -said--but in English, you will please understand, which I do not attempt -to reproduce, that you may read without hindrance: - -“The lady recollects that when she met you at Lima you spoke Spanish.” - -“I was never at Lima,” I answered, coloring and then laughing. - -“Depend upon it,” said Greaves, “that the fellow she met was -good-looking, or recollection wouldn’t be so bright.” - -“What was the occupation of the gentleman?” said I to the lady, through -Antonio. - -“He was an English naval officer, had been imprisoned, but had been at -liberty some weeks when the señorita met him.” - -“What was his name?” - -“She does not remember; but you are the gentleman.” - -“Be it so,” said I, laughing. - -“On slenderer evidence have men been hanged,” said Greaves. - -Now came a short pause. Antonio shuffled his naked feet, sometimes -looking straight, sometimes squinting, impatient to get forward and -lounge. The longboat had made her second trip, and lay alongside the -beach. The figures of the men crawling from the grove of trees, -trundling the casks among them, showed like beetles in the distance. It -was about eleven o’clock. The sunlight was misty; the swell rolled with -a dull flash in the brows of it; the wind hummed like clustering bees -aloft, and swept the cheek as the breath and kiss of fever. The slewing -of the brig, along with the sliding of the sun, pitched the glare upon -the deck clear of the trysail, in whose shadow we had been conversing. I -called to a man to spread the short awning. Antonio was going; the lady -Aurora detained him. - -“The señorita wants to know,” said the Spanish seaman, “how long the -voyage to England occupies.” - -“We mean to thrash our way home,” answered Greaves. “We shall not take -long. Let us call it three months.” - -“Blessed Virgin! Three months!” echoed the girl in Spanish. - -A fine look of tragic horror enlarged her eyes. She distorted her mouth -into a singular expression. The tension paled her lips and exposed her -teeth. - -Greaves seemed to admire her. For _my_ part, I thought her now the most -beautiful and wonderful creature I had ever heard of--a lady who might -either be angel or devil, you could not tell which; or she might be -both. Her face defied you, for it could put on twenty looks in the -course of a short conversation, thanks to her heavy eyebrows, which were -full of play and character, and thanks to the long lashes of her -eyelids, whose drop or lift, whose languishing falls, and arch or -scornful or playful erections, changed the meaning of her glances for -her as she chose, rendering them, at her will, transparently eloquent or -as inscrutable as a gypsy’s gaze. She put her hand upon her dress, and -Antonio interpreted. - -“The lady’s gown will not last three months, and then, señor?” - -“Chaw!” cried Greaves, and, pointing with something of passion to the -island, he exclaimed--“Ask the lady to put the clock back till the day -before yesterday is reached, and _then_!” - -On this being explained a flash of temper lighted up her eyes. - -“I shall be in rags,” said she, “before you reach your country.” - -“We have needles and thread on board,” said Greaves coolly. - -“You are men, and cannot conceive what it is to be a woman embarking on -a long voyage, possessed of no more clothes than what she has on.” - -“How can we comfort her?” said I. - -“Can the señorita sew?” said Greaves. - -Certainly she could sew. - -“Then,” said Greaves, “if the señorita can sew, let her mind be at rest. -I am the owner of a roll of fine duck, which is entirely at her service. -There are yards enough to yield her as many dresses as she needs. Will -she require stuff for trimming? Let her select a flag of two or three -colors. Bunting makes excellent trimming. It is light and brine-proof.” - -Antonio bungled much, and squinted fiercely in the delivery of this; yet -he contrived to make the lady faintly understand the meaning of Greaves’ -speech. She tapped on her knee with her fingers, and seemed to keep time -with the beat of her foot to an air that she inaudibly hummed; her black -eyes were downward bent, but at swift intervals the fringes lifted, and -a glance of light sparkled at me or Greaves. I noticed a pouting play of -mouth. In fact, her air was that of a girl who has been spoiled by -indulgence since her childhood. One figured her as the goddess of the -fandango, the burden of the midnight guitar, and the heroine of a score -of sweethearts. - -“Duck is very well for dresses, sir,” said I. “She is thinking of -under-linen.” - -“We are not to know anything about under-linen,” said Greaves. “She must -make what she wants. She doesn’t seem grateful enough to please me. To -bother me about dress now, after four days of that cinder, and the -deliverance recent enough to keep most people hysterically sobbing and -thanking God in fervent ejaculations!” - -Antonio addressed her. I guessed he wanted to know if he could go. She -spoke to him, and the man, awkwardly smiling, said: - -“The señorita asks if you are Catholics?” - -“Yes and no, for my part,” answered Greaves, looking at her gravely, “I -am heading that way. I believe I shall hoist the Papal flag yet, but -it’s not flying at present.” - -“Is the capitan a Catholic?” repeated the lady. - -“Ay, but not a Papist,” said Greaves. - -“Are you a Catholic, señor?” - -“I love God and hate the devil,” said I. “That is my religion. It is -broad, and there is room for many names upon its back.” - -“Is it customary for ladies, do you know, Fielding, for ladies who have -just been rescued from the horrors of a volcanic island, from perils -hideously increased by the association of such a yellow and by no means -fangless worm as that”--dropping his head in a cool nod at Antonio--“to -inquire into the religious faiths of their preservers?” - -The lady Aurora spoke. - -“The señorita wishes to know when you changed your religion?” - -“Ah, when, indeed?” said I, laughing. - -“You were a very good Catholic at Lima, señor?” - -“Yes, when I was at Lima, I was a very good Catholic?” said I. - -“Then you are the _caballero_ the señorita supposes?” - -“Damn ye, you squinting devil, you know better!” thundered Greaves. -“Jump forward. We’ve had enough of this.” - -The man fled toward the forecastle, noiseless with naked feet. The lady -looked frightened. - -“Lima, señorita--_no_!” said I smiting my bosom with force. - -She gazed at me earnestly with an expression of misgiving, then -addressed me in Spanish. Greaves gathered her meaning. - -“I believe she says you are not her man, if you are not a Catholic,” -said he; and then pointing at me, and looking at her, he cried out, “No -Catholic--no Lima--not your man, in any sense of the word. Fielding, -what’s that Dutch devil Bol up to?” - -I went to the side to look for the longboat. She was at that moment -coming through the two points of reef. Her oars rose and fell in the -distance in hairs of gold, and she seemed to tow a hair of gold in her -wake as she came out of the calm breast of the harbor into the soundless -heave of the ocean. I reported her approach and lay upon the rail -watching her, and musing upon what had passed between the Spanish maid -and us. - -It was odd to think of a fine young woman, sitting on the deck of a -vessel, that had but a few hours before taken her off the desolate -island which was still in view, coolly inquiring into the religious -beliefs of her preservers, and looking as though, if time had been given -her, she would presently overhaul our consciences. To be sure, she hoped -that if she found us Catholics, she would get more of her way with us, -obtain pity, sympathy, enough to procure her direct conveyance to a near -port. She left her chair, came close to my side, and stood looking at -the boat; in a moment, pointing to it, she asked in Spanish for its -name. I gave her the name, turning to look at Greaves, who was laughing -softly, but with an averted face. She put more questions, pointing to -the objects, and then lightly laying her fingers upon my arm, she signed -that I should take her forward, glancing at Greaves as she did so, -following the look on with a full stare at me, and a shake of the head -eloquent as her speech. It was for all the world as though she had said -in plain English, “I don’t like that man; let us leave this part of the -ship.” - -I made her understand as best I could, by pointing to the approaching -boat, and then to the yardarm whip for slinging the casks aboard, that -my duty obliged me to stop where I was. She bowed, but with a little -flush, as though vexed by my refusal; indeed, in her whole instant -manner, there was the irritation of your ladyship, of your exacting, -well-served, much-admired, fine young madam, who is very little used to -being disappointed. - -I moved forward toward the gangway by two or three steps, that she might -guess my work prohibited talk; and, in fact, conversation would have -been impossible in a few minutes, for the longboat was fast nearing the -brig, and the job of seeing the water aboard was mine; and that was not -all, either. Greaves was captain; he was on deck, watching and -listening. The influence of the presence of a captain is always strong -upon the seaman, whether he be of the quarter-deck or of the forecastle. -Habit worked like an instinct, and disquieted me. Had Greaves been -below, I daresay I should have been very glad to keep the señorita at my -side, if only for the enjoyment of meeting her full gaze; for the longer -I looked at her eyes, the more did I wonder at their depth and life, at -their transcendent powers of repulsion and solicitation, and eloquence -of rapid expression; and the longer I listened to her voice, the more -was I charmed by the sweetness and richness of it; and the longer I -beheld her face, the more manifold grew its revelations. But its -revelations of what? My pen has no art to answer that question. You gaze -upon the face of the deep, and beauties steal out of it to your -perception, and you know not how to define them, you know not how to -indicate them. They come blending in an effect that enlarges as you -look, and the sum of the steady revelation is a deepening delight and a -constant growth of wonder. I hear you say, “Had a woman of Spain ever -the beauty you claim or invent for this lady?” My answer is as simple as -a look--I say “Yes.” The Señorita Aurora de la Cueva was a woman of -Spain, and she had the beauty, and more than the beauty, I feebly -attempt to describe. I care not if all the females of Old Spain are as -hideous as hobgoblins and witches; they may all be bearded like the -pard, thatched at the brow with horse hair, their complexions of -chocolate, their figures bolsters; the lady Aurora was beautiful, her -charms I have scarce language enough to hint at, much less portray. This -she was, and whether you believe me or not signifies nothing. - -And I did not much admire the woman when I first saw her! thought I. In -fact, had I rowed her aboard another ship and never seen her again, I -should never have thought of her again. Is it to end in my making a fool -of myself? Does a man make a fool of himself when he falls in love? A -plague upon these cheap cynic phrases which creep into the national -speech, and form the mirth of boys and the wisdom of the sucklings of -literature. But I am not in love yet, anyhow, thought I. - -“Oars!” roared Bol, in the stern sheets of the boat. “Standt by mit der -boathook. Vy der doyfil doan somebody gif us der end of a rope?” - -A rope was flung. My lady Aurora walked forward, calling and beckoning -to Antonio. She arrived abreast of the galley and stood there, and -talked to the Spaniard, pointing about her and clearly asking for the -name of things in English. - -“Fielding,” cried Greaves. - -“Sir,” I answered, facing about. - -“She will be making love to you in your own tongue before another week -is out,” he called. - -“Such a voice as hers would keep anything not deaf listening as long as -she liked.” - -“She has a very sweet voice,” he exclaimed, “and she is a very fine -woman. But should she pick up our tongue, you’ll find the devil that’s -inside of her come drifting out horns first with the earliest of her -speech. Talk of your fears of the crew! She’s the sort of party to carry -a ship single-handed, though the vessel mounted the guns and was manned -by the complement of the _Royal Sovereign_. She is learning English for -some piratic motive--it may be the dollars, it may be the brig--for she -don’t want to go, and I dare say she don’t mean to go round the Horn -without her mother. Bol, is this the last load?” - -“Der last loadt, sir.” - -“Bear a hand then to whip the water aboard, and let us get away.” - -It was a quarter before one by the time we had chocked and secured the -longboat and were ready to start on a passage that was to carry us over -many thousands of miles of salt water. The breeze had freshened; soft -small clouds, like shadings in pencil, were sailing up off the edge of -the sea into the misty blue overhead; the luster of the sun was still -pale and brassy, and a look of wind was in the yellow of the disk-shaped -spread of radiance, out of which he looked like an eye of fire in a -target of gold. - -“Make sail, Fielding,” called Greaves, from his chair, on which he had -been sitting ever since he came on deck, though in all those hours he -had not once complained of pain. “Make sail and heap it on her. Bring -her head due south, and let her go.” - -The braces of the yards of the main were manned, the wheel turned, the -canvas filled as the fiery breath, that was now brushing the sea, and -that seemed to come the hotter for the very dimness of the sunshine, -gushed over the quarter. We squared away to it; and now the island -slided by, opening features of its swart, melancholy, loathly rocks, -which had been invisible before. The milk-white burst of surge made the -base of the cliff in the wash of it black. I noticed a hovering of pale -radiance upon the patch of verdure where the grove or wood stood. It was -no more than a patch to our distant eye; it was like the dance of the -South African silver tree. The verdure had the gleam of an emerald, and -you thought of a gem on the sallow breast of death. - -I was full of the business of making sail, yet could find an eye for the -island as it veered away on the quarter. Greaves gazed at it intently, -so did the lady Aurora as she stood at the rail, with her profile cut -clear and keen as a marble bust against the sky over the horizon. The -mouth of the cave yawned upon us, then narrowed, then thinned into a -slice, then vanished round a shoulder of cliff. - -“Pull, you toyfils! Shoomp und run!” bawled Bol, in his hurricane note, -to the two Spaniards, who were loafing near the galley, lazily looking -on at the work that was going forward. “Dis vhas not der islandt--dis -vhas no shipwreck. Shoomp, or I make you fly mit a sharge of goonpowder -in der slack of yer breeks.” - -The royals were sheeted home; trysail, flying jib, staysails set; for it -was a quartering wind, and there was scarce a cloth that we could throw -abroad but could do serviceable work. They called this sort of sailing -in our time _going along all fluking_, the weather-clew of the mainsail -up and the lee-clew dully lifting its weight of blocks and hawser-like -sheets and thick frame of foot and bolt-rope. - -“Set all stu’n’-sails,” cried Greaves; and soon out to windward soared -to their several yardarms and to their boom-ends those wide, overhanging -spaces of sail, clothing the brig in surf-white cloths from the royal -mast heads to the very heave of the brine, when she rolled her -swinging-boom to windward. - -“Pipe to dinner!” called Greaves. - -The sweet, clear strains of Yan Bol’s whistle found a hundred echoes in -the hollows on high. Aurora gazed upward, as though looking for the -birds. The men had worked hard, and were pale with heat and sweat. They -had worked with a will in making sail. Even the Dutchmen had sprang -along and aloft with a bluejacket’s activity; for we were homeward -bound! a cry in every marine heart magical in its inspiration of swift -and eager labor. With dripping brows the men stood looking at the -receding island, while Yan Bol whistled them to dinner; and when the -burly Dutch boatswain let fall the pipe upon his breast to the length of -its laniard, all hands, moved by feelings which made every throat one -for the moment, roared out a long, wild cheer of farewell to the island, -flourishing caps and arms to it, as though its heights were crowded with -friends who could see and hear them. - -“Look at Galloon!” cried Greaves. - -The dog was on the taffrail, and every bark he sent at the island was -like a loud hurrah, with the significance the noise took from the -wagging of the creature’s tail and the set of the whole figure of him. - -“He knows we are homeward bound,” said Greaves. - -“And that the dollars are aboard,” said I. - -Miss Aurora went to the dog, caressed, and talked to him. The lad -Jimmy’s head showed at the galley door. Greaves hailed him to know when -dinner would be ready. - -“Another twenty minutes, master.” - -“Heave the log, Fielding, and let’s get the pace at the start.” - -All expression of pain was now passed out of his face; likewise had his -natural, fresh color returned to him. The triumph of this time had -kindled his eyes anew, and there were pride and content in the looks -which he cast around his brig and over the rail at the island. And I -think if ever there was a man who had a right to feel satisfied with -himself and his work, Greaves, at this time, was he; for, truly, -something more than talent had gone to the discovery of the dollars in -the caverned ship. Mere accident it was that had disclosed the vessel, -but it needed the genius of a great adventurer to light upon the -dollars, to note all the particulars of the Spanish manifest, to hold -the secret behind his teeth till he got home, to inspire such an old -hunks as Bartholomew Tulp with confidence enough to shed his blood, or, -in other words, to disburse his money, in the furtherance of this -enterprise of recovery. - -I called a couple of men aft and hove the log. What is the log? It is a -reel round which are wound many fathoms of line; at the end of the line -is attached a piece of wood, sometimes a canvas bag, designed to grip -the water when it is hove overboard. The line is spaced into knots, and -the running of it is timed by a glass of sand. This log is one of the -oldest contrivances we have at sea. With it the early navigators groped -their way about the world. It found them New Holland and the Indies, and -both Americas. It was their longitude and often their latitude. It was -their chronometer and sextant. We use it still, and cannot better it. A -simple and noble old contrivance is the log. May the mariner never lose -faith in it! Crutched by the log on one side, and the lead on the other, -he may hobble round the globe in safety, defiant of shoals, regardless -of fogs. - -I hove the log, and made the speed seven knots. - -“A good start!” exclaimed Greaves, rising and coming slowly to the rail, -and looking over. He walked without inconvenience or pain, and stood -with a thoughtful face, gazing at the satin-white sheets of foam sliding -past. Madam Aurora left Galloon and came to my side, but Galloon -followed her--never went there to sea a friendlier, a more affectionate -dog. The men were hauling in the dripping log line and reeling it up. -The lady with a smile said with a very good accent, “How do you call -it?” I laughed as I pronounced the word _log_. Oh, what should it convey -to the imagination of a Spanish maiden? - -She understood, however, for what purpose it had been used, and with -eloquent gestures inquired the speed. I held up my fingers. - -“_Quien lo hubiera creído?_” cried she. - -“She is not grumbling, I hope,” called Greaves from the rail, and he -slowly approached us. - -The lady looked for a little while very earnestly at the captain, with a -world of meaning in her beautiful eyes--meaning so eloquent in _desire_ -of expression, that it was pathetic to witness the arrest of speech in -her gaze and face. She then with grace and dignity motioned round the -sea. - -“It is very wide, and the voyage before us is a long one--I understand -that,” interpreted Greaves; and never did man peruse lineaments more -speaking or translate glances more radiant and expressive. - -She then placed the forefinger of her right hand upon her lips to -signify silence or dumbness. - -“Which means,” said Greaves, “that you can’t speak our tongue, and don’t -like the prospect, accordingly.” - -She then took her dress in her hand, putting on a most mournful -countenance. - -“Yaw, yaw,” cried Greaves, with a little irritation, “we have discussed -that matter, madam. But there is white duck below--duck for the duck, -what d’ye say, Fielding? and there are hussifs in the fok’sle.” - -I believed that her dumb show was at an end. Not at all. Clasping her -hands sparkling with the several rings she wore, and raising them in a -posture of supplication to the level of her mouth, she upturned her face -to the sky, and with an inimitable expression of entreaty, of piteous -prayer rather, insomuch that her eyes seemed to swim and her lips to -work, she stood while you could have counted ten. - -“Sainted and purest of all the Marias, put pity into the heart of this -British captain, and cause him to set me ashore, for the sea is wide and -the voyage is long; and I am possessed by a dumb devil and cast among -heretics; and I have but one gown; and, O Maria and ye saints! candles -shall ye have in plenty, mortification will I undergo, prayers by the -fathom will I recite, choice gifts will I make to Holy Mother Church, if -ye will but soften the heart of the durned, slab-sided skipper who -stands opposite me, interpreting my mind. There ye have it, Fielding. -That’s what her gestures said, that’s what her eyes looked. But I tell -you what--this sort of thing will grow tiresome presently. You must bear -a hand and teach her to speak English.” - -“Dinner’s on the table, master,” said Jimmy, putting his head through -the companion way. - -“Call Yan Bol aft to stand a lookout while we dine, Fielding,” said -Greaves, “and give your arm to the lady and bring her below. She don’t -like me.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -A FIGHT. - - -We had swept the island out of sight before we left the dinner table. -When I came on deck the horizon had closed somewhat upon us. The ocean -was a weak blue, and ran with a frosty sparkle into a sort of film or -thickness that went all round the sea. The breeze had freshened, and it -whipped the waters into little billows, with yearning and snapping heads -of foam, and it was pouring its increasing volume into the lofty height -and wide expanse of canvas under which the brig was thrusting along in a -staggering, rushing way, the glass-smooth curve of brine at the bow -breaking abreast of the gangway with a twelve-knot flash of the foam -into the throbbing race of the long wake. - -We kept her so throughout the afternoon until six o’clock, when the -evening began to darken eastward; we then took in the lower and -topgallant studding sails, but left her to drag the fore topmast -studding sails if she could not carry it, for this was wind to make the -most of; we could not, to our impatience, come up with the Horn too -soon; many parallels were there for our keel to cut before we should -find ourselves abreast of that headland; degrees of latitude lying like -hurdles for the brig to take along that mighty and majestic course of -ocean. - -That same night of the day of our departure from the island, Greaves -came out of the cabin and walked the deck with me. He had been amusing -himself for an hour below with the company of the Señorita Aurora. From -time to time I had watched them through the skylight. He smoked a cigar; -a glass of grog stood at his elbow, some wine and ship’s biscuit before -the lady. He held a pencil, and from time to time wrote, looking up at -her; and she would bend over the paper, read, give him a dignified nod, -take the pencil, and herself write. - -But it seemed to me that she forced herself to endure this tuition. She -held herself as much away from him as the obligation of writing and -extending her hand and receiving the paper permitted. This went on till -about nine o’clock. The lady then withdrew, and Greaves came on deck as -I have said. - -“This is fine sailing,” said he. - -“Ay, indeed. I would part with some of those dollars below for a month -of it.” - -“I have been teaching the girl English, and have picked up some Spanish -words from her. She is an apt scholar; her mind is as swift as the light -in her eyes. It is clever of her to wish to learn English. We can’t be -always sending for that fellow Antonio. She seemed astonished when I -talked of three months, but she knows--she _must_ know--that the run -might occupy a vessel more than three months. What change would the -skipper of the craft she sailed out of Acapulco in be willing to give -out of _four_ months, ay, and perhaps five, in a passage to Cadiz?” - -“She, perhaps, thought of herself as being without clothes when you -talked of three months, and so cried out.” - -“Well, it is clever of her to wish to learn English. Here she is, and -here she’s likely to remain until we send her ashore in the Downs.” - -“But why?” - -“Why?” - -“Is there no chance of something coming along,” said I, “in which we can -send her to a port this side America?” - -“She knows there is a big treasure on board.” - -“That’s sure.” - -“She knows that it is Spanish money, and how got by us.” - -“True.” - -“Well, now, send her out of this brig with our secret in her head, and -we stand to be chased by the chap we put her aboard of.” - -“Not if she be an English ship.” - -“I’d trust no Englishman in this part of the world. Figure a craft as -heavily armed again as our little brig; figure _that_, and then count -our crew forward there. I’ll have no risks. I’ll speak nothing. We have -got what we came to fetch, and this is to be my last voyage. I am a rich -man now. There are thirty-six thousand pounds belonging to me below. -No, Fielding, the lady will have to go along with us. You shall teach -her English, she shall teach me Spanish. She shall pour out tea, act the -hostess, sing; the very spirit of melody swells her fine throat every -time she opens her lips. She shall make dresses for herself and -under-linen.” - -“And the two Spaniards?” - -“They must go along with us too. They are a worthless, skulking pair of -fellows, I fear; but we must keep ’em.” - -“They get no dollars?” said I. - -“Not so much as shall buy them soap. We have saved their lives; that’s -good pay for such service as they’ll render. What shall you do with your -money?” - -“Well, I have often considered, captain,” I answered. “I believe I shall -buy a little house, put what remains out at interest, and go a-fishing -for the rest of my days. And you?” - -“First of all,” he answered, “I shall knock off the sea. I shall then -strike deep inland and look for a little estate in the heart of a -midland shire. I do not know that I shall marry. Should I marry, it will -be with a lady of my own degree in life. I will play the gentleman only -so far as I am entitled by my condition to represent one. I will be no -sham. There is no yardarm high enough for the hanging of the men who, -having got or inherited money, set up as country gentlemen, still -splashed with the mud of the gutter out of which their fathers crawled, -shaking themselves--illiterate, vulgar, scorned by the footmen who stand -behind their chairs, belly-crawlers, title-lickers, toadies. Faugh! I -once made a rhyme on shams--four lines--the only rhymes I ever made in -my life: - - “Pull up your blinds that all the world may see - The house you live in and the man you be. - The blinds are up, and now the sun hath shone: - The house is empty and the man is gone.” - -“By which you mean to imply----” said I. - -“By which I mean to imply,” he interrupted, “that if the lines don’t -tell their own story they must be deuced bad.” - -He stopped to look at the compass. The night was dark, but the dusk had -cleared. The clouds raced swiftly over the stars, and the wind blew -strong, but with no increase of weight since we had taken in the -studding sails. The brig rushed along, leaving a meteor’s line of light -astern of her. The dim squares of her royals swayed on high with the -floating stroke of a pendulum. I admired the dark and pallid picture of -the little fabric speeding lonely through this vast field of night. - -Greaves came from the binnacle and stood beside me. - -“Fielding,” he exclaimed, with cordiality strong in his voice, “it -rejoices my heart when I reflect that I, whose life you saved, should, -by a very miracle of chance, be the one man chosen, as it were, to -substantially, and I may say handsomely, serve you.” - -“I shall walk through my days blessing your name,” said I, grasping the -hand he extended. “And how have you repaid me? You have not only -preserved me from drowning, you make me easy for the rest of my time.” - -“The accounts are squared to my taste,” said he. “I am very well -satisfied. To-morrow I shall want you to take stock of the cases in the -lazarette. You found them heavy?” - -“All, sir.” - -“And all are full, no doubt. But you shall make sure for me.” - -“I shall want help,” said I. “Whom shall I choose among the crew?” - -“It matters not,” he answered. “All hands know the money is there.” - -“Yes; but it is an _idea_ to them now. When they come to see the sparkle -of the white dollars!” - -“There is no good in distrusting them,” said he. “I am aware that your -fears run that way. When we were outward bound your fears ran in another -direction,” he added dryly. “Let me tell you this, whether we choose to -trust the men or not, they’re aboard; they man the ship; they are the -people who are to navigate her home. We _must_ trust them,” he repeated -with emphasis. “In fact,” he continued after a short pause, “I would set -an example of good faith by letting them understand how entirely I trust -them. Therefore, to-morrow, take Bol and two others of the men who were -left aboard me when you went to the _Casada_, and examine the cases in -their presence, you testing, they moving the boxes for you.” - -I replied in the customary sea phrase; for this was a direct order, the -wisdom of which it was no duty of mine to challenge. Shortly afterward -he went below. - -It blew so fresh that night and next day, however, that the sea ran too -high to enable me to get below among the cases. It was a spell of wild, -hard weather for that part of the world, though it never blew so fierce -as to oblige us to heave-to. - -The gale held steady on the quarter and we stormed along, the white -seas rising in clouds as high as the foretop and blowing ahead like vast -bursts of steam from the hatchway. - -Greaves pressed the brig, and she rushed through the surge in madness. I -never before saw a vessel spring through the seas as did the _Black -Watch_ at this time under a single-reefed foresail and double-reefed -topsails. She’d be in a smother forward, just a seething dazzle of yeast -’twixt the forecastle rails, everything hidden that way in a snowstorm, -so that you’d think the whole length of her was thundering into the -boiling whiteness about her bows; but in a breath she’d leap, black and -streaming, to the height of the lifting sea, with a toss of the head -that filled the wind with crystals and prisms of brine, while a -long-drawn whistling and hooting came out of the fabric of her slanting -masts, and the water blew forward in white smoke from the gushing -scuppers. - -Then came a change; the dawn of the third morning painted a delicate -lilac along the eastern sky, and when the sun rose over the wide Pacific -the morning was one of cloudless splendor. - -At eight o’clock Yan Bol came aft to take charge of the deck. I told him -that presently we would be going into the lazarette to take stock of the -cases of silver, and that the captain would keep a lookout while he was -below. - -A dull light glittered in the eyes of the big Dutchman. He grinned and -said, “Vill not she be a long shob, Mr. Fielding?” - -“Yes,” said I. - -“How long shall she take a man to gount a tousand dollars? Und dere vhas -hoondreds und tousands of dollars to gount below.” - -“Do you think I mean to count the dollars?” - -“Yaw.” - -I arched my eyebrows at him, and then gave him my back. - -“Veil, I vhas sorry. I like gounting money. Dere vhas a shoy in der feel -of money if so be ash he vhas gold or silver--I do not love copper--dot -makes me happier, Mr. Fielding, dan any odder pleasure. Ox me vhy und I -tells you? Because vhen I gounts money she vhas mine own. No man gives -me his money to gount. She vhas mine own; but leedle I have, and vhen I -counts her it vhas after long years, so dot der pleasure vhas all der -same as a pipe und a pot to a man vhen he comes out of der lockoop.” - -While I breakfasted I enjoyed some conversation in dumb show with the -lady Aurora--dumb show for the most part, I should say--for a number of -English words she now possessed, and I was astonished not more by her -memory than by the excellence of her pronunciation. Her knowledge of a -single word uttered by me seemed to light up the whole phrase to her -perception. Her gaze would continue passionately wistful and expectant -whenever she listened with a desire to understand, and whenever she -seized or thought she had seized the sense of what was said, a flush -visited her cheeks, her whole face brightened. - -There was a degree of eagerness in this desire of hers to learn English -that was a little perplexing. It was an earnestness, call it an -enthusiasm if you will, that went beyond my idea of her need. It was -intelligible that she should wish to make herself understood. She would -now know that she was to be locked up in a ship with a number of -Englishmen for three or four months; what more reasonable than that she -should desire to make her wants intelligible without being forced upon -so disagreeable and ignorant an interpreter as Antonio, and without -seeking expression in grimaces and the lunatic language of the eyebrows, -shoulders, and hands? What more reasonable, I ask? But her earnestness, -her zeal, her satisfaction when she understood, caused me to wonder -somewhat when I thought of her in this way. She was on a desert island a -few days ago, with small prospect of deliverance from as frightful a -fate as could well befall a woman. For all she knew her mother was -drowned; she might be an orphan, and who was to tell what property -belonging to her and her mother had sunk in the Spaniard from which she -had escaped, supposing that vessel to have foundered? And yet spite of -all this her spirits were good, her beauty growing as the lingering -traces of her suffering died out. She took an interest in everything her -eyes rested upon, questioning me like a child, questioning Greaves, nay, -walking forward, as I have told you, to ask Antonio for the English -names of things, and all the while her troubles, so far as she was able -to express them, did not go beyond an anxiety as to clothes for herself -and an eagerness to pick up our tongue. - -These thoughts ran in my head as I ate my breakfast, while she talked to -me by gesticulation, occasionally uttering a word or two in English, and -listening with shining eyes to the sentences I let fall in my own -speech. Greaves lay upon a locker. He listened, sometimes smiling, but -rarely spoke. He complained this morning of an aching in his side where -he had hurt himself, and said that he feared he had made a mistake in -walking yesterday; he was afraid he had overworked the bruised ribs, but -he looked well, and when he spoke there was a heartiness in his voice. -It was as likely as not that he had angered the bruise by too much -walking about the decks, and I advised him to lie up until the pain -went. - -However, the brig was to be watched while I went into the lazarette with -Bol and the others, so I sent Jimmy on deck with a chair, and when I had -breakfasted Greaves got up, put his hand upon my shoulder, and together -we ascended the companion ladder. - -Yan Bol was carpenter as well as bo’sun and sail-maker. I bade him fetch -the necessary tools for opening the cases and securing them again. With -us went Henry Call and another--I forget who that man was. We lighted a -couple of lanterns, and going into the cabin lifted the lazarette hatch -that was just abaft the companion steps. The lady Aurora came to the -square hole to look at us, and inquired by signs what we were going to -do. I shrugged Spanish fashion, and made a face at her, that she might -gather that what we were going to do was entirely beyond the art of my -shoulders and arms to communicate. - -“Doan she shpeak no English, Mr. Fielding?” said Bol, as he handed down -his tools to Call, who was already in the lazarette. - -“No,” said I. - -“Veil, I, Yan Bol, teaches him herself in a month for von of her rings.” - -“Over with ye, Bol. Catch hold of this lantern.” - -He dropped through the hatch and I followed, and Miss Aurora stood at -the edge of the square of the hole, holding by the companion steps and -peering down. - -There were one hundred and forty cases; we examined every one of them; -it was a long job. I felt mighty reluctant at first to let Bol prize -open the lids and gaze with the others at the dull, frosty glitter of -the long rolls of dollars; but a little reflection made me sensible of -the force of Greaves’ argument. If the crew were not to be trusted, what -was to be done? And was it not a mere piece of cheap quarter-deck -subtlety on my part to hold that the _idea_ of the dollars being aft was -not the same as _seeing_ them? - -There was no need to watch very anxiously; the dollars were packed as -tightly as though the metal had been poured red-hot into the cases and -hardened in solid blocks. There was never a nail on Bol’s stump-ended -fingers that could have scratched a coin out. - -“Vhas dere goldt here as veil ash silver?” he inquired. - -“No.” - -“Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding, but how vhas you to know?” - -“How was anybody to know what these cases contained at all? Shove ahead, -will ye, and ask fewer questions. Are we to be here all day?” - -It was as hot as fire in this lazarette. Our blood was speedily in a -blaze and our clothes soaked. The three Jews who were summoned from the -province of Babylon to be hove into a burning furnace suffered not as we -did. Bol’s eyes took a gummy look and turned dull as bits of jelly fish; -yet the three fellows were perfectly happy in staring at the silver and -pulling the cases about. Every time a lid was lifted their heads came -together in the sheen of the lantern, and rude sounds of rejoicing broke -from them. - -“How many sprees goes to each box?” - -“There’s an Atlantic Ocean of drink in this here case alone.” - -“Smite me, but if this gets blown the girls’ll be coming down to meet -the brig afore she’s reported.” - -“She vhas a handsome coin. I likes to feel her in mine pocket. How much -vhas she vurth, Mr. Fielding?” - -“All that you shall be able to buy with her. Next case, and bear a -hand.” - -“How many tousand dollars vhas tdere in all?” - -“Enough to stiffen you with sausage and to keep ye oozy with schnapps.” - -We worked our way to the bottom case, and every case was chock-a-block, -as we say at sea--filled flush--and the dollars by the lantern light -resembled exquisitely wrought chain armor. I saw that every case was -securely nailed; the boxes were restowed. We then climbed out of the -lazarette, and Bol and the others went forward while I put on the hatch, -padlocked it, and withdrew the key. - -I plunged my fire-red face in water, quickly shifted, and quitted the -cabin, tired, burning hot, but very well satisfied with the morning’s -work. Greaves was seated in a chair, and Miss Aurora walked the deck, in -the shadow of the little awning, pacing the planks abreast of him. Her -carriage, to use the old-fashioned word, had she been draped as the -beauties of her person demanded, would have been lofty yet flowing, -dignified yet easy and floating, graceful as the motions of a dancer who -swims from the dance into walking; but the barbaric cut of her gown -spoiled all. Never did I behold a woman’s dress so ridiculously shaped. -It was a grief to an English eye, for in my country the girls’ costumes -were just such as would have hit and sweetened by suggestion the form of -Miss Aurora. Well do I remember the English girls’ style of 1815; the -neckerchief with its peep of white breast, the girdle under the swelling -bosom, the fair up and down fall of drapery thence. Never do I recall -that costume, with its hat of chip or leghorn, without a fancy of the -smell of buttercups and daisies, the flavor of cream, the scent of a -milkmaid fresh from the udder. - -I handed the key to Greaves. He put it in his pocket and gazed at me -inquiringly. - -“It’s all right, sir, to the bottom dollar,” said I. - -“Good!” he exclaimed. - -“It is so much right,” said I, “that I am disposed to think there is -more money than the manifest represents.” - -“There are five hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one hundred and -forty cases. I wish there may be more, but I suspect the entry was -correct. What did the men say?” - -“Yan Bol was all a-rumble with questions. There will be much talk -forward.” - -“There has been much talk aft,” he exclaimed, smiling. “Sailors are -human, and those fellows yonder are to pocket twelve hundred dollars -apiece besides their wages on this job. Let them talk. Let imagination -run away with them. Let the fiddle be jigging in their ears; let their -Polls be seated on their knees--in fancy. Keep their hearts willing, for -this bucket has to be whipped home.” - -The lady Aurora looked and listened as she paced abreast of us. Her -eyes, full of light, often rested on me. Greaves ran his gaze slightly -over her figure, and, leaning back in his chair and looking away, that -she might not suspect he talked of her, said: - -“Our dark and lonely friend is mighty full of curiosity. I can believe -that Eve was such another. When Eve walked round the apple tree and -looked up at the fruit, with her head a little on one side, she wore -just the sort of expression the dark and lonely party puts on when she -motions a question.” - -“_Qué hora es_, señor?” said the lady. - -Greaves made her understand, by pronouncing the word “one” in Spanish -and by gesticulating the remainder of his meaning, that it was drawing -on to two o’clock. - -“She may be hungry,” said I. - -“She shall be fed in a few minutes,” said Greaves. - -The girl seated herself on the skylight and watched the motion of -Greaves’ lips, listening, at the same time, with a little frown of -attention to the pronunciation of the words he coolly delivered: - -“I was observing,” said he, with an askant glance at her, “that the dark -and lonely party is mighty full of curiosity. She tried to pump me about -the dollars below; wanted to know what you were doing in the hold; asked -the value of the treasure.” - -“How did you understand her?” - -“She beckoned to Antonio; but when I found she had no more to say than -_that_, I sent him forward again with a sea blessing on his head. And -when I was taking sights she put out her hand for my quadrant. I let her -hold it. She clapped it to her eye--shutting the eye to which she put -it, of course--fell to fingering the thing, and I took it from her. I -wish she wasn’t so handsome. A little mustache, a pretty shadowing of -beard, the Valladolid complexion, and a few chocolate teeth would make -the difference I want, to enable me to look my meaning when she teases -me with questions. But who could be angry with the owner of those eyes?” - -He gazed at her fully. She averted her face suddenly. I fancied I caught -a fleeting expression of aversion, or, at all events, of distrust. She -flashed her eyes upon me with a gaze as significant as though she -understood what Greaves had been talking about, rose from the skylight, -and motioned me to walk with her. Greaves left his chair and stepped -slowly to the companion way. At this moment Jimmy came along with the -cabin dinner. The lady, inclining her face to my ear, spoke low in -Spanish, pointed to the cabin skylight, shook her head, then pressed her -forefinger to her lip, all which, in plain English, meant: “I don’t like -him.” I could have answered that she owed her life to him as master of -the ship, and that his offhand manners were British, and meant nothing. - -“Dinner,” said I. - -“Dinner,” she repeated, smiling. - -She repeated the word several times. - -“Will you come?” said I. - -These words she likewise repeated; then, giving me a little bow, she -extended her hand, that I might conduct her below. - -The evening of this same day was soft and beautiful, rich with the -lights of heaven; the ocean so calm that some of the most brilliant of -the luminaries found reflection in the water--tremulous, wire-like lines -of silver; yet had the breeze body enough to give the brig way. It came -fanning and breathing cool as dew off the dark surface of the sea, and -the refreshment of it after the fiery heat of the day was as drink to -the parched throat. - -I walked in the gangway, smoking a pipe. It was shortly after eight -o’clock. Yan Bol was aft with Greaves. The lady Aurora was in the cabin -writing with a pencil. Some seamen were in the bows of the brig; their -shadowy figures flitted to and fro, all very quietly. Voices proceeded -from the other side of the caboose; the speakers did not probably know -that I walked near. I could not choose but listen. One was Antonio, the -other Wirtz, and the third Thomas Teach. - -“What I don’t understand’s this,” said the voice of Teach. “Th’ole man -[meaning Captain Greaves] falls in with that there ship locked up in the -island, and boards her. He finds the silver--why didn’t he take it, -instead of leaving it with a chance of the vessel going to pieces, or -some covey a-nabbing the dollars afore he could come back for them?” - -“Dot may seem all right to you,” said Wirtz, “but see here, Tommy; -shuppose der captain had took der dollars into der ship he commanded -vhen he falls in mit der island; vhat do his crew say? Und vhen he -arrives vhat vhas he to do mit der dollars? Gif dem oop to der owners of -his ship? By Cott, he see dem dom’d first. If he keep der dollars for -himself, how vhas he going to landt dem on der sly mitout der crew -asking him for one-half, maybe, and making him like as he can hang -himself for der rest? Dot’s vhere she vhas. No, no,” rumbled the man in -his deep, Dutch voice, “der capt’n know his beesiness. Dis trip for der -dollars vhas vhat you English call shipshape und Pristol fashion.” - -“Is the dollars to be run, I wonder, when we gets home?” said Teach. - -“Do you mean shmuggled?” - -“Yaw, smuggled’s the word, Yonny,” said Teach. - -“Vell, if dey vhas not run dey vhas seized.” - -“Who’s a-going to seize ’em?” - -“Ox der captain.” - -“I’d blow the blooming brains out of any man’s head as laid a finger on -my share,” said Teach. - -“Yaw, und you gif me der pleasure of seeing you hanging oop by der neck. -Den I pulls off my hat, und I say how vhas she oop dere mit you? Vhas he -pretty vindy oop dere?” - -“When I gets my share,” said Teach, after a pause, “I’m a-going in for a -buster. There’ll be no half-laughs and purser’s grins about the -gallivanting I’ve chalked out for myself. There’s Galen always a-telling -us what he’s going to do with his money; sometimes he’s a-going to buy a -share in a vessel; then, no, dumm’d if he is, he’ll buy a house and put -his young woman into it; then no, dumm’d if he’ll do that, he’ll clap -his money in a bank, and wait till the figures grow big enough to allow -of his living like a gent for the remainder of his days.” - -“Vhen I gets my money dis vhas my shoke,” said the Dutchman. “My girl -shall teach me to eat. She shall puy me a silver fork. By Cott, I drink -mine beer out of silver. Every day I hov veal broth, und sausages, peas -und salad, stewed apple und ham, und pickled herrings mit smoked beef, -und butter und sheese, und I shplits myself mit almonds und raisins.” - -“I like the taste of the Dutch!” cried Antonio, in a voice that sounded -thin and almost shrill after Wirtz’s. “When I get my money see what it -shall bring me; white cod and onions from Galicia, walnuts from Biscay, -oranges from Mercia, sausages from Estramadura”--here he loudly smacked -his lips--“sweet citrons and iced barley-water and water-melons. _Vaya!_ -What have you to say now to your veal broth and salt herrings? And I -will have Malaga raisins, and my olives shall come from Seville, and my -grapes and figs from Valencia. _Vaya!_ I am a Spaniard, and this is how -a Spaniard chooses. All that is good may be had in Madrid, and all that -is good will I have when my share is paid me.” - -There fell a short silence as of astonishment. - -“Share!” cried Wirtz in a low, deep, trembling voice. “Share didt you -say? Shpeak again. I like to hear dot verdt vonce more.” - -“Share! What share are ye talking about. Ye aint thinking of the dollars -below, I hope?” said Teach, in a tone of menace. - -“I expect a share,” said the Spaniard. - -“Oxpect--say dot again. I likes to hear you shpeak,” said Wirtz, with -an accent that made me figure him doubling his fist. - -“Aren’t I a sailor on board this ship?” said Antonio. - -“A _sailor_, d’ye call yourself?” cried Teach. “Well,” he snapped, -“suppose y’ are, what then?” - -“I have a right to a share.” - -“And do you tink you get a share?” - -“I have a right to a share,” repeated the Spaniard in a sullen note. - -“Call her a shoke or I vill fight mit you,” said Wirtz. - -“I will not fight,” said the Spaniard in a dogged voice. “I have a right -to a share. The capitan will pay me and Jorge. We are sailors with you, -and are helping to navigate this brig to your country. The dollars are -Spanish; they are money of my own country. The capitan is a gentleman, -and will not wrong me and Jorge, and we will receive our share as a part -of the crew.” - -This was followed by a Dutch oath, by a crash and a low cry. - -“Hallo, there--hallo!” I called. “What are you men about there on -t’other side the caboose?” - -I sprang across the deck, and, by such light as the stars made, beheld -Antonio in the act of getting on to his legs. - -“Mind! He may have a knife!” shouted Teach. The Spaniard, uttering a -malediction, whipped a blade from a sheath that lay strapped to his hip, -and flung it upon the deck. The point of the weapon pierced the plank, -and the knife stood upright. - -“I am no assassin! I do not draw knives upon men!” cried Antonio. - -“Who knocked this man down?” I demanded. - -“I--Vertz. - -“You are a bully and a ruffian. This is a shipwrecked man, scarce -recovered from great sufferings. He is half your size, too.” - -“He talked of his share, Heer Fielding, und my bloodt poiled. We safe -his life, he eats und drinks, und der toyfil has der impudence to talk -of his share!” - -“Forward there! What is wrong?” cried the voice of Greaves. “Where is -Mr. Fielding?” - -“Here, sir.” - -“What is wrong, I am asking.” - -“Come aft to the captain, the three of you,” said I; and I led the way. - -All hands were on deck at this hour. The forecastle was roasting, and -the watch below lay about the forward part of the decks. The whole crew, -therefore, heard the noise, were drawn by it, and followed me as I went -aft, Teach loitering in my wake to tell those who brought up the rear -that “the blooming Spaniard was swearing he’d a right to a share of the -dollars, and that he was bragging as how he meant to spend his money in -Madrid on onions and figs, when he was brought up with a round turn by -Yonny Vertz’s fist.” - -It is strange that unto the eye of memory the picture which the brig at -this hour made should stand the most clearly cut, the most sharply -defined of all my recollections of her. Why is this? Because, perhaps, -of the accentuation that night scene took from the shadowy heap of the -men assembled upon the quarter-deck, from the quarrel beside the -caboose, from the significance that must come into any sort of -difficulty aboard us from the treasure in the lazarette. - -The sails soared dark and still in the weak night-wind; a brook-like -bubbling noise of water rose from under the bows; the vessel was steeped -in the dye of the night; but there was a faint shining in the air round -about the illuminated binnacle, and a dim sheen hovered over the cabin -skylight. The sea sloped vast and flat to the scintillant wall of the -sky. The voices of the men deepened upon the ear the silence out upon -the ocean. It was a night to set the mind running upon that saying and -realizing it: “And darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the -Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” - -“What’s wrong?” said Greaves. - -The shapeless figure of Bol came trudging from the neighborhood of the -wheel to listen. - -“There’s been some sort of discussion between Wirtz and Antonio,” said -I, “and Wirtz knocked the Spaniard down.” - -“Captain,” exclaimed Wirtz, “all hands likes to know if der Spaniards -you safe shares in der dollars?” - -“Who began the row?” said Greaves. - -“Señor,” exclaimed Antonio, “I was speaking of the food that we eat in -my country----” - -“Captain,” bawled Teach, “he was a-bragging of the cod and onions, the -nuts and barley-water he meant to treat hisself to out of his share, as -he calls it, when he gets to his home.” - -“She made mine plood poil,” cried Wirtz; “und he laughs at me vhen I -speaks of vhat ve eats in mine own country.” - -“Señor,” exclaimed Antonio, “have not Jorge and me a right to a share?” - -“Of what?” - -“Of the money in the cases--of my country’s money--that you take out of -the Spanish ship.” - -“Bol shall slit your nose if you talk like that. You rascal! Is it not -enough that we have saved your life? And what d’ye mean by your -country’s money? Of what country are you?” - -“I am of Spain, señor; born at Salamanca.” - -“There is no money in your country,” shouted Greaves. “Ye are paupers -all, cowards all, sneaks and rogues to a man.” Yan Bol laughed deep. -“Speak again of the money below being the money of your country, and -we’ll hang ye.” - -“Señor,” said Antonio, “am I and Jorge to receive no money for working -as sailors in this ship?” - -“Not so much as will purchase you a rag to wind round your greasy -ankles.” - -A half-smothered laugh broke from Wirtz and others. - -“We ask, then, that you land us,” said the Spaniard, whose audacity in -continuing to address Greaves was scarcely less astonishing than the -captain’s extraordinary exhibition of temper and wilder display of -words. - -“Mind that you are not landed at the bottom of the sea, with a -twenty-four pound shot to keep you there,” cried Greaves. “Wirtz, did -you knock that man down?” - -“Yaw, captain,” responded Wirtz, in a voice that made one guess at the -grin upon his face. - -“You are a big man, Wirtz, and Antonio is a little man. Wirtz, I wish -you may not be a coward at heart. Know you not,” cried Greaves, -elevating his voice, “that it is written, ‘Make not an hungry soul -sorrowful; neither provoke a man in his distress.’ The soul of Antonio -is hungry for dollars and you have made him sorrowful; he is in -distress, being shipwrecked and having lost all his clothes, and you -have provoked him. Your grog is stopped for a week, Wirtz.” - -“By Cott, but dot vhas hardt upon a man,” said the Dutchman. - -“Now get forward, all hands,” exclaimed Greaves, “but mark you this; any -man who raises his hand against another on board this brig goes into -irons and forfeits his share of dollars. This is to be a peaceful and a -smiling ship. We are going to get home sweetly and soberly; then comes -your enjoyment--the pleasures of beasts or men, as you choose. Let no -man say no to this.” - -He walked aft; I thought he would stay to have a word with me. Instead -he immediately descended into the cabin. The men moved forward, talking -among themselves, some of them laughing. - -Yan Bol came up to me and said: - -“I tell you vhat, Mr. Fielding, der Captain Greaves vhas a very fine -shentleman.” - -“Very.” - -“How he talks--mine Cott, how he talks! I would gif half mine dollars to -talk like dot shentleman.” - -“He is an educated man, and speaks well.” - -“Yaw, vell indeedt. I like der sheck of Antonio in oxbecting a share. -But he oxbects no longer, ha?” - -I turned from the Dutchman and looked through the skylight, and saw -Greaves sitting at table, leaning his head upon his hand. The lady -Aurora continued to write, but once or twice while I watched, she lifted -her eyes to look at the captain. I was weary and passed below to go to -my cabin. Greaves had left the table and was entering his own berth, as -I descended the companion steps. The materials for a glass of grog were -on a swing tray. While I mixed myself a tumbler the girl rose and handed -me the paper she had been writing upon. The sheets had been torn by -Greaves from an old log book, and they were filled by her with Spanish -names with their English meanings. I ran my eye over the writing, which -was a very neat, clean Spanish hand, and nodded and smiled, and returned -the pages to her, saying _Bueno_. Then emptying my glass I gave her a -bow, bade her good-night in Spanish, received her answer of “Good-night, -sir,” well expressed in English, and passed into my berth. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. - -GREAVES SICKENS. - - -This time gives a date to a change that came over Greaves. It was the -change of sickness. He grew feverish, irritable, fanciful; his appetite -fell away; the light in his eyes dimmed; sometimes he would put on a -staring look, as though he beheld something beyond that at which he -gazed. - -I had been struck by his manner, and more by his manner than by his -speech, when he lectured Wirtz and flung at Antonio, the Spaniard, as -you have read in the last chapter. Yet of itself this would not have -been a matter to rest very weightily upon my mind, seeing that all along -I had considered Greaves as a little, just a little, mad at the root. -But soon the incident took significance as being a first lifting of the -curtain, so to speak, upon a new and somewhat crazy behavior in my -friend. I hoped at first it was the heat that unsettled his nerves and -that the Horn would give me back my old, odd, hearty, generous shipmate -and messmate. Then I feared that the blow he had dealt himself when he -stumbled in the hold of the _Casada_ had been silently and painlessly -working bitter mischief in the organ of the liver, or in parts adjacent -thereto. If the liver was hurt the strangeness of the man might be -accounted for. I have suffered from the liver in my time, and know what -it is to have felt mad; I say I have known moments--O God, avert the -like of them from me and those I love--when I could scarce restrain -myself from breaking windows, kicking at the shins of all who approached -me, knocking my head against the wall, yelling with the yell of one who -drops in a fit; and all the while my brain was as healthy as the -healthiest that ever filled a human skull, and nothing was wanted but a -musketry of calomel pills to dislodge the fiend that was jockeying my -liver and galloping the whole fabric of my being down the easy descent. - -It will not be supposed that the change in Greaves was sudden. It -uttered itself at capricious intervals, and at the beginning was more -visible in the mood than in the man. - -For example, it was, I think, about four days after the little incident -which brings the last chapter to a close. I had charge of the deck from -eight to midnight. Miss Aurora had passed half an hour with me, -sometimes asking questions by gestures distinguishable by the light of -the moon, sometimes attempting strange sentences in English, all the -words correctly pronounced, but so misplaced that with true British -politeness I was forever breaking into a laugh at her. A moment there -had been when she was in earnest. She came to a stand, her face fronting -the moon so that I witnessed the working of it, her eyes with a little -silver flame in each liquid depth dark as the sea over the side. She -spoke in Spanish, with here and there a word of English. It seemed to me -she referred to the voyage. I fancied that I worked out of her words the -meaning that she desired to continue in the brig, and was content. How -did I gather this, when I tell you in the next breath that I could not -understand her? Well, it was my _fancy_ of her meaning that I give you, -but whether I understood her or not she motioned with an air of tragic -distress, clasped her hands, looked up at the stars, and cried in -English, “Sad--sad--not understand--sad.” We then resumed our walk, and -presently she left me. - -Now it was that Greaves arrived. He smoked a long curled pipe of Turkish -workmanship and moved noiseless in slippers. The moonlight whitened his -face and silvered his hair and blackened his eyes till, elsewhere, I -might have looked twice without knowing him. We were to the southward of -the Lima parallel, our course south by west. The Bolivian coast trends -inward. Our course gave us to larboard a wide sweep of open ocean and -this we should hold down to the latitude of 50°. After which the chance -was small of our falling in with anything armed under Spanish colors. - -We had made noble progress taking the days all round, and this night we -were courtesying onward with a pretty breeze off the larboard beam--a -wind that ran the waters gushing white to the bends, and overhead were -all the stars and the moon in their midst dimming a circle of them, and -under the moon the play of the sea was like a torrent of boiling silver. - -“This is a desolate ocean,” said Greaves. - -“So much the better for us,” said I. - -“Oh, yes, so much the better for us. But the solitude of the sea is a -burden that the heart don’t always beat lightly under. Is solitude a -material thing? It has the weight of substance when it settles upon the -spirits.” - -I let him talk on. He was fond of big, fine words, and the stranger he -became the more heroic grew his vein. - -“Any more rows forward among the men?” - -“I have heard of none.” - -“I had two men who fought through a voyage. They had sailed together -before and fought throughout. ‘They will fight while they meet on -earth,’ said the boatswain of the ship to me, ‘and they will fight if -they catch sight of each other at the Resurrection.’” He puffed a cloud -of smoke upon the wind and looked round the sea. “I am unsettled in my -faith,” said he, “I am troubled by doubts. I believe I am almost Roman -Catholic, but lack sufficient credulity to enable me to bring up in that -faith. I will tell you what I mean to believe in,” continued he, halting -in his walk, compelling me to stand, and looking me full in the face; -“I am going to believe in the transmigration of souls.” - -“Oh, you’ll wish to choose your next body before deciding, won’t you?” -said I. “You wouldn’t be a flea or a cockroach?” - -“The flea and perhaps the cockroach have short lives,” said he gravely, -“and the next entry might be into something noble. But stop till I tell -you why I am going to believe in the transmigration of souls. I had a -dream a few nights since. I dreamt that I was a Jewess. I beheld my face -in a glass and admired it vastly. My eyes flashed and were full of fire; -my lips were scarlet. I wore something white about my head. I knew that -I was a Jewess. Shadowy faces of many races of people approached, looked -me close in the eye, felt my face with their hands, accosted me, and I -could not speak. I was suffocated with the want of speech. But on a -sudden I obtained relief. I opened my mouth and spoke, and the words I -spoke were Hebrew.” - -“D’ye know Hebrew?” said I. - -“A stupid question to ask a sailor.” - -“How do you know you spoke in Hebrew?” - -“Because it wasn’t Greek; because it wasn’t Welsh; -because--because--man, it was just Hebrew.” - -“And how does transmigration offer here?” said I. - -“I was my own soul, informing the body of a Jewess. My soul, of course, -couldn’t utter itself, as it was fresh from the body of an Englishman, -until it had filled up, as smoke might, every cranny and brain cell of -the shape it possessed; until it had penetrated to the crypts and dark -foundations of the woman’s heart. Then, seeking vent, my soul broke -through the lips of the Jewess. In what tongue, d’ye ask? In what but -the tongue of her nation?” - -“This,” thought I, “is the lady Aurora’s doing. She it is who’s the -Jewess of my poor friend’s dream. The fiery eyes, if not the scarlet -lips, are hers, and hers the arrest and suffocation of speech.” - -But I guessed it would anger him to put this; yet it grieved me to hear -this nonsense in his mouth, and the more because his looks by the moon, -that shone upon us while he discoursed, gave a gloomy accentuation -of--what shall I call it? not yet madness; not yet craziness; let me -rather speak of it as wildness--to his words. - -He walked with me for above an hour, talking on this absurdity of -transmigration, and reasoning illogically, and often with irreverence, -on points relating to the salvation of man. It is a bad sign when -religion gets into a man’s head and acidly turns into windiness and -nightmare imaginations, as a sweet milk hardens into curdy flatulence in -the belly of the suckling. - -I sought to shift the helm of his mind by talking about the dollars -below; by speaking about the crew and my secret distrust of Yan Bol; by -calling his attention to the look of his brig as she floated, with -aslant spars, through the moonlight, flowing lengths of the sails -curving in alabaster beyond the shadow in their hollows, the water, -black as ink under her bowsprit, pouring aft in fire and snow. But all -to no purpose. He looked and seemed not to see; he repeated, in a -mouthing, absent way, my sentences about Bol and other matters, and -immediately struck back again into his talk about heaven, his soul, the -Jewess he had dreamt of, and the like. - -But, even without seeing him, even without hearing him, I should have -known that there was something wrong with the man by the behavior of his -dog. I do not say that all dogs have souls; but I am as sure that -Galloon had a soul of his own, after its kind, as that my eyes are -mates. As a change slowly came over Greaves, so slowly changed Galloon. -I would notice the dog watching his master’s face at table, and found a -score of human emotions in the creature’s expression. I’d see him lying -at Greaves’ door if the captain was within, when formerly he would be on -deck cruising about among the men or skylarking aft with me. If I called -him, he’d come slowly. There was no more capering up to me, no more -buoyant greetings, no leapings and lickings and short, eager yelps of -salutation in response to the many things I’d say to him. We make much -of human love, I would think while caressing the dog or looking at him, -and the love of man we call a passion; but the love of the dog we call -an instinct. Yet is not the instinct nobler than the passion? Purity it -has that is faultless. Is human passion pure to faultlessness? There is -selfishness in human passion, but the love of yonder dog for its master -is without selfishness. Many qualities enter into the passion of love; -but the love of yonder dog is a primary quality in him. It is as gold -among metals. Supposing analysis possible, then analyze the brute’s -affection, and you find not a hair’s weight, not a dust-grain’s bulk, of -vitiating element. - -The lady Aurora was quick to notice the change in Greaves. Her lids -moved swiftly upon her eyes, and their lashes were a veil, and she had -an art of glancing without seeming to glance. She did not like him, and -would not appear to see him more often than courtesy obliged. Her rapid -glances, therefore, on occasions when she would have found other -occupation for her eyes, told me that she was struck by the man’s looks, -that she wondered at them and guessed their significance. I was no -doctor. For all I could tell she might have some knowledge under that -head. I fancied this from her manner of looking at Greaves. - -So one day, when she and I were alone in the cabin, Bol on the lookout -above, and the captain in his berth, I endeavored to converse with her -about my friend; but to no purpose. Intelligibility vanished in signs, -shakes of the head, dumb pointings to the brow and ribs. She had, -indeed, picked up a little English. She was able to pronounce the names -of various articles of food, also had several English nautical terms at -her tongue’s end; but when it came to trying to talk about Greaves’ -state of health, there was nothing for it but to crook our brows, hunch -our backs, and work meaning into nonsense with postures. - -Yet I managed to discover that the lady and I were agreed in this; that -Greaves had received some internal injury from his fall, that it was -slowly sickening him, and affecting his mind. - -Nevertheless, he went about as usual, punctually took sights, attended -at meals, was up and down during the day and night. He was very rational -in all the orders he gave to the men, in all direct instructions to me -respecting shipboard discipline and routine. It was by fits and starts -that his growing wildness showed, and always when he had me alone; and -then the matter of his discourse was dreams and religion and death. Not -that he talked as though he supposed his end was approaching; upon his -words lay no shadow of the melancholy that is cast by the dread event -when the heart knows, dimly and mysteriously, that it is coming. He -chattered as if for argument’s sake; postulated to disprove his own -assertions, but he was seldom logical, often devout, filled to the very -twang of his nose with fervor, and at other times, and on a sudden, as -impious as young John Bunyan. - -What think you of this character of a seaman, of a plain north-country -merchant seaman; _you_ whose ideas of the nautical man are gotten from -Smollett’s studies, from the delightful portraits of dear Captain -Marryatt? But, Jack, bless ye! _you_, who have been to sea, _you_ who -have sailed ten times round the world, who have swung your hammock in a -score of forecastles, and who have outweathered Satan himself in a dozen -different aspects of ship’s captains, _you_, mate, will approve this -sketch, will recognize its truth, will tell the landlubbers that at sea -are many varieties of men--men who swear not, who are gentle, faithful -in their duty below; men who are a little crazy, who drink deeply and -are devils in their thoughts and madmen in their behavior, but trucklers -and slaverers to those who hire them; men who are hearty, pimpled, broad -of beam, verdant with the grog blossom and green in naught else, moist -in the weather eye, and bow-legged by great seas. - -One Sunday morning, when we had left the island a little more or less -than three weeks behind us, Greaves said to me at the breakfast table: - -“I shall hold divine service this morning on deck.” - -I stared, but said nothing. - -“I’ll read a portion of the Church of England liturgy to the men,” said -he, “and a chapter out of the Bible. What chapter do you recommend?” - -I was at a loss. - -“Give them something interesting,” said I, “something that will carry -them along with you.” - -“Right,” he exclaimed, with a little light of vivacity in his somewhat -sunken and somewhat leaden eye, “what d’ye say to a fight out of -Joshua?” - -“I do not think,” I answered, “that a good fight out of Joshua could be -bettered.” - -“I’ll give ’em that chapter,” said he, “in which the son of Nun corks -the five kings up in a cave and then hangs them. Not that there’s any -moral that I can see in that sort of narrative. It is an Ebrew Gazette -extraordinary--a pitiful, bloody business from beginning to end. But if -the reading of a chapter of it causes even one of the sailors to take an -interest in the Bible I shall have done some good.” - -“So you will.” - -“Do you know the men’s persuasions?” - -“Not I, captain.” - -“The Spaniards are Roman Catholics, of course. The Dutchmen and the -others will be of us if they’re of anything. When you go on deck tell -Bol to see that the crew clean themselves, and let him muster and bring -them aft for divine service at half-past ten.” - -“Ay, ay, sir.” - -Miss Aurora sat over against me at this meal as at most others; she -stared at me as though something was wrong. I did not wonder; I had been -unable to conceal my astonishment at Greaves’ orders for divine service. -Down to this moment he had never read a prayer to the men, never -exhibited the least disposition to do so, never imported the faintest -shadow of anything religious into the dull and swinish routine of the -brig. It was somewhat late in the day to lay up on _that_ tack, -methought. But it was for me to obey, and I went on deck, leaving -Greaves sitting. Miss Aurora followed, and touched my elbow as I passed -through the companion hatch. - -“What is it?” said she, in English. - -“Nothing, nothing,” I answered, smiling and shaking my head, for it -would have given me a deal too much to act, with Yan Bol and the fellow -at the wheel as spectators, to gesticulate Greaves’ intention to collect -all hands to prayers. - -“No danger?” said she, speaking again in English. - -“No, no,” I responded heartily. - -She touched her forehead, clasped her hands, and turned up her eyes to -heaven with one of her incomparable expressions of tragic melancholy, -sighed heavily, and returned to the cabin. - -“Bol,” said I, stepping up to the great Dutchman where he stood near the -wheel, “you will see that the men clean themselves and muster aft by -half-past ten for divine service.” - -“What’s dot?” said he. - -“Prayers.” - -He looked at Teach, who was at the helm, and a smile crawled over his -face, as wind creeps over a surface of sea. His smile wrinkled his -massive visage to the line of his hair. - -“Brayers, Mr. Fielding! Dot vhas strange after all dese months. For vhat -vhas ve to pray now dot der dollars vhas on boardt?” - -“Reason the matter with the captain, if you choose. You have your -instructions.” - -“Ay, ay, sir. Mr. Fielding, may I hov a verdt mit you?” - -He spoke respectfully, and moved from the wheel. He was a man I had been -careful to give a wide berth to throughout the voyage; but also was he a -man whom, for my own peace sake, I had been at some pains not to give -offense to. The familiarity of the fellow was Dutch. I never could make -sure that it was more than a characteristic of his countrymen with him, -and that he meant insolence when he spoke insolently. I bore in mind, -moreover, that secretly he, and no doubt the rest of the crew, viewed me -as an interloper--as one who would, probably, share far more handsomely -than they in the treasure without having entered at Amsterdam or having -formed a part of the original scheme of the expedition. This -consideration, then, made me wary in my relations with Yan Bol. - -He moved from the wheel out of earshot of the fellow there, and said, in -a rumbling voice of subdued thunder: - -“I oxbects dot der captain vhas not fery vell, Mr. Fielding?” - -“He is not very well.” - -“She vhas a bad shob if he vhas to took und die.” - -“Yaw; but what is it you wish to say to me?” - -“I hov nothing to say, Mr. Fielding, oxcept vhat I hov said. Der men -likes to know how her captain vhas. Vhen I goes forwardt und tells dem -dot dey most lay aft und bray, dey vhas for vanting to know if der -captain vhas all right mit his headt. Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding, but vhas -it all right mit der captain’s headt?” - -“We are talking of the captain,” said I. - -“Ay, ay, sir; and I shpeaks mit all respect. You vhas first mate; I oct -second. It vhas right ve shpeaks together, vhen der capt’n’s health vhas -in trouble.” - -“You are able to judge of his state as well as I, Bol.” - -“No; you live close mit him. My end of der ship vhas yonder.” - -His voice seemed to deepen yet as he spoke these words, while he pointed -with his vast square hand to the forecastle. I held my peace, sending a -look to windward and at the wheel, as a hint to him to go. He stood a -while viewing me and appearing to consider, all with a heavy Dutch -leisureliness of manner and expression, as though his thoughts rose -slow, like whales, to the surface of his intelligence, spouted, and sunk -before he could harpoon them; then, saying, “Vell, brayers at half-past -ten. Dot vhas a strange idea now der money vhas on boardt,” he walked -forward. - -This being Sunday morning, the men had nothing to do, and lounged about -the galley, smoking and conversing. I watched Bol approach them. He -stood abreast of a knot and delivered his orders. _That_ I gathered from -the stares, the starts, the hoarse laugh, the rude forecastle joke sent -in a growling shout across to a mate at a distance. A little later, -however, the fellows came together in a body, somewhat forward of the -caboose, some of them out of my sight until my steps carried me to the -gangway. Yan Bol stood among them. It was clear to me that they were -talking over this new scheme of a prayer meeting aft. I kept well away, -and heard nothing but the rumbling of their voices; but it was easy to -guess that the most of their talk ran on the captain’s health and -intellect, and I reckoned that, if they had already noticed any -strangeness in him, this call to prayers would go further to prove him -mad in their eyes than the insanest shipboard order he could have -delivered. - -Some while, however, before there was need for Bol to send the men to -clean themselves, Jimmy came out of the cabin and said that the captain -wished to speak to me. The morning was fine, the breeze steady, and the -sea smooth. The deck was to be safely left for a short interval. I -called an order to the helmsman and went below. - -Greaves was pacing the cabin floor. The lady Aurora was in her berth, -perhaps at her devotions. Galloon was upon a chair, wistfully watching -his master as he measured the cabin. - -Greaves’ face worked with excitement and agitation; his walk was equally -suggestive of distress and disorder. Were there such a thing as news at -sea, I might have supposed that something heart-shaking had come to him. - -“Fielding,” he cried, as I stood viewing him from the bottom of the -companion ladder, “I can’t read prayers to the men. The devil’s right. -He’s put it into my head that I’m too wicked, that I’ve been too great a -sinner in the past, and am still altogether too vile to read prayers.” - -“Do not attempt to do so then,” said I. - -“I might be struck dead for profanity,” said he. “There’s a feeling -here”--he laid his hand upon his heart--“that warns me I shall drop if I -open my lips in the recital of a prayer to the men. Look how nervous I -am!” he exclaimed, with a wild, hard smile; and approaching me close he -extended his hands, which trembled violently, and then, turning up the -palms, he disclosed the channels or lines in them wet with perspiration. -“Tell the men,” said he, “that I am too ill to read prayers. Next -Sunday, perhaps----” - -He threw himself upon a locker, and hid his face upon the table. I -watched him for a few minutes, then, going on deck, beckoned to Bol and -told him there would be no prayers that morning. The Dutchman threw a -suspicious look at the skylight and walked forward. - -After this incident anxiety increased upon me until it became -indescribably great. I had supposed that the hurt Greaves had done -himself, through the connection which exists between the liver and the -brain, affected his mind; but now, when he was growing worse, I reckoned -he had struck his head as well as his side. Be this as it will, his -intellect was giving way, his health every day decaying, and I say that -when I grew sensible of this, when I understood that unless he took a -turn and mended apace he must die, anxiety made my days bitter. - -My old fear of the crew revived. That fear had been hushed somewhat by -the behavior of the men, but it grew clamorous when I thought of Greaves -as dead and buried in the sea, of the treasure of half a million of -dollars in the lazarette, of myself as standing alone in the brig, with -no man in authority to support me, without even the moral backing of -good-will I might have got from the men had I shipped at Amsterdam and -formed one of the Tulp party. - -The dead days became dreams and visions to my memory when I thought -backward and recalled the _Royal Brunswicker_, Captain Spalding, my -arrival in the Downs, the gibbet on the sand hills, the press-gang, the -long outward passage to the island, and the hopes and fears which came -and went when Greaves talked rationally of the dollars, then -irrationally of dreams and the like, and so on, and so on. I did pray -very eagerly in my heart that he would be spared. Indeed, I loved the -man. He had saved my life, he had enriched me, he had proved a generous, -cordial, and cheery shipmate and messmate. I say I loved him, and on -several occasions, when I was on deck alone, walking out the weary hours -of the night watch, did I look up at the stars and ask of God to deliver -my friend from the death whose hand was closing upon him. These -petitions would I murmur till my eyes were wet. It was hard that he -should be called away in the prime of his time, after years of the stern -and barren servitude of the sea, at the moment when a noble prize, -gained, as I would think, with high adventurous skill, was his. - -But I never could discover, at this time at all events, that he had the -smallest idea he was in a bad way. What was visible to me and the -sailors, to the Spanish lady, yes, and to his own dog, himself did not -see--at least, by never a word that fell from his lips did he give me to -guess he knew he was ill. Sometimes he’d complain of weakness and keep -his bed; he’d wonder what had become of his appetite, that was all; he -never went further. It was I, mainly, who took sights and kept the -ship’s reckoning, who, in fact, navigated the brig, and did the work of -her master. Miss Aurora’s sympathies with him were strong at the -start--that is, when she saw how ill he was and how his illness was -increasing upon him. She’d make efforts to anticipate his wants at -table; with her own hands she’d boil chocolate for him in the caboose -and bring it to the cabin; she let me understand she wished to nurse -him. But whether it was because of simple dislike, or because his poor -head, muddling the fine woman whom he had rescued with the speechless -Jewess of his dream, excited in him some inscrutable fear or aversion I -know not; he would have nothing to say to her, looked away when she -spoke, repelled whatever she offered, often shrank when she -approached--was so crazily discourteous, in a word, that I was obliged -to take the girl aside and, by signs and such words as were now current -between us, advise her to keep clear of him. - -As to _her_, she spent much of her time in sewing and in attempting to -master the English tongue out of some books which I borrowed from -Greaves’s cabin, and with such help as I had time to give her. We had -plenty of needles and thread on board. Greaves, before his illness grew, -had given Miss Aurora a handsome roll of pure white duck, or drill--I -forget now which it was--to do what she pleased with. I had found some -remnants of bunting, of different colors, that she might amuse herself, -if she chose, with Greaves’s notion of trimming her dresses; then I had -borrowed a thimble from the forecastle. You will suppose that it was not -a _tight_ fit; but she managed with it. And so she went to work, sewing -in the cabin or in her own berth; and I see her now, with my mind’s eye, -as she sits under the skylight, stitching away like any seamstress -earning a living, the jewels upon her fingers flashing as her hand rises -and falls. - -One morning she came out of her berth dressed in a gown of her own -manufacture. It was built on original lines, and it suited her. I -believe she had shaped it to enable her to get about with ease, to allow -her to step without inconvenience up the companion ladder and through -the hatch, to pass through the cabin betwixt the table and the lockers -without being dragged, and sometimes held, by the folds of her skirt, -and to freely move in her little bedroom. The dress she had been cast -away in had hardly permitted this liberty. It was voluminous enough to -have yielded her three clinging skirts; it caught the wind when she was -on deck, and blew out like a topsail in a squall when the yard is on the -cap. I admired her vastly in this costume of her own making. The cut -answered something to my own taste in female apparel; the waist rose -high, the sleeves were tight, the dip and swell of her shape were -defined. I had always suspected that a nobly proportioned woman lay -awkwardly hid in the dress that had heretofore clothed her, and I -guessed I had been right when I looked at her this morning and marked -the curve of the breast, the width of the shoulders, the fine, swinging, -lofty carriage. - -The dress was snow white; it fell in with the color of her face. Her -cheeks seemed the whiter for the whiteness of her clothes. She had -trimmed her dress with triple lines of red bunting, and, for my part, I -should never want to see a prettier or more effective gown on a maiden -for sea use. - -She stood in the door of her berth, looking archly at me. Galloon -growled, scarce knowing her for the moment. Greaves was in his berth, -for by this time he was ailing badly. She looked down her dress, colored -slightly, then walked up to me and said: - -“How you like it? How you like it?” turning herself about a little -coquettishly. - -Admiration will often make a man laugh; and I laughed to see her in that -dress and laughed to hear her address me in English; and laughed yet -again, but always admiringly, at her spirited, courting manner of -turning her figure about, that I might get a view of her clothes. - -“It is very good, indeed,” said I. - -“_Si_, it is very good,” she repeated after me. - -She then sought to express herself further, and, failing, signed to let -me know that she had now two dresses, and that presently she would have -three. I pronounced some word of applause in Spanish, which she obliged -me to repeat, that I might catch the correct pronunciation, and we then -sat down to breakfast. - -I have told you that she wore some very handsome rings, and on this -occasion it was that I took particular notice of a remarkable ring which -she carried on her left hand. She followed my gaze, and stretched out -her hand to my face. I imagined she intended that I should kiss her -hand, for I was a fool in the customs of nations, and honestly knew not -but that a man’s kissing a woman’s hand thus held out to him, almost to -his lips, as it were, was some Spanish fashion of significant civility -which she would expect me to attend to; so I bent my head and put my -mouth to her hand. - -She colored, her eyes flashed, she looked confused; then smiled, shook -her head, and pointed to the ring. I was young and ingenuous, and the -blood rose to my face when I understood that I had blundered; but I held -my peace, and looked at the ring. A moment later she pulled it off and -put it into my hand. It was a very rich ring, formed of ten precious -stones of different sorts and a medallion of the crucifix. I turned it -about, admiring it. She watched me earnestly, and then, with a smile and -a sigh, said: - -“You are not Catolique.” - -“No,” said I. - -She motioned to let me know she could tell as much by my ignorance of -the use of that ring; and then, taking the thing from me, she went -through a pretty and dramatic pantomime, reciting “Aves” while she -touched the ring, and winding up with a sentence out of the -“Paternoster.” She put on the ring after she had made an end of her -pretty pantomime, and, looking again at me earnestly, repeated, with the -same dramatic sigh: - -“You are not Catolique.” - -“No,” said I. - -“You will be Catolique?” she exclaimed, in very fairly pronounced -English, still wearing a wistful and impassioned expression. - -I slowly shook my head. She sighed again and looked very downcast; but I -was wanted on deck and could sit at table no longer, and so I left her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. - -THE WHALER. - - -All this while the crew went on quietly with the work of the ship, -giving me no trouble nor occasioning me further anxiety than such as -arose from my fear of how it might prove with us should the captain die. -This will I say of Bol: a better boatswain never trod the decks of a -vessel. I carried by nature a critical eye, and while Greaves lay ill my -vigilance was redoubled; but not once had I cause to find fault with Yan -Bol’s part in the duties of the brig. - -We wanted, indeed, the freshening of the paint pot, but in all other -respects we were as smart a little ship, as we blew toward the Horn, as -though we had quitted the Thames but a week before. Our brass guns -sparkled, our decks were yacht-like with holy-stoning, our rigging might -have been newly set up by riggers of the king. Every detail of the -furniture aloft was carefully seen to, from the eyes of the royal -rigging to the lanyards of the channel dead-eyes. - -The men feared Bol; his vast bulk of beef and the granite lumps which -swelled in muscle to the movement of his arms made him the match for any -two of them. The delivery of his lungs was the cannon’s roar. I have -seen a stout fellow stagger as though to a blow--sway in the recoil of a -man who is hit hard, on Yan Bol thrusting his huge mouth into the -fellow’s face and exploding in passion an order betwixt his eyes. But -though the crew feared him they also liked him; he acted as second mate, -indeed, but throughout with reluctance; was their shipmate and -forecastle associate first of all, the man who ate out of their kids and -drank out of their scuttle butt, who slung his hammock in their bedroom, -showed them what to do and often how to do it, occasionally went aloft -with them, yarned and smoked with them. So much for Yan Bol. - -Greaves had a just and considerable admiration for him, the fullest -confidence in him as a sailor, and counted him the best boatswain he had -ever heard of; and I agreed with him. Going, however, rather farther, -for I had distrusted the man from the beginning, and my distrust of him -was now deeper than ever it had been, and I would have given half my -share of the money in the lazarette had we been blown away from the -island when he was ashore and forced to proceed without him. - -The two Spaniards were bad sailors, lazy and reckless. Bol could do -nothing with them. They skulked when there was business to be done -aloft, were not to be trusted at the wheel, and it came at last to our -putting them to help the cook and do the dirty work of the ship when -they were not at sail-making--for, to be sure, they were smart hands -with their palms and needles. There were no more fights, no more -assertions by Antonio and his mate Jorge of their claims to a share. In -talking to me one day about them Bol said it was the wish of the crew to -turn them out of the brig at the first chance. - -“The captain won’t hear of it,” said I. - -The Dutchman asked why. - -“Because,” said I, “the Spaniards know that there is treasure on board. -They also know it is Spanish treasure and how got by us. Suppose you -tranship them; they arrive at a port and state what they know. The news -that we have salved the treasure reaches the ears of the owner of it, -who thereupon makes application for restitution. Our business is to keep -clear of difficulties.” - -“Yaw, dot do I see. But hark you, Mr. Fielding, ve keep der Spaniards -und ve arrive home, und der Spaniards go ashore, und den? I ox, und den? -Vill dey not shpeak all der same as dey vould shpoke in von of der own -ports down here?” - -“I have considered that; so, too, has Captain Greaves. There is a -remedy, but it does not lie in transferring them in these seas.” - -He shrugged his shoulders and the subject dropped. - -But the long and short of Greaves’s policy in this particular matter -was; get the money home in safety first, bring off the treasure clear of -the fifty sea risks and perils of the age--the gale, the shoal, the -leak, the pirate, the enemy’s ships of the State. It will be time enough -to trouble yourself with what the Spaniards and others of the crew may -whisper ashore when the money has been landed, divided, exchanged into -gold of the realm, with plenty of leisure for a disappearance that might -run into time should the news of the salving of the treasure of the -_Casada_ ever reach the ears of the owners of the silver. - -We carried good strong winds to the southward. The days grew shorter, -there was an edge in the weather let the breeze blow whence it would; -the swell of the sea was long and dark. We bent strong canvas for -rounding the Horn, and in other ways prepared for a conflict which in -those days had a significance that has departed from that wrestle. The -seamen put on warm clothes; there was never a need now for the small -awning aft; the sun shone white, as though the dazzle of his disk was -the reflection of his beam on snow. I say his light was white and often -cold when we had yet to swim many hundreds of miles to fetch the -parallel of the Horn. - -In all the weeks we occupied in measuring our way from the island ere -rounding the headland for the Atlantic we fell in with but one ship. It -was our good luck, and there was nothing surprising in it either. In -this present year of my writing my story it may be your chance to sail -over a thousand leagues of Pacific water and meet with nothing. It was a -lonelier ocean in my time than it is now. Northward, on the equatorial -parallel, there was, indeed, some life, but southward the great liquid -highway that now every year foams to the shearing stems of half a -thousand stately ships, was, in the year of the _Black Watch_, scarce -less barren as a breast of sea than when it was swept for the galleon by -the perspective glasses of Dampier and Woodes Rogers. - -We fell in with a little ship and spoke her, and the speaking her proved -one of the most memorable of all the incidents in this strange -expedition, as you shall presently learn if you choose to proceed. - -Greaves was on this day very weak; he had risen to breakfast, sat like -the specter of death at table, his sunken, leaden, black eyes wandering -from me to Miss Aurora with the seeking gaze of one who strives to -collect his wits; then, rising with a little convulsion of his figure, -he leaned with his hand upon the table and said, in a small voice, -looking downward and slightly smiling: - -“I must return to my bunk. It isn’t the machinery that’s wrong; the -spring has slackened and wants setting up afresh.” - -I took him by the arm and helped him to his cabin and stood looking on, -waiting to be of service, while Jimmy pulled off his coat and shoes. I -believed he would speak seriously of his illness, for I guessed that if -he felt as bad as he looked he would count himself a dying man. But he -had not one word to say about his sensations or condition. When he was -in bed I stood beside him, and he lay with his eyes wide open, viewing -me steadfastly in silence. Presently he said: - -“Why do you stand there? It’s all right with me. Get back to your -breakfast and finish it, Fielding. Whose lookout is it?” - -“Mine, sir.” - -“Why do you stand there?” - -“I wish to see if I can be of use to you,” said I, making a step toward -the door. - -“I am truly obliged. Jimmy does all I need. I want you to think of -nothing but the brig. I shall be quite well--I feel it, I am sure of -it--before we have climbed far up the Atlantic. By Isten, Fielding, but -it warms me to the very heart of my soul to reflect that you are in -charge--you and not Van Laar. Van Laar it might have been, with Michael -Greaves helpless in his cabin, and the Horn coming aboard. Lord, Lord, -wonderful are Thy ways!” said he, turning up his eyes. “Now get ye to -your breakfast. The machinery is all right, I tell you; the spring’s -fallen slack, the old clock loses, but the tick’s steady, Fielding, the -tick’s steady, my lad, and a few days will make the time right with me; -so get on to your breakfast.” - -I re-entered the cabin and seated myself. - -“The captain is bad,” said the lady Aurora. - -I answered with a sorrowful nod. She clasped her hands and looked at me -across the table anxiously, and said: - -“He die.” - -“_Qué hacer?_” (What is to be done?) I answered, for by this time I had -picked up a number of phrases from her. - -She slightly shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, and, pointing -upward, exclaimed in Spanish: - -“It is as God wills.” - -Then, again fixing her fine eyes, full of fire and feeling, upon me, -she, by nods and gestures, contrived to make me understand this -question: - -“Suppose the captain dies, how is the brig to get to England?” - -I smiled and pointed to myself, and made her gather that, while I was on -board, the brig was pretty sure, in some fashion or other, to head on a -true course for England. - -We continued to exchange our meaning in this fashion while I finished -breakfast. Conversation between us was scarcely now the hard labor it -formerly was. She had a number of words in my tongue and I some in hers; -then, by being much together--or, as I would rather put it, having by -this time held many conversations in our fashion of discoursing--we had -got to distinguish shades of signification which had been wasted before -in one another’s gaze and gestures. Her looks were eloquence itself. -Even now was I able to collect her mind when she talked to me with her -face only; when she would talk to me, I say, for five minutes at a time -merely with the expression of her face, never opening her lips. Her eyes -were charged with the language of light and passions. She could look -grief, dismay, concern, horror, pity, all other emotions, indeed, with -an incomparable skill, force, and beauty of mute delivery. - -I went on deck, and stepped to the side, as was my custom, to peer -ahead. Bol, who stood near the skylight, called out: - -“A sail!” - -He pointed over the starboard bow, and looking that way, I spied the -delicate white gleam of a ship’s canvas. It was what we should call a -fine, hard day, the atmosphere strong and tonical, cold, but without -harshness or rawness. The breeze was fresh off the larboard beam, and -swept with a rushing noise betwixt our masts--the breath of the young -giant whose dam was the snow-darkened Antarctic hurricane. The surge was -a long, steady sweep of sea, tall and wide, of the deepest blue I had -ever beheld. The brig, with her yards braced well forward, the bowlines -triced out, and every cloth that would draw pulling white as milk in the -white sunshine from stay and yard and gaff and boom, was sweeping -through the water with the speed of smoke down the wind. Magnificently -buoyant was the vessel’s motion. The yeast of her wake seethed to her -counter as she courtesyed. Large birds were flying over the track of -snow astern. - -“What is that craft going to prove, Bol?” said I, taking up the glass. - -“Dot vhas not long to findt out,” he answered. - -In those times our telescopes were not as yours are now. I leveled the -long and heavy tube, but it resolved me no more of the ship ahead than -this--that a ship she was. - -“Shall ve shift our hellum und edge avay?” said Bol. - -“I will let you know,” said I, walking aft. - -I waited a bit, looked at the sail again, and found we were picking her -up as though she were at anchor. By this time, also, most of her fabric -having lifted above the sea-line, I was able to tell that she was -square-rigged, like ourselves, but that, unlike the _Black Watch_, she -had short topgallant masts; whence, as you will suppose, I set her down -at once as a trader. This and our overhauling her so rapidly--which -means, suppose her an enemy, then she had no more chance of getting -alongside of us than a land crab a scudding rabbit--determined me to -hold on as we were. - -You see I was in charge of the brig, and could do as I chose. Yet was it -right that I should report the sail to Greaves, and I called to Yan Bol, -who stood in the waist, and bade him keep a lookout for a few minutes -while I went below. Jimmy came out of the captain’s berth as I entered -the cabin. The lad held open the door, and I passed in. - -“I have come to report a sail right ahead, sir.” - -He turned his eyes upon me with such a look as you may behold in the -gaze of an old man straining after memory. - -“A sail?” he exclaimed. - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Ay, ay.” - -He smiled strangely, fetched a long, trembling breath, and said: - -“Suppose she should prove a galleon? We are rich enough, Fielding. Leave -her alone--leave her alone.” - -“She is no galleon. She is a small trader, I reckon, and will be abreast -of us and astern while we’re talking about her.” - -“We have as much as we need,” said he. “Don’t imperil what you’ve got, -man. D’ye know, Fielding, I fear my sight’s beginning to fail me. Jimmy -gave me the Bible just now. The type’s big and it came and went in a -dissolving way like a wriggle of worms in water. I would to God there -was a priest aboard. I want to ask some questions.” - -He closed his eyes, and with them closed repeated, “I want to ask some -questions.” - -I waited, supposing he would look at me. He kept his eyes shut; so, -bidding Jimmy, who stood in the door, to have a care of his master, and -to keep within reach of his hail, I returned to the deck very heavy in -my spirits; for the departure of this man did then seem to me a question -of hours instead of days, nay weeks, as I had lately thought, so ill did -he look, so darkly and miserably did his manner and speech accentuate -the menace of his face. - -It was not very long before I made out the vessel ahead to be a whaler. -I knew _that_ by her heavy davits, crowd of boats and square, sawed-off -look when she cocked her stern at us. I showed Dutch colors, scarce -doubting as yet but that the stranger would prove a Yankee, for in those -days, as now, many American vessels fished in those waters, pursuing -their gigantic game into seas where the British flag was rarely -flown--that is, over anything in search of grease. But the Dutch flag -had not been blowing three minutes from our gaff end when up floated the -red flag of England to the mizzen mast head of the stranger. - -She was a little ship; to describe her exactly she was ship-rigged on -the fore and main, while on her schooner mizzen mast she carried a cross -jack and topsail yard. She lifted, ragged with weeds, to the heads of -the seas, and washed along, heavily rolling and pitching, and blowing -white water off her bows, whalelike. I shifted the helm to close her -for the sake of the sight of a strange face, for the sound of a strange -human voice. She was abreast of us some time before noon and there lay -before us, foaming and plunging, as quaint a picture as the ocean at -that time had to offer, liberally furnished as her breast was with -picturesque structures. She was as broad as she was long, of a greasy -rusty black, and when the sea knocked her over she threw up her round of -bottom till you watched for the keel; and the long grass streamed away -from her as she rolled like hair from the head of a plunging mermaid. -Many faces surveyed us from over her rail. Her sails fitted her ill, and -were dark with use. After every roll and plunge the water poured like a -mountain torrent out of her head-boards and channels; but I had read her -name as we approached--her name and the name of the town she hailed -from. She was the _Virginia Creeper_ of Whitby. - -Whitby! I had never visited that town, but I knew it in fancy through -the famous Cook’s association with the place almost as well as I knew in -reality the little towns of Deal and Sandwich. It was just one of those -magical English words to sweep the mind and the imaginations of the mind -clean out of the countless leagues of the Pacific into the narrow miles -of one’s own home waters, there to behold again with a dreamer’s gaze -the milk-white coasts of the south, the chocolate coasts of the north, -the red sail of the smack plunging to the North Sea, the brown sail of -the barge creeping close inshore, the projection of black and tarry -timber pier, with its cluster of bright-hued wherries, the length of -sparkling white sand, the shingly incline, the careened boat, the figure -of its owner worked upon it with a tar brush. - -We foamed along together broadside to broadside, within musket shot, and -I hailed the whaler and was answered. - -The man who responded stood in the mizzen rigging. He wore a round -glazed hat, a shawl about his throat, a monkey coat to his knees. He -sang out to know what ship I was, and I answered that we were the _Black -Watch_, of London, chartered by a merchant of Amsterdam, and that the -captain and mate, and most of the crew were Englishmen. We were bound to -London, I roared to him, omitting to answer his question where we were -from. Then, in answer, he shouted that he was the _Virginia Creeper_ of -and from Whitby, ten months out, had met with shocking bad luck, and was -bound out of these seas for the South Atlantic. All the whales had gone -east. Sorry we were in such a hurry. He would have been glad to come -aboard for a yarn, and for what news from home we had to give him. Were -we still fighting the Yankees? A Yankee privateer had spoke him in the -South Atlantic, and the captain of the vessel sent a mate aboard him -with a box of cigars, and this message--that the whaler was a ship he -never meddled with, no matter under what color he found her; that he -honored a calling that had given his own nation her finest race of -seamen; and when he sailed away he dipped to the _Virginia Creeper_ as -to a friend. All this I was able to hear. The man, who spoke as a -Quaker, delivered his words with a strong, slightly nasal voice, and his -words came clean as the sound of a bell through the washing hiss of the -water and the roar aloft. - -I found time to shout back that our captain was dangerously ill, and to -ask the master of the whaler, as I supposed the man to be, if he knew -aught of physic--of the treatment of injuries. He shook his head -vehemently, crying “No!” thrice, as though he would instantly kill any -hope the sight of him had excited in _that_ way; and, indeed, what -should a sailor know of physic and the treatment of such a sickness as -was fast killing Greaves? I asked the question to ease my conscience and -to satisfy the crew, who were listening. I figured him coming aboard and -stifling a groan when he saw Greaves, vexing the poor, languishing man -with useless questions put to mark his sympathy, and then coming out of -the berth to tell me it was a bad case. - -We sped onward. The voice would no longer carry, and the whaler veered -astern almost into our wake, with a wild slap of her foresail, as she -plunged a heavy courtesy of farewell at us. - -My notes of what befell me in this memorable year of Waterloo gives much -to my memory, but not everything; and I am unable to recollect the exact -situation of the brig when we fell in with the _Virginia Creeper_ -westward of the Horn. I am sure, however, that we were something to the -southward of the island of Juan Fernandez, somewhere about the latitude -of Valdivia. This I supposed from remembrance of the climate. But be it -as it may, it was now, on this date of our speaking the Whitby whaler, -that I confidently supposed my poor friend Greaves would not live to see -the end of the week. I have told you so; but guess my surprise when, on -coming on deck at four o’clock that same afternoon, I found him seated -on a chair, wrapped in a warm cloak. Yan Bol walked to and fro near -him. They had been talking. I had heard the Dutchman’s deep voice as I -stepped through the hatch. But if Greaves had looked a dying man in his -berth, he showed, to be sure, ghastly sick by the light of the day. I -had seen much of him below, yet I started when my eyes went to his face -now, as though, down to this moment, I had not observed the dreadful -change that had happened in him. Galloon lay at his feet. The poor man -smiled faintly on seeing me, and said in a weak voice: - -“Did not I tell you I should be better presently? The machinery’s sound, -and, when that’s so, nature is your one artist to make it the right time -of day with ye.” - -I conversed a little with him. Yan Bol stood by. I told him about the -whaler. He motioned with a trembling white hand, and said he had heard -all about it from Yan Bol. Presently he wandered somewhat in his speech, -and rose falteringly, sending a sort of blind, groping look round the -decks; but he was too feeble to hold his body erect, and the swing of -the brig, as she reeled to a sea, flung him roughly back upon his chair. - -“Let me take you below,” said I. - -He looked at me as though he did not know me and talked to himself. I -motioned to Bol with my head, and we each took an arm, and tenderly--and -I say that there was a tenderness in Yan Bol’s handling of the poor -fellow that gave me such an opinion of his heart as helped me for a -little while like a fresh spirit in that time of my distress, anxiety, -and fear--very tenderly I say, we partly carried, partly supported, the -captain into the cabin, whence he went, leaning on Jimmy, to his berth, -looking behind him somewhat wildly at us who stood watching him, and -talking without any sense that I could collect. - -“Mr. Fielding,” said Yan Bol as we regained the deck, “der captain vhas -a deadt man.” - -“I wondered to find him out of his berth.” - -“He vhas von minute talking like ash you or me, und der next he vhas -grazy mit fancies. I likes to know how dot vhas mit der brain. Von -minute he oxes me questions about der vhaler, as you might; der next he -looks at me und say, ‘Vhas your name Yan Bol?’ ‘It vhas,’ I answered. -‘Vhat vhas der natural figure of der Toyfell?’ he oxes. ‘Dot vhas a -question for der minister,’ says I. ‘Last night’ he says, ‘dere vhas a -full moon, und I saw a reflection like she might be a bat’s upon der -brightness of der moon. Dot reflection sailed slowly across. I ox you,’ -says he, ‘vhas dot der reflection of der Toyfell--dot, you must know, is -Brince of der vinds?’ I keeps mine own counsel, und valks a leedle, und -pretends dot der brig vants looking after; und vhen I comes back he oxes -me anoder question dot vhas no longer grazy, but like ash you might ox. -Now, how vhas dot, Mr. Fielding?” - -“I am as ignorant as you,” said I; “but his end is at hand. He will not -long talk sensibly or crazily. God help him and bless us all! It is a -heavy blow to befall this little brig--‘tis a heavier blow to befall the -poor gentleman who has shown us how to fill our pockets with dollars; -whose own share would make him a happy and prosperous man for life.” - -“Dot vhas so,” said Bol; and our conversation ended. - -Seeing that Greaves’ mind was loosened, I no longer expected him to -realize the near approach of death. I ceased, therefore, to be surprised -that he did not speak to me about his condition. Sometimes I would ask -myself whether it was not my duty, as his friend, to touch upon the -subject of his state at some favorable moment when his faculties were -strong enough for coherent discourse. He was dying. He must soon die. He -could not live to round the Horn. How would he wish the money he had -earned by this venture to be disposed of? Thirty thousand pounds was a -large fortune. I knew that he was fatherless and motherless, but no more -of him did I know than that. I had never heard him speak of his -relations; indeed, throughout he had been silent on the subject of his -parentage and beginnings, though he had never wanted in candor when he -talked of his first going to sea, his struggles and failures and -sufferings in the vocation. - -But as often as I thought it proper to speak to him, so often did I -shrink from what was, perhaps, an obligation. No; I could not find it in -me to tell him that he was a dying man. - -The weather grew colder, and we met with some hard gales out of the -southeast, which knocked us away fifty leagues to the westward out of -our course. It was Cape Horn weather, though we were not up with that -headland yet. The dark green seas rolled fierce and high; the sky hung -low and sallow and fled in scud. We stormed our way along under reefed -canvas, showing all that we durst, and making good average way, seeing -that the gale was off the bow and the seas like cliffs for the little -brig to burst through. - -Anxiety lay very heavy upon me all this time. I had confidence in Yan -Bol’s seamanship, but I had more faith in myself; and I was up and down -in my watch below to look after the brig, till, when the twenty-four -hours had come round, I would find I had not passed two of them in -sleep. - -The cold found the lady Aurora without warm apparel. The dress she had -been shipwrecked in was of some gay, glossy stuff, plentiful in skirt, -and as warm as a cobweb. What was to be done? It was not to be borne -that she should sit shivering in the cabin for the want of apparel that -would enable her to look abroad whenever she had a mind to pass through -the hatch; so, after turning the matter over in my mind, one morning, -soon after our meeting with the whaler, I ordered Jimmy and another to -bring the slop chest into the cabin. It was a great box, and one of two. -Both were of Tulp’s providing. The old chap guessed he saw his way to -making money out of the sailors by putting cheap clothes aboard for -sale, and it was likely enough he would find his little venture in this -way answerable to his expectations when we got home, for already one of -the chests was emptied of two-thirds of its contents, the sailors (I -being one of them) having purchased at an advance of about eighty per -cent. upon what would be rated ashore as a very high selling price. - -Well, one of the slop chests was brought up and put in the cabin. I had -tried to make Miss Aurora understand what I meant--to no purpose. Now, -lifting the lid of the chest, she standing by me and looking down upon -the queer collection of sailors’ clothing, I pulled out a monkey coat, -big enough for the sheathing of even Yan Bol’s bolster-like figure, and, -holding it up, went to work to make myself intelligible. I put the coat -on her. I then touched it here and there to signify that, by shaping a -waist, and cutting in at the dip of the back, by shortening the sleeves -and fixing the velvet collar to suit her throat, she might make a very -good figure of a jacket for herself out of the coat. I then took a cap -from the chest, and I placed it upon her head, advising, as best I could -by signs and words, that she should stitch flaps to it to shelter her -ears, with strings to keep the thing on her head in wind. I went further -still, being resolved that the lady should go warmly clad round the -Horn, and, calling to Jimmy, bade him bring me up a bale of spare -blankets. I heartily longed for a Spanish dictionary, that I might give -her the word _petticoat_ out of it. However, she caught my drift after a -little, on my selecting one of the finest of the blankets and putting -it about her and holding it to her waist. She nodded and laughed. - -I witnessed no embarrassment, and, in honest truth, there was no cause -for embarrassment. Yet I do not suppose that an English girl--at least, -that many English girls--would have made this little business of -suggesting apparel, and hinting at clothing which a man is not supposed -to know anything at all about until he is married, so pleasant and easy -as did this Spanish maiden. - -Well, her ladyship was now supplied with materials for warm clothing, -and that same afternoon she went to work on the coat. Hard work it was. -She wanted shears for such cloth as that, and managed with difficulty -with a sailor’s knife fresh from the grindstone; yet, by next afternoon, -having worked all that day and all next morning, she had given something -of the shape of her own figure to the coat. She put it on for me to look -at. It wrapped her bravely; and when, with white teeth showing, she -placed the cap on her head, her beauty--and beauty dark, speaking, -impressive I must call it--took a quality of brightness, a piquancy that -comes to beauty from male attire; in her case wanting when ordinarily -dressed, of such gravity and dignity was her bearing, of such a natural, -womanly loftiness were the whole figure and looks of her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. - -A SAILOR’S WILL. - - -After a troublesome spell of stormy weather there happened a fine -afternoon, and when the evening drew around the shadow was richer in -stars than any tropic night I ever beheld. The wind was light; the ocean -breathed in a long swell from the north; the atmosphere was frosty, but -sweet and comfortably endurable. - -We had sent down our royal yards, yet to-night was a night for royals -and studding sails--a night to be made the most of. The ocean was off -guard, asleep, and easily might we have stolen past the slumbering -sentinel, clothed from truck to waterway in the tall, wide wings we had -expanded in the north. - -But the old villain was not to be trusted; twas but a snort and a stir -with him down here, _then_ a hideous black cloud flying at your ship, -and hail and wind to which the stoutest must give his back. - -So this evening we flapped slowly onward under topgallant sails and -courses, and the long naked poles of the royal masts made a wreck of the -fabric to the eye up aloft as they swung the dim buttons of their trucks -under the stars. - -It was seven o’clock. I had an hour to smoke my pipe in before my watch -came round. I stood on the brig’s quarter, leaning upon the bulwark -rail. The sea ran in thick, noiseless folds like black grease, and I -hung smoking and hearkening to a queer respiration out upon the -water--the noise of the blowing of grampuses sunk in the blackness. -Presently my name was pronounced. I turned, and by the light in the -companion way beheld the figure of the boy Jimmy. - -“What is it?” - -“The captain wants to see you, master.” - -I knocked the fire out of my pipe. - -“What is wrong?” said I, in a voice of awe, for even as the lad had -called, my thoughts were busy with the dying man, and my heart heavy -with sadness. - -“The captain’s very bad to-night, master.” - -This was the third day Greaves had kept his berth without attempting or -expressing a wish to leave it. During these days he had been more than -usually rambling and incoherent, insomuch that my visits had been brief -because there was nothing to be said. I had looked in upon him merely to -satisfy myself on his condition. I knew not how I should find him now, -and sat me down on a chest beside his bunk. Galloon lay on the deck. The -lamp gave a strong light; Greaves saw me and I him very plain. There was -an intelligence in his looks that had been wanting--his countenance was -knitted into its old expression of mind, as though by an effort of the -faculties. - -“D’ye know, Fielding, I fear that I am very ill?” said he in a weak -voice. - -“You do not feel worse, I hope?” said I. - -“I don’t like my sensations. I don’t understand them. It has crossed my -mind that I am dying.” - -“Ill you are and have been, captain; yet less ill to-night, it seems to -me, than you were yesterday. God preserve you! What can I do? Here we -are, out upon the wild sea, nothing but Spanish ports to make for; but -say the word and I’ll head the brig for the port you shall name. We must -forfeit our dollars, but your life stands first.” - -“It is too late,” he said. - -“For God’s sake don’t say that! Ought I to have sought help on the -coast?” - -“It is too late,” he repeated, and sank into a silence that lasted a -minute or two. - -“Have you believed that I am dying?” said he. - -“I have believed you ill--sometimes very ill.” - -“It will be hard to die here, all this way from home. The launch over -the side makes a deep burial. I buried a man hereabouts last voyage, -and---- How deep is it? Has he touched the bottom yet?--with a -twenty-four pound shot at his heels too.” - -“Don’t think of such things.” - -“I am not afraid to die, but I wish there was a priest aboard--someone -to help me to steady my thoughts. I believe in all that should make a -man a good Christian. What’s the time?” - -“A little after eight, sir.” - -“What noise of hissing is that?” - -“Grampuses have been blowing out to larboard; some may have come -alongside.” - -“Ay, me!” he cried. “There is the hand of the devil in this snatching -away of my life _now_, when the days show brightly, and my head is full -of plans of goodness. How about the money, Fielding?” - -“What money, sir?” - -“Mine, mine,” he exclaimed with irritation. “Yours you’ll keep and -welcome, and don’t let the spending of it damn ye. Mine, I say. What’s -to become of it? If I die, what’s to become of my money? Must it go to -Tulp? By Isten, no, then!” he exclaimed, with a rather crazy laugh. - -“Have you no relations?” - -“Tulp’s no relation.” - -“Have you no relation whatever?” - -“None, I tell ye.” - -“Few men can say that,” said I doubtingly. - -“Fielding, I am dying, and I will leave my money to God.” - -He spoke faintly, his appearance was very alarming; his eyes moved -slowly and strangely. - -“Tell me your wishes? If I live they shall be carried out.” - -He repeated in a low voice that he would leave his money to God. - -“In what form can this be done?” said I, fearing that his mind was -giving way again. - -“I will leave my money to the Church,” he answered. - -“What Church?” - -He made no answer. - -“What Church, Captain?” I repeated, bending my face to his. - -“Rome,” he answered. - -“In what religion did your mother die?” said I. - -His eyes ceased to wander, he gazed at me steadfastly; but as he was -silent, I again asked him in what faith his mother had died. - -“She was a Protestant,” he answered; “she belonged to the Church of -England.” - -“Leave your money to the Church in whose faith your mother sleeps. -Should not a mother’s faith be the holiest of all to a child? Captain, -there is no better faith than was your mother’s.” - -“Who talks to me of my mother?” said he. “She married Bartholomew Tulp. -Well, she was a very good woman. She has gone to God. She was poor--she -married for a home, and to help me, as I have often since believed. I -will leave my money to her memory. What time is it?” - -I again told him the time. - -“How is the weather?” - -“A fine, quiet night.” - -“There is water in that can; give me a drink.” - -When he had drunk he asked me to lift the dog, that he might pat his -head. He feebly, with a pale, thin hand, touched the ears of the poor -beast; and as he did so, I thought of that time when I lay in a hammock, -trembling and helpless, with a weakness as of death, and when he had -lifted Galloon that I might kiss the dog that had saved my life. - -“Who has the watch?” - -“Bol, sir.” - -“Will you write for me, Fielding?” - -“Anything will I do for you.” - -I seated myself at the little table that was near his bunk. It was -furnished with ink and quills. I opened a drawer and found paper, and -waited for him to speak. - -“Tulp shall not have my money,” said he; “the old rogue is rich, and he -has a noble share in what is below. Too much--too much. And yet it was -his venture. Let me be reasonable. He shall not have one dollar of my -money, by God! If I die, and the money goes home, he will take it. I -would see him damned before he touched a dollar of my money. Hasn’t he -enough?” - -“More than enough.” - -“I will leave the money to the memory of my mother. The thought comforts -me. I was her only child--I left her very young; I was not to her as I -should have been. Write, Fielding.” - -He dictated, but ramblingly, with so much of incoherence, indeed, -breaking off to talk to himself, to ask the time, to whisper some sea -adventure, which he would go half through with and then drop, that, even -if my memory carried what he said, it would be mere silliness in the -reading. However, his wish was to dictate a will, which was to be -embodied in a very few sentences. So when he had made an end and lay -still, I wrote as follows: - - ‘Brig _Black Watch_, at sea. February the 24th, 1815. This is the - last will and testament of me, Michael Greaves, master of the above - brig--at the time of signing this in full command of my senses. I - hereby bequeath all the money I have in the world to the Church of - England, in memory of my mother; and I desire that the money I thus - bequeath may be devoted to a memorial that shall forever perpetuate - the love I bear to the memory of my mother, whose soul is with - God.’ - -It was the best form of will I could devise, knowing little of such -matters; but since it was his wish that the money should be dedicated to -God, most reasonable was it that I, as an Englishman, should wish to see -it bequeathed to the Church of my own and of his country. And I was the -warmer in this desire in that the money was Spanish; by which I mean -that nothing could be more proper than that the dollars of the most -bigoted people in all creation, in religious matters, should go to the -support of the purest, the most liberal, the very noblest of all -churches. Bear ye in mind, it was the year 1815; when our esteem of the -foreigner and his faith was not as it is. - -“What have you written?” said he. - -I read aloud. - -“It will do,” he exclaimed; “read it again.” I did so. - -“Will not thirty thousand pounds build a church?” said he. - -“It will build a ship,” said I. “I know nothing of the cost of building -a church.” - -“Write down that I want a church built,” said he. - -This I did. - -“Write down,” said he, “that I leave one thousand pounds to you, for -having saved my life.” - -I hesitated and looked at him, and then said, “My dear friend, I thank -you, but you have put enough in my way.” - -“Write it down, write it down,” he cried. I wrote as he dictated. “Now,” -said he, “can I sign?” and he lifted his hand as though feeling for -strength to control a pen. - -I opened the door and called to Jimmy, who was putting wine and biscuit -on the table. I asked the lad if he could write. He answered, “No.” I -put a pen into Greaves’ hand, and he scratched his signature under the -three clauses I had written down. His vision was dim, and he saw with -difficulty when it came to his writing, but on my directing the point of -the pen in his hand to the paper he wrote with some vigor. I bade Jimmy -take notice of what I was about to read, and when I had read I signed my -name, and the lad made his mark, which I witnessed. - -All this was very innocent. I was a sailor, with no more knowledge of -the law than a ship’s figurehead, and little dreamed that I was -rendering my interest in poor Greaves’ will worthless by attesting it. -But, as things turned out, it mattered nothing, as you shall read. - -Jimmy went into the cabin to wait on the lady. - -“Will you, or shall I keep this will?” said I. - -“You,” he answered. “I give you Galloon,” said he after a pause, and now -speaking with the faintness I had observed in him when I first arrived. -“You’ll love him, Fielding.” - -I put my cheek to the dog’s face. “I am glad to have your wishes,” said -I. “Should you be taken before we get home I shall know what to do, if I -outlive you.” He feebly smiled. - -“Oh, but the risks of the sea are many--_we_ know that. A man goes with -his life in one hand. You are far from dead yet. It is I who may be the -dying man.” - -“I wish there was a priest on board to settle my doubts,” said he, -scarcely above a whisper, and now his eyes began to look strangely -again. - -“What are your doubts?” - -“Is there a hell, Fielding?” - -“Not for sailors, captain.” - -He steadied his eyes, and smiled with an odd parting of his lips, that -was like the first of a gape. - -“Not for sailors, sir,” said I. “Hell is here for them. There can’t be -two hells for the same man.” - -“I’d like to think that,” said he. “I am afraid of going to hell. I’ve -been afraid of dying ever since they put the notion of the devil into my -head. I told ye just now I wasn’t afraid of death. Nor am I, when I -forget the devil. I forgot him then. Now he’s back again. Give me some -water and open the scuttle--it’s grown blasted hot, hasn’t it?” - -He sat up on a sudden, and immediately afterward sank back. Again I gave -him to drink, and opened the scuttle as he desired. - -He now rambled. Some of his imaginations were wild and striking. They -even struck an awe into me, though perhaps much of their impressiveness -lay in their falling from dying lips. His poor head ran on religion--and -sometimes he was to be saved, and sometimes he was to be damned; and -then he would forget, and babble about what he meant to do when he got -home; how so much of his money would go in giving clothes and food to -the poor, and how he’d collect many kinds of animals and use them well, -fearing them, for who was to tell what souls of men they contained; and -there might be a human sorrow in the bleat of a goat, and a man’s -passion in the silence of a suffering horse. - -I cannot tell you what he talked about. It matters not. Yet one strange -thing that happened this evening let me note. It was this: he had sunk -into silence, and I was about to quit his cabin for the deck. He had -been talking very wildly, and sometimes, to my young, green, -superstitious mind, almost terrifyingly; then had fallen still all in a -moment, his eyes closed, his lips shut. I stooped to look at him, then -turned to go, as I have said. My hand was on the door, when I heard his -voice: - -“Fielding, will ye sing?” - -I went back wondering, and asked him what he said. - -“Will ye sing?” he exclaimed. - -I supposed this a part of his sad, dying nonsense, yet, to humor him, -answered: - -“I will sing for you, captain.” - -“Sing me ‘Tom Bowling,’” said he. - -I sat down, and Galloon laid his head on my knee. My voice was broken, -but I strove to put a cheerfulness into it, and sang the opening verse -of “Tom Bowling.” He lay quiet while I sang. When I came to the end of -the verse, he looked at me and, when I paused, believing he had had -enough, he sang the closing lines in a feeble voice: - - “Faithful below he did his duty, - And now he’s gone aloft.” - -When he ceased, his eyes were full of tears. He put out his hand, and I -took it, myself weeping, for the sight of his tears had unmanned me. I -felt a gentle pressure. He then turned his face to the ship’s side, and -after I had watched by him for about five minutes, during which he -breathed quietly but spoke not, I passed out and went on deck. - -Whether Greaves feared death or not I don’t know. I will not, however, -believe he thought he was dying. Frequently will a man tell you that he -is dying when his belief is the other way. His fears betray the secret -of his hopes. - -Happily, from this night Greaves lost his senses, sank into a lethargy, -and lay motionless as death for hours; then awoke, but never to -consciousness, though often he would call out from amid the darkness -that lay upon him, with so much reason in his exclamations as made me -imagine his mind was returned. Whatever he said that had sense was -nautical. Once he put the brig about in his wanderings. He startled me, -who had entered his cabin but a minute or two before, by a sharp, hard -cry of: - -“Ready about!” - -He followed on with the proper orders, pausing with all the judgment you -can imagine for the intervals, and, when he supposed he had got the brig -on the other tack, the bowlines triced out, and the gear coiled away, he -whispered awhile briskly: - -“Now she stumps it,” said he. “Clap the jigger on that main-tack, my -lads! Get a small pull of the weather main royal brace. Flatten in that -jib sheet there. Damme, Mr. Walker, we don’t want balloons on our jib -booms.” - -So would he wander, and all that he said in _this_ way was sensible. - -When he lost his mind the lady Aurora offered to nurse him. He did not -recognize her; and, down to the hour of his death, she was in and out of -his cabin, dressing little delicate messes of fowl and tortoise and the -like in the caboose, feeding him, damping the sweat from his face, -ministering to him in many ways. He would have died quickly but for her. -Jimmy had no knowledge of feeding or preparing food for him. Not a soul -of the rough junks forward were fit for such work; and the business of -the brig kept my hands full. - -The day before Greaves died, I entered his cabin, and found the lady on -her knees beside his bunk. She looked slowly round on my entering, -crossed herself, rose, and, putting her hand upon my arm, whispered in -English: - -“Shall he not die Catolique?” - -I answered with one of those shrugs which I had got from her. - -“He is Catolique,” said she. - -“No,” said I. - -“But, yes--but, yes.” - -“Very well,” said I. - -“He shall die Catolique,” said she, “or----” - -And now, wanting words, she signed to let me know that, if he did not -die Catolique, his soul went in danger. Happily, we had not language for -argument. Her eyes sparkled; she looked at me hotly. There was the -temper of the religious enthusiast in the whole manner of her. - -“Her uncle is a priest,” thought I. “There may be the blood of an -Inquisitor in this fine woman,” I thought. “Ay, and even though she was -my mistress, and I her impassioned sweetheart, and even though she loved -me with the jealous heat of a Spanish heart, all the same is she just -the sort of party to order me,” thought I, “to the stake, and watch me -with an unmoved face while I was doing to a turn, if she supposed the -burnt-offering of a shell-back would help her with the saints and give -her Jack’s soul a true course.” - -Here poor Greaves, who had lain motionless, suddenly let out. He seemed -to be hailing a boat. - -“Why the devil don’t you pull your larboard oars? You infernal lubbers! -what’s the good of _all_ hands pulling to starboard? Look at the boat. -_This_ is the ship, you fools--there! _Now_ ye’ve done it. Plague take -ye. Twenty stone of prime beef foundered! Lower a boat and pick ’em up. -Lower a boat and pick--lower a boat--lower----” - -“He shall die Catolique,” said Miss Aurora. - -In what faith he departed this life is known to his Maker. Greaves went -under hatches next day, in the afternoon, at one o’clock. A strong wind -was blowing, a high sea running, it was bitterly cold; the windward -horizon was sullen with the black shadows of clouds, out of which the -dark green seas ridged in hills, with such a toss of spray from every -foaming head that the wind sparkled with the flying brine. The brig -labored heavily. She was under small canvas, and the sea broke against -her, in a sound of guns. I was watching her anxiously, intending, if it -came harder, to heave her to. The blubbered face of Jimmy showed in the -companion way. - -“Master,” said he, “the captain’s dead.” - -I spied Bol to leeward of the caboose, and bawled to him to lay aft, and -stepped below. - -Yes, Greaves lay dead. The peace of eternity was upon his face, the -peace that comes not until the noise of the clock falls upon the deaf -ear. At every other moment the thick glass scuttle, through which the -daylight came, rolled in thunder under water, and was hidden in -whiteness; then a dark green shadow was in the cabin; then the light -brightened, as the weeping glass was lifted. It was like being buried in -the sea with the dead man, to stand in that cabin and listen to the roar -of water round about, and mark the green dimness like daylight dying -out. - -I stood looking at Greaves. Beside me crouched Galloon. Every now and -again the dog uttered a sort of low, sobbing howl. How did he know that -his master was dead? _I_ can’t tell. He crouched beside me, I say, -weeping in his way, and I dare swear that he better knew the captain was -dead than I, who indeed guessed him dead by his looks, though I would -not have buried him in that hour for a million. - -I drew the head of the blanket over the poor man’s face, and went to the -door, with a call to Galloon to follow. The dog did not stir. - -“Come,” cried I, and approached him. He growled fiercely, and I saw -danger in his eye. “Well, poor beast,” said I in my heart, “you shall -watch and mourn in your fashion;” and I came away, and sat down at the -cabin table, and leaned my head upon my hand to let pass an oppression -of tears that had visited my throat and was darkening my sight. - -I had saved his life, and he mine; we had spent many weeks together, -exchanged many thoughts, together paced out many a long hour of the day -and night; he had been my friend, shipmate, messmate, and I knew not how -warm was my love for him until now. The sea brings men close together, -and there is the companionship of peril and a sense of isolation and -remoteness that is binding. A man is missed at sea as he never can be -missed ashore. Ashore is a vast field filled with distractions for the -mind: the greatest ship is but a speck on the deep; you may walk the -length of her, and descend to the depth of her in a few minutes, and -over the side is the monotony of heaven and water, thrusting the spirit -back upon its imprisonment of bulwarks, and compelling the mind to -perpetual consideration of all the life that is contained within the -narrow walls of timber. - -I raised my head and found the lady Aurora sitting opposite me. She may -have come from her cabin quietly or not; her movements were not to have -been heard amid the straining sounds of that tossing interior. - -“The poor captain is dead,” said she. - -“Yes,” I answered. - -“Blessed Virgin, he has suffered. He is now at peace,” said she, partly -in English, partly in Spanish. - -“Were you with him when he died?” I called to the boy, who stood at the -foot of the companion steps, white and grinning. - -“Yes, master.” - -“Come here, my lad. Did he speak before he died?” - -“Master, he lifted up his right hand and sung out ‘from under!’ then -rattled.” - -“How did you know he was dead?” - -“I saw father die, master, and last voyage the cook died, and I saw him -go.” - -Miss Aurora looked as if she would have me interpret Greaves’ dying -exclamation. I drained a tumbler of rum-and-water to cheer me, and going -on deck found Yan Bol standing beside the companion way waiting. - -“Vhas der captain deadt?” said he. - -“He is dead,” I answered. - -“Und vhat vas to become of her share, Mr. Fielding?” - -“He’ll not be cold for some hours, and he keeps his share till we bury -him.” - -I walked away. When I turned the Dutchman still stood where I had left -him, looking toward me. He then rolled forward and entered the caboose. - -There was no more weight of wind. In a few hours’ time I should be -keeping the brig more off for the Horn. I forget our latitude on the day -of Greaves’ death. It was something south of the parallel of the Horn, -and our longitude was right for a shift of the helm. - -I walked the deck, thinking much of Greaves. What had killed him? He had -been long a-dying, ever since his accident, indeed. No doubt that injury -betwixt his ribs had brought about his death, and I reckoned his -craziness to have been a consequence of that injury, though to be sure, -his mind, as we would say at sea, had been launched with a list. But he -was dead, and I was alone in the brig with a treasure of half a million -of silver to carry home, and with a crew of men I did not trust. - -No, it was not Bol’s question that had startled me. The moment I came on -deck, after leaving the dead captain, I realized my loneliness, and all -my old misgivings stormed in upon me till, I give you my word, I stood -with my back upon the helm, panting as after a run, with the sudden -passion of anxiety that uprose. - -Presently, after walking and reasoning myself into something of -soberness, I thought I would have Yan Bol aft. I called; he put his head -out of the caboose; I beckoned, and he approached, thrusting his pipe -into his breeches pocket. It was his watch below, and he had a right to -smoke on deck. - -“The captain is dead,” said I. “Let us talk of the affairs of the brig.” - -“I vhas villing to talk, but you valked off, Mr. Fielding.” - -“I walked off because I was fresh from the side of a friend who is -dead.” - -“I vhas sorry, too. He vhas a goodt sailor. When did you bury him?” - -“To-morrow.” - -“He vhas steeched up by me himself. I makes a good shob of him out of -respect to you, Mr. Fielding.” - -“What change is to come about? If I have charge of the brig, I can’t -keep watch.” - -“If you vhas not in sharge, Mr. Fielding, der brick vhas der _Flying -Doytchman_.” - -“You’ll be chief mate, then. Whom can you trust to act as second--to -keep a lookout, I mean?” - -“Plindfold me, und der man I touch is der man you vant. Vere der eggs -vhas all ash one der voorst vhas der best.” - -“Let the men choose for themselves, then.” - -“Dot shall be---- Und vhat vhas our port, Mr. Fielding?” - -“Our port? Our port?--why--why----” I staggered in my speech, for, now -that Greaves was dead, what name was I to give the place we were bound -to? - -“Vhas she to be Amsterdam?” - -“No. You and I will talk of this later on.” - -He nodded emphatically, a large and heavy nod of approbation. - -He left me after we had been talking for about half an hour. I then -heard a melancholy noise of crying in the cabin. I went below, and found -Galloon at Greaves’ door, howling dismally. I told Jimmy to let the dog -in, and resumed my walk and lonely lookout on deck. Lord, what a -melancholy day was that in my life! The desolation of the sea was in it. -I see that ocean now--its hills of liquid lead pour into foam, the gray -shape of an albatross hovers off the quarter, there is a constant flash -and leap of hissing whiteness at the bow, and the black running gear is -curved to leeward by the gale. - -I looked into Greaves’ cabin before sitting down to supper. Galloon lay -upon the breast of the dead man and whined dismally when I entered. I -uncovered the face to make sure of the death in it, and the dog, when he -saw his master’s face, barked low and strangely, and licked the cheek of -the dead. I hid the face once more and went out. The dog would not -follow. - -Little passed at table between the lady Aurora and me. The gloom of -death was upon us, and I was too cold and sad at heart, too oppressed -with anxiety, to attempt one of our broken and motioning talks. - -At eight o’clock Bol came aft to stitch up the body in canvas. With him -came William Galen, a freckled countryman of Bol’s. I watched the brig -while they went below; very dark was the night, with a sort of swarming -of the seas to the vessel that gave her the most uncomfortable motion I -ever remember. But the wind was sinking, and by this hour we had shaken -a reef out of the topsails and had set the main topgallant sails, and -the little ship rushed along wet and in blackness fore-and-aft, her head -now something to the south of east, fair for the passage of the Horn. - -Bol and his mate had not been above three minutes in the cabin when I -heard a commotion below--the furious barking of a dog, deep roars, and -thunderous shouts and Dutch oaths. I rushed into the cabin, crying to -the sailors not to hurt the poor beast. - -“She has tore mine breek,” shouted Bol, “und bitten Galen to der bone of -her thumb.” - -I bade them stand out of sight, and Jimmy and I went in; but the dog was -not to be coaxed away from his master. There was nothing for it but to -smother and carry him out in a blanket, and let him loose in an adjacent -berth. The struggle with the beast capsized my stomach. He had crouched -upon the dead body, and our catching at him and smothering him, and -dragging him out of the bunk in a blanket, had given a horrid semblance -of life to the poor remains. The half-closed eyes seemed to plead for -repose, and, in the dance of the lamplight, the pale lips stirred, and, -by stirring, entreated. - -“Now for a neat shob,” said Bol. - -I went out sick, and was some time on deck ere I rallied. By and by Bol -and his mate came up, and the boatswain said: - -“She vhas all right now. How many men vhas dis dot I make up for der -last heaf?” - -“I don’t know,” said I. - -“Veil, only dwenty-dwo. I steech opp half a leedle ship’s company mit -cholera. Dere vhas fifteen all toldt. Sefen diedt. I steech ’em opp. I -tell you, Mr. Fielding, vhen dot shob vhas ofer I feels like drinkin’.” - -“Vhas he to be all night below?” said Galen. - -“Yaw,” said I. - -“Aboot der vatches, Mr. Fielding?” exclaimed Bol. - -“Let that matter stand till we bury the captain.” - -“Ay, ay, sir. Galen is der man, I belief.” - -“She vhas villing,” said Galen. - -I left the deck for a few minutes to view the body of my poor friend in -his sea-shroud. Miss Aurora sat at the table. She drummed with her -brilliant fingers, and her head rested on her left hand. Her face was -unusually pale; her eyes large, alarmed, and fiery, and blacker, owing -to her pallor, than they commonly showed. - -“What is it?” said I, conceiving that something was wrong with her. - -“Ave Maria, hark!” cried she. - -I heard Galloon whining and complaining. Never did a more melancholy, -depressing, heart-subduing noise thread the conflicting uproar of a ship -in labor. I at once let Galloon into the captain’s cabin, and paused a -minute to view the shrouded figure upon which the dog had sprung; and I -remember thinking to myself: “Great is the difference between the dead -at sea and the dead ashore. At sea the dead man cannot be tyrannous; but -ashore, how does he serve his relatives and the world which he leaves -behind? A dismal funeral bell is rung for him, and the spirits of a -whole district are dejected--the spirits of a wide district that may -never have his name, or that, very well knowing his name, values not his -loss at the paring of a finger nail, are sunk because of that dreadful -knell. He obliges his survivors to draw down the blinds of the house in -which he expires, and, for the inside of a week, they sit in gloom, a -sort of pariahs, coming and going with fugitive swiftness, miserable -all, until it is _convenient_ to him to be buried. He defrauds his next -of kin of good money by the obligation of a solemn and expensive -funeral. He tyrannically robs his relatives by obliging them to put up a -memorial to him. But at sea? A piece of canvas and a twenty-four pound -shot; a little hole in the water, which is gone ere the eye can behold -it! The dead cannot be tyrannous at sea.” - -“Señor Fielding,” said my lady Aurora, rising and holding my arm as I -was about to pass, “I cannot rest down here with the dead.” - -She did not thus speak, but this was my interpretation of her words and -signs. I regarded her and considered. Where could she lie, if not in the -cabin? This, for her, was a miserable, horrible time; in as wild a -passage of shipwreck and adventure as ever woman lived through, and my -heart pitied her. It mattered not when the captain should be buried; -and, meeting her eyes again, and beholding the superstition and fear in -them, I looked up at the clock, that showed the hour to be a little -after ten, and, holding up my hands and afterward two fingers, I said, -“_Doce de la noche_--twelve of the night;” and, pointing and signing, -gave her to know that at midnight we would bury the captain. - -She looked at me gratefully. - -“I must go,” said I. - -“Stop--oh, stop a minute!” she exclaimed in English, and went to her -berth, looking fearfully toward the door of the captain’s cabin as she -made her way, clinging and moving slowly, for very fierce and sharp at -times was the jump of the deck. - -Strange, thought I, that the flight of a soul should make a terror of -the shell it quits! It would be the same with that fine-eyed woman, with -her aves and crossings. She dies; and the caballero on his knees at her -feet, the gallant cavalier who has courage enough for the holding of her -sweetness and her perfections to his heart while her charms live, -springs to his legs, fetches a wide compass to avoid the corpse, and -sooner than sleep a night beside the body would go to a lunatic asylum -for the rest of his days. - -She came out of her berth clothed for the deck, wrapped up in her own -comfortable slop-chest manufactures, but half an hour of the cold and -blackness above sufficed; she went below again and sat under the clock -waiting for midnight. I chose twelve because all hands would be astir at -that hour. At twelve the starboard watch went below; Yan Bol would come -aft, and then we’d bury the dead. Meanwhile I ordered a couple of the -seamen in my watch to load the four nine-pounder carronades, that we -might dispatch Greaves with a sailor’s honors to his bed of ooze. -Lanterns were lighted and hung in the gangway in readiness. - -In those times the burial at sea, in such craft as the _Black Watch_, -was a simple affair. Whether it was the captain at the top or the cabin -boy at the bottom, it mattered not; it was just a plain, respectful -launch over the rail, no prayers, a sail at the mast, and there was an -end. We had no book containing the burial service aboard. Few -merchantmen went to sea with such things. I thought over a prayer or two -as I walked the deck, meaning that the petition of a brother-sailor’s -heart should attend the launch of the canvassed figure; in which, and in -many other thoughts the time slipped by; the lady Aurora all the while -sitting below under the clock, waiting for midnight, often lifting her -black alarmed eyes to the skylight, and often looking around her with a -slow motion of her head, and at long intervals crossing herself. This -picture of her the frame of the skylight gave me. The glass was bright -and the light of the lamp strong. - -Eight bells were struck, and presently the shapeless bulk of Bol came -through the lantern-light upon the main-deck. It was the blackest hour -of a black night. Even the foam, lifting and sinking alongside in -sheets, scarcely showed. We had made a fair wind with a shift of helm at -eight in the evening, and were bruising and rolling through it at about -nine knots, with a broad, dim, spectral glare under the stern. - -“Is that you, Bol?” - -“He vhas, Mr. Fielding.” - -“I propose to bury my poor friend at once. The lady cannot rest, with -the body below. It will be a kindness to her, to all of us may be, and -no wrong to him. Nay, God forbid--if I believed it hurried--but a few -hours more or less can signify nothing.” - -“Noting. Der crew vhas pleased too.” - -“Well, get the body up--with all reverence, Bol; you know what to do.” - -I called to Jimmy to smother Galloon as before and stow him out of the -road of the men till the body was on deck, and then I stationed Joseph -Street and Isaac Travers at the carronades, to discharge them when the -body left the plank. In ten minutes they brought him up; four carried -him, and one was Bol. The señorita came on deck, and holding by my arm -to steady herself, spoke to me. I said “yonder,” and she went into the -light cast by the lanterns on the lee side of the deck, and stood with -her hand upon a rope. - -They carried the body to the gangway where the lanterns were, and I -went with them and they put one end of the plank on the top of the rail -and two of them held the other end, ready to tilt it. I think all the -seamen had drawn together to view this midnight burial. Antonio and -Jorge were close to a lantern. They sometimes crossed themselves, and -their eyes gleamed and restlessly rolled. They seemed heartily -frightened. The others stood stolid and staring, some in shadow, some -touched by the lantern beams. All hands bared their heads when the -corpse came to the gangway. - -Had this funeral happened in daylight I should have ordered the topsail -to be backed. I agree with those who hold that the ship’s way should be -stopped when the body is launched. It would have been, however, but the -idlest of ceremonies to back the topsail in this deep midnight hour. -There was besides a large sea running, the fresh wind was off the -quarter, and the brig would have needed a shift of the helm to have got -an effectual stand out of her backed canvas. - -Cold, oh how bitterly cold did that night grow on a sudden with the -presence of that body, pale on its plank in the lantern light! A wilder -cry sounded in the wind, a deeper dye entered the darkness. I prayed -aloud briefly, but not for the hearing of the men: the hiss of the -sweeping water alongside drowned my voice. - -“Launch!” I cried. - -As the canvas figure fled like a wreath of white smoke from the rail a -sunbright flash of fire threw out the whole brig: the roar of a gun -followed. - -At that instant--at the instant of the explosion of the carronade--and -while the two fellows who had tilted the body paused for a moment or -two, grasping the end of the plank, a dark form seemed to spring from -the deck at my feet; it gained the plank in a bound, and went overboard. - -“Der dok!” roared one of the Dutchmen. - -The second gun was exploded with a deafening roar. - -“Was that Galloon?” I shouted. - -“It was, sir,” answered two or three voices. - -“Hold your hand,” I bawled to the fellow at the third carronade. - -I sprang on to the rail to look over. No sanity in _that_, for what was -there to see, what did I expect to see? We were going at nine knots an -hour: the spread of yeast on either hand of us was a wild and roaring -race that throbbed out of sight in the darkness abeam within a biscuit’s -toss, and that fled and vanished into the darkness abaft, within the -span of the brig’s main-deck. - -“Are you sure it was the dog?” I cried from the rail. - -“Yes, sir; yes, sir, it was the dog--it was Galloon,” was the answer. - -“It was the dog,” cried Miss Aurora, coming close to me. - -“Oh, poor Galloon!” I was struck to the heart. For some moments I stood -motionless, staring into the blackness, while the brig stormed onward, -rolling and foaming through the night. Was there nothing to be done? -Nothing, I vow to God. Perilous it might have been to bring the brig to -the wind in that hollow sea: but to save Galloon, who had saved my life, -I would have risked the brig, the treasure in her, nay, the lives within -her, so wild was I then. But the dog could not have been rescued without -lowering a boat, and a boat stood to be swung and smashed into staves -ere a soul entered her; and consider also the blackness of the Cape Horn -night that lay upon the ocean! - -“Are these guns to be fired, sir?” - -“No. Oh, lads, I would not have lost that dog for twenty-fold my share -of the money below. He saved my life--he’s still swimming out -there--he’s alive out there and may live. Where’s Jimmy?” - -“Blubbering here, sir,” said a voice. - -A couple of seamen ran him into the lantern light; I could have killed -him. - -“Did not I tell you to stow Galloon away?” - -“So I did, master.” - -“Why is he perishing out yonder then, you villain?” - -I turned my back and walked aft. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV. - -AURORA ENTERTAINS US. - - -I’ll not swear I did not feel the loss of the dog more than I felt the -death of Greaves. Should I be ashamed to own it? The captain’s death I -had long expected; it came without suddenness, it brought no -astonishment. But the loss of Galloon happened in a breath. He was here, -and then he was gone. He had gathered a human significance from my long -association with him, my spoken reveries to which he seemed to listen, -loving of eye and patient. For days and nights I was haunted by the -thoughts of him, swimming round and round in that dark sea. He swam -well, and I say that it was long an agony to think of him struggling out -in that foaming water. - -The lad Jimmy was broken hearted. So crushed was he that I had no heart -to deal with him for indirectly causing the dog’s death. For days he’d -snatch minutes at a time to stand at the rail just where the plank had -rested, just where Galloon had sprung overboard, and there he’d gaze -astern with his face working and his eyes bubbling. The men let this -maudlin behavior pass without jeering. They reckoned him half an idiot. -Yet the chap’s grief went deep. He was alone in the world, and had -nothing to love. Greaves had been kind to him, but he could not love the -captain as he loved the captain’s dog. Galloon had been his friend. -Often used the lad to talk to him as a negro talks to a monkey or a pig. -They’d lie together on deck, and had slept together, and now the dog was -gone the boy’s heart ached. He looked around him: there was no friend; -he sent his fancies ashore and found himself alone there. - -On the morning following Greaves’ funeral I took possession of his -cabin. I spent a couple of hours in overhauling his papers, for I could -not bring myself to believe that he had been without a relative in the -world, Tulp excepted. I could not realize such a thing as a man without -a relation in the whole blessed wide world. Yet I found nothing to tell -me that Greaves had not been alone. I carefully stowed his papers away -with his clothes and other effects. To whom belonged his little -property--his clothes, his books, his nautical instruments, and the -like, together with a bag of thirty odd guineas and a quantity of -English silver? To whom, I say? To Tulp? - -I found nothing to connect Greaves with a home, with relatives, with -friends--no miniature, no lock of hair, no memorial of ribbon or bauble. -Never once had he hinted at any love passage. He’d speak of woman with -coldness, though with respect, as the child of a woman. Had you walked -him through King Solomon’s seraglio he’d have seen nothing worth -choosing. Well, the yeast that had hissed to the plunge of his shape was -his tombstone. He was bred a sailor, he had lived the life of a sailor, -and was now gone the way of a sailor; yea, and true even in death was he -unto the traditions of the sailor--for he had received the last toss, -the sea had swallowed him up, and no man could swear that his name was -as he had styled himself, nor affirm with conviction whose son he was. - -When I had made an end with the captain’s papers and effects I put on my -cap, buttoned up my pea-coat, and went on deck. It was blowing a strong, -fair wind. The brig still wore the canvas she had carried throughout the -night. The sea ran high, it was much freckled with foam, and its -frothing brows shone out like a hard light against the cold dark-green -vapor to windward. - -Bol paced the deck, thickly clothed. He wore great boots, had a heavy -fur cap on, and a fathom of shawl was coiled round his immensely thick -throat. He fitted the picture of that pitching and storming brig as the -brig fitted the picture of that swollen and foaming sea. There was no -sun. The dark clouds rushed rapidly across the sky; they were of the -soft blackness of the snow cloud; the bands of topsails, the square of -the topgallant sail, of a light sick as the gleam of misty moonshine, -fled from side to side athwart the flying sky of shadow. The sea stood -up in walls of ivory to every plunge of the bows--I never before saw -foam look so solid. Where the bubble and foam-bell of it were too remote -for the eye, _there_ every ridge was like a cliff of marble. - -Bol appeared surprised to see me. He supposed I was turned in. - -“This is a wind to clap Staten Island in our wake.” - -“Potsblitz! as der Shermons say, dere vhas veight in dese seas too.” - -“Do you mean to live aft?” - -“In der landt of spoons?” said he, with a smile wrinkling his face till -he was scarcely the same man. - -“Yaw. There is a cabin and bunk for your mattress. You are mate--first -mate, entitled to live aft.” - -“I shtops vhere I vhas, Mr. Fielding. I vhas no mate.” - -“As much mate as I was.” - -“Vell, dot might be,” said he; then added, “No, you vhas mate in your -last ship. I am bos’en. I belongs forwardt.” - -“I want a second mate. Send the men aft, will you.” - -He went into the waist and put his pipe to his lips. His roar was like -the voice of a giant singing the tune of the wind in the rigging. The -men knocked off the several jobs they were on and came aft. - -The fellows had a homely, comfortable appearance. The slop-chest had -supplied the vacancies in their own bags, and they were clad as men who -were starting on, not returning from, a long voyage. Their health was -good. Some were fat, all hearty. I scanned them swiftly but with -attention, and saw nothing to occasion uneasiness; and I believe I could -not be mistaken, for of all living beings the sailor is the most -transparent in his moods and meanings. A few I have known who were dark -and subtle; they were not Englishmen, neither were they Dutchmen. The -English sailor gets a face at sea that prohibits the concealment of -feelings and passions, and, on board the merchant ship, he will look the -thing that is in him. - -“Am I captain? Is it understood?” - -“Ay, captain, of course,” exclaimed Teach after a pause, as though the -men had waited for one of them to act as spokesman. “If not you, who? -and if it’s who, vhere do ’ee sling his hammock? Not forrads. All the -larnin’s been washed aft out o’ that.” - -“Mr. Yan Bol is your chief mate.” - -“Ay, Mr. Yan Bol is chief mate. Who but him?” said Teach. - -“Now choose a second mate, lads.” - -“Is he to live aft?” said Friend. - -“That’s as he chooses.” - -“There’ll be no man wants to live aft,” exclaimed Street. - -“I will live aft,” said Antonio. - -“Yaw, towed in der vake, you beastly man,” thundered Bol. “Dot was aft -for der likes of you.” - -“I will live aft, señor,” said Antonio. - -“Curse your impudence, I’ll aft ye. Now, look. There are four Dutchmen -and seven Englishmen, not reckoning two Spaniards.” - -“Don’t count them Johnnies, sir,” said Travers. - -“It vhas oudt dey go mit dem soon, I allow,” said Hals, the cook. - -Paying no attention to these interruptions, I continued: - -“A Dutchman is already mate. If I choose another Dutchman you Englishmen -mayn’t like it. Now then.” - -“Choose, sir,” exclaimed Call. - -“I choose Galen,” said I. - -There was a general grin, and Friend called out: - -“We’re satisfied.” - -“Then Galen it is,” said I. “Galen, you now act second. Will you live -aft, Galen?” - -“May I pe dommed if I lifs aft!” exclaimed he, with a wide grin and a -slow wag of his head. - -“All right; that’ll do. You can go forward;” and I went below, very -well satisfied with the Dutchmen’s refusal to live aft. Not for my own -sake; indeed, there was a laugh here and there to be got out of the -ignorance and talk and strange English of Bol and of Galen. I thought of -my lady Aurora. How would _she_ enjoy the company of those Dutchmen at -table, the society of those heavy, lumpish forecastle hands, half-boors, -half-savages? I suppose that never before in the history of marine -disaster was a girl situated as was this señorita. Are you who read this -a girl? Figure yourself, madam, on board a little ship; you are scarcely -able to speak the tongue of the crew; your only associate is a rough -seaman, your sitting room is a small, old-fashioned cabin, your bedroom -a bit of a hole up in a corner, lighted by an eye called a scuttle, that -winks at the leaping sea, your meals the pork and beef of the ocean, -your diversions the fancies that come out of the running hills of water -of the gale, out of the silent, swimming surface of the calm. Can you -imagine the ceaseless heaving of the deck, the long days of the crying -of the wind, the creaking and straining of a tumbling timber-built -craft, the sullen roar of smitten and parted waters, the indescribable -odors of the hold? - -When I left the deck that day, after calling the men aft and choosing -Galen to act as second mate, on stepping below, I found the lady Aurora -leaning against the door of the cabin, with her arms folded upon her -breast and her eyes fixed upon the deck. She did not immediately see me. -I stood viewing her. She was attired in a white drill, or duck dress of -her own making. It would have been cold wear but for certain hidden -clothing she had contrived for herself. She looked a fine figure of a -woman. She lifted up her eyes, released her breast from the embrace of -her arms, and extended her hand. I brought her to a seat--it was what -she wanted--and sat beside her. - -We sat together for near an hour, because we both had something to say, -and it took us long to communicate our minds, though, to be sure, these -passages of laborious intercourse were never teasing or fatiguing to me, -however _she_ may have found them; for there was a pleasure not hard to -understand in the mere watching her face when she talked or signed to -me. Her expressions were rich and manifold; her eyes darkened, softened, -brightened, shone with fire, dimmed as with tears, like the figure of a -star in the sea over which the scattered mists of the calm night are -floating. - -But here will I put into plain English the words and signs we exchanged -while we sat together at this time. It may well come to it, for I -understood her and I know what myself said. Thus, then, ran this -conversation: - -“Señor Fielding, have the men rebelled?” - -“No, why do you ask?” - -“I stepped up yonder stairs just now and saw you talking to the men.” - -“It is true. I am captain, Bol is mate, someone must be chosen to take -Bol’s place.” - -But, oh, the time and difficulty to make her understand this! - -“I am very sad to-day, Señor Fielding. The death of the captain makes me -think of my mother. Most blessed and very purest Maria, does she live? -Shall we meet again? Ay me, ay me,” and here the tears stood in her eye. - -“Señorita, this is what I wish to say to you. I have not the fears of -the captain who is dead. If we meet a ship of your nation, if we meet a -ship of any country sailing to Spain, or proceeding to a port in South -America, east or west, I will put you on board her if she will take -you.” - -“_Gracias._ I am content to stop.” - -“You are alone.” - -“It is true, señor.” (Sigh.) - -“There are few comforts for you in this ship.” - -“True, true, ’tis true. Yet could I be content if I knew my mother was -alive.” - -“If you are content I am glad. I do not wish to speak a ship, yet I’ll -do so.” - -“No--I will go home in the _Black Watch_.” - -“I admire your spirit. You have borne up very bravely.” - -“To you belongs my gratitude, Señor Fielding. Throughout you have been -amiable and tender. The poor captain liked me not. Why was that?” and -here she bent her eyes upon me; their expression was a mixture of -archness and temper. - -“He was in pain, was a little crazy, and would not always be sure of the -reasons of his moods.” - -“I am not used not to be liked.” I bowed a very full acquiescence. “He -was not as you are. But he is dead.” Her hand flashed as she swept it -before her face, dismissing the subject with a gesture. “Now that you -are captain you will have plenty of leisure.” - -“I shall have time to spare.” - -“_Vaya!_ Time to spare--and yet command! I shall want you to give me -much of your time.” - -I looked at her eyes and laughed when I gathered her meaning, and -answered: “All the spare time I have shall be yours, señorita. But how -much of that spare time will it take to make you weary of my face and -voice?” - -“_Qué disparate!_ [What nonsense!] You shall teach me English, and I -will teach you Spanish.” - -“_Bueno!_ Yet what is the reason of your desire to speak English?” - -To this she made no answer. She cast her eyes down, and her face took a -demure look. - -“It is a rough language.” - -“It is a noble language, señor,” said she, answering with her eyes cast -down. Suddenly she looked up: the leap of her glance was like the light -of a flash of fire upon her face, so swift and cunning was she in the -management of her eyelids. “Do you love music?” - -“Yes.” - -“I will sing to you when it is calm, and when you can hear my voice.” - -I thanked her for this promise. - -“Are we not alone? We will be company one to the other. I have the -actress’s art, and can recite, and when you know some Spanish I will -speak many beautiful and majestic lines to you. Have you playing-cards?” - -“I fear not.” - -“_Eso me soprende mucho!_ Many tiresome hours could we have killed with -cards. Can you dance?” - -“All sailors can dance.” - -“I will make you an accomplished cavalier. I will teach you to tell -fortunes after the manner of the zingari, and you shall teach me -English, and give me your company until I tire, or until the ship calls -you from me.” - -We broke off here that I might fetch my quadrant, for it was drawing on -to the hour of noon. Our conversation was not as I have set it down; it -took us a long while to work our way through the above; but what you -have read is the substance of what was meant and by our methods -conveyed. - -I went on deck puzzled and tickled, amused and astonished by the -gay-spirited, fine woman below. Did she mean to make love to me? Did she -intend that I should make love to her? What would my teaching her -English and her teaching me Spanish, her singing to me, her recital of -swelling Spanish rhymes, her gypsy tricks, and the rest of it end -in--the rest of it, I say, backed by her impassioned eyes, the many arch -and moving and tender and fiery expressions of countenance she was -mistress of, her excellent person, and all that sort of sweet rhetoric -which is found, the poet tells you, in the laughter and tears, the -smiles and gesticulations, of a lady after the pattern of this Spanish -maiden? - -I took my quadrant on deck; the sun did not show himself, and I got at -the situation of the brig by dead reckoning. The westerly gale blew -fresh and strong, and I needed to keep the vessel under the tall canvas -of the topgallant sail to run her free of the huge Horn surge, which -chased us as though to the hurl of an earthquake. It was impossible to -make too much of such a wind; at any moment might come a greasy Horn -calm with a swell like a land of hills; to be swept with horrible -suddenness by a black outfly right ahead. I saw no ice; the horizon lay -open, distant seven or eight miles from the head of a sea. We were -cutting the meridians spankingly, and three days of such sailing would -enable me to head the brig northward for England. - -And very nearly three days of such sailing did we get, during which -nothing noteworthy happened, for the plain reason that so heavy and -violent were the motions of the brig, the most seasoned among us found -it difficult to come and go. Relieving tackles were hooked on; two hands -steered day and night, and a third was always near in readiness. I have -seen the gigantic feathering curl of the huge sea soar on either hand -alongside to half the height of the foremast and fall aboard in froth, -making it all sheer dazzle, like snow shone on, from the eyes to the -main rigging, till the tilt of the brig aft, courtesying with her bows -flat as a spoon upon the roaring smother of the on-rushing sea, sent the -water in a cataractal sweep over the head, where it blew up in white -smoke and drove away as though we were on fire. - -This was a sort of weather to keep everything very quiet aboard. Hals -cooked with difficulty; he scalded himself, broke dishes, and filled the -caboose with Dutch oaths. The cold was bitter, and the chief work of the -crew lay in keeping themselves warm. Yet no ice formed; no hail or snow -ever drove in the sudden dark squalls which burst in guns of hurricane -power out of the gale over the stern; we sighted not a berg, and yet the -cold was frightful; the wind took the face like a saw, and you felt -half flayed when you turned your back to it. The cold of the spray made -its drops sting like lead, and it was as though you were shot through -the head to be struck by a showering of the brine. - -Her ladyship kept below. She saw very little of me; in those three days -we made no progress in English and Spanish. The violent upheavals of the -brig frightened her; then did her eyes grow large, her face look wild; -if I was near her she’d grasp me and hold on to me and utter many -exclamations in Spanish. I’d catch myself smiling afterward when I -thought of those moments; how she used me as though we had grown up, boy -and girl, together, never timid in her tricks of touching me, as free -with me as a sister, and that’s about it. - -We were in longitude 63° or 64° west when the westerly gale shifted into -the north, and the wind blew in a moderate breeze out of that quarter. -The cold lessened with the shift. The sailors moved with some trifle of -alacrity, as though they were thawing. The decks dried, we shook out -reefs, made sail, coiled down anew fore-and-aft; the smoke blew cheerily -from the chimney of the caboose, and with taut running gear and white -clothes robing her to the topgallant mastheads the brig renewed her -comfortable, homely look. - -This brought us to the afternoon of what I will call the third day of -the gale. I had eaten some supper, talked awhile with my lady, visited -my cabin, and returned on deck after an examination of the chart, -resolved on a bit more of easting before changing the course. - -When I passed through the companion way I heard Bol’s voice. He and -Galen stood at the bulwarks abreast of the hatch, their faces to the -sea, and they conversed in Dutch, keeping their voices down and talking -very earnestly. The large swell rolled quietly under the brig; the wind -silenced the sails, and after the uproar of the preceding days the -repose along the decks and up aloft was almost as the hush of a tropic -calm upon the vessel. - -I stepped to the binnacle. Teach, who was at the wheel, cleared his -throat noisily and spat over the taffrail. The Dutchmen looked, and -Galen, saying something sharp and quick in Dutch, walked forward. Bol -glanced aloft with the air of a man in search of work for his watch; I -walked a few paces his way, and he approached me. - -“How vhas der vetter to be, sir?” - -“The sky is high and hard, and the sun strikes clear fire into the -west. Look at the edge of the sea; it sweeps clean as the rim of a new -dollar. There is fine weather about.” - -“Vell, so much der better, Mr. Fielding. I have slept in more -comfortable fok’sles dan vhas dis of der _Black Vatch_ vhen she pitches -heavy--more comfortable, but I doan say drier. No; der toyfell shall not -pe more plack dan she vhas bainted. Dis vhas a dry brick, und dere vhas -no schmarter sailor out of Amsterdam.” - -“I believe you.” - -He looked about him to let me see he did not heed the brig the less for -talking. I was willing he should talk. I saw matter in his huge full -face, and guessed, if he chattered, he might let me come presently at -what had passed ’twixt him and Galen. - -“Mr. Fielding, how far might she be from der Horn to der Channel?” - -“A long stride. Would you have it as the crow flies? How many hundreds -of miles will the zigzags of a ship tag on to a straight-line -measurement?” - -“Yaw, dot’s how it vhas. No man at sea can say how far she vhas from -home. Der Cape of Goodt Hope, Mr. Fielding--dot, now, vhas a vast great -roon from here?” - -“Yaw; the whole width of the South Atlantic.” - -“She vhas vide.” - -“I’ll teach you how to measure distances on a chart, if you like.” - -“Vell, I likes to know; but I doan believe dot I recollects to-morrow -vhat you teaches him to-day. Mr. Fielding, vhere vhas Amsderdam Island?” - -“Amsderdam Island?” - -“Yaw. Der Doytch fell in mit her--vell, call it a hoondred year ago.” - -“There is an Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean.” - -“Dot vhas her.” - -“What of it?” - -“Nothing, sir. Galen vhas saying how der Doytch vhas everywhere mit der -names. New Holland, Amsderdam Island--look how dey roon.” - -“True,” said I. - -“Mind your luff, my ladt!” he called in thunder to Teach. “How vhas her -headt?” - -“East by north,” answered Teach. - -“East she vhas, und noting off.” - -He upturned his face to the canvas with an expression which let me see -that certain whale-like thoughts were coming up to blow from the dark -and oozy deep of his mind. - -“Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding--mit regard to der dollars. You promised a -leedle vhile ago to talk mit me about der landing of dot silver vhen ve -arrives.” - -“What do you want to know?” - -“Vell, Mr. Fielding, it vhas like dis. All handts vould like to know how -dey vhas to be baid dere shares. If der money vhas schmuggled on shore, -who bays me und der men? Dis vhas your peesiness like as ours, for you -too shall ask who vhas to bay you herself?” - -“On our arrival in the Downs,” said I, willing to give him the -information he desired, pleased, indeed, that he should seek it, since -the manner of his question gave a new turn to my fancies of him, “I -shall communicate with Mynheer Tulp and await his instructions.” - -“Suppose she vhas deadt?” - -“I will suppose nothing. Tulp is alive until we know he is dead; and -when we know that he is dead we will think of what’s next to be done.” - -“Vell, dot’s straight-hitting. I like her.” - -“You shall suppose Tulp alive. He will come on wings from the city of -Amsterdam; and, when he is on board, every man will take his share of -the dollars according to his paper of proportion. Tulp touches not one -dollar until he pays us our share. We will then hold him to carry out -whatever schemes he prearranged with Captain Greaves.” - -“Vell, dot vhas all right; but, Mr. Fielding, der ship’s company likes -to know if dere vhas any reesk vhen you gets her home?” - -“Who home?” - -“Der money.” - -“Risk? I don’t understand.” - -“Vell, dey puts it as she might pe dis vay. Ve vhas in der Downs. A boat -cooms alongside, und somepody climbps on poardt und oxes, ‘Vhat vhas -your cargo?’ ‘Dot vhas my peesiness,’ you say. ‘Not at all,’ he answers. -‘I vhas a King’s officer. I belongs to der Revenue.’ How vhas it, den, -mit her, der ship’s company vould like to know, Mr. Fielding?” - -“We should not be searched for cargo in the Downs--for men, perhaps; but -who would meddle with the cargo?” - -“Ay; but how vhas you to know dot for certain, sir?” - -“Let us arrive in the Downs. The rest will be easy. Our difficulty lies -in getting home. We are still fighting the Yankees, no doubt.” - -“Ay; but he vhas a Doytchman, Mr. Fielding.” - -“I hope whoever boards us will believe it,” said I, with a shrug of the -shoulders; and, catching sight at that instant of a dim, yellow spot -against the sky across the round, large heads of the swell, I fetched -the glass, and made out the object to be a ship bound westward. I -watched her until she died out in the red air. - -Bol drew off and we talked no more. His questions and remarks had struck -me as honest, very natural, and to the point, seeing that the men -expected him to speak what was in their minds, and that their united -stake in the successful finish of this adventure, now that the money was -aboard, was considerable. I did not perhaps much relish the persistent -manner in which he had “Mr. Fielding’d” me. I could have wished him a -little blunter. When Yan Bol gave me my name very often, distrust arose. -On the other hand, there was nothing in his own suggestions nor in the -fears of the crew to render me uneasy as to the safe disposal of the -cargo of silver, should I be fortunate enough to reach the Downs. What -excuse could be invented for overhauling a ship’s cargo while she lay at -anchor in those waters? You look for the wolves of the Revenue as you -warp into dock; you look for them in the Pool; but I had never heard of -them in the Downs--that is, I had never heard of them boarding a ship -_there_ to seek contraband matter. - -A quiet evening came down upon the brig; the stars were many and -glorious; there was a bright moon, and the temperature and the look of -the heavens might have persuaded me we were ten degrees further north -than where we were rolling. The brig was under all plain sail. The wind -was about north, a moderate breeze, and the vessel pushed her way softly -over the wide swell. - -I brought the lady Aurora on deck for a walk, when the sun had been sunk -about half an hour. All hands were enjoying the moonlight and the quiet -weather. They paced in couples; they came together in groups and halted -for a yarn; the hum of their conversation was a deep and eager note; but -all the talk was subdued--I caught no sudden calls. Now and again a man -laughed, and there was a frequent lighting of pipes by the flames of -burning rope-yarns. The brig was made an ivory carving of by the moon. -Every plank might have been chiseled out of the tusk of the elephant. -Stars of silver glittered and swam in the glass of the skylight. The -swell came along like folds of ink, but as every shoulder of black water -swung into the glory of the moon’s wake it flashed into a shining hill, -and the splendor of those vast shapes was the more wonderful for the -blackness out of which they rolled and the blackness in which they -vanished. - -Miss Aurora walked by my side; presently the play of the deck obliged -her to take my arm. Galen had charge; he stepped to leeward out of the -road of our weather walk and lay against the rail abreast of the wheel. -The weariness of the sea was in that man’s figure. As he stood there or -leaned, the mere posture only of the clothes and the fat of him -expressed with extraordinary force the sickening monotony, the profound -dullness of the calling of the sea as that calling was in those years. -The iteration of the ocean line; the ceaseless groan and heave of the -timber fabric under one’s foot; the eye-wearying flight of the sails to -the masthead; the weeks and months of the same thing over and over -again, ocean and sky, darkness and light, the weeping of mist, roar of -wind, the cold of the dawn; the beef and the pork, the pork and the -beef--it was _all_ in that Dutchman’s figure. - -After we had walked the deck for half an hour the señorita informed me -that she felt cold, and that the movements of the ship made her legs -ache, and she proposed that we should go below and that I should give -her a lesson in English. When we had entered the lighted cabin she saw -in my face that I was in no particular humor to teach her English just -then. She was quick in reading me: this had come about through much of -our talk having been carried on with our faces. In truth, while I had -walked with her on deck my thoughts had gone to Bol’s questions about -the disposal of the money, and my spirits had drooped a bit. - -But her ladyship was not to be put off; she must coax me into an easy -mind, and then no doubt I would give her a lesson in English. She -removed the cap she had contrived out of the yield of the slop-chest, -and turned herself about that I might help to take off the heavy -pilot-cloth jacket which she had likewise cut and contrived for herself -as you have heard. When this was done she seated herself abreast of the -lamp, and laughing, and looking at me with sparkling eyes, she made me -understand that if I would give her my hand she would tell my fortune. - -I did not much like to give her my hand; it was coarse and horny with -the toil of the sea. I extended the palms at a safe distance, and by -motions informed her that the lines of the hand had been worn -out--smoothed to the quality of the sole of an old boot by many years of -pulling and hauling, by grasping the spokes of wheels, by the fingering -of canvas, and the handling of capstan bars. - -“No, no,” she cried, “give me your hand, Señor Fielding.” - -So I went round the table and sat beside her. I winced when she took my -hand; the contrast between my square-ended fist and her delicate fingers -was a shock. She held my hand and pored upon it. The skylight was shut, -and Galen probably thought that I did not observe him looking down at -us. Holding my hand, her dark and shining eyes sometimes bent upon the -palm of it, sometimes lifted full of archness and quiet mirth to my -face, the lady Aurora told me my fortune. I comprehended but little of -what she said; she spoke much in Spanish, motioned with one arm--always -retaining my hand--viewed me with a face that was forever changing its -expression, and occasionally she let fall certain English words. I -guessed from what she said that I was to be rich, marry a handsome lady -without money, have six children, and live to be a very old man. - -Jimmy came into the cabin while she held my hand, and gaped at us from -the bottom of the companion ladder. I bade him put wine, biscuits, and -the material for grog upon the table and then clear out. When the lady -was done with my hand she went to her berth and returned with a log -book--a new volume of blank leaves headed for entries--which I had given -to her out of several in Greaves’ cabin. - -“Now, Señor Fielding,” said she in English, “you shall give me a -lesson;” and, sitting down, she examined the point of her pencil and -adjusted herself with the air of a lady who means business. - -I glanced at the clock, poured out a glass of wine, and placed it on a -swing tray in front of her, mixed myself a tumbler of grog, and took a -seat over against her. The lesson consisted of dictation. I’d pronounce -a sentence deliberately; she’d take it down: hand me the book; then our -faces would meet across the table over the book, while I pointed out the -blunders in spelling, and explained the meaning of such words as she -did not know. She had filled several pages of the book on her own -account, and some pages on mine. - -The romance of it all! What more romantic as a detail of ocean life -would you have? Realize that little moonlighted brig rolling over the -black heaven of the sea, Cape Horn not far off, the Cross and the -Magellanic dust overhead, nothing in sight, the moon’s wake coiling in -hills of silver under her, and in the heart of that lonely speck of brig -two young people, again and again nearly rubbing cheeks together over a -blank log book: one of them a fine, handsome Spanish woman, with dark -eyes of fire and a smile that was like light with its swift disclosure -of white teeth, and a beautiful little pale yellow hand that shone with -jewels; and the other--and the other---- - -She looked at the clock, and started, with a Spanish exclamation, and -said, “I will sing. You have been good. I will sing to you.” All this -she said in English. Then, in dumb show, she played a phantom guitar, -gazing at me with one of those asking looks which I could interpret as -easily as I took sights. I shook my head to her signification of a -guitar, and played on an imaginary fiddle; on which she nodded, crying -with vivacity in Spanish, “It will do! It will do!” - -I put my head into the hatch and called for Jimmy. Galen sent the name -forward in a roar, and the boy arrived. - -“Borrow me a fiddle,” said I. - -When he returned he held a fiddle and a fiddlestick; but this unusual -appeal of the cabin to the forecastle had roused curiosity, and a number -of the men followed Jimmy to the quarter-deck. I heard their softened -footfalls, and caught a glimpse of their figures as they stood round -about the skylight, scarce sensible that they were visible through the -black glass. The lady took the fiddle and the bow from the lad, who -withdrew. She put the fiddle to her neck, tuned it, and played a short, -merry air. I had not known that she played the fiddle. I guessed she had -asked for the instrument to twang an accompaniment upon. She played a -second sweet and merry air; the melody was full of beauty and humor. -Someone overhead tapped the deck in time to it. I took care not to look -up, willing that the fellows should listen, though they had no business -aft. - -“How do you like that?” said the lady in Spanish. - -“It is sweet and good. Give me more.” - -She put down the bow, and, laying the fiddle across her knees, twanged -it. She kept her eyes fastened upon me, and, when she had tweaked the -fiddlestrings, she shrugged her shoulders and laughed; then, before the -laugh had fairly left her lips, she burst into song, singing with that -clear, full-throated richness of voice which poor Greaves had predicted -her the possessor of. She filled the cabin with her song. She would have -filled the biggest theater in Europe with it. Her voice was thrilling -with volume and power, and her eyes were full of a gay triumph as she -sang, as though she would say, “This is news to you, my friend.” - -I thought her spirit the most remarkable part of the performance. Here -was a lady--a young and handsome woman, clearly a person of degree in -her own country--amusing a young, rough sailor with her songs, fiddling -to him, taking lessons in English from him, watching him with shining -eyes, as though her heart was as charged with light as her gaze. Her -voice, her face, the aroma of her manner, transformed the plain, grim -little cabin of the brig into a brilliant drawing room, full of ladies -and gentlemen, sweet with the scent of flowers, gay with the gleam of -silk and jewel and epaulet. Who, while she sang, would have supposed -that she had been shipwrecked not very long ago, living, with small -hopes of deliverance, upon a desert island, in company with a couple of -common, low seamen; ignorant whether her mother was alive or dead; still -many thousands of miles away from her home--if Madrid was to be her -home; with twenty hard fortunes before her, for all she knew? - -She sang me three songs, and all hands, as I knew by the shuffling of -feet, listened above, some shouldering warily into the companion hatch -to hear well. I reckoned she knew she had a bigger audience than I, for -once she lifted her eyes in the pause of a song and smiled in a -conscious way. - -“Now I am tired,” said she in English, and put the fiddle upon the table -with capricious quickness of movement. “Good-night, Señor Fielding:” and -she gave me a low, but somewhat haughty bow, and went to her cabin, -stepping the short length of the deck with the most translatable -carriage in life: “_I have amused you, I have condescended; but I am -always the Señorita Aurora de la Cueva. Vaya!_” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI. - -A TRAGIC SHIFT OF COURSE. - - -All went well with us through the month of February and through the -early days of March in that year of God, 1815, until it came to pass -that we arrived in the latitude 45° south, and in longitude 47° west. - -I was very hopeful in this time. The crew had been orderly, civil, and -quick; strong, prosperous winds had swept us round the Horn and -northward; we were homeward bound; we were putting the unfamiliar stars -of the south over our stern; already some were gone, and some wheeled -low. I walked the deck with gladness, and knew but two sorrows: that -Greaves was not at my side to share in the rich issue of his own -discovery and his own expedition, and that my poor, faithful, well-loved -Galloon was drowned. - -Little wonder that my heart at this time felt light, that my spirits -sometimes danced. Let me but bring the brig to a safe anchorage off -Deal, and I might hope--failing frigates and presses--that my business -was done. I should have taken a long farewell of the sea. I should be a -rich man; for to me in those days, _six thousand pounds_ of English -money was a great sum--aye, beyond my utmost hopes by one cipher at -least. Yes; and even had I dreamt of _six hundred pounds_, how was I to -earn it? Never could I have saved so much money out of the slender wage -of the ocean. Why, let me even knock off another cipher, and put the -figure at _sixty pounds_. Do many Jacks, after years of bitter toil, -limp ashore--curved in the back, one-eyed, maybe, half-fingerless, -rotted to their marrow with the beastly food, the stinking water of the -jolly life of the deep, rotted to the soul by nameless sins and the -slum-and-alley seductions of a hundred ports--are there many Jacks, I -ask, whose savings, after years of labor, amount to _sixty pounds_? - -There is an irony of circumstance at sea as there is ashore; but at sea -this sort of irony is bitterer than ashore, because nothing can happen -at sea that lacks a coloring, more or less defined, of the fearful -significance of life or death. - -In proof whereof list, ye landsmen, to what I am about to relate. - -You will suppose that so shrewd, intelligent, and diligent a lady as the -Señorita Aurora would not need to be thrown much in the company of an -Englishman, would not need to be long instructed by him, would not need -to spend many hours in studying for herself, before she acquired a very -respectable knowledge of the English tongue. And let me tell you that, -by this time, though she spoke slowly, with many pauses, though she -wanted many words, she was already become a very good listener when I -discoursed in my own speech. How long should it take an intelligent -Spanish lady to learn English--to talk it freely and correctly? I don’t -know. My lady Aurora began (in questions) the study of the language, as -you may remember, in the beginning of January; and now, in these early -days of March, she understood me when I talked to her; when I talked to -her slowly and pronounced my words carefully, and when I helped her with -a sign or a Spanish word here and there. - -I’ll call the date the 12th of March: it was a Friday; I sat at dinner -with Madam Aurora. Dinner!--yet I must give even that pleasant name to -the midday repast, to the piece of beef in whose mahogany texture lurked -scurvy enough to lay low a watch, to the boiled duff and the several -messes of the caboose. But then our stock of poultry was growing small; -we had need to be frugal; we were in the unhappy condition of not -daring, or not choosing if you will, to look into a port for the -replenishment of coops and casks. - -I sat with her ladyship, and we ate of the yield of the _Black Watch’s_ -cabin pantry. The day was fine; the sun sparkled white as silver upon -the skylight. The royal yards were aloft, and the brig was sailing with -her larboard topmast studding sail out, making very little noise as she -went, so that talking was easy. - -Times had been when Miss Aurora questioned me about the dollars in the -lazarette. She had asked me for the name of the ship they came from: I -had answered her, _La Perfecta Casada_. She had asked me for the story -of Greaves’ discovery, and by our methods of communication I had spun -her the yarn. When I had spun her the yarn, she informed me that she had -heard of the loss of a Spanish ship called _La Perfecta Casada_, with -all hands, as it was supposed, but this said, the subject dropped, and -we rarely afterward mentioned the matter of the treasure in the hold. - -Now, while we were at dinner this day, we talked of her shipwreck. She -said there had been a quantity of antique valuable furniture belonging -to her mother on board; otherwise, saving clothes and jewelry, the -Señora de la Cueva had embarked no property in the ship. She spoke of -the captain and officers of the vessel. The captain was a worthless -seaman, a timid, ill-tempered, swearing fellow, a native of the -Manillas. We drifted from this subject of the wreck to _La Perfecta -Casada_. Our conversation was animated, despite the frequent -interruption of gesticulations, the many hindrances of words -unintelligible through their pronunciation, the frequent pausings for -the needful term. She requested me to describe the cave in which the -_Casada_ lay. I fetched paper and pencil, and drew it for her as best I -could. Then she asked me the value of the treasure, and I told her very -honestly that it rose to above half a million of dollars of the currency -of her nation. - -“Ave Maria!” cried she, “what wealth to discover in a cave. It is like a -tale told by the Arabs. Santa Maria Purissima! What a treasure for a -mariner of the orthodox faith to dedicate to the Church! You will -receive a handsome portion, I trust?” - -“I will receive a share,” said I. - -“And the poor Captain Greaves--had he a share!” - -“A big share.” - -“It will go to his mother?” - -“He had no relations. It will go to his Church.” - -Her eyes sparkled. “My Church!” she cried, pressing her forefinger to -her breast. - -“Mine,” said I, imitating her action with my forefinger. - -She shrugged her shoulders, looked at me fixedly, smiled, and gave me -several nods in the foreign fashion. - -I felt no reluctance in talking to her about the treasure. Indeed, I had -never sympathized with Greaves’ nervous caution in this way. It was not -as if he and I alone had possessed the secret of the dollars: all hands -knew there were fifteen tons of minted silver in the lazarette. What on -earth was the use of concealing the fact from this Spanish lady, as if -she only of all the souls on board the brig was to be feared by and by -as the intelligencer? - -I was in high spirits that day: the sunshine in the heavens was upon my -heart; I enjoyed the company of the handsome lady; I found a growing and -a deepening pleasure in viewing her when she talked; I delighted in the -music that her voice gave to her English. All was well and we were -homeward bound. I had a mind to talk of my dollars and my prospects, and -whether she guessed my wish or not she helped me to the subject by -asking me how much my share would amount to. - -“Many figures in dollars,” said I, “and in British gold just a little -fat figure.” - -“Shall you buy a ship?” said she, smiling. - -“No,” said I, looking earnestly at her; “I will marry a wife and settle -down.” - -She clapped her hands, threw her head back, and laughed aloud. “_Qué -disperate._ Cannot you make a better use of your money than purchasing a -wife with it? Señor Fielding, you shall buy a fine ship and trade to the -Indies and grow immensely rich. Marry! _Qué disperate._” She threw back -her head again, and laughed out. - -“I’ll buy no ship,” said I. “I will marry a handsome woman, and live -happily with her on the seashore. She and I will go a-fishing for -pleasure. You are not a sailor: were you a sailor, you would think of -nothing but a wife and a home of your own and money enough for meat, -tobacco, and the rest.” - -“Your wife,” said she, “shall be another _Perfecta Casada_: she shall -make you more money than any woman can bring you. You’ll die a Catholic, -and your fortune shall build a magnificent cathedral;” and now, without -another word, she abruptly rose, made me a low, strange bow, as though -forsooth we had met for the first time in our brig five minutes before, -and went to her cabin. - -She was frequently puzzling me in this way. She’d abandon herself, so to -speak; be all charm, naïveté, smiles, and graciousness, then abruptly -look poniards and corkscrews, and with a sweep of her fine figure make -off. Was it her theory of coquetry? - -I went on deck with a half smile in my thought of her odd, abrupt, -capricious withdrawal, and amused, too, with thinking of how I now -managed to make out a clear conversation with a girl who, a few weeks -before, pointed at things with her finger and talked to me with her -eyes. The time was about twenty minutes before two. John Wirtz was at -the wheel. Bol, whose watch it was, talked with Travers and Teach in the -gangway. Travers and Teach were in Galen’s watch. I was surprised to -find them aft; further aft, I mean, than that they had a right to be, -talking with Bol, whose business it was to keep a lookout. Galen was on -the forecastle pacing to and fro, under the yawn of the fore-course, -with Henry Call and James Meehan; Friend and the two Spaniards were -squatted upon a sail in the waist, stitching at it. Both watches then -were on deck, and all hands saving Jim Vinten, the cabin boy, visible. - -I found something strange in this: yet had I taken time to reflect I -might have seen that the strangeness lay rather in the bearing of the -men than in the circumstance of all the crew being in sight. I looked -aloft: every cloth was doing its work; the whiteness of the sails -overflowed the boundaries of the bolt-ropes with light, and the azure of -the sky was a pale silver against the edges of the canvas. The foam -spitting from the nimble thrust of the cut-water shot by fast alongside; -the brig was sailing well. I stood with my hands upon one of the shrouds -of the main, my eyes upon the sea line: turning a minute or two later I -saw Yan Bol corning to me. - -“Mr. Fielding,” said he, “I likes to have a quiet talk mit you.” - -Travers and Teach in the gangway held their stations looking at us. -Galen came to a halt on the forecastle with his face aft; Friend looked -at us with his needle poised; the Spaniards went on stitching. - -“What is it?” - -“I shpeak for all handts. Do not be afraid, Mr. Fielding. She vhas all -right and every man vhas good friendts.” - -“Afraid!” said I, looking at him steadily, though I was conscious that -the blood was gone out of my cheeks. “I think you said _afraid_?” - -“I ox pardon, I vhas----” - -“There is no Dutchman in this ship--there is no Dutchman in all Holland -that can make me afraid. Use another word and bear a hand. I mean to get -an hour’s sleep this afternoon.” - -“Dere vhas nothing I hope to stop you sleeping soundtly as long as you -please.” - -“What do you want?” - -“Mr. Fielding, ve vants the brig’s course altered.” - -“Ay, indeed. For what part of the world?” - -“I hope you shall not sneer. By ter tunder of Cott, all handts vhas in -earnest.” - -“Dot vhas so,” exclaimed Wirtz at the wheel, in his deep voice. - -I observed that Galen had come aft and was standing with Travers and -Teach at the gangway, within easy earshot of our voices: in fact, they -were almost abreast of us t’other side of the deck, and our ship, as you -know, was a little one. - -“You want the brig’s course altered? For where?” - -“For Amsterdam Island.” - -“Yes, that island in the Indian Ocean which the Dutch discovered and -gave a name to, and which you were talking about to me lately.” - -“Mr. Fielding, ve vhas all good friendts. I like to talk mit you as a -mate mit his captain. Ve vhas respectful, but, by Cott, ve vhas in -bloydy earnest also.” He smote the palm of his left hand with his huge -right fist and looked round, on which Galen, Teach, Travers, and others -came aft. Friend flung down his palm and needle and joined the group; -the Spaniards rose to their feet, but remained where they were. - -I knew myself pale. I was startled--I was thunderstruck; down to this -instant the crew had given me no hint to suspect their willingness to -work the brig to the Channel. I fetched some labored breaths, -recollected myself with a prodigious effort of resolution, and after -looking first at one face and then at another, during which time I was -eyed with great eagerness, with here and there the hint of a threat, but -generally with countenances not wanting in respect, I exclaimed, “Who -will tell me what it is you want?” - -“Shall I speak, Mr. Bol?” said Teach. - -“Shpeak,” cried Bol in his voice of thunder. - -“The matter’s simple as countin’ your toes,” said Teach, addressing me. -“There’s a cargo of silver down in the lazarette, aint there? The -captain’s dead--him it rightly belonged to as the discoverer of it. He’s -dead, and us men are agreed that his share--a lump we allow--should be -divided among all hands, you being one of us.” - -“Dot’s so,” said Bol. - -“We don’t want no blooming fuss,” continued Teach; “the job’s to be -handled so that it shall be agreeable to all concerned. Here’s the brig, -and the money’s below.” - -“Dot vhas so,” said Galen. “Dis vhas a shob over vhich ve all shakes -hands.” - -“If we carried the money home,” continued Teach, “what’s going to -happen? Mr. Tulp’ll claim the captain’s share as well as his own. And -what’s to be his own? And what’s to be your’n, Mr. Fielding? And what’s -to be our’n? Tulp ’ud suck egg and smash the shell agin our faces. Our -rights goes hell’s own length beyond the measly hundreds that’s to be -our fo’ksle allowance of dollars.” - -“No need to curse and swear, Thomas,” exclaimed Friend. “Mr. Fielding’s -a-taking of it all in. Give him time. Before a man lets go he sings out. -We haven’t sung out. I’m for kindly feelings in this here traverse.” - -“The shares you are promised along with your wages,” said I, “should -satisfy you. I will see that every man is paid.” - -“Vhat vhas your share, sir?” said Wirtz at the wheel. - -“Aint it worth naming?” said Meehan after a short silence. - -Call laughed. - -“‘Taint as if you was here through Mr. Tulp’s ordering,” said Teach. - -“You have chosen me captain,” said I. - -“The brig saved your life,” exclaimed Street; “you owes us a good turn.” - -“Captain you are and captain we wishes you to remain,” said Teach. - -“Dere vhas one ting dot vhas proper you should recollect, Mr. Fielding,” -said Bol. “How about der wars dot vhas on? If we carries der treasure -oop der Atlantic ve stands to lose her. Down here dere vhas peace und -comfort.” - -“Are not our heels a match for anything that’s afloat?” said I. - -“Yaw,” answered Bol, “and vhilst ve roon a shoe comes off; den vhere -vhas ve? Look at our gompany. Look at our goons.” - -“What’s your scheme?” I exclaimed. - -“Is it for me to speak?” said Teach. - -“Shpeak, Thomas,” cried Bol. - -“Our scheme’s this, sir. We want you to carry the brig to Amsterdam -Island, where we mean to heave the brig to, weather allowing, land the -silver, bury it, and sail away for New Holland.” - -“Out with it all, Tom,” said Travers. - -“There’s a party as is settled at Port Jackson,” continued Teach. “He’s -a relation of mine. He’ll do for us men what Mr. Tulp did for Captain -Greaves; if this brig’s to be given up, he’ll find us a schooner or some -such craft. We’ll fetch the silver in her, and he’ll receive it, and -divide it among us, making a share for himself. His share’ll be what -our’n is, no more nor less. That’ll be right. We find him the money and -he finds us the vessel, and it’s share and share alike. I am for fair -dealing. Straight was straight with me afore I went to sea; I wor -straight as a little ’un; straight’s the word still; and I han’t kinked -yet. What are we doing? Robbing any man of his rights?” cried he, -looking around into the faces of the others. “I say no. The captain’s -dead. If he were alive his rights ’ud carry the brig home, barring -events. But he’s dead; his money falls into shares for us men to take -up--for us men and you, sir. As for Mr. Tulp--look here. Suppose he -never hears again of the brig? Is this a-going to break any man’s heart? -How is he to know that we’ve got the silver? How is he to know Captain -Greaves’ yarn warn’t a lie? What’s his venture? Just the cost of the -hiring of this brig. Well, by our not turning up we save him in wages. -That’s wrote off, and that means pounds in good money. The brig don’t -turn up, and what then; she’s gone to the bottom; she’s been taken. -It’ll hentertain Mr. Tulp when he aint hard at work making money, to -guess what’s become of us; and how’ll our mysterious disappearance leave -him? Vy, one of the richest gents in the city o’ Amsterdam.” - -Every eye was fastened upon my face while Teach addressed me. The -fellows’ looks were eloquent with expectation that I should be instantly -convinced, satisfied, impressed, eager to execute their wishes. Jimmy -was staring at us out of the door of the caboose and I called to him: - -“Fetch me the bag of charts and a pair of compasses.” - -He brought the things. I found a chart of the world--a track chart. - -“Spread this on the skylight,” said I, giving it to Teach. He and -Travers held it open on the skylight. “Do you know the situation of the -brig at this moment?” said I. - -The men drew shouldering round me to look; Yan Bol stooped his huge form -and ran his wide and heavy face over the chart, his nose within an inch -of it as though he hunted for a flea. Not a man could point to, nay, not -a man had the least idea of, the place of the brig on the chart. - -“Here’s where we are now,” said I, “and here’s Amsterdam Island.” - -They huddled yet closer in a hairy, warm, hard-breathing group to look -at the island. - -“There it is, and here are we. Can you collect sea distances by looking -on a chart?” - -“No.” - -“Damn your ignorance. It’s out of that this trouble’s come. Look, you -Bol, you Dutchmen who are the cooks of this devil’s mess--look how I -take this pair of metal legs and make them walk--look--every step -signifying the flight of a ship in a week of prosperous gales. -Look--peer close--value every one of these lines at twenty leagues; -count them, Bol, count them.” - -“She vhas some vhays off; dot’s allowed,” answered Bol. “But dere vhas -der island, und dere vhas ve, all in goodt time.” - -“Why _that_ island?” said I, stepping back from the chart to command the -men’s faces. - -“Because I knows her,” answered Galen. “I vhas off her. She vhas an -uninhabited island. She vhas lofty, mit goodt hiding ground. She vhas -never visited.” - -“Dot’s vy,” said Bol. - -“I’ll not carry you there.” - -“Ve’ll turn it over, sir,” said Friend. - -“I’ll not help you to rob Mr. Tulp of his share.” - -“Dere vhas no robbery. Ve vhas lost at sea, mit all hands,” said Galen. - -“I’ll sail you home and, if you choose, will give you my bond to pay you -so many of the dollars as we’ll agree to. But I’ll not take you to -Amsterdam Island. So what will you do?” - -“What’ll _you_ do, sir?” exclaimed Teach. - -“My duty.” - -“Dot vhas not even half-way,” said Bol. - -I called to Jimmy to restow the charts and bring them below, and -descended the companion ladder. I was alone, and glad to be alone. The -looks and questions, nay, the presence of her ladyship would have been -intolerable to me just then. I sat down at the table and thought, then -jumped up and paced the cabin like a madman. It had come about as I had -many a time feared, but more darkly than ever my imagination had -foreboded. The road to Amsterdam Island ran through a hundred and fifty -degrees of longitude. Suppose--an incredible suppose!--an average of a -hundred and fifty miles a day; two months then in making the island! and -afterward? The silver was to be landed and buried, and we should head on -for Port Jackson in New Holland, where my throat would be cut if the -spirit of murder left the crew a hand to cut my throat withal. - -And the money being buried, good-night to my six--my seven thousand -pounds--to my fine prospects, my giving up the sea forever, and settling -down ashore with a wife. Tulp? God bless you, no. It was not of Tulp I -thought. What was he to me? I was no servant of his, under no obligation -of fidelity to _him_. It was the six thousand pounds which ran in my -head and set my brains boiling--the six thousand and the one bequeathed -to me by Greaves. - -I paced the cabin like mad. What am I to do? How was I to preserve my -share of the dollars? There were eleven, and with me twelve, of us now -to the brig’s company; the men were not likely to count Jimmy and the -two Spaniards as partners. Teach--was it Teach?--talked of an equal -division; _that_ would work out fifty thousand dollars a man; twenty -thousand ahead of my present share. They’d promise me more, I -daresay--offer me what I chose to take--Yes, and knife me, or drop me -overboard in the hour of the coast of New Holland heaving into sight. - -Nor was that all of it either: I conceived the fifteen tons of silver -buried in the island of New Amsterdam: we arrive at Port Jackson: -Teach’s friend--think now of the respectability of a friend of -Teach!--finds a little schooner. Would the fellows return to the island -with me? or would they pick up some cheap ruffian of a navigator, -leaving me to wait for them? - -If the money was buried my share was gone for good, my life not worth a -hair of my beard. What was to be done? - -While I paced the cabin I had observed that the men continued to hang -about the skylight. I supposed that they were looking at the chart. By -this time the skylight lay clear: Jimmy came below with the bag of -charts and the pair of compasses; I heard the voices of men singing out -in pull-and-hauling choruses, and the brig heeled over a little. - -There hung under the seat that Greaves used to occupy a tell-tale -compass: I looked at it and found the brig’s course east by south. I -immediately went on deck and found the yards braced forward and both -watches hauling down the larboard studding sail. Bol walked the -quarter-deck and Galen was shouting orders from the forecastle. - -“Who’s captain here?” said I, stepping up to the great Dutchman. - -“You, Mr. Fielding.” - -“What are you doing with the brig?” - -“Heading her off for Amsterdam Island.” - -“So. Then you know your way there?” - -“No, sir. Der shart explains dot der island vhas in der east: so east it -vhas mit der brig till ve vhas goodt friendts, Mr. Fielding, und shake -hands und agree. And maybe he vhas all right mit you now, sir,” he -added, looking at me out of the corner of his little eyes. - -“I want time to consider,” said I, realizing my extreme helplessness, -and by that realization urged more than half-way to the acceptance of my -fate, whatever it might prove, without further struggle. - -“Mr. Fielding,” cried Bol, throwing out his arms and addressing me in -that posture, “vhat vhas it how he vhas mit der brig und mit Mynheer -Tulp while she vhas all right mit _you?_ Mindt, I doan say dot if der -captain had lif dot dere vhas no trouble. Vhat?” he shouted, in a voice -of thunder: “a leedle footy sum of sixty tousand dollar for all us men -vhen Tulp vhas to get der half of der half million and you yourself, Mr. -Fielding, maybe vhas to take but a leedle less dan Captain Greaves -herself. Vhas it right?” He thumped his bosom. “Vhas she a beesiness dot -vhas good ash between man and man?” He thumped his bosom again. “Vhas -not you a sailor? Vhas not der sailor gruelly used? Vhas she not right -to stand up for herself when der shance comes? Mr. Fielding, in der -sight of der crew, gif me your hand und shake mit me und ve vhas der -happiest of families from dis hour.” - -“I’ll not give you my hand. I want time to think.” His face darkened. I -continued: “If I refuse to navigate the brig to Amsterdam Island and on -to Port Jackson, what then?” - -Wirtz, who was at the wheel, hearing this, called out in Dutch. Yan Bol -gazed at him slowly, then leisurely brought his face to bear upon mine -and eyed me fixedly. - -“Mr. Fielding,” he said, slowly, “I likes to shake you by der hand und -it vhas a good ting to be a happy barty. But if you doan navigate us you -vhas of no use, und we puts you into dot boat mit der two Spaniards und -sends you away, hoping dot it shall be well mit us all.” - - * * * * * - -I remained in my berth during the greater part of that afternoon. I was -nearly mad and afraid to trust myself on deck. The insult, let alone the -significance, of Bol’s threat to send me adrift with the two Spaniards, -was crushing, because it found me entirely helpless. Bligh, of the -_Bounty_, had been so served; others who deserved far better usage at -the hands of their crew than Bligh, of the _Bounty_, had been put into -boats in mid-ocean and dispatched to their doom. In the next hour I -might find myself adrift with the two Spaniards, the brig a white gleam -on the horizon, the lady Aurora alone with the crew, the money as -utterly lost to me as if it had gone to the bottom. - -So I remained in my berth and thought, and all the afternoon I sat -thinking till the evening darkened upon the port-hole, till the fire had -gone out of my blood, and the machinery of the brain worked calmly. - -Thrice, or perhaps four times, did Miss Aurora beat upon my cabin door -and call my name. I heard her ask the lad Jimmy if I was ill, if I was -mad, what had happened, why did the Señor Fielding hide himself? The -half-witted boy knew not how to answer her. She knocked upon my door -again. I told her that I was hard at work, and promised to join her -presently. - -When the dusk fell, I opened the door of my berth and entered the cabin. -I stepped at once to the tell-tale compass, and saw that the brig’s -course was still east by south. The lamp was alight and the meal of the -evening was upon the table. The breeze was light, the heel of the brig -trifling. I guessed she was under the same canvas I had left her clothed -in at noon. I saw the stars shining through the skylight glass, and -heard a steady trudge of feet overhead, as of two men, perhaps three, -walking the quarter-deck. I looked round for the lady Aurora, and, while -I did so, her white dress, with its fanciful decoration of bunting, -filled the companion way, and she came down. Her eyes were bright, her -looks without excitement or alarm, her cheeks faintly colored by the -breath of the evening air she was fresh from. It was clear--I saw it in -her--she knew nothing of what had passed. - -“At last, señor,” said she, approaching as though to give me her hand. - -She stopped, looked at me earnestly, and slightly wagged her head in a -strange foreign way. - -“You are ill?” she said. - -“No; I am hungry. Let us sup.” - -She removed her hat. I helped her to take off her jacket. While this was -doing she was silent. She took her seat in silence, and viewed me -without speech, reflecting in her own face the expression in mine, as I -might suppose, for now was her look of ease gone. I waited until we had -eaten and drunk, occasionally breaking the silence by commonplace -remarks; then, closing my knife and fork, and draining my mug, I looked -up at the skylight, round at the companion way, leaned my head on my -elbow across the table, and told my companion, as best I could, what had -happened, and what was still happening, aboard us. - -Her intelligence was so keen, she was so apt in the interpretation of my -looks and gestures, so quick in collecting the meaning of my words, that -I found no difficulty in making her understand. She exclaimed often in -Spanish; the shadows of many emotions swept her face; she stared with -horror when she understood that the men meant I should carry the brig to -the Indian Ocean, and that the vessel’s head was already pointed, -according to their notions of navigation, for the Island of Amsterdam. -But she received the news with a degree of calmness that was an -astonishment and a reproach to me when I thought of my own distraction. -I scarcely imagined she grasped the full meaning of the crew’s -intention, till, pointing downward, by which she signified the brig’s -hold, she said: - -“The _Casada_ had a demon on board. It is now the spirit of this ship.” - -This she conveyed in Spanish and English. I understood her. - -“Yet I mean to keep a hold of that demon,” said I, thinking aloud rather -than talking to her. “I’d put the vessel ashore sooner than let the -scoundrels plunder me of my share and divide--Jesus Maria! only -think!--fifteen tons of dollars among them!” and I smote the table with -my fist, and the blood, hot as flame, flushed my face. - -Then the following conversation passed between us, managed as before. I -give you the clear sense picked out of the interruptions, gestures, -sentences, and looks: - -“What shall you do, Señor Fielding?” - -“Advise me.” - -“I--a poor, helpless woman, ignorant of the sea? Yet does it not seem to -you that, unless you comply, they will send you away with Antonio and -Jorge.” - -“Yes.” - -“Then you will comply.” - -“And after?” - -“After?” she cried. “Who knows? Many things may happen to deliver us -from this dreadful situation; but, if you defy the crew, and they put -you and my countrymen into a boat, we are surely lost.” - -I assented with a gesture. - -“They are ignorant of navigation?” said she. - -“Utterly.” - -“Could not you steal the brig to a part of some coast where we are -likely to fall in with ships of war?” - -“If they suspected treachery they’d hang me at the yardarm.” - -“Ave Maria! Where is this New Holland?” - -“It is very far from here.” - -“How far?” - -“It may be four months and perhaps five months from this place.” - -“Mother of God! Is Spain to be reached from New Holland?” - -“Yes, but the world grows old before such voyages are ended.” - -She cast down her gaze in thought. The noise of the tramp of footsteps -had ceased; I reckoned we were being watched, but I would not lift up my -eyes to know. I rose and paced the cabin, having formed my resolution; -and now I considered with whom of the crew I should speak. I abhorred -Yan Bol for the horrible threat he had uttered, for the enormous insult -that threat implied, and I dared not put myself alone with him--yet. I -went to the companion ladder and called up the hatch for Jimmy; my cry -was re-echoed, and in a minute or two the boy made his appearance. - -“Tell Friend to come to me--here.” - -“Señor Fielding,” said the lady Aurora, “you will comply with the men’s -requests?” I motioned an assent. “If not we are lost. I have been -thinking. You are in their power. _Paciencia!_ If they send you away, -I--I--Aurora de la Cueva--” and in pronouncing her name she touched her -breast two or three times, “am alone with men who will be the murderers -of you and my countrymen. I count upon your protection. Think of me -alone in this ship with your men.” - -She clasped her hands and turned her dark and shining eyes upon the -little stand of muskets. A peculiar expression slightly curled her lip -as she looked at those weapons. - -“I’ll not leave you.” - -She put her forefinger to her mouth, and at that moment I saw a man’s -legs in the hatch. - -“Is it down here I’m wanted, sir?” said the voice of Friend. - -“Come along.” - -He descended, pulled his cap off, and stared with looks of misgiving and -surprise. Peradventure he thought I had a design on his life, and meant -to slaughter the crew one by one, courteously inviting them below for -that purpose. He was a sailor of a mild cast of face, rather quiet in -manner, and had the most civil and least swearing tongue in the brig. - -“Sit down. I’ve a message for the crew. I am sick of that huge, -bloody-minded Bol’s yaw-yaw-yawling jaw. Your English is mine. You’ll -answer some questions, perhaps?” - -“I will, sir.” - -“The scheme’s this: we said to Amsterdam Island, there unload the silver -and bury it. Why Amsterdam Island?” - -“Because it’s straight on the road to Australia, uninhabited, and never -visited.” - -“Why do you not proceed direct to Botany Bay, keeping the money aboard?” - -“I’ll tell you,” he answered, putting down his cap, leaning forward, and -addressing me with his forefinger on the palm of his left hand. “It’s a -matter we’ve argued out for’ads, and we’re all agreed; for this reason. -There’ll be nothing easier than to wreck the vessel within a day’s walk -of Port Jackson. If we keeps the money aboard we shall be casting it -away with the brig. Is the risk of our losing the money along with the -brig to be entertained? Why, certainly an’ of course _not_. The money’s -to be hid first. D’ye ask, why we don’t hide it on that part of the -coast where we cast the brig away? Because the privacy there aint the -privacy of an uninhabited island; there’s savages and settlers -a-knocking about; runaway convicks and chaps in sarch of ’em; and no man -would reckon the money safe until it was dug up. Next step, then, after -losing the brig, will be to tramp it to Port Jackson, shipwrecked men. -There Teach has a friend. That friend’s an old pal of Teach’s, and when -last heard of was a-doing well. He’ll find us in a schooner or some -small vessel, and when we’ve got the money he’ll show us the ropes.” - -“What’s Teach’s friend?” - -“Dunno, sir.” - -“Was he a convict?” - -“Dunno, sir.” - -“You think this a devilish clever scheme, don’t you?” - -“It’ll come off--it’ll come off,” he answered. - -“I’ll work you up twenty safer, surer, and easier schemes than that,” -said I. - -“Maybe; we likes our’n,” he answered, with a quiet grin and a slow look -at the lady Aurora, who was listening with the strained, vexed, -impatient look of one who hears but understands little of what passes. - -“Amsterdam Island is in the Indian Ocean,” said I. - -“So they say.” - -“No vessel under three hundred tons may navigate the Indian seas. Do you -know that?” - -“When I was in a Company’s ship I think I heerd something of the sort, -but there’s no law where Amsterdam Island is, and if there was--we -aren’t pirates, anyhow;” and he made as if he would rise. - -“It’s a damnably wicked scheme, a hanging scheme, and as stupid as it’s -wicked. D’ye know what Yan Bol told me to-day?... Friend, I’m an -Englishman talking to an Englishman; and this threat is an accursed -Dutchman’s. Yan Bol told me to-day that if I refused to navigate the -brig to Amsterdam Island, you men would send me adrift in one of the -boats, along with the two Spaniards.” - -“Mr. Fielding,” he exclaimed earnestly, “it was talked of--it is talked -of. You’ll be making it mere talk, sir. I’m for working this traverse on -the smooth. Let good will grease the ways, says I. Why, aint it for you -as well as for us? You’re no servant of Tulp’s, and the captain is gone -dead, and if we says, ‘Here stow more’n the allowance of dollars ye was -to have, only steer us true and take a sheepshank in your tongue,’ who -wouldn’t be you? It’s easy terms for a swilling measure. And that’s my -sentiments straight.” - -“You can go forward, Friend,” said I, “and tell Mr. Yan Bol and the men -that I have thought the matter over, that I consent to remain captain of -the brig, and to navigate her to Amsterdam Island.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII. - -BOL’S RUSE. - - -“What demons!” exclaimed the lady Aurora when Friend had left the cabin. -“You do well to consent. May the Holy Virgin watch over us and deliver -us!” She cast up her eyes and crossed herself with great devotion. - -When Friend was gone with my message I leaned upon the cabin table -thinking. The Spanish lady chattered. I did not heed her. I had no hope, -saw no prospect, could imagine no issue. True, much might happen; but -then, what would be good for my safety--for my own and the safety of -Madam Aurora--_might_ prove fatal to my fortune, and my dollars were -with me the first of all considerations. - -I wanted my six thousand pounds: I wanted the thirty thousand pounds -which formed Greaves’ share, that I might deal with it in accordance -with his instructions. I wished to realize the happy dreams I had been -dreaming throughout the voyage. It was maddening to think of the whole -fifteen tons of silver falling into the hands of the blackguard fellows -forward; and yet the devil’s luck of the business, as it now stood, was -this, that what was bad for _them_ was bad for _me_--by which I mean -that if the brig was captured by an enemy, or boarded by an Englishman -and the money discovered; if she foundered or was stranded with the -dollars aboard, I might indeed escape with my life, I might be delivered -along with the lady Aurora from the situation I was now in--but my -dollars would be lost to me, and with them my sweet and jolly prospects. - -I went into my cabin, brought out a chart, and putting it under the lamp -laid off a course for the Cape of Good Hope. I likened my feelings to -those of a man who is wakened by a jailer and told that all is ready, -that he can order what he likes for breakfast, and that the chaplain -will wait upon him presently. I struck the chart a blow with my fist, -and hissed a curse at it like any stage ruffian. We were to be bound the -other way now. We were sailing to the inhospitable ends of the earth; -the stars of the south were to arise again; the star of the pole must -remain a dream of home. - -The tragic suddenness of it all, when only at dinner that day I was -rejoicing in spirit over our progress north, and telling my Spanish -companion what I meant to do with my share of the dollars! - -I replaced the chart, drank a tumbler of grog, and stepping on deck, -marched to the wheel and looked at the card. Call grasped the spokes. - -“Let her go off. The course is----” and I gave the fellow the course. - -The swollen, dusky shapes of Bol, Galen, and others of the crew trudged -in the gangway. It was a fine, clear night. I sang out: - -“Trim sail and then heap it on her. Set stun’s’ls and let her go.” - -My voice was instantly echoed by Bol. - -“Hurrah, my ladts! Man der braces. Clear avay der foretopmast stun’s’l. -Hurrah for beesiness! All vhas right now. Dis vhas a happy ship.” - -I stood beside the wheel while the men trimmed and made sail, Bol -roaring at them, deeply thunderous, with excitement and satisfaction. -Presently the great Dutchman came up to me. - -“Mr. Fielding, vhas he a disgrace to shake handts now?” - -I gave him my hand, and the brute squeezed it. He then looked at the -card, observed the course, and said, “Dot vhas for der Cape!” - -“Yaw.” - -“He vill not bring der land aboardt? All hands would gif der Point of -Agulhas a vide berth.” - -“I’ll run you as far south as you choose.” - -“Vell, I dessay a hondred mile vhas sout enough.” - -“Is the fresh water going to carry us to Amsterdam Island?” - -“Dot vhas to findt out. If not, dere vhas plenty of rain in der sky -before dere casks gif out. But she vhas not longer to Amsterdam Island -dan to England, and dere vhas water to last to England, so dot vhas all -right, I hope. Dere is fresh water on der island.” - -“And your provisions?” - -“She vhas to be seen to likewise.” - -“You’ll find nothing to eat at Amsterdam Island; nothing to carry you on -to Port Jackson.” - -“Vhen der money vhas hid dere vhas St. Paul hard by, mit goats, und -cabbage, und fish for drying.” - -I cursed him behind my teeth. The villain looked far ahead; all hands -knew what they were about, while I saw nothing, an inch beyond my nose. - -“Mr. Fielding, ve vhas all gladt dot you remain in sharge. Mitout you ve -vhas at sea indeedt. You vhas now von of us. Dere vhas no robbery. Tink -a leedle, Mr. Fielding. How vhas Tulp to know dot ve hov der dollars? -Tink a leedle, sir. Ve gifs him our vages--our verk costs her not von -stiver. Der captain vhas deadt--der money by der law of expeditions like -ash dis vhas, I mean expedition dot vhas all der same as privateering, -belongs to der surfifers. Suppose I die? Vell, my share goes by rights -to you und der oders. Dot vhas onderstood. Now, Mr. Fielding, vhat vhas -your share to be?” - -On his asking me this question I walked off. - -It was fine weather till past midnight; the wind then came out of the -northeast in a heavy squall of wet, and after this for several days it -blew very fresh. The rain drove in clouds over the sea; the dark sky -hung low, and our reeling trucks were swept by the shadows of the flying -scud. Yet in these heavy, boisterous days Yan Bol and two or three -others contrived to take stock of the quantity of fresh water and -provisions on board. Bol sent Jimmy to me with the particulars, and -asked leave to attend me in my cabin while I worked out the figures. I -sent word back that an Englishman might come--Teach or Friend--bidding -Jimmy add that I understood Bol’s English with difficulty. The truth was -I hated the villain; wished to have no more to do with him than the work -of the brig forced upon me. He had threatened me with an open boat, he -was at the bottom of this seizure of the brig and her cargo of silver; -the project of casting the vessel away was his I did not question. Could -I have served any purpose by taking his life I’d have shot him with less -compunction than I’d wring a fowl’s neck. - -The man who arrived was Teach. He had washed his face and buttoned -himself up in a clean pilot coat to pay the cabin this visit. He was a -smart seaman: a sharp-looking rogue, with curling hair and a long, lean -nose, and little, darting eyes. He knocked on my cabin door, and I bade -him come in. - -“Oh,” said I, “is it you? Sit down.” - -Without further words, I took pencil and paper and fell to my -calculations. Bol’s figures lay before me. I guessed they were correct. -He’d naturally go to work anxiously, that we might not be starved or -driven by thirst from the Amsterdam Island scheme. There was so much -beef, so much pork, so much ship-bread, and such and such a quantity of -peas, sugar, flour, and the like; there was so much water. We were -fifteen souls in all, counting the girl and the two Spaniards; and my -figures worked out thus--that, at the usual allowance, we had provisions -for seven months and water for three. - -I gave Teach these figures, and then put them down in black and white -for the crew, and handed him the paper. - -“There’s plenty of provisions,” said he, looking at the paper upside -down, “to last all hands to Australia. Fresh water we’ll take in at -Amsterdam Island.” - -“Ever at Sydney?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Who’s your friend?” - -“A man named Max Lampton.” - -“D’ye know that he’s now at Sydney?” - -“He was there two years ago. If he’s dead his son’ll be living. But he -ain’t dead. Max is one who takes care of himself. No drink--no -baccy--regular as a clock--a steady man.” - -“What do you expect of him?” - -“He’ll show us what to do with the money; ’vart it into paper and gold -for us.” - -“Fifteen tons!” - -“It’ll take time. We sailors aren’t going to make a job of it without -help, anyhow.” - -“Is it a clever idea to bury this silver in Amsterdam Island, first of -all?” - -“Ay, blooming clever! Where’s there such another island to answer our -turn? We can’t cast the brig away with the money aboard, that’s sartin.” - -“You mean to cast her away?” - -“Why, what are we to do with her?” said he, talking all this while with -his little eyes rooted on my face. “Carry her to Port Jackson? What’s -the yarn we’re to spin? Where are we to ha’ come from? Where was we to -be bound to? We’ve thought it o’er. We don’t like the notion. She’s a -pretty boat, but she must go. There’s a blooming lot of us. Are we all -to be trusted? Are we all going to stick to the same yarn if it comes to -close questioning? Any durned fool can be a shipwrecked sailor. There’s -a-many durned fools piking it now as castaways on the British roads, -a-yarning spunkily, and saving money.” - -I thought to myself, “And you’d trust me, would you? You’d allow me to -be one of your shipwrecked party, eh? And if I am _not_ to be one of -your shipwrecked party--and most surely you don’t intend that I _shall_ -be--what’s to happen betwixt this and New Holland? How have you hearts -of oak arranged to get rid of me?” - -I looked down and sat silent in thought. He stirred, as if to leave, and -said: - -“We’re too many, sir.” - -“For the dollars?” - -He grinned, and answered: - -“No. There are dollars enough for all hands. We’re too many mouths for -the stock of provisions and water.” - -“Yan Bol has threatened to send me adrift, curse him! Do you mean that I -should go first to shrink your company!” - -“No, no!” he answered, in a voice heavy and almost savage with emphasis; -and he thumped his knee with his fist. “We can’t do without you--you -know that, Mr. Fielding. And that brings me to something I’ll tell you -in a minute or two. It’s them Spaniards. What’s the good of them?” - -“No cruelty! So help me God! if there’s cruelty I drop my command! Mark -me, and report what I tell you.” - -“There’ll be no cruelty,” said the man sullenly; “but them Johnnies’ll -have to walk.” - -“And the lady?” - -“Aint she in your share?” said he, and his face relaxed. He drove his -quid out of one cheek into the other, and when he had chawed a little -while, he said, “But what’s to _be_ your share?” - -I crooked my eyebrows and surveyed him steadily. - -“Won’t you give it a name, sir?” - -“Shall I get it by naming it?” - -“Mr. Fielding, we can’t trust you if you can’t trust us.” - -“What share will you give?” - -“A big share.” - -“Bol and the rest of you know the worth of what’s below. Make me an -offer in writing. It’ll content me.” - -“Give me a figure to go upon,” said he standing up. “Tell us what you -was to get if Captain Greaves had carried the brig home.” - -“Six thousand pounds, and a thousand from Captain Greaves--seven -thousand pounds.” - -An oath broke from him--he checked himself; struck his thigh hard, -picked up his cap, and looked at me sideways. Then, stepping to the -door, he exclaimed: - -“Good pay compared to the forecastle allowance.” - -I began to whistle, and drew on paper with the pencil I had calculated -with. He again eyed me sideways and went out. - -I believe it was on the fifth day of the heavy weather that Teach had -paid me this visit. Next morning, while I was breakfasting with the -Spanish lady, Jimmy--the boy as I call him, though he was a great, -hulking, strong, sprawling lad as you know; half an idiot in many -directions, but quick and even intelligent in some--this lad came into -the cabin and said that Bol asked to speak to me. I would not have the -Dutchman below, neither would I leave my breakfast; so I bid the lad say -I’d be on deck by and by. Down he comes a minute later with a bit of -dirty folded paper in his hand. - -“Master,” says he, “Mister Bol didn’t know you was at breakfast. Will -you read this, and tell him, when you go on deck, if it’s to your -satisfaction?” - -The dirty piece of paper was like to the sheets that had been used for -the Round Robin. It was the fly-leaf of some old book, yellow with age -and pockmarked with brine. A Dutch scrawl in faint ink half covered it. -The precious document ran thus: - - Meester Fielding, dis vhas a bondt. All handts agree. Suppose dere - vhas fifteen ton silver--vell, two tons vhas yours if you sail der - brick true und does her duty by oos ash we does by him. Dot being - right ve all makes our marks and sines her names ash oonder. If you - goes wrong dis bondt vhas tore-sop, und vot vhas las’ wrote stans - for noting. Dere vhas no more paper. - -Then followed the crosses and names of the men, as in the Round Robin. I -burst into a laugh. Heartsick as I was, this stroke of farce, happening -in the great tragic occasion of that time, proved too much for me. I put -the paper in my pocket. - -“At what do you laugh?” said the lady Aurora. - -“At a piece of Dutch humor,” said I, laughing again. - -She looked eagerly, and wished to know if the crew had done anything to -please me--anything to lighten my anxiety. - -“They have given me two tons of silver,” said I with a sneer, pointing -down that she might understand me. - -She shrugged her shoulders, and asked no more questions about the crew’s -bond. I reckoned she saw in my face as much as she was interested to -hear. I observed her fine eyes fixed upon the stand of muskets and -cutlasses and watched her; not speculating on her thoughts, merely -observing her face. I beheld no marks of anxiety in her handsome -features, of such passions of uneasiness and continued distress as you -would look for in a woman situated as she was. The glass in poor -Greaves’ cabin had assured me that what had befallen us had not -sweetened or colored my own visage. I was growing long of face; -yellowing daily, and my eyes had sunk. This Spanish girl, on the other -hand, was still bright and spirited with all the health she had regained -aboard us. I watched her while she looked at the weapons; she turned her -face slowly upon mine, and our eyes met. - -“Why,” she exclaimed--and now began one of those brief conversations -which I am forced to put into plain English for reasons I have given -you--“why, Señor Fielding, do not you lock away those swords and -firearms?” - -“Why should I lock them away?” - -“The crew may take them.” - -“What then?” said I, “we should be no worse off. I am alone: forward are -ten stout, determined men; armed or unarmed, ’tis all one.” - -“There are two,” said she. - -“Yes, Jimmy is a strong lad, and might be useful, and I dare say he is -on our side at heart, but he is wanting,” said I, touching my head. “I -dare not trust him.” - -She smiled and said, “I did not mean the youth. I am the other.” - -I asked her to explain. She rose and seated herself beside me. The -skylight was partially covered with tarpaulin, and what was visible of -the glass was blank as mist with wet. The brig was full of noises. She -was rolling and pitching very heavily, and the thunder of seas bursting -back in heavy hills of foam from her weather side trembled like -discharges of cannon through the length of her. Nevertheless the -señorita came and sat by my side, and put her lips close to my ear, -though had she shrieked her ideas from the extreme end of the cabin, or -even up through the hatch, nobody on deck would have heard her. - -Her manner was tragic and mysterious. It was not put on. The thoughts in -her bred the air, and she had the face and figure for a very curious -high dramatic expression of emotion of any sort. - -“Why,” said she, speaking so close that I felt the heat of her face, “do -not we kill the men who are robbing you and carrying me away?” - -“All of them?” said I. - -“Not Jimmy, and not my two countrymen. Look! suppose I bring Antonio -here and tell him that he and Jorge are in danger of their lives, and -that they must fight with us and kill the crew. There are you, me, my -two countrymen: there is Jimmy,” she held up her fingers. “Five to ten, -and everything is ready,” said she, pointing to the muskets. - -“I would not trust your two countrymen. They are cowards. I would not -risk such a business for your sake. Failure would mean my being killed: -that _must_ be; and how would the men whom _we_ did not kill deal with -you?” - -“All could be killed,” said she. “I myself will kill in this cabin that -great Jean Bol, as you talk to him. I will creep behind and stab him. -Send for Galen; I will kill him too; then Teach. Three then are -_gastados!_ [expended!] For the rest----” She shrugged her shoulders and -leaned back to observe the impression produced upon me by her talk. - -“Madam,” said I, looking at her eyes, which were all on fire, and her -cheeks, which were colored, hot with the devilish fancies which worked -in her, “your spirit is fine, but somewhat too deadly for one of my -cautious character.” - -“I wish for release,” she cried, with a great sigh, and her eyes -suddenly clouded; “I wish for my mother and for home. I thought the -English were brave, _vaya!_ Your men will kill you if you do not kill -them. Are you afraid to kill them? Ave Maria! Good men die in thousands -every day.” - -She began to tremble, and rose as if to pace the cabin; the motion of -the brig was too heavy to permit that. I took her hand to steady her--it -had turned from the heat of fever to the coldness of marble. “Just so!” -thought I; “aren’t you one of those delicate assassins who prog and -faint? Who’d stick friend Yan, then swoon, and leave me to deal with -what would follow his roars?” - -“We’ll burn no powder just yet,” said I, “and we’ll keep our poniards in -our breasts. Amsterdam Island is a long way off; many things may -happen.” - -“_Pu! Quita, allá!_” she exclaimed, with pale lips and dull eyes, and -trembling, and then rising with a murmur of anger and a manner of -haughty contempt she went to her berth. - -When she was gone there ran in my head a strange fancy of Defoe -concerning a beautiful demon lady. You may read of it in that author’s -“History of the Devil,” which is, I think, the best biography of the -landlord of the Black Divan that ever was written. I could not but -vastly admire the spirit of the woman in offering to shoot down the ten -men; but I thought there was something damnable and fiendish in her -proposing to make a shambles of the cabin by sticking Bol and the others -she had named, while I talked to them. A demon spoke through her Spanish -blood _there_! And yet her fine eyes and fine figure were in my memory -of her counsel, and found a sort of fascination for what should have -affected me as quite abominable. - -I sat a bit, coldly considering her ideas. True it was that I could have -killed Bol cheerfully; but to slaughter the whole ten of them, even if -their assassination was to be contrived! Bol, to be sure, had threatened -to send me adrift: he may have meant no more than a threat; my life was -not immediately in danger; my knowledge as a navigator warranted me the -good usage of the scoundrels till the coast of New Holland arose, and -’twixt this and _that_ there lay some months: the men had dealt -respectfully with the girl--left her indeed to me, as though they -counted her a part of my share. No! I could not consent to shoot them -down; I could not consent to let her ladyship knife the ringleaders -while I conversed with them--one at a time. - -I went to the stand and took out a musket to judge the quality and age -of the lot: it was a Dutch musket, long, clumsy, and murderous. I took -down a cutlass and tried the blade--all this mechanically: my mind was -rambling. I scarce knew what I was about; I bent the blade and the steel -snapped and the point of it sprang with the twang of a Jew’s harp -through the air. Some of Tulp’s purchases! thought I, then replaced the -broken half of the blade in its scabbard, and hung up the cutlass in its -place. - -This trifle begot a new scorn of Tulp in me. The rogue would even cheat -himself, thought I. He would ship cannons that burst and blades that -shiver to save a guilder or two, and risk the lives of us men and his -dollars by the ton for some lean-paring of saving that would scarce put -an onion to a man’s bread and cheese. What do I care for Tulp, thought -I? What is his brig to me now that poor Greaves is gone? Had Greaves -owned relations among whom he wished his money distributed the thing -would wear a different face; but as it stands, Tulp and the brig being -nothing to me, why should I not throw in my chance with the crew, elbow -Bol out of his leadership by sheer enthusiasm, sincerity, knowledge of -the ocean roads? The fellows groped in their black ignorance after some -scheme, and brought up this muddy project of Amsterdam Island with -Sydney beyond. Could not I devise something much better than _that_ for -them, something safe and quick--compared at least with _their_ -programme: something they should hearken to and eagerly adopt when they -saw me and knew me and felt me to be in earnest? - -Yan Bol came up when I put my head out of the hatch. - -“Vhas dot bondt all right?” he roared that his voice might carry above -the shouting in the rigging and the fierce hissing of the sea. - -I nodded. - -“Two ton. Only tink. Dere vhas much skylarking in two ton of silver. How -many dollars shall go to her?” said he. - -“Dollars enough for me,” I shouted, and passed on to the compass and -took a look at the brig and around me. I hated the villain; I hated his -roaring voice, and his English; besides, speech soon grew difficult, -even to physical pain, on that clamorous deck. - -It was not much later on, however, that the crew gave me cause to think -twice before throwing in my lot with them. By this time we had stretched -far across the Atlantic; the month of April was drawing to an end. Much -heavy weather had we encountered, but it had been of a prosperous sort, -rushing us onward with hooting rigging, and reeling bands of canvas, -with such a spin of the log-reel that many a time and oft three and -sometimes four men were required at the great scope of line to walk it -in. - -On the day of the little business I am going to tell you about I went on -deck and found a very fine morning. The blue sky sank crisp with -mother-of-pearl-like cloud to the pale edge of the sea. The sun, that -was risen about half-an-hour, shone white as silver in the east, whence -blew a pleasant breeze of wind, dead on end for us, however, so that our -yards lay fore and aft and the little brig under every stitch of plain -sail looked away from her course. - -I saw Bol to leeward gazing at the sea off the lee bow. I never -addressed that man now unless there was something particular to say, and -after having satisfied myself with a quarter-deck stare around and -aloft, I began to walk. Bol turned his head and perceived me. He -approached, and pointing his finger at the sea on the lee bow, said: - -“Do you see dot ship?” - -I looked and spied a sail hidden to me until this by the brig’s canvas. - -“How is she standing?” - -“Our vays.” - -She was about five miles distant. Bol had been using the glass. It lay -upon the skylight. I examined the sail, and found her a small topsail -schooner. With the naked eyes, by the look of her, as she floated out -there in the frosty whiteness of sunshine, I had guessed her twice as -big as we. She was coming along leisurely. The wind was off her quarter, -and a light wind for fore-and-aft canvas. - -“Vhat vhas she, tink you, Mr. Fielding?” - -“Don’t you know a ship by her rig?” - -“I mean, vhat vhas her peesiness? Vhas she some leedle man-of-war?” - -“Perhaps a trader, bound across the Atlantic.” - -He went forward as far as the gangway and beckoned. Wirtz, who stood on -the forecastle, called out the name of Galen, and then walked aft to -Bol, along with Friend and Street. Galen came out of the caboose eating. -His jaws worked with some mouthful he had crammed betwixt his teeth. -There was but little discipline in all this, you will say. There was -none whatever. There had been very little discipline on board the _Black -Watch_ since illness had forced poor Greaves to give up and hand the -command over to me. Was the fault mine? The long and short of it was, -the men had never recognized me as mate in the room of Jacob Van Laar. -They had worked for the safety of the ship and because of Yan Bol. I was -an interloper. They had made me feel it, times beyond counting, in their -sailors’ way; and now, though nominally captain, I was no more nor less -than pilot, with authority only in the direction of the general safety. - -All this I very much understood as I walked the deck, appearing not to -heed the group of men in the gangway, and wondering what matter they -were settling among them. Presently Bol came aft, took the telescope to -the men, and one after another of them leveled it at the little sail off -the bow. I never caught what they said, though my steps sometimes -brought me pretty close. - -They turned their faces my way sometimes. Street went over to the boat -that lay stowed in the longboat amidships, looked into her, and returned -to the others. I then thought to myself, “Are they going to signal that -craft and put me aboard her?” I went into a violent passion over the -suspicion, and came to a stand at the bulwarks, nearly opposite the spot -where they were grouped, and stared, I have no doubt, with a very black -face. Indeed, my conjecture had put me into such a rage that I heeded -not, by a snap of the finger, what they might think. I tried to cool -myself by reflecting that they could not do without me; but the mere -notion that they meant to turn me out of the brig, and make off with -Madam Aurora and the fifteen tons of silver, taking their chance of what -might follow, worked like a madness in me. - -They stood together, I dare say, about ten minutes talking. In this time -the sail had grown, and was visibly a topsail schooner, low in the -water, of a clean, black, slaver-like run. The sun flashed in flame from -her wet sides, and I thought at first she was firing at us. Meehan, I -think it was, sung out: - -“Better see all ready, mates!” and went to the boat, he and others. - -Bol alone stayed, looking at the schooner. He then came to me. - -“Mr. Fielding, I shall vant to command for a leedle vhile. Me himself -vhas skipper till our peesiness vhas done.” - -“What do you mean to do?” said I. - -“To shtop dot leedle hooker. I shall vant to hail her. Of course, Mr. -Fielding, you vhas der captain all der same; but you hov a soft heart, -and so I vhas der skipper in dis shob.” - -“I don’t understand you.” - -“It vhas like opening your eyes in a minute. You vhas not to interfere, -dot vhas all.” - -He went to the flag-locker, took out the English ensign, and ran it -aloft, union down, at the trysail gaff-end. - -“Back der main topsail, some hands!” he bawled. All hands were on deck. -Hals came out of the caboose to look on or to help. Some of the men laid -the canvas on the main a-back, and others unshipped the little gangway -preparatory to launching the boat, smack-fashion, through it; and among -those who hove the little boat out of the bigger one, and ran her to the -side, were the two Spaniards. Meanwhile, the schooner had hoisted -English colors. They blew out from her main topmast head. The telescope -gave me the character of the bunting. To the naked eye it waved and -trembled like a red light against the pearly crust which covered the sky -that way. - -I guessed by her showing her color that she was going to halt when she -came abreast. What did my crew mean to do? What scheme had the beggars -suddenly hit on and were going about with an unanimity that held them -all as quiet as the backed topsail aloft? - -It was about now that Miss Aurora came on deck. She looked up at the -sails of the brig, at the flag flying at our trysail gaff-end, at the -approaching schooner, the open gangway, the boat lying in it, the men -hanging about the little fabric. - -“Holy Mother!” cried she, and in a step or two she was at my side. “What -is it? What is wrong? What is happening?” - -Bol, who stood with others near the boat, hearing her turned. The huge -man approached and was calling out before I could answer the girl. - -“Mr. Fielding, der lady must go below.” - -“Must!” - -“Yaw, by Cott! I vhas skipper for dis leedle while. You vhas not to be -seen, marm. Dot vhas so I play no bart mit you on deck.” - -He came to the companion way, and with a face full of blood and temper, -pointed down the ladder, exclaiming in his deepest thunder, “Quick, if -you please. Doan’ be afraid. It vhas all right. No von vhas hurt over -dis shob.” - -“Go,” said I, “do as he bids you. See how those fellows are watching -us.” - -She obeyed me with an extraordinary look; the expression of a naturally -fierce spirit contending with womanly terror; I’d think of it afterward -always as if the girl had had two souls--one of flame, a gift of -fighting blood older than the Moors perhaps; the other just a woman’s. - -“My ladts,” bawled Bol to the men, “keep yourselves out of sight. Aft -some of you, und standt by to swing der topsail yard. Manage dot your -heads vhas not seen.” - -Those who came aft and those who stayed forward crouched under the -bulwark: the two Spaniards hid with the others. Observing this, Bol -called to Antonio: - -“Oop you stand, you and Jorge. You vhas der crew.” - -They stood up, looking at the Dutchman wonderingly, with a half grin -that was pathetic. I began to smell a rat, as they say. The schooner -came sliding along, and when she was within ear-shot her topsail was -swung and she halted to leeward of us. Her crew gazed at us from their -forecastle, and three men stood on her quarter-deck. She was pierced for -a few guns, but her ports were closed, and I saw no pieces of any sort -upon her decks, though the easy, long-drawn roll of her gave us a good -sight of the white planks, with the great main hatch and a tiny smoking -caboose, and a fellow in a red shirt at the end of the long tiller. She -was a sweet little picture, a far prettier model than the brig, -handsomely gilt at the bow and quarter. “Lord!” thought I, “if I could -but make those men yonder know what sort of stuff we carried down aft -and the piratic trick those crouching scoundrels and that vast heap of -flesh called Bol are playing me!” Yet, suppose the crew should permit me -to shout out the yarn, would yonder chaps board us? We were nearly as -numerous--our livelies would be fighting for treasure dear to them as -their own ruddy drops; and look at our little grin of carronades and -those long, shining engines on the forecastle and aft! - -Bol got on to a gun. One of the men on the schooner’s quarter-deck -hailed. - -“Ho, der brick ahoy! Vhat sheep vhas dot?” - -It was the hail of a Dutch voice! I burst into a laugh--I must have -laughed out at that Dutch hail had I been standing with a noose round my -neck under a yardarm. Yan Bol stood idly straining and gaping a moment -or two when he heard those Dutch tones. He then sent his deep voice -across the water in a roar: - -“She vhas der _Black Vatch_ of London to New Holland.” - -“Vat vhas wrong mit you?” shouted the Dutchman in the schooner. - -“Ve vhas a seek ship und in great distress. I vill sendt a boat to you, -ash I vhas veak und cannot cry out.” - -He floundered off the carronade on to the deck, and rolling over to the -gangway, called to the two Spaniards, who stood there: - -“Ofer mit dis boat. Quick now, and row aboardt dot schooner, und ask him -to take you home. Der rest,” he shouted with a look fore and aft, “keeps -hid till I give der signal.” - -The bustle of the burly fellow was so heavy and eager, so much of elbow, -knee, and thrust went to the launching of that boat, that the two -miserable Spaniards were swept into the job as a man is hurried along by -a crowd. They scarce knew what they were to do even while they were -doing it; and then in a minute it was done, the boat alongside, and Bol -bundling both the Spaniards into her through the open gangway. - -“In you shoomps! Dot vhas der vhay! Quick! If dot schooner vhas missed -your life vhas not vorth der shirt on your pack. Oop mit dem oars, -Antonio, und shove off. Avays you goes, mit our respects und vill der -captain restore you to your friendts!” - -I went to the side. On seeing me Antonio who, with an oar in his hand, -stood up in the boat looking along the line of the brig’s rail with a -wild, pale face, cried out in his incommunicable English: - -“Señor Fielding, do not let Mr. Bol go away until he sees that the -schooner will receive us. We have but these oars” he cried passionately, -“no water, no provisions.” - -“Pull for her--she’ll take you,” I cried. - -“Roundt mit der topsail,” thundered Bol. - -The seamen sprang to the braces, and in a very few moments had filled on -the brig’s canvas. The vessel sat light on the water and quickly felt -the impulse of her sails. The boat containing Antonio and Jorge slipped -astern; the two wretches were not even _then_ rowing; but the moment the -brig got way one of them--it was Jorge, I think--yelled out like a -woman; they threw their oars out and hysterically splashed the little -tub of a boat toward the schooner. - -There was no sea to hurt them. The swell ran firm and wide, rippling -only to the brushing of the wind. I dreaded lest the schooner, on -beholding our sudden show of men, should suspect--what with our visible -brass pieces and the suggestive sheer of our hull--a piratic device, and -make off. If that happened the Spaniards were lost; Bol certainly would -not return to pick them up. The mere fancy of our leaving them out in -this vast sea to horribly perish worked in me like ice in the blood, and -as I watched I was all the while thinking, “What shall I do to save them -if yonder schooner fills in a fright?” - -But the schooner did not fill; that her people were amazed by our -behavior I could not question, but they did not offer to run away. -Possibly they thought we were executing some maneuver, and would shift -our helm presently for the boat we had dispatched to them. - -The Spaniards splashed along in their passion and fury of distress. -Their boat was already a toy; they themselves dolls. They got alongside -the schooner, and, seizing the glass, I watched them scramble over the -rail, and continued to watch. They went up to the three men on the -quarter-deck, and both fell to violently gesticulating and pointing at -us. I could no longer tell which was which; one of them shook his fist -at us, the other motioned with violent dramatic gestures toward the hold -of the schooner. I might swear he was telling the men about the dollars, -and furiously motioned that we might guess, _if_ we watched him through -the glass, what he was talking about. - -Bol hauled the ensign down, and called to a man to roll it up. - -“Vhas dot a neat little shob, Mr. Fielding?” said he, coming and -standing beside me. - -“Would not the schooner have taken the men without all this neatness?” I -answered. - -“Maybe and maybe not. Ve vhas not going to reesk it.” - -“You have lost the boat. Why did you require the lady to leave the -deck?” - -“She vhas soft-hearted, und dis shob vhas to be neat und quiet. Look!” -he roared suddenly; “dere swings der topsails. Down coomes der flag. Gif -me der glass, Mr. Fielding.” He put his eye to the tube, and in a moment -bawled, “Der boat drops astern; she vhas empty.” - -He pitched the glass on to the skylight and uttered an extraordinary -roar of laughter. - -Half an hour later the schooner was no more than a shaft of white light -down in the west, with Yan Bol singing out orders to trim the sails of -the brig and head for the boat, whose bearings had been taken, that we -might recover her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII. - -I SCHEME. - - -Never once in all this while, and my story is covering many days, was I -visited by the palest shadow of a scheme of release. And why? Because -the _schatz_--the treasure--the dollars and I were one. All plans of -escape provided that I left my dollars behind me. But I wanted my money. -I had lived in a golden dream. The abandonment of the treasure was an -unendurable consideration. I believe I could have faced death on board -that brig with something of coolness. The contemplation of it would not -have been frightful; the calling of the sea hardens the sensibilities -and accustoms the soul to more things than the wonders of the Lord; but -I could not consider with coolness the idea of the men possessing -themselves of the fifteen tons of silver, burying the half-million -dollars in the Island of Amsterdam, then perhaps being unable to find -out where they had hidden the money, or hindered by who knows what of -the unforeseen from ever getting to the island again. - -I say I fell half mad whenever my head ran on that forecastle device. -The thought of it regularly threw me into a fever. I have walked my -cabin for a whole glass or watch at a time, as bad a murderer as any man -can well be in heart only, killing the crew in imagination over and -over. - -Yet not the leanest vision of a scheme offered itself. Suppose I had -attempted to recapture the brig by slaughtering the men after the manner -proposed by Miss Aurora; by her stabbing them in the cabin while I -engaged their attention, and then by her and me shooting the others; -suppose this wild, ridiculous, horrid proposal practicable--all the crew -being hove over the side--what was I to do with the brig, I, whose -assistants would be a woman and a tall, clumsy, idiotic lad? Navigate -her to the nearest port? Ay, but that was just what I durst not do if I -wished to keep my dollars. Greaves had been strong on this point; he’d -touch nowhere--rather reduce all hands to quarter allowance than touch, -lest by entering or hovering off a port he’d court a visit that should -carry him every dollar ashore. - -Well, then, since I dared not convey the brig to a port, was I to wash -about the sea with Miss Aurora and Jimmy for my crew, until I fell in -with a ship willing to put me two or three men aboard? Yes, that sounds -nicely; but what would be the risks before we fell in with a ship -willing to assist? Many days, many weeks might pass before we sighted a -sail, for I am writing of the year 1815, when the ocean we were afloat -on ran for countless leagues bare to the sky, nearly all the traffic -steering northward, Mozambique way. - -But what was the good of this sort of speculation? The crew were alive; -I was one to ten; I was without an idea; and every day was diminishing -something of the meridians betwixt us and the Island of New Amsterdam. - -I did not in this time give Miss Aurora a lesson in English. I do not -remember that she asked me to give her a lesson. We had many long -earnest conversations about our situation, by which she profited, for I -spoke mainly in my own tongue. She did not favor me with another song, -she nevermore asked for the fiddle, nor did it once occur to me to -request her to oblige me with a recital in the rich and beautiful tongue -of her nation. Yet she was now speaking English very fairly well. She -was seldom at a loss, and conversation was easy without signs, nods, or -gesticulations, saving an occasional shrug of her shoulders, the -naturally impassioned action of her hands when she talked eagerly and -hotly, and the many expressions of face which accompanied her speech. - -She did not again offer to assassinate Bol and the others; she had read -in my face what I thought of that proposal, and her fiery and scornful -flinging from me because I would not consent was a flare of temper that -was out before we next met. On one occasion, however, we quarreled -rather warmly, and I was sulky with her afterward for some days. She -told me that I thought more of my dollars than of her life. I colored up -and answered that that was not true; I valued her life, and would -restore her to her friends if I could; but I also valued my dollars. I -had worked hard for them, and was not to be robbed by the blackguards -forward of a considerable fortune. - -“You think only of your dollars,” said she; “you do not scheme, because -your dollars are in the way of every idea. Is this how an English -cavalier should treat a poor, unhappy, shipwrecked lady? Señor -Fielding, I should be first with you; nothing should occupy your -attention but the resolution to release me from this horrid situation -and the dangers which lie before us;” and then she towered with her -figure, and swelled her breast and flashed her eyes at me. - -There was more of truth in her words than I relished to hear from her -lips, and it was this perhaps that angered me. I begged her to advise; -she shrugged her shoulders, and with an arch sneer which rather improved -than deformed her beauty, said that if I were a Spanish sailor I would -be ashamed to ask counsel of a woman. - -“If I were a Spanish sailor I would be ashamed of myself,” I said. - -“Why do you not scheme to release us?” - -“Scheme to release us? Shall I blow up the brig? That will make an end.” - -“It would not be the Señorita Aurora, but the Cavalier Fielding and his -Spanish dollars which would hinder that,” said she. - -“If, by jumping overboard and swimming, I could put you in the way of -reaching Madrid, I’d do so,” said I; “but it’s a long swim hereabouts to -anywhere.” - -“You would not jump overboard and leave your dollars,” said she. “If you -were the gallant and respectable gentleman I have long supposed you, you -would think of nothing but my deliverance. Why am I to be carried away -to the extreme ends of the world? What is to become of me when your -odious Hollanders and Englishmen have wrecked this brig?” and here she -sank upon the table and sobbed. - -“What am I to do?” I cried, not greatly moved by her tears; indeed, I -was too angry with her to be affected by her sobs. I had used her very -kindly; I had never failed in such rough sea courtesy as my profession -permitted me the poor art of; I did not like her sneers at my love for -my dollars; and I less liked the pinch or two of tart truth that -acidulated her language. “What am I to do?” I cried. “Bol will not -tranship you. He’ll speak no more vessels now the two Spaniards are -gone. I can’t sneak you away in a boat. Let any land but that of -Amsterdam Island heave into view and the sailors will slit my throat. -Why do you lie sobbing upon that table, madam? Pray, hold up your head -and listen to me. What was your scheme, pray? A hideous one, indeed; and -one that would not profit us either. It would fail, were we devils -enough to attempt it: and then God help you and me! Many are the -saints, but none would then be powerful enough to serve you.” - -She raised her head. The fire in her eyes was by no means dimmed by her -tears. Her sobbing and posture had reddened her cheeks. - -“The navigation of this brig is in your hands. Wreck her!” she -exclaimed. - -“And be drowned?” - -“Wreck her in such a way that we shall not be drowned.” - -“Come, you shall not teach me my business. If I am not a Spanish sailor, -I’ll not take counsel of a woman either.” - -She snapped her fingers at me, and showed her teeth in an angry smile; -turned, and I thought was going to her berth. Instead, she stopped and -looked at me over her shoulder, made a step, and her whole manner -changed. Her demeanor was, all of a sudden, a sort of wild tenderness. -Why do I call it _that_? Because it suggested--the memory of it still -suggests--the moment’s sportiveness of a tigress with its young. Her -eyes softened: her face grew sweet with a look of pleading; she put -herself into a posture of entreaty, her hands out-stretched and figure a -little stooped. Acting, or no acting, it was as good as good can be. You -would have said she loved me had you watched her eyes. The contrast -between the rascally snap of the finger and this pose of appeal was -sharp and strong; but how mean that stage for so rich a performance--the -lifting, uncarpeted deck of a little, plain, ship’s cabin, with its -austere furniture of table and lockers, and a skylight bleared with the -grayness of the day without? - -“Señor Fielding, let _me_ be first with you.” - -Another reference to the dollars! It vexed me greatly, and saying, “It -always has been so,” I gave her a cool bow and went on deck. - -We had quarreled before, but lightly, for the most part, and were -friends again in an hour. This quarrel, however, ran into two or three -days. She would not leave me alone. Did I mean to scheme for our -salvation? Was she to be first with me? Was I ashamed of myself to be -devoured by avarice? What was the good of dollars to a dying man? and -was I not a dying man if I did not rescue her and myself from the crew -of the brig? I don’t say she used all the words I put into her mouth. -No; she was not so fluent _then_ as all that; but I understood her very -easily--rather too easily--when she sneered at me for thinking more of -my dollars than of her. - -Finding, however, that I continued resolutely sulky, answering her -shortly, passing through the cabin instead of sitting with her as before -and talking, she grew alarmed, felt that she had said too much, and made -her peace. She made her peace by coming to my cabin. I was looking at a -chart of the Southern Ocean when somebody knocked. My lady entered. - -“Ave Maria! What will you think of me for coming to you thus and here? -But my heart is too full of remorse for patience. Blessed Virgin! How -long is half an hour when one is impatient! And I have been waiting for -half an hour outside in the cabin. I have angered you, and I am sorry. -You have been good to me, and you are my friend. And how do I show my -gratitude? Forgive me, señor;” and with that she put out her hand. - -It was very true that Yan Bol had declared the men would speak no ship -until the silver was out of the brig. And in my opinion they were right. -As we made for the Island of New Amsterdam we increased the chance of -falling in with war-ships and privateers. For Amsterdam Island is in the -Indian Ocean, at the southern limit of those waters, it is true, and in -those times many vagabond vessels were to be found in the Indian Ocean -on the lookout for the big rich ships, the tea waggons and spice and -silk carriers bound to and from China and the Indies. - -But it so happened that after we had lost sight of the little schooner -which had taken the two Spaniards aboard, we met with no other -sail--none, I mean, within reach of the bunting or speaking trumpet. At -long intervals a tip of white showed in some blue recess of that sea, -infinitely remote, pale as a little light that lives and dies and lives -again while you look. Never before had the measurelessness of the ocean -affected me as now. The spirits of vastness and loneliness which came -shaping themselves to the imagination out of those month-wide breasts -and secret solitudes of brine grew overwhelming to the mind--to my mind -I should say; and often of a night when the deck was quiet and the sea -black and the stars were shining, I’d feel the oppression of a mighty -presence--of something huge and near. - -And then consider the doses of salt water I had swallowed and was yet -swallowing! I was fresh from very many months of the sea when I was -picked up off an oar in the Channel and swept outward again into the -world where the salt spits like a wildcat, and where the sound of the -wind is not as its noise ashore; and I was still at sea with months of -water before me in any case if I was not put an end to. - -So, even had the crew been willing to speak a ship that the lady Aurora -might be transferred, no opportunity to do so came along; nothing hove -in sight but a star of sail in the liquid distance, and _this_ only at -long, long intervals. - -I’ll not tell you of the weather we fell in with between Cape Horn and -the distant island we were steering for; what do you care about the -weather and the weather of so long ago as Waterloo year? Otherwise I -could fill you several pages with pictures of hard gales, in one of -which the brig lay for a wild, terrifying time with her lee rail under, -her hull scarce to be seen for the smother that filled her decks, and I -could please you with pictures of soft calms in which our stem -tranquilly broke the cold gray water that reflected on either hand of -the vessel the silver sheen of her overhanging wings; and I could give -you pictures of merry breezes that swept us onward fast as the melting -head of the blue surge itself ran. Enough! - -One afternoon I sat upon the edge of the skylight frame with my arms -folded and my eyes fixed upon the sea. The sun was warm, the breeze -brisk. A pleasanter day had not shone upon us for a fortnight past. My -lady Aurora seated on a cabin chair at a little distance from me was -intent on an English book, one of the new volumes which had belonged to -Greaves. Her posture was very easy and reposeful; her dark eyes wandered -slowly down the printed page; often she was puzzled by the meaning of a -word and frowned at it; you would have supposed her a person without a -single cause for anxiety, a lady who was sailing to her home, which -might now not be very far off. - -Yan Bol was in charge. He had been standing for some considerable time -beside the wheel, occasionally exchanging a sentence in guttural Dutch -with Wirtz, who held the spokes. At last he came along the deck and -stood in front of me. - -“Vhat might hov been der situation of der brick at noon, Mr. Fielding?” -he inquired. - -I gave him the ship’s place. - -“Dot vhas close!” he said. - -“It was,” I answered. - -“Donnerwetter!” he thundered, “der island vhas aboardt!” and he looked -ahead at the sea as though he expected to behold the Island of New -Amsterdam. - -The lady Aurora, leaving the book opened upon her lap, raised her eyes -and listened. - -“How close vhas der island, Mr. Fielding?” - -“Roughly, sixty leagues.” - -“Den, she vhas here to-morrow?” - -“That is as the wind wills,” said I. - -He went forward by twenty or thirty paces, and putting his hand to the -side of his mouth--not that his voice should carry the better, but to -qualify the liberty he was taking by making an “aside” of it, so to -speak, to the eye--he called to Galen, Meehan, and two others who were -on forecastle: - -“Poys, she vhas here to-morrow. Der distance vhas sixty leagues at -dinner-time.” - -Galen accepted the news with a heavy Dutch flourish of his hand. Yan Bol -returned to me. In the minute or two of his going forward I had been -thinking, and with the swiftness of thought had concluded to ask him -certain questions. - -“Do you mean to bury the silver?” - -“Dot vhas der scheme.” - -“You will need to dig wide and deep if your pit is to contain all those -cases.” - -“Yaw, dot vhas so.” - -“What are you going to dig your pit with?” - -“Dere vhas two shovels in der fore-peak. Whateffer else vhas useful ve -takes mit us.” - -“Do you object to my asking you these questions?” - -“Nine, nine, Mr. Fielding,” he answered, “you vhas von of us, ve hope. -Two tons of der silver vhas yours. Vhas it not right you should know -vhat vhas to become of her?” - -“Then, since in all probability we shall be off the island some time -to-morrow, I’d be glad to hear now how you mean to go to work. I have -asked no questions before. I had expected that you would come to me with -your arrangements, and for advice.” - -“Vhat advice vhas vanted? A man vhas green dot requires to be learnt how -to make a hole in der earth, und put his money into it, und cover it -oop.” - -“You will need to make a very big pit.” - -“Yaw, she vhas a wide und deep pit dot ve dig.” - -“How long d’ye reckon that it will take you to dig that pit with such -tools as you have?” - -“Dere vhas no reckoning. Ve gets ashore und falls ter verk.” - -The lady Aurora closed her book, arose, brought her chair close to the -skylight, and reseated herself. Bol looked at her, then fastened his -eyes upon me. - -“Am I to be left in charge of the brig?” - -“You vhas, Mr. Fielding.” - -“What of a crew do you mean to allow me? It may come on to blow hard -while you are on shore.” - -“Dere vhas crew enough,” said he, with a queer expression in his eyes. - -“How many?” I demanded sternly. - -“Dere vhas four, und dere vhas der ladt, Jim. Dot vhas men enough for -der braces,” said he, looking up at the sails. - -“Four men and the boy,” said I aloud and musingly; “well, I daresay I -shall be able to manage with four men and the boy.” - -“Dere vhas yourself to gount.” - -“Oh, I do not forget myself. Do you take charge of the landing and -burial of the money?” - -“Yaw, me himself. I likes to know vhere she lies.” - -“You will pull around the island and reconnoiter first, I suppose, -before you land?” - -“Vhat vhas dot?” - -“Before landing the silver you will take care to make sure there is -nobody upon the island? _That’s_ what I mean. Risk your own share, if -you like, but my two tons must lie till I fetch them.” - -“She vhas an uninhabited island mitout house or foodt. Dot vhas certain -sure. But we foorst takes a look, Mr. Fielding. Oh, yaw, by Cott, we -foorst takes a look.” - -“You have come a thundering long way to hide this money.” He nodded. -“And there’s the devil’s own trouble to be taken afterward. First the -voyage from here to Sydney; then the trusting of Teach’s friend, Max -Lampton, with this big, rich secret; then supposing _that_ to prove all -right, the return to Amsterdam Island--this fine brig, meanwhile, having -been cast away--in some crazy little schooner, with the risks of a trip -to New Holland in a bottom that may drop out under the weight of fifteen -tons of silver.” - -“Ve vhas not all dom’d fools,” said he, with a slow smile; “dere vhas no -grazy bottoms mit us. Dis brig vhas fine, yaw,” said he, with a -leisurely look round the deck, “but she must go.” - -“It’s the maddest scheme that even sailors ever lighted upon,” said I, -“but let’s have the rest of it. Having dug your pit you come back for -the cargo?” - -“Yaw.” - -“It may take you a day to dig your pit.” - -“And b’raps two,” said he. - -“You will load about four tons a journey.” - -“Call her five,” said he. - -Here I observed that Galen, Teach, and one or two others having observed -the big Dutchman and me close and earnest, yet very audible in this -talk, had approached with sneaking steps to within earshot, where they -feigned to occupy themselves, one in coiling down a rope, another in -dipping for a drink out of the scuttle-butt, and so on. This decided me -to drop the subject. - -I walked to a corner of the deck called the starboard quarter, and -folding my arms leaned against the bulwarks. A dim and faint idea had -come to me in those few instants of time when Yan Bol went forward and -called out to his mates on the forecastle with his immense, hairy, -square hand beside his mouth, and this idea had slightly brightened -while I questioned him. It was an idea that would be quite glorious if -successful; otherwise it would be a forlorn and beggarly idea, a -treacherous, cut-throat idea, exactly fit to play my heavy stake of -silver and the Spanish maid into the hands of the men, and to secure me -the quickest exit that could be contrived by the knife or the yardarm. - -Madam Aurora watched me. I wish you were a man, thought I. Are you a -person to fail one in a supremely critical hour? You offered to stick -three men in the back; have you the courage to stick one man face to -face? - -I regarded her steadfastly, reflecting. I better remember her on that -particular afternoon than at any former time. Would you like to know how -she was dressed? I will tell you exactly. She wore a seaman’s plain -cloth jacket, fitted by her own hands to her figure; it sat well and was -tight and comfortable for those latitudes. She wore the dress she had -been clad in when we took her off the island; she had turned it, or in -some fashion rearranged it, and it was no longer the hideous garment I -had thought it. She wore a cloth cap; it sat like a turban upon her -thick, black hair, and laugh now, if you will! she wore a pair of -sailor’s shoes, whence you will guess that what grace of _littleness_ -she had, lay in those hands of hers I have admired so often. Not at -all. Her foot was perfectly proportioned to her hand. She had small, -delicately-shaped, highly-arched, and altogether lovely feet. The shoes -she wore I had found in the second of the slop-chests; they were -embellished with buckles; the Dutch shopman probably stowed them away by -mistake; they might have been designed for some dandy lad of a Batavian -quarter-deck; they were _small_, and small they _must_ have been, for -they fitted Aurora. - -This is the picture of her as she sat, intently regarded by me, who lay -against the rail with folded arms, deeply considering. Teach and the -others had sneaked forward again. Bol stumped the weather gangway. He -was usually respectful enough, whenever I came on deck, to carry his -vast carcass to a humbler part of the brig than I occupied. Miss Aurora -rose and walked up to me. - -“What are you thinking about?” said she, speaking in her own way, a way -I have not yet attempted to write, and shall not here give. “Do I look -ill, that you stare at me?” - -“I am thinking.” - -“I am not blind. I might suppose I saw mischief in your face, if I -thought you capable of mischief.” - -A pair of slow but shrewd Dutch eyes, and a pair of big but attentive -Dutch ears overtopped the spokes of the wheel. I made her glance at -Wirtz by myself looking at him. She understood the meaning in my face, -and returned to her chair. I crossed the deck, and passing my arm round -a lee backstay, gazed at the horizon ahead, thinking with all my might. - -I remained on deck about half an hour, and then went below. I took a -book out of the shelf in my berth, and seated myself at the cabin table, -as far removed as possible from the skylight, but not out of sight of -one who should peer through the glass; the size of the cabin did not -admit of such concealment. After the lapse of a few minutes I was joined -by Miss Aurora, who pulled off her cap and placed herself beside me. - -There could be nothing suspicious in our sitting close together. Many a -time had we sat very close together indeed, at that cabin table, under -the skylight, when I was teaching her to speak the English language, and -wondering whether, under _other_ circumstances, I should discover myself -to be rather in love with this fine young Spanish woman; and many a time -had the men looked down and observed us, and grinned, I have no doubt, -and uttered such remarks, one to another, as the very low level of their -forecastle intelligence would suggest. - -“What has caused you to stare at me, Señor Fielding?” - -“I have wished to satisfy myself that you are to be trusted.” - -“_Ave Maria!_ Trusted! Do not wrap up your meaning. I dislike people who -wrap up their meaning.” - -“Could you kill a man?” - -“For my honor and for my liberty, yes,” she replied after a short -silence, rearing herself in her swelling way, and flashing one of her -wicked looks at me. - -“Would you faint when you had killed him?” - -Her manner instantly changed. She slightly shrugged her shoulders and -answered, “A little thing has made me faint. At Acapulco I slept at a -friend’s house. I awoke, and by the moonlight saw a mouse upon my bed, -after which I remember no more. But nothing heroic, nothing exalted in -horror, would make me faint, I think. I could look upon a man slain by -me for my liberty or for my honor without swooning.” This was, in -effect, her answer to my question. - -“Have you ever killed a man?” said I. - -“No,” she answered hotly; “but when he is ready for me I shall be ready -for him;” and, unbuttoning the breast of her coat, she thrust her hand -into the pocket of her gown and pulled out a poniard or stiletto. It was -a blue, gleaming blade, about seven or eight inches long, sheathed in -bright metal, with a little ivory hilt that sparkled with some sort of -embellishment of gem or ore. In all the time we had been associated she -had never once given me to know that she went armed; but I afterward -discovered she was a young woman who knew how to keep a secret. - -“Hide that thing!” I cried with a glance at the skylight. - -She pocketed it, giving me a fiery nod. “Never,” said she, “have you -asked me whether I was afraid to be alone with Jorge and Antonio on the -island. _Vaya!_ Do your English ladies secrete knives about them? It is -a wise custom. But you wish to find out if I am to be trusted, if I can -kill a man for my liberty or for my honor. Try me,” she cried, snapping -her fingers as she waved her hand close to my face. - -“I have a scheme,” said I, “for getting away with the treasure and the -brig and you.” - -“The treasure first,” she exclaimed, smiling till her face looked to be -lighted up with her white teeth. “You will have to be quick. Is not -to-morrow the day of your Amsterdam Island?” - -“Ask the wind that question,” I answered. - -“What is your scheme?” - -“It is a magnificent scheme providing it succeeds. If it does not -succeed better had we never been born. Shall we desperately attempt it?” - -“_Qué es eso_--what is it? what is it?” she cried; and then a passion of -excitement seized her, and her hands trembled. - -“I will tell you the scheme in a minute. It depends not upon me and you -only. I shall require the help of the lad, Jimmy. Is he to be trusted?” - -“Your scheme--your scheme!” - -“Is he to be trusted?” I continued, feigning to read aloud from the book -that was before me, for I had thought I heard a man stop in his walk -overhead. “My scheme is not to be thought of unless this youth will help -us. You are a very observant lady. I have often seen you look -attentively at Jimmy.” - -“_Vaya!_ If I have looked at him it was without thought, and because I -had nothing else to do. What a face to gaze at attentively!” - -“Do you think he is to be trusted?” - -“You continue to ask me that question,” she exclaimed, petulantly -twisting her prayer-ring as though hotly engaged in the aves. “First -tell me your scheme, and then I will give you my opinion on Jimmy’s -trustworthiness.” - -On this, feigning to read aloud to her while I talked, that anyone above -might suppose we were at our old game of playing at school, I -communicated my scheme to her. A scheme it was: a distinct idea and -project of deliverance; but several conditions, partly of chance, partly -of contrivance, must attend its success. She listened eagerly, never -removing her eyes from me, and once she was so well pleased that she -clapped her hands and fell back with a loud laugh. This was not a -behavior to object to. No man, warily observing us, would guess our -talk, the significance of this long and intimate cabin consultation, -from the hard laughter of the señorita, and the merry noise of the -clapping of her hands. In truth I never could have imagined such spirit -in a woman. She had clapped her hands at the one feature whose -disclosure would have turned another woman faint, she being to act in -it. It was this stroke of our projected business that had made the cabin -ring with her laughter. - -“How long will the work occupy?” said I. - -“It matters not,” she answered. “I will take no rest until I have -finished it.” - -“You will not, however, begin until I have talked with Jimmy? If I see -reason to distrust him, we must think of another plan.” - -“Promise him plenty of dollars if he is faithful,” said she, “and -threaten him with death if he fails you.” - -We continued for some time longer to talk over my scheme. I then walked -to the stand of arms, and looked, with much irresolution in my mind, at -the muskets and the cutlasses, and at several pistols hanging near. My -instincts cautioned me to disturb nothing. - -“No,” said I, wheeling round to the lady; “those weapons must remain as -they are. The magazine is down there,” said I, pointing to a part of the -deck that formed the ceiling of a small compartment just forward of the -lazarette. “It is entered by that hatch, and, therefore, if the men -require ammunition--and it is likely as not they’ll go ashore -armed--they must pass through this cabin to get at the magazine. Nothing -must be disturbed.” - -At this point the lad arrived to prepare our supper. Miss Aurora walked -to her berth. I sat upon a locker and watched the youth, as he went -round the table furnishing it for the meal. I have elsewhere described -him. Since the date to which that description belongs he appeared to -have grown somewhat; he had broadened; his face had gathered from the -dye of the weather something of the manly look of the sailor; but that -was all. It was still a stupid, insipid, grinning face. He breathed -hard, and put down the knives and forks and plates with the -characteristic energy of a weak-minded youth who is always very much in -earnest. He was more than usually in earnest now, because I watched him. -I took the altitude of his head, and guessed him taller than I, who was -a pretty big chap, too. I took a view of his hands. Methought they fell -not far short of Yan Bol’s in magnitude. They were not fat, like the -hands of Yan Bol; on the contrary, they were bony and rugged with muscle -and veins. They were hands to hold on with--to hit hard with. - -Presently, reflection in me became a torment; nay, without straining -words, I may say that it rose into anguish. Should I put my life and the -life of the girl into the hands of that youth, who was little more than -an idiot? I waited until he had prepared the table for supper. I could -then endure the agony of irresolution no longer, and I rose and walked -to my berth, bidding him follow me. When he was entered I shut the -door. He stared at me, slightly grinning, but his look had a little of -wonder and fear in it. - -“Jimmy,” said I, “you’re often in the forecastle, aren’t you? You follow -the talk of the men, I guess. Where do you sling your hammock?” - -“In the eyes, master.” - -“You hear the men talk. Do you understand ’em?” - -“Why, ay,” he answered, staring at me without a wink from the full, -knock-kneed, muscular stature of him; for he stood before me as a -soldier--as he used to stand before Greaves when he received a lesson on -the difference of dishes. - -“What’s going to happen to this brig?” - -“Why, master, they’re going to unload the silver and hide it in -Amsterdam Island; and then we’re a-going to sail away for the coast of -New Holland, where you’re to wreck us; and then we comes back for the -money.” - -“After?” - -“Dunno what’s going to happen after.” - -“What’s to be your share of the dollars?” - -“There’s been nary word said about my share, master.” - -“D’ye know why?” - -“‘Cos they don’t mean to give me none.” - -“That’s so. There’s ne’er a dollar meant for you, Jimmy. Don’t you think -that’s hard?” - -“I’m a poor lad, master. What comes, comes to the likes of me. When the -captain died I lost my friend;” and grasping his fingers he cracked his -joints one after another, yielding first on one leg and then on the -other, as though he was about to break into a main-deck double shuffle. - -“Did Captain Greaves ever promise you a share?” - -“No, master.” - -“But you have a claim, and he was not the man to have overlooked it. -D’ye remember Galloon?” - -“Remember him, master? Remember Galloon?” said he, lowering his voice. - -“Galloon was an honest dog. Had he been able to speak, his advice to you -would always have been ‘Jimmy, be honest.’” - -He looked somewhat wild and scared, as though he imagined I was going to -charge him with a wrong. - -“It’ll be a wicked act to cast this fine brig away, don’t you think? -Galloon wouldn’t have loved ye for helping in such a job.” - -“It’ll be no job of mine, master.” - -“Both Galloon and Captain Greaves,” said I, “would have wished you to be -on the right side, no matter whose side it might happen to be. Are you -on the right side or the wrong side? Are you on the side where home -lies, where a share of the dollars lies, where safety lies; or are you -on the side where New Holland lies, where there are no dollars for you, -where there’s no home for you, and where you may be finding a gibbet as -one who helped to cast a ship away?--if the men don’t first chuck you -overboard as being in the road.” - -He continued to listen with increasing eagerness and agitation, cracking -his joints again and again, while he advanced his head, setting his -mouth in the form of a half-arrested yawn. When I had ceased he nodded -repeatedly, maintaining silence, with a face that seemed to mark him too -full for utterance. He, then, in stammering and choking voice, -exclaimed, while a grotesque smile touched his countenance into a dim -intelligence, even as the eastern obscurity is tinctured by the lunar -dawn: - -“Master, I sees yer meaning. I aint on the side where the gibbet is. I -would sail round the world with you, master.” - -Twenty minutes later he followed me out of my berth, and went on deck to -fetch the cabin supper from the galley. - -“Are you satisfied?” said the lady Aurora, who was seated at the table. - -“Perfectly,” I answered. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX. - -AMSTERDAM ISLAND. - - -I had hoped to make the Island of Amsterdam next day; had the wind -prospered we should have sighted it according to my reckoning; but in -the morning watch, a little after daybreak, the breeze fell, shifted, -and came on to blow ahead in hard rain squalls. - -Yan Bol aroused me. I was sleeping soundly. I had been busy throughout -the long night--busy after a manner of secrecy that had rendered my toil -not less exhausting to my mind than to my body. Throughout the night I -had been occupied with the boy Jimmy in paying furtive visits to the -magazine, and with the help of the lad I had stowed away in a cabin -locker a few round shot, cartridges for the long gun aft, some canister, -pistols which I had loaded, and to whose primings I had carefully -looked, a few brace of handcuffs, and some bilboes or legirons, such as -Greaves had obliged Mr. Van Laar to sit in. - -This work had run into hours, because I had to await opportunities to -carry it on--the changes of the watch, men’s movements above--and -throughout it was the same as though a musket had been leveled at my -head, so frightful was the peril, so deadly the consequences of -detection. For besides the risk of my movements aft exciting attention, -there was the chance of Jimmy being missed forward. Luckily he was what -is termed at sea “an idler,” and an idler at sea has “all night in.” No -man can tell by merely looking at a hammock whether it is occupied or -not, and I counted upon such of the men as might give the lad a thought -believing that he lay buried in his canvas bag in the eyes of the brig. - -Yan Bol aroused me. I went on deck and found a sallow, roaring, wet -morning. The brig was heading points off her course, bursting in smoke -through the headlong leap of the surge, with the topsail yards on the -caps, reef tackles hauled out, a number of men rolling up the mainsail, -and two on the main and two on the fore struggling with the wet, -bladder-like topgallant sails. - -I was bitterly vexed. Postponement might mean frustration. My scheme was -ready for instant execution; my heart was hot as a madman’s to _have_ at -the project and accomplish it; and now I might be obliged to wait a -month and perhaps as long again as a month! For here was just the sort -of wind to blow us half-way back the distance we had already measured; -and I could do nothing until the brig was off Amsterdam Island, the -weather quiet, the main topsail to the mast, and Bol and the longboat -ashore. - -There was nothing, however, to be done beyond heaving the brig to under -a rag of main staysail, and letting her lie with no more way than she -would get from the hurl of the seas and the gale up aloft. - -And yet, in one sense, this foul weather was as fortunate a thing as -could have happened; I’ll tell you why. I had taken care to persuade Yan -Bol that I had turned over the crew’s scheme of burying the money, had -thought better of it, was, indeed, now thinking well of it as, on the -whole, the easiest way to secure the treasure for a method of -distribution to be afterward considered; but I had never flattered -myself that he believed me fully sincere. In fact, I had shown too much -amazement at the start, reasoned against the imbecile project too -vehemently afterward. But now, when this change of weather came, my -disappointment was so great, my mortification so keen, that even Yan -Bol, with his slow eyes, and heavy, dull, ruminant intellect could not -look me in the face and mistake. - -We stood together while the men rolled the canvas up, their hoarse -cries, as they triced up the bunts, going down the gale like the yells -of gulls. The rain swept us in horizontal lines; the water smoked the -length of the brig as though her metal sheathing were red hot; the -Dutchman’s cap of fur clung to his big head like a huge, over-ripe fig. -The mist of the sudden gale boiled round the sea line, and we labored in -the commotion of our horizon, whose semi-diameter could have been -measured by a twenty-four pounder. - -“Holy Sacrament!” roared Yan Bol in Dutch. “Dis vhas der vindt to make -anchells of men!” and he shook his immense fist at the windward ocean, -and thundered out, “Nimin dich der Teufel, as der Schermans say!” - -“Han’t I had enough of this?” I shouted, sweeping my hand round the -dirty, freckled green of the seas, which were beginning to heap -themselves with true oceanic weight out of the granite shadow of the -wet. “I’d had months of it when I was picked up off the oar, and I’ve -had months of it since, and months of it remain.” And I bawled to him -that we wanted no more hindrances from the weather, that it was time the -dollars were buried, that it was time, indeed, we were thrashing the -brig to that part of the Australian coast where we should agree to wreck -her. “I want my money,” I cried. “I want to settle down ashore.” - -“Vhere vhas ve bound to now?” - -“Dead west and all the way back again.” - -“Vy zyn al verdom’d! Vere vhas der island?” - -“Somewhere close. The brig must be kept thus while it blows on end. I -may have overshot the mark, and the island may be leeward of us now--so -keep your weather eye lifting.” - -Together we stormed at the disappointment awhile in this fashion, I more -hotly than he, and with more sincerity, perhaps, for I was maddened by -the weather. The brig was reduced, as I have said, to a fragment of -staysail, but she was light, and blew to leeward like a cask. I threw -the log-ship over the weather quarter, and the line stood out to -windward like the warp of a fisherman’s trawl. For three days and three -nights it continued to blow, and we to drift. The flying sky blackened -low down over the sea, and the surges came out like cliffs from the -windward shadow. I obtained no sights, and knew not our situation. I -never could at any time have been cocksure of the position of the brig; -the mariner, in those times, went to sea but poorly equipped with -nautical instruments. His Hadley’s quadrant was indeed an improvement -upon the cross-staff of his forefathers, and he had a chronometer or -watch which those who went before him were not so fortunate as to -possess; not because watches of exquisite workmanship were not to be -procured, but because nobody had thought of Greenwich time. But the -sailor of 1815 was nevertheless not equipped as the sailor of to-day is. -Charts were misleading; the ocean current worked its own sweet will with -a man; consequently, I am not ashamed to own that I never could have -been cocksure of the brig in reference to land, and more particularly to -such a speck of land as Amsterdam Island makes, as you shall observe by -casting your eye on the chart. The fear that the vast lump of rock might -be to leeward in the thickness kept me terribly anxious. I was hour -after hour on deck. My anxiety went infinitely deeper than the possible -adjacency of the island; but the crew believed that I was only worried -for the safety of the brig; and this, as I had reason to know, raised me -high in their opinion. - -So that, as I say, the foul weather blew for a useful purpose; but, by -delaying me, it involved risks. Jimmy had my secret; he was exactly -acquainted with my scheme. Suppose the half-witted fellow should babble; -nay, suppose he should talk in his sleep! When I had explained my -project to him I believed that the brig would be off the island next -day. It was wonderful that my hair should have retained its color; that -the machinery of my brain should have worked with its established -nimbleness. _That_, I say, was wonderful, considering the bitter -anxieties of the navigation, the fear of Jimmy involuntarily or -unconsciously betraying me, the conviction that I was a dead man if that -happened, and that the lady Aurora would be barbarously used through -rage and the spirit of revenge and brutal wantonness. - -Fine weather came at last. It was the fifth day of our westerly drift. -The sea flattened and opened, the sky cleared, the wind fell dead, and -then, over the green rounds of the swell, there blew a draught of air -from the northwest. The sun shone brightly before noon. I got a good -observation, and calculated our distance at about two hundred miles from -the island. All sail was heaped upon the brig, every studding sail boom -run out, everything that would draw mast-headed; and, at four o’clock of -that afternoon, the little ship was sweeping through it at twelve knots, -roaring to the drag of a huge lower studding sail, every tack and sheet, -every backstay and halliard taut as a harp-string and shrill with the -song of the wind; with all hands standing by watching for something to -blow away, and ready to shorten sail, should the yawning hurl of the -fabric grow too fierce for spars and spokes. - -You know the month; the date I forget. The day, I recollect, was a -Friday. It had been a very dark night, blowing fresh down to about the -hour of eleven, during which time we had given the brig all her legs, -forcing her to her best with large reefless breasts of canvas. Not a -star showed all through the night. An eager lookout was kept for the -Island of New Amsterdam, which, I guessed, should be visible, were there -daylight to disclose it. - -It is a lofty mass of land, rising amidships to an altitude of near -three thousand feet; and a frequent heave of the log had assured me that -already, in these hours of darkness, we were within its horizon. I swept -the sea line. It was all black, smoky gloom. No deeper dye than that of -the universal shadow of the night was visible. Toward midnight the wind -slackened. We rolled on a deep-breasted heave of swell, which, I -reckoned, would be raising a mighty smother of yeast at those points and -bases of iron terraces which confronted this long lift of ocean. The -swollen sails dropped; the brig flapped along like a homeward-bound crow -at sunset. Amid intervals of silence I strained my ears, but not the -most distant noise of breakers did I catch. - -This went on till a little while before the hour of daybreak. The -weather was now very quiet, and the brig floated stealthily through the -darkness, under small canvas. I had no mind to pass the island and find -it astern of me, and perhaps out of sight, at sunrise. - -I went into the cabin, when dawn was close at hand, to drink a glass of -grog and puff at a pipe of tobacco. The lady Aurora was in her berth. -She had been about during the night; had once or twice joined me on -deck, and we had conversed cautiously as we walked. I sat upon the -locker in which, some nights before, I had stowed away the materials for -my scheme. How long was the execution of that scheme going to take? -Would the lady Aurora’s courage be equal to the part I had allotted to -her? Was Jimmy’s half-addled head to be depended upon in the instant of -a supremely tragic crisis, when action, saving or delaying time by a -minute or two, might make all the difference between life and death? - -Thus thinking, I sat upon the desperately-charged locker, puffing at my -pipe and drinking from my glass. Suddenly the thunder of Yan Bol’s voice -resounded through the little interior: - -“Landt on der starboardt bow!” - -I sprang to my feet, and gained the deck in a heart-beat. Dawn was -breaking right ahead. A melancholy, faint green light lay spread low -down along the sky; against that light ran the horizon--a deep black -line; and on the right, or about three points on the starboard or lee -bow, there stood against that green light of dawn the pitch-black mass -of the Island of New Amsterdam, defined as clearly upon the growing -light as the fanciful edges of an ink-stain on white blotting-paper. - -It was not the Island of St. Paul’s. _That_ I knew. It was, therefore, -Amsterdam Island; and, filled as I was with anxiety and distracted by -many contending passions, a momentary emotion of pride swelled my heart -when I beheld that island, scarcely five miles distant, within three -points under the bows of the little brig. - -Yan Bol stood beside me with folded arms. The ear-flaps of his hair cap -helmeted his face; his skin was green with the faint light ahead; he -looked like a mariner of Tromp’s day in casque-like cap. - -“So dot vhas der island? Dot vhas New Amsterdam, hey? _Potsblitz!_ Vhas -not der Doytch everywhere in her day? But dot day vhas gone. Und dot -vhas der island, hey? Vell, she vhas in good time, und I likes der look -of der vetter. Vhere vhas der landing-place, I fonders?” - -I told him I couldn’t say; I was without a chart of the island. Its -configuration, to our approach, was that of a lofty mass of coal-black -rock southeast, with a down-like shelving of the stuff into the -interior, and a facing seaward of rugged, horribly precipitous cliff. I -should say it scarcely measured five miles north and south. The ocean -looked lonely with it, as a babe makes lonelier the figure of the lonely -woman who carries it; the melancholy picture of the deep at that -moment--of that picture of faint green dawn blackening out the forlorn -pile of island and the indigo sweep of the sea-line on either hand of -it, and all astern of us the thickness of the smoky shadows of the -departing night--is indescribable. - -The sun rose right behind the island. It shot out a hundred beams of -splendor before lifting its flaming upper limb; it was then a fine -morning; the water of this Indian Ocean brimmed in a dark and -beautifully pure blue to the base of the iron-like steeps; the flash and -dazzle of rollers were visible at points, the sky was hard and high with -a delicate shading and interlacery of gray cloud, and the wind was small -and about northwest. - -I looked south for the Island of St. Paul; it was invisible from the -altitude of our deck, though I dare say on a fine, clear day it may be -seen from the top of Amsterdam Island. - -“Vere vhas the landing-places, I fonders,” said Bol. - -I fetched the glass and carefully covered as much of the island as our -bearings commanded. While I kneeled I felt a hand upon my shoulder. - -“_Qué tiempo hace?_” inquired the lady Aurora in a cool, collected -voice, looking down into my face. - -I answered in Spanish that the weather was fine and promised to keep so. - -“Good-morning, Mr. Bol,” said she. - -“Goodt-morning, marm. I hope you vhas vell dis morning? Dot vhas der -island at last. She vhas a Doytchman’s discovery. I likes to tink of der -Doytchers all der way down here.” - -The lady Aurora made no reply, probably not having understood a syllable -of Bol’s speech. I put the telescope into the Dutchman’s hand, and bade -him look for himself. The lady arched her brows at the island, and -glanced interrogatively round the sea, fixing her eyes upon me full with -a look of meaning. I faintly inclined my head. Often had I read her -meaning in her face when I had failed to grasp her words, so facile and -fluent was the eloquence of her looks. - -All the crew save Hals and Jimmy were collected on the forecastle-head, -staring at the island. The caboose chimney was smoking, and Hals’ head -frequently showed in the caboose doorway while he took a view of the -land. Galen constantly pointed and talked much, and was the center of a -little crowd. Bol stood up, and said he could see no signs of a -landing-place. - -“There’ll be one on the eastern side, I dare say,” said I. “You’re bound -to have a landing-place somewhere. I wish I had a chart of the island. -The last survey I remember was D’Entrecasteaux’. It is enough, of such -an island as this, to know that it exists. Look at it!” - -The sun was hanging over it now; its light revealed many slopes of the -land falling to the precipitous edge of the cliffs. A most horribly -barren rock did it seem--desolate beyond the dreams of the wildest fancy -of an uninhabited island. There may have been some sort of growth on -top; I know not; I saw no verdure. All was cold, naked, iron-hard cliff, -swelling centrally into a prodigious summit, around which even as I -watched dense white masses of mists were beginning to form and crawl, -reminding me of the magnificent growth and fall of lace-like vapor on -Table Mountain--the fairest and most marvelous of all the airy sights of -the world when viewed by moonlight. - -I hauled the brig in to within a mile of the land, then, observing -discolored water, I ordered a cast of the hand-lead to be taken; no -bottom was reached. We shifted the helm, trimmed sail, and stood about -southeast, rounding the point which I have since ascertained is called -Vlaming Head, so named after the Dutch navigator who was off this island -in 1696. Here we found fifty fathoms of water, and black sand for a -bottom. The rollers broke very furiously against the base of Vlaming -Head. Foam was heaped in a vast cloud there, as though the sea was kept -boiling by a great volcanic flame just beneath. - -We trimmed sail afresh and steered northeast. The land rose black and -horribly desolate; but the swell being from the west the sea was smooth, -and the tremble of surf small along the whole range this side. All this -while we eagerly gazed at the coast in search of a landing-place--of any -platform of sand and split of cliff by which the inland heights might be -gained. Bol’s round face grew long, and he swore often in Dutch. Many of -the men came aft to be within talking distance of the quarter-deck, and -hoarsely-uttered remarks and oaths fell from them, as they gazed at the -precipitous front of the island and beheld no spot to land on. - -The wind was scarcely more than a light draught of air, owing to the -interposition of the land; it was off the bow, too, by this time, and we -were braced up sharp to it. I told Bol to send the crew to breakfast -while the brig made a board into the northeast to enable her to fetch -the northern parts of the island, where now lay our only chance of -finding a landing-place. Impatience worked like madness in me, and no -man of all our ship’s company could have been wilder to behold a -landing-place than I. - -The breezes lightly freshened as we stood off from the island. I put -the brig into the hands of Galen, and went below to get some breakfast. -Miss Aurora and I conversed in subdued voices; she ate little, and was -pale, but I saw courage in her mouth and eyes. While Jimmy waited I told -him that, if we found a landing-place, our business might be settled -before sundown. “Before sundown,” said I to him, “we may, but I don’t -say we shall, be sailing along, the island astern, old England before -us, and a handsome promise of dollars for you, my lad, when we arrive. -Are ye all there?” - -“All there, master,” said he, feeling his wrist. - -“You’ve gone through your lessons o’er and o’er again?” - -“O’er and o’er, master.” - -“This job’ll make a fine man of you. You shall knock off the sea and -choose a calling ashore. What would you be? Oh, but don’t think of that -yet. Have nothing in your mind but this,” said I, holding up my hand and -twisting it as though I screwed a man by the throat. “Afterward turn to -and whistle and dance till you give in.” - -His grin was deep and prolonged. The feeling that he was now being -enormously trusted by me bred a sort of manliness in him. Methought he -was a little less of a fool than he used to be; his gaze had gathered -something of steadfastness, his grin something of intelligence. - -When our stretch had brought the northern point of the island abeam, we -put the brig about and headed for the island on the starboard tack; and -now, after we had been sailing for some time, the telescope gave me a -sight of what we were all on the lookout for. The northern point of the -island sloped to the edge of the sea, in perhaps half a mile’s length of -surf-washed margin. The surf was but a delicate tremble. The climb to -the height was steep; but fair in the lenses lay the half-mile of -landing-place, whether sand or beach or rock I knew not. - -“Yonder’s where you’ll be able to get ashore,” I cried, thrusting the -telescope into Yan Bol’s hands. - -“What d’ye see?” bawled Teach, who overhung the bulwark rail. - -“A landing-place, my ladts, und she vhas all right,” thundered Bol, with -his eye at the telescope. - -“Anything alive ashore?” cried Teach. - -“All vhas uninhabited,” answered Bol. - -“Ne’er a hut?” shouted Teach. - -“Vhas dot uninhabited, you tonkey? Dere vhas no shtir. Dot vhas der -country for my dollars until by um by. Hurrah!” - -He rose slowly and heavily from his posture of leaning, and put the -glass down. I took another long look at the island we were approaching. -There was majesty in its loneliness; there was majesty in the altitude -its dark terraces and inland heights rose to. A crown of cloud was upon -the brow of its central height, and the sunshine whitened into silver -that similitude of regal right--as real and lasting, for all its being -vapor, as any earthly crown of gold! - -“There’s your island, and there’s your landing-place,” said I, thrusting -my hands into my pockets. “What’s the next stroke, Yan Bol?” - -“Vhat vhas der soundings here?” he answered, going to the side and -looking down. - -“What do you want with the soundings?” - -“Shall you not pring oop?” - -“No, by thunder!” I cried. “What? Bring up off that island with four men -and a boy to man the capstan should it come on to blow a hurricane on a -sudden out of the eastward there, putting that black coast dead under -our lee? No, by thunder! If we are to bring up I’ll go ashore with you; -I’ll not stay with the brig; I’ll not risk my life. Oh, yes! It will -kill the time to hunt for the dollars at low water after the brig’s -stranded and gone to pieces, eh? Bring up?” I continued, shouting out -that all the men might hear me; “send plenty of victuals ashore if -that’s your intention. I’m no man-eater; and what but Dutch and English -flesh will there be to eat if it comes to anchoring?” - -“Mr. Fielding knows what he’s talking about,” sung out Teach; “I’m to -stay aboard for one, and I guess he’s right. No good to talk of slipping -if it comes on to blow; we aren’t flush of anchors, and the end of this -here traverse is a blooming long way off yet.” - -“How vhas she to be?” cried Bol, looking round the sea. - -“How was she to be?” I exclaimed. “Why, heave to under topsails and a -topgallant sail.” - -“Suppose she cooms on to blow und ve vhas still ashore?” - -“Well?” - -“Veil, der vetter obliges you to roon, und you lost sight of der island -und us. How vhas dot, mit noting to eat ashore, und der vetter tick und -beastly for dree veeks, say?” - -“Look here, Bol,” said I, speaking loudly, “you are wasting valuable -time in talking damned nonsense. You’re all for supposing. _I_ choose to -suppose because I am to be left in charge of this brig, frightfully -short-handed, and don’t mean to depend upon her ground tackle. D’ye -understand me?” He gave one of his immensely heavy nods. “But -_you_--there are always chances and risks in a job of this sort, and -recollect ’tis your own bringing about--‘twas you and Teach yonder who -contrived it.” - -“Vell?” he thundered impatiently. - -“Get your boat over as smartly as may be when the time arrives. Load her -with as much silver as you may think proper to take for the first jaunt. -Stow a piece or two of beef and some barrels of bread--you say there is -fresh water ashore?” - -“Blenty,” said the Dutchman. - -“You can bring off the victuals when your job’s ended,” said I. - -“Mr. Fielding, you’re right,” said Teach. “Yan, ’tis only agin the -chance of our being blowed off. If that’s to happen, ye must have enough -to eat till we tarns up agin. But what’s that chance?” cried he, with a -stare up aloft and around. “If the fear o’t’s to stop us, good-night to -the burying job.” - -Bol trudged a little way forward; the men gathered about him and held a -debate. I marched aft with my hands in my pockets as though indifferent -to the issue of their council, having made up my mind. But for all that -it was a time of mortal anxiety with me. - -After ten minutes Bol came aft and told me that the crew were agreed the -brig should be hove to. There was no anchor at the bow, and precious -time would be wasted in making ready the ground tackle. Next, we should -have to haul in close to land to find anchorage, and the crew were of my -opinion that the brig was a perished thing with such a coast as _that_ -close aboard under her lee, should it come on to blow a hard inshore -wind. - -“Und besides,” he continued, “ve doan take no silver mit us to-day. Our -beesiness vhas to oxplore. Ve take provisions und shovels, und der like, -vhen ve goes ashore now, und ve begins to dig if ve findts a place dot -all vhas agreed vhas a goodt place for hiding der money.” - -“Then turn to and get all ready with the boat,” said I; “we shall be in -with the land close enough in a few minutes. I want a mile and a half -of offing--nothing less--otherwise I go ashore in the boat and you stop -here.” - -“Hov your way, sir; hov your way,” he rumbled in his deepest voice. -“Vhat should I do here? Soopose ve vhas blowned away out of sight of der -island; how vhas I to findt her?” - -Saying this he left me, and in a few minutes all hands were in motion. I -stopped them, in the middle of their labors over the boat, to bring the -brig to a stand. We laid the main topsail aback, and since it was now -certain that I should not be able to put my scheme into execution that -day, I ordered them to reduce the ship to very easy canvas; the mainsail -was furled, the forecourse hauled up, the trysail brailed up, and other -sails were taken in, one or two furled, and one or two left to hang. The -fellows then got the longboat over. They swayed her out by tackles, and -when she was afloat and alongside they lowered some casks of beef and -pork and some barrels of bread and flour into her. We were handsomely -stocked with provisions, and I foresaw the loss of those tierces and -barrels without concern. - -The señorita came to my side, and we stood together at the rail, looking -down into the boat and watching the proceedings of the men. It was a -very fine day; the hour about one. The island lay in lofty masses of -dark rock within two miles of us, bearing a little to the southward of -east. The great heap of land filled the sea that way. The searching -light of the sun revealed nothing that stirred. I saw not even a bird; -but that might have been because the sea-fowl of the island were too -distant for my sight. An awful bit of ocean solitude is Amsterdam -Island. The sight of it, the reality of it, makes shallow the bottom of -the deepest of your imaginations of loneliness. The roar of the surf, at -points where the flash of it was fierce, came along in a note of -cannonading. You’d have thought there were troops firing heavy guns -t’other side the island. - -The men threw the fore-peak shovels into the boat, along with crowbars, -carpenter’s tools, and whatever else they could find that was good to -dig with. They handed down oars, mast, and sail. I particularly noticed -the sail. It was a big, square lug with a tall hoist. The biggest -galley-punts in the Downs carry such sails. The fellows lighted their -pipes to a man. They grinned and joked and put on holiday looks. It was -a jaunt--a fine change--a jolly run ashore for the rogues after our -prodigious term of imprisonment. Besides, every man possessed a great -fortune; every man might reckon himself up in thousands of dollars! I -could not wonder that they grinned and wore a jolly air. - -The following men entered the boat: John Wirtz, William Galen, Frank -Hals, John Friend, William Street, and lastly, Yan Bol. Hals, as you -know, was the cook. They took him, nevertheless--perhaps because he was -suspicious, and wished to see for himself where the pit was dug; perhaps -because he was an immensely strong man--short, vast of breech, of weight -to sink, with his foot, a shovel through granite. And the following men -were left behind to help me to control the brig: James Meehan, Isaac -Travers, Henry Call, Jim Vinten, and Thomas Teach. - -The men in the boat shoved off, hoisting the big lug as they did so. The -devils sent up a cheer, and Bol flourished his hair cap at me and the -lady. I returned the salute with a cordial wave of the hand, and the -lady bowed. They hauled the sheet of the lug flat aft, that the boat -might look a little to windward of the landing-place, where, so far as I -could distinguish, there was a sort of split, or ravine, which would -provide easy access to the inland heights and flats. I watched the -boat’s progress through the water with keen interest and anxiety. -Flattened in as the sheet was, the little fabric swam briskly. The wind -was small, yet the boat drove a pretty ripple from either bow and towed -some fathoms of wake astern of her. - -“We’ll _chance_ it, all the same!” thought I, setting my teeth. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX. - -MY SCHEME. - - -I watched the boat until she entered the tremble of surf. ’Twas a mere -silver fringe of surf, so quiet was the water on this, the lee side of -the island. The sail of the boat shone in that slender edge of whiteness -like a snowflake; then vanished on a sudden. I looked through the glass, -and saw the men on either gunwale of the boat running her up the beach -clear of the wash. - -I was so provoked by that sight, that I was mad then and there to start -on my scheme of release. The resolution seized me like a fit of fever, -and the blood surged through me in a flood of fire. I went to the lee -side of the deck to conceal my face. In a few minutes I had reconsidered -my resolution and was determined to wait. For, first, the afternoon was -advancing; the boat was not likely to stay long ashore; her sail might -be showing out on the blue water, under the dark height of cliffs, ere I -was half through with what lay before me. Next, the wind was very scant; -it was scarce a four-knot air of wind, though the brig should be able to -spread the canvas of a _Royal George_ to the off-shore draught. There -was nothing, then, to be done but wait; to pray for a continuance of -fine weather and a little more wind. - -The brig lay very quiet. The swell of the sea ran softly, and the hush -that was upon the island--such a hush as was on the face of the earth -when it was first created--was spread, like something sensible, -throughout the atmosphere; and this silence of desolation was upon the -breast of the sea. I kept the deck throughout the afternoon, often -looking at the landing-place. The boat lay high and dry, watched by a -single figure; the others were gone inland. They had sailed away without -firearms--an oversight, I reckon; or they might have asked of one -another, “What was the good of going armed to a desolate island?” Yet I -had a sort of sympathy for that lonely figure down by the boat when I -thought of him as unarmed. Frightfully lonesome he looked, with the -great face of the cliff hanging high up behind him and spreading away, -huge and sullen, on either hand. I guess, had I been that man, I should -have yearned for a loaded musket. Crusoe carried two, and went the -easier for the burden. - -The sun would set behind the island. It was sinking that way when I -spied the sail of the boat. The men had their oars over, and she came -along pretty fast. I calculated her speed, and cursed it. She drew -alongside, some of the men halloaing answers to questions bawled by -Teach and the others, who were on the forecastle. Bol scrambled up, and -shouting for all hands to get the boat inboard and stowed for the night, -he stepped up to me, who was standing aft with Miss Aurora, Call being -at the wheel. - -“She vhas all right,” said he, thick of voice with fatigue. - -“What was all right?” - -“Vell, first of all, she vhas der prettiest leedle islandt in der whole -vorldt for hiding money in. Ve looked about us--all vhas still. Dere -vhas birdts in der air, und dot vhas all, und dey vhas still too. Dere -vhas no sign of man ever having landted upon dot island. Mr. Fielding, -she vhas still undiscovered.” - -“Did you find any fresh water?” - -“Blenty. Sweet und coldt.” - -“Have you dug your pit?” - -“Donnerwetter, no! Dot vhas to take a morning. Der ground vhas hard like -dis.” He stamped his foot. “Dere vhas no caves; ve look for a hole, und -dere vhas nothing so big ash a monkey might hide in.” - -“Have you stowed the provisions securely away?” - -“Dot vhas all right, Mr. Fielding. Everyting vhas ready for der -morning.” He cast his gaze round upon the sky. - -“Have you found a place for the burial of the money?” - -“Yaw, a first-rate place,” he answered, with a glance at the island. -“Shtop till der shob is over, den you und Teach und der odders dot stays -mit you goes ashore und you take der bearings of der place for -yourself.” - -“I’ll do that. It’s fair, Bol.” - -“She vhas fair,” he answered. “If you vhas villing, marm,” he continued, -addressing Miss Aurora, “you shall go mit us likewise. Dere vhas noting -so goodt for man, fimmin, und beast as a leedle run ashore after months -of board ship.” - -She did not understand him. I explained, giving her a look; she -addressed me in Spanish and English. - -“The lady will be glad to go ashore, and looks forward to it,” said I. - -Nothing more was said. The huge bulk of the man seemed wearied out to -the heels of his feet; and, indeed, the straining and climbing involved -in the ascent of those inland steeps must have sorely tested the muscle -and bones whose load was Bol’s fat. He went forward and sat down. The -men had swayed the longboat inboard, had chocked her, and were now -shipping the gangway and clearing up. - -I considered a little and then resolved to let the brig lie as she was. -We had a full two-mile offing, which was enough with a short lee-shore -to deal with in case of a heavy, sudden inshore gale. - -The sun went down behind the island, as it had risen behind the island, -to our gaze when coming from the east. The western sky was a sheet of -red splendor, and the island stood in a deep purple against it until the -light went out of the heavens, when the land floated in shadow upon the -dusk like a vast thick smoke hovering. Never a light kindled by mortal -_there_! The whole mighty spirit of the great ocean solitude was in that -shadow. A few clouds hung high, and the stars were bright, with a merry -fair weather twinkling among them that made me hopeful of clear skies -and brisk winds. - -The night passed quickly. I lay upon the cabin locker, fully dressed, -and was up and down every hour. The air was soft and mild, for Amsterdam -Island lies upon the pleasantest parallel in the world, where the -atmosphere is sweet and dry, where it is never too hot, though at -night-time it may be sometimes cold, and the wonder is that you should -find such hideous barrenness and nakedness as you observe in this island -in the most temperate, cheerful, and fruitful of climates. - -Miss Aurora retired early, at my request. I was afraid of her on the eve -of such a day as to-morrow might prove. She was a little heedless in her -questions, talked somewhat loud, as the foreigner will when he -discourses in our tongue, and to provide against all risks of our -betraying ourselves by sitting in company below, or walking the deck -together, I told her to go to bed. - -At midnight Bol relieved Galen. I walked with Bol awhile, and all our -talk was about the island, the depth at which the money should be -buried, the mark that was to denote the treasure, and so forth. He -wanted to know if money was to be injured by lying in the earth; I -answered that the metal out of which money was made came from the earth. -What would be a good mark to set up? I told him he was a carpenter and -ought to know; but I advised him not to bury the money so carefully that -we should never afterward be able to find out where it lay hid. He said -it would not do to erect a cross, or any sign that indicated human -handiwork, lest men should land after we had left the island, and -guessing at the meaning of the mark, fall a-digging. The place they had -settled on he informed me was at the foot of a peculiar rise of land of -a very strange shape. He described this rise of land and its appearance -seemed to be that of the head of a cat. Once beheld it could never be -forgotten. It was the wish of the men, however, when the money was -buried, and I went on shore to view the spot and take its correct -bearings from different points of the island, that I should make a -sketch in black and white of the peculiarly-shaped rise of land or -little hill; this would be copied, and each man hold a drawing of the -hill for himself with all particulars written underneath. - -“I’ll do whatever is reasonable and right,” said I. - -“Dere vhas two ton belonging to you, Mr. Fielding.” - -“I don’t forget.” - -In this walk we settled the next day’s proceedings. I advised Yan Bol to -take three tons of silver with him ashore when he started early in the -morning with his digging party. - -“Shall ve not dig der pit first?” - -“Yaw, but also take a portion of your cargo with you. The boat’s -capacity of five tons was right enough for Captain Greaves’ island; but -here a roller may catch and capsize you, even as you’re going ashore, -unless you show the best height of side you can manage. Three tons a -trip won’t hurt--I’ll not advise more.” - -“Yaw, dot vhas right. I himself vhas for tree. But vhy take der silver -ashore before der pit vhas dig?” - -“To save time. Then, with three tons, you’ll have boxes and chests to -enable you to gauge the depth and space you require. You don’t want to -dig forty feet when ten may do.” - -“No, by Cott, Mr. Fielding, nor would you if you only shoost knew how -hardt vhas dot land. Vell, you vhas right. A leedle at a time, und ve -starts to-morrow mit a leedle; und vhen der pit vhas dig ve comes back -for more.” - -“How long will it take you to dig the pit?” - -“Vell, dot vill be ash she shall turn out. She may mean a morning’s -shob, but all vhas right und safe, I hope, before der sun vhas sunk.” - -I went below and slept for an hour. The men got their breakfast early. -Hals lighted the caboose fire before the sun was up, and the hands -breakfasted when the east was still rosy with the dawn into which the -sun had sprung in glory. I say in glory, for it was a very perfect -morning, the sky of a deep blue, and the sea of a silver azure with the -sunlight upon it. The breeze was light out of the north; but, if it -held, it fanned with weight enough to serve my turn. - -The men got the boats over as on the previous day. Yan Bol rolled up to -me, who had come on deck long before sunrise, and said, “Mr. Fielding, -how many cases vhas dere in tree tons?” - -“About twenty,” said I, “they won’t all run alike in size. If they were -all alike of course there’d be thirty.” - -“Vell, ve takes twenty.” - -“Yes, a little at a time, if you please. Two tons are mine. If you -capsize, who bears the loss?” - -“Dere vhas no capsize,” said he. “Look what a beautiful day she vhas! -Und how many dollars, Mr. Fielding, vhas dere in tree ton?” - -“One hundred and ten thousand dollars.” - -He rounded his little eyes and smacked his huge lips, and could find no -more to say than, “Vell, vell!” - -He and Galen and three or four others shortly afterward went below and -got into the lazarette, whence they handed out twenty cases of the -silver. I feigned a prodigious interest, roaring out to the fellows in -the boat, as I hung over the rail, to trim more by the head, to trim -more by the stern, to keep the stuff amidships for the sake of -stability; and then I bid Teach observe that three tons were to the full -as much as should go per trip. “For,” says I, “look well, and you’ll -find her a ton deeper than, in my opinion, her safety allows. But what -are we sending ashore? Is it Thames ballast? Or is it something more -precious than all your eyeballs put together? I’ll have my two tons go -alone. No other man’s ton shall go along with mine,” and so I went on -shouting. - -All being ready the crew of the boat entered her. They were the same as -on the preceding day. I regretted this, for I had hoped that Teach or -Travers or Meehan--Call I did not fear--would have taken the place of -Friend, who, as you know, was the mildest man of the whole bunch of -rogues; but I kept my mouth shut; I durst make no suggestion that way. -We are all good men, the fellows would have said; what reason has he in -wishing Friend to remain? - -Call was at the wheel. I sung out to Meehan to lay aft and loose the -trysail, adding, that the others might hear me, that the brig wanted -more after-sail to keep her head to. The three men lay aft, and in a few -minutes the sail was set. - -In this time the longboat was slipping through the water toward the -land. When the trysail was set I asked Meehan, who claimed to be a bit -of a cook in his way, to boil me a pot of cocoa; I had been up all -night, I said, and had breakfasted ill (the girl and I had not -breakfasted at all). Travers and Teach went on to the forecastle; I -watched them light their pipes, coming to the galley for a light, and -returning to the forecastle; they leaned upon the rail in the head, and -watched the boat. - -“I shall be wanting a word with Teach below shortly,” said I to Call; -“does he know the Sydney coast? I’d like him to hit upon a spot for -casting this brig away--something to keep in mind. There’s no chart -aboard that’s going to help me in that job. Keep a lookout. Don’t leave -the wheel, and mind you hallo if I’m wanted.” - -I entered the cabin, and found the lady Aurora standing at the table, -and the lad Jimmy near the door of my berth. - -“The hour has come,” said I, feeling myself grown pale on a sudden, “and -the man’s at hand. How is it with you?” - -I gently grasped her wrist and looked at her. - -“Only be quick, Señor Fielding. It is this waiting and waiting that -tries the nerves,” she answered in effect. - -“How is it with you, Jimmy?” - -“I’m ready, master.” - -“Where’s the bag?” said I to the señorita. - -“It’s there,” said she, pointing to a locker. - -“Sit upon it, for I am about to send.” - -I entered my berth and brought out a chart of the continent of New -Holland. I carried it to the table on the same side on which the lady -had seated herself, and spread it, putting, as I well remember, a metal -mug at each corner to keep the curled sheet flat. I then stepped to a -scuttle and peered through it, and descried the sail of the boat close -in with the island. I turned to the table again and called to Jimmy. - -“Go now and send Teach here,” and when he was gone I overhung the chart -in a posture of anxious scrutiny; though in this while I several times -glanced at the lady Aurora, who was sitting just behind me, and observed -that she sat very still, her face as composed as at any time since I had -known her, her eyes bent upon a book which she had taken from the table -before sitting. The motion of the brig was gentle; the cabin became -warm, almost hot; a little while before I descended I had looked through -the skylight at Jimmy, who stood beneath, and he had quietly closed and -secured the frames. - -Teach came down, and behind him was Jimmy. He descended the steps -without the least manner of suspicion. He wore a round hat, and his feet -were naked, the bottoms of his trousers being turned up midway the -height of the calves of his legs. I bade him uncover in the presence of -a lady; he asked pardon, and threw his hat down upon the deck. - -“Here’s a chart of New Holland,” said I, pointing to it. “D’ye know -anything of the coast down Port Jackson way?” - -“No, sir,” said he. - -“Where’s this brig to be wrecked? Come you here.” He came to my side, -and I put my finger upon the line that denoted the coast near Port -Jackson, holding my left hand behind me. “All hereabouts is wild ground, -I reckon--and if the brig’s to be stranded, the spot should be within a -comfortable tramp of the town of Sydney,” and as I pronounced these -words I motioned with my left hand, on which, as swiftly as you fetch a -breath, the lady Aurora whipped a big bag, thickened for the face with -wadding, over the head of Teach, dragging it down to his shoulders and -holding it there, and all as nimbly as the hangman pulls down the cap -over the malefactor’s face. In the same instant of her doing this I -grasped Teach by his right arm and Jimmy seized him by his left, and -pulling out a pair of handcuffs from my pocket I brought the fellow’s -wrists together and manacled him. - -His first struggles were furious; but how should he be able to help -himself in the grasp of two men, each of whom was out and away stronger -than he? He kicked and plunged with frantic violence, but he could utter -no sound. He was fairly suffocated by the thickly-lined bag which Miss -Aurora had whipped down over his head. - -Not an instant was to be lost; moreover, I had no intention to kill the -man, though I reckoned by the gathering faintness in the capers he cut -that his senses were going. Grasping him by the arms Jimmy and I dragged -him aft and thrust him into a spare berth that lay between mine and the -cabin I had occupied in Greaves’s time. Miss Aurora followed and handed -me a gag of her own manufacture. I pulled the cap off the man and found -him nearly gone; we sat him on a locker with his back against the ship’s -side and I gagged him, taking care to see that the nostrils were clear. -So there he was, gagged, handcuffed, and very nearly dead, and there was -nothing to fear from him at present. - -I shut the door of the berth and went again to the chart, while Miss -Aurora sat behind me upon the bag as before. I slipped a second pair of -handcuffs from my left into my right pocket, and then told Jimmy to send -Travers below. - -“If he asks you what I want,” said I, “answer that Mr. Fielding and -Teach are talking about casting away the brig and looking at the chart -of Australia.” - -In a few moments Travers arrived. He was closely followed by Jimmy. He -descended the steps without the least appearance of misgiving. I -perceived, however, that in a moment he began to cast his eyes about for -Teach. - -“D’ye know anything of the coast of New Holland, Travers?” - -“Nothen, sir.” - -“Teach and I have been talking about casting this brig away. Teach’ll be -here in a moment,” said I, with a significant sideways motion of my head -toward my berth, which I was willing the fellow should construe as he -pleased. “This is the spot which Teach recommends,” said I, putting my -finger upon the chart. “Draw near, will you. You’ll understand my -meaning when your eyes are on the drawing of the coast.” - -He came at once to my side, cap in hand. I bade him observe the -conformation of the coast, and while I spoke I made a motion with my -left hand, whereupon, with lightning speed, the cap was on him! The man -halloed faintly inside: ’twas like a voice from the height of a tall -chimney; then, Jimmy and I bringing his brawny arms together, I slipped -the handcuffs on. - -He was a more powerfully built man than Teach, but without that devil’s -desperate spirit. He appeared to understand what we meant to do, felt -his helplessness, and after a brief, fierce struggle stood quiet. We ran -him, silent and suffocating in his bag, to the forward cabin on the -larboard side, by which time he was nearly spent for want of air, so -that, when we drew the bag off his head, he was black in the face. I -waited a few minutes till he rallied somewhat, then gagged him with a -second gag of Miss Aurora’s manufacture. We next pulled off his boots, -to provide against his kicking at the door, and threw them into the -cabin, and shutting him up I went to the locker in which I had stored my -borrowings from the magazine, as you have heard, and thrust a couple of -loaded pistols into my pocket. - -My lady Aurora had fallen into a chair: she was deadly white and -trembled violently, and seemed to be fainting. I told Jimmy to give her -a glass of brandy and follow me on deck. I dared not pause now, no, not -even though her life should be risked by my going. I went on deck and -stood a minute at the companion. Call was at the wheel, carelessly -grasping the spokes. I looked toward the island; the boat was clearly -ashore, her sail lowered, and nothing therefore to be seen of her, at -that distance, with the naked eye. - -Taking no notice of Call I walked to the caboose and looked in, -expecting to see Meehan at work there boiling my cocoa. The caboose was -empty, but the fire burned briskly as though freshly trimmed, and a -saucepan was boiling upon it. I stepped swiftly to the fore-scuttle, -that is to say, to the hatch by which the sailors entered or left the -forecastle, and, when I was within a few feet of it, I spied Meehan’s -head in the act of rising to come on deck. I sprang and struck him hard, -crying out, “Keep below till you’re wanted.” He fell backward, and I -instantly drove the cover of the scuttle over the hatch and secured it -by its bar. - -Call remained to be dealt with. As I walked aft Jimmy came up out of the -cabin. Call was very white. He let go the wheel, and cried out, “Mr. -Fielding, where’s my mates?” - -“Where you’ll be in a minute, my man,” said I, pulling out one of the -two pistols I had pocketed; for I had not foreseen in the case of Meehan -so easy a capture. - -“There’s no need to show me that,” said the fellow in his small voice, -nodding his head at the pistol, “I follows your meaning, and I’ll work -as a good man if ye’ll take me on.” - -“No, I won’t trust you. Not yet, anyhow; though I should be mighty glad -to believe you trustworthy.” - -“Try me, sir,” he exclaimed. - -“No, by----! Jimmy, lay hold of that wheel and keep it steady. Call, get -you forward,” and I pointed with my pistol to the forecastle. - -He went like a lamb, and I followed at his heels. Indeed, I needed no -weapon with this man; in strength I was twice his master; in nimbleness -and the art of fisticuffs he was not within a league of my longest -shadow. I could have tossed him by scruff and breech over the rail, and -have drunk a pint with the same breath I did it in. - -When we came to the scuttle, I told him to open it and descend. Meehan -roared out, when he saw daylight; I answered that I would send a bullet -through his brains if he made any noise, that his and Call’s wants -should be seen to presently, and that I was going to sail the brig home -to save the men who had been left with me from the gallows. - -“Where’s Teach and Travers?” bawled Meehan. - -“Dead--dead--dead!” I cried, then closed and secured the scuttle as -before, and ran to the cabin. - -I found my lady very much better. She had drunk a little brandy, and was -eating a biscuit; the trembling had left her, and her face was steady. - -“All the men are secured,” said I. - -She clapped her hands and cried, “You have been very quick,” and then -laughed with hysteric vehemence; and, no doubt, to satisfy me that she -was composed, she at the same moment got up from her chair, and said, -“What is next to be done?” - -“Follow me,” said I. - -I went on deck, and pointing the glass at the landing-place, took a long -look. The fellows had hauled the boat high and dry; I could not see what -sort of a beach it was; the boat lay beyond the thin line of feathering -surf. There were figures about her in motion. I counted all the men who -had gone in her. The telescope was poor--poor even for that age of -marine spy-glasses--and I was unable to distinguish clearly. But the -boat was high and dry, and the men were out of her and busy with their -cargo; _that_ was certain; so I put down the glass, and, going to the -wheel, called to the señorita to come to me. - -“Hold it thus,” said I. - -She at once stationed herself in Jimmy’s place and grasped the spokes. -Then, followed by the lad, I ran to the cabin, and, together, out of the -locker we brought up three rounds for the long brass pivoted twenty-four -pounder. We likewise loaded with all possible speed six muskets, which, -with the remaining pistols that lay in the locker, we conveyed on deck. -When this was done, I charged the long gun, taking care to see that all -was ready for quickly reloading. - -“Now, Jimmy,” said I, “it is time to swing the main topsail yard and be -off.” - -The wind hung in the north; it was a little pleasant breeze, with just -enough of weight to tremble the water into a darker dye of blue with the -summer rippling and wrinkling of it, and to put a dance into the -blinding sparkles under the sun. I went forward with the lad, and first -we hoisted the standing-jib; then went to the main braces and, the wind -being very light, we swung the yards easily. The topgallant sails had -been clewed up on the previous day, and had hung by their gear unstowed -all night. Both yards were heavy, for the _Black Watch_ was very square -in her rig; so to masthead the canvas we led the halliards to the little -capstan on the quarter-deck, and set the sails with fairly taut leeches. -A couple of staysails we also ran aloft, by which time the brig had -wore. We then trimmed for the northerly draught, and in less than twenty -minutes from the start of the operations the brig was standing -eastward, and slowly gathering way, with Jimmy at the wheel, holding the -little ship steady to my directions, myself near him, glass in hand, -watching the men ashore, and the girl at my side. - -I had reckoned on this--that, when the men saw me fill on the brig -they’d suppose something to make me uneasy had hove into sight, or that -I was maneuvering to take up a new position. I guessed they’d never -imagine for a long while that I was running away with the brig. I had -taken particular care for weeks past that they should observe nothing in -me to excite distrust. And then there were Teach and the others; and I -counted upon Bol’s and upon Bol’s mates’ confidence in the loyalty of -those shipmates. So they’d watch us for some time without suspicion; and -every minute was precious, because every minute the distance widened and -the pace briskened. - -Thus had my calculations forerun, and now I stood with the telescope at -my eye, watching and waiting. - -Five minutes passed--no more. I had turned to look at the compass and to -glance aloft; and now I leveled the glass afresh. - -“They’re after us!” I cried. - -In those five minutes they had launched the boat and, as I looked, were -hoisting the sail and throwing their oars over. I was mightily startled -at first. I had never imagined they’d prove so keen in their guessing; -but reflection speedily cooled me, and brought my nerves to their proper -bearing. - -The boat gained on us slowly. The pace of the brig was about four miles -an hour; the boat’s a mile faster than that. Presently I could count the -steady pulse of her five oars. I had no fear, but I was very eager to -come off with the brig without killing any of those men. The lady Aurora -said: - -“They’re catching us up.” - -“Yes,” said I; “and if they can come within hail they’ll make me a -hundred fine promises and entreat me to take them on board; and, a few -minutes after they are on board, my corpse will be floating -astern--another shocking example of forecastle gratitude. I’m done with -’em,” said I, scarcely supposing while I talked that she wholly -understood me; and, putting my hand upon the long brass gun, I moved it -until the muzzle was over the boat. - -I knew the little fabric was out of range, but I wished the men to see -the feather-leap of white water, the flash of the missile, that they -might understand I shot with ball; and, having everything to my hand, I -bid Miss Aurora step a little aside, and fired. The gun roared in -thunder, and belched out a big cloud of smoke. I dodged the smoke to -mark the flight of the ball, which hit the water several cables’ lengths -this side the boat. If the spurt of it was plain to me, it was plain to -them. I put Jimmy to the gun to clean it while I watched the boat. She -continued in pursuit; but now, by aid of the glass, I made out something -white flying at her masthead--a signal of truce, as though the fellows -and I had been at war. Some man must have torn up his shirt to produce -that flag; for there were no white handkerchiefs in the longboat, and -nothing to answer to what was flying save what one or another carried on -his back. - -“I want no truce! I want no peace! I want to have nothing whatever to do -with you!” I cried, while I went about to load the long gun again. - -This time I resolved to load with case as well as round, that the splash -might emphasize my hint. I asked Aurora to hold the wheel, and bid Jimmy -rush into the cabin and bring up some canister out of the locker. I -clapped in some case on top of the ball, took aim, and fired. The brig -thrilled to the explosion. I wondered to myself what the imprisoned -fellows forward and the two men below would be thinking of this -bellowing of artillery. - -The ball and musket-shot struck the sea before I saw the splash; the -smoke of the gunpowder hung a bit, clouding aft before blowing clear, -and I could not spring to the side in time to see. I ordered Jimmy to -make ready the gun for loading afresh, being now hot in heart with the -noise of the firing and angry, too, with the stubborn pursuit of the -devils astern; and I told Miss Aurora that, if they did not shift their -helm, I’d blow them out of water. - -“I want no man’s life,” I exclaimed--“not even Yan Bol’s; but if they -creep much closer, and I can manage to plump a ball among those----” - -But here my speech was arrested; for, having talked with my eye at the -glass, I saw them lower the lugsail on board the longboat; they then -pulled her around and hoisted her sail afresh. - -“There she goes!” cried I. - -“_De veras!_ Oh, glorious! Oh, glorious!” exclaimed the señorita, -dropping the wheel to clap her hands. - -“Yes, there she goes,” said I, “the second hint sufficed. I wish the -shot may not have hurt any man of them. Was she out of reach? Yes, there -she goes. Wise ye are, Yan Bol. I should have sunk you. Never should you -have gained footing aboard this brig. And has not the breeze slightly -freshened too since you started in pursuit? Ay, there is a little foam -in our wake, and the glance under the sun is keen. We should have run -you out of sight, Yan Bol, and you in pursuing would have run the island -out of sight, and then without compass, without provisions, without -water, how would ye have managed, you scoundrel Dutchman?” - -I put down the glass and clapped the boy on the shoulder. - -“Jimmy, you have done well. Yours’ll be a good share of dollars for this -job. Now jump, my lively, and get some breakfast for the lady and -me--and some breakfast for yourself.” - -The poor fellow, grinning with delight, fled forward with the speed of a -hare. I took the wheel from the señorita, and she stood beside me. - -“What’ll dose men do?” - -“They will return to the island.” - -“Will not dey starf?” - -“They have plenty of provisions, and they have a good boat.” - -“What will dey do with de money dey have taken?” - -“May it founder them! The dogs! To force us down here when we should be -in the Channel, or at home! Here am I now with this big brig on my -single pair of hands, and you and the boy as helps and four horrible -scoundrels to sentinel and feed.” - -I felt sick with heart-weariness at that moment. An eternity of waters -stretched between me and England in the measureless miles of Southern -Ocean, in the measureless miles of south and north Atlantic. How was I -to manage with one half-crazy boy and a girl to help me, and four -prisoners to guard? - -“De dollars are saved,” said the señorita, bringing her eyes with a -flash in them from the boat to my face. - -“You are the greatest heroine the world has ever produced,” said I. - -“It is a day of glory for you, and your money is safe,” said she. - -I looked at her a little sullenly; I was in no temper for irony. - -“If de money is safe, I am safe,” said she, “for one goes before de -other, and to be safe I am content to be second.” - -I heeded her not; her tongue was a rattle, and very heedless at times. -After a little, finding I did not speak, she looked at the boat through -the glass. Long practice had now enabled her to keep open the eye she -applied to the telescope. I, too, gripping the spokes, gazed astern; the -sail of the boat was like the wing of a white butterfly out on the dark -blue, that thrilled with the breeze. The island hung massive and rugged -in the sky, but already was it growing blue in the blue air. - -At this time Jimmy came along with some breakfast. He put the tray upon -the deck. The pot of cocoa Meehan was to have cooked had overboiled and -was burnt. Jimmy brought us some fresh coffee, salt beef, and biscuit. -The girl and I ate and drank, Jimmy meanwhile holding the wheel. My lady -asked me how the prisoners were to breakfast? Could they feed themselves -with handcuffs? - -“No,” said I. - -“They’ll need to be regularly supplied with food,” said she. “Who’ll -feed them?” - -“_Parece que quiere hacer buen tiempo_,” said I to change the subject. - -When I had breakfasted I held the wheel that Jimmy might eat. I was -forever racking my brains to conceive how I was to manage, alone as I -was with the youth. The girl was of no earthly use. Indeed, for the -matter of that, the boy himself did not know how to steer, and was a -poor sailor aloft, though as “an idler” he was expected, and was used to -help the men in reefing and in putting the brig about. I was grateful -for the beautiful morning with its gentle breeze. “Perhaps,” I said to -myself, “I shall have worked out some theory of navigating the brig with -the aid of Jimmy, before a change of weather happens.” - -The lad took the wheel, and I went below to remove the gags from the -men. I had a brace of loaded pistols in my pocket, and I pulled out one -of them, and looking to its priming, I walked to the berth in which we -had thrown Teach, and opened the door. The man’s posture was that in -which we had left him, saving that his head had fallen forward. I did -not like his looks, and felt afraid; I went up to him and took his arm; -he did not stir. I lifted his head by the chin, and saw death in his -eyes. On this, full of horror and pity, I removed the gag. It was a -piece of drill with a lump of stuffing stitched amidships to fill the -mouth. Aurora had made it, as she had made the bag with which we had -stifled the two men. The stuffed part of the gag that had filled the -man’s mouth was soaked with blood, and when I pulled the gag off, and -the head fell forward, a quantity of dark blood followed. - -No doubt he had ruptured a blood vessel; in any case, his death was not -to be laid to the account of the gag, in other words, to our having -suffocated him. Nevertheless, I was as greatly shocked, and viewed him -with as much horror as though he had died by my hands. - -I then bethought me of Travers and rushed, with my heart beating hard, -to his berth, dreading to find him dead likewise. The man was standing -upright, looking at the sea through the scuttle. He turned when I -entered, and presented his gagged face to me. I thanked God to find him -alive. So far we had managed all this business bloodlessly. I am one, -and ever was one, of those who count human life the most sacred thing -under God’s eye. - -I had thrust the pistol into my pocket at the sight of Teach, and now -kept it there in the presence of this man Travers, gagged and handcuffed -as he was. He motioned piteously with his head, lifting his fists a -little way toward his face. I at once took the gag off, and threw it -aside. He tried to speak; he fetched many breaths, during which some -froth gathered upon his lips; he then, in a dim, husky voice that seemed -to rise from the bottom of his chest, exclaimed: - -“Water!” - -I ran into the cabin and filled a mug with fresh water; he remained -standing where I had left him. I put the mug to his mouth, and he drank -long and deep. The water refreshed him, and he found his voice. - -“What are ye going to do with me?” he asked. - -“Keep you under hatches,” said I. - -“Where’s Bol and the others?” - -“Ashore on the island.” - -“Left to their fate, sir?” - -“You know better. Have they not the longboat, plenty of provisions and -water? If Captain Greaves were alive he’d yardarm the four of you--no, -not the four; Teach is dead.” - -“Did you kill him?” - -“He’s dead,” I shouted in a rage; “I have killed no man. You would have -killed me--there is no stain on my conscience.” - -“Are ye carrying the brig home?” - -“Where else?” - -“Teach dead!” he muttered. “Mr. Fielding, for God’s sake, take me on. -You’ll find me a true man.” - -“Which d’ye choose--the bilboes or those bracelets?” - -He answered me with a savage stare. I turned to go. - -“Leave me some water,” he called. - -I filled the mug afresh, placed it where he could put his lips to it, -and locked the door upon him. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI. - -A QUAKER SKIPPER. - - -I looked in upon Teach again. The sight was piteous. The handcuffs gave -a wild pathos to that picture of death. The sight was not to be borne. I -removed the handcuffs, and then took a steady view of his face, and felt -the man’s wrist to make sure that he was dead. He was stone dead; and I -went on deck. - -Miss Aurora leaned upon her elbows on the rail, looking at the Island of -Amsterdam, that was fading into a dark blue cloud. I said: - -“Teach is dead.” - -She started, and shrunk back and stared at me, and instantly reflected -the expression she saw in my face. Her features then relaxed, and, -slightly shrugging her shoulders, she exclaimed: - -“He was not a good man. Yet good men are dying every day. Teach’s time -had come. Did we kill him?” - -“I don’t think so.” - -“That pleases me. I would have killed him for my honor or for my -liberty. It is God’s doing, and it must be good.” - -I found that Jimmy kept the brig to her course fairly well, and roamed -about the deck for awhile by myself, considering how I should act if we -did not presently, and, indeed, speedily, fall in with a ship to help us -with the loan of two or three men. I then asked Miss Aurora to hold the -wheel, and took Jimmy below with me to help clap the bilboes on to -Travers, that I might relieve the poor devil of his handcuffs. While I -put the bilboes on, Travers asked me why I refused to give him a chance -to turn to. - -“You’ve had a chance of proving yourself an honest man for weeks past. -I’ll not trust you now.” - -“Mr. Fielding, we meant to act square by you.” - -“Yes, by knocking me over the head when I’d served your turn.” - -I sent Jimmy in a hurry for provisions and water to place in this -prisoner’s berth. The beast couldn’t read, or I should have tossed him a -book or two. I was eager to regain the deck, for her ladyship was on no -account to be left alone at the wheel. Travers asked for his pipe and -tobacco. I told him he should have them; and then, threatening to shoot -him through the head if he made any noise, attempted to break out, or -acted in any way to imperil the safety of the ship, I locked him up. - -I put a loaded pistol into Jimmy’s hand, keeping a brace in my pocket; -and, finding that the brig made a straight wake to the set of the helm, -as surrendered by me to Miss Aurora, with the request that she would -hold the spokes steady, I went forward with the lad, lifted the hatch, -and sung out. - -Both men came under the hatch and looked up. I let them see that the boy -and I were armed, and said: - -“Call, I am here to give you a chance. If you’ll come on deck and help -me to carry on the work of the brig, good and well.” - -“I asked to turn to afore,” said he, putting his hand on the coaming as -though to come up. - -“I’m willing to turn to,” said Meehan. - -“I’ll abide by Call’s behavior,” said I. - -“It’s cussed hot and black down here,” exclaimed Meehan. “Aint ye going -to let us have a light?” - -“You shall have a light,” said I; “but mind your fire. We have the -boats, and I shan’t lift the hatch.” - -“What made ye clip me o’er the head?” he growled. “I’d ha’ stepped back -had ye arsted me.” - -“Come up, Call.” - -The man rose instantly, and stood blinking to the splendor of the -morning. - -“Go aft and take the wheel,” said I. “The course is as you find it.” - -I was about to put on the hatch cover. - -“Aint I to be let up?” said Meehan. - -“No.” - -“Aint I to have anything to eat and drink?” - -“Yes.” - -“Hell seize the blooming lot of ye!” said he, and disappeared in a -single stride. - -I closed the hatch cover, but opened it shortly after to hand down a -breaker of water, a quantity of provisions, and oil for the forecastle -lamp. I say to “hand down”; but the ruffian was so sulky that he refused -to answer to my call, and I had to tell him what I had brought, and to -threaten him with thirst and starvation, before he would come under the -hatch to receive the things. The belch of heat and of foul atmosphere -was so disgusting when I first lifted the cover, that I guessed the -fellow would suffocate if I did not give him some fresh air. The cover -opened on strong hinges. I procured a bit of chain; then inserted a -wedge to keep the cover open to about half the length of your thumb. I -now passed the chain through the staple and the eye of the bar, securing -the links at a place out of reach of our friend’s knife. This done, I -went aft with Jimmy, and could scarcely forbear laughing to observe the -lady Aurora in the posture of haranguing Call. She stood up before him, -and menaced him with her forefinger; and she was saying as I approached: - -“If you do not behave well it is death; I am a Spanish lady and know not -fear. I will kill any man for my liberty or for my honor, and my liberty -I must have, but I have it not while I am in this little ship. I desire -to be at Madrid. Be honest and help Mr. Fielding, and your reward will -be great I tell this, I--I--the Señorita de la Cueva--she tells you this -on her honor as a Spanish lady.” She touched her bosom with her -forefinger, then looked round and saw me close by. - -“I am willing to prove a true man,” said Call, “this here mucking job -was never my relish. _I_ was never for casting this here brig away. But -how’s one voice to sound when a whole blooming squadron of throats is -a-hollering?” - -“Jump aloft and stow that topgallant sail along with Jimmy,” said I. - -With the help of this man Call I snugged the brig down to topsails and -forecourse as a provision against change of weather. I kept him on deck -all day, and he ate on deck under my eye; he behaved well, yet I dared -not trust him; while I slept he might liberate the other two, and then -truly should I be a dead man; for of course Meehan and Travers secretly -raged against me, and would take all the risks of washing about without -a navigator and of being hanged if they were boarded and the truth -discovered; all risks would they accept, I say, to be revenged upon me. -I took Call below into the cabin and made him help me drag Teach’s body -out of the berth it lay in; I then put his legs in irons to keep him -quiet through the night. He protested violently, and his remonstrance -often rose into coarse, injurious language. - -“I’ll trust you presently, but not now,” said I, and so I locked the -door and came away. I heard him swearing, and then he began to sing as I -went on deck. - -It was some time between eight and nine o’clock. All the stars were out, -the sky was cloudless, and the evening as beautiful as the morning had -been splendid. The wind had shifted into the east, and was a small soft -wind; it held our little show of canvas steady, and the brig rippled -quietly onward over the wide dark sea. I stationed my lady Aurora at the -wheel and entered the cabin with Jimmy; there we made fast a cannon ball -to the feet of the dead man Teach, and picking him up we carried him to -the gangway, which we opened that his plunge might be from a little -height only. I was a sailor; for many months Teach had been a shipmate -of mine; I had hated him--but he was dead and his last toss at a -sailor’s hand must be decorous and reverent. So we dropped him gently -feet foremost and he went down instantly, leaving behind him a little -cloud of fire that was sparkling even when it had slided into the -vessel’s wake. - -Four days passed. I will not stop to explain how we managed; shall I -tell you why? Because, when I look into the mirror of my memory for the -vision of what happened in those four days I find the presentment dim, -vague, foggy. These things I recollect; that I did not trust Call, that -I freed him from time to time that he might take a trick at the wheel, -threatening to stop his food and water if he refused, and that every -night at eight bells or thereabouts I put him away with the bilboes on. -That I kept the other two men imprisoned, supplying them every morning -with provisions for twenty-four hours. That I held the brig’s head for -the Cape of Good Hope, praying daily for the sight of a ship and -beholding nothing. That for two days after our losing sight of Amsterdam -Island, the weather continued very glorious, then darkened with a wind -that breezed up out of the southward and blew fresh, but happily never -too hard for our whole topsails. - -These things I remember. - -I was awakened on the night of the fourth or, let me say, in the dark -hours of the morning of the fifth day by the boy Jimmy calling my name. -I had wrapped myself up in Greaves’ cloak, sat me down near the wheel, -at which I had been standing for two hours, and had fallen into a deep -sleep without intending to sleep. The lad had taken the helm from me; -when he called I sprang to my feet. - -“What is it?” - -“See that light, master?” - -I looked and saw what I supposed was a ship on fire. A ruddy glare was -coloring the sky at the extremity of the sea about three points on the -lee bow. I thought to myself, if she is a ship on fire and beyond -control, her people will help me to navigate the brig home. The fancy, -the hope, elated me; I was wide awake on a sudden, though I had sat down -dog tired. - -A long swell was rolling out of the south, and a five-knot breeze was -blowing off our larboard quarter. I put the helm up for the light, and -when I had it fair ahead I gave the spokes to Jimmy, and fetched the -telescope out of the cabin where, on a locker, lay the lady Aurora -sleeping. The telescope resolved the red light into several tongues of -flame which waxed and waned; I had then no doubt whatever that the fire -was a burning ship, and forthwith fell to walking first to one then to -the other side of the brig, for long spells at a time overhanging the -bulwark rail, straining my sight into the darkness, and hearkening with -all my ears. - -By and by, recollecting that an empty tar barrel stood upon the -forecastle, I resolved to make a flare. I rolled the barrel aft, kindled -it, and Jimmy and I flung the barrel overboard. - -It burnt finely, and lighted up a great space of the sea. If the people -of the burning ship were in the neighborhood they’d know by the fire -upon the water that help was at hand, and rest on their oars till -daybreak, which was hard by. - -When the dawn broke the ship was about a mile distant. Smoke was rising -from her decks. I sought in vain in all directions for a boat. I saw no -fire now on board the ship, and when I pointed the telescope I perceived -that she was hove to, and that the smoke was local as though it rose -from chimneys. Between us and the ship was a vast lump of red stuff that -lifted and fell; it was scored and flaked with white, and its redness -was that of blood. The sun came up and touched it, and now I -perceived--by this time we had neared it--that the loathsome bulk was a -part of a great whale, freshly “cut in,” as it is termed. A number of -birds were on it, and they tore the horrid mass with their beaks, and -many birds hovered over it. - -I looked very hard at the ship. I seemed to know her. Her numerous -davits and crowd of boats bespoke her a whaler, and I knew by the sight -of that vast heap of whale which had gone adrift that she was “trying -out”--that is, boiling down the blubber that came from the whale. In -fact, my nose told me of what was going on when I was half a mile away. - -The flash of the sun on the skylight awakened Miss Aurora; she came on -deck, and cried out on beholding the whaler. - -“This is a very wonderful thing,” said I. “Do you know that ship?” - -She stared hard and shook her head. - -“She is the _Virginia Creeper_, whaler, of Whitby,” said I, “we spoke -her t’other side the Horn.” - -“She is on fire,” cried the girl, “and--_Ave Maria_! What is that?” she -exclaimed, pointing to the bloody mass of whale that was on our beam. - -We floated slowly down to the ship; the wind had blackened at sunrise, -and our canvas was small. The sky was dark in the south whence the swell -was running, and a bright blue all about the north and east. We -approached the ship, and I saw many men on board of her watching us. -Some of the faces showed in the telescope of a copper color, and I -guessed they were natives of the South Sea Islands. - -Miss Aurora teased me with questions, with sounding exclamations in -Spanish and English. I begged her to hold her tongue. I wanted to think. -Should I give the whole plain story of our voyage to the captain of that -ship? Should I tell him that I had twelve tons of silver on board, and -three prisoners of a crew who had possessed themselves of three tons, -but who had meant to plunder the whole and bury it, and then wreck the -brig? I hastily paced the deck, staring at the whaler and thinking with -all my might. But a moment arrived when I could think no longer. I put -the helm over, gave the wheel to Miss Aurora to hold, and with the help -of Jimmy got the main topsail aback. - -The two vessels then lay abreast within a cable’s length. A man stood in -the mizzen rigging of the whaler; he was the same person that had -hailed us in the Pacific. I jumped upon a gun and sung out, “Ho, the -_Virginia Creeper_, ahoy!” - -“Hallo!” answered the man near the mizzen rigging. - -“We are but three, as you see,” I shouted, “Will you send a boat and -come aboard? Our distress is great.” - -The man responded with a quiet motion of his hand, lingered a moment or -two as though to take a further survey of us, then called out an order, -and a few moments later he had entered a boat and was being pulled -across to us. - -I received him in the gangway, and giving him my hand said, “We have met -before.” - -“Indeed, friend,” said he, “where might that have been?” - -On my recalling the circumstance, he said in a sober voice, and without -any air of surprise, “I remember.” Then looking leisurely at Miss Aurora -he said, “Is that thy wife, friend?” - -“No,” I answered; “she is a shipwrecked lady.” - -“And what art thou and what’s thy name?” - -I made answer, observing him narrowly. He was a Quaker, as you will -suppose; a fellow of a very serious, composed appearance, close shaved, -with coal black eyes, wary and stealing in their manner of gazing, a -large expressionless mouth, and a pale skin that had suffered nothing -from the weather. He wore a soft cone-shaped hat, the brim very wide, -and was skewered to his throat in a coat with a double row of large -metal buttons. His legs were encased in jack boots. The garb was -somewhat of a change from the glazed hat and pea jacket of his South -Pacific costume. - -“This is the _Black Watch_,” said he, looking slowly along the decks and -then slowly up aloft. - -“Yes,” said I. - -“When we spoke thee thy captain was sick.” - -“He is dead.” - -“Is that thy distress?” - -“No, sir. If you will step into the cabin I’ll tell you a very strange -story, but as this brig must be watched--yonder lad at the wheel being -merely our cabin boy--will you hail one of your mates and request him to -take charge while we converse?” - -He walked gravely and quietly to the side, and looking over, bade his -men in the whale boat fetch Mr. Pack. Presently Mr. Pack arrived. He was -the mate of the whaler. The captain told him to watch the brig, and -followed me into the cabin, the lady Aurora going before us. - -I put a bottle of spirits upon the table. The captain shook his head at -the bottle and looked around him, presently fixing his eyes on Madam -Aurora, at whom he continued to stare after I had begun to talk to him. -He had lifted a hat and disclosed a flat, almost bald head. Without -further delay I entered upon my narrative, and coaxed his gaze from the -lady to me. He heard me through without a syllable of comment, without a -grunt of surprise. His composure was perfectly wooden. I observed no -further sign, indeed, of his heeding me than an occasional grave nod of -the head, such as he might bestow on a minister whose discourse from the -pulpit pleased him. - -I ceased. The dark Spanish eyes of the lady Aurora burned, with -impassioned anxiety, upon the composed countenance of the Quaker -skipper. - -“Wilt thou be pleased to repeat the sum?” said the captain slowly and -deliberately, without the faintest color of wonder in his tone. - -“Five hundred and fifty thousand.” - -“Of which thy men took three tons?” - -“Yes,” said I. - -His lips slightly stirred to a sudden pressure of rapid calculation. -“And what dost thou think the men will do with those three tons of -dollars?” - -“Bury ’em,” said I. “They will leave the island in the boat--not for -awhile, I dare say--but they will not carry their dollars with them. -They’ll not risk putting to sea with three tons of dead weight in -addition to the provisions they’ll want. Or put it that they would not -take the chance of falling in with a ship, of transferring the money to -her, and of standing to the lies they’d have to tell to account for -their possession of the silver.” - -“Thou art right,” said the captain, with a sober nod. - -“They will bury the money,” said I, “swear one another to secrecy, and -then return for the silver when they can.” - -“Thou art right,” repeated the captain, with another sober nod. - -“Now,” said I--“but let me ask your name?” - -“Jonas Horsley,” he answered. - -“Captain Horsley, this is my proposal: I want help; I want three or four -men to enable me to carry this brig home. I also want to hand my -prisoners over to you--the three of them, able-bodied fellows, as good -as the best of your own hands, I daresay. Further, I want as much fresh -water as you can spare. In return I’ll give you the clew to the -burial-place in Amsterdam Island. If you sail promptly you’ll arrive -before the fellows depart. They’re bound to wait awhile for a ship -before taking their chance, six of them, in an open boat, every man -ignorant which way to head for land, even if they had a compass. -Furthermore, that you may make sure of my gratitude, you shall take a -case of the dollars in the lazarette.” - -The señorita’s eyes sparkled. She vehemently nodded approval. Captain -Horsley viewed me steadily, with an expressionless countenance. - -“Friend,” said he, after a short pause, “might the chests in thy -lazarette be all of a size?” - -“They slightly vary.” - -“And the biggest might contain----?” - -“About four thousand dollars,” said I. - -He continued to regard me expressionlessly; his composure raised my -anxiety into torment. My lady’s face worked with half a dozen emotions -at every heart-beat. - -“Hast thou breakfasted?” said Captain Horsley. - -“No,” I answered. - -“Thou hast the means, I trust, of providing a meal?” - -“We have plenty of provisions.” - -“Thou may’st consider all things settled,” said he, slowly turning his -head to gaze at the lady Aurora. “I will break my fast with thee and the -lady. It is a pleasure to converse with you both. When we have eaten and -drunken I will ask thee to show me thy lazarette, and I will choose a -chest, and we will then exchange the men.” - -“Give me your hand on it,” I cried, and my heart was swollen with -delight; but the taking and lifting of that man’s hand and arm was like -pumping out a ship. - -We went on deck, and brought up a sailor out of the whale-boat to stand -at the helm while Jimmy prepared breakfast. Before breakfast was served -I took Captain Horsley into the lazarette and showed him the cases of -silver. - -“Do all those chests contain dollars?” he asked. - -“All.” - -He made no further remark until, after considering awhile, during which -time his eyes roamed shrewdly over the chests, he pointed to one of the -biggest, and said: - -“That will do for me.” - -“It is yours,” I answered. - -“Friend,” said he, after a short pause, due to reflection, by no means -to embarrassment, “I should be glad to know that I am receiving dollars. -Suppose we lift the lid.” - -I fetched a hammer and other tools, and nails, and when the chest was -opened he brought the lantern close to the money, and after staring and -running his hand over the milled edges, he said: - -“These be good dollars.” - -I then hammered down the lid and we went up into the cabin, where we -found breakfast ready. - -I much enjoyed this strange man’s conversation. He was cold and grave, -very slow, and a trifle nasal of speech, and his trick of “theeing” and -“thouing,” and the meeting-house turn of his phrases in general seemed -to ill fit the character of a hearty English sailor. Yet he had plenty -to talk about, had followed the sea for many years, had been long in the -whaling business, was a considerable man at Whitby, and even had news to -give me, for I was at sea in the _Royal Brunswicker_ when he sailed on -this cruise. A British sea Quaker was something of a rarity in my time; -I presume he is extinct in these days. Many American whalers were -commanded by Quakers, but the broad-brims of our island loved less the -pursuit of the game than the safer business of tallying the blubber -cargo over the side into their warehouses. - -While we breakfasted I gave him a description of the proposed -burial-place as it had been sketched to me by Yan Bol. He composedly -entered the particulars in a pocket-book. I asked him to write down my -uncle’s address at Sandwich, that he might let me know whether he fell -in with or took off Yan Bol and the others and recovered the silver. He -gravely promised to write to me. - -We then went to business; and Captain Jonas Horsley’s first step was to -accompany some men into the lazarette and superintend the transhipment -of his chest of dollars. This done, he asked me how many men I wanted. I -answered that I had spoken of three, but that I would be glad of as many -as he could spare. He answered that he would let me have five in -exchange for my prisoners. One of them was a Kanaka, or South Sea -Islander, who had long sailed in whalers, and was a very good cook. The -others, he said, would volunteer; but I might make my mind easy. All his -men were livelies of the first water. What pay would I give? - -“I will give,” said I, “whatever will bring them to me.” - -“They sail by the lay. Thou must take that into consideration,” said -Captain Horsley. - -“Shall we say two hundred and fifty dollars a man for the run home?” -said I. - -“I will let thee know,” said he. He got into his boat, and was rowed -across to his ship, whose tryworks were still smoking and filling the -air with a disgusting scent. There was no increase of darkness in the -south, and north and east the blue sky was splendid with the sparkling -of the morning; but a movement worked in the southerly swell that hinted -at a fresh wind presently. Captain Horsley, however, did not keep me -long waiting. First, he sent me one of his largest boats with a stock of -fresh water and hands to stow the casks. His men took back my empty -casks in return for their full ones; then two boats came off full of -men, in one of which the captain was seated. Parties were distributed to -bring up the prisoners. Meehan scowled when he saw the whaler, hung -back, and fought like a devil, saying that he was a sailor, and no -whaleman, and cursing me and the brig and the whaler--whatever his eye -rested on, in short--until they tumbled him into the boat alongside, -where I heard him roaring out to me to pay him his wages and to hand him -over his share of the dollars. Call and Travers walked quietly to the -gangway. Travers stopped before putting his foot over, and asked me if -he was not to be paid for the work he had done. - -“Mynheer Tulp is your owner,” said I. “Call upon him when you return to -Amsterdam. He’ll pay you, I daresay.” - -He then began to swear, upon which Captain Horsley motioned to his men, -and he and Call were forthwith bundled into the boat. - -“These are thy men, friend,” said the captain, pointing to four seamen -and a Kanaka, who stood apart. “Four are Englishmen, and of my own town, -anxious to return home. They each ask three hundred and fifty dollars.” - -I looked them over, as the phrase goes, put a few questions, and, being -satisfied that their quality was right, I said: - -“You shall have three hundred and fifty dollars a man. Captain Horsley -knows I can pay you, and the agreement shall be signed when we have -filled upon the brig.” - -The clothes and chests belonging to Meehan and the other two were then -got up and put into the boat. Captain Horsley gave me his pump-handle of -an arm to shake--or, rather, to work. I thanked him cordially for the -assistance he had rendered me. He listened till I had done, and said: - -“Friend, thou hast made my kindness very much worth my while.” - -He entered his boat, after bowing with the most grotesque contortion I -had ever beheld to the lady Aurora. The brig’s topsail was then swung; -we raised a loud cheer, which was lustily re-echoed aboard the whaler; -and, in a few minutes, the _Black Watch_ was heeling over from the -breeze, with her head for a course that was to carry us home, and one of -my new men trotting aloft to loose the main topgallant sail. - - * * * * * - -On this same day, in the afternoon, I, with two of my new men, very -carefully took stock of the fresh water aboard, and I discovered that we -had enough to carry us to the English Channel. This discovery was a -stroke of happiness. I had allowed for a long passage, knew that we were -already weedy at bottom, that every day would add to the growths, and -that before we were up with the equator we might be sliding very thickly -and sluggishly through the sea. Spite, however, of my computation of -long days, there was fresh water enough to yield us such an allowance as -no man could grumble at. - -The men shipped from the whaler proved very good seamen; all four -Englishmen were Whitby men; they were held together by that quality of -local patriotism which I think is peculiar to our country; they were all -anxious to get home, and owned that they had intended to run from the -_Virginia Creeper_ at the first opportunity. The prospect of taking up -three hundred and fifty dollars a man kept them very willing, alert, and -in good spirits. One of them, a man of about forty, with iron-gray hair, -who boasted that Captain Cook had once asked him the time--when and -where I forget--this man came to me on the Sunday after he and the -others had joined my brig, and asked me to lend him a Bible. I lent him -a Bible that had belonged to Captain Greaves, and Jimmy afterward told -me that of a dog-watch this man would sit and read out of the Bible to -his mates, the Kanaka listening very attentively and occasionally -interrupting by a question. - -All this was as it should be; I had been living and moving for weeks in -intellectual irons, so to speak; as much in irons as the figure that had -fallen from the gibbet; I had gone in fear of my life--could never -imagine what was in store for me should I be forced to New Holland with -the brig; had for weeks and weeks despaired of my little fortune on -which I had counted in Greaves’ time, upon which I had built such -fancies of happiness as would visit the heart of a young sailor. _Now_ I -breathed freely, slept without anxiety, paced the deck and realized that -every fathom of white wake was diminishing the vast interval between -home and the situation of the little vessel. I had no other fears than -such as properly fell under the heads of sea risks. _These_ I must take -my chance of--fire, the lee-shore, the sudden hurricane, privateersmen, -the Yankee cruiser; but the direst of the items of the catalogue of -oceanic perils were as naught to my apprehension after what I had -suffered at the hands of Yan Bol and his men. - -We rounded the Cape; we crept north; we hoisted the Dutch flag to -passing ships; the stars of the south sank; our shadows every day grew -shorter and yet shorter at noon, and all went well. Having but six men -of a crew I worked, on occasion, as hard as any of them; often sprang -aloft to a weather earring, helped to stow a course and stood a trick if -the fellows had been much fagged by the weather. Nevertheless, though I -was very often full of business and hurry, I found plenty of leisure for -the enjoyment of the society of the lady Aurora. This was peculiarly so -in the fine weather of the southeast trades, in the calms of the -equatorial zone, in the steady blowing of the northeast wind. She -persevered in her English, and many a lesson did I give her; she recited -to me, for I now understood the Spanish tongue fairly well. But though -she recited with great power she could not declaim as she sang. I always -thought her singing beautiful and enchanting. The fiddle to which the -original crew had been used to dance and sing, Jimmy found in a hammock; -he brought it aft, and to the twang of it the señorita would again and -again lift up her voice, her large, rich, thrilling voice, to please me. - -One day we sat together in the cabin. We were a little northward of the -Island of Madeira. The weather was very mild and fine, the time of year -the beginning of August. I had been reading aloud to the girl out of -“The Castle of Otranto,” and she had followed me very closely, -interrupting seldom to inquire the meaning of a word. When I had done -she exclaimed: - -“I will now give you a brave recital. You shall enjoy it. I have seen -you wear a red silk kerchief; lend it to me.” - -I fetched the kerchief and she bound it round her head, then lifting a -locker she drew out a tablecloth, in which she wrapped her figure as in -a sheet, holding the folds with her left hand and leaving her right hand -free to gesticulate with. She then declaimed a set of verses, written in -the jargon of the Spanish gypsies by that famous poet of Spain, Quevedo. -It was a very fine performance. I understood but little of the queer -dialect, but I enjoyed the rich music of her voice, the swelling and -melting melodies her mere utterance gave to the verses; I gazed with -delight at her impassioned eyes, and at the wild, romantic figure she -made, draped as she was in a sailor’s kerchief and a cabin tablecloth. -Was it not Nelson’s Emma who, with a scarf only, contrived a dozen -different representations of characters, was fascinating in all, and so -pathetic in some that her audience wept? - -“How do you like me as a Spanish gypsy?” said she, pulling off the -kerchief, dropping the tablecloth, and shaking her head till her long -earrings flashed again. - -“So well that I want more,” I answered. - -“No,” said she; “come on deck.” - -She put on her hat, I carried a chair, and we seated ourselves in the -shade of the little awning under which we had often sat and -gesticulated, and endeavored to look our meanings in Greaves’ time. But -now she spoke English very well indeed, while I had enough Spanish to -enable me to converse with her in that tongue, though I never could -catch the sonorous note of it, nor give the true twist to some of the -words. - -We sat together. The brig was sailing placidly over a wide surface of -blue sea; the horizon was a bright line of opal against the dim violet -of the distant sky, and abreast of us to larboard was a full-rigged -ship, her hull below the sea line, and her canvas showing like little -puffs of steam. The Kanaka was at the wheel; he was cook indeed, but -when he was done with the caboose I put him to the ship’s work. One of -the sailors who had charge walked in the waist; the other three were -variously engaged. - -I found myself gazing very earnestly at the lady Aurora, and thinking of -her and of nothing but her. I was still under the influence of the -witchery of her recitation, and then again I thought I had never seen -her look so handsome. Am I in love with you? I wondered. Thought is as -swift as dreams, and you may dream in your sleep through a thousand -years in the time of the fall of an ash from the grate to the hearth. -“Am I in love with you?” I said to myself, earnestly regarding her, her -eyes being then fixed upon the distant sail. “I have a very great mind -to offer you marriage. What will you say if I propose to you? Will your -eyes flash, and will you show your teeth, or will you put on one of your -tender, brooding looks? I have often thought that you would make as -fine, useful, accomplished a wife as any young fellow need wish to live -gayly and comfortably with. You sing deliciously. I don’t doubt you -dance perfectly well. You can be saucy and quarrelsome in such a manner -as to lend a new flavor to sentiment. You have a stately, handsome -person; you are extremely well-bred, I am sure. I must take my chance of -your relatives. Some of them may be grandees--let that be hoped for the -sake of my children, who, if they take after me, will wish to be -respectably connected. I’ll offer you marriage,” I thought to myself. - -“Our troubles are nearly at an end,” said I. - -“It is time,” she answered, keeping her eyes fastened upon the distant -ship. - -“We have been very closely associated, señorita.” - -She now regarded me, and for an instant there was a peculiar softness in -her gaze; she then seemed to find an expression in my face that alarmed -her; I saw the change; she grew nervous, and her effort to control -herself confused her. - -“Yes, we have been much together, Mr. Fielding. I shall always regard -you as the savior of my life, and never shall I forget your gentle and -courteous treatment of me.” - -“I trust you never will. My desire is to live forever in your memory.” - -She looked troubled and frightened, and then sorry, as though she had -pained me. - -“You have said you will give up the sea when you arrive in England?” - -“Oh, yes; I shall have been three years continuously at sea when I reach -home. I’ll take a home and settle down ashore.” - -“Is your fortune in the Spanish dollars all that you possess?” - -“All. It is seven thousand pounds.” I pronounced these figures with -emphasis. - -“It is not much,” she exclaimed. - -“Indeed! I think it a very good fortune.” - -“For a single man--_si_; but put it out at interest, and what you -receive shall not be handsome. Oh, it is a fortune for a bachelor--yes, -but in no country, not even in Germany would it be regarded as a -handsome fortune for one who would live in style. _Vaya!_ Have I not -advised you to buy a ship and trade with distant nations, and end your -days as rich as a prince of the blood royal of England?” - -“I do not intend to take your advice,” said I. “I will not risk my money -in adventures. What I have I will keep. It is a considerable sum--it is -enough for two.” - -She slightly shrugged her shoulders again, and turned her eyes away with -an expression of concern. Suddenly she looked fully at me; her face was -dark with a blush that glowed from the roots of her hair to the rim of -the collar of her dress; I could not express the meaning in her face at -that moment; I felt it without understanding it. - -“When I am settled in Madrid, Mr. Fielding, you will come and see me, I -hope? Often, I trust, will you visit me? Who more welcome, of all the -friends of Aurora de la Cueva, than Señor William Fielding?” - -I thanked her, with slight surprise. I had expected, from the looks of -her, something very different from this. - -“Would it not please you to live in England?” said I. - -“No,” she answered vehemently; softening, she added, “my establishment -will be in Madrid.” - -I was conscious that I changed color. I looked at her hand--at that -pretty hand of beringed fingers, on which very often had I admiringly -fastened my gaze. When I lifted my eyes, she faintly smiled. - -“Your establishment?” said I. - -“Yes; my establishment.” - -“Do you mean your mother’s establishment?” - -“_Ave Maria!_ No. My poor mother! Where is she? _Ay, ay me!_” she cried, -looking up at the sky with a sorrowful, admirably managed roll of her -dark eyes. “My mother’s establishment was at Lima, as you have often -heard. She broke it up on the death of my father; and, if she be -alive--oh, may the Blessed Virgin grant it--she will live with me at -Madrid. It was her intention to dwell with us. She is growing in years -and has many infirmities, and is unequal to the fatigues and anxieties -of an establishment of her own. But of whom am I speaking? She may be -dead--she may be dead!” - -“Pray,” said I, “have I been all this while enjoying the society of a -charming woman without guessing that she was married?” and here my eyes -sought the rings upon her left hand again. - -“I am not married,” she answered. - -“Maybe, then, you are engaged to be married?” said I. - -She made me a low bow, and held her head down till a second deep blush -should have passed. - -“I make you my compliments, señorita,” said I, turning in my chair to -look at the ship that, by heading on a more westerly course than -ourselves, was sinking her canvas. - -“It will interest you to know,” said she, “that I am engaged to be -married to a countryman of yours. Do you wonder why I did not long ago -tell you this? I did not imagine that it would interest you. When I -embarked at Acapulco I was proceeding to Madrid to get married. I had -known Mr. Gerald Maxwell only three months--think! when we were -affianced. Do you ask if he is a Catolique?” - -“I ask nothing,” I answered. - -“Oh!” she cried, giving me a look made up of pity and reproach--a deuced -insufferable look, I thought it--“he is a true Catolique. All his family -for ages have ever been of de ortodox faith. His father established a -rich business at Lima, and his son came from his education in England to -be a partner. He went to Madrid last year to represent his house in -Spain. We should have been married, but my mother’s grief would not -allow us to rejoice; so he sailed for Europe, and it was agreed that, -when my mother had settled her affairs, she should follow with me. -_Santa Maria purissima!_ He will think I have perished.” - -All this is, in effect, what she said; but her speech, of course, did -not flow so easily as you read it. - -“Did your friend, Mr. Gerald Maxwell, during his three months’ -courtship, teach you English?” - -“No; he was too busy.” - -“In those months he was too busy to teach you a word of English?” - -“_Ave Maria!_ Do not speak angrily, nor lose your temper. Mr. Maxwell -was often absent for days. He had no opportunity to teach me English.” - -“_That_, happily,” said I, bursting into a laugh, “was to be reserved -for me.” - -“Oh, Señor Fielding, you have been so good,” she cried in Spanish; and -then she laughed loudly also. - -“‘Tis what a famous poet of my country,” said I, “has termed a most lame -and impotent conclusion. I am pleased to have taught you English.” - -“It has killed the time.” - -“Mr. Maxwell will be surprised by your knowledge.” - -“Señor Fielding, he shall thank you.” - -I grinned, walked to the side with the telescope, and feigned to be -interested with the distant sail. Narrow, indeed, had been my escape! I -drew more than one deep breath as I humbugged with the glass. By her -deep blush might I suppose she had foreseen what was coming and arrested -it--just in time! I felt obliged to her. But, oh, the meanness of so -prolonged an act of secrecy! Oh, the treachery of it! I thought, when I -reflected on what had passed between us. What had been her motive for -not long ago telling me that she had a sweetheart, and was going to -Madrid to be married to him? To make me fall in love with her, and to -keep me in love with her, so as to assure herself of my constant -courtesy and attention, fearing that I would be neither courteous nor -attentive if she told me she was engaged to be married? - -However, I found out that night when I paced the deck alone, pipe in -mouth, that I had mistaken--that, in short, I was _not_ in love with -her. This was proved to my satisfaction by my quarter-deck meditations -on the subject. First, she was a Catholic; would she have married me, -who was a Protestant? No. Would I have surrendered my faith for her -hand? Not if that hand had grasped and proffered me the title-deeds of -every gold mine in this world. She sung, it is true, in a very heavenly -style, but was she not a devil at heart? Did not she offer to stick Yan -Bol and the others in the back? Did not she secrete a very ugly, -murderous weapon about her fine person? Not for the first time did it -occur to me _now_ that she was a very likely lady to poniard her -husband. One little fit of jealousy, and the rest would briefly work out -as a funeral, a handsome young mourning widow, very regular indeed at -confession, visited once a week by a man in a cloak, who presently so -raises the price of secrecy that by and by she’ll have to do for _him_, -too. - -Another reflection consoled me; in a few years a very great change must -happen in the lady Aurora’s appearance. The Spanish woman is like the -Jewess; she does not improve by keeping. The delicate olive complexion -turns into a disagreeable wrinkled yellow; the pretty shading of down on -the upper lip thickens into a mustache considerable enough to raise the -jealousy of a captain of dragoons; the lofty and elegant carriage decays -into a tipsy waddle; the light of the eye is speedily quenched; the -white teeth show like the keys of a pianoforte; the rich singing voice -may linger, but it will irritate the ear of the husband by its -association with noisy quarrels. - -These, I say, were reflections which vastly supported my spirits and -taught me to understand myself; they proved that my love for the lady -went no deeper than an eyelash of hers measured, and before my pipe was -out I was heartily congratulating myself on Mr. Gerald Maxwell having -come first. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII. - -MYNHEER TULP. - - -I brought the brig to an anchor in the Small Downs off Sandown Castle -toward the close of the month of August, 1815. The weather in the -Channel had been thick; I had shipped a couple of fishermen off Plymouth -to assist in the navigation of the brig, and from abreast of that port I -had groped the whole distance to the Downs with the hand-lead. - -It was thick weather when I arrived off Deal; the breeze was a -“soldier’s wind” for the Channel; I counted five vessels only, and no -man-of-war was in sight when I brought up. The Dutch flag flew at our -trysail gaff-end, and our decks were bare of artillery from stem to -stern; for on entering the Channel I had caused all the guns to be -struck into the hold that the little ship, should we be boarded, might -present the appearance of a peaceful trader. - -On letting go the anchor I sent two letters ashore by a Deal boat; one -was for my uncle Captain Round, who I had learnt from the boatmen was -well and hearty; the other was in the handwriting of the Señorita -Aurora, and addressed to Mr. Gerald Maxwell at Madrid. It was soon after -nine in the morning when we brought up; and while the church clocks of -Deal were striking eleven my uncle came alongside. He was alone; I had -asked him in a mysteriously phrased passage of my letter to come alone; -the fellow that rowed him alongside was the decayed waterman who had -opened the door to me that night when I visited my uncle after leaving -the _Royal Brunswicker_. - -My uncle held me by both hands for at least five minutes. The whole -expression of his face was a very gape of astonishment. He looked me all -over, he looked the brig all over; he panted for words; when he was -able to articulate he said, “Bill, I thought you was drowned?” - -“You got my letter?” - -“Yes, and came off at once.” - -“I sent you a letter written at sea weeks and weeks ago.” - -“This is the only letter I have received from you,” said he; and, -trembling with agitation and excitement, he pulled out the letter that I -had sent ashore that morning. - -The sailors were watching us, and my uncle, now that he had his voice, -shouted; so, taking the dear old fellow by the arm, I carried him into -the cabin, where sat the lady Aurora occupied in furbishing up her hat -to fit her for going ashore. My uncle started and stared at her. He -looked plump and and well kept, with his bottle-green coat, broad -brimmed, low crowned hat, and boots like a postillion’s of that time. -His face was jolly and rosy, despite the blueness of his lips; he -seemed, indeed, more weather-stained and sea-going than I, as though it -was the uncle and not the nephew who was just returned from three years -of the ocean. He stared at the lady Aurora, and whipped his hat off and -bent his back in a bow quick with nerve. The lady rose and courtesyed. - -“Your wife, Bill?” said he. - -“No, a shipwrecked lady. We took her off a rock in the South Pacific.” - -“Off a rock! Lord love you all! What’s next to come?” - -“Often have I heard Señor Fielding speak of you, Captain Round,” said -Miss Aurora. - -“Yes, I will believe that of Bill, ma’am.” - -“I am shipwrecked, indeed,” she exclaimed with a fine arch smile and -flashing look that carried me deep into the heart of the Atlantic and -Southern Oceans ere Gerald Maxwell was, or when, if he had been aboard, -he’d have seen us sitting very close side by side over a lesson in -English; “judge by my gown.” She swept it at the knees. “I am not fit to -be seen.” - -“But ye are then, believe me,” said my uncle; and he sidled up to me -and, rubbing my arm with his elbow, muttered, “handsomest woman I ever -saw in my life, Bill; if she aint the Queen of Spain.” - -“Señorita,” said I, addressing her in Spanish, “my uncle and I will talk -at this table; let us not disturb you. You and I have no secrets--now.” - -She smiled and looked grave all in a moment, slightly bowed and resumed -her seat and her work. And, indeed, I minded not her presence. Much -that I should presently say, much that would presently be spoken by my -uncle, must be as unintelligible to her as Welsh or Erse. - -We seated ourselves, and I took my uncle by the hand and blessed God for -the privilege of beholding him again. I inquired after my aunt; she was -well; after my cousin; hale and hearty; married three months since, -lived in a small house at Folkstone, whence her young husband traded in -a ship of which he was part owner. I asked after Captain Spalding. The -_Royal Brunswicker_ had passed through the Downs in the previous -December; my uncle had heard nothing of her since; he had written to -Spalding that I was drowned after having been pressed, and while being -conveyed aboard a frigate off Deal. He had claimed my wages and clothes -as next of kin, and Spalding had sent him what was due to me and what -remained of my togs. I asked how many men of the frigate’s boat had -perished; he replied only one man was picked up, one of the pressed men, -an Irishman. - -“That was the fellow,” said I, “whose behavior led to the disaster.” - -I had many more questions to ask, the tediousness of which I will not -bestow upon you. I then entered upon the story of my own adventures from -the hour of my leaving his house on that black night of storm and -thunder. He stopped me after I had related my gibbet experience to tell -me that a tall woman, dressed as a widow, was found about forty yards -distant from the gibbet, dead, with her arms round the ironed body of -the felon. Miss Aurora looked up at this; she had heard me tell that -story of the gibbet and the lightning stroke and the mother. She looked -up, I say, muttered, and crossed herself, then went on with her work. I -paused to think a little upon the dead mother, then proceeded steadily -with my story; when I came to Greaves’ narrative of the discovery of the -dollar-ship my uncle’s eyes grew small in his head with the intentness -of his gaze. - -He seldom winked; he breathed small and faint until I described the -discovery of the dollars and their transhipment, on which he fetched a -deep breath and hit the table a sounding blow with his fist. Manifold -were the changes of his countenance as I progressed; he lived in every -scene I drew; cursed Yan Bol and his crew in the language of Beach -Street; started out of his chair to grasp the lady Aurora by the hand on -my relating her share in the recovery of the brig. And then he became a -strict man of business, his jolly face hardening to the rise and -pressure of his old smuggling instincts when I spoke of the chests of -dollars in the lazarette and asked him to advise me how, when, and where -to secretly convey them ashore. - -“Let’s have a look at ’em, Bill,” said he. The excitement was gone out -of him; he was as cool as ever he had been in the most artful and -desperate of his midnight jobs. I took him into the lazarette and -between us we handled a chest of about three thousand dollars to test -its weight. He then said--as quietly as though his talk was of empty -casks and “dead marines”--“The money must be got ashore to-night. It -mustn’t remain aboard after to-night.” - -“How shall I go to work?” - -“Leave that to me.” - -“Who’ll receive the cases, uncle?” - -“I will, Bill.” - -“Sketch me your idea that I may see my way.” - -“I’ll go ashore now,” said he, “and make all necessary arrangements. -Keep aboard yourself and don’t let any of your people leave the brig. -Tell them we’ll pay ’em off at my house to-morrow. Destroy all your -papers--see to that, Bill. The moon’s old and nigh wore out--it’ll be a -dark night, raining and squally, I hope. You’ll have a lugger alongside -of you when it comes dark. She’ll hail you. Her name’ll be the _Seamen’s -Friend_, the name of the man that hails you, Jarvie Files. Trust him up -to the hilt, Bill, and leave him to discharge ye. He knows the ropes. -Afore midnight them chests, to the bottom dollar, ’ll be in my cellars.” - -“When do I come ashore?” - -“To-morrow. Quite coolly, Bill. Come along with your men and bring ’em -to my house, where the money in English gold for paying ’em off ’ll be -ready.” - -“And what’s to become of this brig?” - -“How many anchors do ye hold by?” - -“One, uncle.” - -“Moor her, Bill. You’ve got a snug berth. She’ll want a caretaker till -that there Mynheer Tulp arrives and settles up. She’s his property. And -the sooner Tulp arrives the better for all parties.” - -He was about to make his way out of the lazarette. - -“There is the Spanish lady,” said I. “Will you take her ashore and find -her a home in your house until she’s fetched? I’d sooner see her with -you than at an inn. She has a tongue. Gratitude will keep her quiet, I -hope, but she _might_ talk.” - -“If you’re afraid of her, aren’t ye afraid of the men?” - -“No. The men haven’t any settled notions on the subject of the silver -cargo. They want to get home, and up at Whitby they may talk if they -please. The lad Jimmy will hold his jaw. I’ve promised to take him into -my service. He’s a good lad.” - -Without further speech my uncle got out of the lazarette, and after -waiting to see me put the hatch on and secure it, he stepped up to the -lady Aurora, and in his homely manner, that nevertheless borrowed a sort -of grace from the warmth of his heart, he begged her to make use of his -house until she heard from her friends. She thanked him, gazed at me -with a short-lived look of confusion, and said: - -“Until I hear from Mr. Maxwell, until I receive communications from -Madrid, I am very poor. I wish not to part with these rings,” said she, -looking down upon her hands; “I wish not to remove them; and my -earrings,” continued she, with a shake of her head, “would not bring me -nearly money enough to buy me what I want.” - -“Leave that to me, ma’am,” said my uncle; “name your figure when we get -ashore. There’s no luggage, I suppose?” - -“Nothing that I care to take,” she answered. “Captain Round, I will ask -you to land me in some secret place, as if I was contraband, and show me -how to reach your house by the back ways. I do not love to be stared at, -and many mocking eyes will rest upon me if I appear in this costume in -your public streets.” - -“You shan’t meet a soul,” answered my uncle, “if it isn’t a boatman too -bleared with ale to observe more than that you’re a woman.” - -She put on her hat and jacket, then stood a moment looking a slow -farewell round her; her eyes met mine, and she turned a shade pale, as -though to an emotion to which she could not or would not give -expression. - -“I’ll not say good-by, Señor Fielding,” said she, giving me her hand. - -“No; we shall meet again to-morrow, I hope.” - -The three of us went on deck. My uncle called his boat alongside; Miss -Aurora and he entered her, and they shoved off. I leaned upon the rail, -watching them as they rowed ashore. The boat made for the beach, a -little to the northward of Sandown Castle. There was no play or surf to -render the landing inconvenient. My uncle helped the girl out of the -boat, and they walked off across the sand hills--those same sand hills -which had provided me with my horrible experience of the gibbet. - -But the gibbet was gone; the summer sun was shining upon the grassy -billows of sand. Afar, on the confines of that hilly waste, were many -trees, with a single church steeple among them--the shore sign of the -old town of Sandwich. Over the bows ran the white, low terraces of the -Ramsgate cliffs, soaring as they rounded out of the bay, and gathering a -milkier softness as they rose. Abreast was the yellow line of the -Goodwins, and yonder on the quarter stretched Deal Beach, rich with the -various colors of many boats hauled high and dry. A row of -seaward-facing houses flanked that beach; I could see the corner of the -alley where I was gripped by the press-gang, and memories of after-days -swarmed into my head. - -But there was work to be done; I broke away from my idle musings, and -ordered the men to moor ship in obedience to my uncle’s instructions. -Cable was veered out, and a second anchor let go. I had found a bag of -thirty-two guineas and some silver in Greaves’ cabin after my poor -friend’s death. I used this money to settle with the two fishermen, and -sent them ashore. I then hailed a galley, and dispatched her to Deal for -such a supply of fresh meat and vegetables and ale as would give all -hands of us a good dinner and supper, and when the punt was gone I -called the crew aft, told them that I’d take them ashore next day, and -pay them off in English money at my uncle’s house near Sandwich; I also -thanked them for their good behavior during the long passage from the -Southern Ocean, and shook each man by the hand as a friend who had -served me very honestly at a time when my necessities were great. - -The wind shifted during the day, and a number of ships brought up in the -Downs. A few small craft dropped anchor near the brig. - -I heeded them not, nor the bigger vessels beyond. I feared only the -arrival of a man-of-war, and the being boarded by her for men. In the -afternoon a fine ship-sloop passed through the Gulls heading west; I -watched her with the steadfast eye of a cat, dreading to behold her tall -breasts of topsails suddenly shiver to the wind, her loftier canvas -vanish, and her anchor fall. She foamed onward, heeling a bright line -of copper off the Foreland, and vanished round that giant elbow of chalk -with her yards bracing up, and her bowlines tricing out for a “ratch” -down Channel. - -When the evening came along, the dusk was deep but clear. There was no -wet; the breeze was about south--a steady, warm wind--a six-knot breeze. -The scene of Downs was very dark; you would think it black by contrast -with the picture it makes by night in these times. Ships then showed no -riding lights. Here and there a lantern gleamed from the end of a -spritsail yard, from the extremity of a mizzen-boom. The Goodwin Sands -were lampless, save in the far north, where burnt the spark first -kindled by that worthy Quaker of North Shields, Henry Taylor. The lights -of the little town of Ramsgate glowed soft and faint upon the face of -the dark heap of cliff afar; the lights along Deal Beach twinkled -windily. It was a very proper night for our adventure--dark, and but -little sea, and wind enough. - -Shortly after six bells--eleven by the clock--I spied a shadow to -windward, drawing out of the south. The dusky phantom came along slowly, -as though she took a wary look at the several little craft she passed. -She shaped herself out upon the darkness presently--a large Deal lugger. -When she was under our stern she hailed. I, who had been impatiently -awaiting the arrival of this vessel, sprang on to the taffrail and sang -out: - -“What lugger’s that?” - -“The _Seamen’s Friend_,” was the reply. - -“Who is the man that answers?” I called. - -“Jarvie Files.” - -“Right y’are!” I cried. - -The lugger’s helm was put down, and she came alongside. One of my Whitby -men was on the forecastle, keeping what we term at sea an “anchor -watch.” I told him to remain forward. - -“There are men enough,” said I, “belonging to the lugger to answer my -turn.” - -The others and the Kanaka were in the forecastle asleep. Jimmy was awake -in the cabin, where the lamp was alight. Several figures came over the -side, and one of them, catching sight of me, said: - -“Are you Mr. Fielding?” - -“I am.” - -“I’m from Capt’n Round, sir. The coast’ll be clear, I allow; but we’ll -have to look sharp. Where’s the stuff?” - -“Follow me,” said I. - -This Jarvie Files, and, perhaps, five others--men heavily booted, with -great shawls round their necks and fur caps drawn down to their -eyebrows--tramped after me into the cabin. Lanterns were ready. I showed -them the hatch of the lazarette; and, in about half an hour’s time, they -had cleared out the last case, had stowed it in the lugger alongside, -and were hoisting their sail. Their dispatch was wonderful; but they -were of a race of men who had been disciplined into an exquisite agility -in the art of dishing the revenue by the barbarous severity of the laws -against smuggling in that age. I watched the big boat haul her sheet aft -and stand away with her head to the eastward. She blended quickly with -the obscurity and I lost her. I guessed she was feigning a “ratch” -toward the Ostend coast, to dodge any shore-going eye that may have -rested upon her, and that presently she would be shifting her helm for -Pegwell Bay, where carts waited to convey the silver to my uncle’s -house. - -I went into the cabin when I lost sight of her, lay down, and slept very -soundly and dreamt happily. I was too tired to rejoice; otherwise I -should have mixed a tumbler of spirits and lighted a pipe, and enjoyed -the luxury of a long contemplation of the successful issue of Tulp’s -expedition. - -I awoke in the gray of the dawn, and, going on deck, found promise of a -fine day. I searched the shore and beach, down in the bay and about the -river, with the brig’s telescope, but nothing showed that was to be -likened to the lugger of last night. After breakfast, the Whitby men -came aft and said they’d be glad to go ashore soon. They wanted to get -to Ramsgate, where they might find a coalman bound to their port. I -answered that I could not leave the brig until a caretaker arrived, and -that there was no use in their going ashore unless I went with them to -pay them off at my uncle’s. However, half an hour after this a punt, -with a big lug, put off from Deal Beach, and blew alongside with five -men in her, two of whom came on board and said that they had received -instructions from Captain Round to take charge of the vessel while she -lay at anchor. - -“All right,” said I, “you are the men I have been waiting for,” and I -told the Whitby fellows and the Kanaka to collect their traps and get -into the boat. I then took Jimmy into my cabin and gave him several -parcels of Greaves’ effects to convey to the punt. All that belonged to -Greaves I took; I cleared the cabin of nautical instruments, books, -chronometers, and the rest, and left nothing but dirt and dust for old -Tulp. I then got into the boat with Jimmy, and we headed for the beach. - -When Miss Aurora went ashore her gaze had been bent landward; she never -once turned to take a farewell look at the old brig that had saved her -life. I could not blame her. She had had enough of the little ship. For -my part, I could look at nothing else as we rowed to the beach. I had -not been out of the brig since I had landed on the island to get the -dollars out of the cave. For many long months had the _Black Watch_ been -my home, the theater of the most dramatic of all the passages of my -life; she had earned me a fortune; she had rescued me from drowning; I -could not take a farewell look without affection and regret. She sat -very light, and in her faint rolls hove out a little show of grass; but -her copper was cleaner than I had supposed it. Her sides were worn and -rusty, her rigging slack, her masts grimy, her whole appearance that of -a vessel which had encountered and victoriously survived some very -fierce and frightful usage in distant seas. I kept my gaze fastened on -her till the keel of the punt drove on to the beach. - -The sailors and the Kanaka handed their chests over to the landlord of -an ale-house for safe keeping; I then gave each man, and drank myself, a -pint of beer, after which we trudged off toward my uncle’s house. We -talked merrily as we went; our hearts were filled with the delights of -the scenes and sights of the summer land; our salted nostrils swelled -large to the sweetness of the haystacks and the aromas of the little -farmyards and orchards we tramped past; no man would smoke, that he -might breathe purely. - -My uncle awaited us; my aunt gave me such a hug as the Prodigal Son -would have got from his mother had his father been out of sight. I asked -after Madam Aurora; she had driven to Deal that morning to shop, and, as -she had borrowed twenty pounds, her shopping might probably run into -some hours. It was one o’clock; a hearty meal had been prepared in the -kitchen for the men, and while they ate I dined with my uncle and aunt -off a roast leg of pork in the parlor adjacent, where we could hear the -fellows’ gruff voices and Jimmy’s bleating laugh. The chests had been -securely landed, Uncle Joe told me, and safely housed in his cellar. -The silver made five loads. They asked me to tell the whole story of the -discovery of those dollars over again, and my aunt put many questions -about the Señorita Aurora, who, she declared, was the finest, most -elegant, and genteel lady she had ever seen in her life. - -When we and the men had dined, my uncle called them into the parlor and -took a receipt from each of them for three hundred and fifty dollars, -which he paid down in English gold. They thanked him for his -hospitality, begged their humble respects to the lady Aurora, wished me -many blessings, and with some hair-pulling and scrapes and bows got out -of the room and went their ways. I never saw or heard of those honest -fellows again, though I learnt that on this same day, after leaving us, -they and the Kanaka took a boat and sailed across to Ramsgate, where, no -doubt, they found a north-country collier bound to their parts. - -Jimmy had brought Captain Greaves’ belongings under his arm and on his -back, the others carrying a few of the parcels among them. My uncle and -I overhauled the poor fellow’s effects, and then sat down to talk over -his will, to write a letter to Mynheer Tulp, and to consider how we were -to convert what silver belonged to me and to Greaves into British -currency. - -“First of all, Bill,” said my uncle, “we’ll knock off a letter to Tulp -and send it away. Let him fetch his brig and his money; there’ll be more -daylight to see by when they’re out of the road.” - -So I took a sheet of paper and addressed a letter to Mynheer Bartholomew -Tulp at his house in Amsterdam, his residence being known to me through -perusal of Greaves’ papers. I stated that the brig _Black Watch_ had -arrived in the Downs on the previous day, that her voyage had been -successful, that the cargo was housed ashore, and that Greaves had died -during the passage home; and I begged Mr. Tulp to lose not a moment in -visiting me at my uncle’s house, that he might receive what belonged to -him, for peril lurked in the protracted detention of the brig in the -Downs. When this letter was written I dispatched it to Sandwich by -Jimmy, that it might be transmitted without delay. - -“Tulp will take his dollars at his own risk,” said my uncle, blowing out -a cloud of smoke; “your own dollars and the silver belonging to -Greaves’ll have to be negotiated cautiously; it’s a lot of money to -deal with, and it mustn’t be handled in the lump. We’ll have to work by -degrees through the money changers; find out several of them in London, -and deal with ’em one arter the other at intervals. Then we may make it -worth the while of the smugglers, some of my own particular friends, to -relieve us of a chest or two. My son-in-law’ll take some; he’s often -trading Mediterranean way; but I’m afeared it won’t do, Bill, to trouble -the banks; we don’t want any questions to arise. How it might work out -as a matter of law I don’t know; safest to look upon these here dollars -as run goods and treat ’em accordingly.” - -I fully agreed with him, and it was settled that the money should be -exchanged in the manner he proposed. We then talked of Greaves’ will. -Indeed, we talked of many more things than I can recollect. Nothing, -however, could be done until Mynheer Tulp turned up. Every day I boarded -the brig and saw that all was right with the dear little ship; and I -remember once that while I stood with the lady Aurora and my uncle on -Deal Beach, viewing the vessel and recounting our experiences in her yet -again, it occurred to me to buy her, to re-equip her, put a good sailor -in command of her, and send her away to make a rich voyage for me. I -smiled when I had thus thought; it had been Miss Aurora’s notion, and -had she consented to marry me I daresay I should have bought the brig. -But I said to myself, “No”; the brig is not Tulp’s to sell; I must deal -with her owner, whose curiosity might prove inconveniently penetrating; -I have my money and I’ll keep it; and so I dismissed the _Black Watch_ -as a venture out of my head. - -One day--I think it was about a week after I had written to Amsterdam--I -returned with my lady Aurora to my uncle’s house after a morning’s -stroll about Deal. I heard voices in the parlor; Miss Aurora went -upstairs. - -“Who is here?” said I to the old chap who opened the door. - -“Mr. Tulp, from Amsterdam, sir,” he answered. - -On this I knocked upon the door and entered the parlor. - -Had I lived with Mynheer Tulp a month I could not have carried in my -head a more striking image of the man than my fancy had painted out of -Greaves’ brief description of him. - -He was a little, withered old fellow, a mere trifle of months, I -daresay, on this side seventy; nose long and hooked, face hollow and -yellow, eyes small, black, and down-looking, though often a leary lift -of the lids sent a piercer at the person he talked to; he wore a wig, -and was dressed in the fashion of the close of last century. He was the -man I had dreamt of--the substance of the phantom I had beheld when I -looked at poor Greaves, and wondered whether his dollar-ship was a dream -or not. - -My uncle was red in the face and was talking loudly when I entered. - -“So! Und dis vhas Mr. Fielding?” said Mynheer Tulp standing up and -extending his hand. “Vell, I vhas glad to see you.” - -He uttered even this commonplace slowly and cautiously as though he -feared his tongue. - -“Now, Bill,” cried my uncle, “I want you to show Greaves’ bond to Mr. -Tulp; for he says you aren’t entitled to more than your wages--not even -to them as a matter of law, seeing you wasn’t shipped by him.” - -“I tink you vill find dot right,” said Mynheer Tulp. - -I carried Greaves’ bond, as well as his will, in my pocket; I placed the -bond or agreement upon the table, and Mynheer Tulp, picking it up, put -on a large pair of spectacles and read it through. - -“Dis vhas of no use,” said he. - -“We’ll see,” said my uncle. - -“Understand me, Mr. Fielding,” continued the little Dutchman. “I don’t -mean to say dot you have not acted very vell, und dot you vhas not -entitled to a handsome reward, vhich certainly you shall have; but vhen -you talk to me of dirty odd tousand dollars--six tousand pounds of -English money----” he grinned hideously and shrugged his shoulders. - -“What would you consider a handsome reward?” said I. - -“You vhas second mate. I learn from your uncle dot your life vhas safed -by my brig. Should I sharge you mit safing your life? No. But if I vhas -you I should consider der safing of my life as handsome a reward as I -had der right to expect for any services afterward performed. But mit -you, my good young man, I goes much further. You have navigated the brig -safely home mit my money, und I say help yourself, my boy, to five -hundred pounds of der dollars before I takes them.” - -“Before you takes ’em!” cried my uncle. “You’ll need every -line-of-battle ship that Holland possesses to enable you to catch even -a glimpse of the dollars afore all things are settled to my nephew -Bill’s satisfaction.” - -“Vhat vhas your name again, sir?” - -“Captain Joseph Round.” - -“You hov der looks of an honest man, Captain Round. You vould not rob -me?” - -“Not a ha-penny leaves this house,” said my uncle, “until Bill here has -taken his share according to your skipper’s bond, and until he’s -deducted the money that the captain has left by will, lawfully signed -and witnessed.” - -“I likes to see dot vill,” said Mynheer Tulp, speaking always very -composedly, and occasionally snapping a look under his eyelids at one or -the other of us. - -I put the will on the table. He picked it up and read it. When he had -read it he again grinned hideously, and said: - -“Your name vhas Villiam Fielding?” - -“Yes.” - -“Und you benefit under dis vill to der amount of von tousand pounds?” - -“Yaw,” said I. - -“Und you vitness der vill dot vhas to benefit you? Shentlemen, it vhas -not vorth the paper it vhas wrote on;” and he threw the will upon the -table. - -“It matters not one jot,” said I, who, as I had never attached the least -significance to the legality of this sailor-made will, was in no wise -astonished, because I reckoned old Tulp perfectly right. “About -forty-two thousand pounds’ worth of the thirteen tons of dollars I have -brought home for you at the risk of my life I keep, Mynheer. D’ye -understand me? I _keep_, I say,” and I repeated the sentence thrice, -while I approached him by a couple of strides. “Seven thousand are mine; -the rest will go to the erection of a church.” - -“Der money,” said Mynheer Tulp without irritation, though his yellow -complexion was a shade paler than it had been a little while before, -“vhas left to der Church of Englandt?” - -“You have read it,” said I. - -“Now, shentlemen,” continued the little Dutchman, “dere vhas a Church of -Englandt, certainly; but dere vhas no Church of Englandt dot a man can -leaf money to.” - -“You know a sight too much,” shouted my uncle. “The money’s in my -cellar, and there it stops till you settle.” - -“Der Church of Englandt,” said Mynheer Tulp, “vhas a single body dot has -no property. You cannot leaf money to der Church of Englandt. Dot alone -makes my poor stepson’s vill nooll und void.” - -“The money remains where it is----” began my uncle. - -“Do you allow,” I interrupted, “that Captain Greaves has a right to his -share?” - -“Do I allow it? Do I allow it?” - -“You allow it. He could, therefore, do what he likes with his share?” - -“Dot vhas right.” - -“Do you know that he wished a church to be built as a memorial to his -mother, who was your wife, I believe?” - -“Dot vhas very beautiful. But he vhas dead, und dot vill vhas not vorth -the ink it took to write out. I vhas next of kin, und I takes my poor -stepson’s share.” - -When he had said this, my uncle and I spoke together; and from this -moment began an altercation which I should need a volume to embody. Tulp -lost his temper; my uncle roared at him; I, too, being furious with the -meanness of the wretched little beast, often found myself bawling as -though I were in a gale of wind. Tulp’s threats flew fast and furious. -Uncle Joe snapped his fingers under his long nose, and defied him in a -voice hoarse and failing with exertion. I began to see the idleness and -the absurdity of all this, and, throwing open the parlor door, I -exclaimed: - -“Mr. Tulp, get you back to Amsterdam, and there sit and reflect. When -you come into our way of thinking, write; and then fetch your money. Go -to law, if you please. The Spanish consignees of the dollars will thank -you.” - -The perspiration poured from the little man’s face, and he trembled -violently. His yellow complexion under the pressure of his temper, which -often forced his voice into a shriek, had changed into several dyes of -green and sulphur, like that of one in a fit. He stared wildly about him -in search of his strange little hat, which, however, he forgot he had -already snatched up and was holding. - -“You’ll have to bear a hand with your decision,” cried my uncle, whose -face looked almost as queer as Tulp’s, with its purple skin and blue -lips; “they’re beginning to ask questions about the brig, and if you -don’t send for her soon she’ll be _going a-missing_. You know what I -mean. The Goodn’s are handy, and my nephew aint going to forfeit his -rightful share of the dollars because of _her_. The recovery of this -silver is to be more than a salvage job to Bill. There’s nigh upon -forty thousand pounds belonging to you a-lying in my cellars, but if ye -aren’t quick in fetching it something may happen to oblige me to send -all them chests out of my house, and then it’ll be no business of mine -to larn what’s become of ’em.” - -The little Dutchman, now perceiving that he held his hat, clapped it on -his head and ran out of the room. - -We heard no more of him that day; though next morning the old -longshoreman who waited upon my uncle said that he had seen the little -man pass the house, pause, walk up and down irresolutely, then hurry -away in the direction of Sandwich. As I could not get to hear of him at -Deal I guessed he lurked in Sandwich, and caused Jimmy to make -inquiries, which resulted in the discovery that Mynheer Tulp was -stopping at the Fleur de Lys Hotel. Three days after he had visited my -uncle he wrote to offer me half a ton of the silver, worth something -over three thousand pounds, on condition that my uncle peaceably -surrendered the rest of the money to him, and assisted him to convey it -to Amsterdam. I answered this by repeating my uncle’s threat, that if -very shortly he did not agree to my terms the silver would be removed, -my uncle would have no knowledge of its whereabouts, and I myself would -go abroad. - -On the morning following the dispatch of this missive, Miss Aurora -received a letter; she read it and uttered a loud shriek, fell off her -chair at the breakfast table round which we were seated, and lay upon -the floor in a dead swoon. We thought she had died, and our fright was -extreme. We picked her up and placed her upon a sofa, and went to work -to recover her. Presently her sighs and moans satisfied us that she was -not dead. I glanced at the letter she had received; it was in Spanish. I -took the liberty of looking a little closely; it was signed by the -Señora de la Cueva. - -“She has heard from her mother!” I cried. - -She rallied presently, and then followed a scene scarcely less exciting -in its way than the shindy that had attended the visit of Mynheer Tulp. -Miss Aurora read the letter aloud; and as she read she wept, then burst -into fits of laughter, sprang about the room, sat again, continued to -read, interrupting herself often by clasping her hands, lifting them to -the ceiling, raising her streaming eyes, and thanking the Holy Mother of -God for this act of mercy in utterance so impassioned that the like of -it was never heard on the stage. - -My homely uncle, my yet homelier aunt looked on, scarcely knowing -whether to shed tears or to laugh. I was very used to her ladyship’s -performances, but there was something in this exhibition of ecstasy that -went far beyond anything I had ever beheld in her. - -“I rejoice indeed to learn that the señora is safe,” said I. - -“Oh, it is a miracle! a miracle!” she cried; and then she wept and -laughed and carried on as before, reading aloud in Spanish, and lifting -up her eyes in gratitude to the Blessed Virgin. - -At last she calmed down, and we conversed without the interruption of -emotional outbreaks. Her mother gave no particulars of her deliverance. -Mr. Maxwell had received Aurora’s letter; he was ill in his bed, -therefore she, the señora, had made her way to London--choosing that -port instead of Falmouth, because of the situation of Deal--intending to -proceed to Sandwich. But her infirmities had overwhelmed her; the -fatigue of the journey had been so great that she was unable to leave -her room in London. Her daughter must come to her, and without an -instant’s delay. - -Within three hours of the receipt of this letter my uncle drove the lady -Aurora and me over to Deal, where we saw her safely into the London -coach. She had said many kind things to me as we drove to Deal, had -taken my hand and pressed it while she thanked me for--but what does it -matter how and for what this young lady thanked me? She tried to exact -many promises; I made none. Before she stepped into the coach she seized -my hand, looked at me hard, and her fine eyes swam. Nothing was said; -she took her seat; I and my uncle stood apart waiting while the coachman -gathered his reins and prepared for the start. The horses’ heads were -then let go, I raised my hat, the coach drove off, and I saw no more of -the Señorita Aurora de la Cueva. I say I saw no more of her; in truth, -though I once again heard of her, I never received a single line from -her. And possibly I should never have heard of her again but for her -sending from Madrid a draft for the money she had borrowed from Uncle -Joe. She warmly and gracefully thanked Captain and Mrs. Round for their -hospitality, begged them to remember her most gratefully to her valued -and valiant friend, their nephew, and then, so far as I was concerned, -the curtain fell upon her forever. - -Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp lurked through a long week at Sandwich. In that -week he sent me four letters and each letter contained a fresh -proposal. I sent a single reply: that every proposal must be hugely -preposterous unless it went on all-fours with Greaves’ will and the -agreement with me. He was seen on several occasions in the neighborhood -of the house; once Jimmy perceived him looking in at the gate, and -supposed that he meant to call; but the little man made off on finding -himself observed. - -At last, at the expiration of nine or ten days--and this brought us to a -Monday--I received a letter from Mynheer Tulp. We were at dinner at the -time; my uncle cried out: - -“What does he say, Bill? Willing, perhaps, to spring another hundred -pound?” - -I read the letter aloud; it was well expressed, in good English. Mynheer -said he had thought the matter over, and was prepared to settle with me -on my own terms. He admitted that I had a right to the share which Van -Laar would have received; that Greaves’ signature to the will indicated -his wishes as to the disposal of his money, which, of course, he would -have received as his share of the venture, had he lived. Would I permit -him to call upon me? - -I immediately dispatched Jimmy with an answer, and in half an hour’s -time the little Dutchman was seated in my uncle’s parlor. He was -submissive and, in his way, very apologetic. Yet, though he had come to -confirm the terms of his own letter to me, midnight was striking before -every point was settled. His rapacity was shark-like. It cost my uncle -and me above an hour to make the little man agree to call the value of -the dollar four shillings. He disputed long and shrilly over a small -share that I claimed for the honest lad Jimmy. He opposed the repayment -of the wages of the Whitby men and the Kanaka out of the common stock, -as though he believed that my uncle would bear that charge! He was -nearly leaving the house on the question of the sum due to Jarvie Files -and his men for “running” the dollars. He insisted that my money and -Greaves’ should bear a proportion of the loss of the three tons of -silver stolen by Yan Bol and his crew. He grew furious when my uncle -insisted upon charging him for storage and risk, and thrice in _that_ -discussion arose to go. - -But by midnight, as I have said, all was settled. He now asked leave to -live in the house until he could remove his money to the brig, in which -he proposed to sail to Amsterdam, taking with him for a crew the men of -the _Seamen’s Friend_. My uncle told him he would be welcome, giving me -at the same time a wink of deep disgust at the motive of the old chap’s -request. It took us several days to count the dollars, and all the while -little Bartholomew Tulp sat looking on. What was left as his share, -after deductions, I never heard; it came, I believe, near to fifty -thousand pounds. When the division was made he went on board the brig; -Jarvie Files and his men carried his chests to the _Black Watch_ in the -dead of night, and when, next morning, I went down to the beach to look -for the now familiar figure of the brig riding to her two anchors, her -place was empty. - - * * * * * - -This, then, is the story of Greaves’ discovery, and of the part I played -in it. Of Yan Bol and his men I heard nothing for eighteen months; I -then got a letter from Captain Horsley, dated at Whitby. He had touched -at Amsterdam Island, found no signs of Yan Bol and his party, then dug -in the place I had indicated without finding the silver. There was no -look of the earth having been turned up in that place. A gale of wind -blew him off the island; then, a fortnight later, he spoke a ship bound -to Sydney, New South Wales, and learnt from her that she had picked up a -party of seamen sixty leagues eastward of Amsterdam Island; they were -six men, three of them in a dying condition for want of water. He had no -doubt, and neither had nor have I, that they were Yan Bol and his mates; -but what had the wretches done with the three tons of dollars? - -Did I, when we had exchanged the large sum of dollars into English -money, did I procure the erection and endowment of a church in -accordance with the wishes of Michael Greaves? I answer yes; most -piously and anxiously did I fulfill my friend’s dying wish. Will I tell -you the name of the church, and where it is situated? No; I have -worshiped in it, but I will not tell you its name and where it is -situated, because this book is a confession, and I am informed that if -the descendants or inheritors of the Spanish consignees, or the owners -of the dollars, learnt that a church had been built out of the money, -they could and might advance a claim that would give all concerned in -that church on this side great trouble. - -One little memorial I erected at my own expense; it long stood in the -garden of the house in which I dwelt for many years; need I tell you -that it was a memorial to my well-beloved, faithful, deeply-mourned -Galloon? - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIST, YE LANDSMEN! *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: List, Ye Landsmen!</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0;'>A Romance of Incident</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: William Clark Russell</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 3, 2021 [eBook #66212]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIST, YE LANDSMEN! ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="500" alt="[Image of the book's cover is unavailable.]" /></a> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i">{i}</a></span></p> - -<p class="c">LIST, YE LANDSMEN!</p> - -<h1> -LIST, YE LANDSMEN!<br /> -<br /> -<i><small>A ROMANCE OF INCIDENT</small></i></h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -W. CLARK RUSSELL<br /> -<br /><small> -AUTHOR OF “THE WRECK OF THE ‘GROSVENOR,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> “AN OCEAN TRAGEDY,”<br /> -“THE FROZEN PIRATE,” ETC., ETC.</small><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -NEW YORK<br /> -CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY<br /> -<span class="smcap">104 & 106 Fourth Avenue</span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span></p> - -<p class="c"><small> -<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1892, by</span><br /> -CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.<br /> -<br /> -<i>All rights reserved.</i><br /></small> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" summary=""> -<tr><td class="rt"><small>CHAPTER</small></td> <td> </td> -<td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I Arrive in the Downs</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">I Visit My Uncle at Deal</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_10">10</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Gibbet</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_18">18</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">I Escape From the Press</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_27">27</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Captain Michael Greaves of the <span class="nonsm"><i>Black Watch</i></span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">I View the Brig</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_43">43</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">A Strange Story</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_53">53</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">A Startling Proposal</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_62">62</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">I Fight Van Laar</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_71">71</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">We Tranship Van Laar</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_82">82</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The <i><span class="nonsm">Rebecca</span></i></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_95">95</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">The Round Robin</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_111">111</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">A Midnight Scare</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_124">124</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">I Send My Letter</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_137">137</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">The White Water</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_147">147</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Greaves’ Island</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_160">160</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Ship in the Cave</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_171">171</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">We Tranship the Dollars</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_183">183</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">Off the Island</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_198">198</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv">{iv}</a></span></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">We Start for Home</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_213">213</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">A Fight</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_227">227</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">Greaves Sickens</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_242">242</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">The Whaler</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_255">255</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">A Sailor’s Will</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_267">267</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">Aurora Entertains Us</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_284">284</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">A Tragic Shift of Course</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_300">300</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">Bol’s Ruse</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_315">315</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">I Scheme</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_331">331</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">Amsterdam Island</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_345">345</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">My Scheme</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_357">357</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">A Quaker Skipper</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_373">373</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">Mynheer Tulp</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_391">391</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p> - -<h1>LIST, YE LANDSMEN!</h1> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> -<small>I ARRIVE IN THE DOWNS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sailors</span> visit many fine countries; but there is none—not the very -finest—that delights them more than the coast of their own native land -when they sight it after a long voyage. The flattest piece of treeless -English shore—such a melancholy, sandy, muddy waste, say, as that which -the River Stour winds greasily and slimily through past Sandwich, into -the salt, green, sparkling waters of the Small Downs—the English sailor -will look at with a thirstier and sharper pleasure than ever could be -excited in him by the most majestic and splendid scenery abroad.</p> - -<p>Thus in effect thought I, as I stood upon the quarter-deck of the <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i>, viewing the noble elevation of the white South Foreland -off which the ship was then leisurely rolling as she flapped her way to -the Downs with her yards squared to the weak westerly breeze; for—to -take you into my confidence at once—this part of the coast of old -England I had the best of all reasons for loving. First of all, I was -born at Folkestone; next, on losing my parents, I was taken charge of by -a maternal uncle, Captain Joseph Round, whose house stood on the road -between Sandwich and Deal; and then, when I first went to sea, I was -bound apprentice to a master sailing out of Dover Harbor; so that this -range of coast had peculiar associations for me. Consider. It comprised -the sum of my boyish, and of most, therefore, of my happiest, memories; -indeed, I could not gaze long at those terraces of chalk, with their -green slopes of down on top, and with clusters of houses between -sparkling like frost, and many a lozenge-shaped window glancing back the -light of the sun with the clear, sharp gleam of the diamond, without -recollection stealing in a moisture into my eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span></p> - -<p>The ship was the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>. I was her first mate. The name of -her master was Spalding; mine William Fielding. Captain Spalding had -married a relative of my mother’s. He was a north-countryman, and had -sailed for many years from the Tyne and from the Wear; but two years -before the date of this story—that is to say, in the middle of the year -1812—he had been offered the command of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>, a -small, cozy, lubberly, full-rigged ship of 490 tons, belonging to the -Port of London. I was stopping at Deal with my uncle at that time, and -heard that Captain Spalding—but I forget how the news of such a thing -reached me at Deal—was in want of a second mate. I applied for the -post, and, on the merits of my relationship with the captain’s wife, to -say no more, I obtained the appointment.</p> - -<p>We sailed away in the beginning of September, 1812, bound to the east -coast of South America. Before we were up with the Line the mate—a -sober, gray-haired, God-fearing Scotsman—died, and I took his post and -served as mate during the rest of the voyage. We called at several -ports, receiving and discharging cargo, and then headed for Kingston, -Jamaica, whence, having filled up flush to the hatches, we proceeded to -England in a fleet of forty sail, convoyed by a two-decker, a couple of -frigates, and some smaller ships of the King. But in latitude 20° north -a hurricane of wind broke us up. Every ship looked to herself. We, with -top-gallant masts on deck, squared away under bare poles, and drove for -three days bow under in foam, the seas meeting in slinging sheets of -living green upon the forecastle. We prayed to God not to lose sight of -us, and kept the chain-pumps going, and every hour a dram of red rum was -served out to the hearts; and there was nothing to do but to steer, and -pump, and swear, and hope.</p> - -<p>Well, the gale broke, and the amazing rush of the wings of seas sank -into a filthy, staggering sloppiness of broken, rugged surge, amidst -which we tumbled with hideous discomfort for another two days, so -straining that we would look over the side thinking to behold the water -full of tree-nails and planks of bottom sheathing. But the <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i> was built to swim. All the honesty of the slow, patient, -laborious shipwright of her time lived in every fiber of her as a noble -conscience in a good man. When the weather at last enabled us to make -sail and proceed from a meridian of longitude many degrees west of the -point where we had parted company with the con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span>voy, we found the ship -staunch as she had been at the hour of her birth.</p> - -<p>All the water she had taken in had tumbled into her from above. What say -ye to this, ye sailors of the paddle and the screw? We made the rest of -the passage alone, cracking on with the old bucket to recover lost time, -and keeping a bright lookout for anything that might betoken an enemy’s -ship.</p> - -<p>And now on the afternoon of September 19, in the year of God 1814, the -<i>Royal Brunswicker</i> was off the South Foreland, languidly flapping with -square yards before a light westerly breeze into the Downs that lay -broad under her bows, crowded with shipping.</p> - -<p>The hour was about three. A small trickle of tide was working eastward, -and upon that we floated along, more helped by the fast failing run of -the stream than by the wind; but there would be dead water very soon, -and then a fast gathering and presently a rushing set to the westward, -and I heard Captain Spalding whistle low as he stood on the starboard -quarter, sending his gaze aloft over the canvas, and looking at the -shipping which had opened upon us as the South Foreland drew away, -seeking with his slow, cold blue north-country eye for a comfortable -spot in which to bring up.</p> - -<p>The coast of France lay, for all its whiteness, in a pale orange streak -upon the edge of the sea, where it seemed to hover as though it were -some sunny exhalation in process of being drawn up and absorbed by the -sun that was shining with September brightness in the southwest sky. But -over that smudge of orange-colored land slept a roll of massive white -clouds, the thunder-fashioned heads of them a few degrees high, and -clouds of a like kind rested in vast shapeless bulks of tufted heaped-up -vapor—very cordilleras of clouds—on the ice-smooth edge of the water -in the northeast. The sea streamed in thin ripples out of the west; and -upon the light movement running through it the smaller of the vessels at -anchor in the Downs were lazily flourishing their naked spars. Captain -Spalding called to me.</p> - -<p>“I shall bring up, Bill,” said he; for Bill was the familiar name he -gave me when we were alone, though it was always “Mr. Fielding” in the -hearing of the men. “I shall bring up, Bill,” said he. “I don’t quite -make out yet what the weather’s going to prove. See those clouds? Who’s -to tell what such appearances signify in these waters? But the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> westerly -wind’s failing. There’s nothing coming out astern that’s going to help -us,” and he looked at the horizon that way. “I shall bring up.”</p> - -<p>I was mighty pleased to hear this, though indeed I had expected it: for -now might I hope to get leave to pay my uncle, Captain Joseph Round, a -visit for a few hours. I believe Spalding saw what was passing in my -mind; he gazed at the land and then round upon the sea, and fell -a-whistling again in a small note, shaking his head. I reckoned that I -could not do better than ask leave at once, and said:</p> - -<p>“As you intend to bring up, I hope you’ll allow me to go ashore for a -few hours to see how Uncle Joe does. He’d not forgive me for failing to -visit him should he hear that the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> had anchored -almost abreast of his dwelling-place, and that I had missed your consent -simply for not seeking it.”</p> - -<p>He sniffed and looked suspiciously about him awhile, and answered:</p> - -<p>“Don’t ask me for leave until the anchor’s down and the ship’s snug, and -the weather’s put on some such a face as a man may read.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Bill,” said he, “go forward now and see all clear for bringing up. -There’s a good berth some cables’ length past that frigate -yonder—betwixt her and the pink there.”</p> - -<p>As I was walking forward a man came clumsily sprawling over the side on -to the deck. His face was purple; he wore a hair cap, a red shawl round -his throat, and a jersey. I peered over the rail and saw a small Deal -galley hooked alongside, with two men in her.</p> - -<p>“Going to bring-up, sir?” said the man.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Where are ye bound to?”</p> - -<p>“To London.”</p> - -<p>“Want a pilot?”</p> - -<p>“You’ll find the captain aft there,” said I. “You are from Deal, I -suppose?”</p> - -<p>“Whoy, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Have you ever heard of Captain Joseph Round?”</p> - -<p>“Ever heard of Cap’n Joseph Round?” echoed the man. “Whoy, ye might as -well ask me if I’ve ever heard or Deal beach.”</p> - -<p>“Is he living?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“There’s ne’er a fish a-swimming under this here keel that’s more -living.”</p> - -<p>“And he’s well, I hope?”</p> - -<p>“It’s going to be a bad job when old Cap’n Round falls ill. Old Cap’n -Round’s one of them gents as never knows what it is to have so much as a -spasm; though when the likes of them <i>are</i> took bad, it’s common-loy -good-noight,” said he with an emphatic nod.</p> - -<p>“I don’t reckon your services will be required,” said I; “but I may be -wanting to go ashore after we’ve brought up, and you can keep your eye -upon this ship if you like.”</p> - -<p>“Thank ye, sir. Loike to see a paper, sir?” and here the man thrust his -hand under his jersey and pulled down a tattered newspaper a few weeks -old, gloomy with beer stains and thumb marks; but news, even a few weeks -old, must needs be very fresh news to me after an absence of two years, -during which I had caught but a few idle and ancient whispers of what -was happening at home. I thanked the man, put the newspaper in my -pocket, meaning to look at it when I should have leisure, and stepped on -to the forecastle, where I stood staring about me awaiting orders from -the captain.</p> - -<p>The scene on the water was very grand. There were, probably, two hundred -sail of wind-bound ships at anchor. Every kind of rig, I think, was -there, from the tall spars of the British frigate down to the little, -squab, apple-bowed, wallowing hoy. I am writing this in the year 1849. A -great change in shipping has happened since 1814. You have men-of-war -now with funnels and paddle-wheels; steam has shortened the passage to -India from four months to two months and a half, which is truly -wonderful. Nay, the Atlantic has been crossed in three weeks, and I may -yet live to see the day when the run from Liverpool to New York shall -not exceed a fortnight. But the change since 1814 is not in steam only. -Many are the structural alterations. Ships I will not deny have gained -in speed and convenience; but they have lost in beauty. They are no -longer romantic, and picturesque, and quaint. No; ships are no longer -the gay, the shining, the castellated, the spacious-winged fabrics of my -young days.</p> - -<p>Could you possess the memory of the scene of Downs, as it showed on that -September afternoon from the forecastle of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>, you -would share in the affectionate enthusiasm, the delight and the regret -with which I recur to it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span> How am I to express the light, the life, the -color of the picture; the fiery flashing of glossy, low, black, wet -sides, softly stooping upon the silken heave of the sea; the gleam of -storied windows in tall sterns; the radiance of giltwork on the quarter -galleries of big West and East Indiamen, straining motionless at their -hempen cable and lifting star-like trucks to the altitude of the -mastheads of a line-of-battle ship! I see again the long, low, -piratic-looking schooner. Her brand-new metal sheathing rises like a -strong light, flowing upward out of the water on which she rests to -within a strake or two of her covering board. I see the handsome brig -with a rake of her lower masts aft and topgallant masts stayed into a -scarce perceptible curve forward. There is a short grin of guns along -the waist and a brilliant brass-piece pivoted on her forecastle; she is -a trader bound to the west coast of Africa. She will be making the -Middle Passage anon; but she will take care to furnish no warrant for -suspicion while she flies the peaceful commercial flag on this side the -Guinea parallels. And I see also the snug old snow, of a beam expanded -into the proportions of a Dutchman’s stern, huge pieces of fresh beef -slung over the taffrail, a boat triced up to the forestay, and a tiny -boy swinging, knife in hand, at the mast.</p> - -<p>But what I most clearly see is the fine English frigate motionless in -the heart of the forest of shipping that stretches away to right and -left of her. With what exquisite precision are her yards braced! How -admirably furled is every sail, and how finely managed each cone-shaped -bunt! There is no superfluous rigging to thicken her gear. Whatever is -not wanted is removed. Her long pennant floats languidly down the -topgallant mast, and at her gaff-end ripples the flag of Great -Britain—the fighting flag of the State; the flag that, by the victory -at Trafalgar but a few years since, was hauled to the very masthead of -the world, with such stout hearts still left, in this year of God 1814, -to guard the hilliards, that one cannot recall their names without a -glow of pride coming into the cheek and a deeper beat entering every -pulse.</p> - -<p>Ah! thought I, as I gazed at the fine frigate, delighting with -appreciative nautical eye in the hundred points of exquisite equipment -which express the perfect discipline of the sea; admiring the white line -of hammocks which crowned the grim, silent, muzzled tier of ordnance, -the spot of red that denoted a marine, the agility of some fellows in -her forerigging—Heavens! how different from the slow and cumbersome -sprawling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span> of the heavily-breeched merchant Jack! Ah! thought I, while I -kept my eyes bent in admiration upon the frigate, who would not rather -be the first lieutenant of such a craft as that than the first mate of -such an old wagon as this? And yet I don’t know, thought I, keeping my -eyes fastened upon the frigate. It is good to be a sailor to begin -with—best sailor, best man, spite of uniforms and titles and the color -of the flag he serves under. And which service produces the best sailor, -I wonder? And here I told over to myself a number of names of seamen who -had risen to great, and some of them to glorious, eminence in the Royal -Navy, all of whom had served in the beginning of their years in the -merchant service; and then I also thought to myself, who sees most of -the real work—the hard, heavy, perilous work of the ocean—the -man-of-warsman or the merchantman? And I could not but smile as I looked -from that trim and lovely frigate to our own sea-beaten hooker, and from -the few lively hearties of the man-of-war visible upon her decks, to the -weather-stained, round-backed men of our crew, who were hanging about -waiting for the captain to sing out orders. No, I could not help -smiling.</p> - -<p>But while I smiled a volley of orders was suddenly fired off by Captain -Spalding from the quarter-deck, and in an instant I was singing out too, -and the crew were hauling upon the ropes, shortening sail.</p> - -<p>We floated to the spot that Spalding had singled out with his eye, the -Deal boat towing alongside, with the fellow that had boarded us inside -of her, for the captain had promptly motioned him overboard on his -stepping aft, and then the anchor was let go, and the sails rolled up. -It was just then sunset. The frigate fired a gun; down fluttered her -ensign, and a sort of tremble of color seemed to run through the forests -of masts as every vessel, big and little, in response to the sullen clap -of thunder from the frigate’s side, hauled down her flag. A stark calm -had fallen, heavy masses of electric cloud were lifting slowly east and -south, but they were to my mind a summer countenance. Methought I had -used the sea long enough to know wind by my sight and smell without -hearing or feeling it; and I was cocksure that those clouds signified -nothing more than a storm or two—as landsmen would call it—a small -local matter of lightning and thunder, with no air to notice, and a -silent night of stars to follow.</p> - -<p>When I had attended to all that required being seen to by me acting as -the mate of the ship, I went aft to Captain Spalding,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> who was walking -the deck alone, smoking a pipe, and said to him, “It’s going to be a -fine night.”</p> - -<p>“I believe you are right,” said he, gazing into the dusk of the evening, -amid which the near shipping looked pale, and the more distant craft -dark and swollen.</p> - -<p>“Are you going ashore?” said I.</p> - -<p>“No,” he answered. “There’s nothing at Deal to call me ashore. I know -Deal and I don’t love it, Bill.”</p> - -<p>“I should like to shake Uncle Joe by the hand,” said I.</p> - -<p>“So you shall,” said he. “But see here, my lad, you must keep a bright -lookout on the weather. If ever you’re to keep your weather eye lifting -’tis whilst you are visiting Uncle Joe, for should there come a slant of -wind, I’m off! there’ll be no stopping to send ashore to let you know -that I’m going.”</p> - -<p>“Right you are,” cried I heartily, “a bright lookout shall be kept. But -there’ll be no slant of wind this night—a little thunder, but no wind,” -said I, catching as I spoke the dim sheen of distant lightning coming -and going in a winking sort of way upon the mass of stuff that overhung -the coast of France.</p> - -<p>I stepped below into my cabin to change my clothes. It will not be -supposed that my slender wardrobe showed very handsomely after two years -of hard wear. I put on the best garments I had, a shaggy pilot coat, -with large horn buttons, and a velvet waistcoat, and on my head I seated -a round hat with a small quantity of ribbon floating down abaft it, so -that on the whole my appearance was rather that of a respectable -forecastle hand than that of the chief mate of a ship.</p> - -<p>Here whilst I am brushing my hair before a bit of broken looking glass -in my cabin let me give you in a few sentences a description of myself. -And first of all, having been born in the year 1790, I was aged -twenty-four, but looked a man of thirty, owing to the many years I had -passed at sea and the rough life of the calling. I was about five foot -eleven in height, shouldered and chested in proportion, very strong on -my legs, which were slightly curved into a kind of easy bowling, rolling -air by the ceaseless slanting of decks under me; in short taking me -altogether you would fairly have termed me at that age of twenty-four a -fine young fellow. I was fair, with dark reddish hair and dark blue -eyes, which the girls sometimes called violet; my cheeks and chin were -smooth shaven, according to the practice of those times; my teeth very -good, white, and even; my nose straight, shapely, and proper, but in my -throat and neck I was something heavy. Such was I, William Fielding, at -the age of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> twenty-four. I write without vanity. God knows it is too -late for vanity! Suppose a ghost capable of thinking: figure it musing -upon the ashes of the body it had occupied—ashes moldering and -infragrant in a clay-rotted coffin twelve foot deep.</p> - -<p>Even as such a ghost might muse, so write I of my youth.</p> - -<p>I pocketed the boatman’s newspaper, lest the cabin servant, coming into -my cabin, should espy and carry it away. And I also put in my pocket -some trifles which I had purchased as curios at one or another of the -ports we had visited, and then going on deck I hailed the boat that had -been keeping close to us, but that was now lying alongside a brig some -little distance away, and bade the fellows put me ashore.</p> - -<p>Sheet lightning was playing round the sea, but stars in plenty were -shining over our mastheads; the water was very smooth; I did not feel -the lightest movement of air. Forward on our ship a man was playing on -the fiddle, and a group of seamen in lounging attitudes were listening -to him. I also heard the voice of a man singing on the vessel lying -astern of us: but all was hushed aboard the frigate; the white lines of -her stowed canvas ruled the stars in pallid streaks as though snow lay -upon the yards; no light showed aboard of her; she lay grim, hushed, big -in the dusk with a suggestion of expectancy in the dominating sheer of -her bows and in the hearkening steeve of her bowsprit, as though -steed-like she was listening with cocked ears and wide nostrils; and -yet, dark as it was, you would have known her for a British man-of-war, -spite of the adjacency of some East and West Indiamen which looked in -the gloom to float nearly as tall as she.</p> - -<p>“It’s a quarter to eight, Bill,” exclaimed Captain Spalding, going to -the companion way and standing in it, while he spoke to me with one foot -on the ladder. “You will remember to keep your weather eye lifting, my -lad. At the first slant I get my anchor; so stand by. Ye’d better ask -Uncle Joe to keep his window open, that you may smell what you can’t see -and hear what you can’t smell. My respects to Uncle Joe. Tell him if I’m -detained here to-morrow I may pay him a visit, unless he has a mind for -a cut of Deal beef and a piece of ship’s bread down in my cabin. Anyhow, -my respects to him,” and he vanished.</p> - -<p>I dropped into the mizzen chains, got into the galley, and was rowed -ashore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> -<small>I VISIT MY UNCLE AT DEAL.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> boat was swept to the beach, and I sprang on the shingle. I paid the -men their charges, and paused a moment to realize the thrilling, -inscrutable, memorable sensation which visits a man who, after a long -absence, treads his native soil for the first time.</p> - -<p>After the chocolate faces of the West, and the yellow faces of the East, -and the copper-colored faces of the South; after two years of -mosquitoes, of cathedral-like forests, of spacious roasting bays, of -sharks and alligators, and league-broad rivers, and songless birds -angelically plumed, and endless miles of ocean; after—but I should need -a volume to catalogue all that follows this <i>after</i>—after the <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i>, in a word, how exquisite was my happiness on feeling the -Deal shingle under my foot; how rejoiced was I to be in a land of white -men and women, who spoke my own native tongue with its jolly, hearty, -round, old Kentish accent, and who lived in a kingdom of roast beef and -Welsh mutton and the best ales which were ever brewed in this world!</p> - -<p>While I paused, full of happy thought, the men who had brought me ashore -dragged their boat up the shingle. Two or three others joined them, and -the little company rushed the boat up in thunder. They then went rolling -silently into Beach Street and disappeared. I was struck by the absence -of animation fore and aft the beach. Many luggers and galley-punts lay -high and dry, but only here and there did I observe the figure of a man, -and, as well as I could make out in the evening dusk, the figure was -commonly that of an old man. Here and there also a few children were -playing, and here and there at an open door stood a woman gossiping with -another. But though I saw lights in the public houses, no sounds of -singing, of voices growling in argument, of maudlin calls, such as had -been familiar to my ear in old times, issued from the doors or windows. -I was surprised by this apparent lifelessness. A fleet of two hundred -sail in the Downs should have filled the little town with bustle and -business, with riotous sailors and clamorous wenches, and a coming and -going of boats.</p> - -<p>There were two ways by which my uncle’s house was to be reached—the one -by the road, the other by the sand hills, a desolate waste of hummocky -sand, stretching for some miles<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> from the north end of Deal toward the -town of Sandwich and the River Stour. I chose the road because I wanted -to taste the country air, to sniff the aromas of the fields and the -hedges as I marched along, and because I wished to put as much distance -as the highway permitted between me and the sea. The sky overhead was -clear; there was no moon as yet, but the stars shone in a showering of -light, and there was much lightning, which glanced to the zenith and -fell upon the white road I was stepping along; and now and again I -caught a low hum of thunder—an odd, vibratory note, like the sound of -an organ played in a church and heard at a distance on a still evening. -The atmosphere was breathless, and I was mighty thankful; but sometimes -I would catch myself whistling for an easterly wind, for I knew not from -what quarter a breeze might come on such a still night, and if the first -of it moved out of the south or west, then, even though my hands should -be upon the knocker of my uncle’s door, I must make a bolt of it to the -beach or lose my ship.</p> - -<p>My Uncle Joe’s house was a sturdy, tidy structure of flint, massively -roofed and fitted to outweather a century of hurricanes. He had designed -and built it himself. It stood at about two miles from Deal, withdrawn -from the road, snug, among a number of trees, elm and oak. Rooks cawed -in those trees, and their black nests hung in them; and in winter the -Channel gales, hoary with snow, shrieked through the hissing skeleton -branches with a furious noise of tempest, that reminded Uncle Joe of -being hove-to off the Horn.</p> - -<p>He had been a sailor. Uncle Joe had been more than a sailor—he had been -pilot and smuggler. He had commanded ships of eight hundred tons -burthen, full of East Indian commodities, and he had commanded luggers -of twenty tons burthen, deep with contraband goods, gunwale flush with -teas, brandies, laces, tobacco, and hollands. Uncle Joe had been a good -friend to me when I was a lad and an orphan. He and his wife were as -father and mother to me, and I loved them both with all the love that -was in my heart. It was Uncle Joe who had educated me, who had bred me -to the sea, who saw when I started on a voyage that I embarked with -plenty of clothes in my chest and plenty of money in my pocket; and to -Uncle Joe’s influence it was that I looked for a valuable East or West -Indian command in the next or the following year.</p> - -<p>I pulled the house-bell and hammered with the knocker. It was dark among -the trees; the house stood black, with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> dim red square of window, -where some crimson curtains shut out the lamplight. Until the door was -opened I listened to the weather. All was hushed save the thunder. I -could hear the faint, remote beat of the surf upon the shingle, that was -all. Not a leaf rustled overhead; but though there was not more -lightning, the thunder was more frequent down in the south, as though -the clouds over France were blazing bravely.</p> - -<p>A middle-aged man, clad somewhat after the manner of the longshoremen of -those days—clearly a decayed or retired mariner—pulled open the door, -and, as this was done, I heard my uncle call out:</p> - -<p>“Is it Bill?”</p> - -<p>“It is,” said I, delighted to hear his voice; and I pushed past the -sailor who held open the door.</p> - -<p>My uncle came out of the parlor into the passage, looked up and down me -a moment or two, and extending his hand, greeted me thus:</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m junked!”</p> - -<p>He then shook my hand at least a minute, and bidding me fling my cap on -to a hall chair, he dragged me into the parlor—the snuggest room in -world, as I have often thought; full of good paintings of ships and the -sea, of valuable curiosities, and fine oak furniture.</p> - -<p>Every age has faces of its own, countenances which exactly fit the -civilization of the particular time they belong to. It is no question of -the fashion of the beard or the wearing of the hair. There was a type of -face in my young day which I rarely behold now, and I dare say the type -which I am every day seeing will be as extinct fifty years hence as is -the type that I recollect when I was a young man. How is this, and why -is this? It matters not. It may be due to frequent new infusions of -blood; to the modifications—do not call it the progress—of intellect; -it may be due—but to whatever it may be due it is true; and equally -true it is that my Uncle Joe had one of those faces—I may indeed say -one of those heads—which as peculiarly belong to their time as the -fashions of garments belong to theirs.</p> - -<p>He was clean shaven; his temples were overshot; they set his little -black eyes back deep, and his baldness, co-operating with these thatched -and overhanging eaves, provided him with so broad a surface of forehead -that he might have sat for the portrait of a great wit. My uncle had a -wide and firm mouth; the lips were slightly blue: but this color was not -due to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> use of ardent spirits—oh, no! A teetotaler he was <i>not</i>, -but never would the mugs <i>he</i> emptied have changed the color of his -lips. They were blue because his heart was not strong, and the few who -remember him know that he died of heart disease.</p> - -<p>He was the jolliest, heartiest figure of a man that a convivial soul -could yearn to embrace; a shape molded by the ocean, as the Deal beach -pebble is molded by the ceaseless heave of the breakers. He thrust me -into a capacious armchair and stood on rounded shanks, staring at me -with his face flushed and working with pleasure.</p> - -<p>“And how are you, uncle?”</p> - -<p>“Well.”</p> - -<p>“And Aunt Elizabeth?”</p> - -<p>“Well.”</p> - -<p>“And Bessie?”</p> - -<p>“Well.”</p> - -<p>“Where are they?”</p> - -<p>“Coming downstairs.”</p> - -<p>And this was true; a moment later my aunt and cousin entered—my aunt a -grave, pale gentlewoman in a black gown, black being her only wear for -these twenty years past, ever since the death of her only son at the age -of four; my cousin a handsome, well-shaped girl of seventeen with -cherry-ripe lips and large flashing black eyes, and abundance of dark -hair with a tinge of rusty red upon it—they entered, I say, and they -had fifty questions to ask, as I had. But in half an hour’s time the -greetings were over, and I was sitting at a most hospitably laden supper -table, having satisfied myself, by going out of doors, that the night -was quiet, that there was still no stir of wind, and that nothing more -was happening roundabout than a vivid play of violet lightning low down -in the sky, with frequent cracklings and groanings of distant thunder.</p> - -<p>I was not surprised that Uncle Joe and his family had not heard of the -arrival of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> in the Downs; though I had been -somewhat astonished by his guessing it was I, when I knocked.</p> - -<p>“So you’re chief mate of the ship?” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“I am.”</p> - -<p>“How has Spalding used ye, Bill?”</p> - -<p>“Handsomely. As a father. I shall love Spalding till the end of my days, -and until I get command I shall never wish to go afloat with another -man.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said my uncle, “it is not every skipper, as you know,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> that -would allow his first mate a run ashore, himself waiting aboard the -while for a slant of wind to get his anchor. No. Don’t let us forget the -weather. Bess, my daisy, there’s no call for Bill to keep all on looking -out o’ doors; get ye forth now and again and report any sigh of wind you -may hear. I’ll find out its quarter, and Bill shall not fail his -captain.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the news?” said I.</p> - -<p>“News enough,” he said; and I sat and listened to news, much of which -was extraordinary.</p> - -<p>I heard of the Yankees thrashing us by land and sea, of fierce and -desperate fighting on the Canadian lakes, of the landing of the Prince -of Orange in Holland, and of his being proclaimed King of the United -Netherlands, of Murat proving a renegade and suing for peace with this -country, of gallant seafights down Toulon way and in the Adriatic and -elsewhere, of the investment of Bayonne by the British army, of the -entry of the Allies into Paris, of peace between England and France, of -Louis XVIII. in the room of Bonaparte, and—which almost took my breath -away—of Bonaparte himself at Elba, dethroned, his talons pared, his -teeth drawn, but with his head still on his shoulders, and in full -possession of his bloody reason.</p> - -<p>“And so he was quietly shipped to Porto Ferraro,” said I, “in a -comfortable thirty-eight gun British frigate, instead of being hanged at -the yardarm of that same craft.”</p> - -<p>“He is too splendid a character to hang,” said my aunt mildly.</p> - -<p>“Junked if I wouldn’t make dog’s meat of him,” cried Uncle Joe.</p> - -<p>“They should have hanged him,” said I.</p> - -<p>“They have hanged a better man instead,” exclaimed my cousin Bess.</p> - -<p>“A king?”</p> - -<p>“No, Bill, he was not a king,” said my uncle, “he was the master of a -ship and part owner, a young chap, too—a mighty pity. They had him up -at Sandwich on a charge of casting the vessel away. He was found guilty -and hanged, and he’s hanging now.”</p> - -<p>“Where does he hang?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Down on the Sandhills.”</p> - -<p>“A time will come, I hope,” said I, “when this beastly trick of -beaconing the sea-coast, and the river’s bank, and the high-ways with -gibbets will have been mended. Spalding was tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span>ing me that up in his -part of the country traveling has grown twice as far as it used to be, -by the gibbets forcing people to go out of their way to avoid the sight -of them.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry for the hanged man,” said my uncle, “but willfully casting a -ship away, Bill, is a fearful thing—so fearful that the gibbet at which -I’d dangle the fellow that did it should be as high as the royal mast -head of the craft he foundered! What d’ye think of that drop of rum?”</p> - -<p>“Is that wind?” said my aunt.</p> - -<p>“Thunder,” said Uncle Joe.</p> - -<p>Bess went to the house door: I followed. We stood listening; the noise -was thunder; there was not a breath of air, but all the stars were gone. -A sort of film of storm had drawn over them, and I guessed I was in for -a drenching walk to the beach. But Lord! rain to a man whose lifetime is -spent in the eye of the weather!</p> - -<p>“Bess,” said I, “you’ve grown a fine girl, d’ye know.”</p> - -<p>“No compliments, William, dear. I am going to be married.”</p> - -<p>“If I had known that before!” said I, kissing her now for the first -time, for congratulation.</p> - -<p>This was fresh news, and we talked about the coming son-in-law, who, to -be sure, must be in the seafaring line too, for once inject salt water -into the veins of a family, and it takes a power of posterity to flush -the pipes clear.</p> - -<p>“What’s wrong with Deal town?” said I. “Is it the neighborhood of the -gibbet that damps the spirits of the place?”</p> - -<p>“What d’ye mean, Bill?”</p> - -<p>“Why, there’s nothing stirring along the beach. There are some two -hundred craft off the town and the bench is as though it were in -mourning; your luggers lie grim as a row of coffins, nothing moving -amongst them but some shadow of old age—like old Jimmy Files, for -example.”</p> - -<p>“It’ll be the press,” said my aunt.</p> - -<p>“Ho!” said I. “Is the king short-handed once more?”</p> - -<p>“There’s not only what’s called deficiency, but what’s termed -disaffection,” said my uncle. “The vote this year was for a hundred and -forty thousand Johnnys and Joeys. They vote, and Jack says be d—d to -ye.”</p> - -<p>“Any men nabbed out of Deal?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Five boatmen last month,” answered Uncle Joe. “I should think they’d be -glad to set them ashore wherever they be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> Put a pressed Deal man into -your forecastle and then fire your magazine.”</p> - -<p>“I’m a mate; they’ll not take me,” said I.</p> - -<p>“There’s been no press for some days that I’ve heard of,” said my uncle, -“but you’d better get to the beach by way of the sand hills. The Johnnys -don’t hunt rabbits. They beat the alleys out of Beach Street, and you -hear of them Walmer way and down by the Dockyard.”</p> - -<p>He sat deep in an armchair, smoking a long clay pipe. His face shone, -his little shining eyes followed the smoke that rose from his lips. His -posture, his appearance as he sat with a stout leg across his knee and a -shining silver buckle on his square-toed shoe, seemed to say: “What I’ve -got is mine, and what I’ve got is enough. The Lord is good; and good too -is this house and all that’s in it.” A small fire burnt briskly in the -grate, and on the hob was a bright copper kettle with steam shooting -from its split lip. The dance of the fire-flames ran feeble shadows -through the steady radiance of the oil lamp, and the colors of the room -were made warmer and richer by the delicate twinkling. My aunt knitted, -and cousin Bess, with her chin in her hand, listened to the -conversation. Upon the table was a large silver tray with glasses, -decanters of rum and brandy, and silver bowl and ladle for the brewing -of punch. These things supplied a completing and satisfying detail of -liberal and handsome comfort. What happiness, thought I, to settle down -ashore in such a house as this, with as many thousands as would keep me -going just as Uncle Joe is kept going! When are those fine times coming -for me? thought I; and there now happening a pause in the talk, whilst -my uncle, lifting the kettle off the hob, brewed with skillful hand a -small quantity of rum punch—the most fragrant and supporting of hot -drinks, and loved a great deal too well in my time by skippers and mates -whose conscience blushed only in their noses—I pulled from my pocket -the boatman’s newspaper, and turned the sheet about, not reckoning, -however, upon <i>now</i> coming across anything fresh.</p> - -<p>“What have you there, William?” said Bess.</p> - -<p>“A north country rag,” said I, “some weeks old. The gift of a Geordie, -no doubt, to the waterman who gave it to me.”</p> - -<p>Such news as it contained related largely to shipping. There was a -column of items of maritime intelligence. My eye naturally dwelt upon -this column, and I read some passages aloud. At last I came to this -paragraph:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>A correspondent informs us that the brig <i>Black Watch</i>, 295 tons, -built in 1806, by Mr. W. Dixon, of Sunderland, is fitting out in -the Thames presumably for a privateering cruise. She is said to -have been purchased by a gentleman of Amsterdam, but the person who -goes in command of her is Captain Michael Greaves, who belongs to -this town. If the owner be a Dutchman, as rumor asserts, it is not -to be supposed that letters of marque will be issued.</p></div> - -<p>“What do <i>you</i> say, uncle?” said I.</p> - -<p>“I cannot tell. I know nothing about letters of marque, Bill. If she’s -furrin’-owned her capers can’t be countenanced by our State, can ’ey?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said I.</p> - -<p>I looked again at the paragraph.</p> - -<p>“Michael Greaves—Michael Greaves.” I seemed to know the name. I -pondered, found I could get nothing out of memory, and turned my eye -upon another part of the paper.</p> - -<p>“Here is an account of the casting away of the <i>William and Jane</i>.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the ship for whose murder her skipper is swinging on the sand -hills,” said my uncle.</p> - -<p>I read the story—an old-world story, not infrequently repeated since. -Do not we know it, Jack? A ship mysteriously leaks; the carpenter sounds -the well, and his eyes are damned by the captain for hinting at a -started butt; all hands sweat at the pumps; the water gains; the mate -thinks the leak is in the fore-peak, and the master, who is intoxicated, -stutters with blasphemies that the mischief is in the after-hold; the -people leave in the boats: the derelict washes ashore, and is found with -four auger holes in her bottom; the master is collared and charged. At -the trial the carpenter states that the master borrowed an auger from -him and forgot to return it. Master is damned by the evidence of the -mate and a number of seamen; is condemned to be hanged by the neck, and -is turned off on the Deal sand hills protesting his innocence.</p> - -<p>“Why the Deal sand hills?” said I.</p> - -<p>“As a warning to the coast,” answered my uncle. “And look again at the -newspaper. The scuttling job was managed right abreast of these parts, -behind the Good’ns. Oh, it’s justice—it’s justice!” and he handed me a -glass of punch.</p> - -<p>“Is it wind or rain?” exclaimed my aunt, lifting her forefinger.</p> - -<p>“Rain,” said my uncle—“a thunder squall. Ha!”</p> - -<p>A sharp boom of thunder came from the direction of the sea. ’Twas like a -ship testing her distance by throwing a shot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> You found yourself -hearkening for the broadside to follow. I looked at the clock and again -went to the house door. The earth was sobbing and smoking under a fall -of rain that came down straight like harp strings; the lightning touched -each liquid line into blue crystal; the trees hissed to the deluge, and -I stood listening for wind, but there was none.</p> - -<p>“I’ll wait till this shower thins,” said I, “and then be off.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be a wet walk, William, I fear,” said my aunt.</p> - -<p>“It’s a wet life all round, with us sailors,” said I, extending my -tumbler for another ladleful of punch, in obedience to an eloquent -gesture on the part of my uncle.</p> - -<p>It was midnight before they would let me go, and still there was no -wind. I was well primed with grog, and felt tight and jolly; had -accepted an invitation to spend a month of my stay ashore down here at -Sandwich; had listened with a countenance lighted up with smiles to -Uncle Joe’s “I’ll warrant ye it shall go hard if I don’t help you into -command next year, my lad,” pronounced with one eye closed, the other -eye humid, and his face awork with punch and benevolence; then came some -hearty hand-shaking, some still heartier “God-bless-ye’s,” and there -being a pause outside, forth I walked, stepping high and something -dancingly, the collar of my pea-coat to my ears, the round brim of my -hat turned down to clear the scuppers for the next downpour.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> -<small>THE GIBBET.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was plenty of lightning, some of the flashes near, and the sky -overhead was soot. But the thunder was not constant. It growled at -intervals afar, now and again burst at the distance of a mile, but -without tropic noise. It seemed to me that the electric mess was silting -away north, and that there would come a clear sky in the south -presently, with a breeze from that quarter.</p> - -<p>This being my notion, I stepped out vigorously, with a punch-inspired -lift of my feet, as I made for the sand hills, singing a jolly sailor’s -song as I marched, but not thinking of the words I sang. No, nothing -while I marched and sang aloud could I think of but the snug and -fragrant parlor I had quitted and Uncle Joe’s hearty reception and his -promises.</p> - -<p>When I was got upon the sand hills I wished I had stuck to the road. It -was the hills, not the sand, that bothered me. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> soared and sank as I -went, and presently my legs took a feeling of twist in them, as though -they had been corkscrews; but I pushed on stoutly, making a straight -course for the sea, where the lightning would give me a frequent sight -of the scene of Downs; where I should be able to taste the first of the -air that blew and hit its quarter to a point; and where, best of all, -the sand hardened into beach.</p> - -<p>But oh, my God, now, as I walked along! think! it flung out of the -darkness within pistol shot, clear in the wild blue of a flash of -lightning. It stood right in front of me. I was walking straight for it; -I should have seen it, without the help of lighting, in a few more -strides; the sand went away in a billowy glimmer to the wash of the -black water, and a kind of light of its own came up out of it, in which -the thing would have shown, had I advanced a few paces.</p> - -<p>It was a gibbet with a man hanging at the end of the beam, his head -coming, according to the picture printed upon my vision by that flash of -lightning, within a hand breadth of the piece of timber he dangled at, -whence I guessed, with the velocity of thought, that he had been cut -down and then tucked up afresh in irons or chains.</p> - -<p>I came to a stand as though I had been shot, waiting for another glance -of lightning to reveal the ghastly object afresh. I had forgotten all -about this gibbet. Had a thought of the horror entered my head—that -head which had been too full of the fumes of rum punch to yield space -for any but the cheeriest, airiest imaginations—I should have given -these sand hills the widest berth which the main road provided. I was no -coward; but, Lord! to witness such a sight by a stroke of lightning! I -say it was as unexpected a thing to my mood, at that moment of its -revelation by lightning, as though not a word had been said about it at -my uncle’s, and as though I had entered the sand hills absolutely -ignorant that a man hung in chains on a gibbet, within shy of a stone -from the water.</p> - -<p>This ignorance it was that dyed the memorable rencounter to a complexion -of darkest horror to every faculty that I could collect. While I paused, -breathing very short, hearing no sound but the thunder and the pitting -of the rain on the sand, and the whisper of the surf along the beach, a -vivid stroke of lightning flashed up the gibbet; there was an explosion -aloft; rain fell with a sudden fury, and the hail so drummed upon my hat -that I lost the noise of the surf in the sound. A number of flashes -followed in quick succession, and by the dazzle<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span> I beheld the gibbet and -its ghastly burden as clearly as though the sun was in the sky.</p> - -<p>The figure hung in chains; the bight of the chain passed under the fork -betwixt the thighs, and a link on either hand led through an iron -collar, which clasped the neck of the body, the head lolling over and -looking sideways down, and the two ends of the chain met in a ring, held -by a hook, secured by a nut on top of the timber projection. But what -was that at the foot of the gibbet? I believed, at first, that it was a -strengthening piece, a big block or pile of wood designed to join and -secure the bare, black, horrible post from which the beam pointed like -some frightful spirit finger, seaward, as though death’s skeleton arm -held up a dead man to the storm.</p> - -<p>This was my belief. I was now fascinated and stood gazing, watching the -fearful thing as it came and went with the lightning.</p> - -<p>Do you know those Deal sand hills? A desolate, dreary waste they are, on -the brightest of summer mornings, when the lark’s song falls like an -echo from the sky, when the pale and furry shadows of rabbits blend with -the sand, till they look mere eyes against what they watch you from, -when the flavor of seaweed is shrewd in the smell of the warm and -fragrant country. But visit them at midnight, stand alone in the heart -of the solitude of them and realize then—but, no, not even <i>then</i> could -you realize—the unutterably tragic significance imported into those dim -heaps of faintness, dying out at a short distance in the blackness, by -such a gibbet and such a corpse as I had lighted upon, as I now stood -watching by the flash and play of near and distant lightning.</p> - -<p>But what was that at the foot of the gibbet? I took a few steps, and the -object that I had supposed to be a balk of timber, serving as a -base-piece, arose. It was a woman. I was near enough now to see her -without the help of the lightning. The glimmering sand yielded -sufficient light, so close had I approached the gibbet. She was a tall -woman, dressed in black, and her face in the black frame of her bonnet, -that was thickened by a wet veil, showed as white as though the light of -the moon lay upon it. I say again that I am no coward, but I own that -when that balk of timber, as I had supposed the thing to be, arose and -fashioned itself, hard by the figure of the hanging dead man, into the -shape of a tall woman, ghastly white of face, nothing but horror and -consternation prevented me from bolting at full speed. I was too -terrified to run. My knees<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span> seemed to give way under me. All the good of -the rum punch was gone out of my head.</p> - -<p>The woman approached me slowly, and halted at a little distance. There -might have been two yards between us and five between me and the gibbet.</p> - -<p>“What have you come to do?” she exclaimed in a voice that sounded raw—I -can find no other word to express the noise of her speech—with famine, -fatigue, fever; for these things I heard in her voice.</p> - -<p>“I have come to do nothing; I am going to Deal,” I answered, and I made -a step.</p> - -<p>“Stop! I am the mother of that dead man. Show me how to take him down. I -cannot reach his feet with my hands. You are tall, and strong and -hearty, and can unhook him. For God’s sake, take him down and give him -to me, sir.”</p> - -<p>“His mother!” cried I, finding spirit, on a sudden, in the woman’s -speech and dreadful avowal; “God help thee! But it is not a thing for me -to meddle with.”</p> - -<p>“He was my son, he was innocent and he has been murdered. He must not be -left up there, sir. Take him down, and give him to me who am his mother, -and who will bury him.”</p> - -<p>“It is not a thing for me to meddle with,” I repeated, looking at the -body, and all this time it was lightning sharply, and the thunder was -frequent and heavy, and it rained pitilessly. “It would need a ladder to -unhook him, and suppose you had him, what then? Where is his grave? -Would you dig it here? And with what would you dig it? And if you buried -him here, they would have him up again and hook him up again.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, sir, take him down, give him to me,” she cried in a voice that -would have been a shriek but for her weakness.</p> - -<p>“How long have you been here?” said I, moving so as to enable me to -confront her, and yet have my back on the gibbet, for the end of my -tongue seemed to stick like a point of steel into the roof of my mouth, -every time the lightning flashed up the swinging figure and I saw it.</p> - -<p>“I was here before it fell dark,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Where do you come from?”</p> - -<p>“From Harwich.”</p> - -<p>“You have not walked from Harwich?”</p> - -<p>“I came by water to Margate, and have walked from Margate. Oh, take him -down—oh, take him down!” she cried, stretching her arms up at the body. -“Think of him helpless there! Jimmy, my Jimmy! He is innocent—he is a -mur<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span>dered man!” she sobbed; and then continued, speaking swiftly, and -drawing closer to me: “He was my only son. His wife does not come to -him. Oh, my Jim, mother is with thee, thy poor old mother is with thee, -and will not leave thee. Oh, kind, dear Christian sir”—and she extended -her hand and put it upon the sleeve of my coat—“take him down and help -me to bury him, and the God of Heaven, the friend of the widow, shall -bless thee, and I will watch, but at a distance from his grave, until -there shall be no fear of his body being found.”</p> - -<p>“I can do nothing,” said I. “If I had the will, I have not the means. I -should need a ladder, and we should need a spade, and we have neither. -Come you along with me to Deal; come you away out of this wet and from -this sight. You have little strength. If you linger here, you’ll die. I -will get you housed for the night, and,” cried I, raising my voice, that -she might hear me above a sudden roll of thunder, “if my ship does not -sail out of the Downs to-morrow, I may so work it for you as to get your -son’s body unhooked, and removed, and buried, where it will not be -found. Come away from this,” and I grasped her soaking sleeve.</p> - -<p>Now at this instant, there happened that which makes this experience the -most awful and astonishing of any that I have encountered, in a life -that, Heaven knows, has not been wanting in adventure. I am not a -believer in latter-day miracles; I am not a fool—not that I would -quarrel with a man for believing in latter-day miracles. We are all -locked up in a dark room, and I blame no man for believing that he—and -perhaps he only—knows the way out. I do not believe in latter-day -miracles; but I believe in the finger of God. I believe that often He -will answer the cry of the broken heart. This is what now happened, and -you may credit my relation or not, as you please.</p> - -<p>I have said that I grasped the woman’s soaking sleeve, intending to draw -her away from the gibbet; and it was at that moment that the body and -the gibbet were struck by lightning; they were clothed with a flash of -sunbright flame. In the same instant of the flash, there was a burst and -shock of thunder, the most deafening and frightful explosion I have ever -heard. The motionless atmosphere was thick, sickening, choking with the -smell of sulphur. I was hurled backward, but not so as to fall; it was -as though I had been struck by the wind of a cannon-ball. For some time -the blackness stood like a wall<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span> against my vision; more lightning there -was at that time, one or two of the flashes tolerably vivid, but the -play on my balls of sight, temporarily blinded, glanced dim as sheet -lightning when it winks palely past the rim of the sea.</p> - -<p>Presently I could see. I looked for the woman, scarce knowing whether I -might behold her dead in a heap on the sand. No; she stood at a little -distance from me. Like me, she was unable to get her sight. She stood -with her white face turned toward Sandwich—that is to say, away from -the gibbet; but even as I regained my vision so hers returned to her. -She looked around, uttered an extraordinary cry, and, in a moment, was -under the gibbet, kneeling, fondling, clasping, hugging, wildly talking -to the chained and lifeless figure, whose metal fastening had been -sheared through by the burning edge of the terrific scythe of fire!</p> - -<p>Yes; the eye or the hook by which the corpse had hung had been melted, -and there lay the body, ghastly in its chains, but how much ghastlier -had there been light to yield a full revelation of feature and of such -injury as the stroke of flame may have dealt it! There it lay in its -mother’s arms! She held its head with the iron collar about its neck to -her breast; she rocked it; she talked to it; she blessed God for giving -her son to her.</p> - -<p>The rain ceased, and over the sea the black dye of tempest thinned, a -sure sign of approaching wind, driving the heavy, loose wings of vapor -before it. In another minute I felt a draught of air. It was out of the -south. Standing on those sand hills, a familiar haunt of mine, indeed, -in the olden times, I could as readily hit the quarter of the wind—yea, -to the eighth of a point—as though I took its bearings with the compass -before me. I might be very sure that this was a breeze to freshen -rapidly, and that even now the boatswain of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> was -thumping with a handspike upon the fore-scuttle, bidding all hands -tumble up to man the windlass. Spalding must not be suffered to stare -over the side in search of me while he went on giving orders to make -sail. It was very late. How late, I knew not. I had heard no clock. -Maybe it was one in the morning.</p> - -<p>Now, what was I to do? I must certainly miss the ship if I hung about -the woman and the body of her son. Even though I should set off at full -speed for Deal beach, I might not immediately find a boatman. Yet hurry -I must. I went up to the woman, almost loathing the humanity that forced -me closer to the body, and exclaimed:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Come away with me to Deal. You shall be housed if I can manage it; but -you must rise and come with me at once, for I cannot stay.”</p> - -<p>She was seated on the sand under the arm of the gibbet, and half of the -body lay across her, with its head against her breast. One of her arms -was around it. She caressed its face and, as I spoke, she put her lips -to its forehead. There was no cap over the face. Doubtless a cap had -been drawn over the unhappy wretch when he was first turned off, but -when they hung a man in irons they removed his cap and sheathed the body -in pitch to render it weatherproof. Pirates, however, and such seafaring -sinners as this man, were mainly strung up in irons in their clothes; -and this body was dressed, but he was without a hat.</p> - -<p>The woman looked round and up at me, and cried very piteously:</p> - -<p>“Dear Christian gentleman, whoever you may be, help me to seek some -place where I may hide my child’s body, that his murderers shall not be -able to find him. O Jim, God hath given thee to thy mother. Sir, for the -sake of thine own mother, stay with me and help me.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot stay,” I cried, breaking in. “If you will not come I must go.”</p> - -<p>She talked to the body.</p> - -<p>On this, seeing how it must be and hoping to be of some use to the poor -creature before embarking, I said not another word, but started for Deal -beach, walking like one in a dream, full of horror and pity and -astonishment, but always sensible that it was growing lighter and yet -lighter to windward, and that the wind was freshening in my face as I -walked. Indeed, before I had measured half the distance to Deal, large -spaces of clear sky had opened among the clouds, with stars sliding -athwart them; and low down southeast was a corner of red moon creeping -along a ragged black edge of vapor.</p> - -<p>When I came to the north end of the town, where Beach Street began and -ended in those days, I paused, abreast of a tall capstan used for -heaving up boats, and looked about me. I had thought, at odd moments as -I walked along, of how my uncle had explained the silence that lay upon -Deal by speaking of the press-gang; but, first, I had no fear for -myself, for I was mate of a ship, and, as mate, I was not to be taken; -and next, putting this consideration apart, the press-gang was scarcely -likely to be at work at such an hour—at least at Deal, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> habits of -whose seafaring people would be well known to the officers of His -Majesty’s ships stationed in the Downs or cruising in the Channel. But -the general alarm might render it difficult for me to find a man to take -me off to the ship, and more difficult still to find anyone willing to -adventure a lonely walk by moonlight out on to the sand hills to help -the woman I had left there.</p> - -<p>I stood looking about me. A number of vessels were getting their anchors -in the Downs. The delicate distant noise of the clinking of revolving -pawls came along in the wind, with dim cries and faint chorusings, and -under the moon I spied two or three vessels under weigh standing up -Channel. This sight filled me with an agony of impatience, and I got -upon the shingle and crunched, sweating along, staring eagerly ahead.</p> - -<p>A great number of boats lay upon the beach, some of them big luggers, -and in the dusk they loomed up to twice their real size. Nothing living -stirred. This was truly astonishing. About half a mile along the -shingle, toward Walmer, lay a boat close to the wash of the water; I -could not tell at that distance, and by that light, whether there was a -man in her or near her, but I supposed she might be a galley-punt, ready -to “go off,” as the local term is and I walked toward her. A minute -later I came to a small, black wooden structure, one of several little -buildings used by the Deal boatmen for keeping a lookout in. I saw a -light shining upon a bit of a glazed window that faced me, and stepping -to this window, I peered through and beheld an old man seated on a -bench, with an odd sort of three-cornered hat on his head, and dressed -in gray worsted stockings and a long frieze coat. An inch of sooty pipe -forked out from his mouth, and I guessed that he was awake by seeing -smoke issuing from his lips, though his head was hung, his arms folded, -his eyes apparently closed. I stepped round to the door, beat upon it, -and looked in.</p> - -<p>“I am mate of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>,” said I. “She’s getting her -anchor in the Downs, and I want to get aboard before she’s off and away. -Where shall I find a couple of men to put me aboard?”</p> - -<p>He lifted up his head after the leisurely manner of old age, took his -pipe out of his mouth with a trembling hand, and surveyed me -steadfastly, as though he was nearly blind.</p> - -<p>“Where are ye from?” said he.</p> - -<p>“From the house of my uncle, Captain Joseph Round.”</p> - -<p>“Captain Joseph Round, is it?” exclaimed the old fellow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> suspiciously. -“I can remember Joe Round—Joey Round was the name he was known by—man -and boy fifty-eight year. He’ll be drawing on to sixty-five, I allow. -What might be yower name?”</p> - -<p>By this time I had recollected the old fellow, and his name had come to -me with my memory of him.</p> - -<p>“Martin—Tom Martin,” said I, “you are going blind, old man, or you -would know me. My name is William Fielding—Bill Fielding sometimes -along the beach here, among such of you drunken, smuggling swabs as I -chose to be familiar with. Now, see here, I must get aboard my ship at -once, and there’ll be another job wants doing also, for the which I -shall be willing to pay a guinea. Tell me instantly, Tom, of three -men—two to row me aboard, and one to send on a guinea’s worth of -errand.”</p> - -<p>“Gi’s your hand, Mr. Fielding. Bless me, how you’re changed! But aint -that because my sight aint what it was? You want three men? Two to put -ye aboard, and——”</p> - -<p>“And one to send on a guinea’s worth of errand—on a job I needn’t -explain to you here. Now bear a hand, or I shall lose my ship.”</p> - -<p>On this, he blew out the rushlight by which he had been sitting, shut -the door of the old cabin, and moved slowly and somewhat staggeringly -over the shingle up into Beach Street, along which we walked for, I -daresay, fifty yards. He then turned into a sort of alley, and pausing -before the door of a little house, lifted his arm as though in search of -the knocker, then bade me knock for myself, and knock loud.</p> - -<p>I knocked heartily, but all remained silent for some minutes. I -continued to knock, and then a window just over the doorway was thrown -up, and a woman put her head out. A crazy old lamp, burning a dull flame -of oil, stood at the corner of the alley or side street and enabled me -to obtain a view of the woman.</p> - -<p>“Who are ye?” said she, in a voice of alarm, “and what d’ye want?”</p> - -<p>“Is Dick in?” quavered old Martin, looking up at her.</p> - -<p>“Why, it’s old Tom!” exclaimed the woman. “Who’s that along with ye?”</p> - -<p>“Capt’n Round’s nevvy, Master Billy Fielding, as we used to call him. -His ship’s in the Downs, there’s a slant o’ air out of the south, and he -wants to be set aboard. Is Dick in, I ask ye?”</p> - -<p>“What’s that to do with you?” answered the woman, draw<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span>ing her head in -with a movement of misgiving, and putting her hands upon the window as -though to bring it down. “No, he aint in, so there; neither him nor Tom, -so there. You go on. I don’t like the looks of your friend Mr. Billy -Fielding; a merchantman with hepaulets, is it? And what’s an old man -like you a-doing out of his bed at this hour? Garn home, Tom, garn -home;” and down went the window.</p> - -<p>“Is that woman mad?” cried I. “What does she take me to be? And does she -suppose that you, whom she must have known all her life—— I’ll tell -you what, Tom Martin, I’m not going to lose my ship for the want of a -boat. If I can’t find a waterman soon I shall seize the first small punt -I can launch with mine own hands. Hark!”</p> - -<p>I heard footsteps; a sound of the tread of feet came from Beach Street. -I walked up the alley to the entrance of it, not for a moment doubting -that the fellows coming along were Deal boatmen, fresh from doing -business out at sea. Old Tom Martin called after me; I did not catch -what he said; in fact I had no chance to hear; for when I reached the -entrance of the alley, a body of ten or twelve men came right upon me, -and in a breath I was collared, to a deep roaring cry of “Here’s a good -sailor!”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> -<small>I ESCAPE FROM THE PRESS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I struggled</span> and was savagely gripped by the arm. I stood grasped by two -huge brawny men, one of whom called out, “No caper-cutting, my lad. No -need to show your paces here.”</p> - -<p>“I am first mate of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>,” I exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“You looks like a first mate—the chap that cooks the mate. You shall -have mates enough, old ship—shipmates and messmates.”</p> - -<p>“Let me go. You cannot take me; you know it. I am first mate of the -<i>Royal Brunswicker</i>—the ship astern of the frigate——”</p> - -<p>“Heave ahead, lads,” exclaimed a voice that was not wanting in -refinement, though it sounded as if the person who owned it was rather -tipsy.</p> - -<p>At the moment of seizing me the company of fellows had halted within the -sheen of the lamp at the corner of the street. They were a wonderfully -fine body of men, magnificent ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span>amples of the British sailor of a -period when triumphant successes and a long victorious activity had -worked the British naval seaman up to the highest pitch of perfection -that he ever had attained, a pitch that it must be impossible for him -under the utterly changed conditions of the sea life to ever again -attain. They were armed with cutlasses, and some of them carried -truncheons and wore round hats and round jackets and heavy belts. Two of -the mob were pressed men.</p> - -<p>“Heave ahead, lads,” cried the refined dram-thickened voice.</p> - -<p>I looked in the direction of the voice, and observed a young fellow clad -in a pea-coat, with some sort of head-gear on his head that might have -been designed to disguise him.</p> - -<p>“Sir,” cried I, “are you the officer in command here?”</p> - -<p>“Never you mind! Heave ahead, lads; steer a straight course for the -boat.”</p> - -<p>In a moment the whole body of us were in motion. A seaman on either hand -grasped me by the arm, and immediately behind were the other two pressed -men.</p> - -<p>“Tom Martin,” I roared out, hoping that the old fellow might yet be -within hearing; “you see what has happened. For God’s sake report to -Captain Round.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s that bawling?” angrily and huskily shouted the young officer in -the pea-coat.</p> - -<p>I marched for a few paces in silence, mad and degraded; bewildered, too; -nay, I may say confounded almost to distraction by the hurry of the -astonishing experiences which I had encountered within the last hour.</p> - -<p>“What ship do you belong to?” I presently said, addressing a big -bull-faced man who guarded me on the left.</p> - -<p>“The frigate out yonder,” he answered in a deep, wary voice; “keep a -civil tongue in your head and give no trouble, and what’s wrong will be -righted, if wrong there be,” and he looked at me by the light of a -second lamp that the company of us was tramping past.</p> - -<p>“I am mate of the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> now probably getting her anchor -astern of your frigate,” said I. “Cannot I make your officer believe me, -for then he might set me aboard?”</p> - -<p>The fellow on my right rumbled with laughter as though he would choke. -We trudged onward, making for that part of the beach upon which King -Street opens. Presently one of the pressed men in my wake began to -curse; he used horrible language. With frightful imprecations he -demanded to know<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> why he should be obliged to fight for a king whose -throat he thirsted to cut; why he should be obliged to fight for a -nation which he didn’t belong to, whose people he hated; why he was to -be converted into a bloody piratical man-of-war’s man, instead of being -left to follow the lawful, respectable calling of a merchant seaman——</p> - -<p>A mighty thump on the back, that sounded like the blow of a handspike -upon a hatch-cover, knocked his hideous speech into a single half-choked -growl, and the young gentleman with the refined but husky voice called -out:</p> - -<p>“If that beast doesn’t belay his jaw, stuff his mouth full of shingle -and gag him.”</p> - -<p>I guessed that this gang were satisfied with picking up three men that -night, for they looked neither to right nor left for more, and headed on -a straight course for their boat. After the ruffian astern of me had -been thumped into silence scarce a word was uttered. The sailors seemed -weary, as though they had had a long bout of it, and the officer, -perhaps, was too sensible of being under the influence of drink to -venture to define his state by more words than were absolutely needful. -I had heard much of the brutality of the press-gang, of taunts and -kicks, of maddening ironic promises of prize money and glory to the -miserable wretches torn from their homes or from their ships, of -pitiless usage, raw heads, and broken bones. All this I had heard of, -but I witnessed nothing of the sort among the men into whose hands I had -fallen. In silence we marched along, and the tramp of our feet was -returned in a hollow echo from the houses we passed, and the noise, of -our tread ran through the length of the feebly lighted street, which the -presence of the King’s seamen had desolated as utterly as though the -plague had been brought to Deal out of the East, and as though the -buildings held nothing but the dead.</p> - -<p>By the time we had arrived at that part of the beach where lay the -boat—a large cutter, watched by a couple of seamen armed with cutlasses -and pistols—my mind had in some measure calmed down. The degradation of -being collared and man-handled was indeed maddening and heart-subduing; -but then I was beginning to think this—that first of all it was very -probable I must have lost my ship, press-gang or no press-gang, seeing -that I could not get a boat to put me aboard her; next, that my being -kidnaped, as I call it, would find me such a reason for my absence as -Captain Spalding and the owners of the vessel must certainly allow to be -unanswerable. Then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> again, I was perfectly sure of being released and -sent ashore when I had represented my condition to the captain or -lieutenant of the frigate; and I might also calculate upon old Tom -Martin communicating with my uncle, who would, early in the day, come -off to the frigate and confirm my story.</p> - -<p>These reflections, I say, calmed me considerably, though my mind -continued very much troubled and all awork within me, for I could not -forget the horrible picture of the gibbet and the prodigious flash of -fire which had delivered the dead hanging son to his wretched mother; -and I was likewise much haunted and worried by the thought of the poor -woman sitting upon the sand under the gibbet, fondling the loathsome -body and whispering to it, and often looking over the billowy waste of -glimmering sand, that would now be whitened by the moon, in the -direction I had taken, expecting, perhaps, that I should return or send -some human soul to help her bury the corpse, that it might not be hooked -up again.</p> - -<p>The Downs were now full of life. There was a pleasant fresh breeze -blowing from the southward, and the water came whitening and feathering -in strong ripples to the shingle. The moon was riding over the sea south -of the southernmost limit of the Goodwin Sands. She was making some -light in the air, though but a piece of moon, and a short length of her -silver greenish reflection trembled under her. Almost all the vessels -had got under weigh and were standing in groups of dark smudges east or -west. It was impossible to tell which might be the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>, -but I could see no craft answering to her size in that part near the -frigate where she had brought up.</p> - -<p>When we were come to the cutter we three pressed men were ordered to get -into her. I quietly entered, and so did one of of the other two, but the -third—the man who had cursed and raged as he had walked along—flung -himself down upon the shingle.</p> - -<p>“What you can’t carry you may drag,” he exclaimed, and he swore horribly -at the men.</p> - -<p>“In with the scoundrel!” said the lieutenant.</p> - -<p>And now I saw what sort of tenderness was to be expected from -press-gangs when their kindness was not deserved, for three stout -seamen, catching hold of the blaspheming fellow, one by the throat, as -it seemed, another by the arm, and a third by the breech flung him over -the gunwale as if he were some dead carcass of a sheep, and he fell with -a crash upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> thwarts and rolled, bloody with a wound in the head -and half stunned, into the bottom of the boat.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant sat ready to ship the rudder, others of the men got into -the boat, and the rest, grasping the line of her gunwale on either hand, -rushed her roaring down the incline of shingle into the soft white wash -of the breakers, themselves tumbling inward with admirable alertness as -she was water-borne. Then six long oars gave way, and the boat sheared -through the ripples.</p> - -<p>The breeze was almost dead on and the tide was the stream of flood, the -set of it already strong, as you saw by the manner in which the in-bound -shadows of ships in the eastward shrank and melted, while those standing -to the westward, their yards braced well forward or their fore and aft -booms pretty nigh amidships, sat square to the eye abreast, scarcely -holding their own. The frigate lay in a space of clear water at a -distance of about a mile and three-quarters. Though the corner of moon -looked askant at her, she hung shapeless upon the dark surface, a mere -heap of intricate shadow, with the gleam of a lantern at her stern and a -light on the stay over the spritsail yard.</p> - -<p>The man who had been thrown into the boat sat up. He passed his wrist -and the back of his hand over his brow, turned his knuckles to the moon -to look at them, and broke out:</p> - -<p>“You murdering blackguards! I’ll punish ye for this. If I handle your -blasted powder it’ll be to blow you and your——”</p> - -<p>“Silence that villain!” cried the lieutenant.</p> - -<p>“A villain yourself, you drunken ruffian! You are just the figure of the -baste I’ve been draming all my life I was swung for. Oh, you rogue, how -sorry I am for you! Better had ye given yourself up long ago for the -crimes you’ve committed than have impressed me. The hangman’s work would -have been over, but my knife——”</p> - -<p>“Gag him!” cried the lieutenant.</p> - -<p>The fellow sprang to his feet, and in another instant would have been -overboard. He was caught by his jacket, felled inward by a swinging, -cruel blow, and lay kicking, fighting, biting, and blaspheming at the -bottom of the boat. In consequence of the struggle four of the oarsmen -could not row, and the other two lay upon their oars. The lieutenant, in -a voice fiery with rage and liquor, roared out to his men to pinion the -scoundrel, to gag the villain, to knock the blasphemous ruffian over the -head. All sorts of wild, drunken, savage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> orders he continued to roar -out; and I was almost deafened by his cries of rage, by the howling and -shouting of the man in the bottom of the boat, by the curses and -growlings of the fellows who were man-handling him.</p> - -<p>On a sudden a man yelled: “For God’s sake, sir, look out!” and, lifting -my eyes from the struggling figure in the bottom of the boat, I -perceived the huge bows of a vessel of some three hundred or four -hundred tons looming high, close aboard of us. She had canvas spread to -her royal mastheads, and leaned from the breeze with the water breaking -white from her stem, and in the pause that followed the loud, hoarse cry -of “For God’s sake, sir, look out!” one could hear the hiss and ripple -of the broken waters along her bends.</p> - -<p>“Ship ahoy!” shouted one of the seamen.</p> - -<p>The man in the bottom of the boat began to scream afresh, struggling and -fighting like a madman, and hopelessly confusing the whole company of -sailors in that supreme moment. The boat swayed as though she would -capsize; the lieutenant, standing high in the stern sheets, shrieked to -the starboard bow oar to “pull like hell!” others roared to the -approaching ship to port her helm; but, in another minute, before -anything could be done, the towering bow had struck the boat! A cry went -up, and, in the beat of a pulse, I was under water with a thunder as of -Niagara in my ear.</p> - -<p>I felt myself sucked down, but I preserved my senses, and seemed to -understand that I was passing under the body of the ship, clear of her, -as though swept to and steadied at some depth below her keel by the -weight of water her passage drove in downward recoil. I rose, bursting -with the holding of my breath, and floated right upon an oar, which I -grasped with a drowning grip, though I was a tolerable swimmer; and -after drawing several breaths—and oh, the ecstasy of that respiration! -and oh, the sweetness of the air with which I filled my lungs!—my wits -being still perfectly sound, I struck out with my legs, with no other -thought in me <i>then</i> than to drive clear of the drowning scramble which -I guessed was happening hard by.</p> - -<p>The oar was under my arms, and my ears hoisted well above the surface of -the water. I heard a man steadily shouting—he was at some distance from -me, and was probably holding, as I was, to something that floated -him—but no other cries than that lonely shouting reached me; no -bubbling noises of the strangling; nothing to intimate that anything -lived.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span></p> - -<p>I turned my head and looked in the direction of the ship. Her people may -or may not have known that they had run down a boat. Certainly she had -not shifted her helm; she was standing straight on, a leaning shadow -with the bit of moon hanging over her mastheads.</p> - -<p>In a few moments the fellow that was shouting at some little distance -from me fell silent; but whatever his plight might have been, I could -not have helped him, for the tide was setting me at the rate of some two -or three miles in the hour into the northeast, and, to come at him, he -being astern of me as regards the direction of the tide, I should have -been obliged to head in the direction whence his voice had proceeded and -seek for him; and so, as I say, I could not have helped him.</p> - -<p>We had pulled a full mile, and perhaps more than a mile, from the shore -when we were run down. The low land of Deal looked five times as far as -a mile across the rippling black surface on which I floated. Yet I knew -that the distance could not exceed a mile, and I set my face toward the -lights of the beach and struck out with my legs; but I moved feebly. I -had swallowed plentifully of salt water when I sank, and the brine -filled me with weakness, and I was heavy and sick with it. Then, again, -my strength had been shrunk by the sudden dreadful shock of the -collision and by my having been under water, breathless and bursting, -while, as I might take it, the whole length of the ship was passing over -me. I knew that I should never reach the land by hanging over an oar and -striking out with my legs. The oar was long and heavy; there was no -virtue in the kick of my weakened heels to propel the great blade and -loom of ash held athwart as I was obliged to hold it. And all this time -the tide was setting me away northeast, with an arching trend to the -sheerer east, owing to the conformation of the land thereabouts; so that -though for some time I kept my face turned upon Deal, languidly, almost -lifelessly, moving my legs in the direction of the lights of that town, -in reality the stream was striking me into the wider water; and after a -bit I was able to calculate—and I have no doubt accurately—that if I -abandoned myself to my oar and floated only (and in sober truth that was -all I could do, and pretty much all that I had been doing), I should -double the North Foreland at about two miles from that point of coast, -and strand, a corpse, upon some shoal off Margate or higher up.</p> - -<p>I looked about me for a ship. Therein lay hope. I looked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span> not for a -ship at anchor, unless she hove in view right on end of the course my -oar was taking, but for a vessel in motion to hail as she came by; but I -reckoned she must come by soon, for on testing my lungs when I thought -of the shout I would raise if a ship came by, I discovered that she -would have to pass very close if she was to hear me. Indeed, what I had -undergone that night, from the moment of lighting upon the gibbet down -to this moment of finding myself floating on one oar, had proved too -much for my strength, extraordinarily robust as I was in those days: and -then, again, the water was bitterly cold—cold, too, was the wind as it -brushed me, with a constant feathering of ripples that kept my head and -face wet for the wind to blow the colder upon.</p> - -<p>The light was feeble, the moon shed but scant illumination, and whenever -she was shadowed by a cloud, deep darkness closed over the sea. There -were vessels near and vessels afar, but none to be of use. A large -cutter was heading eastward about half a mile abreast of me; I shouted -and continued to shout, but a drowning sigh would have been as audible -to her people. She glided on, and when the moon went behind a cloud the -loom of the cutter blended with the darkness, and when the moon came out -again, and I looked for the vessel, I could not see her.</p> - -<p>I afterward learned that I passed five hours in this dreadful situation. -How long I had spent hanging over the oar when my senses left me I know -not; I believe that dawn was not then far off; I seem to recollect a -faintness of gray stealing up off the distant rim of the sea like a -smoke into the sky, the horizon standing firm and dark against the -dimness as though the water were of thick black paint; and by that time -I guess I had been carried by the tide to a part of the Channel that -lies abreast of the cliffs between the town of Ramsgate and the little -bay into which the Stour empties itself.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> -<small>CAPTAIN MICHAEL GREAVES OF THE “BLACK WATCH.”</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I found</span> myself in the cabin of a ship. I lay in a hammock, and when I -opened my eyes I looked straight up at a beam running across the upper -deck. I stared at this beam for some time, wondering what it was and -wondering where I was; I then turned my head from side to side, and -perceived that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span> was in a hammock, and that I lay in my shirt under -some blankets.</p> - -<p>How came I here, thought I? If this be the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> they’ve -shifted my berth, or have I blundered into another man’s bed! I lifted -my head to look over the edge of the hammock, for the canvas walls came -somewhat high, the bolster was small and my head lay low, and I was -startled to find that I had not the power to straighten my spine into an -upright posture. Thrice did I essay to sit up and thrice did I fail, but -by putting my hand on the edge of the hammock and incurving the flexible -canvas to about the level of my nose, I contrived to obtain a view of -the interior in which I swung; and found it to consist of a little berth -or cabin, the walls and bulkheads of a gloomy snuff color, lighted by a -small scuttle or circular port-hole of the diameter of a saucer, filled -with a heavy block of glass, which, as I watched it, darkened into a -deep green, then flashed out into snowy whiteness, then darkened again, -and so on with regular alternations: and by this I guessed that I was -not only on board a ship, but that the ship I was on board of was -rolling heavily and plunging sharply, and rushing through the seas as -though driving before a whole gale of wind.</p> - -<p>There was no snuff-colored cabin, with a scuttle of the diameter of a -saucer, to be found on board the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>; this ship -therefore could not be the vessel that I was mate of. I was hugely -puzzled, and my wits whirred in my brain like the works of a watch when -the spring breaks, and I continued to peer over the edge of the hammock -that I held pressed down, vainly seeking enlightenment in a plain black -locker that stood under the scuttle and in what I must call a washstand -in the corner of the berth facing the door, and in a small lamp, -resembling a cheap tin coffee-pot, standing upon a metal bracket nailed -to the bulkhead.</p> - -<p>As nothing came to me out of these things I let go the edge of the -hammock and gazed at the beam again overhead, and sunk my sensations -into the motions of the ship, insomuch that I could feel every roll and -toss of her, every dive, pause, and staggering rush forward as though it -were a pulse, and I said to myself, “It blows hard, and a tall sea is -running, and I am on board a smaller ship than the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>, -and our speed cannot be less than twelve knots an hour through the -water.”</p> - -<p>I now grew conscious that I was hungry and thirsty, and as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> thirst is -pain even in its very earliest promptings—unlike hunger, which when -first felt is by no means a disagreeable sensation—I endeavored to sit -up, intending in that posture to call out, but found myself, as before, -helpless. Then I thought I would call out without sitting up, and I -opened my mouth, but my lungs would deliver nothing better than a most -ridiculous groan. However, after some ten minutes had passed, the top of -a man’s head showed over the rim of the hammock. The sight of his eyes -and his large cap of fur or hair startled me; I had not heard him enter.</p> - -<p>“Have you your consciousness?” said he.</p> - -<p>I answered “Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I am no doctor,” said he, “and don’t know what I am to do now that your -senses have come to you.”</p> - -<p>“I should like something to drink,” said I.</p> - -<p>“You shall have it,” he answered, “give the drink a name? -Brandy-and-water?”</p> - -<p>“Anything,” I exclaimed. “I am very thirsty.”</p> - -<p>“Can you eat?”</p> - -<p>“I believe I shall be able to eat,” I replied, “when I have drunk.”</p> - -<p>The head disappeared. Memory now returned. I exactly recollected all -that had befallen me down to the moment when, as I have already said, I -fancied I beheld the faint color of the dawn lifting like smoke off the -black edge of the sea. I gathered by the light in the cabin that it was -morning and not yet noon, and conceiving that I might have been taken -out of the water some half-hour after I had lost consciousness, I -calculated that I had been insensible for nearly five hours. This scared -me. A man does not like to feel that he has been as dead to all intents -and purposes as a corpse for five hours, not sleeping, but mindless and, -for all he knows, soulless.</p> - -<p>I now heard a voice. “Give me the glass, Jim.” The man whose head had -before appeared showed his face again over the edge of the hammock. -“Drink this,” said he, holding up a glass of brandy-and-water.</p> - -<p>I eagerly made to seize the glass, but could not lift my head, nor even -advance my hands the required distance.</p> - -<p>“Go and bring me the low stool out of my cabin, and bear a hand,” said -the man, and a minute later he rose till his head was stooping under the -upper deck. He was now able to command the hammock in which I lay, and -lifting my head with his arm he put the tumbler to my lips, and I drank -with feverish<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span> greediness. He then put a plate of sandwiches formed of -white loaf bread and thin slices of beef upon the blankets and bade me -eat. This I contrived to do unaided. While I ate he dismounted from the -stool, gave certain instructions which I did not catch to his companion -who, as he did not reach to the height at which the hammock swung, I was -unable to see, and then came to the edge of the hammock, and stood -viewing me while I slowly munched.</p> - -<p>I gazed at him intently and sometimes I thought I had seen his face -before, and sometimes I believed that he was a perfect stranger to me. -He had dark eyes and dark shaggy eyebrows, was smooth shaven and looked -about thirty-four years of age, but his fur cap was concealing wear; the -hair of it mingled with his own hair and fringed his brow, contracting -what had else been visible of the forehead, and it was only when the -hammock swung to a heavier roll than usual that I caught a sight of the -whole of his face. The brandy-and-water did me a great deal of good. It -made me feel as if I could talk.</p> - -<p>“You’re beginning to look somewhat lifelike now,” said he; “Can you bear -being questioned?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, and to ask questions.”</p> - -<p>These words I pronounced with some strength of voice.</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ll forgive me for beginning?” said he, gazing at me fixedly -and very gravely. “I want to know what sort of a man I’ve picked up. -Were you ever hanged?”</p> - -<p>The sandwich which I was about to bring to my mouth was arrested midway, -as though my arm had been withered.</p> - -<p>“Half-hanged call it,” said he, continuing to eye me sternly, and yet -with a singular expression of curiosity too. “Gibbeted, I mean—triced -up—cut down, and then suffered to cut stick on its being discovered -that you weren’t choked?”</p> - -<p>Weak as I was I turned of a deep red; I felt the blood hot and tingling -in my cheeks.</p> - -<p>“You’ll not ask me that question when I have my strength,” said I.</p> - -<p>“You have been delirious, and nearly all your intelligible talk has been -about a gibbet and hanging in chains.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!” said I.</p> - -<p>“I had learnt off Margate that a man had been hanged at Deal.”</p> - -<p>I said “Yes,” and went on eating the sandwich I held.</p> - -<p>“We picked you up off Ramsgate, floating on an oar belonging to a boat -of one of His Majesty’s ships. Now, should I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> found anything -suspicious in that? Not at all. Your dress told me you were not a navy -Johnny. There was a story, and I was willing to wait and hear it; but -when, being housed in this hammock, you turned to and jawed about a -gibbet and about hanging in irons; when I’d listen to you singing out -for help to unhook the body, to stand clear of the lightning—‘Now is -your time,’ you’d sing out; ‘by the legs and up with it,’ ‘<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis for a -poor mother’s sake,’ a poor mother’s sake—I say, when I’d stand by -hearkening to what the great dramatist would call the perilous stuff -which your soul or your conscience, or whatever it might have been that -was working in you, was throwing up as water is thrown up by a ship’s -pump, why——”</p> - -<p>The color of temper had left my face. I eyed him, slightly smiling, -munching my sandwich quietly.</p> - -<p>“Captain Michael Greaves,” said I, “I am no half-hanged man.”</p> - -<p>On hearing the name I gave him he started violently; then, catching hold -of the edge of the hammock, so tilted it as to nearly capsize me, while -he thrust his face close to mine.</p> - -<p>“What was that you said?” cried he.</p> - -<p>“I am no hanged man.”</p> - -<p>“You pronounced my name,” he cried, continuing to hold by the hammock -and swinging with it as the ship rolled.</p> - -<p>“I know your name,” I replied.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever sailed with me?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“How does it happen that you know me?”</p> - -<p>“Is not this a brig called the <i>Black Watch</i>,” said I, “and are not you, -Captain Michael Greaves, in command of her?”</p> - -<p>“Chaw! I see how it is,” he exclaimed, the wonder going out of his face -while he let go of my hammock. “You have had what they call lucid -intervals, during which you have picked up my name and the name of my -vessel—though who the deuce has visited you saving me and the lad? and -neither of us, I swear, has ever once found you conscious until just -now.”</p> - -<p>“Will you give me some more brandy-and-water? I am still very thirsty. A -second draught may enable me to converse. I feel very weak, but I do not -think I am as weak as I was a little while ago;” and I lifted my head to -test my strength, and found that I was able to look over the edge of the -hammock.</p> - -<p>In doing this I got a view of Captain Michael Greaves’ figure. He was a -square, tall, well-built man—as tall as I, but more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> nobly framed; his -face, his shape, his air expressed great decision and resolution of -character. He wore a pea-coat that fell to his knees, and this coat and -a pair of immense sea-boots and a fur cap formed his visible apparel. He -stepped out of the berth, and in a minute after returned with a glass of -brandy-and-water. This I took down almost as greedily as I had emptied -the contents of the first glass. I thanked him, handed him the tumbler, -and said:</p> - -<p>“You were chief mate of a ship called the <i>Raja</i>?”</p> - -<p>“That is so.”</p> - -<p>“In the month of November, 1809, you were lying in Table Bay?”</p> - -<p>He reflected, and then repeated:</p> - -<p>“That is so.”</p> - -<p>“There was a ship,” I continued, “called the <i>Rainbow</i>, that lay astern -of you by some ten ships’-lengths.”</p> - -<p>He gazed at me very earnestly, and looked as though he guessed what was -coming.</p> - -<p>“One morning,” said I, “a boat put off from the <i>Raja</i>. She hoisted sail -and went away toward Cape Town. A burst of wind came down the mountain -and capsized her, whereupon a boat belonging to the <i>Rainbow</i> made for -the drowning people, picked them up, and put them aboard their own -ship.”</p> - -<p>He thrust his arm into the hammock and grasped my hand.</p> - -<p>“You are Mr. Fielding. You were the second mate of the <i>Rainbow</i>. You it -was who saved my life and the lives of the others. Strange that it -should fall to my lot to save yours; and for me to suppose that you had -been hanged! By Isten! but this is a little world. It is not astonishing -that I should not have known you. You are something changed in the face; -likewise you have been very nearly drowned. We shall be able to find out -how many hours you lay washing about in the Channel. And add to this a -very long spell of emaciating insensibility.”</p> - -<p>“I was never hanged,” said I.</p> - -<p>“No, no,” he said, “but all your babble was about gibbets and chains.”</p> - -<p>“If it had not been for a gibbet and a man dangling from it in chains, -in all human probability I should not now be here. I was delayed by an -object of horrible misery, and the period of my humane loitering tallied -to a second with the movements of a press-gang, or I should be on board -my own ship, the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> of which vessel I am mate. Where -will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> she be now?” I considered awhile. “Say she got under weigh at two -o’clock this morning—how is the wind, Captain Greaves?”</p> - -<p>“It blows fresh, and is dead foul for the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> if she be -inward bound.”</p> - -<p>“Then,” said I, “she may have brought up in the Downs again. I hope she -has. I may be able to rejoin her before the wind shifts. In what part of -the Channel are you?”</p> - -<p>“Out of it, clear of the Scillies.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Out of the Channel?</i>” I cried. “Do you sail by witchcraft? What time -is it, pray?”</p> - -<p>“A few minutes after eleven.”</p> - -<p>“You were off Margate this morning at daybreak,” said I, “and now, at a -few minutes after eleven o’clock, you are out of the Channel?”</p> - -<p>“I was off Margate three days ago at daybreak,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“Have I been insensible three days? It is news to strike the breath out -of a man. Three days! Of course the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> has arrived in -the Thames and—— Out of the Channel, do you say? How am I to get -ashore?”</p> - -<p>“We will talk about that presently.”</p> - -<p>I lay speechless, with my eyes fastened upon the beam above the hammock.</p> - -<p>“You have talked enough,” said Captain Greaves; “yet there is one -question I should like to ask, if you have breath enough to answer it -with: How came you to hear that this brig’s name is the <i>Black Watch</i>?”</p> - -<p>“I read of the brig in an old newspaper that I was hunting over for news -at my uncle’s house last evening.”</p> - -<p>“Not last evening,” said he, smiling.</p> - -<p>“And have I been three days unconscious?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose my name was given as the commander of this brig?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; fitting out for a privateering cruise.”</p> - -<p>“Did the newspaper say so?”</p> - -<p>“I think it did.”</p> - -<p>“There is no lie like the newspaper lie,” said he. “I have no doubt that -Ananias conducted a provincial journal somewhere in those parts where he -was struck dead. But we have talked enough. Get now some sleep, if you -can. A dish of soup shall be got ready for you by and by, and there is -some very fine old madeira aboard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He went out, but returned to put a stick into my hammock, bidding me -knock on the bulkhead should I need anything, as the lad, Jimmy Vinten, -would be in and out of the cabin all day, and would hear me if he -(Greaves) did not. I lay lost in thought, for I was not so weak but that -I was able to think with energy, even passion, though I was without the -power to continue much longer in conversation with Captain Greaves. I -was mightily shocked and scared to think that I had been insensible for -three days, babbling of gibbets and hanged men, and the angels know what -besides; yet why I should have been shocked and scared I can’t imagine, -unless it was that I awoke to the knowledge of my past condition in a -very low, weak, miserable, nervous state. Here was I clear of the -Channel in an outward-bound brig, whose destination I had yet to learn, -making another voyage ere the long one I was fresh from could be said, -so far as I was concerned at all events, to be over. But this was not a -consideration to trouble me greatly, First of all, my life had been -miraculously preserved, and for that I clasped my hands and whispered -thanks. Next, the brig was bound to speedily fall in with some ship -heading for England, and I might be sure that Greaves would take the -first opportunity that offered to tranship me. It was very important to -me that I should get to England quickly. There was a balance of about a -hundred and fifty pounds due to me for wages, and all my -possessions—trifling enough, indeed—were in my cabin aboard the <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i>. If my uncle did not procure me command next voyage -Spalding would take me as his mate; but I must make haste to report -myself, for I might count upon old Tom Martin telling Captain Round that -I had been taken by a press-gang, and then of course all England would -have heard, or in time would hear, that a press-boat, with pressed men -aboard, had been run down in the Downs with loss of most of her people, -as I did not doubt, and Spalding, believing me drowned, would appoint -another in my place as mate.</p> - -<p>Well, in this way ran my thoughts, and then I fell asleep, and when I -awoke the afternoon was far advanced, as I saw by the color of the light -upon the scuttle. I grasped the stick that lay in my hammock, and was -rejoiced to find that the long spell of deep refreshing slumber had -returned me much of my strength. I beat upon the bulkhead with the -stick, and in two or three moments a voice, proceeding from somebody -standing near the hammock, asked me what I wanted.</p> - -<p>It was a youth of about seventeen years of age, lean, knock-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span>kneed, -sandy, and freckled, and of a “moony” expression of countenance that -plainly said “lodgings to let.” I never saw a more expressionless face. -It made you think of a wall-eyed dab—of the flattest of flat fish. Yet -what was wanting in mind seemed to be supplied in muscle. In fact he had -the hand of a giant, and his whole conformation suggested sinew gnarled, -twisted, and tautly screwed into human shape.</p> - -<p>“I am awake. You can see that,” said I.</p> - -<p>“I see that,” answered the youth.</p> - -<p>“I am hungry and thirsty, and wish for something to eat and something to -drink.”</p> - -<p>“There’s bin pork and madeery ready agin your arousin’. Shall I get -’em?” said the youth.</p> - -<p>I was astonished to hear him speak of pork, but nevertheless made -answer, “If you please.”</p> - -<p>He returned with a tray and handed up to me a basin of excellent broth -and a slice of bread, a wineglass, and a small decanter of madeira. I -looked at the broth and then looked at the youth and said, “Do you call -this pork?”</p> - -<p>He upturned his flat face and gazed at me vacantly.</p> - -<p>“Where is the pork?” said I.</p> - -<p>“There aint none, master.”</p> - -<p>“Poor idiot!” I thought to myself. I now discovered that I could sit up; -so I sat up and ate and drank. The madeira was a noble wine; the like of -it I have never since tasted. That meal, coming on top of my long sleep, -went far to make a new man of me, and I felt as though I should be able -to dress myself and go on deck, but on throwing my legs over the edge of -the hammock I discovered that I was not quite so strong as I had -imagined; I trembled considerably, and I was unable to hold my back -straight; so I lay down again, well satisfied with my progress, and very -sure I should have strength to rise in the morning.</p> - -<p>The youth stayed in the berth while I ate and drank, and I asked him -some questions.</p> - -<p>“Where is Captain Greaves?”</p> - -<p>“On deck, master. We have been chased, but aint we dropping her nicely, -though! Ah! She’s <i>that</i> size on the sea now,” said he, holding up his -hand, “and at two o’clock we could count her guns.”</p> - -<p>“This is a fast brig then?”</p> - -<p>“She’s all legs, master.”</p> - -<p>“What are you?”</p> - -<p>“I’m the capt’n’s servant and cabin boy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“What’s the name of your mate?”</p> - -<p>“Yawcob Van Laar.”</p> - -<p>“A Dutchman?” said I; and then I remembered having read in the paper -that this brig had been purchased or chartered by a Dutch merchant of -Amsterdam, so that it was likely enough she would carry some Dutch folk -among her crew. “Are you all Dutch?”</p> - -<p>“No, master. There be Wirtz, Galen, Hals, and Bol; them four, they be -Dutch. And there be Friend, Street, Meehan, Travers, Teach, Call, and -me; Irish and English, master.”</p> - -<p>I was struck by the fellow’s memory. His face made no promise of that -faculty.</p> - -<p>“Eleven men,” said I aloud, but thinking rather than talking; “and a -mate and a captain, thirteen; and the ship’s burden, if I recollect -aright, falls short by a trifle of three hundred tons. Her Dutch owner -appears to have manned her frugally for such times as these. Most -assuredly,” said I, still thinking aloud, gazing at the flat face of the -youth who was looking up at me with a slightly gaping mouth, “the <i>Black -Watch</i> is no privateer. Where are you bound to?”</p> - -<p>“Dunno, master.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know! But when you shipped you shipped for a destination, -didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I shipped for that there cabin,” said the youth, pointing backward over -his shoulder with an immense thumb.</p> - -<p>I finished the wine, handed down the decanter and bowl, and asked the -youth to procure me a pipe of tobacco. This he did, and I lay smoking -and musing upon the object of the voyage of the <i>Black Watch</i>. The -vessel was being thrashed through the water. It was blowing fresh, and -she hummed in every plank as she swept through the sea. The foam roared -like a cataract past the scuttle, but her heel was moderate; the wind -was evidently abaft the beam, the sea was deep and regular in its swing, -and the heave and hurl of the brig as rhythmic in pulse as the melody of -a waltz.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> -<small>I VIEW THE BRIG.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Presently</span> it fell dark; but hardly had the last of the red, wet light -faded off the scuttle when the youth Jim re-entered the berth and -lighted the coffee-pot-shaped lamp, and as he went out Captain Greaves -came in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span></p> - -<p>He asked me how I felt. I told him that I was almost well, that I hoped -to be quite well by the morning, in which case I would beg him to -transfer me to the first homeward bound craft that passed, though she -should be no bigger than a ship’s longboat. He viewed me, I thought, -somewhat strangely, smiled slightly, was silent long enough to render -silence somewhat significant, and then said: “A beast of a frigate -showing no colors has kept me anxious this afternoon. We have run her -hull down, but she has only just thought proper to shift her helm. -Possibly an Englishman who took us for a Yankee.” Saying this he pulled -off his fur cap and exhibited a fine head with a quantity of thick, -black hair curling upon it; he next produced and filled a pipe of -tobacco and, removing his pea-coat, he lighted his pipe at the lamp and -seated himself on the locker in the attitude of a seaman who intends to -enjoy a yarn and a smoke.</p> - -<p>I was strong enough to hold my head over the edge of the hammock; thus -we kept each other in view.</p> - -<p>“D’ye feel able to talk, Mr. Fielding?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Very able, indeed,” I answered. “Your madeira has made a new man of -me.”</p> - -<p>“How happened it,” said he, “that you should be washing about on the oar -of a man-of-war’s boat off Ramsgate, the other morning, when we fell in -with you?”</p> - -<p>I begged him to put a pinch of tobacco into the bowl of my pipe and to -hold the lamp to me, and when I had lighted my pipe and he had resumed -his seat I began my story; and I told him everything that had befallen -me from the time of my arrival in the Downs in the ship <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i> down to the hour when I found myself afloat on an oar, -heading a straight course east by north with the stream of the tide. He -listened with earnest attention, smoking very hard at some parts of my -narrative, and emitting several dense clouds, which almost obscured him -when I told him how the lightning had liberated the corpse and how, as -it might seem, the fiery hand of God himself had delivered the body of -the malefactor to the weeping, praying mother.</p> - -<p>“It was an evil moment for me when I fell in with that gibbet,” said I. -“I had not the heart to leave the wretched mother, though my first -instinct on catching sight of her was to run for my life. But I thank -God for my wonderful preservation; I thank Him first and you next, -Captain Greaves.”</p> - -<p>“No more of that. We’re quits.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“It is clear that you keep a bright lookout aboard this brig.”</p> - -<p>“Had your life depended upon the eyes of my men, the perishable part of -you would have been by this time concocted into cod and crab. I’ll -introduce you to the individual to whom you owe your life.”</p> - -<p>He opened the door of the cabin and putting a silver whistle to his lips -blew, and in a moment a fine retriever bounded in.</p> - -<p>“Galloon, Mr. Fielding; Mr. Fielding, Galloon.”</p> - -<p>The dog wagged his tail and looked up at me.</p> - -<p>“Did he go overboard after me?” said I.</p> - -<p>“You shall hear. It was break of day, the water quiet, the brig under -all plain sail, the speed some five knots. I was walking the -quarter-deck, and there was a man on the forecastle keeping a lookout. -Suddenly that chap Galloon there”—here the “chap” wagged his tail and -looked up at me again as though perfectly sensible that we were talking -about him—“sprang on to the taffrail and barked loudly. I ran aft and -looked over, but not having a dog’s eye saw nothing. ‘What is it, -Galloon?’ said I. He barked again, and then with a short but most -piercing and lamentable howl he sprang overboard. I love that dog as I -love the light of day, Mr. Fielding, much better than I love dollars, -and better than I love many ladies with whom I am acquainted. The brig -was brought to the wind, a boat lowered, and the people found Galloon -with his teeth in the jacket of a man who was laying over an oar.”</p> - -<p>“The noble fellow!” said I, looking down at the dog.</p> - -<p>Greaves picked him up and put his head over the edge of the hammock, and -I kissed the creature’s nose, receiving in return a caressing lick of -the tongue that swept my face.</p> - -<p>“Why do you call him Galloon?” said I.</p> - -<p>“I have been dreaming of galleons all my life,” he answered.</p> - -<p>He relighted his pipe and resumed his seat, and the dog lay at his feet, -gazing up at me.</p> - -<p>“I took the liberty,” said I, “of asking the youth called Jimmy to tell -me what port this brig was bound to. He answered that he did not know.”</p> - -<p>“He does not know,” said Captain Greaves. “No man on board the <i>Black -Watch</i>, saving myself, knows where we are bound to.”</p> - -<p>“I recollect reading in that newspaper paragraph I have spoken of that -the brig is owned by a merchant of Amsterdam.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> I recollect this the -better because it led me to ask my uncle, Captain Round, whether a -British letter of marque would be issued to a foreigner despite his -sending his ship a-privateering under English colors.”</p> - -<p>“We are not a letter of marque. It is perfectly true that this brig is -owned by an Amsterdam merchant. His name is, Bartholomew Tulp, and he is -my stepfather.”</p> - -<p>I asked no more questions. I would not seem curious, though there was -something in Captain Greaves’ reserve, and something in the enigmatic -character of this ocean errand, which made me very thirsty to hear all -that he might be willing to tell. Never had I heard of a ship manned by -a crew who knew not whither they were going. I speak of the merchant -service. As to the Royal Navy, the obligation of sealed orders must -always exist; but when a man enters as a sailor aboard a merchantman, -the first and most natural inquiry he wishes his captain to answer is, -“Where are you bound to?”</p> - -<p>Greaves sat watching me, as did his dog. The captain smoked, with a -countenance of abstraction and an air of deep musing, whilst he lightly -stroked his dog’s back with his foot.</p> - -<p>“My mate is a devil of a fool!” he exclaimed, breaking the silence that -had lasted some minutes. “He is a Dutchman, and his name is Van Laar. He -speaks English very well, but he is no sailor. The wind headed us after -leaving Amsterdam, and, having my doubts of Van Laar, I told him to put -the brig about, and she missed stays in his hands. Worse—when she was -in irons, he did not know what to do with her. I abominate the rogue who -misses stays; but can villainy in a sailor go much further than not -knowing what to do when a ship has missed stays?”</p> - -<p>“I have met,” said I, “with some fine seamen among Dutchmen.”</p> - -<p>“Van Laar is not one of them,” he answered. “Van Laar is no more to be -trusted with a ship than he is with a bottle of hollands. He does not -scruple to own that he hates the English, and I do not like to sail in -company with a man who hates my countrymen. I took him on Mynheer Tulp’s -recommendation. I was opposed to shipping a Dutchman in the capacity of -mate, but I could not very well object to a man as a Dutchman,” said he, -laughing, “to Mynheer Tulp.”</p> - -<p>“Does the mate know where the brig is bound to?” I inquired.</p> - -<p>“No.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“How very extraordinary!”</p> - -<p>He looked at me gravely; his face then relaxed. Finding his pipe out, he -arose, put on his coat and cap, and said:</p> - -<p>“I will leave you for the night. What do you fancy for your -supper—what, I mean, that you, as a sailor, will suppose my brig’s -larder can supply?”</p> - -<p>I answered that a basin of broth with a glass of brandy-and-water would -make me an abundant supper.</p> - -<p>“But before you leave me,” said I, “will you tell me where my clothes -are? I must hope to be transhipped to-morrow, and to step ashore with -nothing on but a blanket——”</p> - -<p>“Your clothes have been dried and are in the cabin,” said he. “When -Jimmy brings your supper ask him for your clothes. And now good-night, -and pleasant dreams to you, Mr. Fielding, when it shall please you to -fall asleep.”</p> - -<p>The dog sprang through the door, and I lay with my eyes fixed upon the -flame of the lamp, diverting myself with inventing schemes of a voyage, -one of which should fit this expedition of the <i>Black Watch</i>.</p> - -<p>Early next morning I awoke after a sound, refreshing night of rest, and, -dropping out of my hammock, found that I was pretty nigh as hearty as -ever I had been in my life. Greatly rejoiced by this discovery, I -attired myself in my clothes, which had been thoroughly dried. A razor, -a brush, and one or two other conveniences were in the cabin. I was -struck by Greaves’ kindness. I seemed to find in it something more than -an expression of charitable attention and grateful memory. Now being -dressed, and now testing myself on my legs, and finding all ship-shape -aboard, from the loftiest flying pennant of hair down to the soles of my -shoes, I opened the door of the berth and stood awhile looking in upon -the cabin. It was a small snug sea-interior, well lighted, and breezy -just now with the cordial gushing of wind down the companion-hatch. A -table and a few seats comprised the furniture; those things, and a lamp, -and a stand of small-arms, and some cutlasses.</p> - -<p>While I viewed this interior I heard Greaves’ voice in a cabin on the -starboard side forward.</p> - -<p>“Not coffee, but cocoa!” on which another voice, which I recognized as -the lad Jimmy’s, shouted out, to the accompaniment of the howling of a -dog:</p> - -<p>“Not coffee, but cocoa!”</p> - -<p>“Again,” said the voice of Captain Greaves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Not coffee, but cocoa,” yelled the lad, and again the dog delivered a -long howl.</p> - -<p>“For the third time, if you please.”</p> - -<p>“Not coffee, but cocoa!” shrieked the lad, and the accompanying howl of -the dog rose to the key in which the boy pitched his voice, as though in -excessive sympathy with the shouter.</p> - -<p>A door forward was then opened, and the youth Jimmy came out. He stopped -on seeing me, and cried out, “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Ere’s Mr. Fielding,” and then went on -deck. Galloon bounded up to me, and while I caressed him Greaves, with -his shirt sleeves turned up, and holding a hair-brush, looked out of his -door, saw me, approached, and shook me heartily by the hand. I answered -a few kind questions, and asked if there was anything in sight from the -deck.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said he, “but nothing to be of any use to you. You can feel the -heave. It blows fresh.”</p> - -<p>“It is a very buoyant heave,” said I; “I should imagine you are at sea -with a swept hold.”</p> - -<p>He continued to brush his hair.</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, is your lad Jimmy an idiot?”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. Perhaps I know why you ask. You heard me and Galloon giving -him a lesson just now. Jimmy Vinten is no idiot, but he wants a faculty, -and Galloon and I are endeavoring to create it. He cannot distinguish -dishes. He will put a bit of beef on the table and call it pudding. -He’ll knock on my door and sing out, ‘The pork’s sarved,’ when he means -pease soup. His memory is remarkable in other ways. Wait a minute, and -we’ll go on deck together.”</p> - -<p>I sat upon a locker to talk to Galloon, to kiss the beast’s cold snout, -and with his paw in my hand, while his tail swayed like the naked mast -of an oysterman in a quick sea, I thanked him with many loving words for -having saved my life. His eye languished up at me. Oh! if ever there was -an expression of serene and heartfelt satisfaction in the eye of a dog -that for some noble action is being thanked with caresses, it shone in -Galloon’s eyes while he seemed to listen to me. After a few minutes -Greaves joined me, equipped in his pea coat, fur cap, and top boots—a -massive privateering figure of a man, handsome, determined of gaze, yet -with something of softness in his looks, and intimations of gentleness -in the motions of his lips and in his occasional smile. He led the way -up the companion steps, and I stood upon the deck of the brig looking -about me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span></p> - -<p>Seasoned as I was to the life which the ocean puts into the shipwright’s -plank, I should not have suspected, from the motion of the vessel only, -that so considerable a sea was running. The wind was two or three points -abaft the beam; it was blowing half a gale—a clear gale. The clouds -were flying in bales and rags of wool toward the pouring southern verge -of the ocean; the dark blue brine, sparkling with the flying eastern -sunshine, swelled in hills to the brig’s counter, and the foam swept in -sheets backward from each rushing head. The brig was under whole -topsails and a topgallant sail, but abreast, to leeward, was another -brig heading north, stripped to a single band of main topsail and a -double-reefed forecourse—ay, Jack, the square foresail and mainsail in -my time carried two and sometimes three reefs—and the beat of the head -seas obscured her in frequent snowstorms as she struggled wildly aslant -amid the dark blue billows. <i>We</i> were roaring through the water at ten -or eleven knots. To every stoop of the bows the foam rose boiling above -the catheads, with a mighty, thunderous bursting away of the parted seas -on either hand. Ships in those times made a great noise when they went -through the water. They were all bow and beam, and anything that was -over took the form of stern, immensely square, and as clamorous when in -motion as any other part of the ship. The <i>Black Watch</i> would be laughed -at as a cask in these days, but as vessels then went she was a clipper. -Her lines were tolerably fine at the entry; then her bulk rolled -whale-like aft, with the copper showing two feet above the water-line, -and then she narrowed into a clipper run to the deadwood and the -sternpost. Her sheer forward gave her a bold bow. I watched her for a -few minutes as she rolled over the seas—and I was sensible that Captain -Greaves’ eye was upon me as I watched—and I thought her a very smart, -handsome, powerful vessel, the sort of ship a freebooter would instantly -fall in love with, and furiously determine to possess himself of, yea, -though a pennant shook at her masthead.</p> - -<p>She was armed on the forecastle with a long brass eighteen-pounder, -pivoted; on the main deck with four nine-pound carronades, two of a -side; and aft with a second long brass eighteen-pounder, likewise -pivoted. She carried three boats—one stowed in another abaft the -caboose, and a big boat chocked and lashed abreast of the other two -boats. Her decks were very white; the brass pieces flashed, and there -was a sparkle of glass over the cabin, and a frosty brilliancy of brine -all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> about her planks as you see in white sand with sunshine upon it. -Her sails soared square with a great hoist of topsail, and the cloths -might have been stitched for a man-of-war, so perfect was the sit and -spread of the heads, the fit of the clews to the yardarms.</p> - -<p>I took notice of the men; half the crew were on deck cleaning -paint-work, coiling down, differently occupied. They were big, burly -fellows for the most part, variously attired, and as I watched, one of -them, a vast, square, carrotty man, called out to another in a deep, -roaring voice; I did not know Dutch, but what that man said sounded very -much like Dutch, and the other man answered him in the same tongue.</p> - -<p>And now, having looked at the sea, and at the brig, and at such of the -crew as were visible forward, I directed my eyes at the figure of an -individual who was walking to and fro in the gangway. He was the mate, -Van Laar; as burly as the burliest of the figures forward, his eyes -small, black, and fierce, his face a mass of flesh, in the midst of -which was set an aquiline nose, whose outline in profile was hidden by -the swell of the cheek as you lose sight of the line of a ship’s sail -past some knoll of brine. He had not the least appearance of a sailor: -was not even dressed as a sailor; looked as though he had just arrived -out of the country in a cart to buy or sell eggs and butter in Amsterdam -market.</p> - -<p>I observed that his behavior grew uneasy while I gazed about me, Greaves -at my side receiving from me from moment to moment with a countenance of -complacency some morsel of appreciative criticism. That Dutch mate, Van -Laar, I say grew uneasy. He darted glances of suspicion at me. I never -would have supposed that any human eyes set in so much fat should have -possessed the monkey-like nimbleness of that man’s. At the same time I -noticed that he seemed to pull himself together after the captain had -stepped on deck. He shook the laziness out of his step, directed -frequent looks aloft, eyed the men as though to make sure there was no -skulking, and in several ways discovered a little life. But his heart -was not in it; his business was not <i>here</i>.</p> - -<p>The captain and I paced the deck. Even as we started to walk, the -boatswain, one of the burliest of the Dutchmen, piped the hands to -breakfast. The silver notes rang cheerily through the little ship and -wonderfully heightened to the fancy the airy, saucy, free-born look of -the timber witch as she thundered along with foam to her figure-head; -her white pinions<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> beat time to the organ melodies of the ocean wind; -smoke hospitably blew from the chimney of her little caboose; Dutch and -English sailors entered and departed from that sea kitchen, carrying -cans of steaming tea with them into their forecastle; there was a -pleasant noise of the chuckling of hens; the sun shone brightly among -the wool-white clouds; splendid was the spacious scene of sea rolling in -sparkling deeply-blue heights, and every surge, as it ran, magnificently -draped itself in a flashing veil of froth.</p> - -<p>“I like your little ship, Captain Greaves,” said I.</p> - -<p>“I have been watching you, and I see that you like her,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“You carry two formidable pieces in those brass guns.”</p> - -<p>“We may pick up something worth defending.”</p> - -<p>He then asked me how long I had been at sea, and put many questions -which at the time of his asking them struck me as entirely -conversational: that is to say, he led me to talk about myself, and the -impression produced was that we chatted as a couple of men would who -talked to kill time; but, afterward, in thinking of this conversation, I -found that it had been adroitly, but absolutely inquisitional—on his -part. In fact, I not only related the simple story of my career; I -acquainted him with other matters, such as my attainments as a -navigator, my ignorance as a linguist, my qualifications as a -seaman—and all, forsooth, as though, instead of killing the time till -breakfast with idle chat, I was very earnestly submitting my claims to -him for some post aboard his brig.</p> - -<p>While we walked and talked I remarked that he kept the Dutch mate in the -corner of his eye, but he never addressed him. Once he found the brig -half a point, perhaps more than half a point, off her course. He spoke -strongly and sternly to the man at the helm, but never a word did he say -to Van Laar, whom to be sure he should have reprimanded for not conning -the brig. I thought this silence very significant.</p> - -<p>Presently the lad Jimmy—I called him a lad; his age was about -seventeen—this lad came out of the caboose with the cabin breakfast. -His knock-kneed legs seemed to have been created for the carriage of a -tray full of crockery and eatables along a sharply heaving deck. Galloon -trotted out of the caboose at the youth’s heels, and they descended into -the cabin together. Presently Jimmy arrived to announce breakfast, and -with him was Galloon.</p> - -<p>“What is there for breakfast?” inquired Captain Greaves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span></p> - -<p>“There’s sausage and ’am and tea,” answered the lad.</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the sort,” said Greaves. “There is no sausage aboard this -ship, and I ordered neither ‘<span class="lftspc">’</span>am,’ as you call it, nor tea. Say eggs and -bacon and coffee.”</p> - -<p>The lad put himself in the position of a soldier at attention.</p> - -<p>“Say eggs and bacon and coffee,” he shouted; and the dog howled in -company with the youth.</p> - -<p>“Again, if you please.”</p> - -<p>“Say eggs and bacon and coffee,” roared the lad; and the dog increased -its volume of howl as though to encourage the youth to support this -trial.</p> - -<p>“A third time, if you please.”</p> - -<p>The dog began before the lad and howled horribly while Jimmy yelled, -“Say eggs and bacon and coffee.”</p> - -<p>The four of us then entered the cabin, where I found an excellent -breakfast prepared. Galloon sat upon a chair opposite me, and he was -waited upon by Jimmy as the captain and I were.</p> - -<p>“You are treating me very hospitably, Captain Greaves,” said I.</p> - -<p>“I am happy to have found a companion,” he answered. “After Van -Laar”—he stopped with a look at the skylight—“Dern Mynheer Tulp, -though he <i>is</i> my step-father and the one merchant adventurer in this -undertaking. How sullen and obstinate is the Dutch intellect! Yet who -but Dutchmen could have reclaimed a bog from the sea, dried it, settled -it, and flourished on it?”</p> - -<p>“I hope this weather will soon moderate,” said I. “I am anxious to get -to England.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you are. And so shall I be anxious presently.”</p> - -<p>“Where do you touch, captain?”</p> - -<p>“Nowhere. An empty ship has plenty of stowage room, and there are -provisions enough aboard to last such a crew as my people number as long -a time as would make two or three of Anson’s voyages.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” thought I with a short laugh, with the velocity of thought -founding a fancy of his errand upon his mention of the name of Anson, -and upon my recollection of his saying that he had been all his life -dreaming of galleons.</p> - -<p>“What amuses you?” said he.</p> - -<p>“Galloon there,” said I, laughing again and looking at the dog.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> -<small>A STRANGE STORY.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> we had breakfasted Captain Greaves said: “Will you smoke a pipe -with me in my cabin?”</p> - -<p>“With much pleasure,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“First, let me go on deck,” said he, “to take a look around. It is Yan -Bol’s watch and I cannot trust Van Laar to see that the deck is relieved -even when it is his own turn to come below. Bol is my carpenter, bo’sun, -and sailmaker. He stands a watch; but that sort of men who live in the -forecastle and eat and drink with the sailors are seldom useful on the -quarter-deck. Yet here am I talking gravely on such matters to a man who -knows more about the sea than I do.”</p> - -<p>With that he stepped on deck. I kept my chair and talked with Galloon -until Greaves returned. He then conducted me to his cabin. It was a -large cabin, at least three times the size of the berth I had occupied -during the night. It was on the starboard quarter, well lighted and -cozily furnished. Here was to be felt at its fullest the heave of the -brig as she swept pitching over the high seas. Whenever she stooped her -stern the roaring waters outside foamed about our ears. The kick of the -rudder thrilled in small shocks through this part of the fabric, and you -heard the hard grind of the straining wheel ropes in their leading -blocks as the steersman put his helm up or down.</p> - -<p>Captain Greaves took a canister of tobacco from a shelf and handed me a -pipe. We filled and smoked. He bade me lay upon a locker and himself sat -in his sleeping shelf or bunk, which, being without a top and standing -at the height of a knee from the deck, provided a comfortable seat. We -discoursed awhile on divers matters relating to the profession of the -sea. He asked me to examine his quadrant, his chronometer (which he said -was the work of the maker who had manufactured the watch that Captain -Cook had taken with him on his last voyage), his charts, of which he had -about a score in a canvas bag, and certain volumes on navigation. These -things I examined with considerable professional interest. While I -looked his eye was never off me. He appeared to be deeply ruminating, -and he smoked with an odd motion of his jaw as though he talked to -himself. When I was once more seated upon the locker he said:</p> - -<p>“I shall cease to call you mister. What need is there for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> formality -between two men who have saved each other’s life?”</p> - -<p>“No need whatever.”</p> - -<p>“Fielding,” said he, looking and speaking very gravely, “you have -greatly occupied my thoughts since you returned to consciousness -yesterday, and since I discovered that you were not a half-hanged pirate -or smuggler, but a gentleman and an English sailor after my own heart. I -mean to tell you a very curious story, and when I have told you that -story I intend to make a proposal to you. You shall hear what errand -this brig is bound on. You shall learn to what part of the world I am -carrying her, and I believe you will say that you have never heard of a -more romantic nor of a more promising undertaking.”</p> - -<p>He opened the door of his berth and looked out. Van Laar was seated at -the table, eating his breakfast. Greaves closed the door and seated -himself on his bed.</p> - -<p>“Last year,” said he, “I was in command of a small vessel named the -<i>Hero</i>. It matters not how it happened that I came to be at the -Philippines. There I took in a small lading for Guayaquil. When about -sixty leagues to the south’ard of the Galapagos Islands we made land, -and hove into view an island of which no mention was made in any of the -charts of those seas which I possessed. There was nothing in <i>that</i>. -There is much land yet to be discovered in that ocean. I have no faith -in any of the charts of the Western American seaboard, and trust to -nothing but a good lookout. We hove this island into view, and I steered -for it with a leadsman in the chains on either hand. I hoped to be of -some humble service to the navigator by obtaining the correct bearings -of the island; but I had no mind to delay my voyage by sounding, saving -only for the security of my own ship.</p> - -<p>“We sighted the island soon after sunrise, and at noon were abreast of -it. It was a very remarkable heap of rock, much after the pattern of the -Galapagos, gloomy with black lava, and the land consisted of masses of -broken lava, compacted into cliffs and small conical hills, that -reminded me somewhat of the Island of Ascension. I examined it very -carefully with a telescope and beheld trees and vegetation in one place, -but no signs of human life—no signs of any sort of life, if it were not -for a number of turtle or tortoises crawling upon the beach and looking -like ladybirds in the distance. But, as we slowly drew past the island, -we opened a sort of natural harbor formed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span> by two long lines of reef, -one of them incurving as though it was a pier and the handiwork of man. -The front of cliff that overlooked this natural harbor was very lofty, -and in the middle of it was a tremendous fissure—a colossal cave—the -shape of the mouth like the sides of a roughly-drawn letter A. Inside -this cave ’twas as dark as evening; yet I seemed with my glass to -obscurely behold something within. I looked and looked, and then handed -the telescope to the mate, who said there was something inside the cave. -It resembled to his fancy the scaffolding of a building, but what it -exactly was neither of us could make out.</p> - -<p>“The weather was very quiet; the breeze off the island, as its bearings -then were at this time of sighting the cave, and the water within the -natural harbor was as sheet-calm as polished steel. I said to the mate:</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>We must find time to examine what is inside that cave. Call away four -hands and get the boat over. Keep a bright lookout as you approach. -There is nothing living that is visible outside, but who knows what may -be astir within the darkness of that tremendous yawn? At the first hint -of danger pull like the devil for the ship, and I will take care to -cover your retreat.’</p> - -<p>“To tell you the truth, Fielding, the sight of that extraordinary cave -and the obscure thing within it, along with the natural harbor, as I -call it, had put a notion into my head fit, to be sure, to be laughed at -only; but the notion was in my head, and it governed me. It was this: -suppose that huge cave, I thought to myself, should prove to be a secret -dock used by picaroons for repairing their vessels or for concealing -their ships under certain conditions of hot search? Because, you see, it -was a cave vast enough to comfortably berth a number of small craft, and -their people would keep a lookout; and who under the skies would suspect -a piratic settlement in a heap of cinders?—So I, as a good, easy, -ambling merchantman—a type of scores—come sliding close in to have a -look, and then out spring the sea wolves from their lair, storming down -upon their quarry to the impulse of sweeps three times as long as that -oar upon which Galloon saw you floating.”</p> - -<p>He paused to draw breath. I smiled at his high-flown language.</p> - -<p>“Do you find anything absurd in the notion that entered my head?” said -he.</p> - -<p>“Nothing absurd whatever. You sight a big cave. There is something -inside which you can’t make out. Why should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> not that cave be a pirates’ -lair of the fine old, but almost extinct, type, capable of vomiting -cut-throats at an instant’s notice, just as any volcanic cone of your -island might heave up smoke and redden a league or so of land to the -beach with lava?”</p> - -<p>“Good. Fill your pipe. There is plenty of tobacco in this brig. I -brought my ship to the wind and stopped her without touching a brace, -that I might have her under instant command, and the boat, with my mate -and four men, pulled to the island. While she was on the road we put -ourselves into a posture of defense. I watched the boat approach the -entrance to the lines of reef. She hung on her oars, warily advanced, -halted, and again advanced; and then I lost sight of her. She was a long -while gone—a long while to my impatience. She was gone in all about -half an hour; and I was in the act of ordering one of the men to fire a -musket as a signal of recall, when she appeared in that part of the -natural harbor that was visible from the deck. The mate came over the -side; his face was purple with heat and all a-twitch with astonishment.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>The most wonderful thing, sir!’ he cried.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>What is it?’ said I.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>There’s a ship of seven hundred tons at the very least, hard and fast -in that big hole, everything standing but the topgallant masts, which -look to me as if they’d been crushed away by the roof of the cave. Her -jib boom is gone and the end of her bowsprit is about three fathoms -distant inside from the entrance.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Anybody aboard?’ I asked.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I heard and saw nothing, sir,’ said he.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Did you sing out?’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I sang out loudly. I hailed her five times. All hands of us hailed, -and nothing but our own voices answered us.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>How the deuce comes a ship of seven hundred tons burthen to be lying -in that hole?’ said I.</p> - -<p>“My mate was a Yorkshireman. His head fell on one side and he answered -me not.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Are her anchors down?’ I asked.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Her anchors have been let go,’ he answered. ‘The starboard cable -appears to have parted inboard. I saw nothing of it in the hawse-pipe. -There are a few feet of her larboard cable hanging up and down.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Swing your topsail,’ said I. ‘She will lie quiet. There is nothing to -be afraid of upon that island.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span>’</p> - -<p>“I then got into the boat, and my men pulled me to the mouth of the -piers of reef.</p> - -<p>“I was greatly impressed by the appearance of these reefs on approaching -them. They looked like admirably wrought breakwaters, which had fallen -into decay but were still extraordinarily strong, very rugged, imposing, -and serviceable. The width of the entrance was about five hundred feet. -The water was smooth as glass, clear as crystal, and when I looked over -the side I could see here and there the cloudy sheen of the bottom, -whether coral or not I do not know—I should say not. And now, right in -front of me, was the great face of gloomy-looking cliff, and in the -center the mighty rift, shaped like that,” said he, bringing the points -of his two forefingers together and then separating his hands to the -extent of the width of his two thumbs. “No doubt the wonderful cave was -a volcanic rupture. The height of the entrance was, I reckoned, about -two hundred feet, and the breadth of it at its base about fifty. It -stood at the third of a mile from the mouth of the natural harbor. I -could see but little of the ship until I was close to, so gloomy was the -interior; but as the men rowed, features of the extraordinarily housed -craft stole out, and presently we were lying upon our oars and I was -viewing her, the whole picture clear to my gaze as an oil painting set -in the frame of the cavern entrance.</p> - -<p>“She was a lump of a vessel painted yellow, with a snake-like curl of -cutwater at the head of the stem, and a great deal of gilt work about -her headboards and figurehead. I knew her for a Spaniard the instant I -had her fair. She had heavy channels and a wide spread of lower rigging. -Her yards were across, but pointed as though she had ridden to a gale, -and the canvas was clumsily furled as if rolled up hurriedly and in a -time of confusion. But I need not tease you with a minute description of -her,” said he. “It was easy to guess how it happened that she was in -this amazing situation. Perfectly clear it was to me that she had -sighted this island at night, or in dirty weather, when the land was too -close aboard for a shift of the helm to send her clear. Once in the -harbor her commander, in the teeth of a dead inshore wind, could not get -out. What, then, was to be done? Here was a place of shelter in which he -might ride until a shift of wind permitted him to proceed on his voyage. -So, as I make the story run to my own satisfaction, he let go his -anchor; but scarcely was this done when it came on to blow, the canvas -was hastily furled to save<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> the strain, but she dragged nevertheless. A -second anchor was let go, and still she dragged—and why? Because, as a -cast of the lead would have told the Spanish captain, the ground was as -hard as rock and as smooth as marble, and there was nothing for the -anchors to grip. Dragging with her head to sea and her stern at the -cliff’s huge front, the ship floats foot by foot toward the cave, -threading it with mathematical precision. The roof of the cave slants -rearward, and as she drifts into the big hole her royal-mastheads graze -and take the roof; the masts are crushed away at the crosstrees, -otherwise all is well with the ship. She strands gently, and is steadied -by her topmast heads pressing against the roof. Thus is she held in a -vise of her own manufacture, and so she lies snug as live callipee and -callipash in their top and bottom armor. That must be the solution, -Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“Did the water shoal rapidly in the cave?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Yes; the ship lies cradled to her midship section; forward she may be -afloat. But there she lies hard and fast for all that, motionless as the -mass of rock in whose heart she sleeps.”</p> - -<p>“You boarded her, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I boarded her,” continued Greaves. “It is by no means so -dusky inside the cave as it appeared to be when viewed from the outside. -I left a hand to attend the boat and took three men aboard. I believe I -should not have had the spirit to enter that ship alone. By Isten! but -she did show very ghastly in that gloom—very ghastly and cold and -silent, with the appalling silence of entombment. No noise—I mean that -faint, thunderous noise of distant surf—no noise of breakers -penetrated. Well, to be sure, by listening you might now and again catch -a drowning, bubbling, gasping sound, stealthily washing through the -black water in the cave along the sides of the ship; but I tell you that -I found the stillness inside that cave heart-shaking. I went right aft -and looked over the stern, and <i>there</i> it was like gazing into a tunnel. -How far did the cavern extend abaft? There would be one and an easy way -of finding that out—by rowing into the blackness and burning a flare in -the boat. This I thought I would do if I could make time.</p> - -<p>“The ship was a broad, handsome vessel, her scantling that of a -second-rate; she mounted a few carronades and swivels: clearly a -merchantman, and, as I supposed, a plate-ship. She had a large -roundhouse, and steered by a very beautifully and curiously wrought -wheel, situated a little forward of the en<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span>trance to the roundhouse. It -did not occur to me that she might be a rich ship until I looked into -the roundhouse; <i>then</i> I found myself in a marine palace in its way. -Enough of that. The sight of the furniture determined me upon attempting -a brief search of her hold. The impulse was idle curiosity—I should -have believed it so anyway. I had not a fancy in my head of any sort -beyond a swift glance of curiosity at what might be under hatches. Yet, -somehow, before I had fairly made up my mind to look into the hold, a -singular hope, a singular resolution had formed, flushing me from head -to foot as though I had drained a bottle of wine. ‘Look if that lamp be -trimmed,’ said I to a man, pointing to one of a row of small, -wonderfully handsome brass lamps, hanging from the upper deck of the -roundhouse. No, it was not trimmed. The rest of them were untrimmed. We -searched about for oil, for wicks, for candles, for anything that would -show a light. Then said I to two of the men, ‘Jump into the boat and -fetch me a lantern and candle. Tell the mate that I am stopping to -overhaul this ship for her papers, to get her story.’</p> - -<p>“While the boat was gone I walked about the decks of the vessel, hardly -knowing what I might stumble on in the shape of human remains, but there -was nothing in that way. The boats were gone, the people had long ago -cleared out. Small blame to them. Good thunder!” cried he, shuddering or -counterfeiting a shudder; “who would willingly pass a night in such a -cave as that? The boat came alongside with the lantern. We then lifted -the hatches, and I went below. Life there was here, a hideous sort of -life, too. Lean rats bigger than kittens, living skeletons horrible with -famine. They shrieked, they squeaked, they fled in big shadows. There -was not much cargo in the main hold, but cargo there was. I will tell -you exactly the contents of the main hold of <i>La Perfecta Casada</i>,” he -exclaimed, coming out of his bed, opening a drawer, and taking out a -small book clasped by an elastic band. He read aloud.</p> - -<p>“Five thousand serons of cocoa—”</p> - -<p>“A minute,” said I. “Do I understand you to mean that you counted five -thousand serons of cocoa while you looked into the hold of that ship, -the hour being about two o’clock—I have been following you -critically—and your own ship hove to close in with the land?”</p> - -<p>“Patience,” said he; “it is a reasonable objection, but as a rule I do -not like to be interrupted when I am telling a story. Five thousand -serons of cocoa—” he repeated.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Pray,” said I, forgetting that he did not like to be interrupted, “what -is a seron?”</p> - -<p>“A seron is a crate.”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Sixty arobes of alpaca wool——”</p> - -<p>“What is an arobe?”</p> - -<p>“An arobe is twenty-five pounds.” He continued to read: “One thousand -quintals of tin at one hundred pounds per quintal; four casks of -tortoiseshell, eight thousand hides in the hair, four thousand tanned -hides, and a quantity of cedar planks.”</p> - -<p>He now looked at me as though he expected me to speak. I addressed him -as follows: “What I am listening to is a very interesting story. It is -an adventure, and I love adventures. It is said that the charm of the -sailor’s life lies in its being made up of adventures. That is a lie. -Men pass many years at sea and meet with no adventures worth speaking -of. A sailors life is a very mechanical, monotonous routine.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of the cargo of <i>La Perfecta Casada</i>?”</p> - -<p>“<i>La Perfecta Casada</i> is the name of the ship in the cave?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“It is a very good cargo so far as it goes, but there is very little of -it.”</p> - -<p>“There is enough,” said he, with a gesture of his hand. “I should be -very pleased to be able to pay the value of that cargo into my banking -account.”</p> - -<p>I made no remark, and he proceeded: “When I had taken a peep into the -main hold I caused the after hatch under the roundhouse to be raised, -and here I found a number of cases. They were stowed one on top of -another, with pieces of timber betwixt them and the ship’s lining—an -awkward looking job of stevedoring, but good enough, no doubt, to -satisfy a Spanish sailor. I left my men above, and descended alone into -this part of the hold, and stood looking for a short time around me, -roughly calculating the number of these cases, the contents of which I -could not be perfectly sure of, though one of two things I knew those -contents must consist of. I called up through the hatch to the men to -hunt about the ship and find me a chopper or saw, and presently one of -them handed me down an ax. I put down the lantern, and letting fly at -the first of the cases, with much trouble split open a part of the lid. -I would not satisfy myself that all those cases were full until I had -split the lids of five as tests or samples of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span> lot. Then finding -that those five cases were full, I concluded that the rest were full. To -make sure, however, I beat upon many of them, and the sound returned -satisfied me that the cases were heavily full.”</p> - -<p>“Of what?” said I.</p> - -<p>“My men,” he continued, taking no notice of my interruption, “were, no -doubt, considerably astonished to observe me hacking at the cargo with a -heavy ax, as though I had fallen mad, and splintering and smashing up -what I saw through sheer lunatic wantonness. I did not care what they -thought so long as they did not form correct conclusions. I regained the -deck, and bid the fellows put the hatches on while I explored the cabins -for the ship’s papers. There was a number of cabins under the -roundhouse, and in one of them, which had, undoubtedly, been occupied by -the captain, I found a stout tin box, locked; but I had a bunch of keys -in my pocket, and, strangely enough, the key of a tin box in which I -kept my own papers on board the <i>Hero</i> fitted this box. I opened it, and -seeing at once that the contents were the ship’s papers, I put them into -my pocket and called to my men to bring the boat alongside. But I had -not yet completed my explorations. I threw the ax into the boat, entered -her, and pulled into the harbor to look at the weather and to see where -the <i>Hero</i> was. The <i>Hero</i> lay at the distance of a mile, hove-to. The -weather was wonderfully fine and calm. We pulled into the cave again to -the bows of the ship, and cut off a short length of the hemp cable that -was hanging up and down from the hawse-pipe, having parted at about two -feet above the edge of the water. The cable was perfectly dry. We unlaid -the strands and worked them up into torches and set fire to three of -them—that is to say, I and two of the men held aloft these blazing -torches, while the other two pulled us slowly into the cave past the -ship. There was not much to see after all. The cavern ended abruptly at -about a hundred yards astern of the ship. The roof sloped, as I had -supposed, almost to the wash of the water, it and the walls working into -the shape of a wedge. I had thought to see some fine -formations—stalactites, natural columns, extraordinary incrustations, -and so forth. There was nothing of the sort. The cave was as like the -tunneling of a coal mine as anything I can think of to compare it with; -but how gigantic, to comfortably house a vessel of at least seven -hundred tons, finding room for her aloft to the height of her topmast -head! It was more like a nightmare than a reality,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> to look from the -black extremity of the cave toward the entrance, and see there the dim -green of the day—for the light showed in a faint green—with the -upright fabric of the ship black as ink against that veil of green -faintness. The water brimmed with a gleam as of black oil to the black -walls. One of my men said:</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Suppose it was to come on to blow hard, dead inshore how would it fare -with that ship, sir?’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>What could happen to hurt her?’ I answered. ‘Never could a great sea -run within the barriers of reefs, and no swell to stir the ship can come -out of that sheltered space of water, and keep its weight inside.’</p> - -<p>“In truth, I talked to satisfy myself, and satisfied I was. Not the -worst hurricane that sweeps those seas can stir or imperil that vessel -as she lies. She is as safe as a live toad in a rock, and will perish -only from decay.”</p> - -<p>“But do her people mean to leave her there?” said I.</p> - -<p>“We may assume so,” he answered, “seeing that she was encaved, as far as -I can reckon from the dates of her papers, in or about the month of -August, 1810.”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> -<small>A STARTLING PROPOSAL.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Captain Greaves</span>, having pronounced the words with which the last chapter -concludes, came out of his bed-place and opened the cabin door. Galloon -entered. The captain stood looking. Mr. Van Laar was still at breakfast. -Captain Greaves and I had been closeted for a very considerable time, -yet Van Laar still continued to eat at table, and even as I looked at -him through the door which the captain held open, I observed that he -raised a large mouthful of meat to his lips. Captain Greaves exclaimed, -“I am going on deck to look after the brig, I shall be back in a few -minutes.” He then closed the door, and I occupied the time during which -he was absent in patting Galloon and thinking over my companion’s -narrative.</p> - -<p>As yet I failed to see the object of his voyage. Could it be that that -object was to warp the Spanish ship out of the cave and navigate her -home? I might have supposed this to be his intention had his brig been -full of men; but Greaves’ crew were below the brig’s complement as the -average ran in those<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span> days of teeming ’tween-decks and crowded -forecastles, and they were much too few to do anything with a ship of -seven hundred tons ashore in a cave; unless, indeed, Greaves meant to -ship a number of hands when on the Western American seaboard.</p> - -<p>He returned after an absence of a quarter of an hour.</p> - -<p>“I have stripped her of the main topgallant sail,” said he; “Yan Bol has -the watch. I will tell you what I like about Yan Bol—he has the throat -of a cannon; he does not shout, he explodes. He sends an order like a -twenty-four-pound ball slinging aloft. The wind of his cry might beat -down a sheep.”</p> - -<p>“Van Laar enjoys his food,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Van Laar is a gorging baboon,” he exclaimed; “but he shall not long be -a gorging baboon in my cabin or even on board my ship.”</p> - -<p>He resumed his seat in his bed, and, pulling from his pocket the little -book from which he had read the particulars of the cargo in the main -hold of <i>La Perfecta Casada</i>, he fastened his eyes upon a page of it, -mused a while, and proceeded thus:</p> - -<p>“We left the Spanish ship, pulled clear of the reef, and got aboard the -<i>Hero</i>. I called my mate to me, told him that the island was uncharted, -and that it behoved us to clearly ascertain its situation in order to -correctly report its whereabouts. Together we went to work to determine -its position; our calculations fairly tallied, and I was satisfied. I -then ordered sail to be trimmed, and we proceeded on our voyage. When -the ship had fairly started afresh I went into my cabin and examined the -papers I had brought off the <i>Casada</i>. Those papers were, of course, -written in Spanish. Though I speak Spanish very imperfectly, almost -unintelligibly, I can make tolerable headway, with the help of a -dictionary, when I read it. I possessed an English-Spanish dictionary, -and I sat down to translate the <i>Casada’s</i> papers. Then it was that I -discovered there were five thousand serons of cocoa among the cargo. I -did not count those serons when I was on board.”</p> - -<p>“I understand.”</p> - -<p>“The particulars I have here,” said he, slapping the book, “were in the -manifest; but there was more than cocoa and wool and tin in that -ship—very much more. The cases in the after-hold were full of silver—I -had hoped for <i>gold</i> when I sang out to my men to seek an ax; but silver -it proved to be, and the papers I examined in my cabin told me that -those cases contained in all five hundred and fifty thousand milled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span> -Spanish dollars of the value, in our money, of four shillings and -ninepence apiece, though I am willing to reduce that quotation and call -the sum, in English money, ninety-eight thousand pounds.”</p> - -<p>I opened my eyes wide. “Ha!” said I, “now I think you need tell me no -more. This brig is going to fetch the money.”</p> - -<p>“That is the object of the voyage.”</p> - -<p>“Your men as yet don’t know where they are bound to?”</p> - -<p>“Not as yet. I do not intend that they shall know for some time. I want -to see what sort of men they are going to prove. They shipped on the -understanding that I sailed under secret orders from the brig’s owner, -and that those orders would not be revealed until we had crossed the -equator.”</p> - -<p>“Van Laar knows nothing, then?”</p> - -<p>“No more than the lad Jimmy. If he did—but the cormorant <i>shan’t</i> -know.”</p> - -<p>“Ninety-eight thousand pounds!” quoth I, opening my eyes again.</p> - -<p>“There are several fortunes in ninety-eight thousand pounds,” said he, -smiling.</p> - -<p>“You spoke of a gentleman named Tulp.”</p> - -<p>“Bartholomew Tulp, my step-father. I will finish my story. I had plenty -of time for reflection, for my voyage home was long. I made up my mind -to get those dollars. I was satisfied that the money would remain as -safely for years, ay, for centuries if you like, where it lay as if it -had been snugged away in some secret part of the solid island itself. -There was, indeed, the risk of others sighting the island, landing, -discovering the ship, exploring, and then looting her. That risk remains -the single element of speculation in this adventure. But what, -commercially, is not speculative in the Change Alley meaning of the -term? You buy Consols at seventy; next day the city is pale with news -which sinks the funds to fifty. Spanish dollars to the value of -ninety-eight thousand pounds lie in the hold of a ship encaved in an -island south of the Galapagos. Is fortune going to suffer them to stay -there till we arrive? I say ‘yes.’ You, as a seafaring man, will say -‘yes.’ You know that vessels sighting that island will, seeing that it -is not down on the charts, or else most incorrectly noted—for no land -where that island is do I find marked upon the Pacific charts which I -have consulted—I say you will know that vessels sighting that island -will give it a wide berth for fear of the sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span>ings. You will suppose -that if a vessel should find herself unexpectedly close in with that -land her people will see nothing in a mountainous mass of cinder to -court them ashore. You will hold that even supposing a thousand ships -should pass the island within the date of my proceeding on my voyage -from it in the <i>Hero</i> and the date of my arrival off the island in this -brig <i>Black Watch</i>, there are ninety-nine chances against every one of -those thousand ships so opening the land as to catch a sight of the -vessel in the cave. The cave itself looks at a distance like a vast -shadow or smudge upon the front of the cliff. You must enter the natural -harbor, and pull close to the mouth of the cavern, to behold the ship. -Yes, it is true that the telescope will at a distance resolve the -darkness of the cave into a something that is indeterminable, but that -is more than mere shadow. But that this may be done a ship must be in -the exact situation the <i>Hero</i> was in when I happened to point the glass -at the cave, and I say there are ninety-nine chances against any one of -a thousand ships being in the exact situation. The money in the -<i>Casada’s</i> hold is there now, has been there since 1810, and but for me, -might be there until the ship falls to pieces with decay. What do you -say?”</p> - -<p>“Those waters are but little navigated,” said I. “All the chances you -name are against a vessel sighting your <i>Casada</i> as she lies in her -shell according to your description. I am of your opinion. The money is -there and will remain there. The mere circumstances of those dollars -having been a secret of the island for four years is warrant enough to -satisfy any man that the island will continue to keep what is now your -secret.”</p> - -<p>He looked extremely gratified, and continued:</p> - -<p>“How was I to proceed in the adventure that I was determined to embark -on? I am a sailor, which means, of course, that I am a poor man.”</p> - -<p>“Just so,” said I.</p> - -<p>“My mother has been dead eight years. Of late I had seen and heard but -little of my step-father. I was aware, however, that he was doing a very -good trade as a merchant in Amsterdam. It occurred to me to propose the -adventure to him, and when I had finished my business with the <i>Hero</i> in -the Thames I went across to Amsterdam, with the <i>Casada’s</i> papers in my -bag, and passed a week with Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp. I needed a week, -and a week of seven long days, to bring the old man into my way of -thinking. Tulp has Jewish blood in him, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span> blood of the Jew is as -thick as glue. A Tulp, four generations ago, married a Jewess. The -descendants have ever since been marrying Christians, but it will take -many generations to extinguish in the Tulps the Mosaic beak, the Aaronic -eye, the Solomon leer, the Abrahamic wariness which entered into the -Tulps, four generations ago, with honest Rachael Sweers. First Tulp -wanted to know how I proposed to get the money. By hiring a small vessel -and sailing to the island. How much was he to have? He must make his own -terms. How much would I expect? I was in his hands. Supposing, when the -money was on board, the crew rose and cut my throat? That was a peril of -the sea. He could protect his outlay by insurance, the cost of which he -was welcome to deduct from my share of the dollars should I bring the -spoil home in safety.</p> - -<p>“He was so full of objections that on the morning of the sixth day of my -stay at his house I flung from him in a rage. ‘I know what you <i>want</i>,’ -I told him: ‘you want the silver and you don’t want to pay for it. I -will see you——’ and I damned him in the names of Abraham, Isaac, and -Jacob. He is a little man: he arose from a velvet armchair, and -following me on tiptoe as I was leaving the room, he put his hand upon -my shoulder and said in a soft voice, ‘Michael, how much?’ To cut this -long yarn short, he commissioned me to seek a vessel, and when I had -found the sort of ship I wanted I was to enter into a calculation of the -cost of the adventure and let him know the amount I should need within -as few guilders as possible. That is the story.”</p> - -<p>“It is a very remarkable story. I am flattered by your confiding this -secret to me.”</p> - -<p>“It was necessary,” he answered.</p> - -<p>I did not see <i>that</i>, but I let the remark pass. “Where did you meet -with this brig?”</p> - -<p>“She is owned by a friend of mine who lives at Shadwell. I was thinking -all the way home of the <i>Black Watch</i> as the ship for my purpose, and -strangely enough, among the vessels lying near me in the Pool when I -brought up was this brig. In London I shipped the English sailors we -have on board and sailed for Amsterdam at the request of Tulp, who -desired to victual and equip the ship himself. He put Van Laar upon me, -on some friend’s recommendation, and the remainder of the hands—much -too few, but the spirit of Rebecca Sweers sweats like a demon in Tulp -when there is a stiver to be saved—I shipped at Amsterdam.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“But will not this be strictly what the longshoremen would term a -salvage job?”</p> - -<p>“I do not intend that it shall be a salvage job. What? Deliver up the -dollars to the Dutch or British Government and be put off with an award -that would scarce do more than pay wages?”</p> - -<p>“You mean to run the stuff?”</p> - -<p>He nodded. “There is time enough to talk over that,” said he; “and yet -perhaps it’s right I should tell you that Tulp and I have arranged for -the running of the dollars so that we shall forfeit not one farthing.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I heartily wish you joy of your discovery,” said I. “This voyage -will be your last, no doubt, if the dollars are still where you saw -them.”</p> - -<p>I looked at a little clock that was ticking over a table; it was a -quarter after eleven. I then looked at the small scuttle or window which -swung with regular oscillations out of the flash of the flying foam into -the light of the blowing morning. I then looked at Galloon, and wondered -quietly within myself how long it would take me to get home; for the -speeding of the brig was continuous; the heave of the sea that rushed -her forward was full of the weight of a sort of weather that my -experience assured me was not going to fail us on a sudden. When, then, -was I going to get home? and while I kept my eyes fastened upon Galloon, -I mused with the velocity of thought upon my uncle Captain Round; upon -my adventure with the press-gang; upon the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>, and her -arrival in the Thames; upon my little property in the cabin I had -occupied aboard her, and on the wages which Captain Spalding owed me.</p> - -<p>Greaves glanced at the clock at which I had looked. He then said, “Will -you be interested to know how Mynheer Tulp proposes to divide the -money?”</p> - -<p>I begged him to acquaint me with Tulp’s proposal.</p> - -<p>“There are five hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” said Greaves. “Of -this money the ship takes half. For ship read Tulp; Tulp’s share, -therefore, is two hundred and seventy thousand dollars or fifty-five -thousand pounds.”</p> - -<p>“These are big figures,” said I. “They slide glibly from the tongue. I -suppose a man could behold another fellow’s fifty-five thousand pounds -without feeling faint; but call a poor sailor into a room and show him -fifty-five thousand pounds in gold and tell him it is his, and I believe -you would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> find a large dose of rum the next thing to be done with him.”</p> - -<p>“The ship gets half,” continued Greaves. “I as commander get two-thirds -of the remainder.”</p> - -<p>“How much is that?”</p> - -<p>“Thirty-six thousand pounds.”</p> - -<p>I whistled low and long.</p> - -<p>“The mate,” proceeded he, “not Van Laar, but the mate—” he paused and -looked at me with an expression of significant attention; “the mate gets -one-third of the remainder—thirty thousand five hundred and fifty-six -dollars, or six thousand one hundred and eleven pounds.” He read these -figures from his little book.</p> - -<p>“A good haul for the mate,” said I.</p> - -<p>“The balance of sixty-one odd thousand dollars,” he went on, “goes to -the men according to their rating. This they will receive over and above -their wages, which average from three to six pounds a month.”</p> - -<p>“I think Mr. Tulp’s division into shares very fair,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Now,” said he, “why do I tell you all this? Why am I revealing to you -what not a living soul on board knows or even suspects?”</p> - -<p>I regarded him in silence.</p> - -<p>“Cannot you anticipate the proposal I intend to make? Will you take Van -Laar’s place on board my brig, and act as my mate?”</p> - -<p>I started from my chair. Not for an instant had I suspected that his -motive in telling me his story was to enable him to make this offer. I -started with so much vehemence that Galloon growled, stirred, and -elevated his ears.</p> - -<p>“It is a magnificent proposal,” said I. “It is an offer of six thousand -pounds.”</p> - -<p>“More,” he interrupted. “Your wages will be ten pounds a month.”</p> - -<p>“I do not like the idea,” said I after a pause, “of taking Van Laar’s -place.”</p> - -<p>“From him, do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“From him, of course. The post is another thing.”</p> - -<p>“It is I,” said he, “not you, who take it from him. Now, pray, -distinctly understand this, Fielding, that, whether you accept or not, -Van Laar will shortly cease to be my mate. If you refuse then Yan Bol -comes aft, and Laar either takes his place or goes home in the first -ship we meet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He spoke with a hard face and some severity of voice. It was quite clear -that his mind was resolved, so far as Van Laar’s relations with the brig -was concerned.</p> - -<p>“It is a fine offer,” said I. “You will give me time to think it over, I -hope?”</p> - -<p>“What time do you require?”</p> - -<p>I again looked at the little clock.</p> - -<p>“I shall be able to see my way in a few hours, I hope.”</p> - -<p>“That is not sailor fashion,” said he, stepping to a quadrant case and -taking the instrument up out of it. “A sailor jumps; he never -deliberates.”</p> - -<p>“I have no clothes save what I am wearing,” said I.</p> - -<p>“We are well stocked with slops,” he exclaimed. “Dutch-made, to be sure, -but they are good togs.”</p> - -<p>“I am without nautical instruments,” said I, looking at the quadrant -which he held.</p> - -<p>“I have three of these,” he answered, “and one is at your service.”</p> - -<p>I rose and took a turn, full of thought, wishing to say “Yes” but -wishing to consider, too.</p> - -<p>“Even were Van Laar,” said he, “as good and trustworthy a seaman as ever -stepped a deck, I would rather have a fellow-countryman for a mate than -a Dutchman, though the Dutchman were the better man. In this case it is -wholly the other way about. Here are you, fresh from a long voyage, with -the experiences of the sea green upon you. You are young; you are -English. I owe you my life; and what a debt is that! Together we can -make this voyage not only a rich but a jolly jaunt. On the other hand, -is Van Laar—no, plague on him, he is not on the other hand, he is out -of it. Well, I must now go on deck to take sights. Let me have your -answer soon.”</p> - -<p>He extended his hand, received mine, pressed it cordially, and quitted -the cabin.</p> - -<p>I followed with Galloon, and, entering the stateroom, paced the deck of -it and turned Greaves’ proposal over. While I paced, Van Laar, with a -quadrant in his hand, came out of a cabin abreast of the captain’s. He -stared me full and insolently in the face, and said in a tone of irony:</p> - -<p>“Vell, how vhas it mit you? Do you feel like going home now?”</p> - -<p>“The sun will have crossed his meridian if you don’t hurry up,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Vot der doyvel vhas der sun to you, sir?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>I turned my back upon him and continued to pace the deck, not choosing -that he should fasten a quarrel upon me—as yet, at all events.</p> - -<p>His insolence, however, helped me in my reflections by extinguishing him -as a condition to be borne in mind. I had been influenced by -compunction; now I had none. I watched the fat beast climb the companion -ladder, and after him, and then over the side into the seething water to -lie drowned forever, went all compunction. How could Greaves work with -such a man? How could he live in a ship with such a man? So, opening the -door of my mind, I kicked Mate Van Laar headlong out of my -contemplation, and resolution did not then seem very hard to form.</p> - -<p>I sat down, and said to Galloon:</p> - -<p>“What shall I do?”</p> - -<p>Galloon stood upon his hind legs, and, resting his fore feet upon my -knees, looked up at me with eyes which beamed with cordial invitation -and affectionate solicitude.</p> - -<p>“What shall I do, Galloon?” said I. “Six thousand pounds is a large sum -of money for a man of my degree. Can I doubt that the dollars are in the -ship inside the cave? If Tulp is to be convinced, I should. There was -the Spanish manifest; there were the cases beheld by Greaves’ own eyes. -Why should Greaves invent this yarn? I will stake my life, Galloon, upon -its being true. Six thousand pounds! And d’ye know, my noble dog, that -there is more money in six thousand pounds than your master’s reckoning -of the Spanish dollar swells the amount to? In Jamaica the Spanish -dollar passes for six-and-eightpence; in parts of North America for -eight shillings; and in the Windward Islands for nine shillings;” and -then I told Galloon what I should do when I received the six thousand -pounds: how I would buy me a little house at Deal and a boat, live like -a gentleman on the interest of what was left, and spend the time merrily -in fishing and sailing.</p> - -<p>The dog listened with attention. At times I seemed to catch a slight -inclination of the head, as though he nodded approvingly. I counted upon -my fingers all the advantages, which must attend my acceptance of -Greaves’ offer. First, the post of mate at ten pounds a month, with a -voyage before me of at least twelve months; then my association with a -man whose company was exceedingly agreeable to me, between whom and me -there must always be such a bond of sympathy as nothing but the -prodigious and pathetic services we had done each other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> could -establish; then the possibility—nay, the more than possibility, of my -receiving six thousand pounds as my dividend of the adventure. These and -the like considerations I summed up. What was the <i>per contra</i>? The -forfeiture of a few weeks of holiday ashore! Spalding’s debt to me stood -good, and would be paid whenever I turned up to receive the money. My -being seized by the press-gang, the boat being stove, and my being -picked up insensible and carried away into the ocean—all this was no -fault of mine. Therefore Spalding would pay me the money.</p> - -<p>“Galloon, I will accept,” said I, and jumped up; and the dog fell to -cutting capers about me, springing here and there, like a dog in front -of a trotting horse, and barking joyously.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> -<small>I FIGHT VAN LAAR.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">About</span> the hour of four, that same afternoon, I followed Greaves out of -his berth into the state cabin and living room. We had been closeted for -an hour, and during that hour our discourse had related wholly to the -voyage. I followed him into the cabin. There had been no change in the -weather since the morning. The brig was rushing through the swollen seas -under whole topsails and some fore-and-aft canvas, to keep her head -straight, for now and again she would yaw widely with the swing of the -surge, and, indeed, it needed two stout fellows at the wheel to keep the -sheet of rushing wake astern of her a fairly straight line.</p> - -<p>We had not entered the cabin five minutes when Van Laar descended the -companion steps. It was four o’clock. Yan Bol had come on to the -quarter-deck to relieve the mate until the hour of six, and Van Laar, -descending the ladder, was rolling in a thrusting and sprawling walk to -his berth, without taking the least notice of the captain and me, when -Greaves stopped him.</p> - -<p>“Van Laar, sit down. I have something to say to you.”</p> - -<p>The Dutch mate rounded suddenly. The insipid and meaningless layers of -fat which formed his face were quickened by an expression of surprise. -He had pulled his cloth cap off on entering, and now worried it between -his hands as he stared at Greaves. His mind worked slowly. Presently he -gathered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span> from the looks of Greaves that he was to expect something -unpleasant, on which he said:</p> - -<p>“I do not wish to sit down. Vy der doyvil should I sit down? Vot hov you -to say, Captain Greaves?”</p> - -<p>“You are already aware that I am dissatisfied with you,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Ow vhas dot?”</p> - -<p>“I desire no words. Enough if I tell you <i>simply</i> that you do not suit -me.”</p> - -<p>“Vy der doyvil did you engage me, den?”</p> - -<p>“I was misled by Mynheer Tulp, who was misled by Mynheer somebody else,” -answered Greaves, admirably controlling his voice, but nevertheless -sternly surveying the man whom he addressed. “I was told that you knew -your duty as a seaman and as a mate, but you are so ignorant of your -duty that I will no longer trust you on my quarter-deck.”</p> - -<p>“Vy der doyvil did you ask me to schip? If I do not know my duty, vhas -dere a half-drown man ash we drag on boardt dot can teach her to me?”</p> - -<p>“I do not choose to go into that,” exclaimed Captain Greaves calmly. “I -presume you are not so ignorant of the sea but that you know what my -powers as a commander are?”</p> - -<p>“Hey! you speaks too vast for me.”</p> - -<p>The captain slowly and deliberately repeated his remark.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Van Laar, with a slow sideways motion of the head. -“I need not to be instrocted as to dere powers of a commander, nor do I -need to be instrocted as to dere rights of dose who sail oonder her. I -vhas your mate; vhat hov you to say against dot?”</p> - -<p>“Which will you do,” said Greaves, with a note of impatience in his -voice, “will you take the place of second mate, in the room of Yan Bol, -who will be glad to be relieved of that trust, or will you go home by -the first ship that’ll receive you?”</p> - -<p>Van Laar looked from Greaves to me, and from me to Greaves, and putting -his cap upon the table, and thrusting his immensely fat hands into his -immensely deep trousers’ pockets, he exclaimed, with a succession of -nods:</p> - -<p>“Dis vhas a consbiracy.”</p> - -<p>“Conspiracy or no conspiracy,” said Greaves, scarcely concealing a -smile, “you will give me your answer at once, if you please. My mind is -made up.”</p> - -<p>“Dis vhas your doing,” said Van Laar, looking at me;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span> and he pulled his -right hand out of his pocket and held it clenched.</p> - -<p>“Make no reference to that gentleman,” cried Greaves, “I am the captain -of this ship, and all that is done is of <i>my</i> doing. I await your -answer.”</p> - -<p>“Vy der doyvil,” said Van Laar deliberately, with his eyes fastened upon -my face, “vhas not you drown? Shall I tell you? Because you vhas reserve -for anoder sort of end,” and here he bestowed a very significant nod -upon me.</p> - -<p>I felt the blood in my cheeks. I could have whipped him up the steps and -overboard for talking to me like that. I looked at Greaves, met his -glance, bit my lip, and held my peace.</p> - -<p>“Which will you do, Mr. Van Laar?” said Captain Greaves. “If you do not -answer for yourself I will find an answer for you.”</p> - -<p>“Gott, but I hov brought my hogs, as you English say, to a pretty -market. I am dere servant of Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp.”</p> - -<p>“I am master of this ship and you are my mate. I can break you and send -you forward. I can have you triced up and your broad breech ribbanded. I -can swing you at the yardarm till your neck is as long as an emu’s. Why -do I tell you this? Because you are ignorant of the sea and must learn -that my powers are not to be disputed by any man under me, from you -down, or, as I would rather say, from you up,” he added, with a -sarcastic sneer.</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas your offer?” said the mate.</p> - -<p>There was a perversity in this man’s stupidity that was very irritating. -The captain quietly named again the alternative.</p> - -<p>“Vat vhas dis voyage about?” inquired the mate.</p> - -<p>“That is my affair.”</p> - -<p>The Dutchman stood gazing at one or the other of us. He then put on his -cap and saying, “I vill schmoke a pipe in my bed und tink him out,” he -made a step toward his berth.</p> - -<p>“I must have your answer by six o’clock,” said the captain.</p> - -<p>The mate, taking no notice of Greaves’ remark, entered his berth and -closed the door.</p> - -<p>Greaves and I were silent upon the man’s behavior; he was so absolutely -and helplessly in the power of his captain that the sense of fairplay -would not suffer us to speak of him.</p> - -<p>“I will tell Jimmy,” said Greaves, “to get the slop chest up, and you -can overhaul it for the clothes you require. You will want a chest; -<i>that</i> can be managed. What else will you require? Your bedroom needs -furnishing. I can lend you a razor and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span> give you a hairbrush. Linen and -boots you will find among the slops. As to wages—we will arrange it -thus: I shall give a written undertaking to each of the crew, on -announcing to them the purpose of this voyage. In my undertaking to you, -in which I shall state your share, I can name the wages agreed upon—ten -pounds a month, starting from to-day, which of course, I will make a -note of in my log book. Does this meet your views?”</p> - -<p>“Handsomely,” I answered.</p> - -<p>He left his seat.</p> - -<p>“With your leave, captain,” said I, “it is <i>captain</i> now; it shall be -<i>sir</i> anon.”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” he interrupted, “not the least need; not as between you and -me, Fielding. In the presence of the crew and in the interests of -discipline, why, perhaps it had better be an occasional <i>sir</i> for me, -you know, and a <i>mister</i> for you, d’ye see? But the words may be uttered -with our tongues in our cheeks. What were you going to say?”</p> - -<p>“That with your leave, I will at once write a letter to my uncle Captain -Joseph Round, relating my adventures, telling him where I am, but not -where I am bound to, and requesting him to communicate with Captain -Spalding, that my wages may be sent to my uncle at Deal. We may fall in -with a ship in any hour and I will have a letter ready.”</p> - -<p>“Right,” he exclaimed, “you will find pen and ink and paper in my -cabin;” and he sprang up the hatch, whistling cheerily, as though his -mind were extraordinarily relieved, not indeed through my agreeing to -serve under him—oh no, I am not such a coxcomb as to believe -<i>that</i>—but because he had as good as cleared Van Laar off his -quarter-deck.</p> - -<p>I entered his berth, and finding the materials I required for producing -a letter, I returned to the cabin, seated myself at the table, and began -a letter to my uncle Joseph. The chair I occupied was at the forward end -of the table, and when I raised my eyes from the paper, I commanded both -the captain’s and the mate’s berths. It was about half-past four. There -was plenty of daylight; the windy westering sunshine came and went upon -the cabin skylight with the sweep of the large masses of vapor across -the luminary. The roar of frothing waters alongside penetrated dully. -The lift of the brig was finely buoyant and rhythmic, insomuch that you -might almost have made time out of the swing of a tray over the table, -as you make time out of the oscillations of a pendulum.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span></p> - -<p>I had nearly completed my letter when, happening to lift my head to -search the skylight for a thought, or perhaps for the spelling of a -word, I beheld the fat countenance of Van Laar surveying me from his -doorway. On my looking at him he withdrew his head, with a manner of -indecision. I went on writing. The lad Jimmy came into the cabin, -followed by Galloon. The boy, as I call him, busied himself, and I went -on with my letter, the dog jumping on to the chair which he occupied at -meals, and watching me. Presently, looking up, I again perceived Van -Laar’s head in his doorway. Once more he withdrew, but at the instant of -signing my letter, I heard a strange noise close beside me; I seemed to -smell spirits; I raised my eyes. Van Laar stood at the table, leaning -upon it, and breathing very heavily; his breathing, indeed, sounded like -a saw cutting through timber; his little eyes were uncommonly fierce and -fiery, and the flesh of his face of a dull red. The moment my gaze met -his, he exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“You vhas a broodelbig!”</p> - -<p>His accent was so much broader than the spelling which I have endeavored -to convey it in that I did not understand him. I believed he had applied -some injurious Dutch word to me.</p> - -<p>“What do you say?” I exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“I should like to know,” said he, fingering the cuffs of his coat as -though he meant to turn them up, “vhat sort of a man you vhas. Who vhas -you? ’Ow vhas it you vhas half drown? ’Ow comes you into dere water? -Vhas you chooked overboart? Maype you vhas a pirate? I should like to -know some more about you. Vhat schip vhas yours? Have you a farder? Vere -vhas you porn?”</p> - -<p>“Return to your cabin and finish your pipe and bottle,” said I. “Do not -meddle with me, I beg you.”</p> - -<p>“Meddle! Vhat vhas dot? Meddle; I must hov satisfaction of my questions. -My master is Mynheer Tulp. Am I to give oop my place to a half-drown -man, vhen I hov agree for der voyage mit Mynheer Tulp’s consent?” He -swelled his breast and roared—“No beast of an Englishman shall take -dere place of Van Laar in a schip dot vhas own by Mynheer Tulp.” He then -smote the table furiously with his fist, and, putting his face close to -mine, he thundered out—“You are a broodelbig!” <i>Now</i> I understood him -to mean “a brutal pig,” my ear having, perhaps, been educated by his -previous speech.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy,” I exclaimed, “hold the dog!” and, with the back of my hand, I -slapped the Dutchman heavily on the nose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span></p> - -<p>The dog growled. Jimmy sprang and clasped the creature round the neck, -holding him in a vise, and grinning with every fang in his head between -the dog’s ears. A fight to an English lad, himself clasping a growling -dog to his heart! Match him such another joy if you can!</p> - -<p>Having struck Van Laar, I stood up and immediately pulled off my coat -and waistcoat. Van Laar also undressed himself, and, while he did so, he -bawled out:</p> - -<p>“I vhas sorry for you. Better for you had you never been porn. If I vhas -you, I like some more to be drown or hang dan to be you.”</p> - -<p>He stripped himself to his flesh, keeping nothing but his trousers on, -and stood before me like a vast mass of yellow soap. He was drenched -with perspiration. Galloon barked hoarsely at him. I was almost disposed -to regard this exhibition of himself as an appeal to my sensibility. He -was shaped like a dugong—after the pattern, indeed, of one of the most -corpulent of those interesting marine epicenes. He opposed to me a ton -of infuriate flesh. How could I strike it, or rather <i>where</i>? It would -be like plunging my fist into a full slush-pot.</p> - -<p>“Dere better der man dere better der mate!” he roared. “call upon Cott, -if you belief in Him, to help you. Dere better der man dere better der -mate! Goom on!”</p> - -<p>Poising his immense fists close against his face, he approached me, and -then, hoping perhaps to end the business at a <i>coup</i> he rushed upon me, -whirling both his arms with the velocity of a windmill in a strong -breeze. I took a step and planted a blow, but not without compunction, -for I saw that the poor devil had no science. I say I planted a blow in -his right eye, which instantly took a singular expression of leering. I -backed and he followed, still swinging his arms; and certainly, had I -permitted one of those rotary fists to descend upon my head, I must have -gone down as though to the blow of a handspike. But alas! for poor Van -Laar. He knew nothing of boxing, and I was well versed in that art. I -dodged him for a while, hoping that, by winding him, I should be able to -bring the battle to a bloodless close. But the fellow had very -remarkable staying powers; he seemed unnaturally strong in the wind -considering his tonnage. He continued to thrash the air, seeking to rush -upon me, while he thundered:</p> - -<p>“Dere better der man, dere better der mate!”</p> - -<p>So, to end the business, I knocked him down. He fell flat<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> and heavily -upon his back. Jimmy roared with laughter, and Galloon barked furiously -at the yellow heap on the deck, straining in the lad’s arms to get at -it. Greaves came into the cabin. He stopped when in the companion way, -and stared at the motionless figure of Van Laar.</p> - -<p>“Is the man killed?” cried he.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, no,” I answered. “He’s only resting.”</p> - -<p>“What is all this about?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>I told him how it had come about, but when I repeated the insulting -expression which had been twice made use of, Van Laar sat up and said:</p> - -<p>“It vhas true, but I will fight no more mit you. I allow dot you are der -better man. I said, ’Dere better der man, dere better der mate,’ and dat -shall be as Cott pleases.”</p> - -<p>“Go to your cabin, sir!” cried Greaves, looking at him with disgust; -but, on Van Laar turning his face, the captain’s countenance relaxed.</p> - -<p>The Dutchman’s eye was closed, and it painted upon his countenance the -fixed expression of a wink; otherwise he was not hurt. I had known how -to fell him without greatly injuring him or drawing blood, and the worst -of the knockdown blow I had administered lay in the shock of the fall of -his own weight.</p> - -<p>“Go to your cabin, sir,” repeated the captain, “and keep to it. Consider -yourself under arrest. Your brutal conduct now determines me to clear -the ship of you, and you shall be sent home by the first vessel that I -can speak.”</p> - -<p>“You vhas in a hurry,” said Van Laar, getting on to his legs, and -beginning to pick up his clothes: “had you vaited you would have foundt -me first. It vhas me,” he roared, striking his fat chest, “who tell you, -and not you who tell me, dot I leave for goot dis footy hooker. But -stop,” cried he, wagging his fat forefinger at the captain, “till I see -Mynheer Tulp. Den I vhas sorry for you,” and thus speaking he went to -his cabin, bearing his clothes with him.</p> - -<p>I put on my coat and waistcoat, and exclaimed, “I am truly grieved that -this should have happened. Yonder lad Jimmy witnessed the fellow’s -treatment of me.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing to regret,” said Greaves. “Yes, I regret that you did -not punish him more severely. He knows that you have been insensible for -three days, and the coward, no doubt, counted upon finding you weak -after your illness.”</p> - -<p>“It is well for him,” said I, “that he should have made up<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> his mind at -once that I am the better man. I felt a sort of pity for the shapeless -bulk when I saw it rushing upon me, with its arms whirring like the -flails of a thresher upon a whale. A fellow apprentice of mine, in the -third voyage I made, was the son of a prize-fighter. He had learnt the -art from his father, and claimed to have his science. Many a stand-up -affair happened between this youth and me, during our watches below. He -showed me every trick at last, though the education cost my face some -new skins.”</p> - -<p>“If Van Laar shows himself on deck, or indeed, if he leaves his berth, -I’ll clap him in irons,” said Greaves. “Meanwhile, Fielding, you will -enter upon your duties at once, providing you feel strong enough.”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly strong enough,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” said he, “you will relieve Yan Bol at four bells, and I -will call the crew aft and tell them that you are mate of the <i>Black -Watch</i>.”</p> - -<p>So here now was I chief mate of a smart brig, with ten pounds a month -for wages, not to mention the six thousand pounds I was to take up if we -brought our cargo of dollars home in safety. Truthfully had I told -Greaves that my adventures at sea had been few, but surely now life was -making atonement for her past beggarly provision of strange, surprising -experiences, by the creation of incidents incomparably romantic and -memorable, as I will maintain before the whole world, was that incident -of the gibbet, on the sand hills near Deal.</p> - -<p>When I reached the deck I found a noble, flying, inspiriting scene of -swelling and cleaving and foaming brig and ocean curling southward. -Through the luster of an angry, glorious sunset, the froth flew in -flakes of blood, and every burst of white water from the courtesying -bows was crimson with sparkles as of rubies. I wondered, when I looked -at the see-saw sloping of the deck, how on earth the Dutchman and I had -managed to keep our pins while we fought. Yet, why did I wonder? I found -myself standing beside the captain, no more sensible than he of a swing -and sway that when it came to a roll was roof-steep often, gazing -forward with him at the crew, who were assembling in response to the -boatswain’s summons, preparatory to laying aft.</p> - -<p>This was a small business and promptly dispatched. Two men were at the -wheel, and eight men, leaving Jim Vinten out, came to the mainmast to -hear what the captain had to say. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span> said no more than this: “Yan Bol, -and you men: Mr. Van Laar is under arrest in his cabin, and Mr. William -Fielding here is and will be the mate of the <i>Black Watch</i>. He is a much -better man than Van Laar. You would split your throats with huzzas did -you know how very much smarter Mr. Fielding is than Van Laar. We want -nothing but sharp and able men aboard the <i>Black Watch</i>. You’ll know why -anon—you’ll know why anon. I have my eye upon ye, lads, and so far, I’m -very well satisfied. You seem a willing crew; keep so. A man, after he -has heard our errand, would sooner have cut his throat than fail me. -Heed me well, hearts, for this is to be a big cruise. Here’s your mate, -Mr. William Fielding,” and he put his hand upon my shoulder.</p> - -<p>The fellows stared very hard. They were strangers to me as yet, and I -knew not which were Dutch and which were English; but some exchanged -looks with a half-suppressed grin, and those I guessed were English. Yan -Bol stood forward—Yan we called him, though he spelt his name with a J. -He was, as you have heard, boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker, a stern, -bearded, beetle-browed man, heavily clothed with hair—leonine—indeed, -in the matter of hair.</p> - -<p>“I beg pardon, captain,” said he, “does Herr Van Laar goom forward?”</p> - -<p>“No,” answered the captain, “he goes over the side presently, when -there’s a ship to pick him up.”</p> - -<p>“I vhas to be second mate still?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, it is so, Yan. We want no better man.”</p> - -<p>But the compliment was not relished. Methought Yan Bol, as he fronted -the stormy western light, looked sterner and more beetle-browed, -hairier, and more bearded than before, when he understood that he was to -remain second mate.</p> - -<p>“There are three Dutchmen aboard not counting you, Bol,” said the -captain, “and seven Englishmen. I want such a distribution of watches, -as will put the three Dutchmen under you, Yan. Wirtz, you and Hals will -come out of the starboard into the larboard watch, and Meehan and -Travers will take their place. That’s all I’ve got to say, excepting -this—pipe for grog, Bol, to drink the health of the new mate.”</p> - -<p>This dismissed them chuckling. Bol sounded his whistle, and Jimmy -presently came out of the cabin and went forward with a can of black rum -swinging in his hand.</p> - -<p>“I am lumping the Dutchmen together under one head,” said Greaves, as we -paced the deck, “to give their characters<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span> a chance of developing, -before they learn the motive of this voyage. Not that I have more or -less faith in Dutchmen than in Englishmen; but sailors of a nationality -do not distrust one another, therefore whatever is bad will quickly -ripen: but mix them with others and you arrest rapid development by -misgiving; and a difficulty, that might come to a head quickly, is -delayed until a remedy becomes difficult or impracticable.”</p> - -<p>“I understand you, sir.” He smiled on my giving him the <i>sir</i> for the -first time. “You want to get at the character of your crew as promptly -as may be.”</p> - -<p>“That I may clear my forecastle of whatever is doubtful. A cargo of five -hundred and fifty thousand dollars makes a rich ship, and a rich ship is -a wicked temptation to wicked men. It is a pity we could not manage with -fewer hands; but death, sickness, many disabling causes are to be -considered; the voyage is a long one—there is the Horn; we could not -have done with less men.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder what notion of this voyage the men have in their heads,” said -I. “I watched them while you talked. I could not see that they made sign -by grin, or stare, or look.”</p> - -<p>“They would not be sailors if they were not careless of the future,” -said Greaves. “What’s for dinner to-day? <i>That’s</i> it, you know. Is there -a shot in the locker? Is there a drop of rum in the puncheon? Is there a -fiddle aboard? and if the answer be yea, marry, a clear, strong, manly -bass voice sings out, ‘All’s well.’ Those men don’t care, because they -don’t think. Can’t you hear them talk, Fielding?—‘Where the blazes are -we bound to, I wonder?—Hand us that pipe along for a draw and a spit, -matey.’—‘I’m for the land o’ shoe-shine arter this job, bullies’—‘Der -bork in dis schip vhas goodt,’ says a Dutchman. Then grunt goes another, -and snore goes a third, and the rest is snorting. Don’t it run so, -Fielding? <i>You</i> know sailors as well as I. But I’ll tell you what; it’ll -put gunpowder into the heels of their imaginations, to learn that we’re -going to load dollars out of a derelict. They shan’t know yet a bit. -Well it is that Van Laar doesn’t know either. Tulp was for having me -explain the nature of our errand to him. ‘No, by Isten,’ said I—which I -believe is Hungarian—‘no, by Isten,’ I exclaimed, ‘no man shall know -what business we’re upon till I have gained some knowledge of the -character of the company of fellows who are under me.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“All this makes me feel your confidence in me the more flattering, sir,” -said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Don’t <i>over</i> sir me. I must replace a guzzling and gorging baboon of a -Dutch mate—a worthless mass of unprofessional fat—I must replace this -hogshead of lard by a <i>man</i>, and Galloon finds me the man I need lying -half-drowned off Ramsgate. I want him very earnestly, very imperatively. -I must have a mate—a smart, English seaman. Here he is; but how am I to -keep him? He is not going to be detained by vague talk of a voyage whose -issue I decline to say anything about, whose motive is -mysterious—criminal, for all he is to know—imperiling the professional -reputation of those concerned in it, with such a gibbet as that which -stands upon the sand hills at the end of it all. No; to keep you I must -be candid, or you wouldn’t have stayed.”</p> - -<p>“That is true.”</p> - -<p>“See to the brig, Fielding. She’s a fine boat, don’t you think? If she -didn’t drag so much water—look at that lump of sea on either -quarter—she’d be a comet in speed. Why the deuce don’t the shipwrights -ease off when they come aft, instead of holding on with the square run -of the butter-box to the very lap of the taffrail?”</p> - -<p>He looked aloft; he looked around the sea; he walked to the binnacle and -watched the motion of the card; he then went below.</p> - -<p>It was nearly dark. The red was gone out of the west, but the dying -sheen of it seemed to linger in the south and east, whither the -shapeless masses of shadow were flying across the pale and windy stars, -piling themselves down there with a look of boiling-up, as though the -rush of vapor smote the hindmost of the clouds into steam.</p> - -<p>Why, thought I, it was but a day or two ago that I, mate of the <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i>, was conning that ship, with her head pointing t’other way, -in these same waters; and then I was thinking of Uncle Joe, and of some -capers ashore, and of the relief of a month or two’s rest from the -derned hurl of the restless billow, as the poets call it, with plenty of -country to smell and fields to walk in, and a draught of new milk -whenever I had a mind. Only a day or two ago—it seems no longer. -Insensibility takes no count of time. In fact, whether I knew it or not, -I went to sea again on this voyage on the same day on which I arrived in -the Downs, after two years of furrin-going. How will it end? I shall -become a fish. But six thousand pounds, thought I, to be picked up, -invested, safely secured betwixt this and next May, I dare say! Oh, -i<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span>t’s good enough—it’s good enough; and I whistled through my teeth, -with a young man’s light heart, as I walked, watching the brig closely, -nevertheless, and observing that the fellows at the helm kept her before -it, as though her keel was sweeping over metal rails.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> -<small>WE TRANSHIP VAN LAAR.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> blew fresh all that night and all next day. I was for carrying on, -and shook a reef out of the forecourse and set the topgallant sail; and -when Greaves came on deck he looked up, and that was all. He would not -trust the brig with too much sail on her in a staggering breeze when Van -Laar had charge of the deck; but he trusted her now, and trusted her -afterward to Yan Bol when he came to relieve me; and hour after hour the -<i>Black Watch</i> stormed along, bowing her spritsail yard at the bowsprit’s -end into the foam of her own hurling till it was buried, and every -shroud and backstay was as taut as wire, and sang, swelling into such a -concert as you must sail the stormy ocean to hear, with a noise of drums -rolling through it out of the hollow of the sails, and no lack of bugle -notes and trumpeting as each sea swept the brig to its summit.</p> - -<p>On the third day the weather was quiet. It was shortly before the hour -of noon. A light swell was flowing out of the north, but the breeze was -about northwest, and the brig was pushing through it under -studding-sails. The men were preparing to get their dinner, one of the -Dutch seamen at the wheel, and Greaves and I standing side by side, each -with a quadrant in his hand.</p> - -<p>“I wish,” exclaimed the captain, “that something would come -along—something to receive Van Laar! The fancy of that fellow confined -in his berth is not very agreeable to me. Jimmy tells me that he smokes -all day; that he removes the pipe from his mouth merely to eat. Then, -indeed, the pipe is for some time out of his mouth.”</p> - -<p>“Sail ho!” I exclaimed at that instant; for, while he addressed me, my -gaze was upon the sea over the lee bow, and there, like a hovering -feather, hung a sail.</p> - -<p>Greaves looked at her, and exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“I hope she is coming this way. I hope she is homeward bound, and that -she will receive Van Laar.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>We applied our eyes to our quadrants, made eight bells, and, leaving Yan -Bol to keep a lookout, went below.</p> - -<p>“How am I to foist Van Laar upon a ship’s captain?” said he, as we -entered his berth to work out the latitude. “Is he a passenger? Then he -must pay. But Van Laar is not a man to pay, and not one doit shall I be -willing to pay for him. Is he a distressed mariner whom we have picked -up? No. What is he but an inefficient officer, full of mutiny, beef, -tobacco, and schnapps? I may find difficulty in persuading a captain to -take him. I hope it may not come to it, but I fear I shall be forced to -throw him overboard.”</p> - -<p>We worked out the latitude and entered the cabin. Galloon sat upon his -chair at the table, watching Jimmy lay the cloth for dinner.</p> - -<p>“What are you going to give us to eat, Jimmy?” said the captain.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know, master,” replied the lad with his foolish smile; and here I -observed that Galloon looked at him. “It’s roast beef to-day, master.”</p> - -<p>“There is no fresh beef in the ship; therefore we are not going to have -roast beef for dinner. Corned beef it is, not roast beef. Say corned -beef, not roast beef.”</p> - -<p>The boy, stiffening himself into the posture of a private soldier at -sight of his officer, cried in a groaning voice:</p> - -<p>“Say corned beef, not roast beef!” and Galloon howled in sympathy.</p> - -<p>“Again, if you please.”</p> - -<p>“Say corned beef, not roast beef!” bawled the youth; and Galloon’s howl -rose high in suffering.</p> - -<p>“Once more.”</p> - -<p>The boy bellowed, and the dog’s accompaniment made a horrible duet.</p> - -<p>Scarcely had the noise ceased when Van Laar opening his door, put his -head out, and cried:</p> - -<p>“Vhas dere cornedt beef ready?”</p> - -<p>“You will give that man ship’s bread for his dinner,” said Greaves -calmly. “If he shows his nose again I will have a hammock slung for him -in the lazarette—the lazarette or the fore-peak—he may take his -choice; but the hatch will be kept on.”</p> - -<p>These words had no sooner left the captain’s lips than Van Laar came out -of his berth.</p> - -<p>“You debrive me of my liberty,” he shouted in his deepest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> tones, “and I -vhas content till ve meets mit a schip to take me out of dis beesly -hooker. But, by Cott! mine dinner vhas to be someding more dan schip’s -bread, or I vhas sorry for you, Dis is Mynheer Tulp’s schip. I oxpects -my full rations. If not, I goes to der law vhen I gets home, and I takes -der bedt from oonder you und your vife. A pretty consbiracy—first -against mine liberty and now against mine appetite. I have brought my -hogs, as you Englishmen say, to a nice market indeedt.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” said Captain Greaves quietly, “step on deck, if you -please, and send Yan Bol to me with the bilboes. You will keep the deck -till Yan Bol returns.”</p> - -<p>I hastened up the ladder, and found Yan Bol tramping to and fro. I -repeated the captain’s instructions to him.</p> - -<p>“Who vhas der bilboes for?” said he, in a voice that trembled upon the -ear with the power of its volume.</p> - -<p>“Van Laar,” said I.</p> - -<p>He looked not in the least surprised.</p> - -<p>“For Herr Van Laar. I shall hov to pick out der biggest;” and he went -forward to fetch the bilboes, as the irons in which sailors’ legs were -imprisoned were in those days termed.</p> - -<p>We had considerably risen the sail that I had made out shortly before -eight bells, and I took the telescope from the companion way to look at -her. She was apparently a small brig, smaller than the <i>Black Watch</i>, -visible as yet above the horizon to the line of her bulwark rails only. -I found something singular in the trim of her canvas, but she was too -far off at present to make sure of in any direction of character, -tonnage, or aspect, and I returned the glass to its brackets, satisfied -at all events to have discovered that she was heading to cross our -hawse, and would be within easy speaking distance anon.</p> - -<p>Bol came aft with the bilboes and descended into the cabin, whence very -soon afterward there arose through the open skylight a great noise of -voices. Van Laar was giving trouble. He declined to sit quietly while -Yan Bol fitted him. His deep voice roared out Dutch oaths, intermingled -with insults in English leveled at Captain Greaves.</p> - -<p>Galloon barked furiously, and Yan Bol’s deeper notes rolled upward like -the sound of thunder above the explosions of artillery. Presently I -heard a noise of wrestling; then Van Laar called out:</p> - -<p>“All right, all right! Let me go! Put her on! I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> vhas quiet now, but -after dis, if I vhas you, I vould hang myself.”</p> - -<p>His voice was then muffled, as though he had been dragged or carried -into his cabin, and a few minutes later Yan Bol came on deck, lifting -his hair with one hand and wiping the sweat from under it with the -other.</p> - -<p>“He gifs too much trouble,” said he, with a massive shake of his head, -“it vhas not right. He vhas a badt sailor, too. I could have told -Captain Greaves dot before we sailed from Amsterdam. Van Laar put a ship -ashore two years ago. He vhas too fat and lazy for der sea. He vhas -ignorant, and has not a sailor’s heart in him.”</p> - -<p>“I do not know what sort of a sailor he is,” said I, “but a more -insulting son of a swab I never met in my life.”</p> - -<p>“Dere’s a ship dot may take him,” said Bol, leveling a hand as big as a -shovel at the sea.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Bol, please to keep your eye upon her while I am below,” said I; -“one needs to be wary in these waters.”</p> - -<p>“Let me look at her,” said he, and he fetched the glass. “Dere vhas -noting for dis brig to be afraid of in <i>her</i>,” said he, after a slow -Dutch gaze and ruminating pause; “it vhas not all right, I belief, but -vhat vhas wrong mit her vhas right for us.”</p> - -<p>Jimmy passed with the cabin dinner from the galley. A minute later he -arrived to report it served. I went below, and was about to sit down -when I suddenly exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Hark, what is that?”</p> - -<p>“Van Laar singing,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>He took his seat, looking very severely, but on a sudden his face -collapsed, and he burst into a fit of laughter.</p> - -<p>“Ye Gods, what a voice!” he cried. “He is improvising, and pretty -cleverly too. He is asking in Dutch for his dinner, <i>rhyming</i> as he goes -along and shouting his fancies to a Dutch air. Yet shall he get no beef, -though he should sing till his windpipe splits. I am getting mighty sick -of this business. What of the sail?”</p> - -<p>“We are rising her fairly fast and she’s heading our way. The wind is -taking off and I don’t think we shall be abreast much before another -hour.”</p> - -<p>Van Laar ceased to sing.</p> - -<p>“Is Jimmy an idiot?” said I, when the lad’s back was turned.</p> - -<p>“Not at all. He is a very honest lad, with the strength of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span> two mules in -his limbs. He has sailed with me before. I have carried him on this -voyage because of his foolishness. I did not want too much forecastle -intelligence to be dodging about my table.”</p> - -<p>“Hark!” said I, “Van Laar is calling.”</p> - -<p>“Captain,” roared the voice of the Dutchman, in syllables perfectly -distinct, though dulled by the bulkhead which his lungs had to -penetrate, “vhas I to hov any dinner? Dis vhas Mynheer Tulp’s ship. I -vhas sorry for you if you starf me.”</p> - -<p>Jimmy returned.</p> - -<p>“When did Mr. Van Laar breakfast?” said Greaves to him.</p> - -<p>The youth looked up at the clock in the skylight, and answered -instantly:</p> - -<p>“At one bell, master,” meaning half-past eight.</p> - -<p>“What did he have?”</p> - -<p>“A trayful, master,” and I noticed that the boy talked with his eyes -fixed on Galloon, while the dog looked up at him as though ready to howl -presently.</p> - -<p>“But what did he have?”</p> - -<p>“He had coffee, mutton chops, sights of biscuits, a tin of preserved -pork, more biscuit, master, ay, and fried bacon—twice he sent me to the -galley for fried bacon, and he was eating from one bell till hard upon -fower.”</p> - -<p>“There are no mutton chops on board this ship,” said Greaves, “and as to -tins of preserved pork—but you will guess,” said he, looking at me, -“that the hog’s trough was liberally brimmed; and still the beast -grunts. Listen!”</p> - -<p>Van Laar was now singing again. Presently he ceased and talked loudly to -himself. He then fell silent; but by this time Greaves and I had dined -and we went on deck.</p> - -<p>The brig, that had seemingly shifted her course, as though to stand -across our hawse, was lying hove-to off the weather bow. There was a -color at the peak. I brought the glass to bear and made out the English -ensign, union down. She had a very weedy and worn look as she lay -rolling and pitching somewhat heavily upon the light swell. Her sails -beat the masts with dislocating thumps, and in imagination I could hear -the twang of her rigging to the buckling of her spars. She was timber -laden; the timber rose above her rails.</p> - -<p>“What on earth is she towing?” exclaimed Greaves, looking at her through -the glass.</p> - -<p>I could not make the object out; something black, resembling a small -capsized jolly-boat, rose and fell close astern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span> of her. It jumped with -a wet flash, then disappeared past the brow of a swell, jumped again and -vanished as though hoisted and sunk by human agency. We ran the ensign -aloft and bore slowly down, and when we were within speaking distance -hove to.</p> - -<p>Presently we made out the queer flashful object astern of the dirty, -woe-begone little brig to be nothing more nor less than a large cask, -suspended at the end of the trysail gaff; the line was rove through a -big block up there and led forward, but into what part of the ship I -could not then perceive. Three men were squatted on the timber that was -built round about the galley chimney; their hands clasped their knees, -they eyed us with their chins on their breasts. The melancholy appeal of -the inverted ensign was not a little accentuated by the distressful -posture of those three squatting men. A fourth man stood aft. He was -clad in a long yellow coat, and wore a red shawl round his neck, and a -hat like a Quaker’s. When we were within speaking distance, and silence -had followed the operation of bringing the brig to a stand, the man in -the yellow coat called in a wild, melancholy voice across the water:</p> - -<p>“Brig ahoy!”</p> - -<p>“Hallo!”</p> - -<p>“Will you send a boat?”</p> - -<p>“What is wrong with you?”</p> - -<p>“Anan?”</p> - -<p>“What is wrong with you?” roared Greaves.</p> - -<p>“There’s nothen’ that’s right with us,” was the answer.</p> - -<p>“What ship is that?”</p> - -<p>“The <i>Commodore Nelson</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Where are you from, and where are you bound to?”</p> - -<p>“From Quebec to the Clyde.”</p> - -<p>“The Clyde!” exclaimed Greaves, looking at me. “Where does he make the -Clyde to flow? But he’s homeward bound, and you shall induce him to take -Van Laar. Go over to him, Fielding, and see what is wrong;” and he -called across the water to the man in the yellow coat, “I will send a -boat.”</p> - -<p>A boat was lowered; four men and myself entered her. We pulled alongside -the wallowing little brig, and I clambered aboard. It was like -hearkening to the sound of a swaying cradle. She creaked in every pore, -creaked from masthead to jib boom end, from the eyes to the taffrail. -She was full of wood and rolled with deadly lunges. The three men -continued to sit upon the timber that was piled round about the galley<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> -chimney. They turned their eyes upon me when I stepped on board, but -seemed incapable of taking more exercise than that.</p> - -<p>I made my way over the deck cargo to where the man in the yellow coat -was standing, and as I went I observed that the end of the line which -was rove through the block attached to the gaff led through another -block, secured near one of the pumps and fastened—that is to say, the -end of the line was fastened—to the brake or handle of the pump, which -was frequently and violently jerked, causing water to gush forth, but -intermittently and spasmodically.</p> - -<p>“What is wrong with you?” said I, approaching the man who awaited me -instead of advancing to receive me, as though he had some particular -reason in desiring to converse with me aft.</p> - -<p>“Everything is wrong,” he answered, in a patient, melancholy voice. -“First of all, will ye tell me what’s to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean the day of the week or the day of the month?”</p> - -<p>“Both,” he answered.</p> - -<p>Not a little astonished by this question, I supplied him with the -information he desired.</p> - -<p>“Thought as much,” said he, mildly jerking his fist. “Two days wrong. -Yesterday was my birthday and a’ never knew it.”</p> - -<p>“Did you say that you are bound to the Clyde?”</p> - -<p>“That’s where this cargo’s consigned to,” he answered, “and of course us -men go along with it.”</p> - -<p>“What are you doing down in these latitudes?”</p> - -<p>He gazed round the sea with a lost-my-way expression of eye, and -replied:</p> - -<p>“I don’t know where we are.”</p> - -<p>“The Canary Islands bear about thirty leagues east-southeast,” said I.</p> - -<p>He stared at the horizon as though, by looking hard, he would see the -Canary Islands.</p> - -<p>“Pray, what are you?” said I, looking at him and then glancing at his -little ship and the three men who sat disconsolately clasping their -knees on top of the deck-load.</p> - -<p>“I am the second mate and carpenter.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s your captain?”</p> - -<p>“Gone blind and mad,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“And your mate?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Gone dead,” he replied, “it’s been an uncomfortable voyage so far,” he -continued, speaking with patient melancholy and with an odd expression -of expectation in his eyes. “We left Quebec, and the mate he takes on -and dies. He couldn’t help it, poor chap, but t’other——” He gazed at -the deck as though to direct my imagination below. “It was drink, drink -all around the clock with him; no sharing—a up-in-the-corner job; -cuddling a bottle all day long and the blinds drawed. Then he goes mad. -That aint enough. Then he goes blind. <i>That</i> aint enough. What must he -do but break a leg! And there he lies,” said he, pointing straight down -with a forefinger pale as though boiled, like a laundress’s hand. “The -navigation was left to me—‘deed, then; it had been left to me for some -time—but <i>I</i> never shipped to know navigation. No fear. Me, indeed!” he -exclaimed, laughing dully. “I’m a carpenter by trade. However, here I -was; so I hove the log and steered east, and here I am!” he exclaimed -with another patient, forlorn look around the ocean.</p> - -<p>“You have lost your way,” said I. “You are not the first sailor who has -lost his way. But have you never sighted anything with a skipper to give -you the latitude and the longitude and a true course for the Clyde?”</p> - -<p>“Plenty have we sighted, but nothing that would speak us. The only thing -that showed a willingness to speak us turned out a privateer, and night -drawing down,” he exclaimed, slightly deepening his voice, “saved our -throats.”</p> - -<p>“That cask astern of you,” said I, “is a novel dodge for keeping your -ship pumped out.”</p> - -<p>A little life came into his melancholy eye.</p> - -<p>“The men took ill,” said he. “Five of them were down, and still are -down, and the nursing of ’em all, including of the captain, blind and -mad, and the cook unable to stand with dropsy, is beginning to tell upon -my spirits.”</p> - -<p>“That I can believe.”</p> - -<p>“There was but four men left. There sits three of ’em. Who was to do the -pumping? The swinging of a yard’s pretty nigh as much as we can manage. -I didn’t want to get water-logged: I wish to get home. My wife’ll be -wondering what’s become of me. So, after thinking a bit, I rigs up this -here pumping apparatus, as ye see, and if the weather holds fine, and -the drag of the cask don’t jump the pump out, I think it’ll answer.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said I, “what can we do for you?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I should like to be put in the way of getting home, sir,” he answered. -“We don’t want for food and water. There aint no purser like sickness,” -he exclaimed with a melancholy smile. “When I fell in with your brig I -was a-steering east, with the hope of making the land and coming across -some village or town where I might larn what the day of the month was, -and how to head. It’s one thing not to know what’s o’clock, but I tell -ye it makes a man feel weak in the mind to lose reckoning of the day of -the week and not know what the date of the month is.”</p> - -<p>“What is your name?”</p> - -<p>“Tarbrick, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Mr. Tarbrick, we shall be able to be of service to you, I -believe. We have a Dutchman on board who wants to get home. He and the -captain have fallen out, and the Dutchman desires to return by the first -passing ship. You may guess that he speaks English, and that he is a -navigator, when I tell you he was mate of that vessel. Will you receive -him?”</p> - -<p>“Will I?” he cried, his face lighting up. “Why, he’s just the man we -want.”</p> - -<p>“Is there nothing else we can do for you?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir; and I never reckoned on getting so much,” he answered mildly -and sadly. “I reckoned only on larning the day of the week and the date -of the month, and getting the course for a straight steer home.”</p> - -<p>“Keep all fast as you are,” said I, “and I will return to you.”</p> - -<p>I dropped into the boat and was rowed aboard the brig. Greaves was -impatiently walking the deck. He came to that part of the rail over -which I climbed, and said:</p> - -<p>“Will the brig take Van Laar?”</p> - -<p>I answered, “Yes.”</p> - -<p>His face instantly cleared. I gave him the story of the <i>Commodore -Nelson</i>, as it had been related to me by Mr. Tarbrick, and explained the -object of the cask under the stern and the lines rove from it to the -pump handle. He laughed, but there was a note of admiration in his -laughter.</p> - -<p>“That Tarbrick is no fool, spite of his thinking the Clyde lies down -this way. I have heard of worse notions than that of making a ship pump -herself out. The cask is half full of water, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“It would not be heavy enough for the down-drag unless it were half full -of water,” said I.</p> - -<p>“And it is guyed to either quarter, of course,” he continued,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> -“otherwise, when the brig moves, it must be towed directly from the -gaff-end, which would never do. A clever notion. Bol!”</p> - -<p>The boatswain, who was standing forward looking at the brig, immediately -came aft.</p> - -<p>“Come below with me,” said the captain, “and free Van Laar. That brig -will receive him. Keep your boat over the side, Mr. Fielding, and stand -by to receive Van Laar and his clothes.”</p> - -<p>They entered the cabin. In a few minutes I heard a confused noise of -voices. Van Laar’s tones were distinguishable, but I could not collect -what he said. Bol came under the skylight and asked me to send down a -couple of hands to bring up Van Laar’s chest. Presently Van Laar cried -out, “Dis vhas Mynheer Tulp’s schip, and you vhas kicking me out of -her.”</p> - -<p>“You leave at your own request,” I heard Greaves say.</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas valse,” shouted the Dutchman. “But you are a whole ship’s -gompany to von man. Yet vill I have der bed from oonder you und your -vife.”</p> - -<p>“Now step on deck, if you please.”</p> - -<p>“Dere law——” but the rest was lost to my ear by the Dutchman getting -into the companion way. He emerged, looking very pale, greasy, even -fatter than he had before shown; scowled when he met my glance, stared -around him with the bewilderment of a newly-released man, and called -out, “Vere is der schip?” He saw her as he spoke, shaded his eyes while -he looked at her, and, falling back a step, exclaimed, “I vhas not going -home in dot schip.”</p> - -<p>“That is the ship, and you are going home in her,” said Greaves. “The -boat is alongside, and Mr. Fielding waits for you to jump in.”</p> - -<p>“You vhas sorry for dis by an’ by. Do you inten’ dot I should drown by -your sending me to dot footy hooker? Who has been on boardt her?” he -shouted, looking around him with a frown; “you, sir?” cried he to me. -“Vot vhos dot oonder her taffrail? I must know vot dot vhas before I -stir!”</p> - -<p>“It’s nothing that will hurt you,” answered Greaves, who, as I might -see, dared not meet my gaze for fear of laughing.</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas it, I ask? I hov a right to know;” and here the poor fat -fellow, for whom I was beginning to feel a sort of pity, made spectacles -of his thumbs and forefingers, and put them to his eyes to stare at the -cask and repeated, “Vhat vhas it? Sir, oblige me by handing me dere -glass.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Van Laar,” said Greaves, “I should regret to use force, but if you -don’t instantly get into that boat I shall have you lifted over the side -and dropped into her.”</p> - -<p>“Who vhas it dot has been on boardt? Vhas it you, sir?” cried the -Dutchman, again addressing me. “Dos she leak? Vot vhis her cargo? Vot -are her stores? I have had no dinner, and you are sending me to a schip -dot may be stone proke.”</p> - -<p>All this while the crew of the brig, saving those in the boat, had been -standing in the fore-part, looking on. I thought to find some signs of -sympathy with Van Laar among the Dutch seamen, but if sympathy were -felt, it found no expression in their faces or bearing. The grinning had -been broad and continuous, but now I caught a murmur or two of -impatience that might have signified disgust.</p> - -<p>“Will you enter the boat?” cried Greaves. Van Laar began to protest. -“Aft here, some of you,” exclaimed Greaves, “and help Mr. Van Laar over -the side.”</p> - -<p>The Dutchman immediately went to the rail, crawled over it, breathing -heavily, then pausing when he was outside, while he still grasped the -rim, and while nothing was visible of him but his fat face above the -rail, he roared out:</p> - -<p>“Down mit dot beastly country, England! Hurrah for der law! Hurrah for -der right! Ach, boot I vhas sorry for you by an’ by.”</p> - -<p>He then dropped into the boat, I followed, and we shoved off. Galloon -barked at the Dutchman as we rowed away. Van Laar talked aloud to -himself, constantly wiping his face. His speech was Dutch, and I did not -understand what he said. Presently he broke out in English:</p> - -<p>“Yaw; a timber cargo. Dot vhas my fear. Dere you vhas, and dot’s to be -my home, and vot oonder der sky is dot cask oonder der taffrail? Der -schip’s provisions? Very like, very like. She hov a starved look. And -who vhas dose dree men sitting up dere? Vhas dot der captain in dere -yellow coat? He hov der look of a man who lives on rats. An’ I ask vhat -dos a timber schip do down here? By Gott! I do not like the look of -her.”</p> - -<p>I paid no attention to his words, and put on a frowning face to preserve -my gravity, which was severely taxed, not more by Van Laar’s talk and -appearance than by the grins of the men who were rowing the boat. We -approached the brig, and Mr. Tarbrick came to the main rigging, as -though he would have me steer the boat alongside under the main chains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Brick, ahoy!” shouted Van Laar, standing up, and setting his thick legs -apart to balance himself; for the boat swayed with some liveliness upon -the swell that was running.</p> - -<p>“Hallo!” responded Tarbrick, with a flourish of his hand.</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas dot cask oonder your shtern?”</p> - -<p>“It keeps the pump a-going,” cried Tarbrick.</p> - -<p>“Goot anchells!” cried Van Laar, “do I onderstand that you hov not a -schip’s gompany strong enough to keep der pumps manned?”</p> - -<p>“We are four well men and myself,” shouted Tarbrick; “the rest are -sick.”</p> - -<p>“I do not go home in dot schip,” said Van Laar, sitting down.</p> - -<p>“Oars!” I cried, as we swept alongside. “Mr. Van Laar, I beg you will -step on board. Pray give us no trouble. You <i>must</i> go, you know, though -it should come to my having to send for fresh hands to whip you aboard,” -by which word <i>whip</i> he perfectly well understood me to mean a tackle -made fast to the yardarm, used for hoisting. “Mr. Tarbrick, call those -three fellows of yours aft to get this chest over the side.”</p> - -<p>The three men rose in a lifeless way from the top of the timber, -shambled to abreast of the boat in a lifeless way, and in a lifeless way -still dragged up Van Laar’s sea-chest, to the grummet handle of which a -rope had been attached.</p> - -<p>“On deck dere,” called Van Laar, getting up again and planting his legs -apart, “how moch do you leak in der hour?”</p> - -<p>I winked at Tarbrick, who was leaning over the rail, but the man was -either a fool or did not catch my wink, for he answered, in his -melancholy voice:</p> - -<p>“It’s a-drainin’ in very unpleasantly. I han’t sounded the well since -this morning, but,” he added, as though to encourage Van Laar, “we’re -full of timber and can’t sink.”</p> - -<p>Down sat the Dutchman again, with a weight of fall upon the thwart that -made the boat throw a couple of little seas away from her quarters.</p> - -<p>“Here I sthop,” he said, doggedly folding his arms.</p> - -<p>“You will force me to row back to the brig, obtain fresh hands, and whip -you aboard, Mr. Van Laar.”</p> - -<p>“You vhas a big,” he said, without looking at me.</p> - -<p>“Men,” he exclaimed, addressing the seamen in the boat, “dere <i>Black -Vatch</i> belongs to Mynheer Tulp. I vhas mate of her by Mynheer Tulp’s -consent. Vill you allow your lawful mate to be put into dis beast of a -schip, to starf, to drown, to miserably perish?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You had better jump on board,” said one of the men.</p> - -<p>“Cast off!” I exclaimed. “I must return to Captain Greaves for further -instructions.”</p> - -<p>“Shtop!” shouted the Dutchman. “On deck dere, how vhas you off for -provisions?”</p> - -<p>“Very well off,” answered Tarbrick. “There’s plenty to eat aboard this -here brig.”</p> - -<p>“And how vhas you off for drink?”</p> - -<p>“Come and judge for yourself, sir. There’s been too much drink. It’s -been the ruin of us,” exclaimed Tarbrick.</p> - -<p>On this Van Laar, putting his hands upon the laniards of the main -rigging, got into the chains. We instantly shoved off and were at some -lengths from him while he was still heavily clambering on to the deck.</p> - -<p>“Blowed if his weight don’t make the little craft heel again,” exclaimed -one of the men. “See what a list to larboard she’s took.”</p> - -<p>I regained the <i>Black Watch</i> mightily rejoiced that the Dutchman was off -my hands. So vast a mass of flesh had made the transferring of it a very -formidable undertaking. He was an elephant of a man; it needed but an -impassioned gambol or two on his part to capsize a boat three times -larger than anything the <i>Black Watch</i> carried. Besides, Van Laar was -not the sort of man that one would care to sacrifice one’s life for. As -we pulled away I looked over my shoulder, and now the Dutchman had -cleared the rail and was wiping his face, with Tarbrick in the act of -approaching him. When he saw that I looked he shook his first and -roared. His words fell short; his tones alone came along like the low of -a cow. My men burst into a laugh, and a minute later we were alongside -the <i>Black Watch</i>.</p> - -<p>The moment the boat was hoisted we trimmed sail and were presently -pushing through the quiet glide of the dark blue swell, and very soon -the magic of distance was dealing with the poor little craft in our -wake. The afternoon was advanced, the light in the heavens and upon the -water was soft and red and still. In the south clouds were terraced upon -the horizon, every towering layer of radiant vapor defined with an -edging of gilt. There was wind enough to keep the water sparkling -wherever the light smote it; our sails soared like breasts of yellow -silk breathing without noise to the courtesying of the craft.</p> - -<p>A rich ocean afternoon it was, and the beauty of it entered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> the little -vessel which we were leaving astern of us even as a spirit might, -vitalizing her with colors and with a radiance not her own, converting -her into a gem-like detail for the embellishment of the wide, bare -breast of sea. Greaves and I stood looking at her; but the instant I -leveled the telescope the enchantment vanished, for then she showed as a -crazy old brig once more, a cask in tow of her, her sails ill-set, and -the bulky figure of Van Laar striding here and there, with many marks of -agitation in his motions.</p> - -<p>“The captain mad and blind in the cabin,” said Greaves; “five men sick -in the forecastle and the others crushed in spirits, forecastle fare for -cabin fare, and bad at that; the water draining into the hold; and the -vessel fearfully to the southward of her destination. I do not envy Van -Laar.”</p> - -<p>However, long before we ran the little vessel out of sight, they had got -her head pointed in a direction that was right for the British Channel, -if not the Clyde. The breeze had freshened, she was leaning over, and -the cask astern had been cut adrift.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE “REBECCA.”</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Now</span>, when Van Laar was gone all hands of us seemed to settle down very -comfortably to the rough, hard, simple discipline of the sea-life. The -more I saw of Greaves, the more I saw of the brig, the better I liked -both. Over and over again I congratulated myself upon my good fortune. I -seemed to trace it all to that gibbet on the sand hills. I know not why. -What more ghastly, what more hideously ominous, you might say, could the -mind of man imagine than a gibbet and a dead felon hanging from it in -irons, and a mother receiving the horrible burthen of the beam from the -fire-bright hand of the storm, and nursing the fearful object as though -it were once again the babe that she had suckled? What more hideously -ominous than such things could man ask of Heaven to initiate his career -with, to inaugurate a new departure with? But that gibbet it was which -kept me waiting when by walking I must have missed the press-gang and, -for all I can now tell, have safely got me aboard the <i>Royal -Brunswicker</i>.</p> - -<p>Be this as it will. I liked Greaves; I liked his little ship; I liked my -position on board of her; and I could find no fault with the crew. The -people of my watch ran about without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span> murmurs. Yan Bol seemed to have -the whole company well in hand. The spun-yarn winch was often a-going; -we were a very clean ship; the complicated machinery aloft was carefully -looked to; the long guns were kept bright. I had overhauled the -slop-chest and taken what I wanted, and there lay, in a big sea-box -which Greaves had somewhere fished out for me, as comfortable a stock of -clothes as ever I could wish to sail out of port with.</p> - -<p>I did not imagine, however, that the crew would long content themselves -with what, while Greaves remained dumb, must be to them no more nor less -than an aimless sailing over the breast of the ocean. Sailors do not -love to be long at sea without making a voyage. Our crew might look at -the compass and note that the course was a straight one for cutting the -equator; but what imaginations were they to build up on the letters -S.S.W.? We were not a king’s ship. There was no obligation of -<i>passivity</i>. The sailors were merchant seamen, claiming all the old -traditional rights of their calling; of exercising those rights, at all -events, whenever convenient: the rights of grumbling, cursing, laying -aft in a body and expostulating, holding forward in a body and turning -deaf ears to the boatswain’s music. “Surely,” I would sometimes think, -while I paced the deck, eyeing the fellows of my watch at work, “those -men will not wait till we are south of the line to hear what the errand -of this brig is!”</p> - -<p>It came to pass that, a few days after we had got rid of Van Laar, I -went on deck at midnight to take charge of the brig until four in the -morning. The noble wind of the northeast trade was full in our canvas—a -small, fresh, quartering gale—the sky lively with the sliding of stars -amid the steam-tinctured heap of the trade-cloud swarming away -southwest. Studding-sails were out and the brig hummed through it, -shouldering the seas off both bows into snowstorms. The burly figure of -Yan Bol stood to windward, abreast of the little skylight. He waited for -me to relieve him, and, while he waited, he sang to himself in a deep -voice, like the drumming of the wind as it flashed into the hollow of -the trysail and fled to leeward in a hollow roar under the boom.</p> - -<p>“Is that you, Bol?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, it vhas her himself,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“This will do,” said I, stepping up to him.</p> - -<p>“Yaw, dis vhas a nice little draught,” he replied.</p> - -<p>I made a few quarter-deck inquiries relating to the business<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span> of the -brig during his charge of the deck since eight o’clock, and was then -going aft to look at the binnacle, but stayed on finding that he -lingered.</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” said he, “I vhas not very gladt to be second mate.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“Vell, I believe dot der men vouldt hov more respect for me if I vhas -one of demselves.”</p> - -<p>“But you are bo’sun, anyway, and your rating, therefore, is higher than -that of the others.”</p> - -<p>“Dot may be,” he replied, “but a bo’sun in der merchant service vhas no -better dan vhat you call in your language a common sailor. He blows a -whistle; dot, and a dollar or two more money, and dere you hov der -difference.”</p> - -<p>“Who else could be second mate?” said I. “As bo’sun of this vessel it -would not please you to be ordered about by an able seaman.”</p> - -<p>He was silent. It was too dark to see anything of the man save the -shapeless lump of shadow which he made against the stars over the sea.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” said he, “can you tell me vhere dis brig vhas boun’ to?”</p> - -<p>“I know where she is bound to,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Ho, <i>you</i> know, sir!” he exclaimed, with a tone of surprise trembling -through his deep voice; “Ve all tink dot she vhas der captain’s secret.”</p> - -<p>“If you all did think that,” said I, “why do you ask me where the brig -is bound to.”</p> - -<p>“It vhas about time dot ve knew vhere ve vhas boun’ to,” said Bol. “Dis -vhas a larsh verld. Dere vhas many places in him. Some of dose places I -have visited and vish never to see again. Derefore I likes to know vhere -ve vhas boun’ to.”</p> - -<p>“It is for the captain, not for me, to tell you that,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Vhen shall he speak?” said Bol.</p> - -<p>“In good time, I warrant you.”</p> - -<p>“I vhas villing to agree dot vhere we sailed to should be der captain’s -secret for a leedle time; but now ve hov been somevhiles at sea, und -still she vhas a secret, und I belief dot der men did not suppose dot -she vouldt be a secret so long. Dere vhas no cargo. Nothing vhas -consigned. Derefore, if ve vhas boun’ anywhere it vhas to a port to call -for orders. Und after<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“The captain will not keep the crew in ignorance much longer,” said I.</p> - -<p>“But you can tell us, Mr. Fielding, vhere ve vhas boun’ to?”</p> - -<p>“I know where we are bound to.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas strange! You come on board as a shipwreckt man, vhich vhas -quite right; und you take Heer Van Laar’s place, vhich vhas also quite -right; and of all der crew, excepting der captain, you alone know vhere -der brig vhas boun’ to! Mr. Fielding, oxcuse me, I mean no offense, but -I say again dot vhas dom’d strange.”</p> - -<p>There was jealousy here which I witnessed, understood, and, to a degree, -sympathized with. Here was I, a stranger to the brig—a stranger, I -mean, in the sense of not having formed one of her company when she -sailed from Amsterdam; here was I, not only installed in the room of Van -Laar, and, for all I knew, regarded by the crew as the cause of that -man’s expulsion from the ship, but in possession of knowledge withheld -from all hands. This might excite a feeling against me among the men, -which would be unfortunate. The voyage had opened with so much promise -that I had resolved to spare no effort to make a jolly jaunt of it to -the uttermost end of the traverse, whether that end was to be called the -Downs, or Amsterdam. Preserving my temper, and speaking in the kindliest -voice I could command, I said to the big figure alongside of me:</p> - -<p>“Yan Bol, I do not wonder you are surprised that I should know what is -hidden from you. You are an officer of this ship as well as I.”</p> - -<p>“Nine, nine!” he exclaimed in a voice as deep as a trombone.</p> - -<p>“But why am I intrusted,” I continued, “with the secret of this voyage a -little while before it is communicated to the crew? I will tell you. -Captain Greaves wanted a mate in the room of Van Laar. It was not to be -supposed that I would accept the offer of the post of mate unless I knew -where I was bound to. Therefore, to secure my services, Captain Greaves -explained the nature of this expedition. With the others of you it was -different. You agreed to sail in this brig, and you were willing, when -you agreed to sail, to be kept in ignorance of the brig’s destination. -Had I been at Amsterdam when a crew was wanted for the <i>Black Watch</i>, -and had I been invited to join her as able seaman, boatswain, chief -mate, what you will, I should have answered: ‘Tell me first where you -are bound to,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> for I will not join your ship until I know where she is -going and what her business is?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Vell, dot vhas right,” he exclaimed, half smothering a huge yawn. “I -hov noting to say against dot. But you hov der ear of your captain. You -vhas his countryman: you vhas old friendts, I hov heard. You vill make -us men tankful to you if you vill ask him to let us know vhere ve vhas -boun’ as conveniently soon as may pe.”</p> - -<p>“I will speak to him as you wish,” said I.</p> - -<p>He bade me good-night very civilly, and his great shape rolled forward -and vanished in the blackness that lay upon the fore part of the brig.</p> - -<p>I paced the deck, musing over this conversation. It seemed to me to -justify Greaves’ resolution to withhold all knowledge of the ship’s -errand from the men until their characters lay somewhat plain to his -gaze; but on the other hand, I conceived that it would be a mistake to -irritate them by keeping silence too long. They had a right to know -where they were going. Then the provocation of silence might lead to -murmurs and difficulties, and what would <i>that</i> mean.</p> - -<p>I was again on deck at eight o’clock in the morning. One of the most -comfortless conditions of the sea-life is this ceaseless turning in and -turning out. It is called watch and watch. The ladies will want to know -what watch and watch means. Ladies, watch and watch means this: Snob is -chief mate. He takes charge of the ship from midnight until four o’clock -in the morning. Nob, who is the second mate, is then roused up, comes on -deck, and looks after the ship until eight o’clock in the morning. At -this hour Snob’s turn has come round. He arrives, and takes over the -ship until noon. Another four hours brings the time to four o’clock, -when the ordinary watch is split in halves, and each half, called a -dog-watch, lasts two hours. This provides change and change about, so -that Snob, who last night had charge from twelve to four, will to-night -be in bed during those hours, weather permitting.</p> - -<p>When I stepped on deck at eight o’clock I found a brilliant morning all -about, but a softer sea, a lighter wind than I had left, a languider -courtesying of the brig, even a dull flap at times forward when the -cloths of the heavy forecourse hollowed into the stoop of the bows as a -child’s cheek dimples when it sucks in its breath. The trade-wind was -not taking off. Not at all. The heavens were gay with the flight of the -trade-cloud, as gay as ever the sky could be made by a dance of sea-fowl -on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span> wing; and while that vapor flew, one knew that the wind was -constant. Only we had happened just now to have washed with foam rising -in thunder to each cathead into a pause or interval of the inspiring -commercial gale of the North Atlantic; the strong, glad rush of air -which had hoarily veiled every deep blue hollow with white brine, torn -flashing from each curling head, had sunk for a little into a tropic -fanning, and the swell of the sea was small and each surge no more than -a giant ripple, with scarce weight enough in its run to ridge into foam.</p> - -<p>But, bless me, had a week of stark calm descended upon our heads we -should still have done uncommonly well. Our average progress, since the -day on which I had recovered consciousness on board the <i>Black Watch</i>, -had come very near to steam as steam is in these days in which I am -writing, though to what velocities the boiler may hereafter attain I am -not here to predict.</p> - -<p>Greaves stood abreast of the wheel. He was looking through a telescope -at some object that lay about three points on the weather bow. He -continued to gaze with a degree of steadfastness that rendered him -insensible of my presence. I looked and seemed to see some small vessel -upon the edge of the sea; but I could not be sure. She was above a -league distant, and the morning light was confusing that way with the -blending of the shadowy lift of the swell, the violet shadows of the -clouds, and the hazy splendor of the early morning distances. My -caressing and speaking to Galloon, who lay near his master, caused -Greaves to bring his eye away from the glass.</p> - -<p>“Good-morning, Fielding. The breeze has fallen slack. I am trying to -make out the meaning of that little schooner down there;” and he pointed -over the bow with his telescope. “Look for yourself.”</p> - -<p>I leveled the glass, and beheld a schooner of about a hundred tons, -rolling broadside to the sea, abandoned, or, if not abandoned, then -helpless. Her jib boom was gone; so, too, was her fore topmast; -otherwise she seemed sound enough, saving that for canvas she had -nothing set but her gaff foresail, though, as I seemed to find, when I -strained my gaze through the glass, her mainsail was not furled, but lay -heaped upon the boom, as though the halliards had been let go and -nothing more done.</p> - -<p>“She’ll be worse off than the craft that Van Laar’s gone home in,” said -I, returning the telescope to Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Do you believe in dreams?” said he.</p> - -<p>“No,” I answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do not be in too great a hurry with your ‘noes,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> he exclaimed. “I like -a man to reflect when he is asked a question in metaphysics.”</p> - -<p>“I know nothing about metaphysics,” said I, “and I do not believe in -dreams.”</p> - -<p>“I believe in the unseen,” said he, putting down the glass, and folding -his arms and leaning back against the rail, as though settling himself -down for a talk or an argument. “The materialist tells you not to put -your faith in anything you can’t see, or handle, or smell, that you -can’t bring some organ or function of sense to bear upon, in short. -Throw yourself down upon your back, and look straight up into the sky. -What do you see? Hey? But do you see it? Yes. Do you understand it? No. -It is visible, and yet it is the unseen; for at what does a man look -when he gazes straight up into the sky?”</p> - -<p>“There are few things worth going mad for,” said I, “and two things I am -resolved shall never send me to Bedlam.”</p> - -<p>“What are they?”</p> - -<p>“One of them’s that,” said I, pointing straight up.</p> - -<p>“What do you make of yonder schooner,” said he.</p> - -<p>I described such features as I had observed.</p> - -<p>“She has a black hull, and a thin line of painted ports,” said he.</p> - -<p>“She has.”</p> - -<p>“She has lost her fore topmast and jib boom.”</p> - -<p>“That’s so.”</p> - -<p>“It is very extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “I dreamt last night, or in -one of this morning watches, that I sighted that schooner. I saw her in -my dream as I have been seeing her in that glass there. She was wrecked -forward, she lay in the trough, she showed no canvas but her gaff -foresail. There it all is!” he said, pointing; “and yet how quick you -are with your ‘No’ when I asked if you believed in dreams!” He smiled -and continued, “But my dream carried me further than I intend to go in -these waking hours; for, in my dream, I launched a boat, where from I -can’t tell ye, and went aboard that schooner. I looked about me, her -decks were lifeless. I stepped below into her little cabin, and what -d’ye think I saw? The figure of Death seated in an armchair at the table -with a pack of cards in one skeleton hand. He pointed to a chair and -began to deal. I awoke, and wasn’t sorry to wake. There lies the -schooner. How very extraordinary! Is old Death below, waiting for a -partner? You shall find out, Fielding.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span> I’ll lay you aboard. By thunder, -rather than go myself I would forfeit all the money I hope to take up at -the end of this run.”</p> - -<p>Many lies are told of us sailors by landsmen, but when they call us a -superstitious clan they speak the truth. Superstitious, indeed, are -sailors. I am talking of the Jacks of my time; I understand that the -mariner is more enlightened in these days. I looked at the little -schooner anxiously. I felt no reluctance to board her; but, though I had -told Greaves that I did not believe in dreams, I discovered, -nevertheless, that this dream had communicated a particular significance -to the little craft. I had meant to talk to him about my chat with Yan -Bol at midnight, and the subject went out of my head while I looked at -the schooner and thought of Greaves’ dream.</p> - -<p>“I will board her,” said I, “and enter her cabin.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said he, “I shall want you to do that. My dream was so vivid -that I shall ask you to take notice of the fittings of that cabin for -the sake of corroboration, and let me be first with you——”</p> - -<p>He shut his eyes as one seeking strongly to realize his own -imaginations, and said: “It is a square cabin with a square table -directly under an oblong skylight. There is a chair at the head of the -table. In that chair sat the skeleton, not answering to Milton’s -magnificent fancy:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">“What seemed his head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The likeness of a kingly crown had on.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>No, the thing was uncrowned. It was a skeleton, but it lived, and made -as though it would deal the cards it held. Opposite is another chair; on -either hand are lockers. There are sleeping berths at the foot of the -companion ladder, and that’s all that I can remember,” said he, opening -his eyes.</p> - -<p>Jimmy announced breakfast. Yan Bol came aft to take charge while I went -below. The burly Dutchman looked at me meaningly, and then I recollected -my talk with him; but I resolved to say nothing to the captain this side -my excursion to the schooner.</p> - -<p>Before we sat down Jimmy received one of his lessons. There was a ham -upon the table, and he called it a leg of mutton. I had long ago -discovered that the boy was honestly wanting in the power to distinguish -between articles of food. Sometimes I supposed he blundered on purpose -to divert his master, who appeared to enjoy the concert that was part of -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> lesson, but I was now convinced that though he had the names of -many varieties of meats, and even dishes, at his tongue’s end, he was -utterly unable to correctly apply them. His confidence in his own -indications was the extraordinary part of his misapplications. He spoke, -for instance, of the ham as a leg of mutton as though quite sure; then -to the first syllable of correction that fell from Greaves, and to a -faint, uneasy groan which the dog always gave when Greaves spoke on -these occasions—as though the noble beast knew that the boy had -blundered and that the duet was inevitable—Jimmy stiffened himself into -a soldier-like posture, nose in the air, hands up and down like a pump -handle, and the dog looking at him ready to howl. The lesson ended, we -sat down and fell to.</p> - -<p>“Your teaching does not seem to make the lad see the difference between -meats,” said I.</p> - -<p>“I have hopes of him,” he answered, “and Galloon’s face is good on these -occasions.”</p> - -<p>He then talked of the schooner, of his dream, and his discourse ran in -such a strain that I discovered that secretly he was not only of a -serious and religious cast of mind, but superstitious beyond any man I -had ever sailed with. Thought has the speed of the lightning stroke, and -I remember as I sat listening to him, saying very little myself—for I -had but the shallowest understanding of the subject he had got upon; I -say that I remember thinking: Suppose this voyage should be the -consequence of a dream? Suppose this Pacific quest for hard Spanish -milled dollars should be an effect of superstitious fancy? Suppose the -whole scheme should be as unsubstantial in fact as the actors in the -revels in the ‘Tempest’? But the image of Mynheer Tulp swept as an -inspiration of support into my mind. I had entertained myself by -figuring that man. In thinking over this voyage I had depicted its -promoter, and my fancy gave me the likeness of a little withered -Dutchman in a velvet cap, with a nose of Hebraic proportions, a keen -black eye, a wary, sarcastic smile, and a mind whose horizon was the -circumference of a guilder. I seemed to see the little creature looking -over Greaves’ shoulder at me as I mused upon my companion’s somewhat -foggy talk, and I said unto myself, “Tulp believing, all’s well.”</p> - -<p>When we went on deck the schooner was within musket shot. She had -seemingly been in collision with another vessel, though her hull looked -perfectly sound; nor did she sit upon the sea, nor rise with the slope -of the swell, as if she had more water in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span> her than was good for -buoyancy. Nothing alive was visible aboard.</p> - -<p>I know not a more forlorn object, the wide world over, than an abandoned -vessel encountered deep in the heart of an ocean solitude. She sucks in -the desolation of the sea and grows gray, lean, and haggard with the -melancholy that sometimes raves and sometimes sleeps, but that forever -dwells upon the bosom of the deep. There is no fancy in this. Many ways -are there in which loneliness may be personified or illustrated: the -widow weeping upon the tomb of her only child, a blind man in a crowd, a -prostrate figure on some wide spread of midnight moor, over whose vague -and distant edge a red eye of moon is glancing under a lid of black -cloud. In many ways may loneliness be represented, but there is no -expression of it that equals, to my mind, the abandoned ship. Is it -because the movement of the sea communicates a fancy of life to the -vessel? She looks to be sentient as she sways, to be sensible that she -is the only object for leagues upon the prodigious liquid waste over -which the boundless heavens are spread. Some unfurled canvas flaps; the -wheel revolves, or the tiller shears through the air to the blows of the -seas upon the rudder: there may be the ends of gear snaking overboard; -they move, they writhe like serpents; they seem to <i>pour</i> as though they -were the life blood of the vessel draining from her heart. And terrible -is the silence of the decks. It is not the silence of the empty house -that was yesterday full and clamorous with merry voices. It is such a -silence as you meet with nowhere else, deepened to the meditative mind -by sounds which would vex and break in upon and destroy all other -silence. Yes, to my mind the abandoned ship at sea is the most perfect -expression of human and inanimate loneliness.</p> - -<p>This I thought as I gazed at that little schooner. Greaves watched her -with a look of uneasiness. He came to my side and said, in a low voice:</p> - -<p>“Take a boat, will ye, Fielding, and explore that craft? She’s been -abandoned for weeks; I am sure of that. You’ll find nothing alive, and -if it wasn’t for that dream of mine last night I’d pass on. But I <i>must</i> -find out whether the cabin furniture is as I beheld it in my sleep.”</p> - -<p>A boat was lowered; three men jumped in. I followed, and gained the side -of the schooner. We pulled under her stern to see her name, and read in -big white letters on the slope of her counter the word <i>Rebecca</i>. I -fastened a superstitious eye upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span> the two little starboard portholes, -which, as I might guess, illuminated her cabin. What was inside?</p> - -<p>“Two of you,” said I to the men, “come aboard with me. You, Travers, -remain in charge of the boat.”</p> - -<p>The men who scrambled over the side were Friend and Meehan. We stood -gazing and listening. The foresail occasionally flapped as the little -vessel heaved to the swell, but the water washed along the bends -noiseless as quicksilver. Saving the wreckage forward, I could see -nothing wrong with the schooner. There were signs of confusion, as -though she had been abandoned in a hurry: the sails had come down with a -run, and lay unfurled; the decks were littered with ropes’ ends. But all -deck fixtures were in their place; nay, there was even a small boat -chocked under the starboard gangway forward, but the bigger boat, which -such a craft as this would carry, was missing.</p> - -<p>My eye went to the skylight, and I started. It was oblong. “What more of -the dream remains to be verified?” thought I. The skylight was closed, -the frames secured within, the glass filthy. I peered and peered to no -purpose. On this I stepped to the companion, while the two seamen moved -forward to look down the hatches in obedience to my orders; but I paused -when I was in the companion way. I seemed to smell a damp odor as of a -vault. “Good God!” thought I, “if there <i>should</i> be anything horrible at -the head of the table, with a pack of—— Chut! ye fool!” I said to -myself, “say a prayer and shove on, and be hanged to you!” and down I -went.</p> - -<p>Well, there was no skeleton; there was nothing horrible to be seen. If -the grim Feature had ever occupied the head of that table, he had found -a companion; he had played his trump card: he had won of a surety, and -he and his opponent were gone. But had I veritably beheld a living -skeleton seated at the table and motioning as though it would deal, I -could not have been more scared—no; let me say I could not have been -more impressed than I was—by the sight of the furniture. of the cabin. -It was precisely as Greaves had described it. It was the plainest sea -interior in the world—nothing whatever worth looking at, nothing in it -to detain the attention for an instant; yet it was all exactly as -Greaves described it. I was revisited by the misgiving of an earlier -hour. “The man is an extraordinary dreamer,” I said to myself. “He may -be a little mad. A few people dream as this man has dreamt, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span> those -few, I suspect, will be found somewhat mad at root. Has he dreamt of the -ship in the island cave? Did he, that he might justify to <i>himself</i> his -faith in his extraordinary vision by sailing on this quest—did he -<i>forge</i> that manifest which, backed by his eloquent advocacy, no doubt, -induced old Bartholomew Tulp to put his hand in his pocket?”</p> - -<p>I stood thus thinking when I heard my name called.</p> - -<p>“Hallo!” I exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“There’s somebody alive forrad!” cried one of the men.</p> - -<p>I ran on deck.</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“This way, sir,” shouted Meehan.</p> - -<p>I followed the fellow to the forecastle—that is to say, to the hatch by -which the forecastle was entered and quitted.</p> - -<p>“There’s somebody knocking,” cried Friend.</p> - -<p>“Thump back and sing out,” I cried.</p> - -<p>The man did so, and we heard a faint voice, feeble as a sweep’s -call-down from the height of a tall chimney.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you see what has happened?” cried I. “Why, look! This vessel has -been in collision—struck some vessel on end. Her bowsprit has been run -in by the blow, and <i>the heel of it has closed the slide of the hatch -over the people who are below here</i>!”</p> - -<p>I thumped and sang out. A voice dimly responded. I thumped again, and -roared at the top of my lungs:</p> - -<p>“We’ll have you out of this, but you must wait a bit. Do you hear me?” -and there was a note in the faint, inarticulate response that made me -know I was heard.</p> - -<p>I looked about, but my eye sought in vain for such machinery of tackles -as I required to free the men below. I did not choose to waste time by -hunting, and told Meehan to jump into the boat and pull, with Travers, -over to the brig. By this time the two vessels had so closed to each -other as to be within easy speaking distance. I hailed the <i>Black -Watch</i>, and Greaves stood up and made answer.</p> - -<p>“There are two men locked up in this schooner’s fok’sle, and the heel of -the bowsprit——” and I explained how it happened that the hatch was -closed and immovably secured. He flourished his arm. I then requested -him to send me the necessary gear for clearing the hatch by running out -the bowsprit; I likewise asked him for a couple more men. Again he -flourished his arm. By this time the boat was alongside the brig.</p> - -<p>“What have you found aft in the cabin?” shouted Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Nothing but ordinary furniture,” I answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I see,” he cried, “that the skylight is oblong. Is the table square?”</p> - -<p>“It is, sir.”</p> - -<p>“A chair at the head and foot?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, sir, and lockers on either hand.”</p> - -<p>His figure hardened into a posture of astonishment. He stood mute. I -could readily imagine an expression of superstitious dismay on his face; -or rather, let me say, that I <i>hoped</i> this, for methought it would be -ominous for our faith in those distant South Pacific dollars if he -should accept the startling realization of this dream with the -tranquillity of a man who dreams much, and who believes in his dreams, -and whose actions are governed by them.</p> - -<p>The boat returned with the additional assistance I required, and with -the necessary gear for freeing the forecastle hatch. The business was -somewhat tedious. It was a case of what sailors know as <i>jam</i>. It -involved luff upon luff, much sweating and swearing, much hard straining -and hoarse chorusing at the little forecastle capstan. At last we -started the bowsprit, the heel ran clear of the hatch, and two of the -men, grasping the hatch cover, swept it through its grooves.</p> - -<p>The moment the hatch was open a figure rose up out of the darkness -below; another followed at his heels. I looked for more, but there were -but two, and those two stood blinking and rubbing their eyes, and -turning their heads about as though their motions were produced by -clockwork. One of them was the strangest looking man I had ever seen. -Did you ever read the story of Peter Serrano? If so, then figure Serrano -with his beard cropped, his hairy body clothed in a sleeved waistcoat -and a pair of short pilot breeches, the hair of his head still long, and -rings in his ears, the whole man still preserving a good deal of that -oyster-like expression of face and sandy grittiness of complexion which -Peter got from a long residence upon a shoal.</p> - -<p>This man might have been Peter Serrano after he had been trimmed, -washed, and cared for ashore. His eyes were small and fiery, the edges -of the lids a raw red. He was about five feet tall, with the smallest -feet that ever capered at the extremities of a sailor’s trousers. His -companion was of the ordinary type of merchant seamen, red-haired, of a -heavy cast of countenance; the complexion of this man was of the hue of -sailors’ duff—which you must go to sea to understand, for there is no -word in the English language to express the color<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> of it. They had risen -through the hatch with activity; as they stood they seemed fairly strong -on their pins. But the light confounded them, and they continued to rub -and to weep and to mechanically rotate their heads for some few minutes -after I had begun to talk to them.</p> - -<p>“Well, my lads,” said I, “this is a stroke of fortune for you. Talk of -rats in a hole! How came ye into this mess? But, first, are ye English?”</p> - -<p>“English both,” said the little man.</p> - -<p>“How come ye to be locked up after this fashion?”</p> - -<p>The little chap looked round at us with streaming eyes and said, in just -the sort of harsh, salt, gritty voice that my imagination had fitted him -with before he opened his lips—a voice that was extraordinary with its -suggestion of sand, the seething of surf, and the spasmodic shriek of -the gull: “Tell us the time, will yer?”</p> - -<p>I looked at my watch and gave him the hour. He lugged out a great silver -turnip from his breeches’ band; the dial plate of that watch was about -the size of a shilling, and the back of it came nearly to the -circumference of a saucer.</p> - -<p>“What does he say?” he exclaimed, holding up the watch. “This here blaze -is like striking of a man blind.”</p> - -<p>“The time by your watch,” said I, looking at it, “is seven o’clock.”</p> - -<p>“Is he right?” asked the little man eagerly.</p> - -<p>“Not by nearly four hours,” said I.</p> - -<p>“If he aint furder out it’s all one,” exclaimed the other sailor.</p> - -<p>“Me and my mate,” said the little man, “has had a good many arguments -about the time while we’ve been locked up below, but I think my tally’ll -come out right.”</p> - -<p>“How long have you been locked up below according to your tally?” said -I.</p> - -<p>“This here’s a Wednesday, aint it?” he inquired, once again straining -the moisture out of his eyes with his knuckles, and blinking at me.</p> - -<p>“No,” said I; “it’s Thursday.”</p> - -<p>“Nearer than you, Bobby, anyway!” he cried. “Your tally brought it to -Saturday.”</p> - -<p>“How long have you been locked up, men?”</p> - -<p>“Why,” he exclaimed, “if this here’s a Thursday”—his voice broke like -that of a youth entering manhood, as he continued—“we’ve been locked up -a fortnight when it shall ha’ gone nine o’clock.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>A murmur of pity and amazement escaped my men.</p> - -<p>“And it happened like this,” continued the little fellow, beginning to -walk swiftly in a small circle: “Me and Bobby was in the same watch. We -had come below and turned in. We was waked by a crash, and I heerd the -hatch cover closed. There went eight of us to a crew, but when I sings -out only Bobby answers. The others who was below may have heard the -capt’n or mate singing out on deck afore the collision. They was gone. -Bobby and me tries to open the hatch. No fear! Eh, Bobby?” exclaimed the -little fellow, who continued to walk very rapidly in a circle. “And how -did it happen that that there hatch was closed? Why, I don’t know <i>now</i>. -How did it happen?” he yelled.</p> - -<p>I explained. The little fellow looked at the bowsprit heel, at the -hatch, and then his mate, and exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Wrong again, Bobby! Bobby was for having it that the hatch had been -closed ’spressly to drown us by one of the sailors as him and me hated, -as him and me had fought with and licked times out o’ counting.”</p> - -<p>I was about to ask the fellows how they had managed to breathe in their -black hole of a forecastle during their fortnight’s imprisonment, when I -caught sight of a stove funnel piercing the forecastle deck and rising a -few feet above it. That funnel was all the answer my question needed. I -inquired how they managed to obtain food and the little sore-eyed man -answered that they had lifted the hatch of the forepeak and found oil -for their lamps and water to drink, some barrels of bread and flour, and -a piece or two of beef; for, luckily for them, the provisions in this -schooner were stowed forward. There was coal in the forepeak. They -lighted the forecastle stove and so dressed their victuals; but they -were always forced to be in a hurry with their cooking, for the fire -carried the fresh air up with it; and when they had raked the coals out -they would sit with their heads close in to the stove to breathe the air -as it gushed in again through the flue.</p> - -<p>“Did you never try to break out?” said one of my men.</p> - -<p>“Time arter time, mate. There was sights o’ trying, and you see what -it’s comes to,” exclaimed the little fiery-eyed man, starting to walk in -a circle again.</p> - -<p>At this moment I was hailed by Greaves:</p> - -<p>“How many men have you released?”</p> - -<p>“Two, sir; there are no more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Then bring them aboard, Mr. Fielding. I wish to proceed.”</p> - -<p>“Get your clothes,” said I to the little man, “and come along.”</p> - -<p>He stopped in his circling walk and looked at the fellow he called -Bobby; then, as if influenced by the same thought, they both cast their -eyes over the schooner, first staring up at the broken topmast, then at -the bowsprit, then running their gaze over the decks.</p> - -<p>“Have you sounded the well?” cried the little man to me.</p> - -<p>“No, I have not,” I answered.</p> - -<p>He flew to the pumps; his feet twinkled as he fled. I never witnessed -such activity; it seemed impossible in a man who had been suffering from -a fortnight of black hole. He pounced upon the sounding-rod, dropped the -bar down the well, whipped it up, looked at it, uttered a gull-like cry, -flung the iron down, and was with us in a jiffey.</p> - -<p>“Bobby,” he exclaimed, “nut dust aint in it with her.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t I know her for a corker?” responded Bobby. “Froth and pop when it -blows, and a dead marine at heart.”</p> - -<p>“Bobby, what d’ye think?” said the raw-eyed little man, questioning his -mate as though the suggestion had been made.</p> - -<p>The man looked round the sea, looked up aloft, and answered:</p> - -<p>“Agreeable.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll carry the schooner home, sir,” said the little fellow, addressing -me.</p> - -<p>“You two?”</p> - -<p>“Say us four, sir. There’s a two-man power for each hand a-coming out of -such a salvage job as this.”</p> - -<p>I observed some of my men gaze about them thirstily and enviously and a -little gloomily.</p> - -<p>“Are you resolved?” said I, looking at the fellow, doubting my right to -suffer them to embark on such an adventure after their long, weakening -spell of imprisonment.</p> - -<p>“It’s two blocks, aint it, Bobby?” said the little man.</p> - -<p>“Ay,” answered Bobby, “nothing wanting but this: First, that this kind -gentleman will help us to secure the bowsprit afore he takes away his -men; and, next, that he gives the course to steer for the Henglish -Channel.”</p> - -<p>I was again hailed impatiently by Greaves, on which I got upon the rail -and told him that the two men wished to carry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> their schooner home. -Should I permit them to do it, considering——</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” he shouted; “they’ll pick up help as they go along.”</p> - -<p>I then called out that I would stay a little while longer, that I might -secure the bowsprit and set them a course; and I then bade the little -man with the fiery eyes go below and rummage the cabin that had been -occupied by his captain for such charts as might be there. He was off -like a hare, and returned in a few minutes with a small bag of charts, -one of which represented the North Atlantic Ocean; and, while my people -were busy with the bowsprit, I, with a pencil, marked upon the chart the -track and courses for the red-eyed man and his mate to pursue. We then -made sail on the schooner, shook hands with the two fellows, and entered -the boat.</p> - -<p>As I was about to drop over the side I overheard one of my men, in a -grumbling voice, say:</p> - -<p>“Is this here traverse of ourn going to consist of rummaging jobs, I -wonder. Nothen but boarding so far, and what for?”</p> - -<p>“Vere vhas ve boun’?” said another. “By Cott! boot I like to know by dis -time vere ve vhas goin’.”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE ROUND ROBIN.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was business to be done in getting the boat aboard and in starting -the brig afresh upon her course. Nevertheless, I found moments for a -look at the retreating schooner, and, while she still lay plain to the -naked sight, I saw the little man with the fire-ringed eyes seize the -tiller, while the other fellow who had been called Bobby clumsily -sprawled aloft, and fell to hacking at the rigging of the wrecked fore -topmast, which presently went overboard with its two yards.</p> - -<p>By this time eight bells had been made by Greaves. It was Yan Bol’s -watch. I went below to wash and shift myself; dinner was then ready. -Galloon took his seat, and Greaves occupied the head of the table with -Jimmy behind him to wait upon us.</p> - -<p>“I wish my dream had not proved so accurate,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“It was extraordinarily accurate,” said I. “Nothing was missing in that -little cabin but the figure of Death.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I shall grow superstitious,” he exclaimed, “and little things will -trouble me.”</p> - -<p>“It was a providential dream, captain,” said I. “It has saved the lives -of two men.”</p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps it has,” he answered a little complacently. “Certainly, -but for my dream, I should not have sent you aboard the schooner.”</p> - -<p>“I know but of one instance like it—at sea,” said I. “The nephew of a -French skipper dreamt three times in succession that some castaway -wretches were lodged upon a lonely rock—where, I forget. The captain -yielded to the influence of the third time of dreaming, and shifted his -helm, made the rock, saw the men, and brought them off in a dying -state.”</p> - -<p>We continued to talk of the schooner, of the chances for and against the -two men navigating her home unless they picked up help on the road, of -dreams, and such matters. Jimmy withdrew. It was my watch below, and I -was in no hurry to leave the table.</p> - -<p>“This seems a voyage of overhauling,” said I. “First we board the -melancholy Tarbrick, who doesn’t know the day of the month; then we -board the little <i>Rebecca</i>, whose two forecastle rats of sailors don’t -know what o’clock it is. What further in the boarding line lies between -this time and our business t’other side the Horn?”</p> - -<p>“We want nothing further in the boarding line,” Greaves answered; “our -port is south of the Galapagos, and we are in the North Atlantic and in -a hurry.”</p> - -<p>“Has it ever occurred to you to imagine what became of the people of -that locked-up ship of yours?”</p> - -<p>“No; why should I trouble myself to imagine? She has been in that cave -since 1810.”</p> - -<p>“You may be sure,” said I, “that if any of her people came off with -their lives they’d report her situation. The ship then would long ago -have been visited, and the cargo and the half-million dollars taken out -of her.”</p> - -<p>“Long ago.”</p> - -<p>“Strange that you, who have been dreaming of galleons all your life, as -I remember you told me, should have lighted upon what is much the same -as a galleon—not, indeed, worth Candish’s or Anson’s treasure ships, -but all the same a very pretty little haul.”</p> - -<p>“It is quite true,” said he, smiling gravely, “that I have been dreaming -all my life of galleons. I read about the Span<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span>ish plate and treasure -ships when I was a boy; about the cargoes of gold and silver, of -precious gems, of massive and splendid commodities which the Pacific -breezes used to solemnly blow over the seas, betwixt Acapulco and the -Philippines. I used to read of the buccaneers and their marvelous doings -on the western American seaboard, north and south of Panama, wherever -there was a town to sack, a village to plunder. It was a sort of reading -to fire my spirits. It sent me to sea. Yes, truly I believe I went to -sea through reading about the old rovers. It is strange, as you say, -that I should have lighted upon something locked up in a cave—something -that comes as near to my notion of a galleon <i>now</i> as it would have been -remote to me when I was a boy, had I heard of her with her half a -million of silver dollars <i>only</i>; for then nothing could have satisfied -me under a couple of millions in gold!”</p> - -<p>He eyed me somewhat dreamily as he spoke. We were smoking; I chipped at -my tinder-box for a light.</p> - -<p>“What do you think of the crew?” said he suddenly.</p> - -<p>“I can find no fault.”</p> - -<p>“D’ye think they are trustworthy?”</p> - -<p>“Are they to be trusted on board a ship with half-a-million of dollars -in her hold?”</p> - -<p>He nodded.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why they are not to be trusted,” said I. “You must trust a -crew of some sort; you can’t work this brig without men. Should you -doubt these fellows, what’s to be done?”</p> - -<p>“Done!” cried he, with his eyes sparkling; “you don’t suppose that I -would carry them to a shipload of silver if I <i>didn’t</i> trust them? I’d -visit port after port, ay, if it had to come to my going away for New -Holland, until I had collected such a crew as I felt I <i>could</i> trust.”</p> - -<p>“It might take years.”</p> - -<p>“So it might. But how many years would it take in this beggarly calling -of the sea, to amass such a fortune as lies waiting in a hole in an -island to be divided betwixt Tulp and me and you and the men?”</p> - -<p>“No years of the sea calling could compass it.”</p> - -<p>After a pause, he exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Yet I am struck by one remark you have made. This brig cannot be -navigated without men. It must, therefore, come to my trusting the crew, -and perhaps I might find no honester fellows than those on board.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“They are beginning to want to know, pretty earnestly too, I guess, -where they are bound to.”</p> - -<p>“<i>That</i> I suppose,” he answered; “but how do you know what’s in their -minds?”</p> - -<p>I repeated the conversation I had held with Yan Bol in the night. He -listened attentively.</p> - -<p>“With what sort of manner did he express himself?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“He was respectful, sir,” I answered, for now I would often <i>sir</i> my -friend out of habit.</p> - -<p>He sat for awhile in silence, thinking and drumming upon the table. -Shortly afterward we went to our respective berths, and I lay reading in -a book he had lent me until four o’clock. That book—what was it? It was -the “Castle of Otranto.” I recollect nothing of it saving the gigantic -helmet. But what a wizardry there is in names! Memories for me are -imperishably wreathed round about the title of that old-fashioned, all -but forgotten novel. Never do I hear the name of that book pronounced -but there arises before me the picture of the interior of the brig -<i>Black Watch</i>. I behold the plainly-furnished cabin, the stand of arms, -the midship table upon which Greaves and I would lean, heads supported -on our elbows, for an hour at the time, yarning over the past, talking -about the future. There is a finer magic in names, even than in -perfumes—a subtler power of evocation. I forget the story that that old -book tells, but the simple utterance of the name of it will yield me a -vision as sharp in detail, as brilliant in color, as though it were the -reality beheld at noontide.</p> - -<p>The trade wind freshened again in the evening. At sundown it was blowing -too strong for a topgallant studding sail. There was the promise of a -gale in the windward sky, though I felt pretty sure that no gale was -meant; and the mercury hung steady in the cabin. But such a sky as it -was! bronzed with the western light, and the green seas shaping out of -it in dissolving heaps, and on all sides a wilderness of confused airy -coloring that sobered, as the eye watched, to the stemming of the shadow -out of the east. I never beheld such a wreckage of cloud. All northeast -it was like the ruins of a vast continent of vapor, huge heaps of the -stuff, mighty pyramids, round-backed mountains staring with copper -countenances sunward, and of a milk-white softness in their skirts. I -thought I spied twenty ships among them, low down, where the sea line -worked against the ridged and rising and breaking stuff, and every ship<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span> -was a pinion of cloud that soared into a Teneriffe, then went to pieces, -and sailed in rent and rugged masses over our mastheads.</p> - -<p>I spent my dog-watch alone, and paced the deck, keeping an askant eye -upon the crew, who were lounging about the galley. I admired the -postures of the men. How long does a man need to follow the sea to -acquire the art of leaning? The boatmen of our coasts are artists in -this picturesque accomplishment; but there is no man leans with the art -of the old, deep-water sailor. Not a bone in him but lounges. The very -pipe in his mouth loafs.</p> - -<p>And of the several loafing, lounging pictures upon which my eye rested -the completest were the Dutchmen’s. But <i>they</i> were built for it, -bolstered as they were by a swell of stern that pitched their bodies -into an attitude unattainable by the English Jacks, who, like all -British sailors, were remarkable for flatness <i>there</i>. Yan Bol walked to -and fro abreast of the row of loungers, his hands buried in his pockets, -a pipe inverted betwixt his lips, his deep voice rumbling at intervals. -The tones of the men—I could not hear their speech—the looks of them, -one and all, hinted at a sort of dog-watch council.</p> - -<p>’Twas a perfect ocean picture in that dying light. The brig pitched -heavily as she rushed forward, and under the wide yawn of the swollen -foresail you saw, as her bows came down, the streaming rush of the white -waters set boiling by her steam, and sweeping up the green and freckled -acclivity into whose hollow she had swept. You saw the figures of the -men dimming to the deepening shadow, one clear tint of costume after -another waning, the red shirt growing ashen, the blue blending with the -gloom, here and there a face stealing out red against the light of a -flaming knot of ropeyarns handed through the galley door for lighting a -pipe.</p> - -<p>Oh, but I felt weary of it, though! That salt hissing over the side, -that sullen thunder of smiting and smitten surge, that ceaseless -shrilling and piping aloft, the buoyant rise, the roaring fall—I was -fresh from two years of it, and here it was all to do and to hearken to -and to suffer over again, for how many months? But, courage! thought I, -whistling “Tom Bowling” in time with the lift of the seas; there should -be plenty of land in sight from the height of such a heap as six -thousand pounds will make. Only is it a dream? is it a dream? is it a -dream? and the melody of “Tom Bowling” sped through my set teeth -shriller than the song of the backstay that my hand had grasped.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span></p> - -<p>The night passed. Nothing of moment happened. The brig throughout my -watch had averaged over eleven knots an hour, and once, on heaving the -log when the wind freshened into a squall, the fore topmast studding -sail being on her, the speed rose to thirteen. It was noble sailing. The -race of the milk astern was so glaring white that in the darkest hour -one could almost have seen to read by it as by moonlight. Let what will -come along, thought I, here be your true heels for scornful defiance. -What was likely to come along of a perilous sort? Well, it was -impossible to say. Prior to the peace two stout French frigates had been -dispatched on a six months’ cruise off the African coast; they had -stretched across to the Western Islands; they had picked up a Guineaman -or two; but we did not know then that their fate had overtaken them in -the shape of a two-decker glorified by bunting that was, is, and forever -will be abhorred by the French. We did not know, I say, that the two -Crapeaux had been carried away, tricolors under the Union Jack, all in -correct keeping with historic teaching, to enlarge, by two fine ships, -the fighting powers of Britannia. But, supposing those two frigates -afloat; we were at peace with France, though, to be sure, the frigates -might not have got the news of peace. What was there to be afraid of on -the ocean? The Yankee—the jolly privateersman on his own hook! For -those two we needed to keep a bright lookout until we should be well -south of the equator. Yet could I not imagine anything afloat likely to -beat, I will not say to match, the <i>Black Watch</i>. <i>That</i> I felt, as I -counted the knots on the log line by the feeble light of a lantern, -while the brig washed roaring before the trade squall, and whitened out -the dark ocean till it looked sheer snow astern.</p> - -<p>Next morning I was in my cabin after breakfast when the lad Jimmy -brought me a message from Greaves. I put down my book and pipe, got out -of my bunk, pulled on my coat, and went to the captain’s berth. He was -holding a sheet of paper before him, with an expression of amusement on -his face.</p> - -<p>“Here’s a Round Robin,” said he. “You may judge of the quantity of -literature that freights our forecastle by observing the number of ‘his -marks.’ It seems there are but two that can write their names.”</p> - -<p>He extended the sheet of paper. On inspecting it I found that it was -formed of several sheets—spotted, fly-blown, and moldy—seemingly blank -fly leaves from two or three old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span> volumes. These fly leaves were stuck -together by glue, and the artist who had fashioned the sheet had thought -proper to clothe the sailors’ sentiments with crape, by ruling broad -lines of tar along the margins. This strange Round Robin ran thus:</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/ill_pg_117.png"> -<img src="images/ill_pg_117.png" width="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -</div> - -<p>The ink with which this Round Robin was manufactured was pale, and might -have been compounded of lampblack mixed with water. The handwriting was -extraordinary—a Dutch scrawl, scarcely decipherable here and there. -When I had read it through, and twisted the thing round so as to peruse -the names, I burst into a laugh.</p> - -<p>“It is Yan Bol’s dictation,” said Greaves, “and Wirtz took it down. -Probably a whole book of ‘Paradise Lost’ gave Milton less trouble than -this composition of the poor devils forward.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“What shall you do, sir?” said I, putting the paper down on the table.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the petition forces my hand. It is the whole ship’s company, you -see, barring Jimmy, who delivered it. I will ask you to step on deck and -tell Bol that I’ll communicate the business of the voyage to the men -this afternoon at eight bells.” I was about to leave the berth. “I’ll -frankly own, Fielding,” he exclaimed, “that I am influenced by you in -this matter. If you were in my place you would no longer withhold the -secret of this errand from the crew?”</p> - -<p>“I would not. My argument is that this brig must, under any -circumstances, be navigated by a ship’s company. A time must come when -you will be obliged to trust your crew, and the present crew seem to me -as likely and trustworthy a lot as a man must hope to meet with in the -republic of the merchantman’s forecastle.”</p> - -<p>“I lack decision,” he exclaimed, “and why? The stake is a huge one. -Well, give Yan Bol my message, will you?”</p> - -<p>I left him, fetched my cap, and went thoughtfully on deck. I had -reckoned him, when we first met, a man of strong and energetic -character—a person in the first degree qualified for the control of a -ship bound on such a mission as this of gathering dollars from a hole in -a rock. His indecision now was a disappointment, and it puzzled me. It -did not please me that my views should influence him. I wished that he -should stand bolt upright under his own burden. That my views would -<i>not</i> have influenced him in any other direction than this, which -concerned the trustworthiness of the men, I fully believed, and my -opinion weighing with him in this matter increased my suspicion of the -credibility of his story of the ship imprisoned in the cave; for I felt -that, if he had no doubts at all that his ship with her cargo of dollars -was as matter of fact a reality as the <i>Black Watch</i> herself, his method -of approaching her would be based on iron-hard resolutions; whereas, if -he had <i>dreamt</i> of the ship—if his hope and faith were those of a dream -only—then might there, then would there, be an element of uncertainty -in his views; and such an element of uncertainty I seemed to find in his -first resolution not to impart the secret of the voyage to the men until -the brig was south of the equator, and in his sudden determination <i>now</i> -to communicate that secret at four o’clock this afternoon.</p> - -<p>I gained the deck. Yan Bol stumped the planks. He was clad in heavy -clothes, and his figure looked more than half its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span> usual size. In fact, -the further we drew south the more clothes did Yan Bol heap upon his -back. His notion was that what was good to keep out the cold was good to -keep out the heat. It was a Dutchman’s notion of apparel, like to the -Frenchman’s idea of washing: “Why should I wash myself? I shall be dirty -again.”</p> - -<p>Yan Bol came to a stand when I rose through the hatch. He wore a fur cap -with flaps, which the wind shook about his ears. I did not choose to be -in a hurry, though he seemed to guess my mission, and eyed me out of the -flat expanse of his face with a civil, or at least unconscious, frown of -expectation. I looked up at the canvas; I gazed round upon the sea; I -walked very deliberately to the binnacle, and stood for some moments -with my eyes upon the compass-card, observing the behavior of the brig -as she was swung along her course by the quartering seas. I then -leisurely approached Bol.</p> - -<p>“The captain,” said I, “has received the men’s Round Robin and has read -it.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, I like to learn vhat he tinks of her as a Roundt Robin?” -exclaimed Bol.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you first like to hear what his answer is?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, certainly. But she vhas a first-class Roundt Robin, and I likes to -know vhat der captain says to him.”</p> - -<p>“At four o’clock this afternoon you will pipe the crew aft, and the -captain will then tell you all what errand this brig is bound on.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, dot vhas as he should be,” he exclaimed. “Ve like to know by dis -time vhere ve vhas boun’. Did you read dot Roundt Robin?”</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“Vhas she goodt?”</p> - -<p>“Good enough to make me laugh.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas serious, by Cott, Mr. Fielding. Vere could her laughter be? -Dot is vhat I like to hear now.”</p> - -<p>“A Round Robin is not a thing to be criticised,” said I. “No man is -supposed to have had a particular share in the manufacture of it. If you -want me to praise this Round Robin I shall suppose you the author of -it.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas right, but still I ox,” said he, in his deep voice, slouching -his cap to scratch his head, “vere could her laughter be?”</p> - -<p>“You have the captain’s message,” said I, “and you will repeat it to the -men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>I then took another leisurely look round, and returned to my berth, my -pipe, and my book.</p> - -<p>At eight bells in the afternoon watch, the trade wind blowing freshly on -the quarter, the sea running in dark blue heights with the frequent -sparkle of silver flying fish at the coppered forefoot of the brig, and -the sun sliding moist and warm and misty amid the breaks in the clouds -southwest, Yan Bol, coming out of the caboose, where no doubt he had -been smoking a pipe in company with the cook, who was a Dutchman, Hals -by name, stood upon the forecastle, and putting his whistle to his lips -blew a piercing summons, which, methought, found an echo in the very -hollow of the distant little main royal itself, and then, opening his -mouth, he delivered, in a voice of thunder, an order to all hands to lay -aft.</p> - -<p>The men were awaiting this command; they did not need to be urged aft. I -had noticed the impatience with which they followed the chiming of the -bell denoting the passage of time in ship fashion. On board the <i>Black -Watch</i> we kept our little bell telling the hours and the half-hours as -punctually as though we had been a ship-of-war.</p> - -<p>The crew came swiftly and gathered abaft the mainmast, whence the -quarter-deck went clear to the taffrail. Greaves had been on deck for -above half-an-hour past, and I had been watching the ship since noon. No -man can look so expectant as a sailor. He it is who above all men -reaches to the highest possibilities of expression in the shape of -expectation—that is to say, when at sea, when some weeks of shipboard -are between him and the land he has left; when the full spirit of the -monotony of the life possesses him, and when a very little thing becomes -a very great thing merely because there is very little indeed of -anything.</p> - -<p>I had some difficulty to hold my countenance when I looked at the crew. -They were going to hear a secret; it was a time of prodigious -excitement, and every face was shaped by rough sensations and feelings. -Greaves was smoking a long paper cigar; he flung what remained of it -overboard, and with a glance behind him, as though calculating the -distance of the man at the helm, that the fellow might hear what was -said, he approached the sailors.</p> - -<p>“I received the Round Robin, men,” said he, “and I read it. You want to -know where this brig is bound to? I don’t blame ye. Mind,” he added, -wagging his forefinger kindly at them, “I don’t blame ye. But you will -remember, my lads,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span> that when you agreed with me for the round voyage, -whether at London or at Amsterdam, it was understood as a part of our -compact that nothing was to be said about the destination of this brig -until we were south of the equator.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas right enough, sir,” said Yan Bol, “ve all say yaw to dot.”</p> - -<p>“We are not south of the equator yet,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas still very right,” returned Bol.</p> - -<p>“Why should you expect me to break through my understanding with you?”</p> - -<p>“Captain, it’s like this,” exclaimed one of the Englishmen, named Thomas -Teach. “Had the secret of this here expedition remained yourn and yourn -only, we should have been willing to wait for your own time to larn -where we was going to. We’ve got nothing to say against Mr. -Fielding—quite the contrairy; he’s a good mate, and I reckon as he -finds us men that are under him willing and civil.”</p> - -<p>“True,” said I loudly.</p> - -<p>“But,” continued Teach, “Mr. Fielding wasn’t one of the original ship’s -company. With all proper respect, sir, to him and to you, us men -consider that since he knows where we’re a-going to, it’s but fair that -we, as the original company, should likewise be told where we’re a-going -to without waiting to receive the news till we cross the equator.”</p> - -<p>He looked along the faces of his mates, and there was a general murmur -of assent, Bol’s grunt deeply accentuating the forecastle note of -acquiescence.</p> - -<p>“Enough!” cried Greaves, “I am not here to reason with you, but to keep -my promise. You want to know where this brig is bound to? Now attend, -and you shall have the whole secret in the wag of a dog’s tail. D’ye -know the Galapagos, any of you?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve sighted them islands,” answered the seaman named Friend. The rest -held their peace.</p> - -<p>“Well,” continued Greaves, “south of the Galapagos there’s an island, -and in that island there’s a cave, and in that cave there stands, -grounded, with the heads of the topmasts hard pressed against the roof -of the cave, a large full-rigged ship, and in the hold of that large -full-rigged ship, there lies, stowed away, a number of cases filled with -Spanish dollars. Those cases we are going to fetch, and <i>that’s</i> the -brig’s errand.”</p> - -<p>The four Dutch seamen gazed slowly at one another; the Englishmen’s -glance had more of life, but it was easy to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> that every man marveled -greatly, each according to his powers of feeling astonished. I seemed to -notice that one or two doubted their hearing, by their manner of gazing -about them as though to make sure of their surroundings. After a pause -Yan Bol said:</p> - -<p>“She vhas roundt der Hoorn.”</p> - -<p>“Where else, Yan?” exclaimed Friend.</p> - -<p>“A ship in a cave!” cried William Galen; “dot vhas funny, captain.”</p> - -<p>“Fire away with your remarks, and ask your questions,” said Greaves -good-naturedly, and he plunged his hands in his pockets, and walked to -and fro abreast of the men.</p> - -<p>“Ship or no ship,” exclaimed Travers, “I allow that that there island’s -to be our port—there and home a-constitooting the voyage?”</p> - -<p>“That’s so,” said Greaves; “any more questions?”</p> - -<p>“A ship in a cave! Dot vhas strange,” said Bol. “Suppose dot ship hov -gone proke, und you findt der cave mit noting inside? Ve go home all der -same?”</p> - -<p>“All the same,” echoed Greaves.</p> - -<p>“And if the vessel’s there, sir, <i>and</i> the dollars?” said a man named -Call, in a thin voice.</p> - -<p>“What do you want to know?” demanded Greaves.</p> - -<p>The fellow, with some hesitation, brought out his question.</p> - -<p>“Was the job going to bring more money than the wages that was to be -took up?”</p> - -<p>“When the divisions have been made,” replied Greaves, looking at Bol, -“there will remain a trifle over sixty-one thousand dollars—about -twelve hundred and twenty pounds—to be divided among the eleven of ye -according to your ratings.”</p> - -<p>Again the sailors gazed at one another with looks of astonishment, -which, in several of them, quickly made way for broad grins.</p> - -<p>“That’s a hundred pounds a man,” said Call, in his thin voice.</p> - -<p>“The divisions will be according to your ratings, I told you,” exclaimed -Greaves. “Bol would get more than the cabin boy. He would expect more.” -Bol gave a short, massive nod. “You have now heard the nature of this -voyage,” said Greaves, coming to a pause in his walk to and fro abreast -of the men, “does any man among you find anything to object to in it? Is -there any man among you,” he continued, after a considerable interval of -silence, during which I had observed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> him regard the men steadfastly one -after the other, “who feels disinclined to make the voyage round the -Horn to the island and home again with a small cargo of silver money?”</p> - -<p>“She vhas a voyage to suit me,” said Bol, “I likes der scheme.”</p> - -<p>Several of the men made observations to the same effect.</p> - -<p>“May we take it, sir,” said the small-voiced Call, “that we receive the -wages we agreed for as well as this here hundred pound a man, to call it -so?”</p> - -<p>“You <i>may</i> take it,” said Greaves shortly.</p> - -<p>“Beg pardon, cap’n,” said Hals, the cook, knuckling his forehead, and -contriving a clumsy sea bow with a scrape of a spade-shaped foot, “how -long might dot ship hov been in der cave?”</p> - -<p>“How long? Since 1810.”</p> - -<p>“Who see her, cap’n,” said Bol.</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“And did you see der dollars?” said Hals, again knuckling his brow and -again scraping his foot.</p> - -<p>“Yes; but you now know the motive of the voyage, and there’s an end. If -any man is not satisfied let him say so. We can make shift, no doubt, -with fewer hands, and the fewer the crew the larger each man’s share. -Note that. The fewer——” and he repeated the sentence. “I have -agreements in my pockets for each of you, in which Heer Bartholomew -Tulp, the charterer of this brig and the promoter of this expedition, -agrees to divide the sum of sixty-one thousand dollars—supposing the -ship to be still in the cave and the money to be still on board of -her—in which Mr. Tulp, I say, agrees to divide sixty-one thousand -dollars among the crew who return home in the ship, the proportions -according to their ratings to be determined.” He put his hand upon his -breast. “But, before I hand you these documents, I must know that you -are satisfied with the intention of the voyage.”</p> - -<p>“We are satisfied,” was the answer delivered by a number of voices, as -though one man had spoken.</p> - -<p>On this, without saying another word, he pulled out a little bundle of -papers, and, glancing at each—all being inscribed with the respective -names of the men—he handed one to Yan Bol, and a second to Friend, and -a third to Meehan, and so on, until every man saving the fellow at the -wheel had a paper.</p> - -<p>“Give this to Street, Mr. Fielding,” said Greaves; and, taking the -paper, I went to the wheel and gave it to the man who grasped the -spokes.</p> - -<p>The only two sailors who could read, Bol and Wirtz, opened<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> the papers -and looked at them. The others put theirs in their pockets.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing more to be said,” exclaimed the captain; “but should -any man feel dissatisfied—whether to-day, after you have talked over -what I have told you, or later on, when you have had plenty of leisure -to think—let him come to me. He shall have his wages down to date, and -be transhipped or set ashore at the first opportunity; for the fewer we -are the richer we are. You can now go forward.”</p> - -<p>He turned and stepped aft, calling to me.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> -<small>A MIDNIGHT SCARE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Captain Greaves</span> stepped aft, calling to me, as I have said, and I -followed him below to his berth, after pausing to make sure that Yan Bol -had taken charge of the brig; for it would be his watch till six, and -mine till eight, and his again till midnight.</p> - -<p>The captain closed the door of his berth, and exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“I have no bond or agreement bearing Tulp’s signature to offer you, -because the document he signed was made out in the name of Van Laar, and -is, consequently, worthless; but <i>my</i> undertaking will secure you as -effectually as though it bore Tulp’s name; and I now propose to make out -such a bond for you.”</p> - -<p>He took a sheet of foolscap from a drawer, seated himself, dipped a -quill into an ink-dish, and wrote.</p> - -<p>I have lost that paper. Years ago I mislaid it, though there were few -memorials of my life that I could not have better spared. Its substance, -however, I recollect, of course, and what Greaves wrote was to this -effect:</p> - -<p>That having appointed me chief mate of the brig <i>Black Watch</i>, in the -room of Jacob Van Laar, he agreed that the share in dollars—to wit, -30,556—that was to have been Van Laar’s had he proved himself a -competent mate and remained in the ship, should be paid to me—that is -to say, to William Fielding; and here he entered certain particulars -stating my age, place of birth, my professional antecedents; and he -likewise sketched very happily in words my face and appearance, “that -Tulp,” said he, “shall not be able to pretend you are not the right man, -and so wriggle out of what this docu<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span>ment commits him to, in case I -should not live to reach home.”</p> - -<p>More went to this document than I need trouble you with. I watched him -while he wrote. There was an expression of enthusiasm in his face, as -though he found a sort of joy in writing freely about thousands of -dollars. “Should it prove a dream,” thought I, stooping to caress -Galloon, who lay at my feet, “what will the jolly Dutch and English -hearts of this brig say when we arrive at the island—if such an island -exists!—and find not only no ship, but not even a cave?” But the vision -of Tulp came to the rescue again. A specter, formed mainly of a leering -eye, a sleek and wary grin, and a velvet cap, seemed to gaze at me from -behind Greaves; and I pocketed the document with a feeling that almost -rose to conviction after I had read it, at my friend’s request, and -thanked him very warmly for his kindness and for his friendly and -particular interest in me.</p> - -<p>We sat talking over what had passed between him and the crew.</p> - -<p>“One point,” said he, “I believe I have scored: I have made them -understand that the fewer they are the richer they will be. I hope this -notion may not lead to some of them chucking the others overboard. -They’ll all stick to the ship till the island is reached and the dollars -are stowed. <i>Afterward</i> will be my anxious time. But the adventure must -be gone through, and it remains also to be seen whether the brig is not -to be navigated during the homeward run by fewer men than we now carry. -The fewer the better. I should wish to see six men forward—no more—and -three of us aft, for Jimmy is to be reckoned as a cabin hand, and, -saving Bol and Wirtz, there’s not a man, in my humble opinion, whose -spine that knock-kneed, shambling, slobbered Cockney lad—a creature you -would set down as a funeral-and-wedding idiot merely—has not the -strength to snap.”</p> - -<p>Soon afterward we went to supper, for at sea the last meal is so called, -and in the cabin we supped at half-past five; at six I relieved Yan Bol. -The men seemed to be waiting for him to come off duty. They were smoking -and talking round about their favorite haunt—the caboose. Some of them -were so hairy and some of them so flat of countenance that it was -impossible to gather what was in their minds from the looks of them. Bol -went into the caboose, whence presently issued a quantity of tobacco -smoke in a procession of puffs. I heard his voice rum<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span>bling; it was like -the groaning of a distant tempest. I was too far aft to hear what he -said, and there was likewise much noise of wind in the rigging, and a -shrill lashing of brine alongside.</p> - -<p>The sailors made a press at the caboose door, some in and some out, and -those who were out stood in hearkening postures, their heads eagerly -bent forward, the hand of the hindmost upon the shoulder of his fellow -in front of him. Bol’s voice rumbled. It was clear he was reading aloud, -so continuous was the rumbling, and presently I found that I had guessed -right when I saw the outermost man hand his paper in through the caboose -door. In short, every sailor wanted his document read aloud, two men -only being able to read, and of these two Yan Bol was the more -intelligible to the Englishmen.</p> - -<p>Well, after this for some days I find nothing worth noting. A thing then -happened, a trifling ocean incident some might deem it, but it left an -odd strong impression upon me, and after all these years I can live -through it again in memory as though now was the hour of its happening.</p> - -<p>We had sailed out of the northeast trade wind, and had entered that zone -of equatorial calms and baffling winds which is termed by sailors the -doldrums. To this point we had made a fine run. Such another run down -the South Atlantic must promise us a prompt arrival at the island, -unless we should meet with the Dutchman Vanderdecken’s devil’s luck off -the Horn. Neither Bol nor I spared the men, when our forefoot smote the -greasy waters of the creeping and sneaking parallels. To every breath -that tarnished the white surface of the sea we braced the yards, making -nothing of running a studding sail aloft, though five minutes afterward -the watch might be hauling it down with all aback forward and the brig -going astern. By this sort of watchfulness, and by the willingness of -the men, and by the slipperiness of our coppered bends, we sneaked our -keel forward, every twenty-four hours showing what sometimes rose to a -“run.”</p> - -<p>It was in about one degree north, that down east at sunrise, in the -heart of the dazzle there, we spied a sail, a topsail schooner, that as -the morning advanced lifted toward us as though she were set our way by -a current, for, often as I looked at her, I never could see that she -shifted her helm to close us whenever a draught of air swept the shadows -out of her canvas and held them steadily shining and gave her life for a -while.</p> - -<p>A serene cloudless day was that, the light azure of the sky whitening -into a look of quicksilver where it sloped to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> brim of the sea, and -the sea floating thick and hushed and white, with a long and lazy heave -that ran a drowsy shudder through our canvas. Greaves thought the -schooner a man-of-war, something British stationed on the West African -coast, well out in the Atlantic for a sniff of mid-ocean air, brought -there by a chase, and now bound inward again, though subtly lifting -toward us at present, attracted by the smartness of our rig, and -inspired by a dream of slaves. But I did not think her a man-of-war, I -did not believe her English. A Yankee I did not reckon her. In short, I -seemed to know what she was not.</p> - -<p>The morning wore away. At noon the schooner was showing to the height of -her covering board, that is to say, she had risen her bulwarks above the -line of the horizon, but the refraction was troublesome; she swam in the -lenses of the telescope, she was blurred as though pierced with -fragments of looking-glass along the risen black length of her, and -sometimes I seemed to see gun-ports, and sometimes I believed them an -illusion of the atmosphere.</p> - -<p>“What do you think of her, Fielding?” said Greaves, while we stood at -noon, quadrants in hand, taking the altitude of the sun.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like her looks, sir,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Nor I. I believe now that she is a large Spanish schooner with hatches -ready at a call to vomit cut-throats in scores. We’ll test her.”</p> - -<p>A light breeze was then blowing off the starboard quarter. Our helm was -shifted, the yards braced to the air of wind, and the brig was headed -about west. We made eight bells, and grasped our quadrants, waiting and -watching. For about ten minutes the schooner, that was now dead astern, -held steadily on; her broad spaces of canvas then came rounding and -fining down into a thin silver stroke, somewhat aslant. Greaves picked -up the glass and leveled it at her.</p> - -<p>“She is after us,” he exclaimed, “and, blank her, it won’t be dark for -another seven hours!”</p> - -<p>“She may yet prove an English man-of-war,” said I.</p> - -<p>“I wish I could believe it now,” said he; “we must make a stern chase of -it. Our heels are as smart as hers, I dare say, and this is good weather -for dodging until the blackness comes, unless the beast should send -boats, in which case there are thirteen of us; mostly Englishmen.”</p> - -<p>He went below to work out the sights, leaving me to put<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span> our brig into a -posture of defense, and to make the most of the weak catspaws which -breathed and died. Ammunition was got up, the two long brass guns loaded -with round shot, the carronades with grape to slap at the first boat -that should come within range. In a very little while our decks -presented a somewhat formidable appearance with chests of muskets and -pistols loaded with ball and slugs, round and grape shot ready for -handling, a cask full of cartridges, a sheaf of boarding-pikes, -cutlasses at hand to snatch, and so on, and so on.</p> - -<p>It is old-fashioned stuff to write about! yet your grandfathers managed -very handsomely with it, <i>somehow</i>, old stuff as it is. It’s the city of -Amsterdam that is shored up and held on end by piles; so does the -constitution of this country rest on the boarding-pike. You clap a -trident in the hand of your goddess of the farthing and the halfpenny. -Why not a boarding-pike? <i>That</i> is Britannia’s own symbol. It was not -with a trident that this invincible goddess charged into the channels, -and swarmed over the bristling and castellated sides of her -thrice-tiered thunderous enemies, and swept all opponents under hatches -and battened them down there. It was the boarding-pike that did <i>that</i> -work. But a weapon, the most victorious of all in the hands of the -British tar, is doomed, I fear. Its fate is sealed. The giant Steam has -laid it across his knee, and waits but to fetch a breath or two to break -it in twain. Be it so. But laugh at me not as an old-fashioned proser -when I say that it will be an evil day for England when the -boarding-pike shall have been stowed away as a weapon that can be no -longer serviceable in the hands of the British Jacks.</p> - -<p>We ran the ensign aloft; the schooner took no notice. Some breathing of -air down her way enabled her to slightly gain upon us. She sneaked her -hull up the sea to the strake of her water line, but she was end on, and -little was to be made of her. It then fell a sheet calm, and the -stranger at that hour might have been about five miles astern of us. It -was a little after four in the afternoon. The heat was fierce. The -planks of the deck burnt like hot furnace-bricks through the soles of -the shoes, the pitch bubbled between the seams, and in the steamy vapor -that rose from the brig’s sides the lines of her bulwark rails snaked -faking to her bows as though they were alive. The very heave of the sea -fell dead; at long intervals only came a rounded slope sluggishly -traveling to us, brimming to the sides of the brig, slightly swaying -her, and making<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span> you think, as it rolled dark from t’other side of the -vessel, of the sullen rising of some long, scaly, filthy monster out of -the ooze to the greasy chocolate surface of a West African river.</p> - -<p>“What is that?” suddenly exclaimed Greaves, who had been standing at my -side looking at the schooner.</p> - -<p>I pointed the glass.</p> - -<p>“A boat, sir,” said I. “A minute—I shall be able to count her oars. -Five of a side. She is a big boat and full of men.”</p> - -<p>He took the telescope from me and leveled it in silence.</p> - -<p>“She is a privateersman,” said he. “There’s nothing of the man-o’-war in -the rise and fall of those blades; and if yonder oarsmen are not -foreigners, my name is Bartholomew Tulp. Fielding, those scoundrels must -not arrest this voyage, by Isten! There is nothing for them to plunder. -They will cut our throats and fire the brig. Oh, blow, my sweet breeze! -What sort of a gunner are you?”</p> - -<p>“A bad gunner,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“I’ll try ’em myself. I’ll try ’em with the first shot!” he cried, with -his face full of blood and his eyes on fire. “There will be time to load -and slap thrice at them before they’re alongside, and then——” He -turned, and shouted orders to the men to arm themselves to repel -boarders and to prepare for a bloody resistance. “Every man of ye will -have to fight as though you were three!” he roared. “You will know what -to expect if you let those beauties board you. Yan Bol——” and he -shouted twenty further instructions, which left the men armed to the -teeth, ready to leap to the first syllable of order that should be -rendered necessary by the movements of the boat.</p> - -<p>But at this moment I caught sight of a dim blue line on the white edge -of the sea in the north. It was a breeze of wind, something more than a -catspaw. The color was sweet and deep, and it spread fast; yet not so -fast but that it was odds if the boat were not alongside before our -sails should have felt the first of the wind.</p> - -<p>Greaves sighted the long brass stern-piece, lovingly smote it, and then -directed it on its pivot as though it were a telescope.</p> - -<p>“Stand by to load again, men!” he cried to a couple of sailors who were -at hand, and applied the match.</p> - -<p>The explosion made a noble roar of thunder. The gun might have been a -sixty-four pounder for <i>that</i>—nay, big as one of those infernal pieces -which worried well-meaning Duckworth in the Dardanelles. The ball flew -ricochetting for the boat, rhythmic feathers of water attending its -flight, as though it chiseled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> chips of crystal out of the mirror it -fled along. It missed the boat, but it fell close enough to flash a -burst of white water that may have wetted some of the rogues; and, -indeed, it was so finely aimed that our men roared out a cheer for the -marksman.</p> - -<p>That round shot achieved an unexpected result. The oars ceased to -sparkle, the boat came to a stand; and this while our piece was loading -afresh.</p> - -<p>“Oh, ye saints, one and all, give it to me to smite ’em this time,” -prayed Greaves through his teeth.</p> - -<p>Wink went a gun in the bows of the boat; a puff like a cloud of tobacco -smoke out of Yan Bol’s mouth rolled a little aside, and floated -stationary and enlarging. The report came along like the single bark of -a dog, but we saw nothing of the ball.</p> - -<p>“Oh, come nearer—oh, come nearer!” groaned Greaves in his throat; and -again he laid the piece, and again he applied the match, and a second -volcanic burst of noise followed the fiery belch.</p> - -<p>The final flash of water was astern of the boat this time; but Greaves’ -second dose, leveled with amazing precision, considering the range, -coming on top of the wind, the fresh, dark blue shadow of which would -now be visible to the fellows astern, satisfied them. With mightily -relieved hearts we beheld them pull the boat’s head round for the -schooner, and, some minutes before they were got within the shadow of -her side, the breeze was rounding our canvas, and the brig was wrinkling -the water as she gathered way to the impulse aloft.</p> - -<p>“Those gentry have not yet arrived at the Englishman’s notion of -boarding,” said Greaves. “Your brass gun always speaks loudly. There was -a note in the voice of this chap that deceived them. Their own schooner, -probably, carried nothing so heavy.”</p> - -<p>He slapped the breech of the brass piece, sent a contemptuous look at -the schooner, and fell to pacing the deck.</p> - -<p>The breeze slightly freshened and we drove along—considerably off our -course, indeed, but that could not be helped: for the blue shadow of the -wind was over the schooner; she was heeling to the small, hot gush of -the draught; she had picked up her boat and was in pursuit of us. We -waited awhile, and then, finding that she held her own—nay, that she -was very slowly closing us, indeed—we put our helm up and squared away -dead before it, leaving her to follow us as best she might<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> with nothing -more that would draw than a square topsail and topgallant sail and a big -squaresail.</p> - -<p>By sunset we had run her into an orange-colored star on the edge of the -dark blue sea in the north; yet the cuss was still in chase, and, when -the dusk came, we braced up on the larboard tack, with the hope of -losing her, and steered southeast.</p> - -<p>It was dark at eight o’clock, and a strange sort of darkness it was. All -the wind was gone, and the sea gleamed like black oil smoking. The -atmosphere had that smoky look; spiral folds of gloom seemed to stand up -on the ocean, stretching tendrils of vapor athwart the stars and hiding -most of them. ’Twas a mere atmospheric effect; yet all this blending of -dyes, this thickening and thinning of the dusk, this heavy and stagnant -intermingling of shadow around the sea produced the very effect of -vapor. Sight was blinded at the distance of a pistol-shot, and the ocean -lay as though suffocated under the burden of the hush of the night.</p> - -<p>We kept all lights carefully screened, and the lookout was told to keep -his ears open; but neither Greaves nor I felt uneasy. The schooner had -been far astern when the evening fell, and our shift of helm, with a -pretty considerable run into the southeast, could scarcely fail to throw -her off the scent. But it is true, nevertheless, that vessels in -stagnant weather have a human trick of turning up close together. I have -been in a flat calm with a ship a long mile and a half distant from us, -and in a few hours both vessels have had boats out towing, to keep the -ships clear. Have vessels sexes? I believe so. It will not do to talk of -the magnetic influence of <i>wooden</i> fabrics. Ships are sentient; the male -ship with the nostrils of her hawse-pipes sniffs the female ship afar, -and the twain, taking advantage of a breathless atmosphere, and of the -helplessness of skippers—which there is no virtue in cursing to -remedy—all imperceptibly float one to the other till, if permitted, -they affectionately rub noses, then, lover-like, quarrel, snap jib -booms, bring down topgallant masts, and behave in other ways humanly.</p> - -<p>It was somewhere about ten o’clock that night that Greaves and I were -seated on the skylight, smoking and talking, but all the while keeping -an eye upon the deep shadow in whose heart the brig was sleeping, and -listening for any sound upon the water. All hands were on deck. They lay -about, dozing or mumbling in conversation; but they were in readiness, -armed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> as when the boat had been approaching, and the carronades and two -great guns were loaded and deck lanterns were alight below, hidden. The -brig was prepared, nay, doubly prepared; for it was no man’s intention -to let the boats of the schooner take us unawares. Our voyage and our -lives were not to be brought to a hideous and untimely end by a -scoundrel picaroon.</p> - -<p>I had seen Yan Bol that afternoon before the dusk closed in, after -looking at the schooner, advance his fearful fist and writhe it into an -incomparable suggestion of throttling, with such an expression of -countenance as was as heartening as the accession of a dozen picked men. -And this little circumstance was I relating to Greaves as we sat -together on the edge of the skylight, smoking.</p> - -<p>“He is a heavy, terrible man,” said Greaves. “If the schooner’s people -are Spanish, as I believe, I shall reckon Yan Bol good for ten of them, -at least. The other Dutchmen would be good for four apiece, and the -remainder may be left to our own countrymen of the jacket.”</p> - -<p>“The Dutch fight well,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Deucedly well,” he answered; “often have they proved our match. I would -rather have fought the combined fleets at Trafalgar than De Winter’s -ships. Duncan’s was a more difficult, and, therefore, a more splendid -victory than our nation seems to have realized. But the truth is, little -Horatio’s flaming sun filled the national sky at that time with its own -blazing light, and all was sunk in the splendor, though there were other -suns; oh, yes, there were <i>other</i> suns!”</p> - -<p>“Hark!” I cried, “we are hailed.”</p> - -<p>“Hailed?” he echoed in a whisper.</p> - -<p>We listened. A figure came out of the darkness forward and said in a low -voice, “There’s something hard by, hailing us.” Greaves and I went to -either rail and searched the thick and silent darkness, over which -hovered a faint star or two, pale and dying. I strained my ears. I could -hear no sound of oars, not the least noise of any kind to tell that a -vessel was near us. I looked for a sparkle of phosphorus, for any blue -or white gleam of sea-glow, such as the stroke of an oar, whether -muffled or not, will chip out of the water in those parts. The hail was -repeated. It was the same hail I had before heard. It sounded like “Ship -there!” and seemed to proceed out of the blackness over the larboard -bow.</p> - -<p>Galloon barked sharply and furiously.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Silence, you scoundrel!” hissed Greaves at the dear old brute, and the -dog instantly ceased to bark. “Do you see anything, Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, sir,” I answered, crossing the deck. “The cry seemed to me to -come from off the water on the larboard bow, and if it is our friend of -to-day or any other ship, she is <i>there</i>.”</p> - -<p>He went forward and I lost his figure in the blackness.</p> - -<p>All hands were now wide awake. The gloom was so deep betwixt the rails -that nothing was to be seen of the men, but I gathered from their voices -that they were moving briskly here and there to look over the side and -to peer into the smoky gloom over the bows. I went right aft, and first -from one quarter and then from the other of the brig I stared and -hearkened, straining my vision against the blackness till my eyeballs -ached, straining my hearing against the incommunicable hush upon the -ocean until I felt deaf with the sound of the beat of the pulse in my -ear. Oh, it was such a night of wonderful silence that, had the full -moon been overhead, the imagination might have heard the low thunder of -the orb as it wheeled through space.</p> - -<p>Greaves arrived aft.</p> - -<p>“Is that you, Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I can see nothing, and the sea is as silent as a graveyard o’ night. Is -that hail some piratic trick? I tell you what: the words might have been -English, but they were not delivered by an English throat. I shall make -no answer. There is nothing to be done but to watch for fire in the -water; should it show, to hail <i>then</i>, and to let fly if the answer is -not to our liking.”</p> - -<p>He called for Yan Bol. The Dutchman’s deep voice responded, but even -while he approached us the hail was repeated.</p> - -<p>“There again!” cried I.</p> - -<p>“Was it in English?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“It was ‘ship ahoy,’ sir, very plain indeed, but thin, more distant than -before, I fancy, and still off the larboard bow.”</p> - -<p>At this instant there was a great commotion forward; I heard laughter, -the cackling of affrighted cocks and hens, followed by a shout in the -voice of the boy Jimmy:</p> - -<p>“Here’s the chap as has been a-hailing, master.”</p> - -<p>A singular noise of the beating of wings approached us, and I discerned -the figure of the boy Jimmy, as he stood before us grasping something.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Shall I wring un’s neck, master?” he cried, with a note of idiotic -mirth in his voice.</p> - -<p>“What the devil is all this about?” shouted Greaves. “What have you -there?”</p> - -<p>“The big Chaney cock with the croup, master,” answered the boy.</p> - -<p>I burst into a laugh, but a laugh that, perhaps, was not wanting in a -little touch of hysteria, so poignant was the feeling of relief after -the deep uneasiness of the last quarter of an hour. The men, heedless of -the discipline of the vessel, had come pressing aft in the wake of the -boy, and forward there continued a wild concert of cocks and hens -cackling furiously.</p> - -<p>“Fetch a lantern, one of you,” bawled Greaves; “curse that poultry! Who -started them all? That row’s as bad as a flare if there’s anything near -on the lookout for us.”</p> - -<p>A lantern was brought and the glare of it disclosed the tall, muscular, -knock-kneed form of the youth Jimmy, grasping by the neck a huge, -long-legged, ostrich-shaped cock, of the kind known as Cochin China. The -faces of the seamen crowding aft to hear and see showed past him in -phantom countenances, contorted out of all resemblance to themselves by -their grins and stare of expectation, and by the dim light that touched -them, and by the deep darkness behind them.</p> - -<p>“What have you got there?” cried Greaves.</p> - -<p>“It’s the big cock, master. He’s croupy,” answered the lad in his -imbecile voice, continuing to grasp the fowl so tightly by the neck -that, croup or no croup, the thing hung silent, as though dead, save -that now and again it would give an uneasy, sick, protesting flap of its -wings. “He wasn’t well this afternoon no, master. I was passing the -coop, when I heard him sing out, ‘Ship ahoy!’ and I stopped to listen, -and he sung out, ‘Ship ahoy!’ again. He was standing on one leg and the -skin of his eyes was half drawed down, and I speaks to the cook about -him, who tells me to go and be d——d.”</p> - -<p>“He gooms, captain, vhen I vhas busy mit der crew’s supper; I had -shcalded myself. No vonder I spheaks short,” exclaimed the voice of the -cook among the crowd behind the lad.</p> - -<p>“Bear a hand with your yarn, Jimmy!” cried Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Well, master, when I hears that we was hailed, I came out of the bows, -where I was lying down, and I listened, and I hears nothing; but by and -by the hail comes, and I says to myself, ‘Aint I heard that woice -before?’ and I stands listen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span>ing till it sounds again. ‘It’s old -Chaney,’ says I, and steps aft to the hen-coop, knowing in what part he -lodges, and here he is, master. Shall I wring un’s neck?”</p> - -<p>“Cook,” exclaimed Greaves, “take that cock from Jimmy and put it back in -its coop. Go forward, men, but keep your eyes lifting till this -thickness slackens. That hail <i>may</i> have come from a cock with the -croup, as the lad says, but all the same, be vigilant till we can use -our eyes. There may be something damnably close aboard even while I’m -talking.”</p> - -<p>The men answered variously in their gruff voices, and the mob of them -rolled forward and vanished in the deep obscurity. The lantern which had -been brought on deck was again taken below, and all now being silent -fore and aft, Greaves and I lay over the side, listening and straining -our sight into the murkiness; but not a sound came off the sea. No -sparkle anywhere showed the life of a lifted blade; no deeper dye of ink -indicated the presence of anything betwixt us and the horizon.</p> - -<p>For an hour Greaves and I patrolled the deck, talking over the cock with -the croup, over false alarms at sea; taling about the preternatural hush -and sepulchral repose of the night; and then we talked of the voyage, of -the island, of the ship in the cave; and on such matters did we -discourse. And while we were conversing—an hour having passed since the -incident of the croupy cock—we heard afar the tinkling and musical, -fountain-like rippling of water brushed by wind, and a few minutes -later, a pleasant breeze was cooling our cheeks, steadying our canvas, -and propelling the brig, whose wake, as it streamed from her, trailed -like a riband of yellow fire, while the wire-like lines which broke from -her bows shone, as though at white heat, with the beautiful glow of the -sea. The wind polished the stars and cleansed the atmosphere till you -could see to the gloomy line of the horizon. By midnight the moon was -shining, the heavens were a deep blue, and Greaves had gone below, -satisfied that the brig was the only object in sight within the whole -visible compass of the deep.</p> - -<p>Though it had been Yan Bol’s watch from twelve to eight, yet, while the -captain and I remained aft, he had kept forward. Now that Greaves had -gone below, and my watch would be coming round shortly, Yan Bol came -along to the quarter-deck.</p> - -<p>“She vhas an oneasy time, Mr. Fielding,” he exclaimed in his trembling, -deep voice, that made one think of thunder heard in a vault.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span></p> - -<p>“It was,” said I; “but the sea is clear, and there’s an end to the -trouble.”</p> - -<p>“We should hov fought, by Cott,” said he, “had der needt arose. Ve did -not like dot dis voyage should be stopped by a bloydy pirate. It vhas -strange, Mr. Fielding, dot der cock should cry out in English.”</p> - -<p>“It sounded English,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she vhas goodt English. I like,” said he, broadly grinning, “dot my -English vhas always as goodt. She vhas an English cock, maype, though -schipped at Amsterdam. Had she been Dutch she vouldt hov spoke my -language.”</p> - -<p>At this moment eight bells—midnight—were struck. I thought to see Yan -Bol instantly trudge forward with the alacrity of a seaman whose watch -below has come round, but he evinced a disposition to linger, as on a -previous occasion.</p> - -<p>“I likes to findt a ship in a cave full of dollars, Mr. Fielding,” said -he.</p> - -<p>“There is a very great deal that one would like,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Sixty-von tousand dollar,” he continued, “vhas a goodt deal of money. -Dot money us men vill take oop. Und how much vill she leave, I vonder?”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” said I. “Yes, Bol, that will be a matter of counting, won’t it?”</p> - -<p>“I like to know, Mr. Fielding, vy she vhas sixty-one tousand dollar? Vy -not a leedle more or a leedle less, or much more, or some tousands less? -Dot’ll mean,” he continued after a pause, during which I remained -silent, “dot dere vhas a large share ofer und aboove der sixty-one -tousand dollar; but how vhas us men’s share arrived at I like to know?”</p> - -<p>“Why do you not ask the captain? Why do you ask me these questions? I am -not the captain.”</p> - -<p>“No, dot vhas very right. But you hov der captain’s confidence; und vy -do I ox, Mr. Fielding? Because der captain’s yarn is vonderful——” He -broke off, looking at me very earnestly.</p> - -<p>“Do you distrust the story?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Hov I said so, hov I said so, Mr. Fielding? But she vhas vonderful all -der same.”</p> - -<p>I was silent. He continued to look at me for some moments in a dull -Dutch way, then, seeming to check some observation he was about to make, -he exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Veil, der coast vhas clear. I feel like sleeping. Good-night, Mr. -Fielding.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> -<small>I SEND MY LETTER.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">At</span> sunrise nothing was to be seen of the schooner, though a seaman was -sent on to the main royal yard with a telescope, where he swept the sea -in all directions.</p> - -<p>We crossed the equator before noon and drove into the South Atlantic, -with a pleasant breeze of wind out of the east. A day or two of such -sailing would send us clear of the zone of calms and catspaws, and then, -with the southeast trade wind strong on the larboard bow, the yards -braced forward, the blue seas breaking in foam from the sides, we might -hope for a smart run southwest, with weather enough to follow to bring -that wonderful island of Greaves within reach of a few days of us; -instead of a few months of us, as it had been and still was.</p> - -<p>I considered very seriously whether I should repeat to the captain my -brief conversation with Yan Bol—that chat, I mean, which I have related -at the end of the last chapter. For my own part I could not comfortably -settle my views of Yan Bol, yet I saw nothing to object to in the man. -Nothing could I recollect him saying of a kind to excite misgiving. -Though he was acting as second mate, he associated with the seamen as -one of them, slept and ate with them in their forecastle, and yet had -their respect. This I observed and thought well of. He was a bold and -hearty seaman—a practical sailor. Of navigation he knew nothing; -indeed, he once owned that he could never understand how it happened -that the progress of a ship altered time; the reason, he said, had been -explained to him on several occasions, but it was all the same—it was a -mystery “und it vhas vonderful dot any man vhas born mit brains to -understand him.”</p> - -<p>And yet I could not arrive at any conclusion to satisfy me. “Am I -influenced almost unconsciously against him,” thought I, “by his Dutch -airs and graces? Am I moved to an inward, secret dislike by a certain -freedom of speech and accost, by a sort of familiarity I have noticed -among Germans, and thought particularly detestable in Germans?” though I -had heretofore found such Dutchmen as I had encountered too stodgy and -stolid, too insipid and inexpressive, too torpid in mind and laborious -in perception to be readily capable of vexing one by that kind of -freedom and easiness of address and bearing which makes you thirsty to -kick the beast whose burden it is. No, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> could not trace my doubts of -Yan Bol to my dislike of his behavior to me. Indeed, I could not trace -any doubts at all. And yet I never thought of him quite comfortably. If -Greaves’ dollar-ship was no vision of his slumbers, if Greaves’ chests -of milled silver were veritably aboard <i>La Perfecta Casada</i> in the cave -he had described, then we should be a rich brig when we set sail from -the island; we should need an honest crew to carry us safely home. Was -Yan Bol honest? If a doubt of him arose he was the one man of the whole -ship’s company whom it would be Greaves’ policy to get rid of as soon as -possible, because he was the one man of all our little ship’s company -the most capable, should he take the trouble to exert himself, of -obtaining an ascendancy over his mates, and of directing them for good -or ill as he decided.</p> - -<p>These being my thoughts I resolved to repeat to Greaves the questions -which Bol had put to me touching the money in the island ship. He -listened to me anxiously and attentively.</p> - -<p>“I hope that man will not go wrong,” said he, when I had concluded; “I -like him.”</p> - -<p>“He is a good man in the forecastle-sense of the word,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“I like him,” he repeated. “He controls his mates; he is the sort of man -to keep them straight if he chooses, and I am almost resolved to make -him choose, by promising him a handsomer share than his bond states—not -at the expense of the crew, no; but by drawing on my own and the ship’s -share. Tulp must do what I want when I plan for the interests of all.”</p> - -<p>“That is a hammer to drive the nail home,” said I, “for this has to be -considered, captain; your cases of dollars will be handed over the side. -The men are not fools; they will count them and roughly calculate the -value of every case. As we sail home there will be much talk forward. -The amount of money on board will, of course, be exaggerated. Bol will -say, ‘I am second mate and boatswain, and my share is to come out of -sixty-one thousand dollars, eleven sharing. How much does the Englishman -get, the stranger that did not sail with us from Amsterdam, who is -merely a shipwrecked man, and not one of us?’ He will wish to know how -much, and he may breed trouble if he does not learn how much. On the -other hand, if he gets the truth and compares it with <i>his</i> share——”</p> - -<p>“All this has been in my head. I will confirm him in such honesty as he -has by a written undertaking to pay him more dollars.” He added, after -thinking a little while, “I wish he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span> had not asked you those questions. -But the fellow may doubt my story. All hands may doubt it.” He gazed at -me significantly for a moment, and continued: “He might have hoped to -get you to tell him something that he could repeat to the others, and -that would hearten ’em. Should he question you again, encourage him to -talk.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You are not to know the value of the freight of dollars.”</p> - -<p>“I will know nothing when I converse with him.”</p> - -<p>“But I shall want you to persuade him that my yarn is true,” said he -with a faint smile, but with a gleam in his eyes which neutralized that -weak expression of good humor.</p> - -<p>The relations between the master and the mate—between the captain and -the lieutenant—instantly made themselves felt by me. I looked him in -the face awaiting instruction.</p> - -<p>“You will be able to convince him that my yarn is true,” said he.</p> - -<p>“He has all the reasons which I have for believing it.”</p> - -<p>“Do you believe it?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes! Mynheer Tulp’s promotion of this voyage is all the proof that -one wants.”</p> - -<p>He cast his eyes upon the deck, and a light smile twitched his lips. -When he next spoke it was to ask me some question that had no relation -to the subject we had been conversing upon.</p> - -<p>After this I created opportunities for Yan Bol to question me. I -lingered when he came on deck to relieve me. I sought to coax him into -asking about the ship in the cavern, by loitering in his company instead -of at once going below, and by speaking of the voyage, of the Galapagos -Islands, of the uncharted island to which we were bound; but his mind -appeared to have suddenly and completely turned round; what was before -an eager, was now a blank countenance; indeed, he would look at me -suspiciously when I talked of the voyage and the dollar-ship as though I -had a stratagem in my head which must oblige him to mind his eye. -Thereupon I ceased to trouble myself to attempt to convince Yan Bol that -the captain’s story was true, and that our errand was as real as a -silver dollar itself is; and it was as well, perhaps, that this Dutchman -found me no occasion to tax my wits by the invention of proofs for what -I could by no means prove to myself. I did not like Greaves’ looks when -he talked of his dollar-ship; I did not understand his half-smiles at -such times; I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span> puzzled by the dreamy expression of his eye, and by -the light that had kindled in his gaze when he asked me, with an -unspoken doubt behind his words, to convince Yan Bol that his story was -true, in order that the crew might be satisfied.</p> - -<p>It was a few days after my chat with him about the Dutch boatswain’s -questions that he asked me if I had succeeded in satisfying the fellow -that there was a vessel, with a lazarette full of dollars, locked up in -an island off the Western American coast? I told him that the man had -bouted ship and was on the other tack now; that he shifted his helm when -I approached him, exhibited no further curiosity, but, on the contrary, -shrunk from the subject as though it vexed him. He made, or seemed to -make, little of this. But that same evening, when I was sitting at -supper with him, he said:</p> - -<p>“Yan Bol will go to the devil for me now. I walked with him for an hour -this afternoon, while you were below. He was frank. I like him none the -less for being frank. He is a bit jealous of you. Mind ye, he said not -one word against you, Fielding, not a syllable—though at the first -syllable I should have brought him up, all standing. But the spirit of -jealousy was strong in his remarks; it smelt in his words like a dram in -a man’s breath. ’Tis natural. You are an Englishman—he is a darned -Dutchman. You came aboard through the cabin window, and his countryman, -Van Laar, goes out as you walk in. But a plague upon forecastle -passions! He was frank, as I have said, and told me that he had some -doubts of the truth of my story, and that the rest of the men had not -yet made up their minds about it. ‘And what the deuce,’ said I, ‘is it -to you or to the men whether my story be true or false? You were engaged -for the voyage. It was a question of wages with you, and your wages will -be paid.’ ‘Dot vhas right,’ said this Dutchman. But I talked of the -<i>Casada</i>, nevertheless, described her in the cave, gave him, in short, -the story of my discovery that it might go the rounds forward; and then -I told him that I had made up my mind to increase his share of the -booty; his share of the sixty-one thousand dollars, I said, was to be -according to his rating, which was the highest next yours; but I added -that if he chose to work with a will and aid me and you to the utmost to -carry this brig in safety to the Downs, I would give him a written -undertaking to pay him a percentage on the whole value of the property, -which sum would be over and above what he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> receive in money as -wages and as his share in the sixty-one thousand dollars.”</p> - -<p>“What did he say to that, sir?”</p> - -<p>“He smiled, he thanked me, he let fall several Dutch words, swore that I -was the finest captain that he had ever sailed under, and that his -earnings out of this voyage would set him up for life in his native -town. He was a fairly trustworthy fellow before. He is as honest now as -is to be reasonably expected of human flesh. I am satisfied; and you -need give yourself no further trouble, Fielding, to convince him that my -story is true.”</p> - -<p>Well, thought I, this, no doubt, is as it should be, though it seemed to -me that Greaves was making too much of Yan Bol, too much of his own -anxieties, indeed, sinking the skipper in the adventurer, and a little -heedless of Nelson’s axiom that at sea much must be left to chance. If, -thought I, he is cocksure that his ship and her dollars are where he -says he beheld them, then how can it matter to him one jot whether his -crew believe in his story or not? But conjecture and speculations of -this sort were to no purpose. In a few weeks the problem would be -solved; either the money would be aboard, or we should have found the -ship broken up and everything gone out of her to the bottom—to such -bottom as she rested upon, twenty or thirty feet, maybe, but as -unsearchable to us, without diving equipment, as the floor of the -mid-Atlantic; or we should have discovered that there was no ship and no -island, and that ours had been the expedition of a dream. And still no -matter, I would think. There are wages to be pocketed in the end, and I -can only be worse off <i>then</i> by being so many months older than I was -when I was fished up out of the Channel by the people of the brig.</p> - -<p>The letter I had written to my uncle Captain Round, when I agreed to -sail in the <i>Black Watch</i> in the room of Van Laar, I had not yet been -able to send. I forgot all about that letter when I went aboard -Tarbrick’s ship to arrange for the reception of the Dutch mate, and I -had not witnessed in the little <i>Rebecca</i>, with her two of a crew, a -very likely opportunity for communicating with Uncle Joe. But when we -were somewhere about six degrees south we fell in with a large snow -homeward bound. She was from round the Horn and proceeding direct to the -Thames. I had several selfish as well as respectable and honorable -motives for desiring to send the news of my being alive to my uncle, not -to mention the pleasure it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> give him and my aunt and cousin to -learn that I was alive; I was down in his will for what you might call a -trifle, but such a trifle as would prove very acceptable to me should it -come to my having to continue the sea life for a living. There were -other reasons why I desired that my uncle should know that I was alive, -and let the one I have given suffice.</p> - -<p>Our meeting with that snow was rendered memorable by a phenomenal -caprice of wind. It was blowing a light breeze off our starboard bow; -the hour was about two, the sky was like a sheet of pale blue silver, -here and there shaded with curls and plumes and streamers of -high-floating yellow-colored cloud. There was wind enough to keep the -ocean trembling, but at intervals, and at fairly regular intervals, -there ran north and south a number of glassy swathes, oil-calm paths -from the remotest of the northern airy reaches to the most distant of -the recesses of the south. It was my watch below when we sighted the -sail; I had dined. It was soul-consumingly hot in the cabin, and I came -on deck to smoke a pipe and lounge amid the brine-sweet draughts of air, -and in the pleasant shadows cast upon the white and glaring planks by -the quietly breathing sails. Greaves was below. Presently Yan Bol, who -was in charge of the brig, approached me. I had watched him staring at -the approaching vessel through the ship’s telescope, his vast chest -rising and falling under his extended arms, which, clothed as he -went—in pilot cloth, though the sun made him no shadow—looked as big -as the thighs of an ordinary man. He approached me and said:</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, didt you belief in impossibilities?”</p> - -<p>“No, Bol, I don’t; do you?”</p> - -<p>“By de tunder of Cott, den, I shall for effermore after dis, onless, -indeedt, I hov lost der eyes I schipped mit at Amsterdam.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Coom dis vay, Mr. Fielding, und you see for yourself.”</p> - -<p>He crossed the deck. I followed him. He put the telescope into my hands -and leveled a square fat forefinger at the sail that was now at no great -distance. I viewed the vessel through the glass, but saw nothing -remarkable. She was a motherly tub of a ship, with big topsails and -short topgallant masts, and a cask-like roll in the sway of her whole -fabric as the silver blue undulations took her.</p> - -<p>“Well, what is there to see?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Tunder of God?” cried he in Dutch. “Lok, Mr. Fielding, how her yards -vhas braced.”</p> - -<p>And now, indeed, I beheld what Jack might fairly call a miraculous -sight. The wind, as I have said, was off our starboard bow, and we were, -therefore, braced up on what is termed the starboard tack; but the -stranger that was coming along was also braced up on the starboard tack, -showing that she, like ourselves, had the wind on her starboard bow. For -what did our two postures signify? This—that the wind with us was -directly west-southwest, while the wind with the stranger was directly -east-northeast. Here, then, were two vessels within a couple of miles of -each other, so heading that one would pass the other within a -biscuit-toss; here, I say, were two vessels steering in exactly opposite -directions, but each braced up on the same tack, and each with the wind -off the same bow!</p> - -<p>“May der toyfell seize me if I like him!” exclaimed Bol, looking aloft -at our canvas and then around the sea.</p> - -<p>The sailors at work about the deck stared aloft and then at the -approaching ship. They bit hard upon the tobacco in their cheeks. One of -the Dutchmen called to an English seaman in the fore rigging:</p> - -<p>“Dis vhas der ocean of Kingdom Coom. Der anchells vhas not far off vhen -efery schip hov a vindt for himself.”</p> - -<p>The English sailor, with an uneasy motion of his body, swang off the -rigging to spit clear into the sea.</p> - -<p>“Arter this, mate,” he called down to the Dutchman, “I shall give up -drinking water when I gets ashore.”</p> - -<p>I looked into the cabin skylight, and, seeing Greaves at the table, -begged him to step on deck and behold a strange sight. By this time both -vessels had hoisted their ensigns, and each flag blew in an opposite -direction.</p> - -<p>“I have heard of this sort of thing,” said Greaves, “but never before -saw it. Lord, now, if every ship could have a wind of her own, as we and -yonder craft have! There would be no weather gauge then—no complicated -dodging for advantageous positions. Ha! Look at that now. She has taken -our wind!”</p> - -<p>The sails of the approaching vessel fell and trembled. A minute later, -the yards were slowly swung, and the canvas shone like white satin as it -swelled to the same breeze that was breathing off our bow.</p> - -<p>“I should be glad to send my letter home by that ship,” said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span></p> - -<p>“It may be managed,” he exclaimed, “and without bothering to back yards -or lower a boat. Get your letter.”</p> - -<p>I ran to my berth and returned with the letter, which Greaves posted for -me on the passing ship in the following manner:</p> - -<p>He sent me to procure a piece of canvas, a small number of musket balls, -some twine, and an end of ratlin stuff. He put the balls and my letter -into the canvas, and, with the twine, bound the cloth into a small, -heavy parcel, to which he secured the end of the piece of ratlin stuff; -then, giving directions to the man at the helm to starboard, so as to -close the stranger, he sprung upon the rail and waited for the two -vessels to draw together.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the snow ahoy!” he shouted.</p> - -<p>“Hallo!” responded a man who stood on the quarter of the vessel.</p> - -<p>“Where are you bound to?”</p> - -<p>“London.”</p> - -<p>“Will you take a letter for me?”</p> - -<p>The man motioned assent and looked aloft, as though about to order his -topsail to be backed. “I will chuck the letter aboard,” said Greaves, -swinging the parcel by its line, that the man might guess what he -intended to do. “Stand by to receive it!”</p> - -<p>Again the fellow, who was, probably the captain, motioned; and then, -waiting until the two craft were abreast, Greaves, with a dexterous -swing of his arm, sent the parcel flying through the air. It fell on the -deck of the passing vessel just abaft her mainmast. The fellow who had -answered Greaves’ hail, running forward, picked it up, and held it high -in his hand that we might see he had it. After this there was no -opportunity for further communication; for scarce were the two vessels -abreast when they were on each other’s quarter, rapidly sliding a -widening interval betwixt their sterns.</p> - -<p>The snow was the <i>Lady Godiva</i>. I read her name under her counter. But -her being bound to London, now that my letter was aboard, was -information enough about her to answer my turn.</p> - -<p>From this date down to the period of our arrival off the west coast of -South America my clear recollection of every particular of this voyage -yields me little that is good enough to record. Incidents so far had not -been lacking, but south of the equator our sea life grew as dull as ever -the vocation can be at its dull<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span>est. Heavens! how incommunicably tedious -is the mechanic round of shipboard days! Wonderful to me is it that -sailors in those times, when a single passage kept them afloat for -months, remained human. And less than human some of them were, I am -bound to say. Think of their lodging—a small, black hole in the bows of -the ship, dimly lighted by a lamp fed with slush skimmed from the -coppers in the galley, no fire in bitter weather, no air in hot; every -straining timber sweating brine into the dark interior, till the floor -in a headsea was a-wash; till every blanket was like a newly wrung out -swab; till there was not a dry rag in the hole of a living room to -enable the poor devils to shift themselves withal. Think of their -food—salted meat, out of which they could have sawn and chiseled blocks -for reeving gear to hoist their sails with; biscuit that crawled on the -innumerable legs of vermin, alive but unintelligent, for it came not to -your whistle nor did it elude your grasp; tea from which the thirstiest -of the fiery-eyed rats in the fore peak are known to have recoiled with -lamentable squeaks and dying shrieks of disappointment. Think of their -labor—the scrubbing, the tarring, the greasing, the furling and reefing -and stitching, the kicks, the blows, the curses which accompanied the -toil. Think of their pleasures—an inch of sooty pipe to suck, an -ancient story to nod over, a song at long intervals.</p> - -<p>Alas, poor Jack! What is it that carries thee to sea in the first -instance? The love of freedom? Hie thee to the nearest jail; there is -more freedom in it; better food, kinder words. The desire to see the -world? What dost see unless thou runnest from thy ship? for in harbor -all day long thou art sweating in the hold and stamping round and round -to the music of the pawls; and when the night comes and thou goest -ashore, if thou hast a shot in thy locker thou gettest drunk, and with -whirling brains and blistered lips art thrust rather than conveyed to -thy toil in the morning by the constable whom thy skipper hath sent in -search of thee. And so much, therefore, Jack, dost thou see of foreign -parts. But whatever may have been the cause that sent thee to sea, my -lad, this will I affirm; that when once thou art afloat, there is -nothing clothed in flesh, with an immortal spirit to be saved or damned, -more deserving of pity.</p> - -<p>But though we were a dull, we were a comfortable little ship. I never -heard of any falling out among the crew. They worked well together. The -common hope of the dollar<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> that lay on t’other side the Horn was strong -in them. It kept them well meaning. It was clear they all had full -confidence in the captain’s yarn, and their spirits danced with -anticipation of the money they would jingle when they got home—the -money in wages and share per man. This I used to think.</p> - -<p>They made much of their dog watches when the weather was fine. One of -the Dutchmen played on the flute; one of the Englishmen had a fiddle. -The fellows would save their noon-tide grog for a dog watch, and make -merry. Yan Bol sang as a bull roars, but his singing was vastly enjoyed. -Never did any mariner better dance the sailor’s hornpipe than the -English sailor, Thomas Teach. He went through it grim and unsmiling, but -his postures were full of that sort of elegance which is the gift of old -ocean to such men as Teach. It is old ocean alone that can animate the -limbs with the careless beauty of motion that Teach’s arms and legs -displayed when he danced the hornpipe.</p> - -<p>And there was a sailor named Harry Call. He had served in American -ships, and knew the negro character, and when he blacked his face he was -good entertainment. Greaves liked his fooling so well that he would call -him aft, send for the men, order Jimmy to mix a can of grog, and Call -with his spare voice and negro pleasantries would agreeably kill an -hour.</p> - -<p>My own life was as pleasant as a seafaring life can very well be. -Greaves had much to talk about. He had looked into books. He had -traveled widely and observed closely. He was a person of much good -nature. In truth, a more genial, informing man I could not have prayed -for as a shipmate. Yet I would take notice of a certain haziness on one -side of his mind. He loved metaphysical speculations, and would wriggle -out of a homely topic to start a religious discussion. I humored him for -some time, but religion being one of those subjects that I did not much -care to talk about, I soon ceased to argue, and then all the talking was -his. He entertained some odd notions for a sailor, believed that every -man had a good and bad angel, that when a man died his spirit slept with -his dust. “Otherwise,” he asked, “what is to bring the parts together -again, inform them with mind, and render the whole sensible of what is -happening?” I found that he had a leaning toward the Roman Catholic -faith. I asked him if he was married. He answered “No.” I then inquired -why Van Laar had threatened to take the bed from under him and his wife. -“To vex me,” said he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span></p> - -<p>He would be talking of religion and metaphysics, of dreams and a future -life, of the state of his soul a million years ago, and of the -inhabitants of certain of the stars, when I would be thinking of his -ship in the cave and the dollars aboard of her. But as our voyage -progressed, as we drove southward toward the Horn, he found little or -nothing to say about his ship in the cave. You would have said he was -done with the subject. He had so little to say, indeed, that I would -wonder at times whether the purpose of this expedition was not slipping -out of his memory as a dream, that is vital and brilliant on one’s -awaking from it, fades ere nightfall, and is effaced by the vision of -another slumber. “It will be a confounded disappointment should it prove -false after all,” I would think; for, spite of my misgivings which -sometimes I would nourish and sometimes spurn, I, during those tedious -days and weeks running into months, I, in many a lonely watch on deck, -in many a waking hour in my hammock, had built my little castles in the -air, had furnished them handsomely for one of my degree, had gazed at -them with fondness as they glittered in the light of my hope. Six -thousand pounds! The money was a bigger pile in those days than it is -now; to be so easily earned too! Why, in imagination I had bought me a -little house, I had married a wife, I was gardening often in mine own -little estate, and every quarter I was receiving dividend warrants; and -there was good ale in my cellar, and no stint at meal times; and I was a -happy young man, in imagination sitting, as I did, on the apex of that -pyramid of promised dollars, whence I commanded a boundless prospect for -a mariner’s eye. And now if it was all to end in a hoaxing dream! Bless -me! While I was on this side of the Horn how I pined for t’other side, -how I thrashed the old brig through it in my watch on deck! With what -ardor of expectancy did I every day sit down to work out the sights!</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> -<small>THE WHITE WATER.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> <i>Black Watch</i> had sailed through the Downs in the middle of -September, and on the morning of December 12, 1814, she was upon the -meridian of Cape Horn, and in about fifty-seven degrees south latitude. -This passage, for so swift a keel, was a long one. It was owing to -diabolical weather between the degrees of forty and fifty south.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span></p> - -<p>Greaves and I would sometimes say that the devil was afloat in a craft -of his own within that belt of ten degrees. Head winds more maddening to -the most angelic soul, calms more provocative of impious and affrighting -language, it is not in the imagination of the most seasoned mariner to -conceive.</p> - -<p>But enough. We were off the Horn at last. Our bowsprit would be heading -north presently, and, when our ship’s forefoot cut this meridian again, -the little fabric would (but would she?) be deeper in the water (by what -division of a strake?) with a cargo of minted silver!</p> - -<p>In 1814 much was made of the passage of the Horn. The doubling of that -bleak, inhospitable, deep-seated rock was accepted, on the whole, as a -considerable adventure. The old traditions of mountain-high seas and -gales of cyclonic fury survived. The traffic down there was small; the -colonies of New Holland were still raw in their making; and ships bound -for Europe from that distant continent chose the mild but tedious -passage of the South African headland.</p> - -<p>The old dread has vanished. Experience has footed prejudice out of time. -In furious weather the ocean off the Horn is as terrible as the North -Atlantic, as the Southern Ocean, as any vast breast of water is in -furious weather; and that is the long and short of it. Oh, yes; off the -Horn you get some monstrous seas, it is true. I have known what it is to -be running off the Horn before a westerly gale and to be -afraid—seasoned as I then was—<i>to look astern!</i> But there is a safety -in the mighty swing of those wide Andean heaps of brine which the -sharper-edged surge of the smaller ocean does not yield.</p> - -<p>The old freebooters and the early navigators are responsible for the -evil reputation of the Horn. They returned from the wonders of foreign -sight-seeing, from the joys of plunder and the delights of discovery, -with their hearts full of astonishment and their mouths full of lies. -There is Shelvocke’s description of the Horn; it is heartrending reading -in these days. The ice forms upon the page as you read; the atmosphere -darkens with snow. And what, on the testimony of such a record, did -Wapping think of that distant, ice-girt, howling navigation, with its -enchanted islands and bergs, whose spires seemed to pink the moon? What -did Wapping think when there was never a man in every company of a -thousand jackets who had rounded the Horn and could tell of it?</p> - -<p>We, passing the Horn on December 12, found the southern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span> hemisphere’s -midsummer there. We met, for the most part, with bright skies, a -cheerful sun, not wanting in warmth, coming soon and going late, and a -noble field of swelling blue seas. One iceberg we sighted. It was -infinitely remote—a point of pearl on the sea-line.</p> - -<p>“She vhas like a babe’s milk tooth,” said Yan Bol, pointing to it.</p> - -<p>There was a fancy of milk in the whiteness of it; but, when I brought my -eyes from the distant berg to Bol’s face, I said unto myself—“What -should <i>that</i> man know of a babe’s milk tooth?”</p> - -<p>Two disappointments await those who round the Horn with expectations -bred of the reading of books. First, the weather. Often is it as placid -as any quiet day that sleeps over the Straits of Dover, when the sky is -streaked with the lingering smoke of vanished steamers and the white -cliffs of France hang in the air. No; the weather off the Horn is not -the everlasting saddle of the Storm Fiend. The seas are not always -boiling, the hurricanes of wind are not always black with frost, heavy -with snow, man-killing with ice-darts.</p> - -<p>Next, the constellation called the Southern Cross. It hangs over you -when you are off the Horn; often have I looked up at it, and never have -I thought it beautiful. The smallest of the gems of the English skies is -a richer jewel than the Southern Cross. A singular superstition is this -widespread faith in the beauty of the Crux of the ancient mariner. The -stars are unequally set; one is disproportionately small.</p> - -<p>But now came a morning when we struck a meridian that enabled us to -shift our helm for a northern passage, and then we had the whole length -of the mighty seaboard of South America to climb. We were in the South -Pacific at last. The island was hard upon three thousand miles distant; -but it was over the bows—it was ahead! We had turned the stormy corner, -and the verification of Greaves’ yarn could be thought of as something -that was about to happen soon.</p> - -<p>Day by day we climbed the parallels, and all went well. Certain stars -sank behind the edge of the sea astern of us, and as we sailed northward -many particular stars which were familiar to our northern eyes rose over -the bows and wheeled in little arcs. We made some westing that we might -give the land a wide berth, for whether Great Britain was or was not at -war with Spain, the Spaniards of that vast seaboard were scarcely less -jealously and passionately tenacious in those<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> days of their dominion in -the South Sea, and under the Line to beyond Panama, than they were in -the preceding century; and though we could not positively affirm that -there was anything to be afraid of, anything curiously and sneakingly -dangerous to be shunned (if it were not Commodore Porter, whose ship the -<i>Essex</i> was believed to lie prowling hereabouts at this time), yet -Greaves was determined to provide his bad angel with the slenderest -possible opportunity for delaying or arresting the voyage to the island.</p> - -<p>So we kept well out to the west, and fine sailing it was. For days we -hardly touched a brace; the steady wind, growing daily warmer, sweetly -blew the little brig along. It was the South Pacific Ocean. Many reports -are there of the various tempers of that sea, but, for my part, -northward of the parallel of forty degrees I have ever found it a gentle -breast of ocean. Long and lazy was the blue swell brimming to our -counter, drowsy the flap of the sunny canvas, soft the cradled motion of -the ship. Once again the silver flying fish glanced from the slope of -the violet knolls. The wet, black fin of a shark hung steadfast in our -wake. What a world of waters it was! Never the gleam of a ship’s canvas -for days and days to break the boundless continuity of the distant -sea-line. The men relaxed their labors, Yan Bol took no notice, and I, -who was never a “hazer,” was willing that they should lounge through -their toil of the hours in a climate so enervating that one yearned to -sling a hammock in some cool corner of the deck, to lie in it all day, -to smoke and doze while the imagination slided away on the stream of the -rippling music made by the broken waters and passed into the fairy -harbors of dreams.</p> - -<p>“By this time to-morrow,” said Greaves to me one evening, “if this -breeze holds, and our reckoning is true, and the island has not been -exploded by a volcano or an earthquake, you will be having a good view -of the ship in the cave—no, I am wrong, a good view of her you will not -obtain from the sea, but you will be having a good view of the cave in -which she lies, and I shall be very much surprised if you are not -mightily impressed by the magnitude and beauty of that great hole or -split in the rock, and by the indescribable complicated atmosphere or -shadow within, caused, as I long ago explained to you, by the -interlacery of the ship’s gear and spars, visible and indeterminable.”</p> - -<p>“Visible and indeterminable! Captain, you put it as though it were some -mystery of religion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Do you object, Fielding,” said he, “to sailors, I mean quarter-deck -sailors, expressing themselves as educated men would, nay, as average -gentlemen would? Are you for keeping the quarter-deck sailor down to -Smollett’s platform of Hatchway and Trunnion? Must we swear, must we -drink, must we behave when ashore like lascivious baboons and at sea -like Newgate felons, who have burst through the iron bars and are -sailing away for their lives, merely to justify the landgoing notion -that the best of all sailors are the most brutal of all beasts.”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” said I; “I meant nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Visible and indeterminable. Are they not good words? Do they not -exactly express what I want to convey to your mind? How ‘der toyfell’ -would you have me talk?”</p> - -<p>He looked at me and I looked at him. He then burst into a laugh, and we -stepped the deck for a little while in silence. The time was something -after half-past seven. The sun was gone, and night had descended upon -the sea. It was a tropic night. The dark sky was full of splendid -brilliants. A mild air blew from the westward and the brig, with her two -spires of canvas lifting pale to the stars, dreamily floated over the -black water that here and there shone with a little cloud of sea-fire, -as though some luminous jelly fish was riding past, while here and there -it caught and feathered back the flash of some large star, whose silver -in a dead calm would have made an almost moon-like wake. Galloon marched -by our side. Jimmy, forward, with a pipe in his mouth, lay leaning over -the windlass and gazing aft, seemingly at the shadowy form of the dog, -as though he hoped to coax the brute that way by persistent staring and -wishing. The men, in twos and threes, trudged the forecastle. So still -was the evening, so seldom the flap of canvas, so unvexing to the -hearing the summer sound of the water lightly washing in the furrow of -bubbles and foam-bells astern, that the voices of the men fell -distinctly upon the ear; by hearkening one might have caught the -syllables of their speech.</p> - -<p>It had gone forward—taken there by Yan Bol, or whispered by the lad -Jimmy, who by listening to the captain and me, as we discoursed at the -cabin table at meals, would be able to pick up news enough to repeat; it -had gone forward, I say, that, the weather holding as it was, and all -continuing well, by some hour next day we should be having the island on -the bow or beam, perhaps hove to off it, or with an anchor down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> -Expectation was strong in the men’s voices. It was the very night for -their flute or fiddle; for “Tom Tough,” or “Britons, strike home!” or -for some boisterous Dutch song in Yan Bol’s thunder, for Call’s -lamp-blacked Jack Puddingisms, for Teach’s hornpipe, for general -caper-cutting, in a word, with a can of grog betwixt the knight-heads, -and the fumes of mundungus strong in the back-draughts. But the humor of -the sailors, this night, was to walk up and down the deck in twos and -threes, and to talk of to-morrow and of dollars.</p> - -<p>“If <i>La Perfecta Casada</i>—a fine-sounding name, by the way, captain,” -said I, “what is the English of it?”</p> - -<p>“The Perfect Wife.”</p> - -<p>“The Spaniards,” said I, “choose strange names for their ships. They -have many <i>Holy Virgins</i> and <i>Purest Marias</i> at sea. I knew a Spanish -ship that was called the <i>Holy Ghost</i>. Figure an English vessel so -called. She meets another English vessel, which hails her: ‘Ship ahoy!’ -‘Hallo!’ ‘What ship’s that?’ ‘The <i>Holy Ghost</i>.’ There is a looseness in -this sort of naming that is not very pleasing to Protestant prejudice. I -asked the mate of the <i>Holy Ghost</i>, ‘Why is your ship thus named?’ ‘That -she may not sink,’ he answered. ‘Hell lies downward. If the <i>Holy Ghost</i> -goes anywhere, ’tis upward.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“You are in a talkative humor this evening.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it is like being homeward bound when the end of the outward -passage is within hail.”</p> - -<p>“What were you going to say about the <i>Casada</i>?”</p> - -<p>“I have never clearly gathered—supposing her to be still lying in that -cave where you saw her——”</p> - -<p>“She is still lying in that cave where I saw her,” he interrupted, -repeating my words in a strong voice.</p> - -<p>“I have never clearly gathered,” I continued, “whether it is your -intention to tranship her cargo—I mean the cocoa and wool?”</p> - -<p>“I cannot make up my mind whether or not to meddle with those -commodities,” said he, “and so, because I have not been able to form an -intention, you have not been able to gather one from our conversation. -The weather will advise me. Then I shall want to know the condition of -the cargo. The wool, cocoa, and hides in the hair may not be worth -lifting out of a hold that has been aground in a cave since 1810. But -there are a thousand quintals of tin, and there are some casks of -tortoise shell—we shall see, we shall see.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Mynheer Tulp,” said I, “will, no doubt, be able to find room for all -that you can carry home.”</p> - -<p>“Room and a market. But I am here for dollars. I believe I shall not -meddle with the other stuff. We’ll tranship as fast as the boats can -ply, and then away.”</p> - -<p>I made no answer, being occupied at that instant with admiring the -effect of a flash of lightning in the southwest—a clear and lovely -blaze of violet which threw out the horizon in a black, firm, indigo -line.</p> - -<p>I went below with Greaves, at eight o’clock, to drink a glass of cold -grog before turning in. Greaves had brought the chart of this part of -the American coast out of his cabin, and we sat together conversing and -looking at it. At intervals I was sensible of the burly figure of Yan -Bol pausing near the open skylight, under which we sat, to peer down and -to listen. But there was nothing Greaves desired to withhold from the -crew, nothing he was not willing that any man of them should overhear if -it were not, perhaps, the value of the money on board the <i>Casada</i>; -though even their overhearing of this would be a matter of indifference, -since they were bound to form an opinion of their own of the contents -and value of the cases of dollars when they came to handle them.</p> - -<p>Greaves had marked down upon the chart the position of the island in -accordance with his observations when he hove to off it and sighted the -ship in the cave on his way to Guayaquil. The position of the brig by -dead reckoning since noon brought us, at this hour of eight, within -twenty leagues of the spot, and, therefore, supposing Greaves’ -observations to have been correct, and supposing that the weak wind that -was flapping us onward continued to blow throughout the night, we had -good reason to hope that the bright morning light would give us a view -of the tall heap of cinder cliffs before another twelve hours should -have gone round.</p> - -<p>Greaves was making certain calculations with a pencil on a sheet of -paper, and I, with a pair of compasses, was measuring the distance of -the island from the mainland, when we were startled by the roaring voice -of Yan Bol, whose full face was thrust into the open skylight.</p> - -<p>“For der love of Cott, captain, goom on deck und see vhat vhas wrong! -Der sea vhas on fire. Quick! or ve vhas all burnt up.”</p> - -<p>“What does he say?” cried Greaves, who had been unable to promptly -disengage his attention from his calculations.</p> - -<p>“He says that the sea is on fire and that we shall all be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> burnt up,” I -exclaimed, picking up my cap; and, in a moment, we were both on deck.</p> - -<p>“Der sea vhas on fire!” thundered Yan Bol as we stepped through the -hatch.</p> - -<p>I looked ahead over the bows of the brig, and the sea all that way was -splendid and terrible with light. I call it light, but light it was -<i>not</i>, unless that be light which is made by snow in darkness. It was a -wonderful whiteness that seemed a sort of fire. It blended the junction -of sea and sky into a wide and ghastly glare, and the light of the white -water rolled upward into the sky as the clearly-defined edge of the -milky surface advanced, as you see a blue edge of breeze sweeping over a -silver surface of dead calm. The sea where the brig was sailing was -black, as it had been before we went below, and in the deep, soft, -indigo dusk over our mastheads the stars were shining; but the sparkling -of the luminaries languished over our fore yardarms, and it was easy to -guess that, if the coming whiteness spread, the sky and all that was -shining in it would be hidden.</p> - -<p>“Captain,” cried Bol, “vhat in der good anchel’s name vhas she?”</p> - -<p>“A star has fallen,” answered Greaves, “and is shining at the bottom of -the sea.”</p> - -<p>“A star? Vhat, a star from der sky?”</p> - -<p>“Where do stars grow?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean a shooting star, captain?” cried Bol.</p> - -<p>“Yan Bol,” said Greaves, nudging me as we stood side by side, “you have -much to learn. Do not you know that the stars are often falling? They -drop into other worlds than ours. Sometimes they plump into our earth, -fizz into the sea, and lie on the ooze, shining for awhile and making -queer lights upon the water like that yonder.”</p> - -<p>Bol breathed deeply. He could read, indeed; but he was as ignorant, -prejudiced, and grossly superstitious as most forecastle hands in his -day—fitter for the faiths of a Finn than a Hollander. He stared at the -advancing whiteness, and seemed not to know what to make of the -captain’s discourse. “Yes,” continued Greaves, “they are frequently -falling. They are the stars which were loosed in the pavement of heaven -when the angels fell. There should be many more stars than there are. -Unhappily, when Lucifer was hurled over the battlements he swept away a -number of stars with his tail and loosened many more, and it is those -which drop.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Der toyfell!” muttered Bol. “Von lifs und larns.”</p> - -<p>“It is a wonderful sight,” said I, gazing with astonishment, not wholly -unmixed, at the mighty whiteness that was coming along.</p> - -<p>Already on high the verge of the startling milky reflection was over our -fore royal masthead. You might look straight up now and see no stars. -The line of the flaring whiteness upon the sea was a little more than a -mile distant. The wind blew softly, and before it the brig floated -onward, meeting the coming whiteness with an occasional flap of canvas -that fell upon the ear like a note of alarm from aloft.</p> - -<p>“Did you never before see the white water, Fielding?” exclaimed Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Never, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I have sailed through it three times,” said he. “Once off Natal, once -in Indian, and once in China seas. I did not know it was to be met with -on this side the world; but everything is probable and possible at sea. -I tell you what, Bol,” he exclaimed, calling across to the Dutchman, who -had gone to the side to stare, and was holding on to a shroud, or -backstay, with his big body painted black as ink against the whiteness -that was coming along, “I believe I am mistaken, after all. It is not a -star; it is an insect.”</p> - -<p>“I likes to handle dot insect. I likes her in der forecastle to read by -und light my pipe by,” said Bol, with a coarse, heavy, uneasy laugh, -that sounded like the bray of an ass.</p> - -<p>“It is a subglobular insect,” said Greaves, nudging me again, -“compressed vertically, convex above, concave beneath, wrapped in a -transparent coriaceous envelope, containing a white, gelatinous -substance. Repeat that to the men, Bol, will you, should the whiteness -make them uneasy. Very few sailors,” said he, addressing me, and talking -without appearing in the least degree sensible of the wonderful and -alarming milk-white light that was now almost upon us, “take the trouble -to scientifically examine what passes under their noses. What, for -example, is more often under a sailor’s nose than bilge water? An Irish -skipper once asked me what bilge water was. I told him that it was -sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrosulphate of ammonia, oxide of iron, and -compounds of lead and zinc. ‘Jasus,’ said he, ‘and is that how you spell -shtink in English?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>As he spoke the brig, with a long-drawn flap up aloft, smote the -sharply-defined white line, and in an instant was bathed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span> the -unearthly light. We had not been able to see each other’s faces before. -Now the very expression of countenance was visible. The whole body of -the brig was revealed as though by the light of the moon, and the -ghastliness of the light lay in its making no shadow. The seamen stood -staring and gaping; withered, they seemed, into a posture of utter -lifelessness. But no shadows lay at their feet, no shadow stretched from -the foot of the mast; I looked down, the planks lay plain, the seams -clear, but I made no shadow. Nor did this magic light mirror itself. I -glanced at the polished brass piece aft, but no star of reflection burnt -in it, no gleam lay up on the cabin skylight. It was light and yet it -was not light, and the wonder of it, and, perhaps, the fearfulness of -it, to me, who had never beheld such a sight before, lay in <i>that</i>.</p> - -<p>And now, by this time, the whole sea was as though covered with snow or -milk, as far as we could extend the gaze. The sky reflected the light -and the stars were eclipsed, but the reflection on high had not the -glare of the ocean surface. I went to the side and peered over; the brig -seemed to be thrusting through an ocean of quicksilver. The water broke -thickly and sluggishly in small heaps from the bows, and the patches, as -they came eddying aft, were like clots of cream.</p> - -<p>The sensation induced by the progress of the vessel was as though she -were forcing her way through a dense jelly. The slight heave of the sea -was flattened; there was not the least visible motion in this surface of -whiteness; the brig stood upright on it and the swing of the trucks -would not have spanned the diameter of the moon. There was no fire in -the water, no corruscation of sea glow, no green gleam of phosphor. To -the very recesses of the horizon went sheeting this marvelous breast of -milk-white softness that, though it was not luminous, yet flung an -illumination as of the radiance of a faint aurora borealis upon the -heavens.</p> - -<p>“This is a beautiful sight,” exclaimed Greaves.</p> - -<p>“It will be a memorable one,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“I have never before,” said he, “seen the white water so white, but the -like of this phenomenon which I witnessed off the coast of Natal was -heightened and beautified by a strange light in the heavens to the -northward. It was a delicate, rosy light. I should have imagined it was -the moon rising, had not the moon been up.”</p> - -<p>“Do I understand,” said I, “that this sublime light is produced by a -marine insect?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“By nothing more nor less—so ’tis said. It is the marine insect that -will sometimes give you an ocean of blood, and sometimes an ocean of -exquisite violet, and sometimes, as I have heard, though it is something -rare to witness, an ocean of ink.”</p> - -<p>“An insect!” I exclaimed. “And how many go to this show?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, for a shipload of infidels now!” cried he. “D’ye see them looking -up to God after gazing, white as the water itself, at the ocean?”</p> - -<p>By this time the watch below had turned out, aroused, no doubt, by one -of the sailors on duty. The men in a body had gradually worked their way -from the forecastle to the gangway. They were all as plainly to be -viewed as by the sickly light of a foggy day. No man spoke; not for -minute after minute did the grunt or growl of any one of their hurricane -throats reach my ears. The wild vast scene of whiteness terrified them. -The impression produced was the deeper because this was the night before -the day that was to heave Greaves’ island out of the sea for our sight -to feast on. For let it be remembered at least that the adventure we -were on was highly romantic; the plain, illiterate Jacks would find -something almost magical, something a little out of nature, according to -their scuttle-butt and harness-cask views of life, in Greaves’ discovery -of an uncharted island, with a ship full of dollars in a hole in it. -Also in these seas stood the Galapagos, islands of mystery and darkness, -whose dusky rocks had not width enough of front to receive from the -chisel or the knife the records of the bloody and diabolical tragedies -of which they had been the theater.</p> - -<p>A man stepped out of the group; he coughed hoarsely and spat. His hand -went to his forehead, and he scraped the sea bow of those times.</p> - -<p>“Capt’n, I beg your honor’s pardon,” he said, “us men would like to know -what sea this here is?”</p> - -<p>“The South Pacific—always the South Pacific,” answered Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Will your honor tell us what’s the meaning of this here chalkiness?”</p> - -<p>“My lads, some clumsy son of a gun has capsized a milk can. Look for his -ship, my hearts; she can’t be far off.” Some of the men stupidly gazed -seaward.</p> - -<p>“Vhas der island vashed by dis milkiness, captain?” exclaimed Wirtz.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span></p> - -<p>“It stands in the bluest sea in the world,” answered Greaves.</p> - -<p>“This here’s a sight,” said Travers, “that may be all blooming fine to -read about, but ’taint lucky, to my ways of thinking. Give me natur, -says I.”</p> - -<p>He did not use the word <i>blooming</i>. This elegant expression was not to -be heard in those days; but let it stand.</p> - -<p>“Has none of you ever seen such a sight as this before?” called Greaves.</p> - -<p>After a pause, “Ne’er a man,” answered Teach.</p> - -<p>“Then gaze your eyes full! drink your hearts full! Never again may you -behold the like of this field of glory. Look thirstily! look till ye -burst with the beauty that’ll come into you by looking! Fear not, my -sons—we shall be out of it all too soon. Gaze, my livelies, and silver -your souls with this brightness as it silvers your cheeks. Bol, out -whistle and pipe grog, that we may watch with enjoyment.”</p> - -<p>Bol blew. Jimmy, with Galloon at his heels, arrived with the can; the -tot measure was dipped into the black liquor, lifted and emptied, and -the dram seemed to give every man heart enough to look about him with -common curiosity. One of the fellows fetched a bucket, dropped it over -the side, and hauled it up full. I drew close. It was as though a pail -of cream had been handed aboard.</p> - -<p>I put my finger into the whiteness. It was as thin as salt water, -nothing gluey or cheesy about it, though from the bows the whiteness -rolled away from the rending slide of the cutwater as thickly and -obstinately as melted ore, and astern there was no wake; it might have -been oil.</p> - -<p>For an hour we sailed through this sea of cream and under a dimmer sky -of white. Bald and ghostly was that passage rendered by the -shadowlessness of our decks. The sails swelled dark against the -paleness; so clear was the tracing of the fabric of mast and canvas -against the sky, that the course of so delicate a rope as the royal -backstay could be traced to the head of the mast, and you saw the jewel -block at each topsail and topgallant yardarm, clean cut as a pear on a -bough against a sunset. Greaves came to a stand opposite me and looked -me in the face.</p> - -<p>“You make me think of my dreams of the dead,” said he; “the dead are -always pale when they come to me in dreams. Most people who dream of the -dead dream of them as they remember them in life. There is light in the -eye, and color<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span> on the cheek. They always rise before me pale from their -coffins.”</p> - -<p>“Inspiriting talk, captain,” said I, “at such a moment! But I hope I -look no more like a dead man than the rest of us.”</p> - -<p>“If I were an artist,” said he, “I would give many guineas out of my -earnings for the chance of beholding such a light as this; this is the -sort of light through which I would paint the Phantom Ship sailing. -Figure that wondrous ghost out upon those white waters, the pallid faces -of her men, to whom death is denied, looking over her side at the white -sky, every timber in her glowing with the jewelry of rottenness—you -know what I mean—the green phosphoric sparkling of decay. Cannot you -see her out yonder, dully gleaming with dim green crawlings of fire as -she steals noiselessly through this frothy softness, the hush of living -death upon her, the silence of catalepsy? But what is the name of the -painter, I should like to know, who is going to give us this light upon -canvas? Oh, tell me his name, Fielding, that I may offer him all the -ducats I hope to be in sight of to-morrow for his secret.”</p> - -<p>“Less my whack.”</p> - -<p>“Less yours. But mine, plus Tulp’s. Damn Tulp; I’ll drink his health.” -He called to Jimmy: “Two glasses of brandy-and-water, three finger-nips, -James.”</p> - -<p>The liquor was brought, we chinked glasses, and down went the doses, to -the benefit of <i>one</i> of us certainly; for I had not liked his talk of my -looking like a dead man, and his fancies of the Phantom Ship with her -crawlings of fire and cheese-like faces overhanging the side. Jack, if -you are reading this, bear with me. I was a sailor, and, as a sailor, -<i>you</i> will know that I would not relish such talk at such a time.</p> - -<p>On a sudden the wind slightly freshened, with a melancholy cry, across -the white water, and, as if by magic, the sea ahead opened black, with a -few stars hovering over it. Some minutes later, the northern edge of the -milky surface came streaming to our bows, and swept past us as though -’twas the edge of a mighty white sheet dragged by giant hands down in -the south over the surface of the ocean. I watched the marvelous -appearance receding astern, the sky unveiling its stars as the whiteness -dimmed away, till it was pure nature once again, the heavens shining, -the swell coming into the ocean with its long and lazy lift of the brig, -the pleasant hiss of foam under her bow, and a little dance of jewels in -the furrow astern.</p> - -<p>It was my watch below, and I went to my cabin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /><br /> -<small>GREAVES’ ISLAND.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I pulled</span> off my coat and lay down. Eleven o’clock was struck on deck -before I closed my eyes. I was much excited. The prospect of the dawn -disclosing the island kept me restless. Was there an island in this part -of these seas for the dawn to disclose? and, if an island existed, would -there be a cave in it, and would that cave contain a large Spanish ship, -with five hundred and fifty thousand dollars stowed away in cases in her -lazarette?</p> - -<p>I reviewed Greaves’ behavior. He had been cool, I thought, seeing that -this was the eve of the day that was to bring us off the island and put -the dollars within reach of our oars. He had joked at the overwhelming -apparition of the white water; he had talked of worms and fallen stars; -he had treated a magnificent phenomenon without reverence; and, in one -way or another, he had acted as though to-morrow were to be charged with -no more than what to-day had held. These and the like reflections kept -me awake. Shortly after six bells had been struck I fell asleep.</p> - -<p>At midnight Bol aroused me to take his place, and I went on deck to keep -watch until four o’clock. It was a quiet, rippling night; the moist -breath of old ocean gushed pleasantly over the larboard quarter, and the -brig slipped softly forward, clothed with studding sails. Several -shadowy figures of the crew moved about the deck; their motions were -restless; they’d go to the side, bend over, and peer ahead. At any other -time it was just the night for a quiet snooze about the decks, with a -coil of rope for a pillow, and the stars right overhead to watch until -they winked one asleep. But the men were too restless to “plank it” this -night. They guessed the island to be somewhere away out yonder in the -dusk. They might hope at any moment for an order from the quarter-deck -to back the main topsail yard. They were under the spell of the almighty -dollar!</p> - -<p>Bol hung near, waiting for me to arrive.</p> - -<p>“Anything in sight, Bol?”</p> - -<p>“Noting, Mr. Fielding,” he answered out of the depth of his lungs; “but -dere vhas time. She vhas not to-morrow yet.”</p> - -<p>“No more white water?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No, by tunder, Mr. Fielding. Enough vhas as goodt as a feast. I like -der captain’s notion of a star. She vhas a fine idea. Der verm vhas -silly. How shall a verm shine in vater. Vill not der vater put her light -out?”</p> - -<p>I was in no humor to talk to him about phosphorus.</p> - -<p>“You had better go forward and get some rest,” said I. “Should daylight -give us the island there will be plenty to do for all hands.”</p> - -<p>He grunted and moved forward, but not to turn in. His unwieldy shape -joined other flitting forms, and I heard his deep voice rumbling first -on one bow and then on t’other as he crossed the deck.</p> - -<p>Greaves made his appearance three or four times during this middle -watch. He did not stay. He would come up to me and say:</p> - -<p>“Well, what do you see?”</p> - -<p>“I see nothing.”</p> - -<p>“All the same, it’s in sight, but you’re not a cat, Fielding. Mind your -helm. The difference of a quarter of a point might sink the island for -us by daybreak.”</p> - -<p>He would then go to the binnacle and stand looking upon the card, -address the helmsman, and after running his eyes over the canvas and -stepping to the side, not to peer ahead like the men, but to judge of -the rate of sailing by the passage of the sea fire through the deep -shadow made by the hull, disappear through the companion way.</p> - -<p>It was very dark at four o’clock in the morning, at which hour my watch -ended. When eight bells were struck I went into the head and sunk my -sight into the obscurity forward, running my gaze from beam to beam, for -though it was very black there were stars sparely shining over the sea -line, and by the obliteration of a handful of them might I guess the -presence of land; but I saw nothing. I went aft and found Bol near the -wheel and Greaves in the act of stepping through the hatchway. Eight -bells had not long been chimed and the larboard watch had not yet gone -below.</p> - -<p>“While all hands are on deck reduce sail, Mr. Fielding,” said Greaves. -“Take in your studding sails and ease her down to the main topgallant -sail.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir.”</p> - -<p>Nothing more was said. Yan Bol went forward, I remained aft, whence I -delivered the necessary orders. The heavier canvas was rolled up by all -hands; the watch was then called<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span>—that is to say, the larboard watch -were sent below. Daybreak was still an hour off. I said to myself, if -the island is hereabouts there will be plenty to do when daylight comes. -Let me sleep while I can; and for the second time that night I withdrew -to my cabin and lay down, “all standing,” ready for a call.</p> - -<p>I slept well, and was awakened by a beating upon the door. The voice of -the lad Jimmy called out:</p> - -<p>“It’s eight bells, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Any news of the island?” I cried.</p> - -<p>I received no reply; in fact, the lad had run on deck the instant he had -called the time to me. The berth was full of light and the glass of the -scuttle was a trembling, brilliant, silver-blue disk, with the ocean -splendor flowing to it. I stepped on deck, and the moment my head was -clear of the companion way I beheld the island. It stood at a distance -of about seven miles upon the lee or starboard bow. Greaves was pacing -the deck, with his hands locked behind him and his head thoughtfully -bent. Yan Bol stood in the gangway and all hands were forward -breakfasting in the open; they grasped pannikins of steaming tea; they -sawed with jack-knives at cubes of beef, blue with brine, locked by -their hairy thumbs to biscuits, which served for trenchers; the muscles -of their leather cheeks moved slowly as they chawed, chawed, chawed, -cow-like; and cow-like still they moved their eyes slowly in their -sockets to direct them at the island over the bow.</p> - -<p>The morning was a wide field of day, a full heaven of tropic splendor, -with a light breeze off the larboard beam blowing you knew not whence, -for there was never a cloud for the wind to come out of. They had made -all plain sail on the brig; she was floating forward, spars erect, under -royals; the studding sails were stowed and the booms rigged in.</p> - -<p>I stood staring for some moments, with my mind in a state of confusion. -<i>There</i> was the island! The mass of it standing upon the light blue -glory of water northeast was a hard rebuke to my skepticism. Yet—shall -I say it—not the most mercenary of the munching Jacks in the bows could -have felt a keener delight at the sight of that island than I. It -signified dollars and independence to my ardent hopes. I had thought -much upon my share of six thousand pounds, dreamt of the money often, -had builded many fancies tall and radiant upon Greaves’ bond, and, -sometimes had I believed that Greaves’ story was true, and sometimes had -I believed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span> Greaves’ story was a dream, and therefore a lie. And -now there was the island, down away over the starboard bow, a lump of -shadow against the blue, to verify Greaves’ assurance of an island being -thereabout anyhow, and on the merits of that verification to warrant all -the rest of the wonder of cave, of ship, and of a lazarette full of -dollars!</p> - -<p>For a few moments only I stood staring. Thought hath wondrous velocity, -and in a few moments much will pass through the mind. I stepped up to -Greaves as his walk brought him to me. I should have wished to give him -my hand, but the etiquette of the quarter-deck forbade that.</p> - -<p>“Captain,” said I, in a low voice, full, nevertheless, of cordiality and -enthusiasm, “I warmly congratulate you.”</p> - -<p>“And yourself,” said he dryly.</p> - -<p>“And myself,” said I, “and all hands, including Mynheer Tulp.”</p> - -<p>“Seeing is believing,” said he, still dryly. I looked at the island. -“And yet,” continued he, “though that land be there the ship and her -cargo may be nothing more than a dream.”</p> - -<p>He had seen a little deeper into me than I had supposed. Finding him -sarcastic I held my peace, and the better to cover my silence stooped to -caress Galloon. He changed his voice and manner.</p> - -<p>“My observations,” said he, “of the latitude and longitude of that -island were perfectly correct, you see.”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly correct, indeed,” I echoed. “It is strange that so big a rock -should remain uncharted.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing is strange at sea—in this sea particularly. The Spaniards are -always for making their journeys by one road. Anything lying off that -road they miss, unless they happen to be blown on to it, when one of two -things happens; they perish, or they petition the Madonna and escape. If -they escape, they have no more to tell about the rock or coast from -which they narrowly came off with their lives than if they had perished. -Why is that island uncharted by the Spaniards? Is it because no mariner -among them has fallen in with it? Oh, they are lazy rogues all, they are -lazy rogues all; timid, fearful navigators, execrable hydrographers.”</p> - -<p>“It is odd that no Englishman should have fallen in with it.”</p> - -<p>“That is as it happens to be.”</p> - -<p>I fetched the glass, and steadied it upon the rail, and looked. The -island stood up large and livid, tawny in patches, a huge cinderous -heap. The hue, and even the appearance of it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> somewhat reminded me of -Ascension viewed at a distance. One or two parts were robed with green. -There was a tremble and flash of surf at the extremities, and I guessed -that when the sea ran high, it would break very fiercely and dangerously -against all weather-fronting corners of that lonely rock. Greaves came -and stood beside me. I was conscious of his presence, and talked to him -with my eye at the telescope.</p> - -<p>“In what part of the island is the cave situated, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Do you observe a lump of land swelling above the edge of the cliff to -the left?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“That lump or mound is the summit of the front of the rock in which lies -the cave. We are opening it from the southward. I opened it, when I fell -in with that land, from the westward.”</p> - -<p>“It is a volcanic pile,” said I. “I observed points of rocks like -chimneys. They may have smoked once upon a time.”</p> - -<p>He took the glass from me, leisurely inspected the island, and walked -the deck his earlier thoughtful posture, head bowed, hands locked behind -him. I understood what was in his mind, and held off; he would have -nothing to say until the wreck of the Spaniard stood before him in its -dusky tomb. He mastered his anxiety, but would now and again pause and -direct at the island a look that, with its accompanying play of face, -expression of lip, suggestion of posture, told more of what was passing -in him than had he talked for an hour.</p> - -<p>He ordered the boy Jimmy to put breakfast on the skylight; and we ate, -standing or walking, but exchanging very few words. Thus slipped the -time away, and so slipped we through the water. The brig bowed as she -went; a long breathing spell followed her astern, and the sails came in -to the mast as she rose with the heave of the dark blue brine. The -sailors lay over the forecastle head, waiting for the approach of the -island and for orders. Now and again one would point and one would -speak, but expectation lay as a weight upon their minds. It subdued -them. For there was the island, to be sure, and the cave, no doubt, was -round the corner, and in that cave might be the ship. But the dollars, -the dollars, ah! Lay they there still massive, good tender as the -guinea, plentiful as roe in the herring, noble coins to tassel a -handkerchief with, to clink out the sweetest music in the world with to -the accompaniment of deck-blistered feet marching across the gangway to -the wharf, to the joys of the alley boarding house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span> to the delights of -the runner’s parlor—lay they there still in the moldering hold within -the cave?</p> - -<p>So did I interpret the thoughts of the sailors, and I would have bet the -last dollar of my share upon the accuracy of my construction of their -several countenances and attitudes.</p> - -<p>“Let her go off,” said the captain.</p> - -<p>The man at the helm put the wheel over by two or three spokes.</p> - -<p>“Steady!” exclaimed Greaves. He viewed the island through the glass. “We -are opening the reef,” said he; and, taking the telescope from him, I -instantly discerned the sallow line of a projection of rock, with a -dazzle of sunshine coming and going along the base of the formation as -the swell rose and sank there.</p> - -<p>Deep silence fell upon the brig. All hands of us—nay, my beloved -Galloon and the very brig herself—seemed to know that in a few minutes -the cave would lie open before us.</p> - -<p>And a few minutes disclosed it. I viewed the picture as though I had -beheld it before, so clearly had Greaves painted it in his description, -so familiar had it grown by frequent meditation. Almost abreast of us -now, within a mile, lay a very perfect little natural harbor. The reefs -swept out from either hand the island. They looked like piers. They -needed but a lighthouse to have passed, at a glance, for roughly -constructed artificial piers. Within their embrace lay a wide, smooth -surface of dark blue water. A flat, livid front of rock overlooked, on -the left, this placid expanse. Low down on the right of this rock ran a -herbless and treeless beach, without scintillation as of sand or gleam -as of coral—a dead ground of foreshore, mouse-colored; a sort of -pumice, with a small shelving to the wash of the water. But I had no -eyes for that beach then, nor for any other portion of the island saving -the vast, sullen, gloomy fissure which denoted the entrance of the cave -right amidships of the tall face of flat rock.</p> - -<p>Greaves let fall the glass from his eye. He swung it with an odd gesture -of irritable triumph.</p> - -<p>“Back the main topsail, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>I instantly delivered the necessary orders for heaving the ship to. The -men sprang out of the bows, and rushed to the braces and clew garnets as -though to a summons which signified life or death to them. The brig’s -way was arrested. She came with her head to the southwest, bringing the -island upon her starboard quarter. All the time, while I sung out orders -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span> while the men were hauling upon the braces, Greaves stood at the -rail, his eye glued to the glass that was pointed at the cavern. He -turned his head when the noise about our decks had ceased, and, -observing me standing at a little distance regarding him, he beckoned.</p> - -<p>“Look for yourself,” said he.</p> - -<p>I brought the tube to bear upon the cave, and for some moments saw -nothing but the darkness of the interior. A singular appearance of -darkness it was, burnished to the gleam of a raven’s wing by the -silver-blue atmosphere, by the azure glory floating off the surface of -the natural harbor through which I viewed it. But after a little I -seemed to make out a sort of intricacy of pale lines in that gloom. -Well, <i>pale</i> I will not call them. They were of a lighter hue than the -dusk out of which they stole to the eye. Then, knowing very well that -that complication of shadow signified the spars, yards, and rigging of a -large ship, I seemed to distinguish the form of the fabric; could almost -swear to her bowsprit, to the tops, to the side she showed, to the -crosses of the lower masts and fore and main yards.</p> - -<p>“What do you see?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“A ship,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you have no doubt?”</p> - -<p>“I should have plenty of doubt,” said I, “if you had not told me how to -name, how to define that bewildering muddle of shadow.”</p> - -<p>“Give me the glass!” cried he suddenly, with a change and vehemence of -voice that made the abrupt note of it wild as madness itself to my ears.</p> - -<p>I started, gave him the glass, and watched him.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he cried, “I fear we are too late.”</p> - -<p>“Captain,” called Bol from the gangway, “dere vhas people valking on der -beach.”</p> - -<p>The telescope fell with a crash from Greaves’ hand. He gazed at me with -an ashen face. “It was my <i>only</i> fear!” he cried. “Are we too late?”</p> - -<p>“I see three people,” said I, after looking awhile. “One of them is a -woman.”</p> - -<p>“Are you sure of that?” he shouted.</p> - -<p>“One of them is a woman,” I repeated. “Two men and one woman. I see no -more. One of the men is waving his hat, and now the woman is waving -something white—a handkerchief. They are castaways.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Greaves snatched the glass from me.</p> - -<p>“You are right, I believe,” he exclaimed, after looking. “What should a -woman be doing in a salvage or wrecking job? Yes; they are flourishing -to us. I did not before observe that one was a woman. Get a boat manned, -Mr. Fielding, and bring them aboard. I am mad till I learn what their -business is there, who they are, what has brought them to <i>this</i> of all -the hundred rocks of the Pacific.”</p> - -<p>“Which boat shall I take, sir?”</p> - -<p>“The cutter. Let the crew go armed. Those two fellows and the woman may -prove a piratical decoy, for all you know. Mind your eye as you enter -the reefs, and hold on your oars to parley. There may be a big gang in -ambush round the corner at the extremity of the flat there.”</p> - -<p>I have elsewhere told you that we carried three boats—a little one, -which we termed a jolly-boat, stowed in a big one amidships, and abreast -of these boats lay a third boat in chocks. This boat, whose capacity -rose to a lading of from twenty to five-and-twenty people, we termed the -cutter. Tackles were swiftly carried aloft. While this was being done -the fellows who were to man her armed themselves with cutlasses and -pistols. The boat was then swayed over the side, six men and myself -entered her, and we headed for the island.</p> - -<p>We gained the entrance of the natural harbor, and I bid the men pause on -their oars while I looked and considered. I gave no attention to the -singular aspect of the island, nor to the wondrous revelation of the -ship in the vast cave. I could think of nothing but the three people on -the beach. Were they decoys, as Greaves had suggested? Was there a crowd -of formidable ruffians somewhere in hiding, close at hand but ready for -a rush when the moment should arrive? I gazed carefully around, but saw -nothing resembling a boat. We might be quite sure that there was no -vessel in the neighborhood; the island was small, we had sailed half -round it before heaving to. It was impossible to imagine that any craft -with masts could be lying off the north side of the island without our -having caught sight of her as we approached. But then it might matter -nothing that no vessel should be in sight. Likely as not the ship in the -cave had been discovered and explored, in which case the discoverer had -acted as Greaves had—sailed away for a port to re-embark in a properly -equipped expedition; a number of men had been thrown ashore to work at -the caverned Spaniard, while the vessel to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span> which they belonged to went -away to put the horizon betwixt her and the rock, lest, by hovering and -lingering close to, she should invite the attention of anything that -passed.</p> - -<p>These were my thoughts as I stood up in the stern sheets staring around. -But the woman? Truly, methought, had Greaves conjectured that fellows -engaged on such an errand as this of clearing the Spaniard’s hold, would -not burden themselves with a woman ashore, at all events. No noise came -from the island. A low note of the thunder of the surf hummed from the -north side, a great number of sea birds were wheeling about in the air -over that northern part at too great distance for their cries to reach -us.</p> - -<p>“Give way,” said I.</p> - -<p>We pulled into the middle of the harbor, halted afresh, and now we had a -good view of the three people, who, throughout this time of our tardy -approach, continued to flourish to us, but without calling. The two men -were apparently forecastle hands—foreigners. They wore grass hats, -wide-brimmed, sombrero fashion; their clothes were loose blue shirts or -blouses and blue trousers; they were barefooted; they were both of them -hairy and dark, one of them of the color of coffee. Their hair lay upon -their backs in a snaky shower, and I caught a glance of earrings as they -moved their heads.</p> - -<p>The woman I could not very clearly make out. Her gown was of some -pearl-colored stuff—it had a look of shot silk, but I dare not attempt -any descriptions in this way. She wore a large white hat with a white -veil coiled round the crown of it, ready for dropping over the face. -Some sort of mantilla she had on. She was a tall and graceful figure of -a woman, and, as she stood a little apart from the men I observed the -grace of a dancer in her attitudes of entreaty, in her gesticulations to -us to approach.</p> - -<p>We pulled closer in to the beach upon which those three were standing. -One of the men cried out to us, the other clasped his hands, and the -woman stood motionlessly, gazing.</p> - -<p>“What language is that?” said I.</p> - -<p>None of my men could tell me. The man continued to exclaim, -gesticulating very eagerly and wildly. I listened, and thought he spoke -in French.</p> - -<p>“Are you French?” I sung out.</p> - -<p>“Spaniards, señor, Spaniards,” he answered, in Spanish.</p> - -<p>“Do you speak English?”</p> - -<p>He cried back that he understood a little English.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Are there others, besides yourselves, on this island?”</p> - -<p>He answered “No.”</p> - -<p>“What are you doing here?”</p> - -<p>“We are shipwrecked,” he answered, but in an accent I cannot imitate; -the spelling would be meaningless to eye and brain.</p> - -<p>“How long have you been here?”</p> - -<p>He held up his right hand, the thumb pressed into the palm, that his -four fingers might answer my question.</p> - -<p>Here the woman exclaimed in Spanish. Her voice was clear, sweet, and -rich. It came to the ear like music from the beach. There seemed no -harshness of shipwreck, no weakness of privation or despair in it. She -spoke with her face directed to the boat, but I could not understand one -word she uttered.</p> - -<p>“Do you wish to be taken off this island?” I cried.</p> - -<p>“Yes, señor, yes,” shouted the man who had answered throughout. “We -starve here—we die here if you do not take us off.”</p> - -<p>I again looked very carefully about, fearful still lest some deadly -trick was intended, but could see no sign of anything elsewhere on the -island living or stirring. All was motionless; nothing came along with -the wind but the sound of the creaming of waters, the throb and hum of -surf at a distance.</p> - -<p>“Back in, men,” said I.</p> - -<p>We got the boat stern-on to the beach. It was like a lake for the quiet -lipping of the water there. The men held their places on the thwarts, -ready at the instant of a cry to give way.</p> - -<p>“Come, madam,” said I to the lady.</p> - -<p>She approached, comprehending my gesture. I took her by the hands and -helped her to spring over the stern; then seated her. The two men jumped -in, and we shoved off. I looked back and around as we pulled away for -the opening betwixt the reefs. Nothing stirred.</p> - -<p>The woman had very fine features. Her eyes were large, dark, and full of -fire; her complexion a very delicate, pale olive; her mouth small and -firm. Indeed, her mouth wanted but a corresponding and helping -expression of sweetness and of tenderness in the other lineaments to be -a lovely feature. She was clearly a lady. Her hands were small—models -of hands to the finger-tips; her hair was extraordinarily thick, -plentiful beyond anything I ever saw in a woman, and of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span> rich dead -blackness. She wore a pair of long gold earrings, bulb-shaped, with a -ball at each extremity in which sparkled a little star of diamonds. Some -rings, too, she had—one on the forefinger of her right hand was a -cross, formed of a sort of dark stone set upon gold, probably a signet -ring. No other jewelry did she carry. Her clothes were of some rich -stuff, but I could not give a name to the material; a magically -contrived combination of dyes, swiftly blending and alternating with -every move, and cheating the eye kaleidoscopically—the product of some -Asiatic loom, an art that may have ceased as an art, and that has been -extinguished by the neglect of taste. So much for my observations of -this Spanish lady while we were making for the brig.</p> - -<p>I found nothing remarkable in the two seamen. One had a pinched look; he -was hollow in the eyes, and an expression of fear lay on his face. In -appearance they answered to the beachcomber of the present day. They -were hairy, dirty, and wild. A small silver crucifix gleamed in the moss -upon the chest of the fellow who spoke English.</p> - -<p>I had no time to ask questions. The men swung upon their oars with a -will, and the brig lay scarcely a mile distant. I inquired of the lady -if she spoke English. She bent her fine eyes very wistfully upon me, and -shook her head on the Spanish sailor explaining what I had said. I again -inquired of the fellow who understood my speech if there were others -upon the island, and he answered, with energy and with passion, that -there had been but three, as though he understood me to refer to his -shipwreck. I asked if they had found water on the island. He answered -“Yes,” and pointed to some cliffs past the beach, where stood a small -grove of trees and vegetation, resembling guinea grass, along with a -thickness of green bushes coming down the slope.</p> - -<p>But now we were alongside the brig. I helped the lady up the side; the -two Spanish seamen followed. Greaves called down an order for the boat -to keep alongside, and for two hands to remain in her. He then -approached us, holding his hat while he bowed to the lady, who returned -his salutation with a slow, very stately, elegant gesture, -irreconcilable with the horrors from which she was newly rescued, and -with the distress and apprehension in which she must continue until she -reached her home, wherever <i>that</i> might be.</p> - -<p>“She is Spanish, sir,” said I, “and understands not a syllable of our -tongue.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He called to Jimmy to bring a chair from the cabin, and placed it for -her in some square of shadow cast by the canvas. The crew of the brig, -saving the two men over the side, were collected in the bows, and talked -eagerly, and often looked our way and then at the island. Yan Bol, pipe -in mouth, towered among the men.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE SHIP IN THE CAVE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Greaves</span> read Spanish, but spoke it ill. He was a North-countryman, and -was without musical accents for soft or swelling or voweled tongues. On -seating the lady, he looked at her and pronounced some words in her -speech. My ear told me they were barbarous. They might have been Welsh -or Erse.</p> - -<p>“This man,” said I, pointing to one of the Spanish seamen who stood -near, “understands English.”</p> - -<p>Greaves was about to address the sailor; he broke off, and beckoned to -Bol. The lumbering Dutchman came pitching aft like one of the bum-bowed -boats of his own country over a swell.</p> - -<p>“Station a man on the fore royal yard, Bol,” said Greaves, “to instantly -report anything that may heave into view.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir.”</p> - -<p>The Dutchman went forward again, and a minute later the sailor named -Meehan ran patting aloft.</p> - -<p>“Fielding, should a sail be reported when I am ashore,” said Greaves, -speaking as though the lady and the Spanish seamen were not present, -“fill on your topsail and stand away under easy canvas in a direction -opposite to what the stranger may be taking. Keep your eye on her, and -haul in again for the island as she settles away. Nothing must observe -us hanging about here until we have got what we have come to take. I do -not think it likely that anything will heave into view. I give you these -directions while they are present to my mind.”</p> - -<p>I replied in the customary affirmative of the sea.</p> - -<p>“Now for our friends,” he exclaimed; “I will give them ten minutes to -make sure of them.” He looked at his watch, and turned to the Spanish -sailors. “Which of you speaks English?”</p> - -<p>“Me—Antonio. I speak a little English,” answered the sailor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Have you enough English to make me understand how it comes to pass that -you are on this island? You may use a few Spanish words.”</p> - -<p>The Spaniard told this story. Their ship was <i>La Diana</i>. They had sailed -from Acapulco—the date of their departure escapes me. Their ship was -bound to Cadiz. She was a rich ship, and a vessel of six hundred tons. A -few passengers went in the cabin, and her company of working hands, from -captain to boy, numbered thirty-eight souls. They steered straight south -down the meridian of 100° W., and all went well till they were in about -3° S. of the equator, when a hurricane struck the ship. Neither I nor -Greaves could clearly understand from the man’s recital what then -happened. The memory of suffering and horror worked him into passion. He -talked in Spanish, forgot that he was talking to us, addressed the lady, -who frequently sighed and moaned and lifted her eyes to heaven, while -the other Spanish sailor, holding his clenched fists a little forward of -his hips, shook them, nodding his head with a miserable, convulsed grin -of temper, and horror, and tears.</p> - -<p>We gathered that the ship’s masts were swept out of her, that most of -the seamen made off in the boats, that the captain ordered Antonio and -his companion, whose name was Jorge, together with other seamen, to -enter a boat to receive the passengers. This we understood. Then it -seemed that though Jorge and Antonio got into the boat that lay lifting -and beating alongside, threatening to scatter in staves at every moment, -others of the crew did not follow. A lady was handed down—“the Señorita -Aurora de la Cueva,” said Antonio, with a nod of his head in the -direction of the young lady—and scarcely had the two fellows grasped -her when the boat’s line parted and the fabric blew away.</p> - -<p>What followed was just the old-world, well-worn story of a couple of -days and a couple of nights of suffering in an open boat. Often has this -form of misery been described; and a changeless condition of ocean life -it must ever be, let the marine transformations of the coming ages be -what they may. They fell in with Greaves’ island. A heave of swell was -running from the west; the two fellows were half dead with thirst and -with the fear of dying. Spineless creatures they looked. If <i>they</i> were -examples of the fellows who fought us at St. Vincent and Trafalgar, what -was there in the victories of our beef-fed pigtails to brag about? They -aimed for a head<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> of reef to spring ashore, dragging the lady with them, -heedless of their boat, the wretches, thinking only of a drink of water, -and the boat went to pieces while they staggered inland.</p> - -<p>Here Antonio swore horribly in Spanish. He smote his hands together, -squinted fiercely at Jorge, and abused him with a torrent of words. The -other hung his head and occasionally shrugged his shoulders. The lady -kept her fine eyes fastened upon me. Her face worked slightly in -sympathy with the speech of Antonio when he spoke in Spanish, and -occasionally she sighed and moaned low; but her eyes rarely left my -face. Never before had I been honored by the intent regard of eyes so -liquid, so beautiful, so full of fire, eyes whose lightest glance, when -all was well with the owner, could hardly fail to be impassioned.</p> - -<p>“Who is this lady?” said Greaves, breaking in upon Antonio.</p> - -<p>The man again pronounced her name.</p> - -<p>Greaves said: “She was a passenger?”</p> - -<p>“With her mother, my captain. Both were proceeding to Cadiz for Madrid.”</p> - -<p>“With her mother! Then she is separated from her mother by the -shipwreck?”</p> - -<p>“The boat would have received the mother, but the line parted.”</p> - -<p>“Did the people you left behind perish, think you?”</p> - -<p>Antonio replied with a shrug.</p> - -<p>“You have been four days on the island, I understand, and there is water -in abundance?”</p> - -<p>“There is good water among those trees,” said the Spaniard, pointing.</p> - -<p>“And what food have you met with?”</p> - -<p>He succeeded, with much difficulty, in making us understand that they -had lived upon terrapin, crabs, and iguanas.</p> - -<p>“Did you get fire for dressing your food?”</p> - -<p>Antonio put his hand in his pocket and produced a little burning-glass.</p> - -<p>“Fielding,” said Greaves, “I am going ashore. Look to the brig and see -to the lady. Take her below; let Jimmy put meat and wine upon the table. -There’s a spare berth for her, and by and by we will make her -comfortable and keep her so till we can dispose of her. I wish she were -not here, though.” He made a face. “Go along forward, Antonio,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> with -your companion. D’ye see that big man there? His name is Yan Bol. Ask -him to feed you. Hold!”</p> - -<p>Antonio and his mate faced about.</p> - -<p>“Did you go on board the ship in the cave?”</p> - -<p>“What ship, señor?”</p> - -<p>“There is a ship in that cave,” said Greaves, pointing. “Did you go on -board of her?”</p> - -<p>The man placed the sharp of his hand against his brow and looked at the -island.</p> - -<p>“I know no ship—I know no cave, señor,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Go forward and ask that big Dutchman to feed you,” exclaimed Greaves.</p> - -<p>“When you think of it,” he continued, addressing me as the men walked -forward, “they would not be able to see the cave when on the island. It -is clear that they did not notice the ship when they landed on the reef; -they were too thirsty, poor devils.”</p> - -<p>“And how could they board the ship without a boat, sir?” said I.</p> - -<p>“True,” he answered. “I see too much, Fielding. I put on glasses and -they magnify my meat, but they don’t cheat my appetite. See to the -lady.”</p> - -<p>He called to Bol to put a couple of lanterns into the boat and to send -the crew of the cutter aft, and walked to the gangway. In a few minutes -he was making for the island.</p> - -<p>“Hail the masthead, Bol,” cried I, “and ascertain if all is clear round -the horizon.”</p> - -<p>The answer fell from the lofty height in thin syllables—there was -nothing in sight. I beckoned to the lad Jimmy, who was standing by the -caboose, and bade him furnish the cabin table with the best meal he -could put upon it and to look alive. I then turned to the lady, and, -with my hat in my hand, exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Will you let me take you below?”</p> - -<p>She viewed me anxiously. Her fine eyes made a passion of even a trifling -emotion in her. She did not understand, and so I had to fall to Robinson -Crusoe’s old trick of gesticulating. Heavens, how doth ignorance of -another’s tongue seal the lips! You are as one who walks dumb through -many lands. Had this poor lady had power of speech in English, or could -I have understood her Spanish, how would she have given vent to her full -breast? I could see in her lips, in her eyes, in the movement of her -features, how grievously was her heart in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span> labor. Yes; in her face -worked the anguish of enforced silence. I pointed to the cabin, made -signs of eating, extended my hand to take hers, on which she rose, gave -me a low bow, put her hand in mine, and I led her through the companion -way.</p> - -<p>Jimmy had not yet arrived with the meal. Still holding her hand, to -deliver myself from the absurdity of gesticulating, I conducted her to a -berth on the starboard side in the fore-part of the living room, opened -the door, and sought, with a flourish of my fist, to make her understand -that it was at her disposal.</p> - -<p>“<i>Yrá ó harâ muy bien</i>”—It will do very well—said she.</p> - -<p>I afterward understood this to be her remark; <i>then</i> it was darker than -Hebrew. In fact, I thought she referred to the emptiness of the berth. -The bunk was without bedding; and that bare bunk and a little naked, -unequipped semicircle of wooden washstand, screwed into the bulkhead, -formed all the visible furniture of the interior.</p> - -<p>I knew a few words in French, and tried her with a “<i>Parlez-vous -Français</i>, señorita?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Nó, caballero</i>,” she answered.</p> - -<p>I made a step into the berth, and motioned toward the bunk and the -washstand, in the hope that she would be able to collect from my -contortions that her comfort would be presently seen to. She inclined -her head and slightly smiled, and the flash of her teeth was like -sunshine betwixt her lips. Again I presented my hand, and she gave me -hers; and I led her into the cabin where Jimmy was now busy. Galloon sat -upon his chair, watching the lad lay the cloth. He pricked his ears and -growled at the Spanish lady. I shook my fist at him, and his eyes -languished, though his ears remained pricked. The lady exclaimed in -Spanish, and fearlessly walked round to the dog and patted him. Galloon -wagged his tail, but his ears remained elevated, as though one end of -him was in doubt while the other end was satisfied. I again noticed the -beauty of the lady’s hand, as she laid it on the dog, and the sparkling -of the rings upon her fingers. Jimmy breathed fast and grinned much, and -could scarcely proceed in his work for staring. I abused him for a lazy -cub and bade him bear a hand.</p> - -<p>The meal was spread. I motioned the lady into the chair occupied by -Greaves, with further gesticulations desired her to help herself, and -poured out a bumper of claret, of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span> wine Greaves had laid in a -handsome stock, whether at Tulp’s cost or not I could not say. I was -greatly impressed by the self-control and dignity of this lady Aurora, -as I understood one of her names to be. Hungry I could not question she -was. Tempted, I might also feel sure she would be, by the food before -her after four days of such living as the island beach and the grove of -trees provided. Yet she helped herself to but a little at a time, first -crossing herself with great devotion before lifting her fork, then -eating with the well-bred leisureliness you would have looked to see in -her at her mother’s table. But the silence grew momentarily more -oppressive.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy,” said I, “go forward and bring that Spanish sailor, Antonio, aft -with you, unless he’s still eating.”</p> - -<p>At the expiration of five minutes Antonio followed Jimmy into the cabin.</p> - -<p>“Have you had plenty to eat?” said I.</p> - -<p>His earrings danced while he nodded—he wore earrings like those you see -on a French fishwife—his blood-stained, dark eyes searched the cabin.</p> - -<p>“A very good ship—very kind men,” said he. “When do you sail, señor?”</p> - -<p>“I have not sent for you to question me,” said I. “I desire you to -interpret my speech to this lady. Tell her——” and, in few, I bade him -inform her that instructions would be given for her cabin to be -comfortably equipped, and that whatever the brig could supply was at her -service.</p> - -<p>She smiled and bowed to me on this being interpreted, and then addressed -Antonio, who, however, found himself at a loss, and was obliged to act -to make me understand. He feigned to wash his face, and unnecessarily -passed his fingers through the length of his hair, and then, finding -words, made me understand that the lady was weary, that she had slept -but little, and then on the hard ground, and that she would be thankful -to lie down and sleep. Thereupon I told Jimmy to convey my bedding to -her bunk, also to place one or two toilet conveniences of my own in her -cabin; and, after waiting to see my instructions carried out, I bowed -low and sprang on deck, with my mind full of the dollars ashore, -wondering likewise what Greaves’ report would be, whether the dollars -were still in the ship’s hold, and when he meant to go to work to -discharge the vessel of her silver.</p> - -<p>My first look was at the weather. It was boundless azure down to the -lens-like brim of the sea—not a feather-sized wing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> of cloud—and a -light air of wind with just enough of weight in it to hold the backed -topsail steady to the mast. I looked at the island; the boat had entered -the cave and was lost in the shadow. I picked up the glass, and leveled -it; the dark lines of rigging and spar were faintly discernible, but the -boat was deep in the dusk and not to be seen. It was the ugliest rock of -island I had ever viewed, swart, sterile—save where the trees -stood—gloomy, menacing with its suggestion of arrested fires. A few -terrapin, or land tortoises, crawled upon the beach. Many birds, most of -them white as shapes of marble, wheeled and hovered over the further -extremity of the land with frequent stoopings and dartings, like our -gulls over a herring shoal. I swept every foot of the visible surface of -land with a telescope, but witnessed no signs of life of any sort. -Nevertheless, the two long arms of the reef strangely civilized the -beach and the face of cliff where the cave was, by their likeness to -artificial piers. They formed a very perfect, spacious harbor in which, -during a heedless moment or two, I caught myself looking for a cluster -of rowboats, for some group of shipping, for cranes and capstans, for -men walking, as though, forsooth, I gazed at the piers of a dock!</p> - -<p>How it had come to pass that a big ship of seven or eight hundred tons -should have backed and neatly threaded an eye of cave, and fixed herself -within, Greaves had, doubtless, correctly explained. The commander of -her had stumbled upon this island in thick weather; or he may have found -the island aboard of him on a sudden in a black night. He had a reason -for bringing up in the shelter of that harbor, and when his anchors were -down it came on to blow dead in-shore. The ship dragged. Her stern made -a straight course for the opening in the cave. Would they seek to give -her a sheer to divert her from that entry? No. For there might be safety -in that cave, but outside it was certain destruction. To touch was to go -to pieces against such a steep-to front of cliff as that. But many are -the conundrums submitted by the ocean, and victoriously insoluble are -they for the most part. You may theorize as you will. Nothing is certain -but this:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There was a ship!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>While I waited for the return of Greaves, I called to Bol to get a cast -of the deep-sea lead. There was no bottom at eighty fathoms. I had -expected from the appearance of the island to find a great depth of -water to the very wash of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> surf. No need, therefore, to bother with -our ground tackle. And so much the better! Nothing like having your ship -under control when the land is aboard. With an offing of a mile it would -be easy to “ratch” clear any point of the island, even should it come on -to blow with hurricane power; then it would be up-helm and a brief run -for it, and a heave-to till the weather mended.</p> - -<p>The two Spanish sailors sat, Lascar fashion, against the caboose. They -sucked alternately at a short pipe which one of them had probably -borrowed. When the lead-line was coiled away, Yan Bol rolled up to me -and said in his voice of thunder, but very civilly:</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas a scare.”</p> - -<p>“What was a scare?” said I.</p> - -<p>He leveled a massive forefinger at the two Spaniards. I nodded. “Der -captain vhas some time gone,” said he. “I hope no man vhas before her.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s my hope.”</p> - -<p>“How many cases of dollars might der be, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>He looked as if he did not believe me, and said, “Vell, der more, der -better for Mynheer Tulp und oders.” He paused upon this word, <i>oders</i>. I -gazed at the island. “Der more der better, certainly,” continued he, -“yet dey vhas not so plentiful but dot efery dollar might be shipped -before dark. Tell me dey vhas plentiful some more dan dot, and, by Cott, -Mr. Fielding, der crew’s share vhas as a flea upon der dog dot scratch -her.”</p> - -<p>“My name is Fielding, not Greaves, Yan Bol,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yaw, dot vhas right. But I likes to tink aloud sometimes, Mr. -Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“Are not you satisfied?” cried I, suddenly rounding upon him and looking -him full in the face.</p> - -<p>“Perfectly satisfied, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“Then why, by that devil who always seems to be busy in ship’s -forecastles, come you to me now with your growlings and your questions -and your dots, and your Cotts and your dollars, Yan Bol.”</p> - -<p>“Growlings—questions! I likes to know vhen we get der dollars on board -und make sail, dot vhas all.”</p> - -<p>“Strike a light with your eyes and keep a lookout for yourself, and hail -the fore royal yard, will ye, and receive the man’s report.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He went forward, and his roar swept straight aloft like a blast from the -mouth of the cannon. There was nothing in sight at sea, the man called -down. I looked toward the island and saw the boat at that moment -stealing out of the cave. I mused on Bol while the boat swept across the -satin calm surface of the natural harbor, the oars swinging like lines -of flame in the men’s hands. Was Bol going to give trouble? It was late -in the day to ask that question. It would be impossible to rid the ship -of him on this side the Horn, and by the time it came to t’other -side——</p> - -<p>The boat arrived, and Greaves rose in the stern sheets; he rose, but he -was supported too. A sailor grasped him by either arm, and he was helped -with difficulty over the side of the brig. I was at the gangway to -receive him, and assisted by seizing his hands as the men helped him to -climb. He was pale as milk, and his mouth was drawn with pain.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I have had a fall,” he said, speaking with a labored breath. “I tripped -and drove my whole weight against the sharp edge of a case in the -lazarette of the ship yonder. I wish I may not have broken a rib. Help -me, Fielding.”</p> - -<p>I took him by the arm, and Jimmy, who stood near, grasped him in -obedience to my gesture by the other arm, and together we got him into -the cabin and to his berth. He asked for brandy-and-water and drank a -tumblerful, and then requested me to help him to strip, that he might -see if he had broken any bones. He had hurt himself over the right hip, -and the skin was somewhat darkened there, but the ribs were unbroken. He -felt over himself anxiously, occasionally groaning, and said:</p> - -<p>“No, my good angel be praised, the bones are sound. I am in torment from -the pain of the blow. That must be it, and it will pass—it will pass.”</p> - -<p>“I would recommend you to lie perfectly still.”</p> - -<p>“No; I must be on deck. I can sit and keep watch and look about me while -you go ashore.”</p> - -<p>I helped him to dress, and he seemed unable to speak for pain while he -put his arms and body in motion. He then asked for another glass of -brandy-and-water and sat, saying he would rest and talk to me for ten -minutes.</p> - -<p>“Are you in pain when you are still?” said I.</p> - -<p>“No. I was too eager, and consequently careless, pressed forward, -tripped, and should have set fire to the ship had I swooned, for I was -alone and the fall flung the lighted lantern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> from me, and the candle -lay naked and burning among the cases.”</p> - -<p>“Lord, how suddenly will a trifle become a frightful thing at sea!” said -I.</p> - -<p>“Where is the Spanish lady, Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“In her berth, and perhaps asleep, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said he, after a pause, “the dollars are there.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad to hear it, sir,” said I, feeling the blood in my cheek, for -I own that the news worked as a sort of transport in me.</p> - -<p>“This cursed accident will hinder me from superintending the unlading of -the vessel. You must undertake that job.”</p> - -<p>“You can trust me, captain.”</p> - -<p>“Up to the hilt I do. Open that drawer, and hand me the pocket-book -you’ll see.” His extending his hand to receive the book made him wince. -“There are a hundred and forty cases,” said he. “You will take slings -and tackles to hoist the cases out and lower them over the side into the -boat. Be careful not to overload your boat. The money may be safely -transhipped in three journeys; so divide one hundred and forty by three -and your quotient is your lading for each trip.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Be careful with your fire. I split open some of the boxes, as I told -you, to make sure of their contents. Take tools and nails and battens -with you for securing the riven cases. Be yourself in the lazarette -while this is doing.”</p> - -<p>“Right, sir. Where will you have the cases stowed aboard us?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, in the lazarette. I was prevented by my fall,” he exclaimed, “from -examining the rest of the cargo. Do you that when the money is -transhipped. I will act on your report if the weather allows. But should -there come a change when we have got the money, then damn your cocoa and -tin—we’ll be off.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I remain in the ship during the trips, or take charge of the -boat?”</p> - -<p>“Take charge of the boat, but see all your men in first.”</p> - -<p>I faintly smiled, for here was a direction that was a little particular, -methought.</p> - -<p>“Help me on deck, now, Fielding, and then go to work.”</p> - -<p>I thought to myself: “It is no time, this, to speak of Yan Bol. The -matter must stand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He leaned upon me, and, with pain and difficulty, gained the deck. All -the men but one had come out of the boat, and the ship’s company, saving -that man and Jimmy and the fellows at the wheel and masthead, were -assembled in the gangway. They hung together in a little crowd. -Impatience burnt like fire in them—impatience and expectation and -anxiety, now complicated by the injury their captain had met with. When -we made our appearance they stared and shuffled, one and all, as though -they were mutineers, scarce masking a madness of bloody intention, and -about to make a rush aft to its execution. Is not the insanity that -drink will run into the veins and brains a sweet little cherub compared -with the demon that enters the soul of man out of the coin of gold or -silver?</p> - -<p>“Captain,” cried Yan Bol, “I shpeaks for all handts. You vhas not hurt -much, all handts hope?”</p> - -<p>“Not much, my lads—not much, I thank you,” answered Greaves, whom I had -helped to seat in the chair Jimmy had placed for him, and who, while he -remained motionless, seemed free from pain.</p> - -<p>“Captain,” again cried Yan Bol, in tones like to the noise of breakers -heard in the hollow of cliffs, “again I shpeaks for all handts. Vhas der -dollars safe?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” answered Greaves.</p> - -<p>The men roared out a cheer—a roaring cheer it was. It seemed to be -repeated on the island a mile off, as though there was a crew ashore -there.</p> - -<p>I now began to sing out the instructions which Greaves had given me. -Pieces of planking for nailing over the cases were flung into the boat; -lines for slings, tackles, tools, lanterns, and the like were handed -down. The crew took their seats, and we shoved off, followed by a cheer -from the fellows who remained behind. There went with me six men—two -Dutch, the others my countrymen. The drift of the brig, though very -inconsiderable, owing to the lightness of the breeze and the apparent -absolute tidelessness of the sea, had veered the island a trifle -southerly, and the brig lay on a line with the edge of the cliff where -the cave was. The cave was, therefore, hidden from me. I stared with -great curiosity at the island as we neared it, making for the head of -the westerly reef to round into the lake-like expanse within. A more -hideous heap of rock shows not its head above the water. The cliffs of -it, where they run to any noticeable altitude, come down to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> sea in -twisted masses. You would have thought the process of this island’s -formation had been arrested at some instant when the red-hot mass of it -was writhing and pouring into the ocean over the edges of its own -heaped-up stuff. No iceberg ever submitted a more fanciful sky-line; but -its toad-like hue, its several hideous complexions, made it a loathly -sight. The spirit shrinks from this bit of creation as from some -disgusting creature.</p> - -<p>The cave was situated in the highest front of this island. The height of -this front was above two hundred feet; how much above that elevation I -know not. It was smooth and sheer, pumice-hued like the beach that swept -from it into the northeast; so smooth and sheer was it that you would -have said it had been split in twain from a like mass that had fallen -and vanished. Assuredly some enormous convulsion had gone to the -manufacture of that prodigious fissure or cave.</p> - -<p>We pulled through the opening of the reefs, and I headed straight for -the cave. So strong was my excitement that it felt like a sort of -illness. I breathed with labor; the sweat lay like oil in the palms of -my hands, though my hands were cold. It was not now the thoughts of the -money. My excitement was no dollar madness then. I was oppressed, to a -degree I find incommunicable, by the marvelous picture, as I was now -beholding it for the first time, of the big ship clothed in the dusk of -the mighty tomb into which she had backed and where she had brought up. -I had had no leisure for the sight during my first excursion; had but -glanced at it, my head being then full of the shipwrecked people we were -bringing off, and of fancies of what might be lurking on shore. But now, -our approach being leisurely, the expanse of water to be measured -considerable, I could gaze, wonder, realize, until emotion grew -overwhelming and became a sensation of sickness in me.</p> - -<p>Were you to split a big stone open and find a live toad in it you would -marvel. Hundreds would assemble to view the wonder, and a poor man might -get money by exhibiting it; but how many much stranger things than a -live toad imprisoned in a stone would I, as a sailor, exact the relation -and sight of, ere admitting that half the sum of that marvel of a great -ship at rest in a huge cave was approached?</p> - -<p>At first sight the fabric looked like a piece of nature’s handiwork as -it lay in the gloom of the interior it had miraculously penetrated. It -looked, I say, as though the volcanic spasm, which had shorn the lofty -cliff into its bald front and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span> wrought the prodigious fissure, had -contrived the hundred fragments and ruins of rocks, the splinters, the -serpentine lengths, the massive bulks, the pillar-shaped fragments into -the aspect of a ship, building the wonder in a sudden roar of -earthquake, and leaving it a faultless similitude.</p> - -<p>“Oars!” cried I.</p> - -<p>We floated forward with the arrested blades poised over the water. It -was burning hot; the sun stood nearly overhead, and the surface of this -strange natural harbor shone like new tin, tingling in fibers and -needles of white fire back again into the light that it reflected. We -were within a musket-shot of the entrance of the cave.</p> - -<p>“On which side did you board, men?”</p> - -<p>“To starboard, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Give way gently, and, bow there, stand by with your boathook.”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /><br /> -<small>WE TRANSHIP THE DOLLARS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Although</span> the hour was approaching high noon, and the day very glorious, -no light was in the cave beyond the length of the ship’s bowsprit. A -wall of darkness came to the bows of the ship; it might have been -something material, something you could lean against or stick with a -knife; the daylight touched it and made a twilight of it at the mouth, -then died out. The long and short of it is—it is my way, anyhow, of -explaining the strange thing—the filthy colored scoriæ, the gloomy -masses of cinder, pumice, lava—call it what you will—were -unreflective; light smote the stuff and perished, or was not returned, -so that a thin veil of dusk clothed with deepest obscurity any hollow it -lay in.</p> - -<p>The water brimmed blue to the mouth of the cave, and then, at a few -boats’ lengths, slept black and thick as ink, wholly motionless this -day; though I might suppose that when a large swell ran outside the -breakwaters, the smaller swell of the harbor put a pulse into the black -tide of the cave, though without weight enough to stir the -stern-stranded ship. Yet you saw much of her when you were still on the -threshold of the cavern. Her huge bows sprawling with head-boards loomed -out of the darkness, advancing the yellow bowsprit till the cap of it -was almost flush with the sides of the opening. Had the jib booms stood, -they would have forked far into day<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span>light and, perhaps, long ago have -challenged the attention of a passing ship, and brought her people to -explore the Spaniard and enrich themselves. Her lower masts were yellow, -and they showed ghastly in the gloom. She had immense round tops, black -and heavy, and shrouds of an almost hawser-like thickness, with a wide -spread of channels and massive chain plates. Most of the yards were -across, and squared as though the machinery of the braces had worked to -the music of the boatswain’s pipe. Her sides were tall; she carried some -swivels on her poop rail, and a few pieces calked with tompions crouched -through a half dozen of ports, like motionless beasts of a strange shape -about to spring.</p> - -<p>To look up! To behold that lofty fabric and complication of mast and -spar and rigging soaring to the dark roof, against which the topgallant -masts had been ground away to the topmast heads!</p> - -<p>Be seated in a small boat alongside a ship of six hundred or seven -hundred tons, with such a height of side as this Spaniard had, lifting -her platform of deck a full eighteen feet above the water for the eye to -follow the ascent of the lower masts from; I say from the low level of a -small boat, look up to the altitude of the starry trucks of such a ship -as this <i>Perfecta Casada</i>; if you be no sailor, your eye will swim as -you trace the mastheads to their airy points. To an immeasurable height -will those spars seem to soar above you, yea, though they rise no higher -than the cross-trees. But here was a vast cave in which a great -ship—and a ship of seven hundred tons was a great ship in my -time—could lie; and in this cave a lofty ship <i>was</i> lying, partly -afloat, partly stranded; the darkness in which she slumbered magnified -her proportions; she loomed upon the sight as tall again as she was, and -half the wonder of this wonderful show lay in the height of the black -ceiling against which her topmast heads were pressed, jamming her into -the position she had taken up, as though a shipwright and his men had -dealt with her.</p> - -<p>The atmosphere struck cold as snow after the outer heat. A hush fell -upon us as we floated in, with the bowman erect ready to hook on, and -the silence was horrible, and the more horrible for the sound thrice -heard in the hush that fell upon us, of a greasy gurgle of water, like a -low, villainous, chuckling laugh.</p> - -<p>But all this is description, and it takes me long to submit to you what -I beheld in a few breathless moments of wonder, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span> awe, and -admiration. We were here to load dollars, not to muse and marvel.</p> - -<p>“Sort o’ ole penguin smell knocking round, aint there?” said one of the -crew.</p> - -<p>“Only a Dago could have managed this job,” said another. “Why don’t -Dagoes stay ashore? Blast me if even a Dutchman would have made such a -muck of it.”</p> - -<p>“Hold your jaw!” I roared, in a rage; and my cry went in an echo through -the cave, rebounding as a billiard ball from its cushion.</p> - -<p>What is more diabolically and instantaneously fatal to sentiment than -the vulgar talk of a vulgar Englishman? A Spaniard, an Italian, a -Portuguese, a Greek—blasphemes in your presence, and his coarseness -adds to the romantic colors of the idealism you are musing on; but let -an Englishman come alongside of you, and drop an <i>h</i>, and emotion is -shivered as by a thunderbolt.</p> - -<p>The remarks of the sailor woke me up. We were alongside the ship, and -the fellow in the bow had hooked on to one of the huge main-chain -plates. I crawled into the channel, and over the rail, and dropped upon -the deck. It was like entering a vault, and there was an odd, damp, -earthy flavor in the air. I wonder, thought I, if there are two dead men -in the forecastle, locked in each other’s arms? But why locked in each -other’s arms? Ah, why? Fancy will give body to wild conceits at such a -time and on such an occasion as this.</p> - -<p>I stood a moment at the rail; the water flowed black as ink into the -blackness over the stern. In the mysterious twilight that shrouded the -ship, her decks and masts looked unearthly; it was hard to conceive that -human hands had fashioned her, that the echoes of the mortal calker had -resounded through her. I thought of the ship in Lycidas</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Built in th’ eclipse and rigged with curses dark.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Sternward the craft died out in gloom. The roundhouse, or some such -contrivance of deck structure, hung in a swollen shadow with the yellow -shaft of the mizzen mast shooting straight up out of it. I seemed to -catch a faint gleam of glass, a dim and ghostly outline of doorway, of -skylight, of crane-like davits. The deck of a ship viewed at midnight, -by the light of froth breaking round about, would shadowily and -glimmeringly show as this Spaniard did from the gangway to the taffrail. -But forward there was light; the radiance of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span> day hung, like a sheet -of blue silver, in front of the opening of the cave, and against that -brilliance—compact and undiffused, like the light upon the object glass -of a telescope—the bows of the ship stood out in indigo, the tracery of -the rigging exquisitely marked till it vanished in the gloom overhead.</p> - -<p>I bade one man remain in the boat, and the rest to come on board and -bring the lanterns, tackles, slings, and materials for securing the -damaged chests of dollars. I then lighted one of the lanterns and walked -aft, looking with the utmost curiosity around me, as though this ship, -forsooth, instead of being a vessel of my own time, was coeval with this -cave, and but a little younger than Noah.</p> - -<p>The dollars were, I knew, stowed away down in the lazarette. This queer -name is given to a part of a ship’s after-hold. It is a compartment or -division, and commonly used for the stowage of stores and provisions. -The hatch that conducted to this place was in the cabin. I entered the -cabin—a sort of deckhouse—and paused, holding my lantern high, and -gazing about me. I observed a row of cushioned seats or lockers, three -or four round scuttles on either hand, with dim oil paintings let into -or framed to the panels between; lamps which, when lighted, might shine -like the starry crescents of the poet, and two square tables, one at -each end. The hatch was open. I descended and passed through a -’tweendecks, black as ink. The lantern light gleamed along a corridor, -and revealed a short row of berths to starboard and larboard. And now, -passing through the hatch in this deck, I stood in the lazarette. The -floor was shallow; there were numerous stanchions, and the white cases, -which contained the dollars, were stowed between those uprights. I -approached a range of cases and found the top one split open. I squeezed -my hand through and felt the dollars, packed in large rolls. They were -as rough to the touch of the finger, with their milled edges, as any big -surface of file, and cold as frost. There looked to be a great number of -cases. I do not suppose that Greaves had attempted to count them. He -abided by the declaration of the manifest, and since it was certain the -cases had not been meddled with, no doubt the number and value were as -the manifest set forth.</p> - -<p>I halted inactively here for, perhaps, a minute, while, with lantern -upheld, I ran my eye over the cases. The silence was horrible—no -dimmest sob of water penetrated, no distant squeak of rat afforded -relief to the ear. But here were the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span> dollars! They were now to be -secured, got into the boat, and conveyed to the brig. I called to the -men, and they came below with the battens and hammer and nails. We had -four lanterns burning, and there was plenty of light. In a few minutes -this dead vault of hold was ringing to the blows of the hammers. I -overhauled the cases and saw that every split lid was carefully repaired -before ever I dreamt of suffering a box of the metal to be lifted. The -men spoke not one word, unless it were an “ay, ay, sir,” in response to -a call from me. They chewed and spat with excitement, hammered and -toiled with eagerness, and often did they roll their eyes over the -cases, but they held their tongues. When the last of the boxes was -repaired, slings were procured, a tackle rigged, and I, standing in the -lazarette, tallied a quantity of the cases on deck, some of them large, -and holding, as I should have reckoned by the weight, not less than -three thousand to five thousand dollars apiece. I then followed the men, -the gangway was cleared, and the chests lowered by tackles into the -boat, where they were received and trimmed by three of the crew.</p> - -<p>We pulled out of the harbor, deep, but not perilously deep, with silver, -and when we rounded the reef I spied the brig at a distance of about a -quarter of a mile away from the spot where we had left her. They had -wore her and got her head round on the other tack, and clapped her aback -afresh. There was a fellow stationed on the fore royal yard; I see him -in my mind’s eye, as mere a pigmy as ever Gulliver handled, as he sat -jockeying the yard in the slings, one hand on the tie, his legs -dangling, and the loose white trousers trembling, and a hand to his brow -as he sent his gaze into the remote ocean distance. The sun made a blaze -of the white canvas, and their reflection trembled in sheets of -quicksilver, deep in the clear cerulean beneath the shadow of the -vessel’s side.</p> - -<p>The <i>Black Watch</i> looked but a little ship after the lumping fabric in -the cave. Yes, she looked but a little ship for the hundreds of leagues -of ocean she had measured, since the hour when I was lifted over her -rail nearly dead of Channel water. But small as she was, she sat in -beauty upon the sea; the long passage had not roughened her, her sides -showed like the hide of some freshly curried mare of Arabia. She rolled -lightly, sparkles leapt from her, the colors about her deepened, paled -and deepened again, and fingers of shadow swept through the blaze of her -canvas.</p> - -<p>As we approached I saw Greaves sitting in the chair in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> which I had left -him; he sat under a short awning. There was a tray upon the skylight, -and bottles and glasses, and I guessed he was eating his dinner. I -looked for the lady, but saw nothing of her. Galloon watched our -approach, seated like a monkey upon the rail with half a fathom of red -tongue out. Bol and the others and the two Spaniards were congregated in -the gangway. The big Dutchman waited until the boat drew close, he then -roared in a voice that could have been heard on the other side of the -island, “Hurrah, my ladts! Tree sheers for Capt’n Greaves.” And when the -men had cheered, he roared out again, “Und three sheers more for der -dollars!”</p> - -<p>By the time this unwarrantable uproar—but it was scarce worth -correcting, seeing the occasion of it—had ceased we were alongside, and -I sprang on deck. “How have you got on, Mr. Fielding?” called Greaves -from his chair, without attempting to rise.</p> - -<p>“Very well, sir.”</p> - -<p>“How many cases?”</p> - -<p>I gave him the number.</p> - -<p>“Get them aboard at once,” he exclaimed, “and leave them on the -quarter-deck till all are shipped. See those cases aboard, and then step -aft.”</p> - -<p>The men speedily hoisted the cases out of the boat. Yan Bol was -conspicuously forward and energetic in the hand he gave. I stood near, -and heard him say, “I vhas pleased mit der Spaniards for leaving dis -money. Dere vhas house, vife, beer, bipes, mit songs und dances in dese -cases. Cott, vhat a veight! I likes to find more ships in a hole. Vhat -drinks, vhat larks in von case only.”</p> - -<p>The sailors rumbled with laughter at the fellow, and some of the -Englishmen eyed me askant to guess my mind. I was willing, however, that -Bol should run on. Greaves was near, and able to hear and judge for -himself. When the last case was out of the boat I walked aft.</p> - -<p>Greaves said, “Send your boat’s crew to dinner, and let others take -their place for the next boat.”</p> - -<p>“With your leave, sir, I’ll keep the men I have just returned with. They -know the ropes and have nothing to learn.”</p> - -<p>“Be it so. Send the crew to dinner, but let them bear a hand; and you -can make a meal off this tray here.”</p> - -<p>There was food in plenty, and wine. Having told the boat’s crew to go to -their dinner, I sat down with Greaves,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span> and ate and drank. The weather -continued extraordinarily beautiful, but the wind was failing, long -glassy lines of calm were already snaking along the surface of the sea, -and it was fiercely hot. The horizon swam in a film; you could have seen -ten miles in the morning, and not five miles now from the deck. No -sights had been taken; no sights were needed when there was an island, -whose situation had been accurately observed, close alongside.</p> - -<p>“We shall have the dollars aboard by four?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Easily, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Do you believe in the dollars now, Fielding?” said he, with a smile.</p> - -<p>I answered, “Yes,” coloring, and asked him how he felt.</p> - -<p>“Easier,” said he; “there is no pain when I sit. A severe bruise—no -more.”</p> - -<p>“Yan Bol is a bit forward and outspoken for a foremast hand, don’t you -think, captain?”</p> - -<p>“He is a Dutchman, and all Dutchmen are cheeky. The word <i>cheek</i> -originates with the Dutch. Look at their sterns and look at their faces, -if you want the etymology of the word <i>cheek</i>.”</p> - -<p>“I hope he’ll remain cheeky only. For my part, I don’t feel sure of the -man.”</p> - -<p>“Too late—too late,” said Greaves irritably and impatiently.</p> - -<p>“I do not like that he should ask me the value of the treasure that is -to come aboard, and I do not like that he should say that as the size of -a flea is to the size of the dog that scratches it, is the proportion of -the forecastle share to the whole of the money.”</p> - -<p>“If he gives me trouble,” said Greaves, “I will shoot him. I will show -you the rising moon through a slug-hole in the devil’s skull. But do not -accept Yan Bol too literally. Dutchmen will say without significance -that which, in the mouth of an Englishman, might sound brutally -malevolent and sinister.”</p> - -<p>“That may be, sir. I don’t know the Dutch.”</p> - -<p>“I have made up my mind not to meddle with the cargo. Do not trouble to -examine it. The money will be risk enough. Shrewd as old Tulp believes -himself to be, and really is, the anxiety of running a quantity of tin -won’t be worth the purchase. If the cocoa is sweet, bring some of it off -for the ship’s use, and if you can meet with the four casks of tortoise -shell, we’ll find room for the stuff. Four casks are easy of -transhipment, but the rest we’ll let be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>This was good sense. It must have taken us some time to break out and -tranship the tin and the wool and the hides in hair. The smuggling of -such stuff, on our arrival home, would have taxed even the many-sided, -hard-salted cunning of a Dealman; and, smuggling apart, without papers, -how were these commodities to have been passed?</p> - -<p>I allowed the boat’s crew a quarter of an hour for their dinner, then -summoned them; and, not to repeat the story of our first visit, by -something after three o’clock that afternoon, the weather still holding -marvelously radiant and all the wind gone, I had tallied the last of the -cases of dollars over the side of the <i>Black Watch</i>, along with some -crates of cocoa; but the four casks of tortoise shell I had been unable -to meet with. Whether they had been omitted, or stowed in some secret -place, I know not. Then, for an hour, I was busy in superintending the -stowage of the cases of dollars in the brig’s lazarette. While I was -thus occupied, Yan Bol, with a few seamen, was sent by the captain in -the longboat to procure fresh water and fill up with terrapin and all -else catchable that was good for the saucepan. The Dutch boatswain made -two journeys before I was done, and was gone ashore again for more water -and turtle when I arrived on deck after a wash and a clean-up. I -reported the dollars stowed to the captain.</p> - -<p>“Ninety-eight thousand pounds,” said he. “It is worth the venture, I -think.”</p> - -<p>“I can scarcely credit the reality now it has happened and all’s well,” -said I.</p> - -<p>“There are many men,” said he, “who would be willing to be pressed, -run-down, half-drowned, and picked up for six thousand pounds.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, indeed,” said I; “and when I take up that money, Galloon, how much -of it is to be your share, dear doggie?”</p> - -<p>“The Spanish lady sleeps well.”</p> - -<p>“After four days of that island!” said I.</p> - -<p>“What is to be done with her? I certainly cannot land her in a Spanish -port. It will end, I believe, in our carrying her to England. I intend -to court no unnecessary risks, and I should be courting a very -unnecessary risk by looking close enough into a port to land her. No; -she will sail with us to England. I hope she is amiable. I scarcely -noticed that she was good-looking. I am no ladies’ man—I do not care -for women; and the deuce of it is, neither you nor I speak Spanish.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“She is a woman of degree,” said I; “has fine manners, fine rings, and -beautiful hands.”</p> - -<p>“You may have found a wife as well as a fortune in these seas, -Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“Marry a Spanish woman for money!” said I. “Who’d lick honey off a -thorn?”</p> - -<p>“And why would not you marry a Spanish woman, money or no money?” said -he. “Do not you know that the best and oldest blood in the world runs in -Spanish veins? You seem to sneer at the mention of old blood.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all.”</p> - -<p>“Give me old blood in a woman. With old blood you associate all the -elegances, all the graces and aromas in the bearing and conduct of human -nature. Vulgarity makes a toad of beauty itself. Think of Venus saying -‘<span class="lftspc">’</span>Ave done,’ and bragging of her jewelry.”</p> - -<p>“What is a lady?”</p> - -<p>“I expected that question. Cannot you define what any chambermaid or -boots can distinguish; what any shopman, waiter, poor sailor man like -you or me, can instantly <i>recognize</i>? Marry, come up. What is more -teasing than the question, ‘What is a gentleman?’ Cocky Mr. Macaroni, -with his hat over his eye and his hair dressed in imitation of his -betters, says, ‘Vat’s a gentleman?’ and the beast knows the thing every -time he sees it.”</p> - -<p>“How is the pain in your side?”</p> - -<p>“Well, it makes me wince when I move as I did then. How strange,” said -he, sinking his voice and looking at the island, “that I, who have been -dreaming of galleons all my life, should, of the scores whose keels have -cut these waters, be the one chosen to light upon yonder ship of -dollars.”</p> - -<p>“Shall you fire her before sailing?”</p> - -<p>“No. We will leave her for the next man who may come along—for some -poor devil to whom a few serons of cocoa and a thousand quintals of tin -may be what the Cockney calls an ‘object.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>The sun was now low, and the west was on fire. The sea came like blood -from the rim of the western line to midway the ocean plain, where the -fierce light drained into thin blue that went darkening into melting -violet eastward. The brig had drifted very nearly due south of the -island, opening the reefs, and baring the harbor to our sight, and -disclosing the verdure that clothed a portion of the northern rocks. The -longboat<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> lay alongside the beach, and the figures of her people came -and went. I thought to myself, a pity if Yan Bol and his sweet and manly -fellows don’t take a fancy to the derelict, agree among themselves to -attempt to warp her afloat, and consent to remain on the island if -Greaves will give them the boat; food enough they will find in the ship -and on the beach.</p> - -<p>Though the island stood steeped in the red light of sunset, it reflected -nothing of the western splendor. Grimy, melancholy, livid—an ocean -cinder heap did it look in that fair evening radiance, a spadeful out of -Neptune’s dust bin. I picked up the telescope to view the ship in the -cave before the shadows closed the wondrous object out, and with the -tracery of the spars and rigging, dim in the lens, I conceived myself on -board. I imagined the hour of midnight, I heard in fancy the distant -groan of surf, I heard the sobs of the black water within the cave, a -faint creak from the heart of the sepulchered vessel; and I figured fear -growing in me even unto the beholding of apparitions, until a shiver ran -through me as chill as though it had come out of the cold hold of the -ship herself.</p> - -<p>I put down the glass, meaning to laugh away my fancies to Greaves, and -beheld the lady Aurora de la Cueva in the act of rising through the -companion way.</p> - -<p>Though Greaves and I had only just now been talking about her, I stared -as though I had not known she was aboard. It was indeed strange, after -all the months of Greaves and Yan Bol and the Dutch and English beauties -forward, to find a woman in the brig; to see a fine, handsome, -sparkling-eyed girl stepping out of the cabin as though she had been -there from the hour of leaving the Downs, but secret. She bowed, I -lifted my cap, Greaves struggled to his feet with his face full of pain. -I begged him to sit, and ran below for a chair, which I placed near his -for the lady Aurora. She had found out that he was in pain, that he had -met with an accident, and was addressing him as I put her chair down, -her large, Spanish, glowing eyes very wistfully fastened upon his face. -He understood her, for, as I have told you, Greaves read Spanish -indifferently well, and faintly understood it when spoken, but he wanted -words and could not utter the few he possessed. He smiled and touched -his hat, and then pointed to the island.</p> - -<p>It was not for me to linger near them. I went to the rail and watched -the boat and the movements of the fellows upon the beach, but I also -found several opportunities in this while for observing the lady Aurora. -She had slept and was refreshed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span> The fine, delicate, transparent olive -of her complexion—I may say it was a very pale olive, well within the -compass of the admiration of those whose love is for the white and -yellow part of the sex—was touched slightly with bloom as from recent -slumber. Her eyes were large and splendid with light, remarkable for -their long lashes, and of a shade that made you think of the sea at -night, black and luminous, their depths filled with wandering fires as -she struggled with the oppression of silence or gazed at you as though -she would speak. Her nose was slightly Jewish, rather small than big for -her face, the nostrils the daintiest piece of graving I ever saw in that -way. Her teeth were very good, strong and white, a little large. The -quality of her clothes might have been very grand; one would judge of -<i>that</i> perhaps by the rings, for this sort of thing goes on all fours as -a rule; but the fit or fashion was monstrously vile to my taste. You -guessed that underlying all that spread and sprawl of skirt and bodice -there sat, or stood, or reposed the figure of a Hebe. Hints of secret -perfections there were in plenty; but all grace of shape was overwhelmed -by the cut of her gown; it stood upon her like a candle extinguisher, -and in shape was not even fit for a nun.</p> - -<p>“I am unable to understand the lady, Fielding,” exclaimed Greaves. “Is -Antonio forward?”</p> - -<p>I spied the Spaniard leaning over the bows looking toward the island. He -had gone away in the boat on the first journey to show the men where the -water was. On her return with her freight of fresh water, he had crept -over the side and sneaked forward to loaf and lounge and smoke in Jack -Spaniard fashion. How did I know this? Because I knew that Antonio had -been sent in the boat to point out the spring, and his lounging in the -bows with a pipe betwixt his lips <i>now</i>, while the boat was ashore and -the men busy, told me the little yarn of loafing from start to finish.</p> - -<p>I called, and he put his pipe in his pocket and came aft.</p> - -<p>“Interpret what this lady says,” exclaimed Greaves.</p> - -<p>She poured forth some sentences of Spanish. I could trace no fatigue, no -reactionary debility, such as might attend the strain and passion of -deliverance from peril tremendous above all words to her as a woman.</p> - -<p>“The señorita,” translated Antonio in effect—but, as I have before -said, I will not attempt a written description of his articulation or -phrases; I write that he may be intelligible—“wishes to know how long -you intend to remain in this situa<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span>tion, and to what part of the world -you are proceeding when you sail?”</p> - -<p>“To England!” cried the lady, when Antonio had made answer out of the -mouth of Greaves. “<i>Santa Maria purissima!</i> How shall I find my mother? -If she has been rescued she will have been conveyed to some port on the -South American coast, whence she will return to Acapulco, and there -await news of me. To England! <i>Ave Maria!</i> The world will then divide me -from my mother. Blessed Virgin! I did think this ship was proceeding to -a South American port. To England! I shall never see my mother again.”</p> - -<p>She exclaimed awhile in this sort of language, but untheatrically. Nay, -there was a dignity in her astonishment and concern; very little tossing -of hands and uprolling of eyes. The main article in the outward -expression of her grief and alarm lay in the piteous look she fastened -on me, as though she would rather appeal to me than to the captain; as -though, indeed, she considered that since I was the first to take her by -the hand on the island, and to bring her off from a situation of horror, -she was entitled to look to me for all further kindnesses.</p> - -<p>“The señorita’s mother,” said Greaves, “was, of course, rescued, and is, -no doubt, safe and well?” Antonio turned his back upon the lady that she -might not see him squint, and he shrugged his shoulders. “But we have no -right to suppose,” continued Greaves, looking sternly at the Spaniard, -“that the ship which rescued the señora conveyed her to a port whence -she could easily reach Acapulco. On the contrary, in all probability the -ship was bound round the Horn, in which case the lady may be now on her -way to Europe.”</p> - -<p>Antonio translated; the lady Aurora gazed at him somewhat passionately, -and beat the air with a gesture of irritation, clearly unable to collect -the captain’s meaning from the fellow’s interpretation of it. Antonio -talked much and gesticulated with singular energy. The lady then -appeared to comprehend.</p> - -<p>“She says that her mother is rich,” said Antonio, “and is well known as -the widow of Don Alonzo de Cueva, the merchant of Lima. She will pay -liberally to be conveyed to Acapulco, where she has a brother who is a -priest. She will return to Acapulco because she is sure to believe that -the señora, her mother, will seek her there.”</p> - -<p>“Tell the lady,” said Greaves, “that I am truly sorry not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> to be able to -put her ashore at any port where she would be within easy reach of -Acapulco. When I have filled my water casks I am proceeding to England -as straight as the rudder can steer the ship, touching nowhere, and -giving everything that passes plenty of room. Yet this tell her, -likewise, that on our way to England we may chance to fall in with a -vessel bound to a port on this side the South American coast. Should we -fall in with such a vessel, I will transfer the lady to her.”</p> - -<p>He spoke slowly, with the deliberateness of a man who is in pain while -he discourses. Antonio made shift to render the captain’s words -intelligible to the lady. She asked, through the Spanish seaman, what -Captain Greaves would charge to put her ashore at Lima or Valparaiso.</p> - -<p>“It is not to be done,” said Greaves; “beg her not to repeat that -request.”</p> - -<p>She seemed to gather the matter of his speech by his manner. Her eyes -came to mine, earnest, pleading, with a deeper shadow in their dark -depths as though tears were not far off. It was a look that made me -curse my ignorance of the Spanish tongue. Much could I have said to -comfort and hearten her; but though I had been able to talk as fluently -as she, it was not for me to intrude <i>then</i>. I was mate, and Greaves was -captain; and I stood at the rail seeming to watch the island as it -blackened to the fading crimson light, and to be keeping a lookout for -the return of the longboat.</p> - -<p>“Was not the lady’s mother proceeding to Madrid?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Yes, capitan,” answered Antonio.</p> - -<p>“If the vessel which may have picked her up is going that way, why -should she desire to return to Acapulco?”</p> - -<p>“You have heard, my capitan, that the señorita believes her mother will -return to Acapulco and wait for her there.”</p> - -<p>“How is the mother to know that the daughter is alive?”</p> - -<p>Again Antonio squinted fiercely and shrugged.</p> - -<p>“Is there reason to suppose that, the widow imagines her daughter is -saved? Is there reason to believe that the widow herself is saved? -Supposing her to have been picked up by a ship bound south, why should -not she proceed in the direction that, if pursued, must ultimately land -her at Cadiz, or put her in the way of very easily reaching Madrid, for -which city, as I understand, she and her daughter embarked at Acapulco? -Interpret all this, will you?”</p> - -<p>Antonio began to translate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Fielding!” exclaimed Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Sir.”</p> - -<p>“Call Jimmy aft.”</p> - -<p>The boy arrived.</p> - -<p>“I am going below, Fielding,” said Greaves. “My ribs ache consumedly. I -may get some ease by lying flat. Is the longboat coming off?”</p> - -<p>The tall bulwarks prevented him from seeing the lower ranges of the -island. I looked a moment; then, to make sure, leveled the glass, and -said:</p> - -<p>“They are at this instant shoving off, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Get in the water and then hoist your boat in,” said he. “You can fill -on the brig and stand north for an offing of about three miles; then -heave-to afresh, and carefully observe the bearings of the island, lest -it should roll down black or thick. If heavy weather happens in the -night we will proceed, for we have fresh water enough aboard to carry us -along. Otherwise, we will complete our watering in the morning, for I -want to make a steady run of it to the Channel without need of a halt on -any account whatever.”</p> - -<p>While Greaves was giving me his instructions, Antonio was interpreting -to the lady Aurora, who frequently broke into short exclamations of -“<i>Qué!</i>” “<i>Es esto!</i>” “<i>Será posible?</i>” and, while she thus exclaimed, -she would look with an expression of dismay and reproach at the captain.</p> - -<p>“If I rest my bones through the night,” said Greaves, “I shall be easier -or well again in the morning. Look in upon me with a report from time to -time, Fielding, and tell Bol to visit me during his watch.”</p> - -<p>He rose from his chair with a face of pain, put his arm upon Jimmy’s -shoulder, and went below. I stepped to the gangway, calling to the -fellows who were hanging about in the head to lay aft and stand by to -discharge the boat and get her aboard. She came alongside deep, and it -was dark before we had hooked the tackles into her. When she was stowed, -the topsail was swung and the brig headed about north. There was a light -wind out of the southwest. It set the water tinkling alongside with the -noise as of the bells of a sleigh heard afar. The young moon lay in a -red curl in the west, as though, up there, she was still colored by the -flush of the sunset that had blackened out to our sight. There was not a -cloud. The stars were plentiful and bright, and the dusky ocean, flat -and firm, showed as wide as the sky.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span></p> - -<p>All this while the lady had remained on deck. It was about eight -o’clock, and very dark. My watch had come round, and the brig would be -in my charge till midnight; but, watch or no watch, I should have kept a -lookout until I had secured the three-mile offing. The island was on the -starboard quarter, scarcely distinguishable now—a dim smudge, like -smoke.</p> - -<p>Happening to look through the skylight, I saw the cloth laid for supper. -Indeed, supper was ready. Salt beef and ham were on the table, together -with biscuits, pickles, and a pot or two of preserves, a small decanter -of rum for my use, and a bottle of Greaves’ red wine for the lady. She -had tasted nothing, as I presumed, since her arrival on board in the -morning. She stood at the rail, looking out to sea, a pathetic figure of -loneliness, indeed, when you thought of what she had suffered, what she -was freshly delivered from; when you thought again of her solitude of -dumbness, as you might well term her tongue’s incapacity aboard this -brig of English and Dutch. Most heartily did I yearn to speak soothingly -and hopefully, to bid her be of good cheer when she thought of her -mother, to beg her persuade herself that her mother was rescued and -sailing to Europe, even as she, the señorita, was thither bound.</p> - -<p>“Weel, weel, there’s Ane abune a’!” says the gypsy in the Scotch novel, -and that was the substance of what I wanted to tell the lady Aurora.</p> - -<p>And what did I say? Why, I just coughed to let her know that I was at -her elbow. I had no other language than a cough.</p> - -<p>She quietly looked round and began “<i>Yo no lo</i>——” then broke off, -arrested by remembering that I knew not one syllable of her tongue.</p> - -<p>I motioned to the skylight and pointed down, and made signs for her to -go below and sup. She signed to me to accompany her. I shook my head, -pointing to the sails and to the sea, and cursing my ignorance that -obliged me to make a baboon of myself with my limbs and head.</p> - -<p>She bowed and went to the companion hatch, and on looking down a few -minutes later I saw her seated at the table. She had removed her hat; -her brow showed white in the lamplight under the magnificent masses of -her dead black hair. The jewels upon her fingers sparkled as, with a -leisureliness that had something of stateliness in it, she helped -herself to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> the food before her. Once again I admired the beauty of her -hands, and then I turned my back upon the novel and beautiful picture of -this fine Spanish woman to look to the brig.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br /><br /> -<small>OFF THE ISLAND.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> brig slipped cleverly through the sea. It was like gently tearing -through silk with a razor to listen to the noise that floated aft from -her cutwater. When I guessed the island to be about three miles distant -I hove the vessel to. Yan Bol’s pipe shrilled with an edge that seemed -to fetch an echo from the furthest reaches of the dark sea. When the -sails were to the mast the brig lay motionless under her topsails and -standing jib.</p> - -<p>I was about to go below to make a report to the captain, when the -lumping shadow of Bol’s bulky shape came along the deck.</p> - -<p>“Beg pardon, Mr. Fielding,” said he, with a loutish lift of his hand in -the direction of his forehead, “how might der captain be, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I am about to inquire.”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas noting wrong, all handts hope?”</p> - -<p>“No; a severe bruise. Nothing more serious, I trust.”</p> - -<p>“Vhas der brick to be hove-to all night?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw.”</p> - -<p>“To gomblete der vatering in der morning, I zooppose?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw.”</p> - -<p>“Vel, Mr. Fielding, der men hov oxed me to say dot if der captain vill -give leave and she vhas not too sick to be troubled by der noise, dey -vould like to celebrate der recovery of der dollars by two or dree -leedle songs before der vatch vhas called.”</p> - -<p>This was another way of asking for a glass of grog for all hands. There -could be no objection. The men had been much exposed throughout the heat -of the day, and what could more righteously warrant a harmless festal -outburst than the recovery and transhipment of a hundred and forty cases -of Spanish dollars?</p> - -<p>I entered the cabin. The lady Aurora was still at table, but had long -since ceased to eat. She lay back in her chair, her head drooped, her -hands folded in the posture of one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> waiting. When I entered she lifted -her head and smiled, her eyes brightened, her lips moved in the first -framing of a sentence; no word escaped her; she pointed to a seat, and -half rose from her own chair as though in doubt where I was used to sit. -I shook my head, nodded toward the door of the captain’s berth, then at -the clock under the skylight, holding up my fingers that she might guess -I would join her in ten minutes; and so I passed on, hot in the face, -and wondering whether it would be possible for me to communicate with -her without making a fool of myself—for a fool I felt every time I -gesticulated, which now I think must have been owing to my hatred of the -French.</p> - -<p>Greaves lay in his bunk motionless, on his back, but he was free from -pain. Galloon sat on a chest near his head. I reported the affairs of -the brig, the distance and bearings of the island, and the like. He -asked how the weather looked.</p> - -<p>“It is a heavenly night,” said I.</p> - -<p>“It is hot in this hole,” said he. “Plague seize the awkwardness that -tripped me and has floored me thus! One knows not what to do for a -bruise of this sort. But patience—that’s the physic for every sort of -bruise, whether of the bones or of the soul. Jim tells me the lady has -supped.”</p> - -<p>“She has, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry for the poor thing; but where is the woman that does not -always want something more than she has? This time yesterday she would -have given her hair—angels alive! what would she <i>not</i> have given? to -be as she now is, safe aboard such a vessel as this; and now that she is -safe aboard—rescued from raw terrapin and the risks of the society of -two Spanish sailors (and I must like their looks better before I give -them a handsomer name than <i>that</i>)—she craves to be with her -mother—very natural, of course—who is, probably, at the bottom of the -ocean, and she wants to be put ashore at Lima.”</p> - -<p>I delivered the request of the men, as expressed by Yan Bol.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. Let grog be served out to all hands; and the men may sing, -certainly. Disturb me? Not down here. And I like my people to be merry. -Fortune has fiddled to-day; let the beggars dance.”</p> - -<p>Jimmy was in the cabin. I bade him carry a can of rum to the men, and -went on deck, receiving, without knowing how to answer, a look of -inquiry from the lady Aurora as I passed her.</p> - -<p>“The men may make merry,” said I to Bol. “There is grog gone forward. -Tell them that the captain is free from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span> pain; and will you keep a -lookout in the waist—or in the head if you like, ’tis all one—while I -get a bite in the cabin?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, dot vill I. By der vay, Mr. Fielding, vhas dere von hoondred und -dirty, or vhas dere von hoondred und twenty, cases prought on boardt? -Vertz swears to von hoondred und dirty; Friendt, von hoondred und -twenty. I myself gounts von hoondred und dirty-two. Dere vhas a leedle -vager in dis—shoost von day of a man’s grog, dot vhas all.”</p> - -<p>“I made one hundred and forty cases,” said I. “But are they all -dollars?”</p> - -<p>And bursting into a laugh, I left him to chew upon that thought, and -returned to the cabin.</p> - -<p>I bowed to the lady, and took the chair I usually occupied at the table. -She rose, came to my side with a bottle of claret, poured some into a -glass, and made as if she would wait upon me. I was not a little -confounded. Her handsome presence, her fine person embarrassed me. My -career had but poorly qualified me for an easy address in conversing -with ladies. Much of my life had been spent upon the ocean, in the -society of some of the roughest of my own calling. For months at a -stretch I had never set eyes on a woman, and when I was ashore, whether -in foreign parts or in my own country, the girls I fell in with were not -of a sort to teach me to know exactly what to do when I chanced upon the -company of a Señorita Aurora.</p> - -<p>I did the best I could with the imperfect and monkey-like speech of the -hands and shoulders to induce her to desist from waiting upon me and -return to her chair; and in this I was helped by the arrival of Jimmy, -to whom I gave several unnecessary orders, merely to emphasize to the -lady the desire. I gesticulated that she should sit, and cease to do me -more honor than I had impudence to support.</p> - -<p>Presently she pointed to the bottle of claret—there stood but one -bottle on the table—and looked at me in silence, but with an expression -of such eloquence as Jimmy himself could not have missed the meaning of.</p> - -<p>“Wine,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Vine,” she repeated; and then to herself, “<i>Vino</i>—vine; <i>vino</i>—vine.”</p> - -<p>She next pointed to the piece of salt beef.</p> - -<p>“Meat,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Meat—<i>carne</i>; meat—<i>carne</i>,” she repeated.</p> - -<p>She pointed to several objects. I gave her the English names, and she -pronounced them deliberately, in a rich voice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> invariably tacking the -Spanish equivalent to the word, as though she wished me to observe it. I -sat for about a quarter of an hour over my supper, and then, looking at -the clock significantly, and then up through the skylight, that she -might gather my intention, I arose, giving her a little bow. She rose -also, and, pointing upward, tapped her bosom, most clearly saying in -that way—“May I accompany you?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Si, señorita</i>,” said I, expending, as I believe, in those words the -whole of my stock of her tongue.</p> - -<p>A fine smile lighted up her face, and she addressed me; and what I -reckon she said was that it would not take me long to learn Spanish. She -picked up her hat, and then, looking at the table, pointed, and showing -her white teeth, said, “Bread—<i>pan</i>; meat—<i>carne</i>; vine—<i>vino</i>;” and -so on through the words I had interpreted, making not one blunder either -of pronunciation or indication of the object, saving that she called -wine <i>vine</i>, and ham <i>yam</i>.</p> - -<p>I conducted her on deck; I believe Yan Bol had been surveying us from -the skylight; I perceived his big figure lurching forward when I -emerged, and his way of going made me suppose that he had been looking -through the skylight with his ear bent. “An old ape hath an old eye,” -thought I, as I watched him disappear in the darkness.</p> - -<p>The crew were assembled on the forecastle and singing songs there. They -had rigged up two or three lanterns and sat in the light of them, -drinking rum-and-water out of mugs, and smoking pipes. A strange voice -was singing at that moment; I listened, and guessed it to be one of the -two Spaniards. The girl paused and listened too. She then ejaculated, -“<i>Ay! Ayme!</i>” and went to the rail, and gazed out to sea.</p> - -<p>There blew a soft wind, cool with dew, out of the southwest. I looked -for the island, but the shadow of it was blent like smoke with the -darkness. The ripples ran in faint, small ivory curls, and the water was -full of roaming glows of phosphorus. The Spanish sailor ceased to sing. -A fiddle struck up, screwing and squeaking into a tune which immediately -set my toes tapping; a hoarse cough succeeded, and then rang out the -roaring voice of Travers:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Eight bells had struck, and the starboard watch was called,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the larboard watch they went to their hammocks down below;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before seven bells the case it was quite altered,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And broad upon our lee-beam we sight a lofty foe.<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Up hammocks and down chests,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Oh, the boatswain he piped next,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the drummer he was called, at quarters for to beat.<br /></span> -<span class="i8">We stowed our hammock well<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Before we struck the bell,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And we bore down upon her with a full and flowing sheet!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(<i>Chorus</i>) And we bore down upon her with a full and flowing she-e-t!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>There were more verses. The chorus was always the same; it burst with -hurricane power from the lips of the English seamen, who sang with -passion, as though in defiance of the Dutch and Spanish listeners; and, -indeed, the matter of the song was headlong and irresistible. The lady -standing at the bulwark turned her head to listen, but when the noise -had ended she sank her face afresh, put her elbow on the rail, leaned -her chin upon her hand, and so gazed straight out into the darkness.</p> - -<p>Much had she to think of, and her weight of memory would be the heavier, -and the color of it the sadder for her inability to communicate a -syllable of what worked in her brain, when she thought of the wreck in -which her mother may have perished, or of the livid cinder of an island -on which she had been imprisoned for four days, of her present -condition, and of her future. I wondered as I looked at her whether, if -she had my language or I hers, she would be impassioned and dramatic in -the recital of her adventures, or whether she would talk quietly, -describe without vehemence of speech or motion, prove herself, in short, -the dignified, apparently cold woman I found her in her compelled -silence or speech? This I wondered while I watched her with an irritable -yearning after words that I might speak. What had been the two sailors’ -behavior to her on the island? Where and how had she slept of nights -there? What had been her sufferings in the open boat? Who was she? Was -she visiting Madrid to presently return to South America? She troubled -my curiosity. She was as a book written in an unintelligible tongue, but -curiously and beautifully embellished with plates which enable you to -guess at the choiceness and profusion of the feast you are unable to sit -at.</p> - -<p>Now Yan Bol sang a song. His voice rent the night, and I observed the -lady erect her figure as though she hearkened with astonishment. I -walked aft to take a look at the compass, and to see that the binnacle -lamp was burning well.</p> - -<p>“Who is this at the wheel?”</p> - -<p>“Jorge, señor.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t speak English, do you?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The man understood me, and shook his head. “Pretty cool fists,” thought -I, “to send this poor devil aft, while <i>you</i> enjoy yourselves with your -songs and pipes and grog! Here is a shipwrecked man; what care you? He -is a poor rag of a man, and very fit to be put upon; so it has been, -’Aft with ye and grip them spokes, while a better man than e’er a -mumping Spaniard in all Americay comes for’ard and enjoys himself.” But -it was not a matter to be mended while the fellows were in the full of -their jollification.</p> - -<p>“<i>Como se llama esto?</i>” exclaimed a voice at my elbow, and a small hand, -gleaming with rings, was projected into the sheen of the binnacle lamp.</p> - -<p>I started, conceiving that the lady was still at the bulwark rail, deep -in thought or listening to the singing.</p> - -<p>“I do not understand,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Ow you call, señor?” exclaimed Jorge.</p> - -<p>She pointed to the compass, wanting its name in English.</p> - -<p>I pronounced the word and she echoed it very clearly; then lightly -laying her hand upon my arm she took a few steps forward, and, pointing -to the sea, asked again in Spanish what that was called. In this way I -gave her some dozen words; and when I believed she was about to ask for -more terms she, with her hand laid lightly on my arm, led me back to the -wheel, and, pointing to the compass, pronounced its name in English, -then indicated the sea, uttering the word, and so she went through the -list she had got, blundering but once, at the word “star,” which she -pronounced <i>zar</i>.</p> - -<p>By this time the singing had come to an end; the starbowlines, as the -starboard watch were then termed, were dropping below; the lady went to -the skylight and looked at the time; then, coming up to me, she put her -hand out and said:</p> - -<p>“<i>Buenas noches, caballero.</i>”</p> - -<p>I answered, “Good-night, señorita.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head; by the cabin lamplight flowing up through the open -frames I saw her smiling. She repeated, “Good-night, <i>caballero</i>” in -Spanish. Seeing her wish, I said good-night in the same language, -imitating her accent.</p> - -<p>“<i>Es admirable!</i>” she exclaimed, and then went toward the companion way, -meaning to go below.</p> - -<p>But I had resolved that this handsome, amiable, lovely Spanish lady -should be made as comfortable on board us as the resources of the brig -permitted, and I detained her by a polite gesture while I called to one -of the men forward to send<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> Antonio aft. The fellow was turned in and he -kept us waiting ten minutes, during which the lady and I stood dumb as a -pair of ghosts, she no doubt wondering why I held her on deck, though -she did not exhibit the least uneasiness in her bearing so far as I was -able to make out in the starlit darkness. When Antonio appeared I -requested him to ask the lady if she wished for anything the brig could -supply her with. Antonio translated sulkily and sleepily.</p> - -<p>“No, señor,” said he, “the lady wants for nothing. She is wearied and -entreats permission to retire to rest.”</p> - -<p>I was convinced that the villain had manufactured this answer to enable -him to return speedily to his own bed. But I was helpless.</p> - -<p>When the lady went below I told Antonio to send one of the men out of my -watch to relieve Jorge at the wheel, and I then descended into the cabin -to make a report to Greaves and to hear how he did. Jimmy was clearing -up for the night. I inquired after the captain, and the youth told me he -was asleep.</p> - -<p>“Has he complained of pain?”</p> - -<p>“No, master.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s Galloon?”</p> - -<p>“Along with the captain, master.”</p> - -<p>“Has the dog been fed to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. He had a copper-fastened buster at noon—a heart o’ oak -blow-out.”</p> - -<p>“What did you give him?” said I, not doubting the lad’s affection for -the dog, but fearing that the poor brute might have been overlooked in -the hurry and excitement of the day.</p> - -<p>“As much beefsteak as he could swallow, master.”</p> - -<p>“There are no beefsteaks on board this ship,” said I. “If the captain -and Galloon were here we should have a concert. But I believe you when -you tell me you have fed the dog.”</p> - -<p>“More’n he wanted, master.”</p> - -<p>I bade him put a spare mattress into my bunk—we carried a stock of -spare bedding, a slop lot of Amsterdam stuff—and I then returned on -deck. Two hours of watch lay before me, and my heart went in a gallop -and my brain in a waltz through the earlier part of that time. I found -leisure for thought now; the hush of the ocean night was upon the brig; -no sound reached me from the forecastle. The stars shone brightly in the -dark sky, and many meteors of crystal white fires ran and broke over our -mastheads, bursting like rockets immeas<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span>urably distant, and leaving -glowing trails, which palpitated for some minutes.</p> - -<p>The hope of the voyage was realized. Underfoot lay half a million of -dollars, and six thousand pounds of it were to be mine! Is it wonderful -that my spirits should have sang, that heart and brain should have -danced? But with this noble fulfillment of the half-hearted hope of many -weeks was mixed the romance of the presence of a handsome Spanish woman -in the ship. One thought of her as coming on board with the dollars—as -the princess of the island pining for civilization and shipping herself -and the treasure of her little dominion for the life and delights of a -great and populous city of the Old World. She it was, I think, that set -my brain a-waltzing, if it were the dollars which made my heart gallop -and my spirit shout within me.</p> - -<p>I tell you it was an odd, intoxicating mixture of the picturesque, the -heroic, the romantic for a plain young sailor man like me to put his -lips to and drain down. To be sure the influence of the Spanish lady -upon me was no more than the influence of bright eyes, of white teeth, -of a fine person, of a head of magnificent hair. And what sort of -influence would that be, pray? Why, heart alive! Oh! what but a mingling -of light with thought, an aroma to haunt all fancy of other things, -giving a sparkle to the commonplace, putting foam and sweetness into -cups of flatness. Do you who are reading this know how deep, know by the -experience of months of weevils, corned horse, and the curses of -constipated sailors, how deep is the deep monotony of life on shipboard? -If the depth of this monotony be known to you, then will you understand -why it should be that the presence, yea, the presence <i>merely</i> of a -handsome woman, her glances, the flash of her white teeth, the eloquent -hinting by movement and posture at a hidden shape of beauty, should -mingle a few threads of gold with the coarse gray, brine-drenched -worsted of the sailor’s daily life—of such a daily life as mine; should -touch with luster his mechanic habits and trains of thought as the wake -of his ship in the night of the tropic ocean is beautified with the -fiery seeds and radiant foam-bells of the sea glow.</p> - -<p>And now I have intelligently and poetically explained why it was that I -walked out some time of the remainder of my watch on deck, with my blood -in a dance and my spirits singing clearly. But as I paced I grew grave -under the shadow of a fancy—not yet to call it fear. Suppose the crew -should rise<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span> and seize the brig? This was a <i>notion</i> that was fixedly -present to Greaves during the outward passage, because he had <i>known</i> -when I doubted, that the half million of dollars were in the ship in the -cave, and upon that conviction he could base acute realization of what -<i>might</i> happen when the money was transhipped. I, on the other hand, had -never seriously considered the possibility of piracy. The money must be -in the brig before I could solemnly compass all the responsibility its -possession implied. But the money was now on board, and six thousand -pounds of it were mine, and my spirits fell as I paced the quarter-deck -looking around the wide gloom and saying to myself: “Suppose this -treasure of half a million of dollars should presently start the men -into a determination to seize the brig! There were but two of -us—Greaves and I—at our end of the ship. Could we count upon Jimmy? At -the other end was now an addition of two Spaniards—cut-throats at heart -for all one knew—with knives as thirsty for blood as an English -sailor’s throat for rum.”</p> - -<p>Why should I have thought thus? Nothing whatever had happened to put -fancies of this sort into my head. Was it not the being able to -understand that thirty thousand of the thousands in the lazarette were -to be mine that set me reflecting with a sudden dark anxiety, when the -question arose: Suppose the crew should rise and take the brig?</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The needy traveler, serene and gay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Walks the wild heath, and sings his toil away.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Does envy seize thee? Crush the unbraiding joy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Increase his riches, and his peace destroy:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">New fears in dire vicissitude invade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rustling brake alarms, and quivering shade;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>There was comfort, however, if not safety in this consideration: not a -man forward, from Bol down to Jimmy, had any knowledge of navigation. -What, then, would they be able to do with the brig if they seized her? -They might spread a chart of the world and say: “Here we are <i>now</i>, and -there is America, and there are the East Indies, and down there is New -Holland, and up there is China, and if we steadily head in one -direction, no matter at what point of the compass the bowsprit looks, we -are bound to run something down, whether it be a continent or one of the -poles.”</p> - -<p>Well, that is how sailors might talk in a book designed for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span> the young. -Before the seamen forward rose and seized this brig, that was now a very -valuable bottom, as cargoes then went, they would ask of one another: -“What are we going to do with the ship when we have her? Where are we -going to carry her, and, having hit on a spot, how are we going to -navigate her there?” This I chose to think, and, indeed, I had no doubt -of it, and I drew comfort from the conclusion; but all the same, my -spirits, having sunk, remained low throughout the rest of my watch.</p> - -<p>I was uneasy. I caught myself arresting my steps when my walk carried me -toward the gangway, whenever I heard the sound of a man’s voice. O God, -to think of what a hell of passions this tiny speck of brig was capable -of holding! To think of the large and bloody tragedy this minim of the -building yards could find a theater for! Never had I so utterly felt -human insignificance at sea as I did this night, when I looked over the -rail and searched the smoky void of the horizon for the smudge of the -island, till, for the relief of my sight, I watched a star.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you what it is, William Fielding,” said I to myself, “your -blood is over-heated, your spirits are over-excited. By this picking up -to-day of a fortune—a noble fortune to you, my boy—of six thousand -pounds, and by the sudden and novel companionship of a dark and splendid -lady, the pulses of your body have been set a-hammering too fast. They -must sleep, or excitement will make you sick.”</p> - -<p>Eight bells were struck. Bol came along, and I went below to see if the -captain was awake. He addressed me on my entering his cabin. I reported -the little there was to tell. He said that the pain in his side was -easier; that he could move without the anguish of the afternoon.</p> - -<p>“I shall lie by all night,” said he, “and hope to be up and about again -in the morning.”</p> - -<p>He then inquired about the situation of the island, the appearance of -the weather, the sail under which the brig lay, whether any vessel had -hove in sight, and added:</p> - -<p>“If you should awaken in your watch, go on deck and take a look round; -though I trust Bol.”</p> - -<p>I went on deck to give the Dutchman the bearings of the island and our -distance from it. He was sullen with sleep. Likely as not, the can which -Jimmy had filled contained more liquor than should have gone forward at -once.</p> - -<p>“Keep a bright lookout,” said I. “There may come a shift<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> of wind that -will put the island under our lee, with nobody to guess that it’s at -hand until we’re upon it.”</p> - -<p>“Ow, I’ll keep a bright lookout,” he answered; “but vould to Cott dere -vhas no more lookouts for me! I vhas dam’d sick of looking out. I hov -been looking out, by tunder, for ofer twenty year, and hov seen noting -till dis day; and den she vhas to be carried round der Hoorn to -Amsterdam before she vhas all right.”</p> - -<p>I went to my berth. Excitement had subsided since my few words with -Greaves. I pitched into my bunk, and was sound asleep in a minute. I was -awakened by the weight of a heavy hand and by the sound of a deep voice.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, I do not like der look of der veather. I believe dere -vhas a gale of vind on her vhay here.”</p> - -<p>“What is the hour, Bol?”</p> - -<p>“She vhas a quarter-past dree.”</p> - -<p>I went on deck, and observed that the sky in the north was as black as -pitch. Overhead the stars were dim and few, but they burnt freely and -brightly in the south. I caught a moaning tone in the wind, that had -considerably freshened since I left the deck; and the brig, hove-to -under whole topsails, was lying over somewhat steeply, with the seas to -windward slapping at her rounded side, hissing off in pale yeasty -sheets, and flickering snappishly into the gloom to leeward.</p> - -<p>“Call all hands and close-reef both topsails,” said I.</p> - -<p>I ran below to report to Greaves. A bracket-lamp burnt feebly in his -cabin. He was wide awake, and his dark eyes, with the glance of the -small yellow flame upon them, looked twice their usual size.</p> - -<p>“It is coming on to blow, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, snug down and put yourself to leeward of the island, anyhow.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I heave her to, then, for watering?”</p> - -<p>“Judge for yourself. The brig is in your hands. If it comes hard let her -go. Keep a sharp lookout for the island. Have you its bearings?”</p> - -<p>“Bol should have them,” said I. “I have been turned in since midnight.”</p> - -<p>I regained the deck. The crew were yawling at the reef-tackles and -singing out at the main braces to trim the yards for reefing. There was -much noise. The wind was steadily freshening, and through the groans and -pipings of it aloft ran the sharp, salt hiss of small seas, bursting -suddenly and with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span> temper under the level lash of the wind. I shouted to -Bol, who came out of the blackness in the waist.</p> - -<p>“Where do you make the island?”</p> - -<p>“She’ll bear sou’east,” he answered.</p> - -<p>I stepped to the compass.</p> - -<p>“There’s been a shift of wind since midnight. It was nor’-nor’west, and -now it’s come north. Since when?”</p> - -<p>“Ow, she freshened out of der north in a leedle squall. Dot vhas vhen I -called you.”</p> - -<p>I swept the wide, dark reach of the southern line of sea with the glass; -but had the island been as big as England it would have been sunk in the -peculiar smoky thickness of the dusk that yet, strangely enough, formed -a clear atmosphere for the stars to shine through. I say I swept the -ocean with the glass, but to no purpose. An old sailor once laughed at -me for using an ordinary day telescope at night. I told him that what -would magnify a colored object would magnify a shadow; and he afterward -owned that he talked out of prejudice; had looked through a telescope -since in the darkness and discovered that I was right.</p> - -<p>The men reefed the topsails smartly, and not being able to see the -island, and not choosing to trust Bol’s conjectures as to its situation, -I headed the brig due east, setting the reefed foresail and trysail -along with some fore-and-aft canvas to give her heels. It blackened -rapidly overhead; every star perished. In a few minutes there was not a -light visible up in God’s heights; all the fire was below, and the sea -was beginning to run in flames like oil burning. This shining in the sea -was a blindness to the sight, for it brought the sky down black as a -midnight fog to the very sip and spit of the surge. We held on, crushing -through it, for the wind having swiftly swept up into a fresh breeze, -had on a sudden roared into half a gale, and the brig was smoking -forward as she plunged, with a heel to leeward when the sea took her, -that brought the white and fiery smother within hand-reach of the -gangway rails.</p> - -<p>I stood at the binnacle; Bol was at my side; two hands were stationed on -the lookout; the crew remained on deck. They had got to hear that Bol -had lost the bearings of the island, and though the watch might be -called, no man was going below on such a night of sudden tempest as -this, with a hurricane away behind the windward blackness, for all we -knew, and this side the horizon as deadly a heap of fangs as ever bit a -ship in twain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I vhas glad if he lightened,” said Bol. “It vhas strange if der island -did not show on der starboard quarter there.”</p> - -<p>“It was strange,” said I, mimicking him in my temper, “that you should -fall asleep in your watch on deck with land close aboard ye.”</p> - -<p>“By Cott, den——”</p> - -<p>Rain at that instant struck the brig in a whole sheet of water. It came -along with a roar and shriek of wind and wet. The cataractal drench was -swept in steam off our decks by the black squall it blew along in; the -fierce slap of it fired the sea, and we washed through an ocean of -light, pale and green.</p> - -<p>“By Cott, den——” bawled Bol.</p> - -<p>“Breakers ahead!” roared a voice from the forecastle.</p> - -<p>“Breakers on the lee-bow!” cried another voice.</p> - -<p>It was like being blinded and shocked by lightning to hear <i>those</i> -cries. They were paralyzing. For an instant I looked and listened idly.</p> - -<p>Then—“Hard a-starboard every spoke! Hard a-starboard every spoke!” I -shouted, and flung myself upon the wheel to help the men there, roaring -meanwhile to Bol to call hands to the main braces and to get the fore -tack and sheet raised. He rushed forward, thundering. Never had Dutchman -the like of such a voice as Bol.</p> - -<p>The brig was in the wind; she was pitching furiously head to sea, the -canvas thrashing in the blackness, the gale splitting in lunatic shrieks -upon every rope and spar, the strange, hoarse shouts of the seamen -rising and falling in shuddering notes upon the clamor that surged above -as the water rolled below.</p> - -<p>I had fled from the wheel to the side to look for the land, and was -straining my vision against the wet obscurity in vain search of the -white water of breakers, or of the overhanging midnight shadow that -should denote the island close aboard, when—the brig struck! a violent -shock ran through the length of her; every timber thrilled as though a -mine had been sprung under her keel. “O God, that it should have <i>come</i> -to it!” I thought.</p> - -<p>“Round with that fore yard, men,” I roared; “don’t let her hang! <i>don’t</i> -let her hang!” Again the brig struck. A sort of raging chorus full of -curses and the passion of terror broke from the seamen as they dragged. -The rain cleared as suddenly as it had begun, the brig’s head was paying -off, and my heart swelled in thanks as she listed over to larboard, -trembling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> to a blow of sea that rose in a mountain of milk upon her -bow.</p> - -<p>“Where are you, Fielding?” shouted the voice of Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Here, sir.”</p> - -<p>He was standing in the hatch, gripping the companion for support, but -his voice had the old ring. “What have you done with the brig?”</p> - -<p>“White water was just now reported. I don’t see it. I don’t see the -land—yet we struck.”</p> - -<p>“No,” he answered coolly, “it was we who were struck. There is no land. -Look there—and there—and there! Those are your shoals!”</p> - -<p>At the moment of his speaking one of the sublimest, most beautiful -sights which the ocean, prodigal as she is in marvels of terror and -splendor, can offer to the sight of man was visible round about us. In -at least a dozen different parts of the blackness that stooped to the -luminous peaks of the seas I beheld flaming fountains, glittering lines -rising and feathering to the gale, coming and going, blowing pale and -yet splendid—every jet so luminous that the scoring of the darkness by -it was as defined as the track of a rocket. They soared and fell in a -breathing way, some near, some afar, ever varying their distances, and -one snored like an escape of steam within a biscuit-toss of our weather -beam, and the fiery shower flashed on the wind betwixt our masts with a -hiss like a volley of shot tearing the surface of water.</p> - -<p>“A school of whales,” shouted Greaves. “One of them plumped into us. -Now, get your topsail aback, Fielding, get your topsail aback, and stop -her till the beasts go clear, or they’ll be butting us into staves. Jump -for the well and get a cast.”</p> - -<p>The men, hearing their captain’s voice, were quieted. They came to the -braces, and, without disorder or any note of cursing terror in their -voices, brought the brig to a halt. I dropped the rod and found the -vessel stanch; sounded the well four or five times, and always found her -stanch. The wondrous luminous appearances vanished, and the blacker -hours of the night before the dawn closed upon us in an impenetrable -dye, but with less weight in the wind and with less fire in the sea.</p> - -<p>“Furl the foresail and let the brig lie as she is till dawn,” said -Greaves, and walked slowly from one side of the deck to the other, -looking forth, pausing long to look; then, with slow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span> motions, he went -below, and stretched himself at full length upon a locker, with a hand -upon his side.</p> - -<p>My watch came round at four; but, in any case, I should have watched the -brig through the darkness. Some while before dawn the wind was spent, -the stars glowing, the sea fast slackening its heave, with the muck that -had troubled and drenched us settling away in a shadow south and west.</p> - -<p>At last broke the day. Melancholy is daybreak at sea. There is nothing -sadder in nature; nothing that so sinks the spirits of the watcher who -suffers himself to be visited by the full spirit of the sight. On shore -there is the chirrup and harmonies of birds, the rosy streaking of the -sky over the hilltops; the vane of the church spire burns, the cock -crows heartily, the farmyard is in motion, the smell of the country -rises in an incense as the sun springs into the sky. But at sea the cold -iron-gray of the breaking morn is reflected in the boundless waste. -There is nothing to catch the light of the springing sun save the -clouds. The vast solitude brims into the unbroken distance, and cold is -the ashen sky and cold the picture of the ship, as it steals out of the -darkness of the night. The melancholy, however, is but in the dawn’s -beginning. When the sun rises, there is a splendor of colors at sea -which you will not find ashore. The ocean is a mirror that reverberates -the light of day. Times are when the deep flings its own prismatic -glories upon the sky. This have I marked at sunrise, when the flash of -the luminary has sunk into the heart of the sea, when all is blueness -and dazzle below, and, above, a sky of high-compacted cloud, delicate as -flowers and figures of frost and snow upon a windowpane, charged with -the colors of the great eye of ocean looking up at it.</p> - -<p>“There’s the island,” said I to myself.</p> - -<p>I snatched up the glass, and resolved the tiny piece of shading upon the -horizon into the proportions of the ugly rock of cinders. It was twelve -or fourteen miles distant down on the lee quarter.</p> - -<p>“The deuce!” thought I. “What has been our drift? Where has the brig -been running to? And yet Greaves told me he could trust Bol!”</p> - -<p>I looked through the skylight, and immediately the captain, who lay upon -the locker, opened his eyes and fastened them upon me.</p> - -<p>“The island is in sight, sir.”</p> - -<p>“How far distant?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>I made answer. He asked a few questions, then bade me shift the brig’s -helm for the rock to complete our watering. Twenty minutes later we were -standing once more for the island, with all plain sail heaped upon the -brig, and a quiet air of wind blowing dead on end over the taffrail.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br /><br /> -<small>WE START FOR HOME.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were off the island again by nine o’clock. Greaves was wise to fill -his casks; the water was sweet, the road home long, and our peculiar -care was not to be forced to look in anywhere for supplies of any sort. -Yet it was as depressing as a disappointment to return to the island. Is -there an uglier heap of rock in the wide world? The black lava of the -scowling Galapagos yields nothing more horrid. And the spirit of its -dark and horrible solitude visited you the more sharply because of the -crawling, stealthy life you beheld low down by the wash of the beach, -remote from the inland loneliness; the creeping shape of the elephant -tortoise, of the black lizard, of crabs as huge as targets, and no -further motion save what’s in the air, where the ocean fowl are -glancing. That island was a fit tomb for the ship which it caverned. You -thought of it as a grave, of the ship as a corpse; and the ugly heap of -flat split cliff and black lava climbing into spires, and front of -cinderous rock corrugated by the arrest of their glowing cataracts, fell -cold upon the sight, and colder yet upon the heart.</p> - -<p>We sent a hand aloft as before to keep a sharp lookout. The island lay -square in the north, and while we hung hove-to off the reefs, at any -hour something large and armed might come sailing up from the horizon at -the back, and heave the breast of a royal over the western or eastern -point ere we could guess that there was anything within leagues and -leagues of us. Yan Bol took charge of the longboat and went ashore. It -was a fine morning, but the sky looked dim, like a blue eye after tears; -the sun had his sting of yesterday, but not his flash. A long swell -swung through the sea, but the heave was out of the north, and we lay -south, the land between; it was smooth here or we could have done little -in the way of watering. The corners of the land illustrated the weight -of the swell; the white water burst in clouds there, and the noise of it -came along with the voice of a gathering storm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span></p> - -<p>Greaves was so much better of the pain in his side that he sat at -breakfast and took a chair upon the deck afterward. He called me to his -cabin, while we were heading for the island, and asked me to look at his -ribs. There was a little discoloration, such as might attend a -bruise—no more. I pressed the bones, but he did not wince. I dug -somewhat deep in the soft part just under the liver, but he uttered no -sound. The pain was very nearly gone, he told me; yet he looked pale, -and his eyes wanted their former light and old activity of glance.</p> - -<p>I was busy in bringing the brig to a stand while Greaves was at -breakfast, and on passing the skylight and looking down, I saw the lady -Aurora seated at table with him. When he came on deck after breakfast, -she followed; Jimmy placed chairs and she was about to sit, but catching -sight of me she approached, bowing low, with a fine arch smile, and her -hand extended. I supposed she meant merely to shake me by the hand, but -on grasping my fingers she retained them, and I felt a foolish blush -upon my face, as she drew me to the binnacle stand, at which she -pointed, saying, “compass.” She then led me to the side, and projecting -her glittering hand over the rail, said “sea.” Then, looking aloft, she -laughed and shook her head, and cried:</p> - -<p>“No sar, señor.”</p> - -<p>“Star,” said I.</p> - -<p>“<i>Si</i>—star—<i>gracias</i>,” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Had you not better mind your eye?” exclaimed Greaves, as we approached -him. “Somebody’s told her the value of your share in the chinks below. -She’s no clipper, but she’s got a devilish fine bow and run, and you’d -find her bends sweetly good, I’ll warrant you, were you to careen her -and clear her sides. By Isten! Fielding, she’ll be forging ahead and -taking you in tow if you don’t mind your helm.”</p> - -<p>I made no reply. I did not greatly relish Greaves’ humor. The girl’s -ignorance of our tongue was an appeal to our respect. But then I was -twenty-four—an age of sensibility. Greaves was an older man, and though -I love his memory, I must say the sea had a little blunted some of the -finer points of feeling in him.</p> - -<p>Madam Aurora took the chair which Jimmy had placed, and she and Greaves -sat together, but in silence. Some business of the brig occupied my -attention. Presently Greaves told me to go below and breakfast.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I will look after the ship,” said he.</p> - -<p>I went below and made a good breakfast. There was a dish of terrapin; -the Dutch sailor Wirtz, the burly, carroty man, with the deep roaring -voice—but all our Dutchmen had deep voices—had somewhere learnt the -art of cooking terrapin. He had stayed in the brig to dress this -delicious meat, and Frank Hals, the cook, had gone ashore in his place -in the longboat. I fared sumptuously, washing the delicate morsels down -with some of the <i>Casada’s</i> cocoa, which had been prepared for the pot -by Thomas Teach, who professed to have learnt what he knew under this -head in two voyages he had made to the Dutch Spice Islands.</p> - -<p>Galloon had followed me into the cabin, and bore me company. He sat upon -his chair and gazed at me affectionately when I talked to him. Often had -I talked out my mind to Galloon. Often in quiet, lonely watches, during -the outward passage, had I held his ears, while his fore paws rested -upon my knees, and given loose to the imaginations which the prospect of -the promise of realizing thirty thousand dollars raised up in me. And -then, again, I loved this dog as the savior of my life. Never could I -look into his affectionate, liquid, intelligent eye, but that I would -think to myself, and often say aloud to him, dog as he was, a poor -four-footed beast, soulless, as it is commonly supposed, of affections -to be best won by kicks and curses—that he had, by saving my life, -become in a sense the creator of a man, the renewer of a being deemed by -his own species immortal in spirit, so that whatever I did a dog would -be answerable for; the existence of all passions in me, my pleasures and -hopes and griefs; nay, my marriage, should ever I marry, and the -children I begot, would be all chargeable upon a poor dog, God wot! a -strange thing to reflect on by one who has been made to believe, all his -life, that he is only a little lower than the angels, and yet true as -the blessed sunlight itself; for if it had not been for Galloon, long -ago I should have been—what? the roe of a herring, perhaps, the liver -of a cod—instead of a man, capable of looking back, through a long -avenue of years, and of moralizing thus.</p> - -<p>When I came on deck I found Antonio standing in front of Greaves, cap in -hand, translating for him and the lady. On my appearing, Miss Aurora -exclaimed quickly and eagerly to the Spaniard, who turning to me, said, -squinting as he spoke:</p> - -<p>“The señorita has met you before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Where?” said I.</p> - -<p>“At Lima, señor.”</p> - -<p>“Never was at Lima in my life.”</p> - -<p>He translated; she made a little dignified gesture of impatience.</p> - -<p>“The lady says that she has met you at the house of——” and here -Antonio named a Spanish merchant of Lima.</p> - -<p>“No,” said I, looking at her and shaking my head.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she cried in English, and spoke rapidly to Antonio.</p> - -<p>“She is not mistaken, <i>caballero</i>. Two thumbs are alike, but two faces -never.”</p> - -<p>“You never were at Lima?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Never,” I exclaimed, laughing.</p> - -<p>“Let her have her way,” said Greaves. “Contrive to have visited Lima, -and to have been a bosom friend of Don——,” and he named the Spanish -merchant. “What does it signify? May it not mean that she is in love -with you, and that her professing to have met you is a Spanish maiden’s -device to cover an advance, as a soldier would say.”</p> - -<p>Antonio continued to squint. I viewed him narrowly, and was satisfied -that he had not understood the captain’s words.</p> - -<p>“Beg the lady to continue her narrative,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>She addressed Antonio in a few sentences at a time. Occasionally her -language was above his understanding; he would look at her stupidly, -until she gave him another nod. How rich was her Spanish, how -honey-sweet her utterance! It was like listening to singing. The -memories which thronged her recital delicately colored with blood her -pale olive cheek; her eyes moistened or sparkled as she spoke, or -watched while Antonio interpreted. Most of the time her gaze was -fastened upon me. It seemed as though she put me before Greaves, as -though the incident of my having had charge of the boat which brought -her off the island, had established me in her gratitude as her -deliverer.</p> - -<p>Her story, however, was little more than a repetition of what has -already been related. Her mother had been absent twenty years from Old -Spain. On the death of her husband, she sold the estate and all her -interest in the business, and went to Acapulco with her daughter, on a -visit to her brother, who was a priest at that place; thence she and -Aurora took shipping for Cadiz.</p> - -<p>The lady broke off at this to implore us, through Antonio, to tell her, -as sailors, whether we believed her mother’s life<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span> had been preserved. -Greaves answered that he considered it very probable that her mother was -alive. Who was to tell that the ship had foundered? Who was to say that -she had not outweathered the gale, been jury-rigged and worked by the -survivors into port, the Señorita Aurora’s mother being on board?</p> - -<p>The girl’s eyes glistened when this was translated. She smiled at -Greaves and thanked him in Spanish. An expression of pleading then -entered her face, and her look took a peculiar color of beauty from the -wistfulness and plaintiveness of it. Why would not the captain set her -ashore at Lima, that she might rejoin her mother, who, on landing—it -mattered not at what port on the coast—was sure to make her way to -Acapulco?</p> - -<p>But Greaves shook his head, smiling into her eyes, which were -impassioned with entreaty.</p> - -<p>“I must go straight home,” said he. “Do not you know that there is a -treasure in our hold, which obliges me to make haste to reach England? I -will take care that you safely arrive at Madrid, even should it come to -myself escorting you, señorita.”</p> - -<p>She bowed, looking sadly.</p> - -<p>“Or here,” said he, extending his hand toward me, “is a cavalier who -will be honored by conducting you to Madrid.”</p> - -<p>She slightly glanced at me, then fastened her eyes upon the deck and -mused for a few moments; then addressed Antonio, who, turning to me, -said—but in English, you will please understand, which I do not attempt -to reproduce, that you may read without hindrance:</p> - -<p>“The lady recollects that when she met you at Lima you spoke Spanish.”</p> - -<p>“I was never at Lima,” I answered, coloring and then laughing.</p> - -<p>“Depend upon it,” said Greaves, “that the fellow she met was -good-looking, or recollection wouldn’t be so bright.”</p> - -<p>“What was the occupation of the gentleman?” said I to the lady, through -Antonio.</p> - -<p>“He was an English naval officer, had been imprisoned, but had been at -liberty some weeks when the señorita met him.”</p> - -<p>“What was his name?”</p> - -<p>“She does not remember; but you are the gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“Be it so,” said I, laughing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span></p> - -<p>“On slenderer evidence have men been hanged,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>Now came a short pause. Antonio shuffled his naked feet, sometimes -looking straight, sometimes squinting, impatient to get forward and -lounge. The longboat had made her second trip, and lay alongside the -beach. The figures of the men crawling from the grove of trees, -trundling the casks among them, showed like beetles in the distance. It -was about eleven o’clock. The sunlight was misty; the swell rolled with -a dull flash in the brows of it; the wind hummed like clustering bees -aloft, and swept the cheek as the breath and kiss of fever. The slewing -of the brig, along with the sliding of the sun, pitched the glare upon -the deck clear of the trysail, in whose shadow we had been conversing. I -called to a man to spread the short awning. Antonio was going; the lady -Aurora detained him.</p> - -<p>“The señorita wants to know,” said the Spanish seaman, “how long the -voyage to England occupies.”</p> - -<p>“We mean to thrash our way home,” answered Greaves. “We shall not take -long. Let us call it three months.”</p> - -<p>“Blessed Virgin! Three months!” echoed the girl in Spanish.</p> - -<p>A fine look of tragic horror enlarged her eyes. She distorted her mouth -into a singular expression. The tension paled her lips and exposed her -teeth.</p> - -<p>Greaves seemed to admire her. For <i>my</i> part, I thought her now the most -beautiful and wonderful creature I had ever heard of—a lady who might -either be angel or devil, you could not tell which; or she might be -both. Her face defied you, for it could put on twenty looks in the -course of a short conversation, thanks to her heavy eyebrows, which were -full of play and character, and thanks to the long lashes of her -eyelids, whose drop or lift, whose languishing falls, and arch or -scornful or playful erections, changed the meaning of her glances for -her as she chose, rendering them, at her will, transparently eloquent or -as inscrutable as a gypsy’s gaze. She put her hand upon her dress, and -Antonio interpreted.</p> - -<p>“The lady’s gown will not last three months, and then, señor?”</p> - -<p>“Chaw!” cried Greaves, and, pointing with something of passion to the -island, he exclaimed—“Ask the lady to put the clock back till the day -before yesterday is reached, and <i>then</i>!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>On this being explained a flash of temper lighted up her eyes.</p> - -<p>“I shall be in rags,” said she, “before you reach your country.”</p> - -<p>“We have needles and thread on board,” said Greaves coolly.</p> - -<p>“You are men, and cannot conceive what it is to be a woman embarking on -a long voyage, possessed of no more clothes than what she has on.”</p> - -<p>“How can we comfort her?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Can the señorita sew?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>Certainly she could sew.</p> - -<p>“Then,” said Greaves, “if the señorita can sew, let her mind be at rest. -I am the owner of a roll of fine duck, which is entirely at her service. -There are yards enough to yield her as many dresses as she needs. Will -she require stuff for trimming? Let her select a flag of two or three -colors. Bunting makes excellent trimming. It is light and brine-proof.”</p> - -<p>Antonio bungled much, and squinted fiercely in the delivery of this; yet -he contrived to make the lady faintly understand the meaning of Greaves’ -speech. She tapped on her knee with her fingers, and seemed to keep time -with the beat of her foot to an air that she inaudibly hummed; her black -eyes were downward bent, but at swift intervals the fringes lifted, and -a glance of light sparkled at me or Greaves. I noticed a pouting play of -mouth. In fact, her air was that of a girl who has been spoiled by -indulgence since her childhood. One figured her as the goddess of the -fandango, the burden of the midnight guitar, and the heroine of a score -of sweethearts.</p> - -<p>“Duck is very well for dresses, sir,” said I. “She is thinking of -under-linen.”</p> - -<p>“We are not to know anything about under-linen,” said Greaves. “She must -make what she wants. She doesn’t seem grateful enough to please me. To -bother me about dress now, after four days of that cinder, and the -deliverance recent enough to keep most people hysterically sobbing and -thanking God in fervent ejaculations!”</p> - -<p>Antonio addressed her. I guessed he wanted to know if he could go. She -spoke to him, and the man, awkwardly smiling, said:</p> - -<p>“The señorita asks if you are Catholics?”</p> - -<p>“Yes and no, for my part,” answered Greaves, looking at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span> her gravely, “I -am heading that way. I believe I shall hoist the Papal flag yet, but -it’s not flying at present.”</p> - -<p>“Is the capitan a Catholic?” repeated the lady.</p> - -<p>“Ay, but not a Papist,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Are you a Catholic, señor?”</p> - -<p>“I love God and hate the devil,” said I. “That is my religion. It is -broad, and there is room for many names upon its back.”</p> - -<p>“Is it customary for ladies, do you know, Fielding, for ladies who have -just been rescued from the horrors of a volcanic island, from perils -hideously increased by the association of such a yellow and by no means -fangless worm as that”—dropping his head in a cool nod at Antonio—“to -inquire into the religious faiths of their preservers?”</p> - -<p>The lady Aurora spoke.</p> - -<p>“The señorita wishes to know when you changed your religion?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, when, indeed?” said I, laughing.</p> - -<p>“You were a very good Catholic at Lima, señor?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, when I was at Lima, I was a very good Catholic?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Then you are the <i>caballero</i> the señorita supposes?”</p> - -<p>“Damn ye, you squinting devil, you know better!” thundered Greaves. -“Jump forward. We’ve had enough of this.”</p> - -<p>The man fled toward the forecastle, noiseless with naked feet. The lady -looked frightened.</p> - -<p>“Lima, señorita—<i>no</i>!” said I smiting my bosom with force.</p> - -<p>She gazed at me earnestly with an expression of misgiving, then -addressed me in Spanish. Greaves gathered her meaning.</p> - -<p>“I believe she says you are not her man, if you are not a Catholic,” -said he; and then pointing at me, and looking at her, he cried out, “No -Catholic—no Lima—not your man, in any sense of the word. Fielding, -what’s that Dutch devil Bol up to?”</p> - -<p>I went to the side to look for the longboat. She was at that moment -coming through the two points of reef. Her oars rose and fell in the -distance in hairs of gold, and she seemed to tow a hair of gold in her -wake as she came out of the calm breast of the harbor into the soundless -heave of the ocean. I reported her approach and lay upon the rail -watching her, and musing upon what had passed between the Spanish maid -and us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span></p> - -<p>It was odd to think of a fine young woman, sitting on the deck of a -vessel, that had but a few hours before taken her off the desolate -island which was still in view, coolly inquiring into the religious -beliefs of her preservers, and looking as though, if time had been given -her, she would presently overhaul our consciences. To be sure, she hoped -that if she found us Catholics, she would get more of her way with us, -obtain pity, sympathy, enough to procure her direct conveyance to a near -port. She left her chair, came close to my side, and stood looking at -the boat; in a moment, pointing to it, she asked in Spanish for its -name. I gave her the name, turning to look at Greaves, who was laughing -softly, but with an averted face. She put more questions, pointing to -the objects, and then lightly laying her fingers upon my arm, she signed -that I should take her forward, glancing at Greaves as she did so, -following the look on with a full stare at me, and a shake of the head -eloquent as her speech. It was for all the world as though she had said -in plain English, “I don’t like that man; let us leave this part of the -ship.”</p> - -<p>I made her understand as best I could, by pointing to the approaching -boat, and then to the yardarm whip for slinging the casks aboard, that -my duty obliged me to stop where I was. She bowed, but with a little -flush, as though vexed by my refusal; indeed, in her whole instant -manner, there was the irritation of your ladyship, of your exacting, -well-served, much-admired, fine young madam, who is very little used to -being disappointed.</p> - -<p>I moved forward toward the gangway by two or three steps, that she might -guess my work prohibited talk; and, in fact, conversation would have -been impossible in a few minutes, for the longboat was fast nearing the -brig, and the job of seeing the water aboard was mine; and that was not -all, either. Greaves was captain; he was on deck, watching and -listening. The influence of the presence of a captain is always strong -upon the seaman, whether he be of the quarter-deck or of the forecastle. -Habit worked like an instinct, and disquieted me. Had Greaves been -below, I daresay I should have been very glad to keep the señorita at my -side, if only for the enjoyment of meeting her full gaze; for the longer -I looked at her eyes, the more did I wonder at their depth and life, at -their transcendent powers of repulsion and solicitation, and eloquence -of rapid expression; and the longer I listened to her voice, the more -was I charmed by the sweetness and richness of it; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> the longer I -beheld her face, the more manifold grew its revelations. But its -revelations of what? My pen has no art to answer that question. You gaze -upon the face of the deep, and beauties steal out of it to your -perception, and you know not how to define them, you know not how to -indicate them. They come blending in an effect that enlarges as you -look, and the sum of the steady revelation is a deepening delight and a -constant growth of wonder. I hear you say, “Had a woman of Spain ever -the beauty you claim or invent for this lady?” My answer is as simple as -a look—I say “Yes.” The Señorita Aurora de la Cueva was a woman of -Spain, and she had the beauty, and more than the beauty, I feebly -attempt to describe. I care not if all the females of Old Spain are as -hideous as hobgoblins and witches; they may all be bearded like the -pard, thatched at the brow with horse hair, their complexions of -chocolate, their figures bolsters; the lady Aurora was beautiful, her -charms I have scarce language enough to hint at, much less portray. This -she was, and whether you believe me or not signifies nothing.</p> - -<p>And I did not much admire the woman when I first saw her! thought I. In -fact, had I rowed her aboard another ship and never seen her again, I -should never have thought of her again. Is it to end in my making a fool -of myself? Does a man make a fool of himself when he falls in love? A -plague upon these cheap cynic phrases which creep into the national -speech, and form the mirth of boys and the wisdom of the sucklings of -literature. But I am not in love yet, anyhow, thought I.</p> - -<p>“Oars!” roared Bol, in the stern sheets of the boat. “Standt by mit der -boathook. Vy der doyfil doan somebody gif us der end of a rope?”</p> - -<p>A rope was flung. My lady Aurora walked forward, calling and beckoning -to Antonio. She arrived abreast of the galley and stood there, and -talked to the Spaniard, pointing about her and clearly asking for the -name of things in English.</p> - -<p>“Fielding,” cried Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Sir,” I answered, facing about.</p> - -<p>“She will be making love to you in your own tongue before another week -is out,” he called.</p> - -<p>“Such a voice as hers would keep anything not deaf listening as long as -she liked.”</p> - -<p>“She has a very sweet voice,” he exclaimed, “and she is a very fine -woman. But should she pick up our tongue, you’ll find the devil that’s -inside of her come drifting out horns first<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span> with the earliest of her -speech. Talk of your fears of the crew! She’s the sort of party to carry -a ship single-handed, though the vessel mounted the guns and was manned -by the complement of the <i>Royal Sovereign</i>. She is learning English for -some piratic motive—it may be the dollars, it may be the brig—for she -don’t want to go, and I dare say she don’t mean to go round the Horn -without her mother. Bol, is this the last load?”</p> - -<p>“Der last loadt, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Bear a hand then to whip the water aboard, and let us get away.”</p> - -<p>It was a quarter before one by the time we had chocked and secured the -longboat and were ready to start on a passage that was to carry us over -many thousands of miles of salt water. The breeze had freshened; soft -small clouds, like shadings in pencil, were sailing up off the edge of -the sea into the misty blue overhead; the luster of the sun was still -pale and brassy, and a look of wind was in the yellow of the disk-shaped -spread of radiance, out of which he looked like an eye of fire in a -target of gold.</p> - -<p>“Make sail, Fielding,” called Greaves, from his chair, on which he had -been sitting ever since he came on deck, though in all those hours he -had not once complained of pain. “Make sail and heap it on her. Bring -her head due south, and let her go.”</p> - -<p>The braces of the yards of the main were manned, the wheel turned, the -canvas filled as the fiery breath, that was now brushing the sea, and -that seemed to come the hotter for the very dimness of the sunshine, -gushed over the quarter. We squared away to it; and now the island -slided by, opening features of its swart, melancholy, loathly rocks, -which had been invisible before. The milk-white burst of surge made the -base of the cliff in the wash of it black. I noticed a hovering of pale -radiance upon the patch of verdure where the grove or wood stood. It was -no more than a patch to our distant eye; it was like the dance of the -South African silver tree. The verdure had the gleam of an emerald, and -you thought of a gem on the sallow breast of death.</p> - -<p>I was full of the business of making sail, yet could find an eye for the -island as it veered away on the quarter. Greaves gazed at it intently, -so did the lady Aurora as she stood at the rail, with her profile cut -clear and keen as a marble bust against the sky over the horizon. The -mouth of the cave<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> yawned upon us, then narrowed, then thinned into a -slice, then vanished round a shoulder of cliff.</p> - -<p>“Pull, you toyfils! Shoomp und run!” bawled Bol, in his hurricane note, -to the two Spaniards, who were loafing near the galley, lazily looking -on at the work that was going forward. “Dis vhas not der islandt—dis -vhas no shipwreck. Shoomp, or I make you fly mit a sharge of goonpowder -in der slack of yer breeks.”</p> - -<p>The royals were sheeted home; trysail, flying jib, staysails set; for it -was a quartering wind, and there was scarce a cloth that we could throw -abroad but could do serviceable work. They called this sort of sailing -in our time <i>going along all fluking</i>, the weather-clew of the mainsail -up and the lee-clew dully lifting its weight of blocks and hawser-like -sheets and thick frame of foot and bolt-rope.</p> - -<p>“Set all stu’n’-sails,” cried Greaves; and soon out to windward soared -to their several yardarms and to their boom-ends those wide, overhanging -spaces of sail, clothing the brig in surf-white cloths from the royal -mast heads to the very heave of the brine, when she rolled her -swinging-boom to windward.</p> - -<p>“Pipe to dinner!” called Greaves.</p> - -<p>The sweet, clear strains of Yan Bol’s whistle found a hundred echoes in -the hollows on high. Aurora gazed upward, as though looking for the -birds. The men had worked hard, and were pale with heat and sweat. They -had worked with a will in making sail. Even the Dutchmen had sprang -along and aloft with a bluejacket’s activity; for we were homeward -bound! a cry in every marine heart magical in its inspiration of swift -and eager labor. With dripping brows the men stood looking at the -receding island, while Yan Bol whistled them to dinner; and when the -burly Dutch boatswain let fall the pipe upon his breast to the length of -its laniard, all hands, moved by feelings which made every throat one -for the moment, roared out a long, wild cheer of farewell to the island, -flourishing caps and arms to it, as though its heights were crowded with -friends who could see and hear them.</p> - -<p>“Look at Galloon!” cried Greaves.</p> - -<p>The dog was on the taffrail, and every bark he sent at the island was -like a loud hurrah, with the significance the noise took from the -wagging of the creature’s tail and the set of the whole figure of him.</p> - -<p>“He knows we are homeward bound,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“And that the dollars are aboard,” said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span></p> - -<p>Miss Aurora went to the dog, caressed, and talked to him. The lad -Jimmy’s head showed at the galley door. Greaves hailed him to know when -dinner would be ready.</p> - -<p>“Another twenty minutes, master.”</p> - -<p>“Heave the log, Fielding, and let’s get the pace at the start.”</p> - -<p>All expression of pain was now passed out of his face; likewise had his -natural, fresh color returned to him. The triumph of this time had -kindled his eyes anew, and there were pride and content in the looks -which he cast around his brig and over the rail at the island. And I -think if ever there was a man who had a right to feel satisfied with -himself and his work, Greaves, at this time, was he; for, truly, -something more than talent had gone to the discovery of the dollars in -the caverned ship. Mere accident it was that had disclosed the vessel, -but it needed the genius of a great adventurer to light upon the -dollars, to note all the particulars of the Spanish manifest, to hold -the secret behind his teeth till he got home, to inspire such an old -hunks as Bartholomew Tulp with confidence enough to shed his blood, or, -in other words, to disburse his money, in the furtherance of this -enterprise of recovery.</p> - -<p>I called a couple of men aft and hove the log. What is the log? It is a -reel round which are wound many fathoms of line; at the end of the line -is attached a piece of wood, sometimes a canvas bag, designed to grip -the water when it is hove overboard. The line is spaced into knots, and -the running of it is timed by a glass of sand. This log is one of the -oldest contrivances we have at sea. With it the early navigators groped -their way about the world. It found them New Holland and the Indies, and -both Americas. It was their longitude and often their latitude. It was -their chronometer and sextant. We use it still, and cannot better it. A -simple and noble old contrivance is the log. May the mariner never lose -faith in it! Crutched by the log on one side, and the lead on the other, -he may hobble round the globe in safety, defiant of shoals, regardless -of fogs.</p> - -<p>I hove the log, and made the speed seven knots.</p> - -<p>“A good start!” exclaimed Greaves, rising and coming slowly to the rail, -and looking over. He walked without inconvenience or pain, and stood -with a thoughtful face, gazing at the satin-white sheets of foam sliding -past. Madam Aurora left Galloon and came to my side, but Galloon -followed her—never went there to sea a friendlier, a more affectionate -dog. The men were hauling in the dripping log line and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span> reeling it up. -The lady with a smile said with a very good accent, “How do you call -it?” I laughed as I pronounced the word <i>log</i>. Oh, what should it convey -to the imagination of a Spanish maiden?</p> - -<p>She understood, however, for what purpose it had been used, and with -eloquent gestures inquired the speed. I held up my fingers.</p> - -<p>“<i>Quien lo hubiera creído?</i>” cried she.</p> - -<p>“She is not grumbling, I hope,” called Greaves from the rail, and he -slowly approached us.</p> - -<p>The lady looked for a little while very earnestly at the captain, with a -world of meaning in her beautiful eyes—meaning so eloquent in <i>desire</i> -of expression, that it was pathetic to witness the arrest of speech in -her gaze and face. She then with grace and dignity motioned round the -sea.</p> - -<p>“It is very wide, and the voyage before us is a long one—I understand -that,” interpreted Greaves; and never did man peruse lineaments more -speaking or translate glances more radiant and expressive.</p> - -<p>She then placed the forefinger of her right hand upon her lips to -signify silence or dumbness.</p> - -<p>“Which means,” said Greaves, “that you can’t speak our tongue, and don’t -like the prospect, accordingly.”</p> - -<p>She then took her dress in her hand, putting on a most mournful -countenance.</p> - -<p>“Yaw, yaw,” cried Greaves, with a little irritation, “we have discussed -that matter, madam. But there is white duck below—duck for the duck, -what d’ye say, Fielding? and there are hussifs in the fok’sle.”</p> - -<p>I believed that her dumb show was at an end. Not at all. Clasping her -hands sparkling with the several rings she wore, and raising them in a -posture of supplication to the level of her mouth, she upturned her face -to the sky, and with an inimitable expression of entreaty, of piteous -prayer rather, insomuch that her eyes seemed to swim and her lips to -work, she stood while you could have counted ten.</p> - -<p>“Sainted and purest of all the Marias, put pity into the heart of this -British captain, and cause him to set me ashore, for the sea is wide and -the voyage is long; and I am possessed by a dumb devil and cast among -heretics; and I have but one gown; and, O Maria and ye saints! candles -shall ye have in plenty, mortification will I undergo, prayers by the -fathom will I recite, choice gifts will I make to Holy Mother Church, if -ye<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> will but soften the heart of the durned, slab-sided skipper who -stands opposite me, interpreting my mind. There ye have it, Fielding. -That’s what her gestures said, that’s what her eyes looked. But I tell -you what—this sort of thing will grow tiresome presently. You must bear -a hand and teach her to speak English.”</p> - -<p>“Dinner’s on the table, master,” said Jimmy, putting his head through -the companion way.</p> - -<p>“Call Yan Bol aft to stand a lookout while we dine, Fielding,” said -Greaves, “and give your arm to the lady and bring her below. She don’t -like me.”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br /><br /> -<small>A FIGHT.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> had swept the island out of sight before we left the dinner table. -When I came on deck the horizon had closed somewhat upon us. The ocean -was a weak blue, and ran with a frosty sparkle into a sort of film or -thickness that went all round the sea. The breeze had freshened, and it -whipped the waters into little billows, with yearning and snapping heads -of foam, and it was pouring its increasing volume into the lofty height -and wide expanse of canvas under which the brig was thrusting along in a -staggering, rushing way, the glass-smooth curve of brine at the bow -breaking abreast of the gangway with a twelve-knot flash of the foam -into the throbbing race of the long wake.</p> - -<p>We kept her so throughout the afternoon until six o’clock, when the -evening began to darken eastward; we then took in the lower and -topgallant studding sails, but left her to drag the fore topmast -studding sails if she could not carry it, for this was wind to make the -most of; we could not, to our impatience, come up with the Horn too -soon; many parallels were there for our keel to cut before we should -find ourselves abreast of that headland; degrees of latitude lying like -hurdles for the brig to take along that mighty and majestic course of -ocean.</p> - -<p>That same night of the day of our departure from the island, Greaves -came out of the cabin and walked the deck with me. He had been amusing -himself for an hour below with the company of the Señorita Aurora. From -time to time I had watched them through the skylight. He smoked a cigar; -a glass of grog stood at his elbow, some wine and ship’s biscuit before -the lady. He held a pencil, and from time to time wrote,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> looking up at -her; and she would bend over the paper, read, give him a dignified nod, -take the pencil, and herself write.</p> - -<p>But it seemed to me that she forced herself to endure this tuition. She -held herself as much away from him as the obligation of writing and -extending her hand and receiving the paper permitted. This went on till -about nine o’clock. The lady then withdrew, and Greaves came on deck as -I have said.</p> - -<p>“This is fine sailing,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Ay, indeed. I would part with some of those dollars below for a month -of it.”</p> - -<p>“I have been teaching the girl English, and have picked up some Spanish -words from her. She is an apt scholar; her mind is as swift as the light -in her eyes. It is clever of her to wish to learn English. We can’t be -always sending for that fellow Antonio. She seemed astonished when I -talked of three months, but she knows—she <i>must</i> know—that the run -might occupy a vessel more than three months. What change would the -skipper of the craft she sailed out of Acapulco in be willing to give -out of <i>four</i> months, ay, and perhaps five, in a passage to Cadiz?”</p> - -<p>“She, perhaps, thought of herself as being without clothes when you -talked of three months, and so cried out.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it is clever of her to wish to learn English. Here she is, and -here she’s likely to remain until we send her ashore in the Downs.”</p> - -<p>“But why?”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Is there no chance of something coming along,” said I, “in which we can -send her to a port this side America?”</p> - -<p>“She knows there is a big treasure on board.”</p> - -<p>“That’s sure.”</p> - -<p>“She knows that it is Spanish money, and how got by us.”</p> - -<p>“True.”</p> - -<p>“Well, now, send her out of this brig with our secret in her head, and -we stand to be chased by the chap we put her aboard of.”</p> - -<p>“Not if she be an English ship.”</p> - -<p>“I’d trust no Englishman in this part of the world. Figure a craft as -heavily armed again as our little brig; figure <i>that</i>, and then count -our crew forward there. I’ll have no risks. I’ll speak nothing. We have -got what we came to fetch, and this is to be my last voyage. I am a rich -man now. There are thirty-six thousand pounds belonging to me below. -No,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span> Fielding, the lady will have to go along with us. You shall teach -her English, she shall teach me Spanish. She shall pour out tea, act the -hostess, sing; the very spirit of melody swells her fine throat every -time she opens her lips. She shall make dresses for herself and -under-linen.”</p> - -<p>“And the two Spaniards?”</p> - -<p>“They must go along with us too. They are a worthless, skulking pair of -fellows, I fear; but we must keep ’em.”</p> - -<p>“They get no dollars?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Not so much as shall buy them soap. We have saved their lives; that’s -good pay for such service as they’ll render. What shall you do with your -money?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I have often considered, captain,” I answered. “I believe I shall -buy a little house, put what remains out at interest, and go a-fishing -for the rest of my days. And you?”</p> - -<p>“First of all,” he answered, “I shall knock off the sea. I shall then -strike deep inland and look for a little estate in the heart of a -midland shire. I do not know that I shall marry. Should I marry, it will -be with a lady of my own degree in life. I will play the gentleman only -so far as I am entitled by my condition to represent one. I will be no -sham. There is no yardarm high enough for the hanging of the men who, -having got or inherited money, set up as country gentlemen, still -splashed with the mud of the gutter out of which their fathers crawled, -shaking themselves—illiterate, vulgar, scorned by the footmen who stand -behind their chairs, belly-crawlers, title-lickers, toadies. Faugh! I -once made a rhyme on shams—four lines—the only rhymes I ever made in -my life:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Pull up your blinds that all the world may see<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The house you live in and the man you be.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The blinds are up, and now the sun hath shone:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The house is empty and the man is gone.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“By which you mean to imply——” said I.</p> - -<p>“By which I mean to imply,” he interrupted, “that if the lines don’t -tell their own story they must be deuced bad.”</p> - -<p>He stopped to look at the compass. The night was dark, but the dusk had -cleared. The clouds raced swiftly over the stars, and the wind blew -strong, but with no increase of weight since we had taken in the -studding sails. The brig rushed along, leaving a meteor’s line of light -astern of her. The dim squares of her royals swayed on high with the -floating stroke of a pendulum. I admired the dark and pallid picture of -the little fabric speeding lonely through this vast field of night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span></p> - -<p>Greaves came from the binnacle and stood beside me.</p> - -<p>“Fielding,” he exclaimed, with cordiality strong in his voice, “it -rejoices my heart when I reflect that I, whose life you saved, should, -by a very miracle of chance, be the one man chosen, as it were, to -substantially, and I may say handsomely, serve you.”</p> - -<p>“I shall walk through my days blessing your name,” said I, grasping the -hand he extended. “And how have you repaid me? You have not only -preserved me from drowning, you make me easy for the rest of my time.”</p> - -<p>“The accounts are squared to my taste,” said he. “I am very well -satisfied. To-morrow I shall want you to take stock of the cases in the -lazarette. You found them heavy?”</p> - -<p>“All, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And all are full, no doubt. But you shall make sure for me.”</p> - -<p>“I shall want help,” said I. “Whom shall I choose among the crew?”</p> - -<p>“It matters not,” he answered. “All hands know the money is there.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but it is an <i>idea</i> to them now. When they come to see the sparkle -of the white dollars!”</p> - -<p>“There is no good in distrusting them,” said he. “I am aware that your -fears run that way. When we were outward bound your fears ran in another -direction,” he added dryly. “Let me tell you this, whether we choose to -trust the men or not, they’re aboard; they man the ship; they are the -people who are to navigate her home. We <i>must</i> trust them,” he repeated -with emphasis. “In fact,” he continued after a short pause, “I would set -an example of good faith by letting them understand how entirely I trust -them. Therefore, to-morrow, take Bol and two others of the men who were -left aboard me when you went to the <i>Casada</i>, and examine the cases in -their presence, you testing, they moving the boxes for you.”</p> - -<p>I replied in the customary sea phrase; for this was a direct order, the -wisdom of which it was no duty of mine to challenge. Shortly afterward -he went below.</p> - -<p>It blew so fresh that night and next day, however, that the sea ran too -high to enable me to get below among the cases. It was a spell of wild, -hard weather for that part of the world, though it never blew so fierce -as to oblige us to heave-to.</p> - -<p>The gale held steady on the quarter and we stormed along,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> the white -seas rising in clouds as high as the foretop and blowing ahead like vast -bursts of steam from the hatchway.</p> - -<p>Greaves pressed the brig, and she rushed through the surge in madness. I -never before saw a vessel spring through the seas as did the <i>Black -Watch</i> at this time under a single-reefed foresail and double-reefed -topsails. She’d be in a smother forward, just a seething dazzle of yeast -’twixt the forecastle rails, everything hidden that way in a snowstorm, -so that you’d think the whole length of her was thundering into the -boiling whiteness about her bows; but in a breath she’d leap, black and -streaming, to the height of the lifting sea, with a toss of the head -that filled the wind with crystals and prisms of brine, while a -long-drawn whistling and hooting came out of the fabric of her slanting -masts, and the water blew forward in white smoke from the gushing -scuppers.</p> - -<p>Then came a change; the dawn of the third morning painted a delicate -lilac along the eastern sky, and when the sun rose over the wide Pacific -the morning was one of cloudless splendor.</p> - -<p>At eight o’clock Yan Bol came aft to take charge of the deck. I told him -that presently we would be going into the lazarette to take stock of the -cases of silver, and that the captain would keep a lookout while he was -below.</p> - -<p>A dull light glittered in the eyes of the big Dutchman. He grinned and -said, “Vill not she be a long shob, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said I.</p> - -<p>“How long shall she take a man to gount a tousand dollars? Und dere vhas -hoondreds und tousands of dollars to gount below.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think I mean to count the dollars?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw.”</p> - -<p>I arched my eyebrows at him, and then gave him my back.</p> - -<p>“Veil, I vhas sorry. I like gounting money. Dere vhas a shoy in der feel -of money if so be ash he vhas gold or silver—I do not love copper—dot -makes me happier, Mr. Fielding, dan any odder pleasure. Ox me vhy und I -tells you? Because vhen I gounts money she vhas mine own. No man gives -me his money to gount. She vhas mine own; but leedle I have, and vhen I -counts her it vhas after long years, so dot der pleasure vhas all der -same as a pipe und a pot to a man vhen he comes out of der lockoop.”</p> - -<p>While I breakfasted I enjoyed some conversation in dumb show with the -lady Aurora—dumb show for the most part, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span> should say—for a number of -English words she now possessed, and I was astonished not more by her -memory than by the excellence of her pronunciation. Her knowledge of a -single word uttered by me seemed to light up the whole phrase to her -perception. Her gaze would continue passionately wistful and expectant -whenever she listened with a desire to understand, and whenever she -seized or thought she had seized the sense of what was said, a flush -visited her cheeks, her whole face brightened.</p> - -<p>There was a degree of eagerness in this desire of hers to learn English -that was a little perplexing. It was an earnestness, call it an -enthusiasm if you will, that went beyond my idea of her need. It was -intelligible that she should wish to make herself understood. She would -now know that she was to be locked up in a ship with a number of -Englishmen for three or four months; what more reasonable than that she -should desire to make her wants intelligible without being forced upon -so disagreeable and ignorant an interpreter as Antonio, and without -seeking expression in grimaces and the lunatic language of the eyebrows, -shoulders, and hands? What more reasonable, I ask? But her earnestness, -her zeal, her satisfaction when she understood, caused me to wonder -somewhat when I thought of her in this way. She was on a desert island a -few days ago, with small prospect of deliverance from as frightful a -fate as could well befall a woman. For all she knew her mother was -drowned; she might be an orphan, and who was to tell what property -belonging to her and her mother had sunk in the Spaniard from which she -had escaped, supposing that vessel to have foundered? And yet spite of -all this her spirits were good, her beauty growing as the lingering -traces of her suffering died out. She took an interest in everything her -eyes rested upon, questioning me like a child, questioning Greaves, nay, -walking forward, as I have told you, to ask Antonio for the English -names of things, and all the while her troubles, so far as she was able -to express them, did not go beyond an anxiety as to clothes for herself -and an eagerness to pick up our tongue.</p> - -<p>These thoughts ran in my head as I ate my breakfast, while she talked to -me by gesticulation, occasionally uttering a word or two in English, and -listening with shining eyes to the sentences I let fall in my own -speech. Greaves lay upon a locker. He listened, sometimes smiling, but -rarely spoke. He complained this morning of an aching in his side where -he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> hurt himself, and said that he feared he had made a mistake in -walking yesterday; he was afraid he had overworked the bruised ribs, but -he looked well, and when he spoke there was a heartiness in his voice. -It was as likely as not that he had angered the bruise by too much -walking about the decks, and I advised him to lie up until the pain -went.</p> - -<p>However, the brig was to be watched while I went into the lazarette with -Bol and the others, so I sent Jimmy on deck with a chair, and when I had -breakfasted Greaves got up, put his hand upon my shoulder, and together -we ascended the companion ladder.</p> - -<p>Yan Bol was carpenter as well as bo’sun and sail-maker. I bade him fetch -the necessary tools for opening the cases and securing them again. With -us went Henry Call and another—I forget who that man was. We lighted a -couple of lanterns, and going into the cabin lifted the lazarette hatch -that was just abaft the companion steps. The lady Aurora came to the -square hole to look at us, and inquired by signs what we were going to -do. I shrugged Spanish fashion, and made a face at her, that she might -gather that what we were going to do was entirely beyond the art of my -shoulders and arms to communicate.</p> - -<p>“Doan she shpeak no English, Mr. Fielding?” said Bol, as he handed down -his tools to Call, who was already in the lazarette.</p> - -<p>“No,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Veil, I, Yan Bol, teaches him herself in a month for von of her rings.”</p> - -<p>“Over with ye, Bol. Catch hold of this lantern.”</p> - -<p>He dropped through the hatch and I followed, and Miss Aurora stood at -the edge of the square of the hole, holding by the companion steps and -peering down.</p> - -<p>There were one hundred and forty cases; we examined every one of them; -it was a long job. I felt mighty reluctant at first to let Bol prize -open the lids and gaze with the others at the dull, frosty glitter of -the long rolls of dollars; but a little reflection made me sensible of -the force of Greaves’ argument. If the crew were not to be trusted, what -was to be done? And was it not a mere piece of cheap quarter-deck -subtlety on my part to hold that the <i>idea</i> of the dollars being aft was -not the same as <i>seeing</i> them?</p> - -<p>There was no need to watch very anxiously; the dollars were packed as -tightly as though the metal had been poured<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> red-hot into the cases and -hardened in solid blocks. There was never a nail on Bol’s stump-ended -fingers that could have scratched a coin out.</p> - -<p>“Vhas dere goldt here as veil ash silver?” he inquired.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding, but how vhas you to know?”</p> - -<p>“How was anybody to know what these cases contained at all? Shove ahead, -will ye, and ask fewer questions. Are we to be here all day?”</p> - -<p>It was as hot as fire in this lazarette. Our blood was speedily in a -blaze and our clothes soaked. The three Jews who were summoned from the -province of Babylon to be hove into a burning furnace suffered not as we -did. Bol’s eyes took a gummy look and turned dull as bits of jelly fish; -yet the three fellows were perfectly happy in staring at the silver and -pulling the cases about. Every time a lid was lifted their heads came -together in the sheen of the lantern, and rude sounds of rejoicing broke -from them.</p> - -<p>“How many sprees goes to each box?”</p> - -<p>“There’s an Atlantic Ocean of drink in this here case alone.”</p> - -<p>“Smite me, but if this gets blown the girls’ll be coming down to meet -the brig afore she’s reported.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas a handsome coin. I likes to feel her in mine pocket. How much -vhas she vurth, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“All that you shall be able to buy with her. Next case, and bear a -hand.”</p> - -<p>“How many tousand dollars vhas tdere in all?”</p> - -<p>“Enough to stiffen you with sausage and to keep ye oozy with schnapps.”</p> - -<p>We worked our way to the bottom case, and every case was chock-a-block, -as we say at sea—filled flush—and the dollars by the lantern light -resembled exquisitely wrought chain armor. I saw that every case was -securely nailed; the boxes were restowed. We then climbed out of the -lazarette, and Bol and the others went forward while I put on the hatch, -padlocked it, and withdrew the key.</p> - -<p>I plunged my fire-red face in water, quickly shifted, and quitted the -cabin, tired, burning hot, but very well satisfied with the morning’s -work. Greaves was seated in a chair, and Miss Aurora walked the deck, in -the shadow of the little awning, pacing the planks abreast of him. Her -carriage, to use the old-fashioned word, had she been draped as the -beauties of her person demanded, would have been lofty yet flowing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> -dignified yet easy and floating, graceful as the motions of a dancer who -swims from the dance into walking; but the barbaric cut of her gown -spoiled all. Never did I behold a woman’s dress so ridiculously shaped. -It was a grief to an English eye, for in my country the girls’ costumes -were just such as would have hit and sweetened by suggestion the form of -Miss Aurora. Well do I remember the English girls’ style of 1815; the -neckerchief with its peep of white breast, the girdle under the swelling -bosom, the fair up and down fall of drapery thence. Never do I recall -that costume, with its hat of chip or leghorn, without a fancy of the -smell of buttercups and daisies, the flavor of cream, the scent of a -milkmaid fresh from the udder.</p> - -<p>I handed the key to Greaves. He put it in his pocket and gazed at me -inquiringly.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right, sir, to the bottom dollar,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Good!” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“It is so much right,” said I, “that I am disposed to think there is -more money than the manifest represents.”</p> - -<p>“There are five hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one hundred and -forty cases. I wish there may be more, but I suspect the entry was -correct. What did the men say?”</p> - -<p>“Yan Bol was all a-rumble with questions. There will be much talk -forward.”</p> - -<p>“There has been much talk aft,” he exclaimed, smiling. “Sailors are -human, and those fellows yonder are to pocket twelve hundred dollars -apiece besides their wages on this job. Let them talk. Let imagination -run away with them. Let the fiddle be jigging in their ears; let their -Polls be seated on their knees—in fancy. Keep their hearts willing, for -this bucket has to be whipped home.”</p> - -<p>The lady Aurora looked and listened as she paced abreast of us. Her -eyes, full of light, often rested on me. Greaves ran his gaze slightly -over her figure, and, leaning back in his chair and looking away, that -she might not suspect he talked of her, said:</p> - -<p>“Our dark and lonely friend is mighty full of curiosity. I can believe -that Eve was such another. When Eve walked round the apple tree and -looked up at the fruit, with her head a little on one side, she wore -just the sort of expression the dark and lonely party puts on when she -motions a question.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Qué hora es</i>, señor?” said the lady.</p> - -<p>Greaves made her understand, by pronouncing the word<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> “one” in Spanish -and by gesticulating the remainder of his meaning, that it was drawing -on to two o’clock.</p> - -<p>“She may be hungry,” said I.</p> - -<p>“She shall be fed in a few minutes,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>The girl seated herself on the skylight and watched the motion of -Greaves’ lips, listening, at the same time, with a little frown of -attention to the pronunciation of the words he coolly delivered:</p> - -<p>“I was observing,” said he, with an askant glance at her, “that the dark -and lonely party is mighty full of curiosity. She tried to pump me about -the dollars below; wanted to know what you were doing in the hold; asked -the value of the treasure.”</p> - -<p>“How did you understand her?”</p> - -<p>“She beckoned to Antonio; but when I found she had no more to say than -<i>that</i>, I sent him forward again with a sea blessing on his head. And -when I was taking sights she put out her hand for my quadrant. I let her -hold it. She clapped it to her eye—shutting the eye to which she put -it, of course—fell to fingering the thing, and I took it from her. I -wish she wasn’t so handsome. A little mustache, a pretty shadowing of -beard, the Valladolid complexion, and a few chocolate teeth would make -the difference I want, to enable me to look my meaning when she teases -me with questions. But who could be angry with the owner of those eyes?”</p> - -<p>He gazed at her fully. She averted her face suddenly. I fancied I caught -a fleeting expression of aversion, or, at all events, of distrust. She -flashed her eyes upon me with a gaze as significant as though she -understood what Greaves had been talking about, rose from the skylight, -and motioned me to walk with her. Greaves left his chair and stepped -slowly to the companion way. At this moment Jimmy came along with the -cabin dinner. The lady, inclining her face to my ear, spoke low in -Spanish, pointed to the cabin skylight, shook her head, then pressed her -forefinger to her lip, all which, in plain English, meant: “I don’t like -him.” I could have answered that she owed her life to him as master of -the ship, and that his offhand manners were British, and meant nothing.</p> - -<p>“Dinner,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Dinner,” she repeated, smiling.</p> - -<p>She repeated the word several times.</p> - -<p>“Will you come?” said I.</p> - -<p>These words she likewise repeated; then, giving me a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span> little bow, she -extended her hand, that I might conduct her below.</p> - -<p>The evening of this same day was soft and beautiful, rich with the -lights of heaven; the ocean so calm that some of the most brilliant of -the luminaries found reflection in the water—tremulous, wire-like lines -of silver; yet had the breeze body enough to give the brig way. It came -fanning and breathing cool as dew off the dark surface of the sea, and -the refreshment of it after the fiery heat of the day was as drink to -the parched throat.</p> - -<p>I walked in the gangway, smoking a pipe. It was shortly after eight -o’clock. Yan Bol was aft with Greaves. The lady Aurora was in the cabin -writing with a pencil. Some seamen were in the bows of the brig; their -shadowy figures flitted to and fro, all very quietly. Voices proceeded -from the other side of the caboose; the speakers did not probably know -that I walked near. I could not choose but listen. One was Antonio, the -other Wirtz, and the third Thomas Teach.</p> - -<p>“What I don’t understand’s this,” said the voice of Teach. “Th’ole man -[meaning Captain Greaves] falls in with that there ship locked up in the -island, and boards her. He finds the silver—why didn’t he take it, -instead of leaving it with a chance of the vessel going to pieces, or -some covey a-nabbing the dollars afore he could come back for them?”</p> - -<p>“Dot may seem all right to you,” said Wirtz, “but see here, Tommy; -shuppose der captain had took der dollars into der ship he commanded -vhen he falls in mit der island; vhat do his crew say? Und vhen he -arrives vhat vhas he to do mit der dollars? Gif dem oop to der owners of -his ship? By Cott, he see dem dom’d first. If he keep der dollars for -himself, how vhas he going to landt dem on der sly mitout der crew -asking him for one-half, maybe, and making him like as he can hang -himself for der rest? Dot’s vhere she vhas. No, no,” rumbled the man in -his deep, Dutch voice, “der capt’n know his beesiness. Dis trip for der -dollars vhas vhat you English call shipshape und Pristol fashion.”</p> - -<p>“Is the dollars to be run, I wonder, when we gets home?” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean shmuggled?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, smuggled’s the word, Yonny,” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Vell, if dey vhas not run dey vhas seized.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s a-going to seize ’em?”</p> - -<p>“Ox der captain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I’d blow the blooming brains out of any man’s head as laid a finger on -my share,” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Yaw, und you gif me der pleasure of seeing you hanging oop by der neck. -Den I pulls off my hat, und I say how vhas she oop dere mit you? Vhas he -pretty vindy oop dere?”</p> - -<p>“When I gets my share,” said Teach, after a pause, “I’m a-going in for a -buster. There’ll be no half-laughs and purser’s grins about the -gallivanting I’ve chalked out for myself. There’s Galen always a-telling -us what he’s going to do with his money; sometimes he’s a-going to buy a -share in a vessel; then, no, dumm’d if he is, he’ll buy a house and put -his young woman into it; then no, dumm’d if he’ll do that, he’ll clap -his money in a bank, and wait till the figures grow big enough to allow -of his living like a gent for the remainder of his days.”</p> - -<p>“Vhen I gets my money dis vhas my shoke,” said the Dutchman. “My girl -shall teach me to eat. She shall puy me a silver fork. By Cott, I drink -mine beer out of silver. Every day I hov veal broth, und sausages, peas -und salad, stewed apple und ham, und pickled herrings mit smoked beef, -und butter und sheese, und I shplits myself mit almonds und raisins.”</p> - -<p>“I like the taste of the Dutch!” cried Antonio, in a voice that sounded -thin and almost shrill after Wirtz’s. “When I get my money see what it -shall bring me; white cod and onions from Galicia, walnuts from Biscay, -oranges from Mercia, sausages from Estramadura”—here he loudly smacked -his lips—“sweet citrons and iced barley-water and water-melons. <i>Vaya!</i> -What have you to say now to your veal broth and salt herrings? And I -will have Malaga raisins, and my olives shall come from Seville, and my -grapes and figs from Valencia. <i>Vaya!</i> I am a Spaniard, and this is how -a Spaniard chooses. All that is good may be had in Madrid, and all that -is good will I have when my share is paid me.”</p> - -<p>There fell a short silence as of astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Share!” cried Wirtz in a low, deep, trembling voice. “Share didt you -say? Shpeak again. I like to hear dot verdt vonce more.”</p> - -<p>“Share! What share are ye talking about. Ye aint thinking of the dollars -below, I hope?” said Teach, in a tone of menace.</p> - -<p>“I expect a share,” said the Spaniard.</p> - -<p>“Oxpect—say dot again. I likes to hear you shpeak,” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span> Wirtz, with -an accent that made me figure him doubling his fist.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t I a sailor on board this ship?” said Antonio.</p> - -<p>“A <i>sailor</i>, d’ye call yourself?” cried Teach. “Well,” he snapped, -“suppose y’ are, what then?”</p> - -<p>“I have a right to a share.”</p> - -<p>“And do you tink you get a share?”</p> - -<p>“I have a right to a share,” repeated the Spaniard in a sullen note.</p> - -<p>“Call her a shoke or I vill fight mit you,” said Wirtz.</p> - -<p>“I will not fight,” said the Spaniard in a dogged voice. “I have a right -to a share. The capitan will pay me and Jorge. We are sailors with you, -and are helping to navigate this brig to your country. The dollars are -Spanish; they are money of my own country. The capitan is a gentleman, -and will not wrong me and Jorge, and we will receive our share as a part -of the crew.”</p> - -<p>This was followed by a Dutch oath, by a crash and a low cry.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, there—hallo!” I called. “What are you men about there on -t’other side the caboose?”</p> - -<p>I sprang across the deck, and, by such light as the stars made, beheld -Antonio in the act of getting on to his legs.</p> - -<p>“Mind! He may have a knife!” shouted Teach. The Spaniard, uttering a -malediction, whipped a blade from a sheath that lay strapped to his hip, -and flung it upon the deck. The point of the weapon pierced the plank, -and the knife stood upright.</p> - -<p>“I am no assassin! I do not draw knives upon men!” cried Antonio.</p> - -<p>“Who knocked this man down?” I demanded.</p> - -<p>“I—Vertz.</p> - -<p>“You are a bully and a ruffian. This is a shipwrecked man, scarce -recovered from great sufferings. He is half your size, too.”</p> - -<p>“He talked of his share, Heer Fielding, und my bloodt poiled. We safe -his life, he eats und drinks, und der toyfil has der impudence to talk -of his share!”</p> - -<p>“Forward there! What is wrong?” cried the voice of Greaves. “Where is -Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Here, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What is wrong, I am asking.”</p> - -<p>“Come aft to the captain, the three of you,” said I; and I led the way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span></p> - -<p>All hands were on deck at this hour. The forecastle was roasting, and -the watch below lay about the forward part of the decks. The whole crew, -therefore, heard the noise, were drawn by it, and followed me as I went -aft, Teach loitering in my wake to tell those who brought up the rear -that “the blooming Spaniard was swearing he’d a right to a share of the -dollars, and that he was bragging as how he meant to spend his money in -Madrid on onions and figs, when he was brought up with a round turn by -Yonny Vertz’s fist.”</p> - -<p>It is strange that unto the eye of memory the picture which the brig at -this hour made should stand the most clearly cut, the most sharply -defined of all my recollections of her. Why is this? Because, perhaps, -of the accentuation that night scene took from the shadowy heap of the -men assembled upon the quarter-deck, from the quarrel beside the -caboose, from the significance that must come into any sort of -difficulty aboard us from the treasure in the lazarette.</p> - -<p>The sails soared dark and still in the weak night-wind; a brook-like -bubbling noise of water rose from under the bows; the vessel was steeped -in the dye of the night; but there was a faint shining in the air round -about the illuminated binnacle, and a dim sheen hovered over the cabin -skylight. The sea sloped vast and flat to the scintillant wall of the -sky. The voices of the men deepened upon the ear the silence out upon -the ocean. It was a night to set the mind running upon that saying and -realizing it: “And darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the -Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”</p> - -<p>“What’s wrong?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>The shapeless figure of Bol came trudging from the neighborhood of the -wheel to listen.</p> - -<p>“There’s been some sort of discussion between Wirtz and Antonio,” said -I, “and Wirtz knocked the Spaniard down.”</p> - -<p>“Captain,” exclaimed Wirtz, “all hands likes to know if der Spaniards -you safe shares in der dollars?”</p> - -<p>“Who began the row?” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“Señor,” exclaimed Antonio, “I was speaking of the food that we eat in -my country——”</p> - -<p>“Captain,” bawled Teach, “he was a-bragging of the cod and onions, the -nuts and barley-water he meant to treat hisself to out of his share, as -he calls it, when he gets to his home.”</p> - -<p>“She made mine plood poil,” cried Wirtz; “und he laughs at me vhen I -speaks of vhat ve eats in mine own country.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Señor,” exclaimed Antonio, “have not Jorge and me a right to a share?”</p> - -<p>“Of what?”</p> - -<p>“Of the money in the cases—of my country’s money—that you take out of -the Spanish ship.”</p> - -<p>“Bol shall slit your nose if you talk like that. You rascal! Is it not -enough that we have saved your life? And what d’ye mean by your -country’s money? Of what country are you?”</p> - -<p>“I am of Spain, señor; born at Salamanca.”</p> - -<p>“There is no money in your country,” shouted Greaves. “Ye are paupers -all, cowards all, sneaks and rogues to a man.” Yan Bol laughed deep. -“Speak again of the money below being the money of your country, and -we’ll hang ye.”</p> - -<p>“Señor,” said Antonio, “am I and Jorge to receive no money for working -as sailors in this ship?”</p> - -<p>“Not so much as will purchase you a rag to wind round your greasy -ankles.”</p> - -<p>A half-smothered laugh broke from Wirtz and others.</p> - -<p>“We ask, then, that you land us,” said the Spaniard, whose audacity in -continuing to address Greaves was scarcely less astonishing than the -captain’s extraordinary exhibition of temper and wilder display of -words.</p> - -<p>“Mind that you are not landed at the bottom of the sea, with a -twenty-four pound shot to keep you there,” cried Greaves. “Wirtz, did -you knock that man down?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, captain,” responded Wirtz, in a voice that made one guess at the -grin upon his face.</p> - -<p>“You are a big man, Wirtz, and Antonio is a little man. Wirtz, I wish -you may not be a coward at heart. Know you not,” cried Greaves, -elevating his voice, “that it is written, ‘Make not an hungry soul -sorrowful; neither provoke a man in his distress.’ The soul of Antonio -is hungry for dollars and you have made him sorrowful; he is in -distress, being shipwrecked and having lost all his clothes, and you -have provoked him. Your grog is stopped for a week, Wirtz.”</p> - -<p>“By Cott, but dot vhas hardt upon a man,” said the Dutchman.</p> - -<p>“Now get forward, all hands,” exclaimed Greaves, “but mark you this; any -man who raises his hand against another on board this brig goes into -irons and forfeits his share of dollars. This is to be a peaceful and a -smiling ship. We are going to get home sweetly and soberly; then comes -your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span> enjoyment—the pleasures of beasts or men, as you choose. Let no -man say no to this.”</p> - -<p>He walked aft; I thought he would stay to have a word with me. Instead -he immediately descended into the cabin. The men moved forward, talking -among themselves, some of them laughing.</p> - -<p>Yan Bol came up to me and said:</p> - -<p>“I tell you vhat, Mr. Fielding, der Captain Greaves vhas a very fine -shentleman.”</p> - -<p>“Very.”</p> - -<p>“How he talks—mine Cott, how he talks! I would gif half mine dollars to -talk like dot shentleman.”</p> - -<p>“He is an educated man, and speaks well.”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, vell indeedt. I like der sheck of Antonio in oxbecting a share. -But he oxbects no longer, ha?”</p> - -<p>I turned from the Dutchman and looked through the skylight, and saw -Greaves sitting at table, leaning his head upon his hand. The lady -Aurora continued to write, but once or twice while I watched, she lifted -her eyes to look at the captain. I was weary and passed below to go to -my cabin. Greaves had left the table and was entering his own berth, as -I descended the companion steps. The materials for a glass of grog were -on a swing tray. While I mixed myself a tumbler the girl rose and handed -me the paper she had been writing upon. The sheets had been torn by -Greaves from an old log book, and they were filled by her with Spanish -names with their English meanings. I ran my eye over the writing, which -was a very neat, clean Spanish hand, and nodded and smiled, and returned -the pages to her, saying <i>Bueno</i>. Then emptying my glass I gave her a -bow, bade her good-night in Spanish, received her answer of “Good-night, -sir,” well expressed in English, and passed into my berth.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br /><br /> -<small>GREAVES SICKENS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">This</span> time gives a date to a change that came over Greaves. It was the -change of sickness. He grew feverish, irritable, fanciful; his appetite -fell away; the light in his eyes dimmed; sometimes he would put on a -staring look, as though he beheld something beyond that at which he -gazed.</p> - -<p>I had been struck by his manner, and more by his manner<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span> than by his -speech, when he lectured Wirtz and flung at Antonio, the Spaniard, as -you have read in the last chapter. Yet of itself this would not have -been a matter to rest very weightily upon my mind, seeing that all along -I had considered Greaves as a little, just a little, mad at the root. -But soon the incident took significance as being a first lifting of the -curtain, so to speak, upon a new and somewhat crazy behavior in my -friend. I hoped at first it was the heat that unsettled his nerves and -that the Horn would give me back my old, odd, hearty, generous shipmate -and messmate. Then I feared that the blow he had dealt himself when he -stumbled in the hold of the <i>Casada</i> had been silently and painlessly -working bitter mischief in the organ of the liver, or in parts adjacent -thereto. If the liver was hurt the strangeness of the man might be -accounted for. I have suffered from the liver in my time, and know what -it is to have felt mad; I say I have known moments—O God, avert the -like of them from me and those I love—when I could scarce restrain -myself from breaking windows, kicking at the shins of all who approached -me, knocking my head against the wall, yelling with the yell of one who -drops in a fit; and all the while my brain was as healthy as the -healthiest that ever filled a human skull, and nothing was wanted but a -musketry of calomel pills to dislodge the fiend that was jockeying my -liver and galloping the whole fabric of my being down the easy descent.</p> - -<p>It will not be supposed that the change in Greaves was sudden. It -uttered itself at capricious intervals, and at the beginning was more -visible in the mood than in the man.</p> - -<p>For example, it was, I think, about four days after the little incident -which brings the last chapter to a close. I had charge of the deck from -eight to midnight. Miss Aurora had passed half an hour with me, -sometimes asking questions by gestures distinguishable by the light of -the moon, sometimes attempting strange sentences in English, all the -words correctly pronounced, but so misplaced that with true British -politeness I was forever breaking into a laugh at her. A moment there -had been when she was in earnest. She came to a stand, her face fronting -the moon so that I witnessed the working of it, her eyes with a little -silver flame in each liquid depth dark as the sea over the side. She -spoke in Spanish, with here and there a word of English. It seemed to me -she referred to the voyage. I fancied that I worked out of her words the -meaning that she desired to continue in the brig, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span> was content. How -did I gather this, when I tell you in the next breath that I could not -understand her? Well, it was my <i>fancy</i> of her meaning that I give you, -but whether I understood her or not she motioned with an air of tragic -distress, clasped her hands, looked up at the stars, and cried in -English, “Sad—sad—not understand—sad.” We then resumed our walk, and -presently she left me.</p> - -<p>Now it was that Greaves arrived. He smoked a long curled pipe of Turkish -workmanship and moved noiseless in slippers. The moonlight whitened his -face and silvered his hair and blackened his eyes till, elsewhere, I -might have looked twice without knowing him. We were to the southward of -the Lima parallel, our course south by west. The Bolivian coast trends -inward. Our course gave us to larboard a wide sweep of open ocean and -this we should hold down to the latitude of 50°. After which the chance -was small of our falling in with anything armed under Spanish colors.</p> - -<p>We had made noble progress taking the days all round, and this night we -were courtesying onward with a pretty breeze off the larboard beam—a -wind that ran the waters gushing white to the bends, and overhead were -all the stars and the moon in their midst dimming a circle of them, and -under the moon the play of the sea was like a torrent of boiling silver.</p> - -<p>“This is a desolate ocean,” said Greaves.</p> - -<p>“So much the better for us,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, so much the better for us. But the solitude of the sea is a -burden that the heart don’t always beat lightly under. Is solitude a -material thing? It has the weight of substance when it settles upon the -spirits.”</p> - -<p>I let him talk on. He was fond of big, fine words, and the stranger he -became the more heroic grew his vein.</p> - -<p>“Any more rows forward among the men?”</p> - -<p>“I have heard of none.”</p> - -<p>“I had two men who fought through a voyage. They had sailed together -before and fought throughout. ‘They will fight while they meet on -earth,’ said the boatswain of the ship to me, ‘and they will fight if -they catch sight of each other at the Resurrection.’<span class="lftspc">”</span> He puffed a cloud -of smoke upon the wind and looked round the sea. “I am unsettled in my -faith,” said he, “I am troubled by doubts. I believe I am almost Roman -Catholic, but lack sufficient credulity to enable me to bring up in that -faith. I will tell you what I mean to believe in,” continued he, halting -in his walk, compelling me to stand, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span> looking me full in the face; -“I am going to believe in the transmigration of souls.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ll wish to choose your next body before deciding, won’t you?” -said I. “You wouldn’t be a flea or a cockroach?”</p> - -<p>“The flea and perhaps the cockroach have short lives,” said he gravely, -“and the next entry might be into something noble. But stop till I tell -you why I am going to believe in the transmigration of souls. I had a -dream a few nights since. I dreamt that I was a Jewess. I beheld my face -in a glass and admired it vastly. My eyes flashed and were full of fire; -my lips were scarlet. I wore something white about my head. I knew that -I was a Jewess. Shadowy faces of many races of people approached, looked -me close in the eye, felt my face with their hands, accosted me, and I -could not speak. I was suffocated with the want of speech. But on a -sudden I obtained relief. I opened my mouth and spoke, and the words I -spoke were Hebrew.”</p> - -<p>“D’ye know Hebrew?” said I.</p> - -<p>“A stupid question to ask a sailor.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know you spoke in Hebrew?”</p> - -<p>“Because it wasn’t Greek; because it wasn’t Welsh; -because—because—man, it was just Hebrew.”</p> - -<p>“And how does transmigration offer here?” said I.</p> - -<p>“I was my own soul, informing the body of a Jewess. My soul, of course, -couldn’t utter itself, as it was fresh from the body of an Englishman, -until it had filled up, as smoke might, every cranny and brain cell of -the shape it possessed; until it had penetrated to the crypts and dark -foundations of the woman’s heart. Then, seeking vent, my soul broke -through the lips of the Jewess. In what tongue, d’ye ask? In what but -the tongue of her nation?”</p> - -<p>“This,” thought I, “is the lady Aurora’s doing. She it is who’s the -Jewess of my poor friend’s dream. The fiery eyes, if not the scarlet -lips, are hers, and hers the arrest and suffocation of speech.”</p> - -<p>But I guessed it would anger him to put this; yet it grieved me to hear -this nonsense in his mouth, and the more because his looks by the moon, -that shone upon us while he discoursed, gave a gloomy accentuation -of—what shall I call it? not yet madness; not yet craziness; let me -rather speak of it as wildness—to his words.</p> - -<p>He walked with me for above an hour, talking on this absurdity of -transmigration, and reasoning illogically, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span> often with irreverence, -on points relating to the salvation of man. It is a bad sign when -religion gets into a man’s head and acidly turns into windiness and -nightmare imaginations, as a sweet milk hardens into curdy flatulence in -the belly of the suckling.</p> - -<p>I sought to shift the helm of his mind by talking about the dollars -below; by speaking about the crew and my secret distrust of Yan Bol; by -calling his attention to the look of his brig as she floated, with -aslant spars, through the moonlight, flowing lengths of the sails -curving in alabaster beyond the shadow in their hollows, the water, -black as ink under her bowsprit, pouring aft in fire and snow. But all -to no purpose. He looked and seemed not to see; he repeated, in a -mouthing, absent way, my sentences about Bol and other matters, and -immediately struck back again into his talk about heaven, his soul, the -Jewess he had dreamt of, and the like.</p> - -<p>But, even without seeing him, even without hearing him, I should have -known that there was something wrong with the man by the behavior of his -dog. I do not say that all dogs have souls; but I am as sure that -Galloon had a soul of his own, after its kind, as that my eyes are -mates. As a change slowly came over Greaves, so slowly changed Galloon. -I would notice the dog watching his master’s face at table, and found a -score of human emotions in the creature’s expression. I’d see him lying -at Greaves’ door if the captain was within, when formerly he would be on -deck cruising about among the men or skylarking aft with me. If I called -him, he’d come slowly. There was no more capering up to me, no more -buoyant greetings, no leapings and lickings and short, eager yelps of -salutation in response to the many things I’d say to him. We make much -of human love, I would think while caressing the dog or looking at him, -and the love of man we call a passion; but the love of the dog we call -an instinct. Yet is not the instinct nobler than the passion? Purity it -has that is faultless. Is human passion pure to faultlessness? There is -selfishness in human passion, but the love of yonder dog for its master -is without selfishness. Many qualities enter into the passion of love; -but the love of yonder dog is a primary quality in him. It is as gold -among metals. Supposing analysis possible, then analyze the brute’s -affection, and you find not a hair’s weight, not a dust-grain’s bulk, of -vitiating element.</p> - -<p>The lady Aurora was quick to notice the change in Greaves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> Her lids -moved swiftly upon her eyes, and their lashes were a veil, and she had -an art of glancing without seeming to glance. She did not like him, and -would not appear to see him more often than courtesy obliged. Her rapid -glances, therefore, on occasions when she would have found other -occupation for her eyes, told me that she was struck by the man’s looks, -that she wondered at them and guessed their significance. I was no -doctor. For all I could tell she might have some knowledge under that -head. I fancied this from her manner of looking at Greaves.</p> - -<p>So one day, when she and I were alone in the cabin, Bol on the lookout -above, and the captain in his berth, I endeavored to converse with her -about my friend; but to no purpose. Intelligibility vanished in signs, -shakes of the head, dumb pointings to the brow and ribs. She had, -indeed, picked up a little English. She was able to pronounce the names -of various articles of food, also had several English nautical terms at -her tongue’s end; but when it came to trying to talk about Greaves’ -state of health, there was nothing for it but to crook our brows, hunch -our backs, and work meaning into nonsense with postures.</p> - -<p>Yet I managed to discover that the lady and I were agreed in this; that -Greaves had received some internal injury from his fall, that it was -slowly sickening him, and affecting his mind.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, he went about as usual, punctually took sights, attended -at meals, was up and down during the day and night. He was very rational -in all the orders he gave to the men, in all direct instructions to me -respecting shipboard discipline and routine. It was by fits and starts -that his growing wildness showed, and always when he had me alone; and -then the matter of his discourse was dreams and religion and death. Not -that he talked as though he supposed his end was approaching; upon his -words lay no shadow of the melancholy that is cast by the dread event -when the heart knows, dimly and mysteriously, that it is coming. He -chattered as if for argument’s sake; postulated to disprove his own -assertions, but he was seldom logical, often devout, filled to the very -twang of his nose with fervor, and at other times, and on a sudden, as -impious as young John Bunyan.</p> - -<p>What think you of this character of a seaman, of a plain north-country -merchant seaman; <i>you</i> whose ideas of the nautical man are gotten from -Smollett’s studies, from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span> delightful portraits of dear Captain -Marryatt? But, Jack, bless ye! <i>you</i>, who have been to sea, <i>you</i> who -have sailed ten times round the world, who have swung your hammock in a -score of forecastles, and who have outweathered Satan himself in a dozen -different aspects of ship’s captains, <i>you</i>, mate, will approve this -sketch, will recognize its truth, will tell the landlubbers that at sea -are many varieties of men—men who swear not, who are gentle, faithful -in their duty below; men who are a little crazy, who drink deeply and -are devils in their thoughts and madmen in their behavior, but trucklers -and slaverers to those who hire them; men who are hearty, pimpled, broad -of beam, verdant with the grog blossom and green in naught else, moist -in the weather eye, and bow-legged by great seas.</p> - -<p>One Sunday morning, when we had left the island a little more or less -than three weeks behind us, Greaves said to me at the breakfast table:</p> - -<p>“I shall hold divine service this morning on deck.”</p> - -<p>I stared, but said nothing.</p> - -<p>“I’ll read a portion of the Church of England liturgy to the men,” said -he, “and a chapter out of the Bible. What chapter do you recommend?”</p> - -<p>I was at a loss.</p> - -<p>“Give them something interesting,” said I, “something that will carry -them along with you.”</p> - -<p>“Right,” he exclaimed, with a little light of vivacity in his somewhat -sunken and somewhat leaden eye, “what d’ye say to a fight out of -Joshua?”</p> - -<p>“I do not think,” I answered, “that a good fight out of Joshua could be -bettered.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll give ’em that chapter,” said he, “in which the son of Nun corks -the five kings up in a cave and then hangs them. Not that there’s any -moral that I can see in that sort of narrative. It is an Ebrew Gazette -extraordinary—a pitiful, bloody business from beginning to end. But if -the reading of a chapter of it causes even one of the sailors to take an -interest in the Bible I shall have done some good.”</p> - -<p>“So you will.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know the men’s persuasions?”</p> - -<p>“Not I, captain.”</p> - -<p>“The Spaniards are Roman Catholics, of course. The Dutchmen and the -others will be of us if they’re of anything. When you go on deck tell -Bol to see that the crew clean them<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span>selves, and let him muster and bring -them aft for divine service at half-past ten.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir.”</p> - -<p>Miss Aurora sat over against me at this meal as at most others; she -stared at me as though something was wrong. I did not wonder; I had been -unable to conceal my astonishment at Greaves’ orders for divine service. -Down to this moment he had never read a prayer to the men, never -exhibited the least disposition to do so, never imported the faintest -shadow of anything religious into the dull and swinish routine of the -brig. It was somewhat late in the day to lay up on <i>that</i> tack, -methought. But it was for me to obey, and I went on deck, leaving -Greaves sitting. Miss Aurora followed, and touched my elbow as I passed -through the companion hatch.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” said she, in English.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, nothing,” I answered, smiling and shaking my head, for it -would have given me a deal too much to act, with Yan Bol and the fellow -at the wheel as spectators, to gesticulate Greaves’ intention to collect -all hands to prayers.</p> - -<p>“No danger?” said she, speaking again in English.</p> - -<p>“No, no,” I responded heartily.</p> - -<p>She touched her forehead, clasped her hands, and turned up her eyes to -heaven with one of her incomparable expressions of tragic melancholy, -sighed heavily, and returned to the cabin.</p> - -<p>“Bol,” said I, stepping up to the great Dutchman where he stood near the -wheel, “you will see that the men clean themselves and muster aft by -half-past ten for divine service.”</p> - -<p>“What’s dot?” said he.</p> - -<p>“Prayers.”</p> - -<p>He looked at Teach, who was at the helm, and a smile crawled over his -face, as wind creeps over a surface of sea. His smile wrinkled his -massive visage to the line of his hair.</p> - -<p>“Brayers, Mr. Fielding! Dot vhas strange after all dese months. For vhat -vhas ve to pray now dot der dollars vhas on boardt?”</p> - -<p>“Reason the matter with the captain, if you choose. You have your -instructions.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir. Mr. Fielding, may I hov a verdt mit you?”</p> - -<p>He spoke respectfully, and moved from the wheel. He was a man I had been -careful to give a wide berth to throughout the voyage; but also was he a -man whom, for my own peace sake, I had been at some pains not to give -offense to. The famil<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span>iarity of the fellow was Dutch. I never could make -sure that it was more than a characteristic of his countrymen with him, -and that he meant insolence when he spoke insolently. I bore in mind, -moreover, that secretly he, and no doubt the rest of the crew, viewed me -as an interloper—as one who would, probably, share far more handsomely -than they in the treasure without having entered at Amsterdam or having -formed a part of the original scheme of the expedition. This -consideration, then, made me wary in my relations with Yan Bol.</p> - -<p>He moved from the wheel out of earshot of the fellow there, and said, in -a rumbling voice of subdued thunder:</p> - -<p>“I oxbects dot der captain vhas not fery vell, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“He is not very well.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas a bad shob if he vhas to took und die.”</p> - -<p>“Yaw; but what is it you wish to say to me?”</p> - -<p>“I hov nothing to say, Mr. Fielding, oxcept vhat I hov said. Der men -likes to know how her captain vhas. Vhen I goes forwardt und tells dem -dot dey most lay aft und bray, dey vhas for vanting to know if der -captain vhas all right mit his headt. Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding, but vhas -it all right mit der captain’s headt?”</p> - -<p>“We are talking of the captain,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir; and I shpeaks mit all respect. You vhas first mate; I oct -second. It vhas right ve shpeaks together, vhen der capt’n’s health vhas -in trouble.”</p> - -<p>“You are able to judge of his state as well as I, Bol.”</p> - -<p>“No; you live close mit him. My end of der ship vhas yonder.”</p> - -<p>His voice seemed to deepen yet as he spoke these words, while he pointed -with his vast square hand to the forecastle. I held my peace, sending a -look to windward and at the wheel, as a hint to him to go. He stood a -while viewing me and appearing to consider, all with a heavy Dutch -leisureliness of manner and expression, as though his thoughts rose -slow, like whales, to the surface of his intelligence, spouted, and sunk -before he could harpoon them; then, saying, “Vell, brayers at half-past -ten. Dot vhas a strange idea now der money vhas on boardt,” he walked -forward.</p> - -<p>This being Sunday morning, the men had nothing to do, and lounged about -the galley, smoking and conversing. I watched Bol approach them. He -stood abreast of a knot and delivered his orders. <i>That</i> I gathered from -the stares, the starts, the hoarse laugh, the rude forecastle joke sent -in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> growling shout across to a mate at a distance. A little later, -however, the fellows came together in a body, somewhat forward of the -caboose, some of them out of my sight until my steps carried me to the -gangway. Yan Bol stood among them. It was clear to me that they were -talking over this new scheme of a prayer meeting aft. I kept well away, -and heard nothing but the rumbling of their voices; but it was easy to -guess that the most of their talk ran on the captain’s health and -intellect, and I reckoned that, if they had already noticed any -strangeness in him, this call to prayers would go further to prove him -mad in their eyes than the insanest shipboard order he could have -delivered.</p> - -<p>Some while, however, before there was need for Bol to send the men to -clean themselves, Jimmy came out of the cabin and said that the captain -wished to speak to me. The morning was fine, the breeze steady, and the -sea smooth. The deck was to be safely left for a short interval. I -called an order to the helmsman and went below.</p> - -<p>Greaves was pacing the cabin floor. The lady Aurora was in her berth, -perhaps at her devotions. Galloon was upon a chair, wistfully watching -his master as he measured the cabin.</p> - -<p>Greaves’ face worked with excitement and agitation; his walk was equally -suggestive of distress and disorder. Were there such a thing as news at -sea, I might have supposed that something heart-shaking had come to him.</p> - -<p>“Fielding,” he cried, as I stood viewing him from the bottom of the -companion ladder, “I can’t read prayers to the men. The devil’s right. -He’s put it into my head that I’m too wicked, that I’ve been too great a -sinner in the past, and am still altogether too vile to read prayers.”</p> - -<p>“Do not attempt to do so then,” said I.</p> - -<p>“I might be struck dead for profanity,” said he. “There’s a feeling -here”—he laid his hand upon his heart—“that warns me I shall drop if I -open my lips in the recital of a prayer to the men. Look how nervous I -am!” he exclaimed, with a wild, hard smile; and approaching me close he -extended his hands, which trembled violently, and then, turning up the -palms, he disclosed the channels or lines in them wet with perspiration. -“Tell the men,” said he, “that I am too ill to read prayers. Next -Sunday, perhaps——”</p> - -<p>He threw himself upon a locker, and hid his face upon the table. I -watched him for a few minutes, then, going on deck, beckoned to Bol and -told him there would be no prayers that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span> morning. The Dutchman threw a -suspicious look at the skylight and walked forward.</p> - -<p>After this incident anxiety increased upon me until it became -indescribably great. I had supposed that the hurt Greaves had done -himself, through the connection which exists between the liver and the -brain, affected his mind; but now, when he was growing worse, I reckoned -he had struck his head as well as his side. Be this as it will, his -intellect was giving way, his health every day decaying, and I say that -when I grew sensible of this, when I understood that unless he took a -turn and mended apace he must die, anxiety made my days bitter.</p> - -<p>My old fear of the crew revived. That fear had been hushed somewhat by -the behavior of the men, but it grew clamorous when I thought of Greaves -as dead and buried in the sea, of the treasure of half a million of -dollars in the lazarette, of myself as standing alone in the brig, with -no man in authority to support me, without even the moral backing of -good-will I might have got from the men had I shipped at Amsterdam and -formed one of the Tulp party.</p> - -<p>The dead days became dreams and visions to my memory when I thought -backward and recalled the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>, Captain Spalding, my -arrival in the Downs, the gibbet on the sand hills, the press-gang, the -long outward passage to the island, and the hopes and fears which came -and went when Greaves talked rationally of the dollars, then -irrationally of dreams and the like, and so on, and so on. I did pray -very eagerly in my heart that he would be spared. Indeed, I loved the -man. He had saved my life, he had enriched me, he had proved a generous, -cordial, and cheery shipmate and messmate. I say I loved him, and on -several occasions, when I was on deck alone, walking out the weary hours -of the night watch, did I look up at the stars and ask of God to deliver -my friend from the death whose hand was closing upon him. These -petitions would I murmur till my eyes were wet. It was hard that he -should be called away in the prime of his time, after years of the stern -and barren servitude of the sea, at the moment when a noble prize, -gained, as I would think, with high adventurous skill, was his.</p> - -<p>But I never could discover, at this time at all events, that he had the -smallest idea he was in a bad way. What was visible to me and the -sailors, to the Spanish lady, yes, and to his own dog, himself did not -see—at least, by never a word that fell from his lips did he give me to -guess he knew he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span> ill. Sometimes he’d complain of weakness and keep -his bed; he’d wonder what had become of his appetite, that was all; he -never went further. It was I, mainly, who took sights and kept the -ship’s reckoning, who, in fact, navigated the brig, and did the work of -her master. Miss Aurora’s sympathies with him were strong at the -start—that is, when she saw how ill he was and how his illness was -increasing upon him. She’d make efforts to anticipate his wants at -table; with her own hands she’d boil chocolate for him in the caboose -and bring it to the cabin; she let me understand she wished to nurse -him. But whether it was because of simple dislike, or because his poor -head, muddling the fine woman whom he had rescued with the speechless -Jewess of his dream, excited in him some inscrutable fear or aversion I -know not; he would have nothing to say to her, looked away when she -spoke, repelled whatever she offered, often shrank when she -approached—was so crazily discourteous, in a word, that I was obliged -to take the girl aside and, by signs and such words as were now current -between us, advise her to keep clear of him.</p> - -<p>As to <i>her</i>, she spent much of her time in sewing and in attempting to -master the English tongue out of some books which I borrowed from -Greaves’s cabin, and with such help as I had time to give her. We had -plenty of needles and thread on board. Greaves, before his illness grew, -had given Miss Aurora a handsome roll of pure white duck, or drill—I -forget now which it was—to do what she pleased with. I had found some -remnants of bunting, of different colors, that she might amuse herself, -if she chose, with Greaves’s notion of trimming her dresses; then I had -borrowed a thimble from the forecastle. You will suppose that it was not -a <i>tight</i> fit; but she managed with it. And so she went to work, sewing -in the cabin or in her own berth; and I see her now, with my mind’s eye, -as she sits under the skylight, stitching away like any seamstress -earning a living, the jewels upon her fingers flashing as her hand rises -and falls.</p> - -<p>One morning she came out of her berth dressed in a gown of her own -manufacture. It was built on original lines, and it suited her. I -believe she had shaped it to enable her to get about with ease, to allow -her to step without inconvenience up the companion ladder and through -the hatch, to pass through the cabin betwixt the table and the lockers -without being dragged, and sometimes held, by the folds of her skirt, -and to freely move in her little bedroom. The dress she had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span> cast -away in had hardly permitted this liberty. It was voluminous enough to -have yielded her three clinging skirts; it caught the wind when she was -on deck, and blew out like a topsail in a squall when the yard is on the -cap. I admired her vastly in this costume of her own making. The cut -answered something to my own taste in female apparel; the waist rose -high, the sleeves were tight, the dip and swell of her shape were -defined. I had always suspected that a nobly proportioned woman lay -awkwardly hid in the dress that had heretofore clothed her, and I -guessed I had been right when I looked at her this morning and marked -the curve of the breast, the width of the shoulders, the fine, swinging, -lofty carriage.</p> - -<p>The dress was snow white; it fell in with the color of her face. Her -cheeks seemed the whiter for the whiteness of her clothes. She had -trimmed her dress with triple lines of red bunting, and, for my part, I -should never want to see a prettier or more effective gown on a maiden -for sea use.</p> - -<p>She stood in the door of her berth, looking archly at me. Galloon -growled, scarce knowing her for the moment. Greaves was in his berth, -for by this time he was ailing badly. She looked down her dress, colored -slightly, then walked up to me and said:</p> - -<p>“How you like it? How you like it?” turning herself about a little -coquettishly.</p> - -<p>Admiration will often make a man laugh; and I laughed to see her in that -dress and laughed to hear her address me in English; and laughed yet -again, but always admiringly, at her spirited, courting manner of -turning her figure about, that I might get a view of her clothes.</p> - -<p>“It is very good, indeed,” said I.</p> - -<p>“<i>Si</i>, it is very good,” she repeated after me.</p> - -<p>She then sought to express herself further, and, failing, signed to let -me know that she had now two dresses, and that presently she would have -three. I pronounced some word of applause in Spanish, which she obliged -me to repeat, that I might catch the correct pronunciation, and we then -sat down to breakfast.</p> - -<p>I have told you that she wore some very handsome rings, and on this -occasion it was that I took particular notice of a remarkable ring which -she carried on her left hand. She followed my gaze, and stretched out -her hand to my face. I imagined she intended that I should kiss her -hand, for I was a fool in the customs of nations, and honestly knew not -but that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span> a man’s kissing a woman’s hand thus held out to him, almost to -his lips, as it were, was some Spanish fashion of significant civility -which she would expect me to attend to; so I bent my head and put my -mouth to her hand.</p> - -<p>She colored, her eyes flashed, she looked confused; then smiled, shook -her head, and pointed to the ring. I was young and ingenuous, and the -blood rose to my face when I understood that I had blundered; but I held -my peace, and looked at the ring. A moment later she pulled it off and -put it into my hand. It was a very rich ring, formed of ten precious -stones of different sorts and a medallion of the crucifix. I turned it -about, admiring it. She watched me earnestly, and then, with a smile and -a sigh, said:</p> - -<p>“You are not Catolique.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said I.</p> - -<p>She motioned to let me know she could tell as much by my ignorance of -the use of that ring; and then, taking the thing from me, she went -through a pretty and dramatic pantomime, reciting “Aves” while she -touched the ring, and winding up with a sentence out of the -“Paternoster.” She put on the ring after she had made an end of her -pretty pantomime, and, looking again at me earnestly, repeated, with the -same dramatic sigh:</p> - -<p>“You are not Catolique.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said I.</p> - -<p>“You will be Catolique?” she exclaimed, in very fairly pronounced -English, still wearing a wistful and impassioned expression.</p> - -<p>I slowly shook my head. She sighed again and looked very downcast; but I -was wanted on deck and could sit at table no longer, and so I left her.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE WHALER.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">All</span> this while the crew went on quietly with the work of the ship, -giving me no trouble nor occasioning me further anxiety than such as -arose from my fear of how it might prove with us should the captain die. -This will I say of Bol: a better boatswain never trod the decks of a -vessel. I carried by nature a critical eye, and while Greaves lay ill my -vigilance was redoubled; but not once had I cause to find fault with Yan -Bol’s part in the duties of the brig.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span></p> - -<p>We wanted, indeed, the freshening of the paint pot, but in all other -respects we were as smart a little ship, as we blew toward the Horn, as -though we had quitted the Thames but a week before. Our brass guns -sparkled, our decks were yacht-like with holy-stoning, our rigging might -have been newly set up by riggers of the king. Every detail of the -furniture aloft was carefully seen to, from the eyes of the royal -rigging to the lanyards of the channel dead-eyes.</p> - -<p>The men feared Bol; his vast bulk of beef and the granite lumps which -swelled in muscle to the movement of his arms made him the match for any -two of them. The delivery of his lungs was the cannon’s roar. I have -seen a stout fellow stagger as though to a blow—sway in the recoil of a -man who is hit hard, on Yan Bol thrusting his huge mouth into the -fellow’s face and exploding in passion an order betwixt his eyes. But -though the crew feared him they also liked him; he acted as second mate, -indeed, but throughout with reluctance; was their shipmate and -forecastle associate first of all, the man who ate out of their kids and -drank out of their scuttle butt, who slung his hammock in their bedroom, -showed them what to do and often how to do it, occasionally went aloft -with them, yarned and smoked with them. So much for Yan Bol.</p> - -<p>Greaves had a just and considerable admiration for him, the fullest -confidence in him as a sailor, and counted him the best boatswain he had -ever heard of; and I agreed with him. Going, however, rather farther, -for I had distrusted the man from the beginning, and my distrust of him -was now deeper than ever it had been, and I would have given half my -share of the money in the lazarette had we been blown away from the -island when he was ashore and forced to proceed without him.</p> - -<p>The two Spaniards were bad sailors, lazy and reckless. Bol could do -nothing with them. They skulked when there was business to be done -aloft, were not to be trusted at the wheel, and it came at last to our -putting them to help the cook and do the dirty work of the ship when -they were not at sail-making—for, to be sure, they were smart hands -with their palms and needles. There were no more fights, no more -assertions by Antonio and his mate Jorge of their claims to a share. In -talking to me one day about them Bol said it was the wish of the crew to -turn them out of the brig at the first chance.</p> - -<p>“The captain won’t hear of it,” said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span></p> - -<p>The Dutchman asked why.</p> - -<p>“Because,” said I, “the Spaniards know that there is treasure on board. -They also know it is Spanish treasure and how got by us. Suppose you -tranship them; they arrive at a port and state what they know. The news -that we have salved the treasure reaches the ears of the owner of it, -who thereupon makes application for restitution. Our business is to keep -clear of difficulties.”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, dot do I see. But hark you, Mr. Fielding, ve keep der Spaniards -und ve arrive home, und der Spaniards go ashore, und den? I ox, und den? -Vill dey not shpeak all der same as dey vould shpoke in von of der own -ports down here?”</p> - -<p>“I have considered that; so, too, has Captain Greaves. There is a -remedy, but it does not lie in transferring them in these seas.”</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders and the subject dropped.</p> - -<p>But the long and short of Greaves’s policy in this particular matter -was; get the money home in safety first, bring off the treasure clear of -the fifty sea risks and perils of the age—the gale, the shoal, the -leak, the pirate, the enemy’s ships of the State. It will be time enough -to trouble yourself with what the Spaniards and others of the crew may -whisper ashore when the money has been landed, divided, exchanged into -gold of the realm, with plenty of leisure for a disappearance that might -run into time should the news of the salving of the treasure of the -<i>Casada</i> ever reach the ears of the owners of the silver.</p> - -<p>We carried good strong winds to the southward. The days grew shorter, -there was an edge in the weather let the breeze blow whence it would; -the swell of the sea was long and dark. We bent strong canvas for -rounding the Horn, and in other ways prepared for a conflict which in -those days had a significance that has departed from that wrestle. The -seamen put on warm clothes; there was never a need now for the small -awning aft; the sun shone white, as though the dazzle of his disk was -the reflection of his beam on snow. I say his light was white and often -cold when we had yet to swim many hundreds of miles to fetch the -parallel of the Horn.</p> - -<p>In all the weeks we occupied in measuring our way from the island ere -rounding the headland for the Atlantic we fell in with but one ship. It -was our good luck, and there was nothing surprising in it either. In -this present year of my writing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">{258}</a></span> my story it may be your chance to sail -over a thousand leagues of Pacific water and meet with nothing. It was a -lonelier ocean in my time than it is now. Northward, on the equatorial -parallel, there was, indeed, some life, but southward the great liquid -highway that now every year foams to the shearing stems of half a -thousand stately ships, was, in the year of the <i>Black Watch</i>, scarce -less barren as a breast of sea than when it was swept for the galleon by -the perspective glasses of Dampier and Woodes Rogers.</p> - -<p>We fell in with a little ship and spoke her, and the speaking her proved -one of the most memorable of all the incidents in this strange -expedition, as you shall presently learn if you choose to proceed.</p> - -<p>Greaves was on this day very weak; he had risen to breakfast, sat like -the specter of death at table, his sunken, leaden, black eyes wandering -from me to Miss Aurora with the seeking gaze of one who strives to -collect his wits; then, rising with a little convulsion of his figure, -he leaned with his hand upon the table and said, in a small voice, -looking downward and slightly smiling:</p> - -<p>“I must return to my bunk. It isn’t the machinery that’s wrong; the -spring has slackened and wants setting up afresh.”</p> - -<p>I took him by the arm and helped him to his cabin and stood looking on, -waiting to be of service, while Jimmy pulled off his coat and shoes. I -believed he would speak seriously of his illness, for I guessed that if -he felt as bad as he looked he would count himself a dying man. But he -had not one word to say about his sensations or condition. When he was -in bed I stood beside him, and he lay with his eyes wide open, viewing -me steadfastly in silence. Presently he said:</p> - -<p>“Why do you stand there? It’s all right with me. Get back to your -breakfast and finish it, Fielding. Whose lookout is it?”</p> - -<p>“Mine, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you stand there?”</p> - -<p>“I wish to see if I can be of use to you,” said I, making a step toward -the door.</p> - -<p>“I am truly obliged. Jimmy does all I need. I want you to think of -nothing but the brig. I shall be quite well—I feel it, I am sure of -it—before we have climbed far up the Atlantic. By Isten, Fielding, but -it warms me to the very heart of my soul to reflect that you are in -charge—you and not Van Laar. Van Laar it might have been, with Michael -Greaves<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">{259}</a></span> helpless in his cabin, and the Horn coming aboard. Lord, Lord, -wonderful are Thy ways!” said he, turning up his eyes. “Now get ye to -your breakfast. The machinery is all right, I tell you; the spring’s -fallen slack, the old clock loses, but the tick’s steady, Fielding, the -tick’s steady, my lad, and a few days will make the time right with me; -so get on to your breakfast.”</p> - -<p>I re-entered the cabin and seated myself.</p> - -<p>“The captain is bad,” said the lady Aurora.</p> - -<p>I answered with a sorrowful nod. She clasped her hands and looked at me -across the table anxiously, and said:</p> - -<p>“He die.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Qué hacer?</i>” (What is to be done?) I answered, for by this time I had -picked up a number of phrases from her.</p> - -<p>She slightly shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, and, pointing -upward, exclaimed in Spanish:</p> - -<p>“It is as God wills.”</p> - -<p>Then, again fixing her fine eyes, full of fire and feeling, upon me, -she, by nods and gestures, contrived to make me understand this -question:</p> - -<p>“Suppose the captain dies, how is the brig to get to England?”</p> - -<p>I smiled and pointed to myself, and made her gather that, while I was on -board, the brig was pretty sure, in some fashion or other, to head on a -true course for England.</p> - -<p>We continued to exchange our meaning in this fashion while I finished -breakfast. Conversation between us was scarcely now the hard labor it -formerly was. She had a number of words in my tongue and I some in hers; -then, by being much together—or, as I would rather put it, having by -this time held many conversations in our fashion of discoursing—we had -got to distinguish shades of signification which had been wasted before -in one another’s gaze and gestures. Her looks were eloquence itself. -Even now was I able to collect her mind when she talked to me with her -face only; when she would talk to me, I say, for five minutes at a time -merely with the expression of her face, never opening her lips. Her eyes -were charged with the language of light and passions. She could look -grief, dismay, concern, horror, pity, all other emotions, indeed, with -an incomparable skill, force, and beauty of mute delivery.</p> - -<p>I went on deck, and stepped to the side, as was my custom, to peer -ahead. Bol, who stood near the skylight, called out:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">{260}</a></span></p> - -<p>“A sail!”</p> - -<p>He pointed over the starboard bow, and looking that way, I spied the -delicate white gleam of a ship’s canvas. It was what we should call a -fine, hard day, the atmosphere strong and tonical, cold, but without -harshness or rawness. The breeze was fresh off the larboard beam, and -swept with a rushing noise betwixt our masts—the breath of the young -giant whose dam was the snow-darkened Antarctic hurricane. The surge was -a long, steady sweep of sea, tall and wide, of the deepest blue I had -ever beheld. The brig, with her yards braced well forward, the bowlines -triced out, and every cloth that would draw pulling white as milk in the -white sunshine from stay and yard and gaff and boom, was sweeping -through the water with the speed of smoke down the wind. Magnificently -buoyant was the vessel’s motion. The yeast of her wake seethed to her -counter as she courtesyed. Large birds were flying over the track of -snow astern.</p> - -<p>“What is that craft going to prove, Bol?” said I, taking up the glass.</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas not long to findt out,” he answered.</p> - -<p>In those times our telescopes were not as yours are now. I leveled the -long and heavy tube, but it resolved me no more of the ship ahead than -this—that a ship she was.</p> - -<p>“Shall ve shift our hellum und edge avay?” said Bol.</p> - -<p>“I will let you know,” said I, walking aft.</p> - -<p>I waited a bit, looked at the sail again, and found we were picking her -up as though she were at anchor. By this time, also, most of her fabric -having lifted above the sea-line, I was able to tell that she was -square-rigged, like ourselves, but that, unlike the <i>Black Watch</i>, she -had short topgallant masts; whence, as you will suppose, I set her down -at once as a trader. This and our overhauling her so rapidly—which -means, suppose her an enemy, then she had no more chance of getting -alongside of us than a land crab a scudding rabbit—determined me to -hold on as we were.</p> - -<p>You see I was in charge of the brig, and could do as I chose. Yet was it -right that I should report the sail to Greaves, and I called to Yan Bol, -who stood in the waist, and bade him keep a lookout for a few minutes -while I went below. Jimmy came out of the captain’s berth as I entered -the cabin. The lad held open the door, and I passed in.</p> - -<p>“I have come to report a sail right ahead, sir.”</p> - -<p>He turned his eyes upon me with such a look as you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">{261}</a></span> may behold in the -gaze of an old man straining after memory.</p> - -<p>“A sail?” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay.”</p> - -<p>He smiled strangely, fetched a long, trembling breath, and said:</p> - -<p>“Suppose she should prove a galleon? We are rich enough, Fielding. Leave -her alone—leave her alone.”</p> - -<p>“She is no galleon. She is a small trader, I reckon, and will be abreast -of us and astern while we’re talking about her.”</p> - -<p>“We have as much as we need,” said he. “Don’t imperil what you’ve got, -man. D’ye know, Fielding, I fear my sight’s beginning to fail me. Jimmy -gave me the Bible just now. The type’s big and it came and went in a -dissolving way like a wriggle of worms in water. I would to God there -was a priest aboard. I want to ask some questions.”</p> - -<p>He closed his eyes, and with them closed repeated, “I want to ask some -questions.”</p> - -<p>I waited, supposing he would look at me. He kept his eyes shut; so, -bidding Jimmy, who stood in the door, to have a care of his master, and -to keep within reach of his hail, I returned to the deck very heavy in -my spirits; for the departure of this man did then seem to me a question -of hours instead of days, nay weeks, as I had lately thought, so ill did -he look, so darkly and miserably did his manner and speech accentuate -the menace of his face.</p> - -<p>It was not very long before I made out the vessel ahead to be a whaler. -I knew <i>that</i> by her heavy davits, crowd of boats and square, sawed-off -look when she cocked her stern at us. I showed Dutch colors, scarce -doubting as yet but that the stranger would prove a Yankee, for in those -days, as now, many American vessels fished in those waters, pursuing -their gigantic game into seas where the British flag was rarely -flown—that is, over anything in search of grease. But the Dutch flag -had not been blowing three minutes from our gaff end when up floated the -red flag of England to the mizzen mast head of the stranger.</p> - -<p>She was a little ship; to describe her exactly she was ship-rigged on -the fore and main, while on her schooner mizzen mast she carried a cross -jack and topsail yard. She lifted, ragged with weeds, to the heads of -the seas, and washed along, heavily rolling and pitching, and blowing -white water off her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">{262}</a></span> bows, whalelike. I shifted the helm to close her -for the sake of the sight of a strange face, for the sound of a strange -human voice. She was abreast of us some time before noon and there lay -before us, foaming and plunging, as quaint a picture as the ocean at -that time had to offer, liberally furnished as her breast was with -picturesque structures. She was as broad as she was long, of a greasy -rusty black, and when the sea knocked her over she threw up her round of -bottom till you watched for the keel; and the long grass streamed away -from her as she rolled like hair from the head of a plunging mermaid. -Many faces surveyed us from over her rail. Her sails fitted her ill, and -were dark with use. After every roll and plunge the water poured like a -mountain torrent out of her head-boards and channels; but I had read her -name as we approached—her name and the name of the town she hailed -from. She was the <i>Virginia Creeper</i> of Whitby.</p> - -<p>Whitby! I had never visited that town, but I knew it in fancy through -the famous Cook’s association with the place almost as well as I knew in -reality the little towns of Deal and Sandwich. It was just one of those -magical English words to sweep the mind and the imaginations of the mind -clean out of the countless leagues of the Pacific into the narrow miles -of one’s own home waters, there to behold again with a dreamer’s gaze -the milk-white coasts of the south, the chocolate coasts of the north, -the red sail of the smack plunging to the North Sea, the brown sail of -the barge creeping close inshore, the projection of black and tarry -timber pier, with its cluster of bright-hued wherries, the length of -sparkling white sand, the shingly incline, the careened boat, the figure -of its owner worked upon it with a tar brush.</p> - -<p>We foamed along together broadside to broadside, within musket shot, and -I hailed the whaler and was answered.</p> - -<p>The man who responded stood in the mizzen rigging. He wore a round -glazed hat, a shawl about his throat, a monkey coat to his knees. He -sang out to know what ship I was, and I answered that we were the <i>Black -Watch</i>, of London, chartered by a merchant of Amsterdam, and that the -captain and mate, and most of the crew were Englishmen. We were bound to -London, I roared to him, omitting to answer his question where we were -from. Then, in answer, he shouted that he was the <i>Virginia Creeper</i> of -and from Whitby, ten months out, had met with shocking bad luck, and was -bound out of these seas for the South Atlantic. All the whales had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">{263}</a></span> gone -east. Sorry we were in such a hurry. He would have been glad to come -aboard for a yarn, and for what news from home we had to give him. Were -we still fighting the Yankees? A Yankee privateer had spoke him in the -South Atlantic, and the captain of the vessel sent a mate aboard him -with a box of cigars, and this message—that the whaler was a ship he -never meddled with, no matter under what color he found her; that he -honored a calling that had given his own nation her finest race of -seamen; and when he sailed away he dipped to the <i>Virginia Creeper</i> as -to a friend. All this I was able to hear. The man, who spoke as a -Quaker, delivered his words with a strong, slightly nasal voice, and his -words came clean as the sound of a bell through the washing hiss of the -water and the roar aloft.</p> - -<p>I found time to shout back that our captain was dangerously ill, and to -ask the master of the whaler, as I supposed the man to be, if he knew -aught of physic—of the treatment of injuries. He shook his head -vehemently, crying “No!” thrice, as though he would instantly kill any -hope the sight of him had excited in <i>that</i> way; and, indeed, what -should a sailor know of physic and the treatment of such a sickness as -was fast killing Greaves? I asked the question to ease my conscience and -to satisfy the crew, who were listening. I figured him coming aboard and -stifling a groan when he saw Greaves, vexing the poor, languishing man -with useless questions put to mark his sympathy, and then coming out of -the berth to tell me it was a bad case.</p> - -<p>We sped onward. The voice would no longer carry, and the whaler veered -astern almost into our wake, with a wild slap of her foresail, as she -plunged a heavy courtesy of farewell at us.</p> - -<p>My notes of what befell me in this memorable year of Waterloo gives much -to my memory, but not everything; and I am unable to recollect the exact -situation of the brig when we fell in with the <i>Virginia Creeper</i> -westward of the Horn. I am sure, however, that we were something to the -southward of the island of Juan Fernandez, somewhere about the latitude -of Valdivia. This I supposed from remembrance of the climate. But be it -as it may, it was now, on this date of our speaking the Whitby whaler, -that I confidently supposed my poor friend Greaves would not live to see -the end of the week. I have told you so; but guess my surprise when, on -coming on deck at four o’clock that same afternoon, I found him seated -on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">{264}</a></span> chair, wrapped in a warm cloak. Yan Bol walked to and fro near -him. They had been talking. I had heard the Dutchman’s deep voice as I -stepped through the hatch. But if Greaves had looked a dying man in his -berth, he showed, to be sure, ghastly sick by the light of the day. I -had seen much of him below, yet I started when my eyes went to his face -now, as though, down to this moment, I had not observed the dreadful -change that had happened in him. Galloon lay at his feet. The poor man -smiled faintly on seeing me, and said in a weak voice:</p> - -<p>“Did not I tell you I should be better presently? The machinery’s sound, -and, when that’s so, nature is your one artist to make it the right time -of day with ye.”</p> - -<p>I conversed a little with him. Yan Bol stood by. I told him about the -whaler. He motioned with a trembling white hand, and said he had heard -all about it from Yan Bol. Presently he wandered somewhat in his speech, -and rose falteringly, sending a sort of blind, groping look round the -decks; but he was too feeble to hold his body erect, and the swing of -the brig, as she reeled to a sea, flung him roughly back upon his chair.</p> - -<p>“Let me take you below,” said I.</p> - -<p>He looked at me as though he did not know me and talked to himself. I -motioned to Bol with my head, and we each took an arm, and tenderly—and -I say that there was a tenderness in Yan Bol’s handling of the poor -fellow that gave me such an opinion of his heart as helped me for a -little while like a fresh spirit in that time of my distress, anxiety, -and fear—very tenderly I say, we partly carried, partly supported, the -captain into the cabin, whence he went, leaning on Jimmy, to his berth, -looking behind him somewhat wildly at us who stood watching him, and -talking without any sense that I could collect.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” said Yan Bol as we regained the deck, “der captain vhas -a deadt man.”</p> - -<p>“I wondered to find him out of his berth.”</p> - -<p>“He vhas von minute talking like ash you or me, und der next he vhas -grazy mit fancies. I likes to know how dot vhas mit der brain. Von -minute he oxes me questions about der vhaler, as you might; der next he -looks at me und say, ‘Vhas your name Yan Bol?’ ‘It vhas,’ I answered. -‘Vhat vhas der natural figure of der Toyfell?’ he oxes. ‘Dot vhas a -question for der minister,’ says I. ‘Last night’ he says, ‘dere vhas a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">{265}</a></span> -full moon, und I saw a reflection like she might be a bat’s upon der -brightness of der moon. Dot reflection sailed slowly across. I ox you,’ -says he, ‘vhas dot der reflection of der Toyfell—dot, you must know, is -Brince of der vinds?’ I keeps mine own counsel, und valks a leedle, und -pretends dot der brig vants looking after; und vhen I comes back he oxes -me anoder question dot vhas no longer grazy, but like ash you might ox. -Now, how vhas dot, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“I am as ignorant as you,” said I; “but his end is at hand. He will not -long talk sensibly or crazily. God help him and bless us all! It is a -heavy blow to befall this little brig—‘tis a heavier blow to befall the -poor gentleman who has shown us how to fill our pockets with dollars; -whose own share would make him a happy and prosperous man for life.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas so,” said Bol; and our conversation ended.</p> - -<p>Seeing that Greaves’ mind was loosened, I no longer expected him to -realize the near approach of death. I ceased, therefore, to be surprised -that he did not speak to me about his condition. Sometimes I would ask -myself whether it was not my duty, as his friend, to touch upon the -subject of his state at some favorable moment when his faculties were -strong enough for coherent discourse. He was dying. He must soon die. He -could not live to round the Horn. How would he wish the money he had -earned by this venture to be disposed of? Thirty thousand pounds was a -large fortune. I knew that he was fatherless and motherless, but no more -of him did I know than that. I had never heard him speak of his -relations; indeed, throughout he had been silent on the subject of his -parentage and beginnings, though he had never wanted in candor when he -talked of his first going to sea, his struggles and failures and -sufferings in the vocation.</p> - -<p>But as often as I thought it proper to speak to him, so often did I -shrink from what was, perhaps, an obligation. No; I could not find it in -me to tell him that he was a dying man.</p> - -<p>The weather grew colder, and we met with some hard gales out of the -southeast, which knocked us away fifty leagues to the westward out of -our course. It was Cape Horn weather, though we were not up with that -headland yet. The dark green seas rolled fierce and high; the sky hung -low and sallow and fled in scud. We stormed our way along under reefed -canvas, showing all that we durst, and making good average way, seeing -that the gale was off the bow and the seas like cliffs for the little -brig to burst through.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">{266}</a></span></p> - -<p>Anxiety lay very heavy upon me all this time. I had confidence in Yan -Bol’s seamanship, but I had more faith in myself; and I was up and down -in my watch below to look after the brig, till, when the twenty-four -hours had come round, I would find I had not passed two of them in -sleep.</p> - -<p>The cold found the lady Aurora without warm apparel. The dress she had -been shipwrecked in was of some gay, glossy stuff, plentiful in skirt, -and as warm as a cobweb. What was to be done? It was not to be borne -that she should sit shivering in the cabin for the want of apparel that -would enable her to look abroad whenever she had a mind to pass through -the hatch; so, after turning the matter over in my mind, one morning, -soon after our meeting with the whaler, I ordered Jimmy and another to -bring the slop chest into the cabin. It was a great box, and one of two. -Both were of Tulp’s providing. The old chap guessed he saw his way to -making money out of the sailors by putting cheap clothes aboard for -sale, and it was likely enough he would find his little venture in this -way answerable to his expectations when we got home, for already one of -the chests was emptied of two-thirds of its contents, the sailors (I -being one of them) having purchased at an advance of about eighty per -cent. upon what would be rated ashore as a very high selling price.</p> - -<p>Well, one of the slop chests was brought up and put in the cabin. I had -tried to make Miss Aurora understand what I meant—to no purpose. Now, -lifting the lid of the chest, she standing by me and looking down upon -the queer collection of sailors’ clothing, I pulled out a monkey coat, -big enough for the sheathing of even Yan Bol’s bolster-like figure, and, -holding it up, went to work to make myself intelligible. I put the coat -on her. I then touched it here and there to signify that, by shaping a -waist, and cutting in at the dip of the back, by shortening the sleeves -and fixing the velvet collar to suit her throat, she might make a very -good figure of a jacket for herself out of the coat. I then took a cap -from the chest, and I placed it upon her head, advising, as best I could -by signs and words, that she should stitch flaps to it to shelter her -ears, with strings to keep the thing on her head in wind. I went further -still, being resolved that the lady should go warmly clad round the -Horn, and, calling to Jimmy, bade him bring me up a bale of spare -blankets. I heartily longed for a Spanish dictionary, that I might give -her the word <i>petticoat</i> out of it. However, she caught my drift after a -little, on my select<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">{267}</a></span>ing one of the finest of the blankets and putting -it about her and holding it to her waist. She nodded and laughed.</p> - -<p>I witnessed no embarrassment, and, in honest truth, there was no cause -for embarrassment. Yet I do not suppose that an English girl—at least, -that many English girls—would have made this little business of -suggesting apparel, and hinting at clothing which a man is not supposed -to know anything at all about until he is married, so pleasant and easy -as did this Spanish maiden.</p> - -<p>Well, her ladyship was now supplied with materials for warm clothing, -and that same afternoon she went to work on the coat. Hard work it was. -She wanted shears for such cloth as that, and managed with difficulty -with a sailor’s knife fresh from the grindstone; yet, by next afternoon, -having worked all that day and all next morning, she had given something -of the shape of her own figure to the coat. She put it on for me to look -at. It wrapped her bravely; and when, with white teeth showing, she -placed the cap on her head, her beauty—and beauty dark, speaking, -impressive I must call it—took a quality of brightness, a piquancy that -comes to beauty from male attire; in her case wanting when ordinarily -dressed, of such gravity and dignity was her bearing, of such a natural, -womanly loftiness were the whole figure and looks of her.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br /><br /> -<small>A SAILOR’S WILL.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> a troublesome spell of stormy weather there happened a fine -afternoon, and when the evening drew around the shadow was richer in -stars than any tropic night I ever beheld. The wind was light; the ocean -breathed in a long swell from the north; the atmosphere was frosty, but -sweet and comfortably endurable.</p> - -<p>We had sent down our royal yards, yet to-night was a night for royals -and studding sails—a night to be made the most of. The ocean was off -guard, asleep, and easily might we have stolen past the slumbering -sentinel, clothed from truck to waterway in the tall, wide wings we had -expanded in the north.</p> - -<p>But the old villain was not to be trusted; twas but a snort and a stir -with him down here, <i>then</i> a hideous black cloud flying at your ship, -and hail and wind to which the stoutest must give his back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">{268}</a></span></p> - -<p>So this evening we flapped slowly onward under topgallant sails and -courses, and the long naked poles of the royal masts made a wreck of the -fabric to the eye up aloft as they swung the dim buttons of their trucks -under the stars.</p> - -<p>It was seven o’clock. I had an hour to smoke my pipe in before my watch -came round. I stood on the brig’s quarter, leaning upon the bulwark -rail. The sea ran in thick, noiseless folds like black grease, and I -hung smoking and hearkening to a queer respiration out upon the -water—the noise of the blowing of grampuses sunk in the blackness. -Presently my name was pronounced. I turned, and by the light in the -companion way beheld the figure of the boy Jimmy.</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“The captain wants to see you, master.”</p> - -<p>I knocked the fire out of my pipe.</p> - -<p>“What is wrong?” said I, in a voice of awe, for even as the lad had -called, my thoughts were busy with the dying man, and my heart heavy -with sadness.</p> - -<p>“The captain’s very bad to-night, master.”</p> - -<p>This was the third day Greaves had kept his berth without attempting or -expressing a wish to leave it. During these days he had been more than -usually rambling and incoherent, insomuch that my visits had been brief -because there was nothing to be said. I had looked in upon him merely to -satisfy myself on his condition. I knew not how I should find him now, -and sat me down on a chest beside his bunk. Galloon lay on the deck. The -lamp gave a strong light; Greaves saw me and I him very plain. There was -an intelligence in his looks that had been wanting—his countenance was -knitted into its old expression of mind, as though by an effort of the -faculties.</p> - -<p>“D’ye know, Fielding, I fear that I am very ill?” said he in a weak -voice.</p> - -<p>“You do not feel worse, I hope?” said I.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like my sensations. I don’t understand them. It has crossed my -mind that I am dying.”</p> - -<p>“Ill you are and have been, captain; yet less ill to-night, it seems to -me, than you were yesterday. God preserve you! What can I do? Here we -are, out upon the wild sea, nothing but Spanish ports to make for; but -say the word and I’ll head the brig for the port you shall name. We must -forfeit our dollars, but your life stands first.”</p> - -<p>“It is too late,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">{269}</a></span></p> - -<p>“For God’s sake don’t say that! Ought I to have sought help on the -coast?”</p> - -<p>“It is too late,” he repeated, and sank into a silence that lasted a -minute or two.</p> - -<p>“Have you believed that I am dying?” said he.</p> - -<p>“I have believed you ill—sometimes very ill.”</p> - -<p>“It will be hard to die here, all this way from home. The launch over -the side makes a deep burial. I buried a man hereabouts last voyage, -and—— How deep is it? Has he touched the bottom yet?—with a -twenty-four pound shot at his heels too.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t think of such things.”</p> - -<p>“I am not afraid to die, but I wish there was a priest aboard—someone -to help me to steady my thoughts. I believe in all that should make a -man a good Christian. What’s the time?”</p> - -<p>“A little after eight, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What noise of hissing is that?”</p> - -<p>“Grampuses have been blowing out to larboard; some may have come -alongside.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, me!” he cried. “There is the hand of the devil in this snatching -away of my life <i>now</i>, when the days show brightly, and my head is full -of plans of goodness. How about the money, Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“What money, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Mine, mine,” he exclaimed with irritation. “Yours you’ll keep and -welcome, and don’t let the spending of it damn ye. Mine, I say. What’s -to become of it? If I die, what’s to become of my money? Must it go to -Tulp? By Isten, no, then!” he exclaimed, with a rather crazy laugh.</p> - -<p>“Have you no relations?”</p> - -<p>“Tulp’s no relation.”</p> - -<p>“Have you no relation whatever?”</p> - -<p>“None, I tell ye.”</p> - -<p>“Few men can say that,” said I doubtingly.</p> - -<p>“Fielding, I am dying, and I will leave my money to God.”</p> - -<p>He spoke faintly, his appearance was very alarming; his eyes moved -slowly and strangely.</p> - -<p>“Tell me your wishes? If I live they shall be carried out.”</p> - -<p>He repeated in a low voice that he would leave his money to God.</p> - -<p>“In what form can this be done?” said I, fearing that his mind was -giving way again.</p> - -<p>“I will leave my money to the Church,” he answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">{270}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What Church?”</p> - -<p>He made no answer.</p> - -<p>“What Church, Captain?” I repeated, bending my face to his.</p> - -<p>“Rome,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“In what religion did your mother die?” said I.</p> - -<p>His eyes ceased to wander, he gazed at me steadfastly; but as he was -silent, I again asked him in what faith his mother had died.</p> - -<p>“She was a Protestant,” he answered; “she belonged to the Church of -England.”</p> - -<p>“Leave your money to the Church in whose faith your mother sleeps. -Should not a mother’s faith be the holiest of all to a child? Captain, -there is no better faith than was your mother’s.”</p> - -<p>“Who talks to me of my mother?” said he. “She married Bartholomew Tulp. -Well, she was a very good woman. She has gone to God. She was poor—she -married for a home, and to help me, as I have often since believed. I -will leave my money to her memory. What time is it?”</p> - -<p>I again told him the time.</p> - -<p>“How is the weather?”</p> - -<p>“A fine, quiet night.”</p> - -<p>“There is water in that can; give me a drink.”</p> - -<p>When he had drunk he asked me to lift the dog, that he might pat his -head. He feebly, with a pale, thin hand, touched the ears of the poor -beast; and as he did so, I thought of that time when I lay in a hammock, -trembling and helpless, with a weakness as of death, and when he had -lifted Galloon that I might kiss the dog that had saved my life.</p> - -<p>“Who has the watch?”</p> - -<p>“Bol, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Will you write for me, Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Anything will I do for you.”</p> - -<p>I seated myself at the little table that was near his bunk. It was -furnished with ink and quills. I opened a drawer and found paper, and -waited for him to speak.</p> - -<p>“Tulp shall not have my money,” said he; “the old rogue is rich, and he -has a noble share in what is below. Too much—too much. And yet it was -his venture. Let me be reasonable. He shall not have one dollar of my -money, by God! If I die, and the money goes home, he will take it. I -would see him damned before he touched a dollar of my money. Hasn’t he -enough?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">{271}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“More than enough.”</p> - -<p>“I will leave the money to the memory of my mother. The thought comforts -me. I was her only child—I left her very young; I was not to her as I -should have been. Write, Fielding.”</p> - -<p>He dictated, but ramblingly, with so much of incoherence, indeed, -breaking off to talk to himself, to ask the time, to whisper some sea -adventure, which he would go half through with and then drop, that, even -if my memory carried what he said, it would be mere silliness in the -reading. However, his wish was to dictate a will, which was to be -embodied in a very few sentences. So when he had made an end and lay -still, I wrote as follows:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>‘Brig <i>Black Watch</i>, at sea. February the 24th, 1815. This is the -last will and testament of me, Michael Greaves, master of the above -brig—at the time of signing this in full command of my senses. I -hereby bequeath all the money I have in the world to the Church of -England, in memory of my mother; and I desire that the money I thus -bequeath may be devoted to a memorial that shall forever perpetuate -the love I bear to the memory of my mother, whose soul is with -God.’</p></div> - -<p>It was the best form of will I could devise, knowing little of such -matters; but since it was his wish that the money should be dedicated to -God, most reasonable was it that I, as an Englishman, should wish to see -it bequeathed to the Church of my own and of his country. And I was the -warmer in this desire in that the money was Spanish; by which I mean -that nothing could be more proper than that the dollars of the most -bigoted people in all creation, in religious matters, should go to the -support of the purest, the most liberal, the very noblest of all -churches. Bear ye in mind, it was the year 1815; when our esteem of the -foreigner and his faith was not as it is.</p> - -<p>“What have you written?” said he.</p> - -<p>I read aloud.</p> - -<p>“It will do,” he exclaimed; “read it again.” I did so.</p> - -<p>“Will not thirty thousand pounds build a church?” said he.</p> - -<p>“It will build a ship,” said I. “I know nothing of the cost of building -a church.”</p> - -<p>“Write down that I want a church built,” said he.</p> - -<p>This I did.</p> - -<p>“Write down,” said he, “that I leave one thousand pounds to you, for -having saved my life.”</p> - -<p>I hesitated and looked at him, and then said, “My dear friend, I thank -you, but you have put enough in my way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">{272}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Write it down, write it down,” he cried. I wrote as he dictated. “Now,” -said he, “can I sign?” and he lifted his hand as though feeling for -strength to control a pen.</p> - -<p>I opened the door and called to Jimmy, who was putting wine and biscuit -on the table. I asked the lad if he could write. He answered, “No.” I -put a pen into Greaves’ hand, and he scratched his signature under the -three clauses I had written down. His vision was dim, and he saw with -difficulty when it came to his writing, but on my directing the point of -the pen in his hand to the paper he wrote with some vigor. I bade Jimmy -take notice of what I was about to read, and when I had read I signed my -name, and the lad made his mark, which I witnessed.</p> - -<p>All this was very innocent. I was a sailor, with no more knowledge of -the law than a ship’s figurehead, and little dreamed that I was -rendering my interest in poor Greaves’ will worthless by attesting it. -But, as things turned out, it mattered nothing, as you shall read.</p> - -<p>Jimmy went into the cabin to wait on the lady.</p> - -<p>“Will you, or shall I keep this will?” said I.</p> - -<p>“You,” he answered. “I give you Galloon,” said he after a pause, and now -speaking with the faintness I had observed in him when I first arrived. -“You’ll love him, Fielding.”</p> - -<p>I put my cheek to the dog’s face. “I am glad to have your wishes,” said -I. “Should you be taken before we get home I shall know what to do, if I -outlive you.” He feebly smiled.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but the risks of the sea are many—<i>we</i> know that. A man goes with -his life in one hand. You are far from dead yet. It is I who may be the -dying man.”</p> - -<p>“I wish there was a priest on board to settle my doubts,” said he, -scarcely above a whisper, and now his eyes began to look strangely -again.</p> - -<p>“What are your doubts?”</p> - -<p>“Is there a hell, Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Not for sailors, captain.”</p> - -<p>He steadied his eyes, and smiled with an odd parting of his lips, that -was like the first of a gape.</p> - -<p>“Not for sailors, sir,” said I. “Hell is here for them. There can’t be -two hells for the same man.”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to think that,” said he. “I am afraid of going to hell. I’ve -been afraid of dying ever since they put the notion of the devil into my -head. I told ye just now I wasn’t afraid of death. Nor am I, when I -forget the devil. I forgot him then.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">{273}</a></span> Now he’s back again. Give me some -water and open the scuttle—it’s grown blasted hot, hasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>He sat up on a sudden, and immediately afterward sank back. Again I gave -him to drink, and opened the scuttle as he desired.</p> - -<p>He now rambled. Some of his imaginations were wild and striking. They -even struck an awe into me, though perhaps much of their impressiveness -lay in their falling from dying lips. His poor head ran on religion—and -sometimes he was to be saved, and sometimes he was to be damned; and -then he would forget, and babble about what he meant to do when he got -home; how so much of his money would go in giving clothes and food to -the poor, and how he’d collect many kinds of animals and use them well, -fearing them, for who was to tell what souls of men they contained; and -there might be a human sorrow in the bleat of a goat, and a man’s -passion in the silence of a suffering horse.</p> - -<p>I cannot tell you what he talked about. It matters not. Yet one strange -thing that happened this evening let me note. It was this: he had sunk -into silence, and I was about to quit his cabin for the deck. He had -been talking very wildly, and sometimes, to my young, green, -superstitious mind, almost terrifyingly; then had fallen still all in a -moment, his eyes closed, his lips shut. I stooped to look at him, then -turned to go, as I have said. My hand was on the door, when I heard his -voice:</p> - -<p>“Fielding, will ye sing?”</p> - -<p>I went back wondering, and asked him what he said.</p> - -<p>“Will ye sing?” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>I supposed this a part of his sad, dying nonsense, yet, to humor him, -answered:</p> - -<p>“I will sing for you, captain.”</p> - -<p>“Sing me ‘Tom Bowling,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> said he.</p> - -<p>I sat down, and Galloon laid his head on my knee. My voice was broken, -but I strove to put a cheerfulness into it, and sang the opening verse -of “Tom Bowling.” He lay quiet while I sang. When I came to the end of -the verse, he looked at me and, when I paused, believing he had had -enough, he sang the closing lines in a feeble voice:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Faithful below he did his duty,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And now he’s gone aloft.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>When he ceased, his eyes were full of tears. He put out his hand, and I -took it, myself weeping, for the sight of his tears<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">{274}</a></span> had unmanned me. I -felt a gentle pressure. He then turned his face to the ship’s side, and -after I had watched by him for about five minutes, during which he -breathed quietly but spoke not, I passed out and went on deck.</p> - -<p>Whether Greaves feared death or not I don’t know. I will not, however, -believe he thought he was dying. Frequently will a man tell you that he -is dying when his belief is the other way. His fears betray the secret -of his hopes.</p> - -<p>Happily, from this night Greaves lost his senses, sank into a lethargy, -and lay motionless as death for hours; then awoke, but never to -consciousness, though often he would call out from amid the darkness -that lay upon him, with so much reason in his exclamations as made me -imagine his mind was returned. Whatever he said that had sense was -nautical. Once he put the brig about in his wanderings. He startled me, -who had entered his cabin but a minute or two before, by a sharp, hard -cry of:</p> - -<p>“Ready about!”</p> - -<p>He followed on with the proper orders, pausing with all the judgment you -can imagine for the intervals, and, when he supposed he had got the brig -on the other tack, the bowlines triced out, and the gear coiled away, he -whispered awhile briskly:</p> - -<p>“Now she stumps it,” said he. “Clap the jigger on that main-tack, my -lads! Get a small pull of the weather main royal brace. Flatten in that -jib sheet there. Damme, Mr. Walker, we don’t want balloons on our jib -booms.”</p> - -<p>So would he wander, and all that he said in <i>this</i> way was sensible.</p> - -<p>When he lost his mind the lady Aurora offered to nurse him. He did not -recognize her; and, down to the hour of his death, she was in and out of -his cabin, dressing little delicate messes of fowl and tortoise and the -like in the caboose, feeding him, damping the sweat from his face, -ministering to him in many ways. He would have died quickly but for her. -Jimmy had no knowledge of feeding or preparing food for him. Not a soul -of the rough junks forward were fit for such work; and the business of -the brig kept my hands full.</p> - -<p>The day before Greaves died, I entered his cabin, and found the lady on -her knees beside his bunk. She looked slowly round on my entering, -crossed herself, rose, and, putting her hand upon my arm, whispered in -English:</p> - -<p>“Shall he not die Catolique?”</p> - -<p>I answered with one of those shrugs which I had got from her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">{275}</a></span></p> - -<p>“He is Catolique,” said she.</p> - -<p>“No,” said I.</p> - -<p>“But, yes—but, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” said I.</p> - -<p>“He shall die Catolique,” said she, “or——”</p> - -<p>And now, wanting words, she signed to let me know that, if he did not -die Catolique, his soul went in danger. Happily, we had not language for -argument. Her eyes sparkled; she looked at me hotly. There was the -temper of the religious enthusiast in the whole manner of her.</p> - -<p>“Her uncle is a priest,” thought I. “There may be the blood of an -Inquisitor in this fine woman,” I thought. “Ay, and even though she was -my mistress, and I her impassioned sweetheart, and even though she loved -me with the jealous heat of a Spanish heart, all the same is she just -the sort of party to order me,” thought I, “to the stake, and watch me -with an unmoved face while I was doing to a turn, if she supposed the -burnt-offering of a shell-back would help her with the saints and give -her Jack’s soul a true course.”</p> - -<p>Here poor Greaves, who had lain motionless, suddenly let out. He seemed -to be hailing a boat.</p> - -<p>“Why the devil don’t you pull your larboard oars? You infernal lubbers! -what’s the good of <i>all</i> hands pulling to starboard? Look at the boat. -<i>This</i> is the ship, you fools—there! <i>Now</i> ye’ve done it. Plague take -ye. Twenty stone of prime beef foundered! Lower a boat and pick ’em up. -Lower a boat and pick—lower a boat—lower——”</p> - -<p>“He shall die Catolique,” said Miss Aurora.</p> - -<p>In what faith he departed this life is known to his Maker. Greaves went -under hatches next day, in the afternoon, at one o’clock. A strong wind -was blowing, a high sea running, it was bitterly cold; the windward -horizon was sullen with the black shadows of clouds, out of which the -dark green seas ridged in hills, with such a toss of spray from every -foaming head that the wind sparkled with the flying brine. The brig -labored heavily. She was under small canvas, and the sea broke against -her, in a sound of guns. I was watching her anxiously, intending, if it -came harder, to heave her to. The blubbered face of Jimmy showed in the -companion way.</p> - -<p>“Master,” said he, “the captain’s dead.”</p> - -<p>I spied Bol to leeward of the caboose, and bawled to him to lay aft, and -stepped below.</p> - -<p>Yes, Greaves lay dead. The peace of eternity was upon his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">{276}</a></span> face, the -peace that comes not until the noise of the clock falls upon the deaf -ear. At every other moment the thick glass scuttle, through which the -daylight came, rolled in thunder under water, and was hidden in -whiteness; then a dark green shadow was in the cabin; then the light -brightened, as the weeping glass was lifted. It was like being buried in -the sea with the dead man, to stand in that cabin and listen to the roar -of water round about, and mark the green dimness like daylight dying -out.</p> - -<p>I stood looking at Greaves. Beside me crouched Galloon. Every now and -again the dog uttered a sort of low, sobbing howl. How did he know that -his master was dead? <i>I</i> can’t tell. He crouched beside me, I say, -weeping in his way, and I dare swear that he better knew the captain was -dead than I, who indeed guessed him dead by his looks, though I would -not have buried him in that hour for a million.</p> - -<p>I drew the head of the blanket over the poor man’s face, and went to the -door, with a call to Galloon to follow. The dog did not stir.</p> - -<p>“Come,” cried I, and approached him. He growled fiercely, and I saw -danger in his eye. “Well, poor beast,” said I in my heart, “you shall -watch and mourn in your fashion;” and I came away, and sat down at the -cabin table, and leaned my head upon my hand to let pass an oppression -of tears that had visited my throat and was darkening my sight.</p> - -<p>I had saved his life, and he mine; we had spent many weeks together, -exchanged many thoughts, together paced out many a long hour of the day -and night; he had been my friend, shipmate, messmate, and I knew not how -warm was my love for him until now. The sea brings men close together, -and there is the companionship of peril and a sense of isolation and -remoteness that is binding. A man is missed at sea as he never can be -missed ashore. Ashore is a vast field filled with distractions for the -mind: the greatest ship is but a speck on the deep; you may walk the -length of her, and descend to the depth of her in a few minutes, and -over the side is the monotony of heaven and water, thrusting the spirit -back upon its imprisonment of bulwarks, and compelling the mind to -perpetual consideration of all the life that is contained within the -narrow walls of timber.</p> - -<p>I raised my head and found the lady Aurora sitting opposite me. She may -have come from her cabin quietly or not; her movements were not to have -been heard amid the straining sounds of that tossing interior.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">{277}</a></span></p> - -<p>“The poor captain is dead,” said she.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Blessed Virgin, he has suffered. He is now at peace,” said she, partly -in English, partly in Spanish.</p> - -<p>“Were you with him when he died?” I called to the boy, who stood at the -foot of the companion steps, white and grinning.</p> - -<p>“Yes, master.”</p> - -<p>“Come here, my lad. Did he speak before he died?”</p> - -<p>“Master, he lifted up his right hand and sung out ‘from under!’ then -rattled.”</p> - -<p>“How did you know he was dead?”</p> - -<p>“I saw father die, master, and last voyage the cook died, and I saw him -go.”</p> - -<p>Miss Aurora looked as if she would have me interpret Greaves’ dying -exclamation. I drained a tumbler of rum-and-water to cheer me, and going -on deck found Yan Bol standing beside the companion way waiting.</p> - -<p>“Vhas der captain deadt?” said he.</p> - -<p>“He is dead,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Und vhat vas to become of her share, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“He’ll not be cold for some hours, and he keeps his share till we bury -him.”</p> - -<p>I walked away. When I turned the Dutchman still stood where I had left -him, looking toward me. He then rolled forward and entered the caboose.</p> - -<p>There was no more weight of wind. In a few hours’ time I should be -keeping the brig more off for the Horn. I forget our latitude on the day -of Greaves’ death. It was something south of the parallel of the Horn, -and our longitude was right for a shift of the helm.</p> - -<p>I walked the deck, thinking much of Greaves. What had killed him? He had -been long a-dying, ever since his accident, indeed. No doubt that injury -betwixt his ribs had brought about his death, and I reckoned his -craziness to have been a consequence of that injury, though to be sure, -his mind, as we would say at sea, had been launched with a list. But he -was dead, and I was alone in the brig with a treasure of half a million -of silver to carry home, and with a crew of men I did not trust.</p> - -<p>No, it was not Bol’s question that had startled me. The moment I came on -deck, after leaving the dead captain, I realized my loneliness, and all -my old misgivings stormed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">{278}</a></span> upon me till, I give you my word, I stood -with my back upon the helm, panting as after a run, with the sudden -passion of anxiety that uprose.</p> - -<p>Presently, after walking and reasoning myself into something of -soberness, I thought I would have Yan Bol aft. I called; he put his head -out of the caboose; I beckoned, and he approached, thrusting his pipe -into his breeches pocket. It was his watch below, and he had a right to -smoke on deck.</p> - -<p>“The captain is dead,” said I. “Let us talk of the affairs of the brig.”</p> - -<p>“I vhas villing to talk, but you valked off, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“I walked off because I was fresh from the side of a friend who is -dead.”</p> - -<p>“I vhas sorry, too. He vhas a goodt sailor. When did you bury him?”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“He vhas steeched up by me himself. I makes a good shob of him out of -respect to you, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“What change is to come about? If I have charge of the brig, I can’t -keep watch.”</p> - -<p>“If you vhas not in sharge, Mr. Fielding, der brick vhas der <i>Flying -Doytchman</i>.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll be chief mate, then. Whom can you trust to act as second—to -keep a lookout, I mean?”</p> - -<p>“Plindfold me, und der man I touch is der man you vant. Vere der eggs -vhas all ash one der voorst vhas der best.”</p> - -<p>“Let the men choose for themselves, then.”</p> - -<p>“Dot shall be—— Und vhat vhas our port, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Our port? Our port?—why—why——” I staggered in my speech, for, now -that Greaves was dead, what name was I to give the place we were bound -to?</p> - -<p>“Vhas she to be Amsterdam?”</p> - -<p>“No. You and I will talk of this later on.”</p> - -<p>He nodded emphatically, a large and heavy nod of approbation.</p> - -<p>He left me after we had been talking for about half an hour. I then -heard a melancholy noise of crying in the cabin. I went below, and found -Galloon at Greaves’ door, howling dismally. I told Jimmy to let the dog -in, and resumed my walk and lonely lookout on deck. Lord, what a -melancholy day was that in my life! The desolation of the sea was in it. -I see that ocean now—its hills of liquid lead pour into foam, the gray -shape of an albatross hovers off the quarter, there is a constant flash -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">{279}</a></span> leap of hissing whiteness at the bow, and the black running gear is -curved to leeward by the gale.</p> - -<p>I looked into Greaves’ cabin before sitting down to supper. Galloon lay -upon the breast of the dead man and whined dismally when I entered. I -uncovered the face to make sure of the death in it, and the dog, when he -saw his master’s face, barked low and strangely, and licked the cheek of -the dead. I hid the face once more and went out. The dog would not -follow.</p> - -<p>Little passed at table between the lady Aurora and me. The gloom of -death was upon us, and I was too cold and sad at heart, too oppressed -with anxiety, to attempt one of our broken and motioning talks.</p> - -<p>At eight o’clock Bol came aft to stitch up the body in canvas. With him -came William Galen, a freckled countryman of Bol’s. I watched the brig -while they went below; very dark was the night, with a sort of swarming -of the seas to the vessel that gave her the most uncomfortable motion I -ever remember. But the wind was sinking, and by this hour we had shaken -a reef out of the topsails and had set the main topgallant sails, and -the little ship rushed along wet and in blackness fore-and-aft, her head -now something to the south of east, fair for the passage of the Horn.</p> - -<p>Bol and his mate had not been above three minutes in the cabin when I -heard a commotion below—the furious barking of a dog, deep roars, and -thunderous shouts and Dutch oaths. I rushed into the cabin, crying to -the sailors not to hurt the poor beast.</p> - -<p>“She has tore mine breek,” shouted Bol, “und bitten Galen to der bone of -her thumb.”</p> - -<p>I bade them stand out of sight, and Jimmy and I went in; but the dog was -not to be coaxed away from his master. There was nothing for it but to -smother and carry him out in a blanket, and let him loose in an adjacent -berth. The struggle with the beast capsized my stomach. He had crouched -upon the dead body, and our catching at him and smothering him, and -dragging him out of the bunk in a blanket, had given a horrid semblance -of life to the poor remains. The half-closed eyes seemed to plead for -repose, and, in the dance of the lamplight, the pale lips stirred, and, -by stirring, entreated.</p> - -<p>“Now for a neat shob,” said Bol.</p> - -<p>I went out sick, and was some time on deck ere I rallied. By and by Bol -and his mate came up, and the boatswain said:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">{280}</a></span></p> - -<p>“She vhas all right now. How many men vhas dis dot I make up for der -last heaf?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Veil, only dwenty-dwo. I steech opp half a leedle ship’s company mit -cholera. Dere vhas fifteen all toldt. Sefen diedt. I steech ’em opp. I -tell you, Mr. Fielding, vhen dot shob vhas ofer I feels like drinkin’.”</p> - -<p>“Vhas he to be all night below?” said Galen.</p> - -<p>“Yaw,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Aboot der vatches, Mr. Fielding?” exclaimed Bol.</p> - -<p>“Let that matter stand till we bury the captain.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, ay, sir. Galen is der man, I belief.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas villing,” said Galen.</p> - -<p>I left the deck for a few minutes to view the body of my poor friend in -his sea-shroud. Miss Aurora sat at the table. She drummed with her -brilliant fingers, and her head rested on her left hand. Her face was -unusually pale; her eyes large, alarmed, and fiery, and blacker, owing -to her pallor, than they commonly showed.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” said I, conceiving that something was wrong with her.</p> - -<p>“Ave Maria, hark!” cried she.</p> - -<p>I heard Galloon whining and complaining. Never did a more melancholy, -depressing, heart-subduing noise thread the conflicting uproar of a ship -in labor. I at once let Galloon into the captain’s cabin, and paused a -minute to view the shrouded figure upon which the dog had sprung; and I -remember thinking to myself: “Great is the difference between the dead -at sea and the dead ashore. At sea the dead man cannot be tyrannous; but -ashore, how does he serve his relatives and the world which he leaves -behind? A dismal funeral bell is rung for him, and the spirits of a -whole district are dejected—the spirits of a wide district that may -never have his name, or that, very well knowing his name, values not his -loss at the paring of a finger nail, are sunk because of that dreadful -knell. He obliges his survivors to draw down the blinds of the house in -which he expires, and, for the inside of a week, they sit in gloom, a -sort of pariahs, coming and going with fugitive swiftness, miserable -all, until it is <i>convenient</i> to him to be buried. He defrauds his next -of kin of good money by the obligation of a solemn and expensive -funeral. He tyrannically robs his relatives by obliging them to put up a -memorial to him. But at sea? A piece of canvas and a twenty-four pound -shot;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">{281}</a></span> a little hole in the water, which is gone ere the eye can behold -it! The dead cannot be tyrannous at sea.”</p> - -<p>“Señor Fielding,” said my lady Aurora, rising and holding my arm as I -was about to pass, “I cannot rest down here with the dead.”</p> - -<p>She did not thus speak, but this was my interpretation of her words and -signs. I regarded her and considered. Where could she lie, if not in the -cabin? This, for her, was a miserable, horrible time; in as wild a -passage of shipwreck and adventure as ever woman lived through, and my -heart pitied her. It mattered not when the captain should be buried; -and, meeting her eyes again, and beholding the superstition and fear in -them, I looked up at the clock, that showed the hour to be a little -after ten, and, holding up my hands and afterward two fingers, I said, -“<i>Doce de la noche</i>—twelve of the night;” and, pointing and signing, -gave her to know that at midnight we would bury the captain.</p> - -<p>She looked at me gratefully.</p> - -<p>“I must go,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Stop—oh, stop a minute!” she exclaimed in English, and went to her -berth, looking fearfully toward the door of the captain’s cabin as she -made her way, clinging and moving slowly, for very fierce and sharp at -times was the jump of the deck.</p> - -<p>Strange, thought I, that the flight of a soul should make a terror of -the shell it quits! It would be the same with that fine-eyed woman, with -her aves and crossings. She dies; and the caballero on his knees at her -feet, the gallant cavalier who has courage enough for the holding of her -sweetness and her perfections to his heart while her charms live, -springs to his legs, fetches a wide compass to avoid the corpse, and -sooner than sleep a night beside the body would go to a lunatic asylum -for the rest of his days.</p> - -<p>She came out of her berth clothed for the deck, wrapped up in her own -comfortable slop-chest manufactures, but half an hour of the cold and -blackness above sufficed; she went below again and sat under the clock -waiting for midnight. I chose twelve because all hands would be astir at -that hour. At twelve the starboard watch went below; Yan Bol would come -aft, and then we’d bury the dead. Meanwhile I ordered a couple of the -seamen in my watch to load the four nine-pounder carronades, that we -might dispatch Greaves with a sailor’s honors to his bed of ooze. -Lanterns were lighted and hung in the gangway in readiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">{282}</a></span></p> - -<p>In those times the burial at sea, in such craft as the <i>Black Watch</i>, -was a simple affair. Whether it was the captain at the top or the cabin -boy at the bottom, it mattered not; it was just a plain, respectful -launch over the rail, no prayers, a sail at the mast, and there was an -end. We had no book containing the burial service aboard. Few -merchantmen went to sea with such things. I thought over a prayer or two -as I walked the deck, meaning that the petition of a brother-sailor’s -heart should attend the launch of the canvassed figure; in which, and in -many other thoughts the time slipped by; the lady Aurora all the while -sitting below under the clock, waiting for midnight, often lifting her -black alarmed eyes to the skylight, and often looking around her with a -slow motion of her head, and at long intervals crossing herself. This -picture of her the frame of the skylight gave me. The glass was bright -and the light of the lamp strong.</p> - -<p>Eight bells were struck, and presently the shapeless bulk of Bol came -through the lantern-light upon the main-deck. It was the blackest hour -of a black night. Even the foam, lifting and sinking alongside in -sheets, scarcely showed. We had made a fair wind with a shift of helm at -eight in the evening, and were bruising and rolling through it at about -nine knots, with a broad, dim, spectral glare under the stern.</p> - -<p>“Is that you, Bol?”</p> - -<p>“He vhas, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“I propose to bury my poor friend at once. The lady cannot rest, with -the body below. It will be a kindness to her, to all of us may be, and -no wrong to him. Nay, God forbid—if I believed it hurried—but a few -hours more or less can signify nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Noting. Der crew vhas pleased too.”</p> - -<p>“Well, get the body up—with all reverence, Bol; you know what to do.”</p> - -<p>I called to Jimmy to smother Galloon as before and stow him out of the -road of the men till the body was on deck, and then I stationed Joseph -Street and Isaac Travers at the carronades, to discharge them when the -body left the plank. In ten minutes they brought him up; four carried -him, and one was Bol. The señorita came on deck, and holding by my arm -to steady herself, spoke to me. I said “yonder,” and she went into the -light cast by the lanterns on the lee side of the deck, and stood with -her hand upon a rope.</p> - -<p>They carried the body to the gangway where the lanterns<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">{283}</a></span> were, and I -went with them and they put one end of the plank on the top of the rail -and two of them held the other end, ready to tilt it. I think all the -seamen had drawn together to view this midnight burial. Antonio and -Jorge were close to a lantern. They sometimes crossed themselves, and -their eyes gleamed and restlessly rolled. They seemed heartily -frightened. The others stood stolid and staring, some in shadow, some -touched by the lantern beams. All hands bared their heads when the -corpse came to the gangway.</p> - -<p>Had this funeral happened in daylight I should have ordered the topsail -to be backed. I agree with those who hold that the ship’s way should be -stopped when the body is launched. It would have been, however, but the -idlest of ceremonies to back the topsail in this deep midnight hour. -There was besides a large sea running, the fresh wind was off the -quarter, and the brig would have needed a shift of the helm to have got -an effectual stand out of her backed canvas.</p> - -<p>Cold, oh how bitterly cold did that night grow on a sudden with the -presence of that body, pale on its plank in the lantern light! A wilder -cry sounded in the wind, a deeper dye entered the darkness. I prayed -aloud briefly, but not for the hearing of the men: the hiss of the -sweeping water alongside drowned my voice.</p> - -<p>“Launch!” I cried.</p> - -<p>As the canvas figure fled like a wreath of white smoke from the rail a -sunbright flash of fire threw out the whole brig: the roar of a gun -followed.</p> - -<p>At that instant—at the instant of the explosion of the carronade—and -while the two fellows who had tilted the body paused for a moment or -two, grasping the end of the plank, a dark form seemed to spring from -the deck at my feet; it gained the plank in a bound, and went overboard.</p> - -<p>“Der dok!” roared one of the Dutchmen.</p> - -<p>The second gun was exploded with a deafening roar.</p> - -<p>“Was that Galloon?” I shouted.</p> - -<p>“It was, sir,” answered two or three voices.</p> - -<p>“Hold your hand,” I bawled to the fellow at the third carronade.</p> - -<p>I sprang on to the rail to look over. No sanity in <i>that</i>, for what was -there to see, what did I expect to see? We were going at nine knots an -hour: the spread of yeast on either hand of us was a wild and roaring -race that throbbed out of sight in the darkness abeam within a biscuit’s -toss, and that fled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">{284}</a></span> and vanished into the darkness abaft, within the -span of the brig’s main-deck.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure it was the dog?” I cried from the rail.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir; yes, sir, it was the dog—it was Galloon,” was the answer.</p> - -<p>“It was the dog,” cried Miss Aurora, coming close to me.</p> - -<p>“Oh, poor Galloon!” I was struck to the heart. For some moments I stood -motionless, staring into the blackness, while the brig stormed onward, -rolling and foaming through the night. Was there nothing to be done? -Nothing, I vow to God. Perilous it might have been to bring the brig to -the wind in that hollow sea: but to save Galloon, who had saved my life, -I would have risked the brig, the treasure in her, nay, the lives within -her, so wild was I then. But the dog could not have been rescued without -lowering a boat, and a boat stood to be swung and smashed into staves -ere a soul entered her; and consider also the blackness of the Cape Horn -night that lay upon the ocean!</p> - -<p>“Are these guns to be fired, sir?”</p> - -<p>“No. Oh, lads, I would not have lost that dog for twenty-fold my share -of the money below. He saved my life—he’s still swimming out -there—he’s alive out there and may live. Where’s Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>“Blubbering here, sir,” said a voice.</p> - -<p>A couple of seamen ran him into the lantern light; I could have killed -him.</p> - -<p>“Did not I tell you to stow Galloon away?”</p> - -<p>“So I did, master.”</p> - -<p>“Why is he perishing out yonder then, you villain?”</p> - -<p>I turned my back and walked aft.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br /><br /> -<small>AURORA ENTERTAINS US.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="lftspc">I’ll</span> not swear I did not feel the loss of the dog more than I felt the -death of Greaves. Should I be ashamed to own it? The captain’s death I -had long expected; it came without suddenness, it brought no -astonishment. But the loss of Galloon happened in a breath. He was here, -and then he was gone. He had gathered a human significance from my long -association with him, my spoken reveries to which he seemed to listen, -loving of eye and patient. For days and nights I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">{285}</a></span> haunted by the -thoughts of him, swimming round and round in that dark sea. He swam -well, and I say that it was long an agony to think of him struggling out -in that foaming water.</p> - -<p>The lad Jimmy was broken hearted. So crushed was he that I had no heart -to deal with him for indirectly causing the dog’s death. For days he’d -snatch minutes at a time to stand at the rail just where the plank had -rested, just where Galloon had sprung overboard, and there he’d gaze -astern with his face working and his eyes bubbling. The men let this -maudlin behavior pass without jeering. They reckoned him half an idiot. -Yet the chap’s grief went deep. He was alone in the world, and had -nothing to love. Greaves had been kind to him, but he could not love the -captain as he loved the captain’s dog. Galloon had been his friend. -Often used the lad to talk to him as a negro talks to a monkey or a pig. -They’d lie together on deck, and had slept together, and now the dog was -gone the boy’s heart ached. He looked around him: there was no friend; -he sent his fancies ashore and found himself alone there.</p> - -<p>On the morning following Greaves’ funeral I took possession of his -cabin. I spent a couple of hours in overhauling his papers, for I could -not bring myself to believe that he had been without a relative in the -world, Tulp excepted. I could not realize such a thing as a man without -a relation in the whole blessed wide world. Yet I found nothing to tell -me that Greaves had not been alone. I carefully stowed his papers away -with his clothes and other effects. To whom belonged his little -property—his clothes, his books, his nautical instruments, and the -like, together with a bag of thirty odd guineas and a quantity of -English silver? To whom, I say? To Tulp?</p> - -<p>I found nothing to connect Greaves with a home, with relatives, with -friends—no miniature, no lock of hair, no memorial of ribbon or bauble. -Never once had he hinted at any love passage. He’d speak of woman with -coldness, though with respect, as the child of a woman. Had you walked -him through King Solomon’s seraglio he’d have seen nothing worth -choosing. Well, the yeast that had hissed to the plunge of his shape was -his tombstone. He was bred a sailor, he had lived the life of a sailor, -and was now gone the way of a sailor; yea, and true even in death was he -unto the traditions of the sailor—for he had received the last toss, -the sea had swallowed him up, and no man could swear that his name was -as he had styled himself, nor affirm with conviction whose son he was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">{286}</a></span></p> - -<p>When I had made an end with the captain’s papers and effects I put on my -cap, buttoned up my pea-coat, and went on deck. It was blowing a strong, -fair wind. The brig still wore the canvas she had carried throughout the -night. The sea ran high, it was much freckled with foam, and its -frothing brows shone out like a hard light against the cold dark-green -vapor to windward.</p> - -<p>Bol paced the deck, thickly clothed. He wore great boots, had a heavy -fur cap on, and a fathom of shawl was coiled round his immensely thick -throat. He fitted the picture of that pitching and storming brig as the -brig fitted the picture of that swollen and foaming sea. There was no -sun. The dark clouds rushed rapidly across the sky; they were of the -soft blackness of the snow cloud; the bands of topsails, the square of -the topgallant sail, of a light sick as the gleam of misty moonshine, -fled from side to side athwart the flying sky of shadow. The sea stood -up in walls of ivory to every plunge of the bows—I never before saw -foam look so solid. Where the bubble and foam-bell of it were too remote -for the eye, <i>there</i> every ridge was like a cliff of marble.</p> - -<p>Bol appeared surprised to see me. He supposed I was turned in.</p> - -<p>“This is a wind to clap Staten Island in our wake.”</p> - -<p>“Potsblitz! as der Shermons say, dere vhas veight in dese seas too.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to live aft?”</p> - -<p>“In der landt of spoons?” said he, with a smile wrinkling his face till -he was scarcely the same man.</p> - -<p>“Yaw. There is a cabin and bunk for your mattress. You are mate—first -mate, entitled to live aft.”</p> - -<p>“I shtops vhere I vhas, Mr. Fielding. I vhas no mate.”</p> - -<p>“As much mate as I was.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, dot might be,” said he; then added, “No, you vhas mate in your -last ship. I am bos’en. I belongs forwardt.”</p> - -<p>“I want a second mate. Send the men aft, will you.”</p> - -<p>He went into the waist and put his pipe to his lips. His roar was like -the voice of a giant singing the tune of the wind in the rigging. The -men knocked off the several jobs they were on and came aft.</p> - -<p>The fellows had a homely, comfortable appearance. The slop-chest had -supplied the vacancies in their own bags, and they were clad as men who -were starting on, not returning from, a long voyage. Their health was -good. Some were fat, all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">{287}</a></span> hearty. I scanned them swiftly but with -attention, and saw nothing to occasion uneasiness; and I believe I could -not be mistaken, for of all living beings the sailor is the most -transparent in his moods and meanings. A few I have known who were dark -and subtle; they were not Englishmen, neither were they Dutchmen. The -English sailor gets a face at sea that prohibits the concealment of -feelings and passions, and, on board the merchant ship, he will look the -thing that is in him.</p> - -<p>“Am I captain? Is it understood?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, captain, of course,” exclaimed Teach after a pause, as though the -men had waited for one of them to act as spokesman. “If not you, who? -and if it’s who, vhere do ’ee sling his hammock? Not forrads. All the -larnin’s been washed aft out o’ that.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Yan Bol is your chief mate.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, Mr. Yan Bol is chief mate. Who but him?” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Now choose a second mate, lads.”</p> - -<p>“Is he to live aft?” said Friend.</p> - -<p>“That’s as he chooses.”</p> - -<p>“There’ll be no man wants to live aft,” exclaimed Street.</p> - -<p>“I will live aft,” said Antonio.</p> - -<p>“Yaw, towed in der vake, you beastly man,” thundered Bol. “Dot was aft -for der likes of you.”</p> - -<p>“I will live aft, señor,” said Antonio.</p> - -<p>“Curse your impudence, I’ll aft ye. Now, look. There are four Dutchmen -and seven Englishmen, not reckoning two Spaniards.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t count them Johnnies, sir,” said Travers.</p> - -<p>“It vhas oudt dey go mit dem soon, I allow,” said Hals, the cook.</p> - -<p>Paying no attention to these interruptions, I continued:</p> - -<p>“A Dutchman is already mate. If I choose another Dutchman you Englishmen -mayn’t like it. Now then.”</p> - -<p>“Choose, sir,” exclaimed Call.</p> - -<p>“I choose Galen,” said I.</p> - -<p>There was a general grin, and Friend called out:</p> - -<p>“We’re satisfied.”</p> - -<p>“Then Galen it is,” said I. “Galen, you now act second. Will you live -aft, Galen?”</p> - -<p>“May I pe dommed if I lifs aft!” exclaimed he, with a wide grin and a -slow wag of his head.</p> - -<p>“All right; that’ll do. You can go forward;” and I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">{288}</a></span> below, very -well satisfied with the Dutchmen’s refusal to live aft. Not for my own -sake; indeed, there was a laugh here and there to be got out of the -ignorance and talk and strange English of Bol and of Galen. I thought of -my lady Aurora. How would <i>she</i> enjoy the company of those Dutchmen at -table, the society of those heavy, lumpish forecastle hands, half-boors, -half-savages? I suppose that never before in the history of marine -disaster was a girl situated as was this señorita. Are you who read this -a girl? Figure yourself, madam, on board a little ship; you are scarcely -able to speak the tongue of the crew; your only associate is a rough -seaman, your sitting room is a small, old-fashioned cabin, your bedroom -a bit of a hole up in a corner, lighted by an eye called a scuttle, that -winks at the leaping sea, your meals the pork and beef of the ocean, -your diversions the fancies that come out of the running hills of water -of the gale, out of the silent, swimming surface of the calm. Can you -imagine the ceaseless heaving of the deck, the long days of the crying -of the wind, the creaking and straining of a tumbling timber-built -craft, the sullen roar of smitten and parted waters, the indescribable -odors of the hold?</p> - -<p>When I left the deck that day, after calling the men aft and choosing -Galen to act as second mate, on stepping below, I found the lady Aurora -leaning against the door of the cabin, with her arms folded upon her -breast and her eyes fixed upon the deck. She did not immediately see me. -I stood viewing her. She was attired in a white drill, or duck dress of -her own making. It would have been cold wear but for certain hidden -clothing she had contrived for herself. She looked a fine figure of a -woman. She lifted up her eyes, released her breast from the embrace of -her arms, and extended her hand. I brought her to a seat—it was what -she wanted—and sat beside her.</p> - -<p>We sat together for near an hour, because we both had something to say, -and it took us long to communicate our minds, though, to be sure, these -passages of laborious intercourse were never teasing or fatiguing to me, -however <i>she</i> may have found them; for there was a pleasure not hard to -understand in the mere watching her face when she talked or signed to -me. Her expressions were rich and manifold; her eyes darkened, softened, -brightened, shone with fire, dimmed as with tears, like the figure of a -star in the sea over which the scattered mists of the calm night are -floating.</p> - -<p>But here will I put into plain English the words and signs we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">{289}</a></span> exchanged -while we sat together at this time. It may well come to it, for I -understood her and I know what myself said. Thus, then, ran this -conversation:</p> - -<p>“Señor Fielding, have the men rebelled?”</p> - -<p>“No, why do you ask?”</p> - -<p>“I stepped up yonder stairs just now and saw you talking to the men.”</p> - -<p>“It is true. I am captain, Bol is mate, someone must be chosen to take -Bol’s place.”</p> - -<p>But, oh, the time and difficulty to make her understand this!</p> - -<p>“I am very sad to-day, Señor Fielding. The death of the captain makes me -think of my mother. Most blessed and very purest Maria, does she live? -Shall we meet again? Ay me, ay me,” and here the tears stood in her eye.</p> - -<p>“Señorita, this is what I wish to say to you. I have not the fears of -the captain who is dead. If we meet a ship of your nation, if we meet a -ship of any country sailing to Spain, or proceeding to a port in South -America, east or west, I will put you on board her if she will take -you.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Gracias.</i> I am content to stop.”</p> - -<p>“You are alone.”</p> - -<p>“It is true, señor.” (Sigh.)</p> - -<p>“There are few comforts for you in this ship.”</p> - -<p>“True, true, ’tis true. Yet could I be content if I knew my mother was -alive.”</p> - -<p>“If you are content I am glad. I do not wish to speak a ship, yet I’ll -do so.”</p> - -<p>“No—I will go home in the <i>Black Watch</i>.”</p> - -<p>“I admire your spirit. You have borne up very bravely.”</p> - -<p>“To you belongs my gratitude, Señor Fielding. Throughout you have been -amiable and tender. The poor captain liked me not. Why was that?” and -here she bent her eyes upon me; their expression was a mixture of -archness and temper.</p> - -<p>“He was in pain, was a little crazy, and would not always be sure of the -reasons of his moods.”</p> - -<p>“I am not used not to be liked.” I bowed a very full acquiescence. “He -was not as you are. But he is dead.” Her hand flashed as she swept it -before her face, dismissing the subject with a gesture. “Now that you -are captain you will have plenty of leisure.”</p> - -<p>“I shall have time to spare.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">{290}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“<i>Vaya!</i> Time to spare—and yet command! I shall want you to give me -much of your time.”</p> - -<p>I looked at her eyes and laughed when I gathered her meaning, and -answered: “All the spare time I have shall be yours, señorita. But how -much of that spare time will it take to make you weary of my face and -voice?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Qué disparate!</i> [What nonsense!] You shall teach me English, and I -will teach you Spanish.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Bueno!</i> Yet what is the reason of your desire to speak English?”</p> - -<p>To this she made no answer. She cast her eyes down, and her face took a -demure look.</p> - -<p>“It is a rough language.”</p> - -<p>“It is a noble language, señor,” said she, answering with her eyes cast -down. Suddenly she looked up: the leap of her glance was like the light -of a flash of fire upon her face, so swift and cunning was she in the -management of her eyelids. “Do you love music?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I will sing to you when it is calm, and when you can hear my voice.”</p> - -<p>I thanked her for this promise.</p> - -<p>“Are we not alone? We will be company one to the other. I have the -actress’s art, and can recite, and when you know some Spanish I will -speak many beautiful and majestic lines to you. Have you playing-cards?”</p> - -<p>“I fear not.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Eso me soprende mucho!</i> Many tiresome hours could we have killed with -cards. Can you dance?”</p> - -<p>“All sailors can dance.”</p> - -<p>“I will make you an accomplished cavalier. I will teach you to tell -fortunes after the manner of the zingari, and you shall teach me -English, and give me your company until I tire, or until the ship calls -you from me.”</p> - -<p>We broke off here that I might fetch my quadrant, for it was drawing on -to the hour of noon. Our conversation was not as I have set it down; it -took us a long while to work our way through the above; but what you -have read is the substance of what was meant and by our methods -conveyed.</p> - -<p>I went on deck puzzled and tickled, amused and astonished by the -gay-spirited, fine woman below. Did she mean to make love to me? Did she -intend that I should make love to her? What would my teaching her -English and her teaching me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">{291}</a></span> Spanish, her singing to me, her recital of -swelling Spanish rhymes, her gypsy tricks, and the rest of it end -in—the rest of it, I say, backed by her impassioned eyes, the many arch -and moving and tender and fiery expressions of countenance she was -mistress of, her excellent person, and all that sort of sweet rhetoric -which is found, the poet tells you, in the laughter and tears, the -smiles and gesticulations, of a lady after the pattern of this Spanish -maiden?</p> - -<p>I took my quadrant on deck; the sun did not show himself, and I got at -the situation of the brig by dead reckoning. The westerly gale blew -fresh and strong, and I needed to keep the vessel under the tall canvas -of the topgallant sail to run her free of the huge Horn surge, which -chased us as though to the hurl of an earthquake. It was impossible to -make too much of such a wind; at any moment might come a greasy Horn -calm with a swell like a land of hills; to be swept with horrible -suddenness by a black outfly right ahead. I saw no ice; the horizon lay -open, distant seven or eight miles from the head of a sea. We were -cutting the meridians spankingly, and three days of such sailing would -enable me to head the brig northward for England.</p> - -<p>And very nearly three days of such sailing did we get, during which -nothing noteworthy happened, for the plain reason that so heavy and -violent were the motions of the brig, the most seasoned among us found -it difficult to come and go. Relieving tackles were hooked on; two hands -steered day and night, and a third was always near in readiness. I have -seen the gigantic feathering curl of the huge sea soar on either hand -alongside to half the height of the foremast and fall aboard in froth, -making it all sheer dazzle, like snow shone on, from the eyes to the -main rigging, till the tilt of the brig aft, courtesying with her bows -flat as a spoon upon the roaring smother of the on-rushing sea, sent the -water in a cataractal sweep over the head, where it blew up in white -smoke and drove away as though we were on fire.</p> - -<p>This was a sort of weather to keep everything very quiet aboard. Hals -cooked with difficulty; he scalded himself, broke dishes, and filled the -caboose with Dutch oaths. The cold was bitter, and the chief work of the -crew lay in keeping themselves warm. Yet no ice formed; no hail or snow -ever drove in the sudden dark squalls which burst in guns of hurricane -power out of the gale over the stern; we sighted not a berg, and yet the -cold was frightful; the wind took the face like a saw, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">{292}</a></span> you felt -half flayed when you turned your back to it. The cold of the spray made -its drops sting like lead, and it was as though you were shot through -the head to be struck by a showering of the brine.</p> - -<p>Her ladyship kept below. She saw very little of me; in those three days -we made no progress in English and Spanish. The violent upheavals of the -brig frightened her; then did her eyes grow large, her face look wild; -if I was near her she’d grasp me and hold on to me and utter many -exclamations in Spanish. I’d catch myself smiling afterward when I -thought of those moments; how she used me as though we had grown up, boy -and girl, together, never timid in her tricks of touching me, as free -with me as a sister, and that’s about it.</p> - -<p>We were in longitude 63° or 64° west when the westerly gale shifted into -the north, and the wind blew in a moderate breeze out of that quarter. -The cold lessened with the shift. The sailors moved with some trifle of -alacrity, as though they were thawing. The decks dried, we shook out -reefs, made sail, coiled down anew fore-and-aft; the smoke blew cheerily -from the chimney of the caboose, and with taut running gear and white -clothes robing her to the topgallant mastheads the brig renewed her -comfortable, homely look.</p> - -<p>This brought us to the afternoon of what I will call the third day of -the gale. I had eaten some supper, talked awhile with my lady, visited -my cabin, and returned on deck after an examination of the chart, -resolved on a bit more of easting before changing the course.</p> - -<p>When I passed through the companion way I heard Bol’s voice. He and -Galen stood at the bulwarks abreast of the hatch, their faces to the -sea, and they conversed in Dutch, keeping their voices down and talking -very earnestly. The large swell rolled quietly under the brig; the wind -silenced the sails, and after the uproar of the preceding days the -repose along the decks and up aloft was almost as the hush of a tropic -calm upon the vessel.</p> - -<p>I stepped to the binnacle. Teach, who was at the wheel, cleared his -throat noisily and spat over the taffrail. The Dutchmen looked, and -Galen, saying something sharp and quick in Dutch, walked forward. Bol -glanced aloft with the air of a man in search of work for his watch; I -walked a few paces his way, and he approached me.</p> - -<p>“How vhas der vetter to be, sir?”</p> - -<p>“The sky is high and hard, and the sun strikes clear fire<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">{293}</a></span> into the -west. Look at the edge of the sea; it sweeps clean as the rim of a new -dollar. There is fine weather about.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, so much der better, Mr. Fielding. I have slept in more -comfortable fok’sles dan vhas dis of der <i>Black Vatch</i> vhen she pitches -heavy—more comfortable, but I doan say drier. No; der toyfell shall not -pe more plack dan she vhas bainted. Dis vhas a dry brick, und dere vhas -no schmarter sailor out of Amsterdam.”</p> - -<p>“I believe you.”</p> - -<p>He looked about him to let me see he did not heed the brig the less for -talking. I was willing he should talk. I saw matter in his huge full -face, and guessed, if he chattered, he might let me come presently at -what had passed ’twixt him and Galen.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, how far might she be from der Horn to der Channel?”</p> - -<p>“A long stride. Would you have it as the crow flies? How many hundreds -of miles will the zigzags of a ship tag on to a straight-line -measurement?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, dot’s how it vhas. No man at sea can say how far she vhas from -home. Der Cape of Goodt Hope, Mr. Fielding—dot, now, vhas a vast great -roon from here?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw; the whole width of the South Atlantic.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas vide.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll teach you how to measure distances on a chart, if you like.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, I likes to know; but I doan believe dot I recollects to-morrow -vhat you teaches him to-day. Mr. Fielding, vhere vhas Amsderdam Island?”</p> - -<p>“Amsderdam Island?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw. Der Doytch fell in mit her—vell, call it a hoondred year ago.”</p> - -<p>“There is an Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas her.”</p> - -<p>“What of it?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, sir. Galen vhas saying how der Doytch vhas everywhere mit der -names. New Holland, Amsderdam Island—look how dey roon.”</p> - -<p>“True,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Mind your luff, my ladt!” he called in thunder to Teach. “How vhas her -headt?”</p> - -<p>“East by north,” answered Teach.</p> - -<p>“East she vhas, und noting off.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">{294}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He upturned his face to the canvas with an expression which let me see -that certain whale-like thoughts were coming up to blow from the dark -and oozy deep of his mind.</p> - -<p>“Oxcuse me, Mr. Fielding—mit regard to der dollars. You promised a -leedle vhile ago to talk mit me about der landing of dot silver vhen ve -arrives.”</p> - -<p>“What do you want to know?”</p> - -<p>“Vell, Mr. Fielding, it vhas like dis. All handts vould like to know how -dey vhas to be baid dere shares. If der money vhas schmuggled on shore, -who bays me und der men? Dis vhas your peesiness like as ours, for you -too shall ask who vhas to bay you herself?”</p> - -<p>“On our arrival in the Downs,” said I, willing to give him the -information he desired, pleased, indeed, that he should seek it, since -the manner of his question gave a new turn to my fancies of him, “I -shall communicate with Mynheer Tulp and await his instructions.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose she vhas deadt?”</p> - -<p>“I will suppose nothing. Tulp is alive until we know he is dead; and -when we know that he is dead we will think of what’s next to be done.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, dot’s straight-hitting. I like her.”</p> - -<p>“You shall suppose Tulp alive. He will come on wings from the city of -Amsterdam; and, when he is on board, every man will take his share of -the dollars according to his paper of proportion. Tulp touches not one -dollar until he pays us our share. We will then hold him to carry out -whatever schemes he prearranged with Captain Greaves.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, dot vhas all right; but, Mr. Fielding, der ship’s company likes -to know if dere vhas any reesk vhen you gets her home?”</p> - -<p>“Who home?”</p> - -<p>“Der money.”</p> - -<p>“Risk? I don’t understand.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, dey puts it as she might pe dis vay. Ve vhas in der Downs. A boat -cooms alongside, und somepody climbps on poardt und oxes, ‘Vhat vhas -your cargo?’ ‘Dot vhas my peesiness,’ you say. ‘Not at all,’ he answers. -‘I vhas a King’s officer. I belongs to der Revenue.’ How vhas it, den, -mit her, der ship’s company vould like to know, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“We should not be searched for cargo in the Downs—for men, perhaps; but -who would meddle with the cargo?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">{295}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Ay; but how vhas you to know dot for certain, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Let us arrive in the Downs. The rest will be easy. Our difficulty lies -in getting home. We are still fighting the Yankees, no doubt.”</p> - -<p>“Ay; but he vhas a Doytchman, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“I hope whoever boards us will believe it,” said I, with a shrug of the -shoulders; and, catching sight at that instant of a dim, yellow spot -against the sky across the round, large heads of the swell, I fetched -the glass, and made out the object to be a ship bound westward. I -watched her until she died out in the red air.</p> - -<p>Bol drew off and we talked no more. His questions and remarks had struck -me as honest, very natural, and to the point, seeing that the men -expected him to speak what was in their minds, and that their united -stake in the successful finish of this adventure, now that the money was -aboard, was considerable. I did not perhaps much relish the persistent -manner in which he had “Mr. Fielding’d” me. I could have wished him a -little blunter. When Yan Bol gave me my name very often, distrust arose. -On the other hand, there was nothing in his own suggestions nor in the -fears of the crew to render me uneasy as to the safe disposal of the -cargo of silver, should I be fortunate enough to reach the Downs. What -excuse could be invented for overhauling a ship’s cargo while she lay at -anchor in those waters? You look for the wolves of the Revenue as you -warp into dock; you look for them in the Pool; but I had never heard of -them in the Downs—that is, I had never heard of them boarding a ship -<i>there</i> to seek contraband matter.</p> - -<p>A quiet evening came down upon the brig; the stars were many and -glorious; there was a bright moon, and the temperature and the look of -the heavens might have persuaded me we were ten degrees further north -than where we were rolling. The brig was under all plain sail. The wind -was about north, a moderate breeze, and the vessel pushed her way softly -over the wide swell.</p> - -<p>I brought the lady Aurora on deck for a walk, when the sun had been sunk -about half an hour. All hands were enjoying the moonlight and the quiet -weather. They paced in couples; they came together in groups and halted -for a yarn; the hum of their conversation was a deep and eager note; but -all the talk was subdued—I caught no sudden calls. Now and again a man -laughed, and there was a frequent lighting of pipes by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">{296}</a></span> the flames of -burning rope-yarns. The brig was made an ivory carving of by the moon. -Every plank might have been chiseled out of the tusk of the elephant. -Stars of silver glittered and swam in the glass of the skylight. The -swell came along like folds of ink, but as every shoulder of black water -swung into the glory of the moon’s wake it flashed into a shining hill, -and the splendor of those vast shapes was the more wonderful for the -blackness out of which they rolled and the blackness in which they -vanished.</p> - -<p>Miss Aurora walked by my side; presently the play of the deck obliged -her to take my arm. Galen had charge; he stepped to leeward out of the -road of our weather walk and lay against the rail abreast of the wheel. -The weariness of the sea was in that man’s figure. As he stood there or -leaned, the mere posture only of the clothes and the fat of him -expressed with extraordinary force the sickening monotony, the profound -dullness of the calling of the sea as that calling was in those years. -The iteration of the ocean line; the ceaseless groan and heave of the -timber fabric under one’s foot; the eye-wearying flight of the sails to -the masthead; the weeks and months of the same thing over and over -again, ocean and sky, darkness and light, the weeping of mist, roar of -wind, the cold of the dawn; the beef and the pork, the pork and the -beef—it was <i>all</i> in that Dutchman’s figure.</p> - -<p>After we had walked the deck for half an hour the señorita informed me -that she felt cold, and that the movements of the ship made her legs -ache, and she proposed that we should go below and that I should give -her a lesson in English. When we had entered the lighted cabin she saw -in my face that I was in no particular humor to teach her English just -then. She was quick in reading me: this had come about through much of -our talk having been carried on with our faces. In truth, while I had -walked with her on deck my thoughts had gone to Bol’s questions about -the disposal of the money, and my spirits had drooped a bit.</p> - -<p>But her ladyship was not to be put off; she must coax me into an easy -mind, and then no doubt I would give her a lesson in English. She -removed the cap she had contrived out of the yield of the slop-chest, -and turned herself about that I might help to take off the heavy -pilot-cloth jacket which she had likewise cut and contrived for herself -as you have heard. When this was done she seated herself abreast of the -lamp, and laughing, and looking at me with sparkling eyes, she made me -under<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">{297}</a></span>stand that if I would give her my hand she would tell my fortune.</p> - -<p>I did not much like to give her my hand; it was coarse and horny with -the toil of the sea. I extended the palms at a safe distance, and by -motions informed her that the lines of the hand had been worn -out—smoothed to the quality of the sole of an old boot by many years of -pulling and hauling, by grasping the spokes of wheels, by the fingering -of canvas, and the handling of capstan bars.</p> - -<p>“No, no,” she cried, “give me your hand, Señor Fielding.”</p> - -<p>So I went round the table and sat beside her. I winced when she took my -hand; the contrast between my square-ended fist and her delicate fingers -was a shock. She held my hand and pored upon it. The skylight was shut, -and Galen probably thought that I did not observe him looking down at -us. Holding my hand, her dark and shining eyes sometimes bent upon the -palm of it, sometimes lifted full of archness and quiet mirth to my -face, the lady Aurora told me my fortune. I comprehended but little of -what she said; she spoke much in Spanish, motioned with one arm—always -retaining my hand—viewed me with a face that was forever changing its -expression, and occasionally she let fall certain English words. I -guessed from what she said that I was to be rich, marry a handsome lady -without money, have six children, and live to be a very old man.</p> - -<p>Jimmy came into the cabin while she held my hand, and gaped at us from -the bottom of the companion ladder. I bade him put wine, biscuits, and -the material for grog upon the table and then clear out. When the lady -was done with my hand she went to her berth and returned with a log -book—a new volume of blank leaves headed for entries—which I had given -to her out of several in Greaves’ cabin.</p> - -<p>“Now, Señor Fielding,” said she in English, “you shall give me a -lesson;” and, sitting down, she examined the point of her pencil and -adjusted herself with the air of a lady who means business.</p> - -<p>I glanced at the clock, poured out a glass of wine, and placed it on a -swing tray in front of her, mixed myself a tumbler of grog, and took a -seat over against her. The lesson consisted of dictation. I’d pronounce -a sentence deliberately; she’d take it down: hand me the book; then our -faces would meet across the table over the book, while I pointed out the -blunders in spelling, and explained the meaning of such words<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">{298}</a></span> as she -did not know. She had filled several pages of the book on her own -account, and some pages on mine.</p> - -<p>The romance of it all! What more romantic as a detail of ocean life -would you have? Realize that little moonlighted brig rolling over the -black heaven of the sea, Cape Horn not far off, the Cross and the -Magellanic dust overhead, nothing in sight, the moon’s wake coiling in -hills of silver under her, and in the heart of that lonely speck of brig -two young people, again and again nearly rubbing cheeks together over a -blank log book: one of them a fine, handsome Spanish woman, with dark -eyes of fire and a smile that was like light with its swift disclosure -of white teeth, and a beautiful little pale yellow hand that shone with -jewels; and the other—and the other——</p> - -<p>She looked at the clock, and started, with a Spanish exclamation, and -said, “I will sing. You have been good. I will sing to you.” All this -she said in English. Then, in dumb show, she played a phantom guitar, -gazing at me with one of those asking looks which I could interpret as -easily as I took sights. I shook my head to her signification of a -guitar, and played on an imaginary fiddle; on which she nodded, crying -with vivacity in Spanish, “It will do! It will do!”</p> - -<p>I put my head into the hatch and called for Jimmy. Galen sent the name -forward in a roar, and the boy arrived.</p> - -<p>“Borrow me a fiddle,” said I.</p> - -<p>When he returned he held a fiddle and a fiddlestick; but this unusual -appeal of the cabin to the forecastle had roused curiosity, and a number -of the men followed Jimmy to the quarter-deck. I heard their softened -footfalls, and caught a glimpse of their figures as they stood round -about the skylight, scarce sensible that they were visible through the -black glass. The lady took the fiddle and the bow from the lad, who -withdrew. She put the fiddle to her neck, tuned it, and played a short, -merry air. I had not known that she played the fiddle. I guessed she had -asked for the instrument to twang an accompaniment upon. She played a -second sweet and merry air; the melody was full of beauty and humor. -Someone overhead tapped the deck in time to it. I took care not to look -up, willing that the fellows should listen, though they had no business -aft.</p> - -<p>“How do you like that?” said the lady in Spanish.</p> - -<p>“It is sweet and good. Give me more.”</p> - -<p>She put down the bow, and, laying the fiddle across her knees, twanged -it. She kept her eyes fastened upon me, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">{299}</a></span> when she had tweaked the -fiddlestrings, she shrugged her shoulders and laughed; then, before the -laugh had fairly left her lips, she burst into song, singing with that -clear, full-throated richness of voice which poor Greaves had predicted -her the possessor of. She filled the cabin with her song. She would have -filled the biggest theater in Europe with it. Her voice was thrilling -with volume and power, and her eyes were full of a gay triumph as she -sang, as though she would say, “This is news to you, my friend.”</p> - -<p>I thought her spirit the most remarkable part of the performance. Here -was a lady—a young and handsome woman, clearly a person of degree in -her own country—amusing a young, rough sailor with her songs, fiddling -to him, taking lessons in English from him, watching him with shining -eyes, as though her heart was as charged with light as her gaze. Her -voice, her face, the aroma of her manner, transformed the plain, grim -little cabin of the brig into a brilliant drawing room, full of ladies -and gentlemen, sweet with the scent of flowers, gay with the gleam of -silk and jewel and epaulet. Who, while she sang, would have supposed -that she had been shipwrecked not very long ago, living, with small -hopes of deliverance, upon a desert island, in company with a couple of -common, low seamen; ignorant whether her mother was alive or dead; still -many thousands of miles away from her home—if Madrid was to be her -home; with twenty hard fortunes before her, for all she knew?</p> - -<p>She sang me three songs, and all hands, as I knew by the shuffling of -feet, listened above, some shouldering warily into the companion hatch -to hear well. I reckoned she knew she had a bigger audience than I, for -once she lifted her eyes in the pause of a song and smiled in a -conscious way.</p> - -<p>“Now I am tired,” said she in English, and put the fiddle upon the table -with capricious quickness of movement. “Good-night, Señor Fielding:” and -she gave me a low, but somewhat haughty bow, and went to her cabin, -stepping the short length of the deck with the most translatable -carriage in life: “<i>I have amused you, I have condescended; but I am -always the Señorita Aurora de la Cueva. Vaya!</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">{300}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br /><br /> -<small>A TRAGIC SHIFT OF COURSE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">All</span> went well with us through the month of February and through the -early days of March in that year of God, 1815, until it came to pass -that we arrived in the latitude 45° south, and in longitude 47° west.</p> - -<p>I was very hopeful in this time. The crew had been orderly, civil, and -quick; strong, prosperous winds had swept us round the Horn and -northward; we were homeward bound; we were putting the unfamiliar stars -of the south over our stern; already some were gone, and some wheeled -low. I walked the deck with gladness, and knew but two sorrows: that -Greaves was not at my side to share in the rich issue of his own -discovery and his own expedition, and that my poor, faithful, well-loved -Galloon was drowned.</p> - -<p>Little wonder that my heart at this time felt light, that my spirits -sometimes danced. Let me but bring the brig to a safe anchorage off -Deal, and I might hope—failing frigates and presses—that my business -was done. I should have taken a long farewell of the sea. I should be a -rich man; for to me in those days, <i>six thousand pounds</i> of English -money was a great sum—aye, beyond my utmost hopes by one cipher at -least. Yes; and even had I dreamt of <i>six hundred pounds</i>, how was I to -earn it? Never could I have saved so much money out of the slender wage -of the ocean. Why, let me even knock off another cipher, and put the -figure at <i>sixty pounds</i>. Do many Jacks, after years of bitter toil, -limp ashore—curved in the back, one-eyed, maybe, half-fingerless, -rotted to their marrow with the beastly food, the stinking water of the -jolly life of the deep, rotted to the soul by nameless sins and the -slum-and-alley seductions of a hundred ports—are there many Jacks, I -ask, whose savings, after years of labor, amount to <i>sixty pounds</i>?</p> - -<p>There is an irony of circumstance at sea as there is ashore; but at sea -this sort of irony is bitterer than ashore, because nothing can happen -at sea that lacks a coloring, more or less defined, of the fearful -significance of life or death.</p> - -<p>In proof whereof list, ye landsmen, to what I am about to relate.</p> - -<p>You will suppose that so shrewd, intelligent, and diligent a lady as the -Señorita Aurora would not need to be thrown much in the company of an -Englishman, would not need to be long<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">{301}</a></span> instructed by him, would not need -to spend many hours in studying for herself, before she acquired a very -respectable knowledge of the English tongue. And let me tell you that, -by this time, though she spoke slowly, with many pauses, though she -wanted many words, she was already become a very good listener when I -discoursed in my own speech. How long should it take an intelligent -Spanish lady to learn English—to talk it freely and correctly? I don’t -know. My lady Aurora began (in questions) the study of the language, as -you may remember, in the beginning of January; and now, in these early -days of March, she understood me when I talked to her; when I talked to -her slowly and pronounced my words carefully, and when I helped her with -a sign or a Spanish word here and there.</p> - -<p>I’ll call the date the 12th of March: it was a Friday; I sat at dinner -with Madam Aurora. Dinner!—yet I must give even that pleasant name to -the midday repast, to the piece of beef in whose mahogany texture lurked -scurvy enough to lay low a watch, to the boiled duff and the several -messes of the caboose. But then our stock of poultry was growing small; -we had need to be frugal; we were in the unhappy condition of not -daring, or not choosing if you will, to look into a port for the -replenishment of coops and casks.</p> - -<p>I sat with her ladyship, and we ate of the yield of the <i>Black Watch’s</i> -cabin pantry. The day was fine; the sun sparkled white as silver upon -the skylight. The royal yards were aloft, and the brig was sailing with -her larboard topmast studding sail out, making very little noise as she -went, so that talking was easy.</p> - -<p>Times had been when Miss Aurora questioned me about the dollars in the -lazarette. She had asked me for the name of the ship they came from: I -had answered her, <i>La Perfecta Casada</i>. She had asked me for the story -of Greaves’ discovery, and by our methods of communication I had spun -her the yarn. When I had spun her the yarn, she informed me that she had -heard of the loss of a Spanish ship called <i>La Perfecta Casada</i>, with -all hands, as it was supposed, but this said, the subject dropped, and -we rarely afterward mentioned the matter of the treasure in the hold.</p> - -<p>Now, while we were at dinner this day, we talked of her shipwreck. She -said there had been a quantity of antique valuable furniture belonging -to her mother on board; otherwise, saving clothes and jewelry, the -Señora de la Cueva had em<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">{302}</a></span>barked no property in the ship. She spoke of -the captain and officers of the vessel. The captain was a worthless -seaman, a timid, ill-tempered, swearing fellow, a native of the -Manillas. We drifted from this subject of the wreck to <i>La Perfecta -Casada</i>. Our conversation was animated, despite the frequent -interruption of gesticulations, the many hindrances of words -unintelligible through their pronunciation, the frequent pausings for -the needful term. She requested me to describe the cave in which the -<i>Casada</i> lay. I fetched paper and pencil, and drew it for her as best I -could. Then she asked me the value of the treasure, and I told her very -honestly that it rose to above half a million of dollars of the currency -of her nation.</p> - -<p>“Ave Maria!” cried she, “what wealth to discover in a cave. It is like a -tale told by the Arabs. Santa Maria Purissima! What a treasure for a -mariner of the orthodox faith to dedicate to the Church! You will -receive a handsome portion, I trust?”</p> - -<p>“I will receive a share,” said I.</p> - -<p>“And the poor Captain Greaves—had he a share!”</p> - -<p>“A big share.”</p> - -<p>“It will go to his mother?”</p> - -<p>“He had no relations. It will go to his Church.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes sparkled. “My Church!” she cried, pressing her forefinger to -her breast.</p> - -<p>“Mine,” said I, imitating her action with my forefinger.</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders, looked at me fixedly, smiled, and gave me -several nods in the foreign fashion.</p> - -<p>I felt no reluctance in talking to her about the treasure. Indeed, I had -never sympathized with Greaves’ nervous caution in this way. It was not -as if he and I alone had possessed the secret of the dollars: all hands -knew there were fifteen tons of minted silver in the lazarette. What on -earth was the use of concealing the fact from this Spanish lady, as if -she only of all the souls on board the brig was to be feared by and by -as the intelligencer?</p> - -<p>I was in high spirits that day: the sunshine in the heavens was upon my -heart; I enjoyed the company of the handsome lady; I found a growing and -a deepening pleasure in viewing her when she talked; I delighted in the -music that her voice gave to her English. All was well and we were -homeward bound. I had a mind to talk of my dollars and my prospects, and -whether she guessed my wish or not she helped me to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">{303}</a></span> the subject by -asking me how much my share would amount to.</p> - -<p>“Many figures in dollars,” said I, “and in British gold just a little -fat figure.”</p> - -<p>“Shall you buy a ship?” said she, smiling.</p> - -<p>“No,” said I, looking earnestly at her; “I will marry a wife and settle -down.”</p> - -<p>She clapped her hands, threw her head back, and laughed aloud. “<i>Qué -disperate.</i> Cannot you make a better use of your money than purchasing a -wife with it? Señor Fielding, you shall buy a fine ship and trade to the -Indies and grow immensely rich. Marry! <i>Qué disperate.</i>” She threw back -her head again, and laughed out.</p> - -<p>“I’ll buy no ship,” said I. “I will marry a handsome woman, and live -happily with her on the seashore. She and I will go a-fishing for -pleasure. You are not a sailor: were you a sailor, you would think of -nothing but a wife and a home of your own and money enough for meat, -tobacco, and the rest.”</p> - -<p>“Your wife,” said she, “shall be another <i>Perfecta Casada</i>: she shall -make you more money than any woman can bring you. You’ll die a Catholic, -and your fortune shall build a magnificent cathedral;” and now, without -another word, she abruptly rose, made me a low, strange bow, as though -forsooth we had met for the first time in our brig five minutes before, -and went to her cabin.</p> - -<p>She was frequently puzzling me in this way. She’d abandon herself, so to -speak; be all charm, naïveté, smiles, and graciousness, then abruptly -look poniards and corkscrews, and with a sweep of her fine figure make -off. Was it her theory of coquetry?</p> - -<p>I went on deck with a half smile in my thought of her odd, abrupt, -capricious withdrawal, and amused, too, with thinking of how I now -managed to make out a clear conversation with a girl who, a few weeks -before, pointed at things with her finger and talked to me with her -eyes. The time was about twenty minutes before two. John Wirtz was at -the wheel. Bol, whose watch it was, talked with Travers and Teach in the -gangway. Travers and Teach were in Galen’s watch. I was surprised to -find them aft; further aft, I mean, than that they had a right to be, -talking with Bol, whose business it was to keep a lookout. Galen was on -the forecastle pacing to and fro, under the yawn of the fore-course, -with Henry Call and James Meehan; Friend and the two Spaniards were -squatted upon a sail in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">{304}</a></span> waist, stitching at it. Both watches then -were on deck, and all hands saving Jim Vinten, the cabin boy, visible.</p> - -<p>I found something strange in this: yet had I taken time to reflect I -might have seen that the strangeness lay rather in the bearing of the -men than in the circumstance of all the crew being in sight. I looked -aloft: every cloth was doing its work; the whiteness of the sails -overflowed the boundaries of the bolt-ropes with light, and the azure of -the sky was a pale silver against the edges of the canvas. The foam -spitting from the nimble thrust of the cut-water shot by fast alongside; -the brig was sailing well. I stood with my hands upon one of the shrouds -of the main, my eyes upon the sea line: turning a minute or two later I -saw Yan Bol corning to me.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” said he, “I likes to have a quiet talk mit you.”</p> - -<p>Travers and Teach in the gangway held their stations looking at us. -Galen came to a halt on the forecastle with his face aft; Friend looked -at us with his needle poised; the Spaniards went on stitching.</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“I shpeak for all handts. Do not be afraid, Mr. Fielding. She vhas all -right and every man vhas good friendts.”</p> - -<p>“Afraid!” said I, looking at him steadily, though I was conscious that -the blood was gone out of my cheeks. “I think you said <i>afraid</i>?”</p> - -<p>“I ox pardon, I vhas——”</p> - -<p>“There is no Dutchman in this ship—there is no Dutchman in all Holland -that can make me afraid. Use another word and bear a hand. I mean to get -an hour’s sleep this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas nothing I hope to stop you sleeping soundtly as long as you -please.”</p> - -<p>“What do you want?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, ve vants the brig’s course altered.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, indeed. For what part of the world?”</p> - -<p>“I hope you shall not sneer. By ter tunder of Cott, all handts vhas in -earnest.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas so,” exclaimed Wirtz at the wheel, in his deep voice.</p> - -<p>I observed that Galen had come aft and was standing with Travers and -Teach at the gangway, within easy earshot of our voices: in fact, they -were almost abreast of us t’other side of the deck, and our ship, as you -know, was a little one.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305">{305}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You want the brig’s course altered? For where?”</p> - -<p>“For Amsterdam Island.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that island in the Indian Ocean which the Dutch discovered and -gave a name to, and which you were talking about to me lately.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, ve vhas all good friendts. I like to talk mit you as a -mate mit his captain. Ve vhas respectful, but, by Cott, ve vhas in -bloydy earnest also.” He smote the palm of his left hand with his huge -right fist and looked round, on which Galen, Teach, Travers, and others -came aft. Friend flung down his palm and needle and joined the group; -the Spaniards rose to their feet, but remained where they were.</p> - -<p>I knew myself pale. I was startled—I was thunderstruck; down to this -instant the crew had given me no hint to suspect their willingness to -work the brig to the Channel. I fetched some labored breaths, -recollected myself with a prodigious effort of resolution, and after -looking first at one face and then at another, during which time I was -eyed with great eagerness, with here and there the hint of a threat, but -generally with countenances not wanting in respect, I exclaimed, “Who -will tell me what it is you want?”</p> - -<p>“Shall I speak, Mr. Bol?” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Shpeak,” cried Bol in his voice of thunder.</p> - -<p>“The matter’s simple as countin’ your toes,” said Teach, addressing me. -“There’s a cargo of silver down in the lazarette, aint there? The -captain’s dead—him it rightly belonged to as the discoverer of it. He’s -dead, and us men are agreed that his share—a lump we allow—should be -divided among all hands, you being one of us.”</p> - -<p>“Dot’s so,” said Bol.</p> - -<p>“We don’t want no blooming fuss,” continued Teach; “the job’s to be -handled so that it shall be agreeable to all concerned. Here’s the brig, -and the money’s below.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas so,” said Galen. “Dis vhas a shob over vhich ve all shakes -hands.”</p> - -<p>“If we carried the money home,” continued Teach, “what’s going to -happen? Mr. Tulp’ll claim the captain’s share as well as his own. And -what’s to be his own? And what’s to be your’n, Mr. Fielding? And what’s -to be our’n? Tulp ’ud suck egg and smash the shell agin our faces. Our -rights goes hell’s own length beyond the measly hundreds that’s to be -our fo’ksle allowance of dollars.”</p> - -<p>“No need to curse and swear, Thomas,” exclaimed Friend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306">{306}</a></span> “Mr. Fielding’s -a-taking of it all in. Give him time. Before a man lets go he sings out. -We haven’t sung out. I’m for kindly feelings in this here traverse.”</p> - -<p>“The shares you are promised along with your wages,” said I, “should -satisfy you. I will see that every man is paid.”</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas your share, sir?” said Wirtz at the wheel.</p> - -<p>“Aint it worth naming?” said Meehan after a short silence.</p> - -<p>Call laughed.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Taint as if you was here through Mr. Tulp’s ordering,” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“You have chosen me captain,” said I.</p> - -<p>“The brig saved your life,” exclaimed Street; “you owes us a good turn.”</p> - -<p>“Captain you are and captain we wishes you to remain,” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas one ting dot vhas proper you should recollect, Mr. Fielding,” -said Bol. “How about der wars dot vhas on? If we carries der treasure -oop der Atlantic ve stands to lose her. Down here dere vhas peace und -comfort.”</p> - -<p>“Are not our heels a match for anything that’s afloat?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Yaw,” answered Bol, “and vhilst ve roon a shoe comes off; den vhere -vhas ve? Look at our gompany. Look at our goons.”</p> - -<p>“What’s your scheme?” I exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Is it for me to speak?” said Teach.</p> - -<p>“Shpeak, Thomas,” cried Bol.</p> - -<p>“Our scheme’s this, sir. We want you to carry the brig to Amsterdam -Island, where we mean to heave the brig to, weather allowing, land the -silver, bury it, and sail away for New Holland.”</p> - -<p>“Out with it all, Tom,” said Travers.</p> - -<p>“There’s a party as is settled at Port Jackson,” continued Teach. “He’s -a relation of mine. He’ll do for us men what Mr. Tulp did for Captain -Greaves; if this brig’s to be given up, he’ll find us a schooner or some -such craft. We’ll fetch the silver in her, and he’ll receive it, and -divide it among us, making a share for himself. His share’ll be what -our’n is, no more nor less. That’ll be right. We find him the money and -he finds us the vessel, and it’s share and share alike. I am for fair -dealing. Straight was straight with me afore I went to sea; I wor -straight as a little ’un; straight’s the word still; and I han’t kinked -yet. What are we doing? Robbing any man of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307">{307}</a></span> his rights?” cried he, -looking around into the faces of the others. “I say no. The captain’s -dead. If he were alive his rights ’ud carry the brig home, barring -events. But he’s dead; his money falls into shares for us men to take -up—for us men and you, sir. As for Mr. Tulp—look here. Suppose he -never hears again of the brig? Is this a-going to break any man’s heart? -How is he to know that we’ve got the silver? How is he to know Captain -Greaves’ yarn warn’t a lie? What’s his venture? Just the cost of the -hiring of this brig. Well, by our not turning up we save him in wages. -That’s wrote off, and that means pounds in good money. The brig don’t -turn up, and what then; she’s gone to the bottom; she’s been taken. -It’ll hentertain Mr. Tulp when he aint hard at work making money, to -guess what’s become of us; and how’ll our mysterious disappearance leave -him? Vy, one of the richest gents in the city o’ Amsterdam.”</p> - -<p>Every eye was fastened upon my face while Teach addressed me. The -fellows’ looks were eloquent with expectation that I should be instantly -convinced, satisfied, impressed, eager to execute their wishes. Jimmy -was staring at us out of the door of the caboose and I called to him:</p> - -<p>“Fetch me the bag of charts and a pair of compasses.”</p> - -<p>He brought the things. I found a chart of the world—a track chart.</p> - -<p>“Spread this on the skylight,” said I, giving it to Teach. He and -Travers held it open on the skylight. “Do you know the situation of the -brig at this moment?” said I.</p> - -<p>The men drew shouldering round me to look; Yan Bol stooped his huge form -and ran his wide and heavy face over the chart, his nose within an inch -of it as though he hunted for a flea. Not a man could point to, nay, not -a man had the least idea of, the place of the brig on the chart.</p> - -<p>“Here’s where we are now,” said I, “and here’s Amsterdam Island.”</p> - -<p>They huddled yet closer in a hairy, warm, hard-breathing group to look -at the island.</p> - -<p>“There it is, and here are we. Can you collect sea distances by looking -on a chart?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Damn your ignorance. It’s out of that this trouble’s come. Look, you -Bol, you Dutchmen who are the cooks of this devil’s mess—look how I -take this pair of metal legs and make them walk—look—every step -signifying the flight of a ship in a week<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308">{308}</a></span> of prosperous gales. -Look—peer close—value every one of these lines at twenty leagues; -count them, Bol, count them.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas some vhays off; dot’s allowed,” answered Bol. “But dere vhas -der island, und dere vhas ve, all in goodt time.”</p> - -<p>“Why <i>that</i> island?” said I, stepping back from the chart to command the -men’s faces.</p> - -<p>“Because I knows her,” answered Galen. “I vhas off her. She vhas an -uninhabited island. She vhas lofty, mit goodt hiding ground. She vhas -never visited.”</p> - -<p>“Dot’s vy,” said Bol.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not carry you there.”</p> - -<p>“Ve’ll turn it over, sir,” said Friend.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not help you to rob Mr. Tulp of his share.”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas no robbery. Ve vhas lost at sea, mit all hands,” said Galen.</p> - -<p>“I’ll sail you home and, if you choose, will give you my bond to pay you -so many of the dollars as we’ll agree to. But I’ll not take you to -Amsterdam Island. So what will you do?”</p> - -<p>“What’ll <i>you</i> do, sir?” exclaimed Teach.</p> - -<p>“My duty.”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas not even half-way,” said Bol.</p> - -<p>I called to Jimmy to restow the charts and bring them below, and -descended the companion ladder. I was alone, and glad to be alone. The -looks and questions, nay, the presence of her ladyship would have been -intolerable to me just then. I sat down at the table and thought, then -jumped up and paced the cabin like a madman. It had come about as I had -many a time feared, but more darkly than ever my imagination had -foreboded. The road to Amsterdam Island ran through a hundred and fifty -degrees of longitude. Suppose—an incredible suppose!—an average of a -hundred and fifty miles a day; two months then in making the island! and -afterward? The silver was to be landed and buried, and we should head on -for Port Jackson in New Holland, where my throat would be cut if the -spirit of murder left the crew a hand to cut my throat withal.</p> - -<p>And the money being buried, good-night to my six—my seven thousand -pounds—to my fine prospects, my giving up the sea forever, and settling -down ashore with a wife. Tulp? God bless you, no. It was not of Tulp I -thought. What was he to me? I was no servant of his, under no obligation -of fidelity to <i>him</i>. It was the six thousand pounds which ran in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309">{309}</a></span> my -head and set my brains boiling—the six thousand and the one bequeathed -to me by Greaves.</p> - -<p>I paced the cabin like mad. What am I to do? How was I to preserve my -share of the dollars? There were eleven, and with me twelve, of us now -to the brig’s company; the men were not likely to count Jimmy and the -two Spaniards as partners. Teach—was it Teach?—talked of an equal -division; <i>that</i> would work out fifty thousand dollars a man; twenty -thousand ahead of my present share. They’d promise me more, I -daresay—offer me what I chose to take—Yes, and knife me, or drop me -overboard in the hour of the coast of New Holland heaving into sight.</p> - -<p>Nor was that all of it either: I conceived the fifteen tons of silver -buried in the island of New Amsterdam: we arrive at Port Jackson: -Teach’s friend—think now of the respectability of a friend of -Teach!—finds a little schooner. Would the fellows return to the island -with me? or would they pick up some cheap ruffian of a navigator, -leaving me to wait for them?</p> - -<p>If the money was buried my share was gone for good, my life not worth a -hair of my beard. What was to be done?</p> - -<p>While I paced the cabin I had observed that the men continued to hang -about the skylight. I supposed that they were looking at the chart. By -this time the skylight lay clear: Jimmy came below with the bag of -charts and the pair of compasses; I heard the voices of men singing out -in pull-and-hauling choruses, and the brig heeled over a little.</p> - -<p>There hung under the seat that Greaves used to occupy a tell-tale -compass: I looked at it and found the brig’s course east by south. I -immediately went on deck and found the yards braced forward and both -watches hauling down the larboard studding sail. Bol walked the -quarter-deck and Galen was shouting orders from the forecastle.</p> - -<p>“Who’s captain here?” said I, stepping up to the great Dutchman.</p> - -<p>“You, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“What are you doing with the brig?”</p> - -<p>“Heading her off for Amsterdam Island.”</p> - -<p>“So. Then you know your way there?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. Der shart explains dot der island vhas in der east: so east it -vhas mit der brig till ve vhas goodt friendts, Mr. Fielding, und shake -hands und agree. And maybe he vhas all right mit you now, sir,” he -added, looking at me out of the corner of his little eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310">{310}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I want time to consider,” said I, realizing my extreme helplessness, -and by that realization urged more than half-way to the acceptance of my -fate, whatever it might prove, without further struggle.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” cried Bol, throwing out his arms and addressing me in -that posture, “vhat vhas it how he vhas mit der brig und mit Mynheer -Tulp while she vhas all right mit <i>you?</i> Mindt, I doan say dot if der -captain had lif dot dere vhas no trouble. Vhat?” he shouted, in a voice -of thunder: “a leedle footy sum of sixty tousand dollar for all us men -vhen Tulp vhas to get der half of der half million and you yourself, Mr. -Fielding, maybe vhas to take but a leedle less dan Captain Greaves -herself. Vhas it right?” He thumped his bosom. “Vhas she a beesiness dot -vhas good ash between man and man?” He thumped his bosom again. “Vhas -not you a sailor? Vhas not der sailor gruelly used? Vhas she not right -to stand up for herself when der shance comes? Mr. Fielding, in der -sight of der crew, gif me your hand und shake mit me und ve vhas der -happiest of families from dis hour.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll not give you my hand. I want time to think.” His face darkened. I -continued: “If I refuse to navigate the brig to Amsterdam Island and on -to Port Jackson, what then?”</p> - -<p>Wirtz, who was at the wheel, hearing this, called out in Dutch. Yan Bol -gazed at him slowly, then leisurely brought his face to bear upon mine -and eyed me fixedly.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” he said, slowly, “I likes to shake you by der hand und -it vhas a good ting to be a happy barty. But if you doan navigate us you -vhas of no use, und we puts you into dot boat mit der two Spaniards und -sends you away, hoping dot it shall be well mit us all.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>I remained in my berth during the greater part of that afternoon. I was -nearly mad and afraid to trust myself on deck. The insult, let alone the -significance, of Bol’s threat to send me adrift with the two Spaniards, -was crushing, because it found me entirely helpless. Bligh, of the -<i>Bounty</i>, had been so served; others who deserved far better usage at -the hands of their crew than Bligh, of the <i>Bounty</i>, had been put into -boats in mid-ocean and dispatched to their doom. In the next hour I -might find myself adrift with the two Spaniards, the brig a white gleam -on the horizon, the lady Aurora alone with the crew, the money as -utterly lost to me as if it had gone to the bottom.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311">{311}</a></span></p> - -<p>So I remained in my berth and thought, and all the afternoon I sat -thinking till the evening darkened upon the port-hole, till the fire had -gone out of my blood, and the machinery of the brain worked calmly.</p> - -<p>Thrice, or perhaps four times, did Miss Aurora beat upon my cabin door -and call my name. I heard her ask the lad Jimmy if I was ill, if I was -mad, what had happened, why did the Señor Fielding hide himself? The -half-witted boy knew not how to answer her. She knocked upon my door -again. I told her that I was hard at work, and promised to join her -presently.</p> - -<p>When the dusk fell, I opened the door of my berth and entered the cabin. -I stepped at once to the tell-tale compass, and saw that the brig’s -course was still east by south. The lamp was alight and the meal of the -evening was upon the table. The breeze was light, the heel of the brig -trifling. I guessed she was under the same canvas I had left her clothed -in at noon. I saw the stars shining through the skylight glass, and -heard a steady trudge of feet overhead, as of two men, perhaps three, -walking the quarter-deck. I looked round for the lady Aurora, and, while -I did so, her white dress, with its fanciful decoration of bunting, -filled the companion way, and she came down. Her eyes were bright, her -looks without excitement or alarm, her cheeks faintly colored by the -breath of the evening air she was fresh from. It was clear—I saw it in -her—she knew nothing of what had passed.</p> - -<p>“At last, señor,” said she, approaching as though to give me her hand.</p> - -<p>She stopped, looked at me earnestly, and slightly wagged her head in a -strange foreign way.</p> - -<p>“You are ill?” she said.</p> - -<p>“No; I am hungry. Let us sup.”</p> - -<p>She removed her hat. I helped her to take off her jacket. While this was -doing she was silent. She took her seat in silence, and viewed me -without speech, reflecting in her own face the expression in mine, as I -might suppose, for now was her look of ease gone. I waited until we had -eaten and drunk, occasionally breaking the silence by commonplace -remarks; then, closing my knife and fork, and draining my mug, I looked -up at the skylight, round at the companion way, leaned my head on my -elbow across the table, and told my companion, as best I could, what had -happened, and what was still happening, aboard us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312">{312}</a></span></p> - -<p>Her intelligence was so keen, she was so apt in the interpretation of my -looks and gestures, so quick in collecting the meaning of my words, that -I found no difficulty in making her understand. She exclaimed often in -Spanish; the shadows of many emotions swept her face; she stared with -horror when she understood that the men meant I should carry the brig to -the Indian Ocean, and that the vessel’s head was already pointed, -according to their notions of navigation, for the Island of Amsterdam. -But she received the news with a degree of calmness that was an -astonishment and a reproach to me when I thought of my own distraction. -I scarcely imagined she grasped the full meaning of the crew’s -intention, till, pointing downward, by which she signified the brig’s -hold, she said:</p> - -<p>“The <i>Casada</i> had a demon on board. It is now the spirit of this ship.”</p> - -<p>This she conveyed in Spanish and English. I understood her.</p> - -<p>“Yet I mean to keep a hold of that demon,” said I, thinking aloud rather -than talking to her. “I’d put the vessel ashore sooner than let the -scoundrels plunder me of my share and divide—Jesus Maria! only -think!—fifteen tons of dollars among them!” and I smote the table with -my fist, and the blood, hot as flame, flushed my face.</p> - -<p>Then the following conversation passed between us, managed as before. I -give you the clear sense picked out of the interruptions, gestures, -sentences, and looks:</p> - -<p>“What shall you do, Señor Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Advise me.”</p> - -<p>“I—a poor, helpless woman, ignorant of the sea? Yet does it not seem to -you that, unless you comply, they will send you away with Antonio and -Jorge.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Then you will comply.”</p> - -<p>“And after?”</p> - -<p>“After?” she cried. “Who knows? Many things may happen to deliver us -from this dreadful situation; but, if you defy the crew, and they put -you and my countrymen into a boat, we are surely lost.”</p> - -<p>I assented with a gesture.</p> - -<p>“They are ignorant of navigation?” said she.</p> - -<p>“Utterly.”</p> - -<p>“Could not you steal the brig to a part of some coast where we are -likely to fall in with ships of war?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313">{313}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“If they suspected treachery they’d hang me at the yardarm.”</p> - -<p>“Ave Maria! Where is this New Holland?”</p> - -<p>“It is very far from here.”</p> - -<p>“How far?”</p> - -<p>“It may be four months and perhaps five months from this place.”</p> - -<p>“Mother of God! Is Spain to be reached from New Holland?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but the world grows old before such voyages are ended.”</p> - -<p>She cast down her gaze in thought. The noise of the tramp of footsteps -had ceased; I reckoned we were being watched, but I would not lift up my -eyes to know. I rose and paced the cabin, having formed my resolution; -and now I considered with whom of the crew I should speak. I abhorred -Yan Bol for the horrible threat he had uttered, for the enormous insult -that threat implied, and I dared not put myself alone with him—yet. I -went to the companion ladder and called up the hatch for Jimmy; my cry -was re-echoed, and in a minute or two the boy made his appearance.</p> - -<p>“Tell Friend to come to me—here.”</p> - -<p>“Señor Fielding,” said the lady Aurora, “you will comply with the men’s -requests?” I motioned an assent. “If not we are lost. I have been -thinking. You are in their power. <i>Paciencia!</i> If they send you away, -I—I—Aurora de la Cueva—” and in pronouncing her name she touched her -breast two or three times, “am alone with men who will be the murderers -of you and my countrymen. I count upon your protection. Think of me -alone in this ship with your men.”</p> - -<p>She clasped her hands and turned her dark and shining eyes upon the -little stand of muskets. A peculiar expression slightly curled her lip -as she looked at those weapons.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not leave you.”</p> - -<p>She put her forefinger to her mouth, and at that moment I saw a man’s -legs in the hatch.</p> - -<p>“Is it down here I’m wanted, sir?” said the voice of Friend.</p> - -<p>“Come along.”</p> - -<p>He descended, pulled his cap off, and stared with looks of misgiving and -surprise. Peradventure he thought I had a design on his life, and meant -to slaughter the crew one by one, courteously inviting them below for -that purpose. He was a sailor of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_314" id="page_314">{314}</a></span> a mild cast of face, rather quiet in -manner, and had the most civil and least swearing tongue in the brig.</p> - -<p>“Sit down. I’ve a message for the crew. I am sick of that huge, -bloody-minded Bol’s yaw-yaw-yawling jaw. Your English is mine. You’ll -answer some questions, perhaps?”</p> - -<p>“I will, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The scheme’s this: we said to Amsterdam Island, there unload the silver -and bury it. Why Amsterdam Island?”</p> - -<p>“Because it’s straight on the road to Australia, uninhabited, and never -visited.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you not proceed direct to Botany Bay, keeping the money aboard?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you,” he answered, putting down his cap, leaning forward, and -addressing me with his forefinger on the palm of his left hand. “It’s a -matter we’ve argued out for’ads, and we’re all agreed; for this reason. -There’ll be nothing easier than to wreck the vessel within a day’s walk -of Port Jackson. If we keeps the money aboard we shall be casting it -away with the brig. Is the risk of our losing the money along with the -brig to be entertained? Why, certainly an’ of course <i>not</i>. The money’s -to be hid first. D’ye ask, why we don’t hide it on that part of the -coast where we cast the brig away? Because the privacy there aint the -privacy of an uninhabited island; there’s savages and settlers -a-knocking about; runaway convicks and chaps in sarch of ’em; and no man -would reckon the money safe until it was dug up. Next step, then, after -losing the brig, will be to tramp it to Port Jackson, shipwrecked men. -There Teach has a friend. That friend’s an old pal of Teach’s, and when -last heard of was a-doing well. He’ll find us in a schooner or some -small vessel, and when we’ve got the money he’ll show us the ropes.”</p> - -<p>“What’s Teach’s friend?”</p> - -<p>“Dunno, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Was he a convict?”</p> - -<p>“Dunno, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You think this a devilish clever scheme, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“It’ll come off—it’ll come off,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“I’ll work you up twenty safer, surer, and easier schemes than that,” -said I.</p> - -<p>“Maybe; we likes our’n,” he answered, with a quiet grin and a slow look -at the lady Aurora, who was listening with the strained, vexed, -impatient look of one who hears but understands little of what passes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_315" id="page_315">{315}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Amsterdam Island is in the Indian Ocean,” said I.</p> - -<p>“So they say.”</p> - -<p>“No vessel under three hundred tons may navigate the Indian seas. Do you -know that?”</p> - -<p>“When I was in a Company’s ship I think I heerd something of the sort, -but there’s no law where Amsterdam Island is, and if there was—we -aren’t pirates, anyhow;” and he made as if he would rise.</p> - -<p>“It’s a damnably wicked scheme, a hanging scheme, and as stupid as it’s -wicked. D’ye know what Yan Bol told me to-day?... Friend, I’m an -Englishman talking to an Englishman; and this threat is an accursed -Dutchman’s. Yan Bol told me to-day that if I refused to navigate the -brig to Amsterdam Island, you men would send me adrift in one of the -boats, along with the two Spaniards.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding,” he exclaimed earnestly, “it was talked of—it is talked -of. You’ll be making it mere talk, sir. I’m for working this traverse on -the smooth. Let good will grease the ways, says I. Why, aint it for you -as well as for us? You’re no servant of Tulp’s, and the captain is gone -dead, and if we says, ‘Here stow more’n the allowance of dollars ye was -to have, only steer us true and take a sheepshank in your tongue,’ who -wouldn’t be you? It’s easy terms for a swilling measure. And that’s my -sentiments straight.”</p> - -<p>“You can go forward, Friend,” said I, “and tell Mr. Yan Bol and the men -that I have thought the matter over, that I consent to remain captain of -the brig, and to navigate her to Amsterdam Island.”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br /><br /> -<small>BOL’S RUSE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="lftspc">“What</span> demons!” exclaimed the lady Aurora when Friend had left the cabin. -“You do well to consent. May the Holy Virgin watch over us and deliver -us!” She cast up her eyes and crossed herself with great devotion.</p> - -<p>When Friend was gone with my message I leaned upon the cabin table -thinking. The Spanish lady chattered. I did not heed her. I had no hope, -saw no prospect, could imagine no issue. True, much might happen; but -then, what would be good for my safety—for my own and the safety of -Madam Aurora—<i>might</i> prove fatal to my fortune, and my dollars were -with me the first of all considerations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_316" id="page_316">{316}</a></span></p> - -<p>I wanted my six thousand pounds: I wanted the thirty thousand pounds -which formed Greaves’ share, that I might deal with it in accordance -with his instructions. I wished to realize the happy dreams I had been -dreaming throughout the voyage. It was maddening to think of the whole -fifteen tons of silver falling into the hands of the blackguard fellows -forward; and yet the devil’s luck of the business, as it now stood, was -this, that what was bad for <i>them</i> was bad for <i>me</i>—by which I mean -that if the brig was captured by an enemy, or boarded by an Englishman -and the money discovered; if she foundered or was stranded with the -dollars aboard, I might indeed escape with my life, I might be delivered -along with the lady Aurora from the situation I was now in—but my -dollars would be lost to me, and with them my sweet and jolly prospects.</p> - -<p>I went into my cabin, brought out a chart, and putting it under the lamp -laid off a course for the Cape of Good Hope. I likened my feelings to -those of a man who is wakened by a jailer and told that all is ready, -that he can order what he likes for breakfast, and that the chaplain -will wait upon him presently. I struck the chart a blow with my fist, -and hissed a curse at it like any stage ruffian. We were to be bound the -other way now. We were sailing to the inhospitable ends of the earth; -the stars of the south were to arise again; the star of the pole must -remain a dream of home.</p> - -<p>The tragic suddenness of it all, when only at dinner that day I was -rejoicing in spirit over our progress north, and telling my Spanish -companion what I meant to do with my share of the dollars!</p> - -<p>I replaced the chart, drank a tumbler of grog, and stepping on deck, -marched to the wheel and looked at the card. Call grasped the spokes.</p> - -<p>“Let her go off. The course is——” and I gave the fellow the course.</p> - -<p>The swollen, dusky shapes of Bol, Galen, and others of the crew trudged -in the gangway. It was a fine, clear night. I sang out:</p> - -<p>“Trim sail and then heap it on her. Set stun’s’ls and let her go.”</p> - -<p>My voice was instantly echoed by Bol.</p> - -<p>“Hurrah, my ladts! Man der braces. Clear avay der foretopmast stun’s’l. -Hurrah for beesiness! All vhas right now. Dis vhas a happy ship.”</p> - -<p>I stood beside the wheel while the men trimmed and made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_317" id="page_317">{317}</a></span> sail, Bol -roaring at them, deeply thunderous, with excitement and satisfaction. -Presently the great Dutchman came up to me.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, vhas he a disgrace to shake handts now?”</p> - -<p>I gave him my hand, and the brute squeezed it. He then looked at the -card, observed the course, and said, “Dot vhas for der Cape!”</p> - -<p>“Yaw.”</p> - -<p>“He vill not bring der land aboardt? All hands would gif der Point of -Agulhas a vide berth.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll run you as far south as you choose.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, I dessay a hondred mile vhas sout enough.”</p> - -<p>“Is the fresh water going to carry us to Amsterdam Island?”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas to findt out. If not, dere vhas plenty of rain in der sky -before dere casks gif out. But she vhas not longer to Amsterdam Island -dan to England, and dere vhas water to last to England, so dot vhas all -right, I hope. Dere is fresh water on der island.”</p> - -<p>“And your provisions?”</p> - -<p>“She vhas to be seen to likewise.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll find nothing to eat at Amsterdam Island; nothing to carry you on -to Port Jackson.”</p> - -<p>“Vhen der money vhas hid dere vhas St. Paul hard by, mit goats, und -cabbage, und fish for drying.”</p> - -<p>I cursed him behind my teeth. The villain looked far ahead; all hands -knew what they were about, while I saw nothing, an inch beyond my nose.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, ve vhas all gladt dot you remain in sharge. Mitout you ve -vhas at sea indeedt. You vhas now von of us. Dere vhas no robbery. Tink -a leedle, Mr. Fielding. How vhas Tulp to know dot ve hov der dollars? -Tink a leedle, sir. Ve gifs him our vages—our verk costs her not von -stiver. Der captain vhas deadt—der money by der law of expeditions like -ash dis vhas, I mean expedition dot vhas all der same as privateering, -belongs to der surfifers. Suppose I die? Vell, my share goes by rights -to you und der oders. Dot vhas onderstood. Now, Mr. Fielding, vhat vhas -your share to be?”</p> - -<p>On his asking me this question I walked off.</p> - -<p>It was fine weather till past midnight; the wind then came out of the -northeast in a heavy squall of wet, and after this for several days it -blew very fresh. The rain drove in clouds over the sea; the dark sky -hung low, and our reeling trucks were swept by the shadows of the flying -scud. Yet in these<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_318" id="page_318">{318}</a></span> heavy, boisterous days Yan Bol and two or three -others contrived to take stock of the quantity of fresh water and -provisions on board. Bol sent Jimmy to me with the particulars, and -asked leave to attend me in my cabin while I worked out the figures. I -sent word back that an Englishman might come—Teach or Friend—bidding -Jimmy add that I understood Bol’s English with difficulty. The truth was -I hated the villain; wished to have no more to do with him than the work -of the brig forced upon me. He had threatened me with an open boat, he -was at the bottom of this seizure of the brig and her cargo of silver; -the project of casting the vessel away was his I did not question. Could -I have served any purpose by taking his life I’d have shot him with less -compunction than I’d wring a fowl’s neck.</p> - -<p>The man who arrived was Teach. He had washed his face and buttoned -himself up in a clean pilot coat to pay the cabin this visit. He was a -smart seaman: a sharp-looking rogue, with curling hair and a long, lean -nose, and little, darting eyes. He knocked on my cabin door, and I bade -him come in.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said I, “is it you? Sit down.”</p> - -<p>Without further words, I took pencil and paper and fell to my -calculations. Bol’s figures lay before me. I guessed they were correct. -He’d naturally go to work anxiously, that we might not be starved or -driven by thirst from the Amsterdam Island scheme. There was so much -beef, so much pork, so much ship-bread, and such and such a quantity of -peas, sugar, flour, and the like; there was so much water. We were -fifteen souls in all, counting the girl and the two Spaniards; and my -figures worked out thus—that, at the usual allowance, we had provisions -for seven months and water for three.</p> - -<p>I gave Teach these figures, and then put them down in black and white -for the crew, and handed him the paper.</p> - -<p>“There’s plenty of provisions,” said he, looking at the paper upside -down, “to last all hands to Australia. Fresh water we’ll take in at -Amsterdam Island.”</p> - -<p>“Ever at Sydney?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s your friend?”</p> - -<p>“A man named Max Lampton.”</p> - -<p>“D’ye know that he’s now at Sydney?”</p> - -<p>“He was there two years ago. If he’s dead his son’ll be living. But he -ain’t dead. Max is one who takes care of himself. No drink—no -baccy—regular as a clock—a steady man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_319" id="page_319">{319}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“What do you expect of him?”</p> - -<p>“He’ll show us what to do with the money; ’vart it into paper and gold -for us.”</p> - -<p>“Fifteen tons!”</p> - -<p>“It’ll take time. We sailors aren’t going to make a job of it without -help, anyhow.”</p> - -<p>“Is it a clever idea to bury this silver in Amsterdam Island, first of -all?”</p> - -<p>“Ay, blooming clever! Where’s there such another island to answer our -turn? We can’t cast the brig away with the money aboard, that’s sartin.”</p> - -<p>“You mean to cast her away?”</p> - -<p>“Why, what are we to do with her?” said he, talking all this while with -his little eyes rooted on my face. “Carry her to Port Jackson? What’s -the yarn we’re to spin? Where are we to ha’ come from? Where was we to -be bound to? We’ve thought it o’er. We don’t like the notion. She’s a -pretty boat, but she must go. There’s a blooming lot of us. Are we all -to be trusted? Are we all going to stick to the same yarn if it comes to -close questioning? Any durned fool can be a shipwrecked sailor. There’s -a-many durned fools piking it now as castaways on the British roads, -a-yarning spunkily, and saving money.”</p> - -<p>I thought to myself, “And you’d trust me, would you? You’d allow me to -be one of your shipwrecked party, eh? And if I am <i>not</i> to be one of -your shipwrecked party—and most surely you don’t intend that I <i>shall</i> -be—what’s to happen betwixt this and New Holland? How have you hearts -of oak arranged to get rid of me?”</p> - -<p>I looked down and sat silent in thought. He stirred, as if to leave, and -said:</p> - -<p>“We’re too many, sir.”</p> - -<p>“For the dollars?”</p> - -<p>He grinned, and answered:</p> - -<p>“No. There are dollars enough for all hands. We’re too many mouths for -the stock of provisions and water.”</p> - -<p>“Yan Bol has threatened to send me adrift, curse him! Do you mean that I -should go first to shrink your company!”</p> - -<p>“No, no!” he answered, in a voice heavy and almost savage with emphasis; -and he thumped his knee with his fist. “We can’t do without you—you -know that, Mr. Fielding. And that brings me to something I’ll tell you -in a minute or two. It’s them Spaniards. What’s the good of them?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_320" id="page_320">{320}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No cruelty! So help me God! if there’s cruelty I drop my command! Mark -me, and report what I tell you.”</p> - -<p>“There’ll be no cruelty,” said the man sullenly; “but them Johnnies’ll -have to walk.”</p> - -<p>“And the lady?”</p> - -<p>“Aint she in your share?” said he, and his face relaxed. He drove his -quid out of one cheek into the other, and when he had chawed a little -while, he said, “But what’s to <i>be</i> your share?”</p> - -<p>I crooked my eyebrows and surveyed him steadily.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you give it a name, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Shall I get it by naming it?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, we can’t trust you if you can’t trust us.”</p> - -<p>“What share will you give?”</p> - -<p>“A big share.”</p> - -<p>“Bol and the rest of you know the worth of what’s below. Make me an -offer in writing. It’ll content me.”</p> - -<p>“Give me a figure to go upon,” said he standing up. “Tell us what you -was to get if Captain Greaves had carried the brig home.”</p> - -<p>“Six thousand pounds, and a thousand from Captain Greaves—seven -thousand pounds.”</p> - -<p>An oath broke from him—he checked himself; struck his thigh hard, -picked up his cap, and looked at me sideways. Then, stepping to the -door, he exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Good pay compared to the forecastle allowance.”</p> - -<p>I began to whistle, and drew on paper with the pencil I had calculated -with. He again eyed me sideways and went out.</p> - -<p>I believe it was on the fifth day of the heavy weather that Teach had -paid me this visit. Next morning, while I was breakfasting with the -Spanish lady, Jimmy—the boy as I call him, though he was a great, -hulking, strong, sprawling lad as you know; half an idiot in many -directions, but quick and even intelligent in some—this lad came into -the cabin and said that Bol asked to speak to me. I would not have the -Dutchman below, neither would I leave my breakfast; so I bid the lad say -I’d be on deck by and by. Down he comes a minute later with a bit of -dirty folded paper in his hand.</p> - -<p>“Master,” says he, “Mister Bol didn’t know you was at breakfast. Will -you read this, and tell him, when you go on deck, if it’s to your -satisfaction?”</p> - -<p>The dirty piece of paper was like to the sheets that had been used for -the Round Robin. It was the fly-leaf of some old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_321" id="page_321">{321}</a></span> book, yellow with age -and pockmarked with brine. A Dutch scrawl in faint ink half covered it. -The precious document ran thus:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>Meester Fielding, dis vhas a bondt. All handts agree. Suppose dere -vhas fifteen ton silver—vell, two tons vhas yours if you sail der -brick true und does her duty by oos ash we does by him. Dot being -right ve all makes our marks and sines her names ash oonder. If you -goes wrong dis bondt vhas tore-sop, und vot vhas las’ wrote stans -for noting. Dere vhas no more paper.</p></div> - -<p>Then followed the crosses and names of the men, as in the Round Robin. I -burst into a laugh. Heartsick as I was, this stroke of farce, happening -in the great tragic occasion of that time, proved too much for me. I put -the paper in my pocket.</p> - -<p>“At what do you laugh?” said the lady Aurora.</p> - -<p>“At a piece of Dutch humor,” said I, laughing again.</p> - -<p>She looked eagerly, and wished to know if the crew had done anything to -please me—anything to lighten my anxiety.</p> - -<p>“They have given me two tons of silver,” said I with a sneer, pointing -down that she might understand me.</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and asked no more questions about the crew’s -bond. I reckoned she saw in my face as much as she was interested to -hear. I observed her fine eyes fixed upon the stand of muskets and -cutlasses and watched her; not speculating on her thoughts, merely -observing her face. I beheld no marks of anxiety in her handsome -features, of such passions of uneasiness and continued distress as you -would look for in a woman situated as she was. The glass in poor -Greaves’ cabin had assured me that what had befallen us had not -sweetened or colored my own visage. I was growing long of face; -yellowing daily, and my eyes had sunk. This Spanish girl, on the other -hand, was still bright and spirited with all the health she had regained -aboard us. I watched her while she looked at the weapons; she turned her -face slowly upon mine, and our eyes met.</p> - -<p>“Why,” she exclaimed—and now began one of those brief conversations -which I am forced to put into plain English for reasons I have given -you—“why, Señor Fielding, do not you lock away those swords and -firearms?”</p> - -<p>“Why should I lock them away?”</p> - -<p>“The crew may take them.”</p> - -<p>“What then?” said I, “we should be no worse off. I am alone: forward are -ten stout, determined men; armed or unarmed, ’tis all one.”</p> - -<p>“There are two,” said she.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_322" id="page_322">{322}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, Jimmy is a strong lad, and might be useful, and I dare say he is -on our side at heart, but he is wanting,” said I, touching my head. “I -dare not trust him.”</p> - -<p>She smiled and said, “I did not mean the youth. I am the other.”</p> - -<p>I asked her to explain. She rose and seated herself beside me. The -skylight was partially covered with tarpaulin, and what was visible of -the glass was blank as mist with wet. The brig was full of noises. She -was rolling and pitching very heavily, and the thunder of seas bursting -back in heavy hills of foam from her weather side trembled like -discharges of cannon through the length of her. Nevertheless the -señorita came and sat by my side, and put her lips close to my ear, -though had she shrieked her ideas from the extreme end of the cabin, or -even up through the hatch, nobody on deck would have heard her.</p> - -<p>Her manner was tragic and mysterious. It was not put on. The thoughts in -her bred the air, and she had the face and figure for a very curious -high dramatic expression of emotion of any sort.</p> - -<p>“Why,” said she, speaking so close that I felt the heat of her face, “do -not we kill the men who are robbing you and carrying me away?”</p> - -<p>“All of them?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Not Jimmy, and not my two countrymen. Look! suppose I bring Antonio -here and tell him that he and Jorge are in danger of their lives, and -that they must fight with us and kill the crew. There are you, me, my -two countrymen: there is Jimmy,” she held up her fingers. “Five to ten, -and everything is ready,” said she, pointing to the muskets.</p> - -<p>“I would not trust your two countrymen. They are cowards. I would not -risk such a business for your sake. Failure would mean my being killed: -that <i>must</i> be; and how would the men whom <i>we</i> did not kill deal with -you?”</p> - -<p>“All could be killed,” said she. “I myself will kill in this cabin that -great Jean Bol, as you talk to him. I will creep behind and stab him. -Send for Galen; I will kill him too; then Teach. Three then are -<i>gastados!</i> [expended!] For the rest——” She shrugged her shoulders and -leaned back to observe the impression produced upon me by her talk.</p> - -<p>“Madam,” said I, looking at her eyes, which were all on fire, and her -cheeks, which were colored, hot with the devilish fancies which worked -in her, “your spirit is fine, but somewhat too deadly for one of my -cautious character.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_323" id="page_323">{323}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I wish for release,” she cried, with a great sigh, and her eyes -suddenly clouded; “I wish for my mother and for home. I thought the -English were brave, <i>vaya!</i> Your men will kill you if you do not kill -them. Are you afraid to kill them? Ave Maria! Good men die in thousands -every day.”</p> - -<p>She began to tremble, and rose as if to pace the cabin; the motion of -the brig was too heavy to permit that. I took her hand to steady her—it -had turned from the heat of fever to the coldness of marble. “Just so!” -thought I; “aren’t you one of those delicate assassins who prog and -faint? Who’d stick friend Yan, then swoon, and leave me to deal with -what would follow his roars?”</p> - -<p>“We’ll burn no powder just yet,” said I, “and we’ll keep our poniards in -our breasts. Amsterdam Island is a long way off; many things may -happen.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Pu! Quita, allá!</i>” she exclaimed, with pale lips and dull eyes, and -trembling, and then rising with a murmur of anger and a manner of -haughty contempt she went to her berth.</p> - -<p>When she was gone there ran in my head a strange fancy of Defoe -concerning a beautiful demon lady. You may read of it in that author’s -“History of the Devil,” which is, I think, the best biography of the -landlord of the Black Divan that ever was written. I could not but -vastly admire the spirit of the woman in offering to shoot down the ten -men; but I thought there was something damnable and fiendish in her -proposing to make a shambles of the cabin by sticking Bol and the others -she had named, while I talked to them. A demon spoke through her Spanish -blood <i>there</i>! And yet her fine eyes and fine figure were in my memory -of her counsel, and found a sort of fascination for what should have -affected me as quite abominable.</p> - -<p>I sat a bit, coldly considering her ideas. True it was that I could have -killed Bol cheerfully; but to slaughter the whole ten of them, even if -their assassination was to be contrived! Bol, to be sure, had threatened -to send me adrift: he may have meant no more than a threat; my life was -not immediately in danger; my knowledge as a navigator warranted me the -good usage of the scoundrels till the coast of New Holland arose, and -’twixt this and <i>that</i> there lay some months: the men had dealt -respectfully with the girl—left her indeed to me, as though they -counted her a part of my share. No! I could not consent to shoot them -down; I could not consent to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_324" id="page_324">{324}</a></span> let her ladyship knife the ringleaders -while I conversed with them—one at a time.</p> - -<p>I went to the stand and took out a musket to judge the quality and age -of the lot: it was a Dutch musket, long, clumsy, and murderous. I took -down a cutlass and tried the blade—all this mechanically: my mind was -rambling. I scarce knew what I was about; I bent the blade and the steel -snapped and the point of it sprang with the twang of a Jew’s harp -through the air. Some of Tulp’s purchases! thought I, then replaced the -broken half of the blade in its scabbard, and hung up the cutlass in its -place.</p> - -<p>This trifle begot a new scorn of Tulp in me. The rogue would even cheat -himself, thought I. He would ship cannons that burst and blades that -shiver to save a guilder or two, and risk the lives of us men and his -dollars by the ton for some lean-paring of saving that would scarce put -an onion to a man’s bread and cheese. What do I care for Tulp, thought -I? What is his brig to me now that poor Greaves is gone? Had Greaves -owned relations among whom he wished his money distributed the thing -would wear a different face; but as it stands, Tulp and the brig being -nothing to me, why should I not throw in my chance with the crew, elbow -Bol out of his leadership by sheer enthusiasm, sincerity, knowledge of -the ocean roads? The fellows groped in their black ignorance after some -scheme, and brought up this muddy project of Amsterdam Island with -Sydney beyond. Could not I devise something much better than <i>that</i> for -them, something safe and quick—compared at least with <i>their</i> -programme: something they should hearken to and eagerly adopt when they -saw me and knew me and felt me to be in earnest?</p> - -<p>Yan Bol came up when I put my head out of the hatch.</p> - -<p>“Vhas dot bondt all right?” he roared that his voice might carry above -the shouting in the rigging and the fierce hissing of the sea.</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>“Two ton. Only tink. Dere vhas much skylarking in two ton of silver. How -many dollars shall go to her?” said he.</p> - -<p>“Dollars enough for me,” I shouted, and passed on to the compass and -took a look at the brig and around me. I hated the villain; I hated his -roaring voice, and his English; besides, speech soon grew difficult, -even to physical pain, on that clamorous deck.</p> - -<p>It was not much later on, however, that the crew gave me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_325" id="page_325">{325}</a></span> cause to think -twice before throwing in my lot with them. By this time we had stretched -far across the Atlantic; the month of April was drawing to an end. Much -heavy weather had we encountered, but it had been of a prosperous sort, -rushing us onward with hooting rigging, and reeling bands of canvas, -with such a spin of the log-reel that many a time and oft three and -sometimes four men were required at the great scope of line to walk it -in.</p> - -<p>On the day of the little business I am going to tell you about I went on -deck and found a very fine morning. The blue sky sank crisp with -mother-of-pearl-like cloud to the pale edge of the sea. The sun, that -was risen about half-an-hour, shone white as silver in the east, whence -blew a pleasant breeze of wind, dead on end for us, however, so that our -yards lay fore and aft and the little brig under every stitch of plain -sail looked away from her course.</p> - -<p>I saw Bol to leeward gazing at the sea off the lee bow. I never -addressed that man now unless there was something particular to say, and -after having satisfied myself with a quarter-deck stare around and -aloft, I began to walk. Bol turned his head and perceived me. He -approached, and pointing his finger at the sea on the lee bow, said:</p> - -<p>“Do you see dot ship?”</p> - -<p>I looked and spied a sail hidden to me until this by the brig’s canvas.</p> - -<p>“How is she standing?”</p> - -<p>“Our vays.”</p> - -<p>She was about five miles distant. Bol had been using the glass. It lay -upon the skylight. I examined the sail, and found her a small topsail -schooner. With the naked eyes, by the look of her, as she floated out -there in the frosty whiteness of sunshine, I had guessed her twice as -big as we. She was coming along leisurely. The wind was off her quarter, -and a light wind for fore-and-aft canvas.</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas she, tink you, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know a ship by her rig?”</p> - -<p>“I mean, vhat vhas her peesiness? Vhas she some leedle man-of-war?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps a trader, bound across the Atlantic.”</p> - -<p>He went forward as far as the gangway and beckoned. Wirtz, who stood on -the forecastle, called out the name of Galen, and then walked aft to -Bol, along with Friend and Street. Galen came out of the caboose eating. -His jaws worked with some mouthful he had crammed betwixt his teeth. -There was but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_326" id="page_326">{326}</a></span> little discipline in all this, you will say. There was -none whatever. There had been very little discipline on board the <i>Black -Watch</i> since illness had forced poor Greaves to give up and hand the -command over to me. Was the fault mine? The long and short of it was, -the men had never recognized me as mate in the room of Jacob Van Laar. -They had worked for the safety of the ship and because of Yan Bol. I was -an interloper. They had made me feel it, times beyond counting, in their -sailors’ way; and now, though nominally captain, I was no more nor less -than pilot, with authority only in the direction of the general safety.</p> - -<p>All this I very much understood as I walked the deck, appearing not to -heed the group of men in the gangway, and wondering what matter they -were settling among them. Presently Bol came aft, took the telescope to -the men, and one after another of them leveled it at the little sail off -the bow. I never caught what they said, though my steps sometimes -brought me pretty close.</p> - -<p>They turned their faces my way sometimes. Street went over to the boat -that lay stowed in the longboat amidships, looked into her, and returned -to the others. I then thought to myself, “Are they going to signal that -craft and put me aboard her?” I went into a violent passion over the -suspicion, and came to a stand at the bulwarks, nearly opposite the spot -where they were grouped, and stared, I have no doubt, with a very black -face. Indeed, my conjecture had put me into such a rage that I heeded -not, by a snap of the finger, what they might think. I tried to cool -myself by reflecting that they could not do without me; but the mere -notion that they meant to turn me out of the brig, and make off with -Madam Aurora and the fifteen tons of silver, taking their chance of what -might follow, worked like a madness in me.</p> - -<p>They stood together, I dare say, about ten minutes talking. In this time -the sail had grown, and was visibly a topsail schooner, low in the -water, of a clean, black, slaver-like run. The sun flashed in flame from -her wet sides, and I thought at first she was firing at us. Meehan, I -think it was, sung out:</p> - -<p>“Better see all ready, mates!” and went to the boat, he and others.</p> - -<p>Bol alone stayed, looking at the schooner. He then came to me.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, I shall vant to command for a leedle vhile. Me himself -vhas skipper till our peesiness vhas done.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_327" id="page_327">{327}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean to do?” said I.</p> - -<p>“To shtop dot leedle hooker. I shall vant to hail her. Of course, Mr. -Fielding, you vhas der captain all der same; but you hov a soft heart, -and so I vhas der skipper in dis shob.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand you.”</p> - -<p>“It vhas like opening your eyes in a minute. You vhas not to interfere, -dot vhas all.”</p> - -<p>He went to the flag-locker, took out the English ensign, and ran it -aloft, union down, at the trysail gaff-end.</p> - -<p>“Back der main topsail, some hands!” he bawled. All hands were on deck. -Hals came out of the caboose to look on or to help. Some of the men laid -the canvas on the main a-back, and others unshipped the little gangway -preparatory to launching the boat, smack-fashion, through it; and among -those who hove the little boat out of the bigger one, and ran her to the -side, were the two Spaniards. Meanwhile, the schooner had hoisted -English colors. They blew out from her main topmast head. The telescope -gave me the character of the bunting. To the naked eye it waved and -trembled like a red light against the pearly crust which covered the sky -that way.</p> - -<p>I guessed by her showing her color that she was going to halt when she -came abreast. What did my crew mean to do? What scheme had the beggars -suddenly hit on and were going about with an unanimity that held them -all as quiet as the backed topsail aloft?</p> - -<p>It was about now that Miss Aurora came on deck. She looked up at the -sails of the brig, at the flag flying at our trysail gaff-end, at the -approaching schooner, the open gangway, the boat lying in it, the men -hanging about the little fabric.</p> - -<p>“Holy Mother!” cried she, and in a step or two she was at my side. “What -is it? What is wrong? What is happening?”</p> - -<p>Bol, who stood with others near the boat, hearing her turned. The huge -man approached and was calling out before I could answer the girl.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, der lady must go below.”</p> - -<p>“Must!”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, by Cott! I vhas skipper for dis leedle while. You vhas not to be -seen, marm. Dot vhas so I play no bart mit you on deck.”</p> - -<p>He came to the companion way, and with a face full of blood and temper, -pointed down the ladder, exclaiming in his deepest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_328" id="page_328">{328}</a></span> thunder, “Quick, if -you please. Doan’ be afraid. It vhas all right. No von vhas hurt over -dis shob.”</p> - -<p>“Go,” said I, “do as he bids you. See how those fellows are watching -us.”</p> - -<p>She obeyed me with an extraordinary look; the expression of a naturally -fierce spirit contending with womanly terror; I’d think of it afterward -always as if the girl had had two souls—one of flame, a gift of -fighting blood older than the Moors perhaps; the other just a woman’s.</p> - -<p>“My ladts,” bawled Bol to the men, “keep yourselves out of sight. Aft -some of you, und standt by to swing der topsail yard. Manage dot your -heads vhas not seen.”</p> - -<p>Those who came aft and those who stayed forward crouched under the -bulwark: the two Spaniards hid with the others. Observing this, Bol -called to Antonio:</p> - -<p>“Oop you stand, you and Jorge. You vhas der crew.”</p> - -<p>They stood up, looking at the Dutchman wonderingly, with a half grin -that was pathetic. I began to smell a rat, as they say. The schooner -came sliding along, and when she was within ear-shot her topsail was -swung and she halted to leeward of us. Her crew gazed at us from their -forecastle, and three men stood on her quarter-deck. She was pierced for -a few guns, but her ports were closed, and I saw no pieces of any sort -upon her decks, though the easy, long-drawn roll of her gave us a good -sight of the white planks, with the great main hatch and a tiny smoking -caboose, and a fellow in a red shirt at the end of the long tiller. She -was a sweet little picture, a far prettier model than the brig, -handsomely gilt at the bow and quarter. “Lord!” thought I, “if I could -but make those men yonder know what sort of stuff we carried down aft -and the piratic trick those crouching scoundrels and that vast heap of -flesh called Bol are playing me!” Yet, suppose the crew should permit me -to shout out the yarn, would yonder chaps board us? We were nearly as -numerous—our livelies would be fighting for treasure dear to them as -their own ruddy drops; and look at our little grin of carronades and -those long, shining engines on the forecastle and aft!</p> - -<p>Bol got on to a gun. One of the men on the schooner’s quarter-deck -hailed.</p> - -<p>“Ho, der brick ahoy! Vhat sheep vhas dot?”</p> - -<p>It was the hail of a Dutch voice! I burst into a laugh—I must have -laughed out at that Dutch hail had I been standing with a noose round my -neck under a yardarm. Yan Bol stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_329" id="page_329">{329}</a></span> idly straining and gaping a moment -or two when he heard those Dutch tones. He then sent his deep voice -across the water in a roar:</p> - -<p>“She vhas der <i>Black Vatch</i> of London to New Holland.”</p> - -<p>“Vat vhas wrong mit you?” shouted the Dutchman in the schooner.</p> - -<p>“Ve vhas a seek ship und in great distress. I vill sendt a boat to you, -ash I vhas veak und cannot cry out.”</p> - -<p>He floundered off the carronade on to the deck, and rolling over to the -gangway, called to the two Spaniards, who stood there:</p> - -<p>“Ofer mit dis boat. Quick now, and row aboardt dot schooner, und ask him -to take you home. Der rest,” he shouted with a look fore and aft, “keeps -hid till I give der signal.”</p> - -<p>The bustle of the burly fellow was so heavy and eager, so much of elbow, -knee, and thrust went to the launching of that boat, that the two -miserable Spaniards were swept into the job as a man is hurried along by -a crowd. They scarce knew what they were to do even while they were -doing it; and then in a minute it was done, the boat alongside, and Bol -bundling both the Spaniards into her through the open gangway.</p> - -<p>“In you shoomps! Dot vhas der vhay! Quick! If dot schooner vhas missed -your life vhas not vorth der shirt on your pack. Oop mit dem oars, -Antonio, und shove off. Avays you goes, mit our respects und vill der -captain restore you to your friendts!”</p> - -<p>I went to the side. On seeing me Antonio who, with an oar in his hand, -stood up in the boat looking along the line of the brig’s rail with a -wild, pale face, cried out in his incommunicable English:</p> - -<p>“Señor Fielding, do not let Mr. Bol go away until he sees that the -schooner will receive us. We have but these oars” he cried passionately, -“no water, no provisions.”</p> - -<p>“Pull for her—she’ll take you,” I cried.</p> - -<p>“Roundt mit der topsail,” thundered Bol.</p> - -<p>The seamen sprang to the braces, and in a very few moments had filled on -the brig’s canvas. The vessel sat light on the water and quickly felt -the impulse of her sails. The boat containing Antonio and Jorge slipped -astern; the two wretches were not even <i>then</i> rowing; but the moment the -brig got way one of them—it was Jorge, I think—yelled out like a -woman; they threw their oars out and hysterically splashed the little -tub of a boat toward the schooner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_330" id="page_330">{330}</a></span></p> - -<p>There was no sea to hurt them. The swell ran firm and wide, rippling -only to the brushing of the wind. I dreaded lest the schooner, on -beholding our sudden show of men, should suspect—what with our visible -brass pieces and the suggestive sheer of our hull—a piratic device, and -make off. If that happened the Spaniards were lost; Bol certainly would -not return to pick them up. The mere fancy of our leaving them out in -this vast sea to horribly perish worked in me like ice in the blood, and -as I watched I was all the while thinking, “What shall I do to save them -if yonder schooner fills in a fright?”</p> - -<p>But the schooner did not fill; that her people were amazed by our -behavior I could not question, but they did not offer to run away. -Possibly they thought we were executing some maneuver, and would shift -our helm presently for the boat we had dispatched to them.</p> - -<p>The Spaniards splashed along in their passion and fury of distress. -Their boat was already a toy; they themselves dolls. They got alongside -the schooner, and, seizing the glass, I watched them scramble over the -rail, and continued to watch. They went up to the three men on the -quarter-deck, and both fell to violently gesticulating and pointing at -us. I could no longer tell which was which; one of them shook his fist -at us, the other motioned with violent dramatic gestures toward the hold -of the schooner. I might swear he was telling the men about the dollars, -and furiously motioned that we might guess, <i>if</i> we watched him through -the glass, what he was talking about.</p> - -<p>Bol hauled the ensign down, and called to a man to roll it up.</p> - -<p>“Vhas dot a neat little shob, Mr. Fielding?” said he, coming and -standing beside me.</p> - -<p>“Would not the schooner have taken the men without all this neatness?” I -answered.</p> - -<p>“Maybe and maybe not. Ve vhas not going to reesk it.”</p> - -<p>“You have lost the boat. Why did you require the lady to leave the -deck?”</p> - -<p>“She vhas soft-hearted, und dis shob vhas to be neat und quiet. Look!” -he roared suddenly; “dere swings der topsails. Down coomes der flag. Gif -me der glass, Mr. Fielding.” He put his eye to the tube, and in a moment -bawled, “Der boat drops astern; she vhas empty.”</p> - -<p>He pitched the glass on to the skylight and uttered an extraordinary -roar of laughter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_331" id="page_331">{331}</a></span></p> - -<p>Half an hour later the schooner was no more than a shaft of white light -down in the west, with Yan Bol singing out orders to trim the sails of -the brig and head for the boat, whose bearings had been taken, that we -might recover her.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br /><br /> -<small>I SCHEME.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Never</span> once in all this while, and my story is covering many days, was I -visited by the palest shadow of a scheme of release. And why? Because -the <i>schatz</i>—the treasure—the dollars and I were one. All plans of -escape provided that I left my dollars behind me. But I wanted my money. -I had lived in a golden dream. The abandonment of the treasure was an -unendurable consideration. I believe I could have faced death on board -that brig with something of coolness. The contemplation of it would not -have been frightful; the calling of the sea hardens the sensibilities -and accustoms the soul to more things than the wonders of the Lord; but -I could not consider with coolness the idea of the men possessing -themselves of the fifteen tons of silver, burying the half-million -dollars in the Island of Amsterdam, then perhaps being unable to find -out where they had hidden the money, or hindered by who knows what of -the unforeseen from ever getting to the island again.</p> - -<p>I say I fell half mad whenever my head ran on that forecastle device. -The thought of it regularly threw me into a fever. I have walked my -cabin for a whole glass or watch at a time, as bad a murderer as any man -can well be in heart only, killing the crew in imagination over and -over.</p> - -<p>Yet not the leanest vision of a scheme offered itself. Suppose I had -attempted to recapture the brig by slaughtering the men after the manner -proposed by Miss Aurora; by her stabbing them in the cabin while I -engaged their attention, and then by her and me shooting the others; -suppose this wild, ridiculous, horrid proposal practicable—all the crew -being hove over the side—what was I to do with the brig, I, whose -assistants would be a woman and a tall, clumsy, idiotic lad? Navigate -her to the nearest port? Ay, but that was just what I durst not do if I -wished to keep my dollars. Greaves had been strong on this point; he’d -touch nowhere—rather reduce all hands to quarter allowance than touch, -lest by entering or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_332" id="page_332">{332}</a></span> hovering off a port he’d court a visit that should -carry him every dollar ashore.</p> - -<p>Well, then, since I dared not convey the brig to a port, was I to wash -about the sea with Miss Aurora and Jimmy for my crew, until I fell in -with a ship willing to put me two or three men aboard? Yes, that sounds -nicely; but what would be the risks before we fell in with a ship -willing to assist? Many days, many weeks might pass before we sighted a -sail, for I am writing of the year 1815, when the ocean we were afloat -on ran for countless leagues bare to the sky, nearly all the traffic -steering northward, Mozambique way.</p> - -<p>But what was the good of this sort of speculation? The crew were alive; -I was one to ten; I was without an idea; and every day was diminishing -something of the meridians betwixt us and the Island of New Amsterdam.</p> - -<p>I did not in this time give Miss Aurora a lesson in English. I do not -remember that she asked me to give her a lesson. We had many long -earnest conversations about our situation, by which she profited, for I -spoke mainly in my own tongue. She did not favor me with another song, -she nevermore asked for the fiddle, nor did it once occur to me to -request her to oblige me with a recital in the rich and beautiful tongue -of her nation. Yet she was now speaking English very fairly well. She -was seldom at a loss, and conversation was easy without signs, nods, or -gesticulations, saving an occasional shrug of her shoulders, the -naturally impassioned action of her hands when she talked eagerly and -hotly, and the many expressions of face which accompanied her speech.</p> - -<p>She did not again offer to assassinate Bol and the others; she had read -in my face what I thought of that proposal, and her fiery and scornful -flinging from me because I would not consent was a flare of temper that -was out before we next met. On one occasion, however, we quarreled -rather warmly, and I was sulky with her afterward for some days. She -told me that I thought more of my dollars than of her life. I colored up -and answered that that was not true; I valued her life, and would -restore her to her friends if I could; but I also valued my dollars. I -had worked hard for them, and was not to be robbed by the blackguards -forward of a considerable fortune.</p> - -<p>“You think only of your dollars,” said she; “you do not scheme, because -your dollars are in the way of every idea. Is this how an English -cavalier should treat a poor, unhappy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_333" id="page_333">{333}</a></span> shipwrecked lady? Señor -Fielding, I should be first with you; nothing should occupy your -attention but the resolution to release me from this horrid situation -and the dangers which lie before us;” and then she towered with her -figure, and swelled her breast and flashed her eyes at me.</p> - -<p>There was more of truth in her words than I relished to hear from her -lips, and it was this perhaps that angered me. I begged her to advise; -she shrugged her shoulders, and with an arch sneer which rather improved -than deformed her beauty, said that if I were a Spanish sailor I would -be ashamed to ask counsel of a woman.</p> - -<p>“If I were a Spanish sailor I would be ashamed of myself,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Why do you not scheme to release us?”</p> - -<p>“Scheme to release us? Shall I blow up the brig? That will make an end.”</p> - -<p>“It would not be the Señorita Aurora, but the Cavalier Fielding and his -Spanish dollars which would hinder that,” said she.</p> - -<p>“If, by jumping overboard and swimming, I could put you in the way of -reaching Madrid, I’d do so,” said I; “but it’s a long swim hereabouts to -anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“You would not jump overboard and leave your dollars,” said she. “If you -were the gallant and respectable gentleman I have long supposed you, you -would think of nothing but my deliverance. Why am I to be carried away -to the extreme ends of the world? What is to become of me when your -odious Hollanders and Englishmen have wrecked this brig?” and here she -sank upon the table and sobbed.</p> - -<p>“What am I to do?” I cried, not greatly moved by her tears; indeed, I -was too angry with her to be affected by her sobs. I had used her very -kindly; I had never failed in such rough sea courtesy as my profession -permitted me the poor art of; I did not like her sneers at my love for -my dollars; and I less liked the pinch or two of tart truth that -acidulated her language. “What am I to do?” I cried. “Bol will not -tranship you. He’ll speak no more vessels now the two Spaniards are -gone. I can’t sneak you away in a boat. Let any land but that of -Amsterdam Island heave into view and the sailors will slit my throat. -Why do you lie sobbing upon that table, madam? Pray, hold up your head -and listen to me. What was your scheme, pray? A hideous one, indeed; and -one that would not profit us either. It would fail, were we devils -enough to attempt it: and then<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_334" id="page_334">{334}</a></span> God help you and me! Many are the -saints, but none would then be powerful enough to serve you.”</p> - -<p>She raised her head. The fire in her eyes was by no means dimmed by her -tears. Her sobbing and posture had reddened her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“The navigation of this brig is in your hands. Wreck her!” she -exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“And be drowned?”</p> - -<p>“Wreck her in such a way that we shall not be drowned.”</p> - -<p>“Come, you shall not teach me my business. If I am not a Spanish sailor, -I’ll not take counsel of a woman either.”</p> - -<p>She snapped her fingers at me, and showed her teeth in an angry smile; -turned, and I thought was going to her berth. Instead, she stopped and -looked at me over her shoulder, made a step, and her whole manner -changed. Her demeanor was, all of a sudden, a sort of wild tenderness. -Why do I call it <i>that</i>? Because it suggested—the memory of it still -suggests—the moment’s sportiveness of a tigress with its young. Her -eyes softened: her face grew sweet with a look of pleading; she put -herself into a posture of entreaty, her hands out-stretched and figure a -little stooped. Acting, or no acting, it was as good as good can be. You -would have said she loved me had you watched her eyes. The contrast -between the rascally snap of the finger and this pose of appeal was -sharp and strong; but how mean that stage for so rich a performance—the -lifting, uncarpeted deck of a little, plain, ship’s cabin, with its -austere furniture of table and lockers, and a skylight bleared with the -grayness of the day without?</p> - -<p>“Señor Fielding, let <i>me</i> be first with you.”</p> - -<p>Another reference to the dollars! It vexed me greatly, and saying, “It -always has been so,” I gave her a cool bow and went on deck.</p> - -<p>We had quarreled before, but lightly, for the most part, and were -friends again in an hour. This quarrel, however, ran into two or three -days. She would not leave me alone. Did I mean to scheme for our -salvation? Was she to be first with me? Was I ashamed of myself to be -devoured by avarice? What was the good of dollars to a dying man? and -was I not a dying man if I did not rescue her and myself from the crew -of the brig? I don’t say she used all the words I put into her mouth. -No; she was not so fluent <i>then</i> as all that; but I understood her very -easily—rather too easily—when she sneered at me for thinking more of -my dollars than of her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_335" id="page_335">{335}</a></span></p> - -<p>Finding, however, that I continued resolutely sulky, answering her -shortly, passing through the cabin instead of sitting with her as before -and talking, she grew alarmed, felt that she had said too much, and made -her peace. She made her peace by coming to my cabin. I was looking at a -chart of the Southern Ocean when somebody knocked. My lady entered.</p> - -<p>“Ave Maria! What will you think of me for coming to you thus and here? -But my heart is too full of remorse for patience. Blessed Virgin! How -long is half an hour when one is impatient! And I have been waiting for -half an hour outside in the cabin. I have angered you, and I am sorry. -You have been good to me, and you are my friend. And how do I show my -gratitude? Forgive me, señor;” and with that she put out her hand.</p> - -<p>It was very true that Yan Bol had declared the men would speak no ship -until the silver was out of the brig. And in my opinion they were right. -As we made for the Island of New Amsterdam we increased the chance of -falling in with war-ships and privateers. For Amsterdam Island is in the -Indian Ocean, at the southern limit of those waters, it is true, and in -those times many vagabond vessels were to be found in the Indian Ocean -on the lookout for the big rich ships, the tea waggons and spice and -silk carriers bound to and from China and the Indies.</p> - -<p>But it so happened that after we had lost sight of the little schooner -which had taken the two Spaniards aboard, we met with no other -sail—none, I mean, within reach of the bunting or speaking trumpet. At -long intervals a tip of white showed in some blue recess of that sea, -infinitely remote, pale as a little light that lives and dies and lives -again while you look. Never before had the measurelessness of the ocean -affected me as now. The spirits of vastness and loneliness which came -shaping themselves to the imagination out of those month-wide breasts -and secret solitudes of brine grew overwhelming to the mind—to my mind -I should say; and often of a night when the deck was quiet and the sea -black and the stars were shining, I’d feel the oppression of a mighty -presence—of something huge and near.</p> - -<p>And then consider the doses of salt water I had swallowed and was yet -swallowing! I was fresh from very many months of the sea when I was -picked up off an oar in the Channel and swept outward again into the -world where the salt spits like a wildcat, and where the sound of the -wind is not as its noise ashore;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_336" id="page_336">{336}</a></span> and I was still at sea with months of -water before me in any case if I was not put an end to.</p> - -<p>So, even had the crew been willing to speak a ship that the lady Aurora -might be transferred, no opportunity to do so came along; nothing hove -in sight but a star of sail in the liquid distance, and <i>this</i> only at -long, long intervals.</p> - -<p>I’ll not tell you of the weather we fell in with between Cape Horn and -the distant island we were steering for; what do you care about the -weather and the weather of so long ago as Waterloo year? Otherwise I -could fill you several pages with pictures of hard gales, in one of -which the brig lay for a wild, terrifying time with her lee rail under, -her hull scarce to be seen for the smother that filled her decks, and I -could please you with pictures of soft calms in which our stem -tranquilly broke the cold gray water that reflected on either hand of -the vessel the silver sheen of her overhanging wings; and I could give -you pictures of merry breezes that swept us onward fast as the melting -head of the blue surge itself ran. Enough!</p> - -<p>One afternoon I sat upon the edge of the skylight frame with my arms -folded and my eyes fixed upon the sea. The sun was warm, the breeze -brisk. A pleasanter day had not shone upon us for a fortnight past. My -lady Aurora seated on a cabin chair at a little distance from me was -intent on an English book, one of the new volumes which had belonged to -Greaves. Her posture was very easy and reposeful; her dark eyes wandered -slowly down the printed page; often she was puzzled by the meaning of a -word and frowned at it; you would have supposed her a person without a -single cause for anxiety, a lady who was sailing to her home, which -might now not be very far off.</p> - -<p>Yan Bol was in charge. He had been standing for some considerable time -beside the wheel, occasionally exchanging a sentence in guttural Dutch -with Wirtz, who held the spokes. At last he came along the deck and -stood in front of me.</p> - -<p>“Vhat might hov been der situation of der brick at noon, Mr. Fielding?” -he inquired.</p> - -<p>I gave him the ship’s place.</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas close!” he said.</p> - -<p>“It was,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Donnerwetter!” he thundered, “der island vhas aboardt!” and he looked -ahead at the sea as though he expected to behold the Island of New -Amsterdam.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_337" id="page_337">{337}</a></span></p> - -<p>The lady Aurora, leaving the book opened upon her lap, raised her eyes -and listened.</p> - -<p>“How close vhas der island, Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Roughly, sixty leagues.”</p> - -<p>“Den, she vhas here to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“That is as the wind wills,” said I.</p> - -<p>He went forward by twenty or thirty paces, and putting his hand to the -side of his mouth—not that his voice should carry the better, but to -qualify the liberty he was taking by making an “aside” of it, so to -speak, to the eye—he called to Galen, Meehan, and two others who were -on forecastle:</p> - -<p>“Poys, she vhas here to-morrow. Der distance vhas sixty leagues at -dinner-time.”</p> - -<p>Galen accepted the news with a heavy Dutch flourish of his hand. Yan Bol -returned to me. In the minute or two of his going forward I had been -thinking, and with the swiftness of thought had concluded to ask him -certain questions.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to bury the silver?”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas der scheme.”</p> - -<p>“You will need to dig wide and deep if your pit is to contain all those -cases.”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, dot vhas so.”</p> - -<p>“What are you going to dig your pit with?”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas two shovels in der fore-peak. Whateffer else vhas useful ve -takes mit us.”</p> - -<p>“Do you object to my asking you these questions?”</p> - -<p>“Nine, nine, Mr. Fielding,” he answered, “you vhas von of us, ve hope. -Two tons of der silver vhas yours. Vhas it not right you should know -vhat vhas to become of her?”</p> - -<p>“Then, since in all probability we shall be off the island some time -to-morrow, I’d be glad to hear now how you mean to go to work. I have -asked no questions before. I had expected that you would come to me with -your arrangements, and for advice.”</p> - -<p>“Vhat advice vhas vanted? A man vhas green dot requires to be learnt how -to make a hole in der earth, und put his money into it, und cover it -oop.”</p> - -<p>“You will need to make a very big pit.”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, she vhas a wide und deep pit dot ve dig.”</p> - -<p>“How long d’ye reckon that it will take you to dig that pit with such -tools as you have?”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas no reckoning. Ve gets ashore und falls ter verk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_338" id="page_338">{338}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The lady Aurora closed her book, arose, brought her chair close to the -skylight, and reseated herself. Bol looked at her, then fastened his -eyes upon me.</p> - -<p>“Am I to be left in charge of the brig?”</p> - -<p>“You vhas, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“What of a crew do you mean to allow me? It may come on to blow hard -while you are on shore.”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas crew enough,” said he, with a queer expression in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“How many?” I demanded sternly.</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas four, und dere vhas der ladt, Jim. Dot vhas men enough for -der braces,” said he, looking up at the sails.</p> - -<p>“Four men and the boy,” said I aloud and musingly; “well, I daresay I -shall be able to manage with four men and the boy.”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas yourself to gount.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I do not forget myself. Do you take charge of the landing and -burial of the money?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, me himself. I likes to know vhere she lies.”</p> - -<p>“You will pull around the island and reconnoiter first, I suppose, -before you land?”</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas dot?”</p> - -<p>“Before landing the silver you will take care to make sure there is -nobody upon the island? <i>That’s</i> what I mean. Risk your own share, if -you like, but my two tons must lie till I fetch them.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas an uninhabited island mitout house or foodt. Dot vhas certain -sure. But we foorst takes a look, Mr. Fielding. Oh, yaw, by Cott, we -foorst takes a look.”</p> - -<p>“You have come a thundering long way to hide this money.” He nodded. -“And there’s the devil’s own trouble to be taken afterward. First the -voyage from here to Sydney; then the trusting of Teach’s friend, Max -Lampton, with this big, rich secret; then supposing <i>that</i> to prove all -right, the return to Amsterdam Island—this fine brig, meanwhile, having -been cast away—in some crazy little schooner, with the risks of a trip -to New Holland in a bottom that may drop out under the weight of fifteen -tons of silver.”</p> - -<p>“Ve vhas not all dom’d fools,” said he, with a slow smile; “dere vhas no -grazy bottoms mit us. Dis brig vhas fine, yaw,” said he, with a -leisurely look round the deck, “but she must go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_339" id="page_339">{339}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“It’s the maddest scheme that even sailors ever lighted upon,” said I, -“but let’s have the rest of it. Having dug your pit you come back for -the cargo?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw.”</p> - -<p>“It may take you a day to dig your pit.”</p> - -<p>“And b’raps two,” said he.</p> - -<p>“You will load about four tons a journey.”</p> - -<p>“Call her five,” said he.</p> - -<p>Here I observed that Galen, Teach, and one or two others having observed -the big Dutchman and me close and earnest, yet very audible in this -talk, had approached with sneaking steps to within earshot, where they -feigned to occupy themselves, one in coiling down a rope, another in -dipping for a drink out of the scuttle-butt, and so on. This decided me -to drop the subject.</p> - -<p>I walked to a corner of the deck called the starboard quarter, and -folding my arms leaned against the bulwarks. A dim and faint idea had -come to me in those few instants of time when Yan Bol went forward and -called out to his mates on the forecastle with his immense, hairy, -square hand beside his mouth, and this idea had slightly brightened -while I questioned him. It was an idea that would be quite glorious if -successful; otherwise it would be a forlorn and beggarly idea, a -treacherous, cut-throat idea, exactly fit to play my heavy stake of -silver and the Spanish maid into the hands of the men, and to secure me -the quickest exit that could be contrived by the knife or the yardarm.</p> - -<p>Madam Aurora watched me. I wish you were a man, thought I. Are you a -person to fail one in a supremely critical hour? You offered to stick -three men in the back; have you the courage to stick one man face to -face?</p> - -<p>I regarded her steadfastly, reflecting. I better remember her on that -particular afternoon than at any former time. Would you like to know how -she was dressed? I will tell you exactly. She wore a seaman’s plain -cloth jacket, fitted by her own hands to her figure; it sat well and was -tight and comfortable for those latitudes. She wore the dress she had -been clad in when we took her off the island; she had turned it, or in -some fashion rearranged it, and it was no longer the hideous garment I -had thought it. She wore a cloth cap; it sat like a turban upon her -thick, black hair, and laugh now, if you will! she wore a pair of -sailor’s shoes, whence you will guess that what grace of <i>littleness</i> -she had, lay in those hands of hers I have admired so often. Not at -all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_340" id="page_340">{340}</a></span> Her foot was perfectly proportioned to her hand. She had small, -delicately-shaped, highly-arched, and altogether lovely feet. The shoes -she wore I had found in the second of the slop-chests; they were -embellished with buckles; the Dutch shopman probably stowed them away by -mistake; they might have been designed for some dandy lad of a Batavian -quarter-deck; they were <i>small</i>, and small they <i>must</i> have been, for -they fitted Aurora.</p> - -<p>This is the picture of her as she sat, intently regarded by me, who lay -against the rail with folded arms, deeply considering. Teach and the -others had sneaked forward again. Bol stumped the weather gangway. He -was usually respectful enough, whenever I came on deck, to carry his -vast carcass to a humbler part of the brig than I occupied. Miss Aurora -rose and walked up to me.</p> - -<p>“What are you thinking about?” said she, speaking in her own way, a way -I have not yet attempted to write, and shall not here give. “Do I look -ill, that you stare at me?”</p> - -<p>“I am thinking.”</p> - -<p>“I am not blind. I might suppose I saw mischief in your face, if I -thought you capable of mischief.”</p> - -<p>A pair of slow but shrewd Dutch eyes, and a pair of big but attentive -Dutch ears overtopped the spokes of the wheel. I made her glance at -Wirtz by myself looking at him. She understood the meaning in my face, -and returned to her chair. I crossed the deck, and passing my arm round -a lee backstay, gazed at the horizon ahead, thinking with all my might.</p> - -<p>I remained on deck about half an hour, and then went below. I took a -book out of the shelf in my berth, and seated myself at the cabin table, -as far removed as possible from the skylight, but not out of sight of -one who should peer through the glass; the size of the cabin did not -admit of such concealment. After the lapse of a few minutes I was joined -by Miss Aurora, who pulled off her cap and placed herself beside me.</p> - -<p>There could be nothing suspicious in our sitting close together. Many a -time had we sat very close together indeed, at that cabin table, under -the skylight, when I was teaching her to speak the English language, and -wondering whether, under <i>other</i> circumstances, I should discover myself -to be rather in love with this fine young Spanish woman; and many a time -had the men looked down and observed us, and grinned, I have no doubt, -and uttered such remarks, one to another, as the very low level of their -forecastle intelligence would suggest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_341" id="page_341">{341}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What has caused you to stare at me, Señor Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“I have wished to satisfy myself that you are to be trusted.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ave Maria!</i> Trusted! Do not wrap up your meaning. I dislike people who -wrap up their meaning.”</p> - -<p>“Could you kill a man?”</p> - -<p>“For my honor and for my liberty, yes,” she replied after a short -silence, rearing herself in her swelling way, and flashing one of her -wicked looks at me.</p> - -<p>“Would you faint when you had killed him?”</p> - -<p>Her manner instantly changed. She slightly shrugged her shoulders and -answered, “A little thing has made me faint. At Acapulco I slept at a -friend’s house. I awoke, and by the moonlight saw a mouse upon my bed, -after which I remember no more. But nothing heroic, nothing exalted in -horror, would make me faint, I think. I could look upon a man slain by -me for my liberty or for my honor without swooning.” This was, in -effect, her answer to my question.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever killed a man?” said I.</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered hotly; “but when he is ready for me I shall be ready -for him;” and, unbuttoning the breast of her coat, she thrust her hand -into the pocket of her gown and pulled out a poniard or stiletto. It was -a blue, gleaming blade, about seven or eight inches long, sheathed in -bright metal, with a little ivory hilt that sparkled with some sort of -embellishment of gem or ore. In all the time we had been associated she -had never once given me to know that she went armed; but I afterward -discovered she was a young woman who knew how to keep a secret.</p> - -<p>“Hide that thing!” I cried with a glance at the skylight.</p> - -<p>She pocketed it, giving me a fiery nod. “Never,” said she, “have you -asked me whether I was afraid to be alone with Jorge and Antonio on the -island. <i>Vaya!</i> Do your English ladies secrete knives about them? It is -a wise custom. But you wish to find out if I am to be trusted, if I can -kill a man for my liberty or for my honor. Try me,” she cried, snapping -her fingers as she waved her hand close to my face.</p> - -<p>“I have a scheme,” said I, “for getting away with the treasure and the -brig and you.”</p> - -<p>“The treasure first,” she exclaimed, smiling till her face looked to be -lighted up with her white teeth. “You will have to be quick. Is not -to-morrow the day of your Amsterdam Island?”</p> - -<p>“Ask the wind that question,” I answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_342" id="page_342">{342}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What is your scheme?”</p> - -<p>“It is a magnificent scheme providing it succeeds. If it does not -succeed better had we never been born. Shall we desperately attempt it?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Qué es eso</i>—what is it? what is it?” she cried; and then a passion of -excitement seized her, and her hands trembled.</p> - -<p>“I will tell you the scheme in a minute. It depends not upon me and you -only. I shall require the help of the lad, Jimmy. Is he to be trusted?”</p> - -<p>“Your scheme—your scheme!”</p> - -<p>“Is he to be trusted?” I continued, feigning to read aloud from the book -that was before me, for I had thought I heard a man stop in his walk -overhead. “My scheme is not to be thought of unless this youth will help -us. You are a very observant lady. I have often seen you look -attentively at Jimmy.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Vaya!</i> If I have looked at him it was without thought, and because I -had nothing else to do. What a face to gaze at attentively!”</p> - -<p>“Do you think he is to be trusted?”</p> - -<p>“You continue to ask me that question,” she exclaimed, petulantly -twisting her prayer-ring as though hotly engaged in the aves. “First -tell me your scheme, and then I will give you my opinion on Jimmy’s -trustworthiness.”</p> - -<p>On this, feigning to read aloud to her while I talked, that anyone above -might suppose we were at our old game of playing at school, I -communicated my scheme to her. A scheme it was: a distinct idea and -project of deliverance; but several conditions, partly of chance, partly -of contrivance, must attend its success. She listened eagerly, never -removing her eyes from me, and once she was so well pleased that she -clapped her hands and fell back with a loud laugh. This was not a -behavior to object to. No man, warily observing us, would guess our -talk, the significance of this long and intimate cabin consultation, -from the hard laughter of the señorita, and the merry noise of the -clapping of her hands. In truth I never could have imagined such spirit -in a woman. She had clapped her hands at the one feature whose -disclosure would have turned another woman faint, she being to act in -it. It was this stroke of our projected business that had made the cabin -ring with her laughter.</p> - -<p>“How long will the work occupy?” said I.</p> - -<p>“It matters not,” she answered. “I will take no rest until I have -finished it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_343" id="page_343">{343}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You will not, however, begin until I have talked with Jimmy? If I see -reason to distrust him, we must think of another plan.”</p> - -<p>“Promise him plenty of dollars if he is faithful,” said she, “and -threaten him with death if he fails you.”</p> - -<p>We continued for some time longer to talk over my scheme. I then walked -to the stand of arms, and looked, with much irresolution in my mind, at -the muskets and the cutlasses, and at several pistols hanging near. My -instincts cautioned me to disturb nothing.</p> - -<p>“No,” said I, wheeling round to the lady; “those weapons must remain as -they are. The magazine is down there,” said I, pointing to a part of the -deck that formed the ceiling of a small compartment just forward of the -lazarette. “It is entered by that hatch, and, therefore, if the men -require ammunition—and it is likely as not they’ll go ashore -armed—they must pass through this cabin to get at the magazine. Nothing -must be disturbed.”</p> - -<p>At this point the lad arrived to prepare our supper. Miss Aurora walked -to her berth. I sat upon a locker and watched the youth, as he went -round the table furnishing it for the meal. I have elsewhere described -him. Since the date to which that description belongs he appeared to -have grown somewhat; he had broadened; his face had gathered from the -dye of the weather something of the manly look of the sailor; but that -was all. It was still a stupid, insipid, grinning face. He breathed -hard, and put down the knives and forks and plates with the -characteristic energy of a weak-minded youth who is always very much in -earnest. He was more than usually in earnest now, because I watched him. -I took the altitude of his head, and guessed him taller than I, who was -a pretty big chap, too. I took a view of his hands. Methought they fell -not far short of Yan Bol’s in magnitude. They were not fat, like the -hands of Yan Bol; on the contrary, they were bony and rugged with muscle -and veins. They were hands to hold on with—to hit hard with.</p> - -<p>Presently, reflection in me became a torment; nay, without straining -words, I may say that it rose into anguish. Should I put my life and the -life of the girl into the hands of that youth, who was little more than -an idiot? I waited until he had prepared the table for supper. I could -then endure the agony of irresolution no longer, and I rose and walked -to my berth, bidding him follow me. When he was entered I shut the -door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_344" id="page_344">{344}</a></span> He stared at me, slightly grinning, but his look had a little of -wonder and fear in it.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy,” said I, “you’re often in the forecastle, aren’t you? You follow -the talk of the men, I guess. Where do you sling your hammock?”</p> - -<p>“In the eyes, master.”</p> - -<p>“You hear the men talk. Do you understand ’em?”</p> - -<p>“Why, ay,” he answered, staring at me without a wink from the full, -knock-kneed, muscular stature of him; for he stood before me as a -soldier—as he used to stand before Greaves when he received a lesson on -the difference of dishes.</p> - -<p>“What’s going to happen to this brig?”</p> - -<p>“Why, master, they’re going to unload the silver and hide it in -Amsterdam Island; and then we’re a-going to sail away for the coast of -New Holland, where you’re to wreck us; and then we comes back for the -money.”</p> - -<p>“After?”</p> - -<p>“Dunno what’s going to happen after.”</p> - -<p>“What’s to be your share of the dollars?”</p> - -<p>“There’s been nary word said about my share, master.”</p> - -<p>“D’ye know why?”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Cos they don’t mean to give me none.”</p> - -<p>“That’s so. There’s ne’er a dollar meant for you, Jimmy. Don’t you think -that’s hard?”</p> - -<p>“I’m a poor lad, master. What comes, comes to the likes of me. When the -captain died I lost my friend;” and grasping his fingers he cracked his -joints one after another, yielding first on one leg and then on the -other, as though he was about to break into a main-deck double shuffle.</p> - -<p>“Did Captain Greaves ever promise you a share?”</p> - -<p>“No, master.”</p> - -<p>“But you have a claim, and he was not the man to have overlooked it. -D’ye remember Galloon?”</p> - -<p>“Remember him, master? Remember Galloon?” said he, lowering his voice.</p> - -<p>“Galloon was an honest dog. Had he been able to speak, his advice to you -would always have been ‘Jimmy, be honest.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>He looked somewhat wild and scared, as though he imagined I was going to -charge him with a wrong.</p> - -<p>“It’ll be a wicked act to cast this fine brig away, don’t you think? -Galloon wouldn’t have loved ye for helping in such a job.”</p> - -<p>“It’ll be no job of mine, master.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_345" id="page_345">{345}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Both Galloon and Captain Greaves,” said I, “would have wished you to be -on the right side, no matter whose side it might happen to be. Are you -on the right side or the wrong side? Are you on the side where home -lies, where a share of the dollars lies, where safety lies; or are you -on the side where New Holland lies, where there are no dollars for you, -where there’s no home for you, and where you may be finding a gibbet as -one who helped to cast a ship away?—if the men don’t first chuck you -overboard as being in the road.”</p> - -<p>He continued to listen with increasing eagerness and agitation, cracking -his joints again and again, while he advanced his head, setting his -mouth in the form of a half-arrested yawn. When I had ceased he nodded -repeatedly, maintaining silence, with a face that seemed to mark him too -full for utterance. He, then, in stammering and choking voice, -exclaimed, while a grotesque smile touched his countenance into a dim -intelligence, even as the eastern obscurity is tinctured by the lunar -dawn:</p> - -<p>“Master, I sees yer meaning. I aint on the side where the gibbet is. I -would sail round the world with you, master.”</p> - -<p>Twenty minutes later he followed me out of my berth, and went on deck to -fetch the cabin supper from the galley.</p> - -<p>“Are you satisfied?” said the lady Aurora, who was seated at the table.</p> - -<p>“Perfectly,” I answered.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br /><br /> -<small>AMSTERDAM ISLAND.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> hoped to make the Island of Amsterdam next day; had the wind -prospered we should have sighted it according to my reckoning; but in -the morning watch, a little after daybreak, the breeze fell, shifted, -and came on to blow ahead in hard rain squalls.</p> - -<p>Yan Bol aroused me. I was sleeping soundly. I had been busy throughout -the long night—busy after a manner of secrecy that had rendered my toil -not less exhausting to my mind than to my body. Throughout the night I -had been occupied with the boy Jimmy in paying furtive visits to the -magazine, and with the help of the lad I had stowed away in a cabin -locker a few round shot, cartridges for the long gun aft, some canister, -pistols which I had loaded, and to whose primings I had care<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_346" id="page_346">{346}</a></span>fully -looked, a few brace of handcuffs, and some bilboes or legirons, such as -Greaves had obliged Mr. Van Laar to sit in.</p> - -<p>This work had run into hours, because I had to await opportunities to -carry it on—the changes of the watch, men’s movements above—and -throughout it was the same as though a musket had been leveled at my -head, so frightful was the peril, so deadly the consequences of -detection. For besides the risk of my movements aft exciting attention, -there was the chance of Jimmy being missed forward. Luckily he was what -is termed at sea “an idler,” and an idler at sea has “all night in.” No -man can tell by merely looking at a hammock whether it is occupied or -not, and I counted upon such of the men as might give the lad a thought -believing that he lay buried in his canvas bag in the eyes of the brig.</p> - -<p>Yan Bol aroused me. I went on deck and found a sallow, roaring, wet -morning. The brig was heading points off her course, bursting in smoke -through the headlong leap of the surge, with the topsail yards on the -caps, reef tackles hauled out, a number of men rolling up the mainsail, -and two on the main and two on the fore struggling with the wet, -bladder-like topgallant sails.</p> - -<p>I was bitterly vexed. Postponement might mean frustration. My scheme was -ready for instant execution; my heart was hot as a madman’s to <i>have</i> at -the project and accomplish it; and now I might be obliged to wait a -month and perhaps as long again as a month! For here was just the sort -of wind to blow us half-way back the distance we had already measured; -and I could do nothing until the brig was off Amsterdam Island, the -weather quiet, the main topsail to the mast, and Bol and the longboat -ashore.</p> - -<p>There was nothing, however, to be done beyond heaving the brig to under -a rag of main staysail, and letting her lie with no more way than she -would get from the hurl of the seas and the gale up aloft.</p> - -<p>And yet, in one sense, this foul weather was as fortunate a thing as -could have happened; I’ll tell you why. I had taken care to persuade Yan -Bol that I had turned over the crew’s scheme of burying the money, had -thought better of it, was, indeed, now thinking well of it as, on the -whole, the easiest way to secure the treasure for a method of -distribution to be afterward considered; but I had never flattered -myself that he believed me fully sincere. In fact, I had shown too much -amazement at the start, reasoned against the imbecile project too<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_347" id="page_347">{347}</a></span> -vehemently afterward. But now, when this change of weather came, my -disappointment was so great, my mortification so keen, that even Yan -Bol, with his slow eyes, and heavy, dull, ruminant intellect could not -look me in the face and mistake.</p> - -<p>We stood together while the men rolled the canvas up, their hoarse -cries, as they triced up the bunts, going down the gale like the yells -of gulls. The rain swept us in horizontal lines; the water smoked the -length of the brig as though her metal sheathing were red hot; the -Dutchman’s cap of fur clung to his big head like a huge, over-ripe fig. -The mist of the sudden gale boiled round the sea line, and we labored in -the commotion of our horizon, whose semi-diameter could have been -measured by a twenty-four pounder.</p> - -<p>“Holy Sacrament!” roared Yan Bol in Dutch. “Dis vhas der vindt to make -anchells of men!” and he shook his immense fist at the windward ocean, -and thundered out, “Nimin dich der Teufel, as der Schermans say!”</p> - -<p>“Han’t I had enough of this?” I shouted, sweeping my hand round the -dirty, freckled green of the seas, which were beginning to heap -themselves with true oceanic weight out of the granite shadow of the -wet. “I’d had months of it when I was picked up off the oar, and I’ve -had months of it since, and months of it remain.” And I bawled to him -that we wanted no more hindrances from the weather, that it was time the -dollars were buried, that it was time, indeed, we were thrashing the -brig to that part of the Australian coast where we should agree to wreck -her. “I want my money,” I cried. “I want to settle down ashore.”</p> - -<p>“Vhere vhas ve bound to now?”</p> - -<p>“Dead west and all the way back again.”</p> - -<p>“Vy zyn al verdom’d! Vere vhas der island?”</p> - -<p>“Somewhere close. The brig must be kept thus while it blows on end. I -may have overshot the mark, and the island may be leeward of us now—so -keep your weather eye lifting.”</p> - -<p>Together we stormed at the disappointment awhile in this fashion, I more -hotly than he, and with more sincerity, perhaps, for I was maddened by -the weather. The brig was reduced, as I have said, to a fragment of -staysail, but she was light, and blew to leeward like a cask. I threw -the log-ship over the weather quarter, and the line stood out to -windward like the warp of a fisherman’s trawl. For three days and three -nights it continued to blow, and we to drift. The flying sky blackened -low down over the sea, and the surges came out like cliffs from the -wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_348" id="page_348">{348}</a></span>ward shadow. I obtained no sights, and knew not our situation. I -never could at any time have been cocksure of the position of the brig; -the mariner, in those times, went to sea but poorly equipped with -nautical instruments. His Hadley’s quadrant was indeed an improvement -upon the cross-staff of his forefathers, and he had a chronometer or -watch which those who went before him were not so fortunate as to -possess; not because watches of exquisite workmanship were not to be -procured, but because nobody had thought of Greenwich time. But the -sailor of 1815 was nevertheless not equipped as the sailor of to-day is. -Charts were misleading; the ocean current worked its own sweet will with -a man; consequently, I am not ashamed to own that I never could have -been cocksure of the brig in reference to land, and more particularly to -such a speck of land as Amsterdam Island makes, as you shall observe by -casting your eye on the chart. The fear that the vast lump of rock might -be to leeward in the thickness kept me terribly anxious. I was hour -after hour on deck. My anxiety went infinitely deeper than the possible -adjacency of the island; but the crew believed that I was only worried -for the safety of the brig; and this, as I had reason to know, raised me -high in their opinion.</p> - -<p>So that, as I say, the foul weather blew for a useful purpose; but, by -delaying me, it involved risks. Jimmy had my secret; he was exactly -acquainted with my scheme. Suppose the half-witted fellow should babble; -nay, suppose he should talk in his sleep! When I had explained my -project to him I believed that the brig would be off the island next -day. It was wonderful that my hair should have retained its color; that -the machinery of my brain should have worked with its established -nimbleness. <i>That</i>, I say, was wonderful, considering the bitter -anxieties of the navigation, the fear of Jimmy involuntarily or -unconsciously betraying me, the conviction that I was a dead man if that -happened, and that the lady Aurora would be barbarously used through -rage and the spirit of revenge and brutal wantonness.</p> - -<p>Fine weather came at last. It was the fifth day of our westerly drift. -The sea flattened and opened, the sky cleared, the wind fell dead, and -then, over the green rounds of the swell, there blew a draught of air -from the northwest. The sun shone brightly before noon. I got a good -observation, and calculated our distance at about two hundred miles from -the island. All sail was heaped upon the brig, every studding<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_349" id="page_349">{349}</a></span> sail boom -run out, everything that would draw mast-headed; and, at four o’clock of -that afternoon, the little ship was sweeping through it at twelve knots, -roaring to the drag of a huge lower studding sail, every tack and sheet, -every backstay and halliard taut as a harp-string and shrill with the -song of the wind; with all hands standing by watching for something to -blow away, and ready to shorten sail, should the yawning hurl of the -fabric grow too fierce for spars and spokes.</p> - -<p>You know the month; the date I forget. The day, I recollect, was a -Friday. It had been a very dark night, blowing fresh down to about the -hour of eleven, during which time we had given the brig all her legs, -forcing her to her best with large reefless breasts of canvas. Not a -star showed all through the night. An eager lookout was kept for the -Island of New Amsterdam, which, I guessed, should be visible, were there -daylight to disclose it.</p> - -<p>It is a lofty mass of land, rising amidships to an altitude of near -three thousand feet; and a frequent heave of the log had assured me that -already, in these hours of darkness, we were within its horizon. I swept -the sea line. It was all black, smoky gloom. No deeper dye than that of -the universal shadow of the night was visible. Toward midnight the wind -slackened. We rolled on a deep-breasted heave of swell, which, I -reckoned, would be raising a mighty smother of yeast at those points and -bases of iron terraces which confronted this long lift of ocean. The -swollen sails dropped; the brig flapped along like a homeward-bound crow -at sunset. Amid intervals of silence I strained my ears, but not the -most distant noise of breakers did I catch.</p> - -<p>This went on till a little while before the hour of daybreak. The -weather was now very quiet, and the brig floated stealthily through the -darkness, under small canvas. I had no mind to pass the island and find -it astern of me, and perhaps out of sight, at sunrise.</p> - -<p>I went into the cabin, when dawn was close at hand, to drink a glass of -grog and puff at a pipe of tobacco. The lady Aurora was in her berth. -She had been about during the night; had once or twice joined me on -deck, and we had conversed cautiously as we walked. I sat upon the -locker in which, some nights before, I had stowed away the materials for -my scheme. How long was the execution of that scheme going to take? -Would the lady Aurora’s courage be equal to the part I had allotted to -her? Was Jimmy’s half-addled head to be depended upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_350" id="page_350">{350}</a></span> in the instant of -a supremely tragic crisis, when action, saving or delaying time by a -minute or two, might make all the difference between life and death?</p> - -<p>Thus thinking, I sat upon the desperately-charged locker, puffing at my -pipe and drinking from my glass. Suddenly the thunder of Yan Bol’s voice -resounded through the little interior:</p> - -<p>“Landt on der starboardt bow!”</p> - -<p>I sprang to my feet, and gained the deck in a heart-beat. Dawn was -breaking right ahead. A melancholy, faint green light lay spread low -down along the sky; against that light ran the horizon—a deep black -line; and on the right, or about three points on the starboard or lee -bow, there stood against that green light of dawn the pitch-black mass -of the Island of New Amsterdam, defined as clearly upon the growing -light as the fanciful edges of an ink-stain on white blotting-paper.</p> - -<p>It was not the Island of St. Paul’s. <i>That</i> I knew. It was, therefore, -Amsterdam Island; and, filled as I was with anxiety and distracted by -many contending passions, a momentary emotion of pride swelled my heart -when I beheld that island, scarcely five miles distant, within three -points under the bows of the little brig.</p> - -<p>Yan Bol stood beside me with folded arms. The ear-flaps of his hair cap -helmeted his face; his skin was green with the faint light ahead; he -looked like a mariner of Tromp’s day in casque-like cap.</p> - -<p>“So dot vhas der island? Dot vhas New Amsterdam, hey? <i>Potsblitz!</i> Vhas -not der Doytch everywhere in her day? But dot day vhas gone. Und dot -vhas der island, hey? Vell, she vhas in good time, und I likes der look -of der vetter. Vhere vhas der landing-place, I fonders?”</p> - -<p>I told him I couldn’t say; I was without a chart of the island. Its -configuration, to our approach, was that of a lofty mass of coal-black -rock southeast, with a down-like shelving of the stuff into the -interior, and a facing seaward of rugged, horribly precipitous cliff. I -should say it scarcely measured five miles north and south. The ocean -looked lonely with it, as a babe makes lonelier the figure of the lonely -woman who carries it; the melancholy picture of the deep at that -moment—of that picture of faint green dawn blackening out the forlorn -pile of island and the indigo sweep of the sea-line on either hand of -it, and all astern of us the thickness of the smoky shadows of the -departing night—is indescribable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_351" id="page_351">{351}</a></span></p> - -<p>The sun rose right behind the island. It shot out a hundred beams of -splendor before lifting its flaming upper limb; it was then a fine -morning; the water of this Indian Ocean brimmed in a dark and -beautifully pure blue to the base of the iron-like steeps; the flash and -dazzle of rollers were visible at points, the sky was hard and high with -a delicate shading and interlacery of gray cloud, and the wind was small -and about northwest.</p> - -<p>I looked south for the Island of St. Paul; it was invisible from the -altitude of our deck, though I dare say on a fine, clear day it may be -seen from the top of Amsterdam Island.</p> - -<p>“Vere vhas the landing-places, I fonders,” said Bol.</p> - -<p>I fetched the glass and carefully covered as much of the island as our -bearings commanded. While I kneeled I felt a hand upon my shoulder.</p> - -<p>“<i>Qué tiempo hace?</i>” inquired the lady Aurora in a cool, collected -voice, looking down into my face.</p> - -<p>I answered in Spanish that the weather was fine and promised to keep so.</p> - -<p>“Good-morning, Mr. Bol,” said she.</p> - -<p>“Goodt-morning, marm. I hope you vhas vell dis morning? Dot vhas der -island at last. She vhas a Doytchman’s discovery. I likes to tink of der -Doytchers all der way down here.”</p> - -<p>The lady Aurora made no reply, probably not having understood a syllable -of Bol’s speech. I put the telescope into the Dutchman’s hand, and bade -him look for himself. The lady arched her brows at the island, and -glanced interrogatively round the sea, fixing her eyes upon me full with -a look of meaning. I faintly inclined my head. Often had I read her -meaning in her face when I had failed to grasp her words, so facile and -fluent was the eloquence of her looks.</p> - -<p>All the crew save Hals and Jimmy were collected on the forecastle-head, -staring at the island. The caboose chimney was smoking, and Hals’ head -frequently showed in the caboose doorway while he took a view of the -land. Galen constantly pointed and talked much, and was the center of a -little crowd. Bol stood up, and said he could see no signs of a -landing-place.</p> - -<p>“There’ll be one on the eastern side, I dare say,” said I. “You’re bound -to have a landing-place somewhere. I wish I had a chart of the island. -The last survey I remember was D’Entrecasteaux’. It is enough, of such -an island as this, to know that it exists. Look at it!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_352" id="page_352">{352}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The sun was hanging over it now; its light revealed many slopes of the -land falling to the precipitous edge of the cliffs. A most horribly -barren rock did it seem—desolate beyond the dreams of the wildest fancy -of an uninhabited island. There may have been some sort of growth on -top; I know not; I saw no verdure. All was cold, naked, iron-hard cliff, -swelling centrally into a prodigious summit, around which even as I -watched dense white masses of mists were beginning to form and crawl, -reminding me of the magnificent growth and fall of lace-like vapor on -Table Mountain—the fairest and most marvelous of all the airy sights of -the world when viewed by moonlight.</p> - -<p>I hauled the brig in to within a mile of the land, then, observing -discolored water, I ordered a cast of the hand-lead to be taken; no -bottom was reached. We shifted the helm, trimmed sail, and stood about -southeast, rounding the point which I have since ascertained is called -Vlaming Head, so named after the Dutch navigator who was off this island -in 1696. Here we found fifty fathoms of water, and black sand for a -bottom. The rollers broke very furiously against the base of Vlaming -Head. Foam was heaped in a vast cloud there, as though the sea was kept -boiling by a great volcanic flame just beneath.</p> - -<p>We trimmed sail afresh and steered northeast. The land rose black and -horribly desolate; but the swell being from the west the sea was smooth, -and the tremble of surf small along the whole range this side. All this -while we eagerly gazed at the coast in search of a landing-place—of any -platform of sand and split of cliff by which the inland heights might be -gained. Bol’s round face grew long, and he swore often in Dutch. Many of -the men came aft to be within talking distance of the quarter-deck, and -hoarsely-uttered remarks and oaths fell from them, as they gazed at the -precipitous front of the island and beheld no spot to land on.</p> - -<p>The wind was scarcely more than a light draught of air, owing to the -interposition of the land; it was off the bow, too, by this time, and we -were braced up sharp to it. I told Bol to send the crew to breakfast -while the brig made a board into the northeast to enable her to fetch -the northern parts of the island, where now lay our only chance of -finding a landing-place. Impatience worked like madness in me, and no -man of all our ship’s company could have been wilder to behold a -landing-place than I.</p> - -<p>The breezes lightly freshened as we stood off from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_353" id="page_353">{353}</a></span> island. I put -the brig into the hands of Galen, and went below to get some breakfast. -Miss Aurora and I conversed in subdued voices; she ate little, and was -pale, but I saw courage in her mouth and eyes. While Jimmy waited I told -him that, if we found a landing-place, our business might be settled -before sundown. “Before sundown,” said I to him, “we may, but I don’t -say we shall, be sailing along, the island astern, old England before -us, and a handsome promise of dollars for you, my lad, when we arrive. -Are ye all there?”</p> - -<p>“All there, master,” said he, feeling his wrist.</p> - -<p>“You’ve gone through your lessons o’er and o’er again?”</p> - -<p>“O’er and o’er, master.”</p> - -<p>“This job’ll make a fine man of you. You shall knock off the sea and -choose a calling ashore. What would you be? Oh, but don’t think of that -yet. Have nothing in your mind but this,” said I, holding up my hand and -twisting it as though I screwed a man by the throat. “Afterward turn to -and whistle and dance till you give in.”</p> - -<p>His grin was deep and prolonged. The feeling that he was now being -enormously trusted by me bred a sort of manliness in him. Methought he -was a little less of a fool than he used to be; his gaze had gathered -something of steadfastness, his grin something of intelligence.</p> - -<p>When our stretch had brought the northern point of the island abeam, we -put the brig about and headed for the island on the starboard tack; and -now, after we had been sailing for some time, the telescope gave me a -sight of what we were all on the lookout for. The northern point of the -island sloped to the edge of the sea, in perhaps half a mile’s length of -surf-washed margin. The surf was but a delicate tremble. The climb to -the height was steep; but fair in the lenses lay the half-mile of -landing-place, whether sand or beach or rock I knew not.</p> - -<p>“Yonder’s where you’ll be able to get ashore,” I cried, thrusting the -telescope into Yan Bol’s hands.</p> - -<p>“What d’ye see?” bawled Teach, who overhung the bulwark rail.</p> - -<p>“A landing-place, my ladts, und she vhas all right,” thundered Bol, with -his eye at the telescope.</p> - -<p>“Anything alive ashore?” cried Teach.</p> - -<p>“All vhas uninhabited,” answered Bol.</p> - -<p>“Ne’er a hut?” shouted Teach.</p> - -<p>“Vhas dot uninhabited, you tonkey? Dere vhas no shtir.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_354" id="page_354">{354}</a></span> Dot vhas der -country for my dollars until by um by. Hurrah!”</p> - -<p>He rose slowly and heavily from his posture of leaning, and put the -glass down. I took another long look at the island we were approaching. -There was majesty in its loneliness; there was majesty in the altitude -its dark terraces and inland heights rose to. A crown of cloud was upon -the brow of its central height, and the sunshine whitened into silver -that similitude of regal right—as real and lasting, for all its being -vapor, as any earthly crown of gold!</p> - -<p>“There’s your island, and there’s your landing-place,” said I, thrusting -my hands into my pockets. “What’s the next stroke, Yan Bol?”</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas der soundings here?” he answered, going to the side and -looking down.</p> - -<p>“What do you want with the soundings?”</p> - -<p>“Shall you not pring oop?”</p> - -<p>“No, by thunder!” I cried. “What? Bring up off that island with four men -and a boy to man the capstan should it come on to blow a hurricane on a -sudden out of the eastward there, putting that black coast dead under -our lee? No, by thunder! If we are to bring up I’ll go ashore with you; -I’ll not stay with the brig; I’ll not risk my life. Oh, yes! It will -kill the time to hunt for the dollars at low water after the brig’s -stranded and gone to pieces, eh? Bring up?” I continued, shouting out -that all the men might hear me; “send plenty of victuals ashore if -that’s your intention. I’m no man-eater; and what but Dutch and English -flesh will there be to eat if it comes to anchoring?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding knows what he’s talking about,” sung out Teach; “I’m to -stay aboard for one, and I guess he’s right. No good to talk of slipping -if it comes on to blow; we aren’t flush of anchors, and the end of this -here traverse is a blooming long way off yet.”</p> - -<p>“How vhas she to be?” cried Bol, looking round the sea.</p> - -<p>“How was she to be?” I exclaimed. “Why, heave to under topsails and a -topgallant sail.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose she cooms on to blow und ve vhas still ashore?”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“Veil, der vetter obliges you to roon, und you lost sight of der island -und us. How vhas dot, mit noting to eat ashore, und der vetter tick und -beastly for dree veeks, say?”</p> - -<p>“Look here, Bol,” said I, speaking loudly, “you are wast<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_355" id="page_355">{355}</a></span>ing valuable -time in talking damned nonsense. You’re all for supposing. <i>I</i> choose to -suppose because I am to be left in charge of this brig, frightfully -short-handed, and don’t mean to depend upon her ground tackle. D’ye -understand me?” He gave one of his immensely heavy nods. “But -<i>you</i>—there are always chances and risks in a job of this sort, and -recollect ’tis your own bringing about—‘twas you and Teach yonder who -contrived it.”</p> - -<p>“Vell?” he thundered impatiently.</p> - -<p>“Get your boat over as smartly as may be when the time arrives. Load her -with as much silver as you may think proper to take for the first jaunt. -Stow a piece or two of beef and some barrels of bread—you say there is -fresh water ashore?”</p> - -<p>“Blenty,” said the Dutchman.</p> - -<p>“You can bring off the victuals when your job’s ended,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, you’re right,” said Teach. “Yan, ’tis only agin the -chance of our being blowed off. If that’s to happen, ye must have enough -to eat till we tarns up agin. But what’s that chance?” cried he, with a -stare up aloft and around. “If the fear o’t’s to stop us, good-night to -the burying job.”</p> - -<p>Bol trudged a little way forward; the men gathered about him and held a -debate. I marched aft with my hands in my pockets as though indifferent -to the issue of their council, having made up my mind. But for all that -it was a time of mortal anxiety with me.</p> - -<p>After ten minutes Bol came aft and told me that the crew were agreed the -brig should be hove to. There was no anchor at the bow, and precious -time would be wasted in making ready the ground tackle. Next, we should -have to haul in close to land to find anchorage, and the crew were of my -opinion that the brig was a perished thing with such a coast as <i>that</i> -close aboard under her lee, should it come on to blow a hard inshore -wind.</p> - -<p>“Und besides,” he continued, “ve doan take no silver mit us to-day. Our -beesiness vhas to oxplore. Ve take provisions und shovels, und der like, -vhen ve goes ashore now, und ve begins to dig if ve findts a place dot -all vhas agreed vhas a goodt place for hiding der money.”</p> - -<p>“Then turn to and get all ready with the boat,” said I; “we shall be in -with the land close enough in a few minutes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_356" id="page_356">{356}</a></span> I want a mile and a half -of offing—nothing less—otherwise I go ashore in the boat and you stop -here.”</p> - -<p>“Hov your way, sir; hov your way,” he rumbled in his deepest voice. -“Vhat should I do here? Soopose ve vhas blowned away out of sight of der -island; how vhas I to findt her?”</p> - -<p>Saying this he left me, and in a few minutes all hands were in motion. I -stopped them, in the middle of their labors over the boat, to bring the -brig to a stand. We laid the main topsail aback, and since it was now -certain that I should not be able to put my scheme into execution that -day, I ordered them to reduce the ship to very easy canvas; the mainsail -was furled, the forecourse hauled up, the trysail brailed up, and other -sails were taken in, one or two furled, and one or two left to hang. The -fellows then got the longboat over. They swayed her out by tackles, and -when she was afloat and alongside they lowered some casks of beef and -pork and some barrels of bread and flour into her. We were handsomely -stocked with provisions, and I foresaw the loss of those tierces and -barrels without concern.</p> - -<p>The señorita came to my side, and we stood together at the rail, looking -down into the boat and watching the proceedings of the men. It was a -very fine day; the hour about one. The island lay in lofty masses of -dark rock within two miles of us, bearing a little to the southward of -east. The great heap of land filled the sea that way. The searching -light of the sun revealed nothing that stirred. I saw not even a bird; -but that might have been because the sea-fowl of the island were too -distant for my sight. An awful bit of ocean solitude is Amsterdam -Island. The sight of it, the reality of it, makes shallow the bottom of -the deepest of your imaginations of loneliness. The roar of the surf, at -points where the flash of it was fierce, came along in a note of -cannonading. You’d have thought there were troops firing heavy guns -t’other side the island.</p> - -<p>The men threw the fore-peak shovels into the boat, along with crowbars, -carpenter’s tools, and whatever else they could find that was good to -dig with. They handed down oars, mast, and sail. I particularly noticed -the sail. It was a big, square lug with a tall hoist. The biggest -galley-punts in the Downs carry such sails. The fellows lighted their -pipes to a man. They grinned and joked and put on holiday looks. It was -a jaunt—a fine change—a jolly run ashore for the rogues<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_357" id="page_357">{357}</a></span> after our -prodigious term of imprisonment. Besides, every man possessed a great -fortune; every man might reckon himself up in thousands of dollars! I -could not wonder that they grinned and wore a jolly air.</p> - -<p>The following men entered the boat: John Wirtz, William Galen, Frank -Hals, John Friend, William Street, and lastly, Yan Bol. Hals, as you -know, was the cook. They took him, nevertheless—perhaps because he was -suspicious, and wished to see for himself where the pit was dug; perhaps -because he was an immensely strong man—short, vast of breech, of weight -to sink, with his foot, a shovel through granite. And the following men -were left behind to help me to control the brig: James Meehan, Isaac -Travers, Henry Call, Jim Vinten, and Thomas Teach.</p> - -<p>The men in the boat shoved off, hoisting the big lug as they did so. The -devils sent up a cheer, and Bol flourished his hair cap at me and the -lady. I returned the salute with a cordial wave of the hand, and the -lady bowed. They hauled the sheet of the lug flat aft, that the boat -might look a little to windward of the landing-place, where, so far as I -could distinguish, there was a sort of split, or ravine, which would -provide easy access to the inland heights and flats. I watched the -boat’s progress through the water with keen interest and anxiety. -Flattened in as the sheet was, the little fabric swam briskly. The wind -was small, yet the boat drove a pretty ripple from either bow and towed -some fathoms of wake astern of her.</p> - -<p>“We’ll <i>chance</i> it, all the same!” thought I, setting my teeth.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br /><br /> -<small>MY SCHEME.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I watched</span> the boat until she entered the tremble of surf. ’Twas a mere -silver fringe of surf, so quiet was the water on this, the lee side of -the island. The sail of the boat shone in that slender edge of whiteness -like a snowflake; then vanished on a sudden. I looked through the glass, -and saw the men on either gunwale of the boat running her up the beach -clear of the wash.</p> - -<p>I was so provoked by that sight, that I was mad then and there to start -on my scheme of release. The resolution seized me like a fit of fever, -and the blood surged through me in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_358" id="page_358">{358}</a></span> flood of fire. I went to the lee -side of the deck to conceal my face. In a few minutes I had reconsidered -my resolution and was determined to wait. For, first, the afternoon was -advancing; the boat was not likely to stay long ashore; her sail might -be showing out on the blue water, under the dark height of cliffs, ere I -was half through with what lay before me. Next, the wind was very scant; -it was scarce a four-knot air of wind, though the brig should be able to -spread the canvas of a <i>Royal George</i> to the off-shore draught. There -was nothing, then, to be done but wait; to pray for a continuance of -fine weather and a little more wind.</p> - -<p>The brig lay very quiet. The swell of the sea ran softly, and the hush -that was upon the island—such a hush as was on the face of the earth -when it was first created—was spread, like something sensible, -throughout the atmosphere; and this silence of desolation was upon the -breast of the sea. I kept the deck throughout the afternoon, often -looking at the landing-place. The boat lay high and dry, watched by a -single figure; the others were gone inland. They had sailed away without -firearms—an oversight, I reckon; or they might have asked of one -another, “What was the good of going armed to a desolate island?” Yet I -had a sort of sympathy for that lonely figure down by the boat when I -thought of him as unarmed. Frightfully lonesome he looked, with the -great face of the cliff hanging high up behind him and spreading away, -huge and sullen, on either hand. I guess, had I been that man, I should -have yearned for a loaded musket. Crusoe carried two, and went the -easier for the burden.</p> - -<p>The sun would set behind the island. It was sinking that way when I -spied the sail of the boat. The men had their oars over, and she came -along pretty fast. I calculated her speed, and cursed it. She drew -alongside, some of the men halloaing answers to questions bawled by -Teach and the others, who were on the forecastle. Bol scrambled up, and -shouting for all hands to get the boat inboard and stowed for the night, -he stepped up to me, who was standing aft with Miss Aurora, Call being -at the wheel.</p> - -<p>“She vhas all right,” said he, thick of voice with fatigue.</p> - -<p>“What was all right?”</p> - -<p>“Vell, first of all, she vhas der prettiest leedle islandt in der whole -vorldt for hiding money in. Ve looked about us—all vhas still. Dere -vhas birdts in der air, und dot vhas all, und dey vhas still too. Dere -vhas no sign of man ever having<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_359" id="page_359">{359}</a></span> landted upon dot island. Mr. Fielding, -she vhas still undiscovered.”</p> - -<p>“Did you find any fresh water?”</p> - -<p>“Blenty. Sweet und coldt.”</p> - -<p>“Have you dug your pit?”</p> - -<p>“Donnerwetter, no! Dot vhas to take a morning. Der ground vhas hard like -dis.” He stamped his foot. “Dere vhas no caves; ve look for a hole, und -dere vhas nothing so big ash a monkey might hide in.”</p> - -<p>“Have you stowed the provisions securely away?”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas all right, Mr. Fielding. Everyting vhas ready for der -morning.” He cast his gaze round upon the sky.</p> - -<p>“Have you found a place for the burial of the money?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, a first-rate place,” he answered, with a glance at the island. -“Shtop till der shob is over, den you und Teach und der odders dot stays -mit you goes ashore und you take der bearings of der place for -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do that. It’s fair, Bol.”</p> - -<p>“She vhas fair,” he answered. “If you vhas villing, marm,” he continued, -addressing Miss Aurora, “you shall go mit us likewise. Dere vhas noting -so goodt for man, fimmin, und beast as a leedle run ashore after months -of board ship.”</p> - -<p>She did not understand him. I explained, giving her a look; she -addressed me in Spanish and English.</p> - -<p>“The lady will be glad to go ashore, and looks forward to it,” said I.</p> - -<p>Nothing more was said. The huge bulk of the man seemed wearied out to -the heels of his feet; and, indeed, the straining and climbing involved -in the ascent of those inland steeps must have sorely tested the muscle -and bones whose load was Bol’s fat. He went forward and sat down. The -men had swayed the longboat inboard, had chocked her, and were now -shipping the gangway and clearing up.</p> - -<p>I considered a little and then resolved to let the brig lie as she was. -We had a full two-mile offing, which was enough with a short lee-shore -to deal with in case of a heavy, sudden inshore gale.</p> - -<p>The sun went down behind the island, as it had risen behind the island, -to our gaze when coming from the east. The western sky was a sheet of -red splendor, and the island stood in a deep purple against it until the -light went out of the heavens, when the land floated in shadow upon the -dusk like a vast thick smoke hovering. Never a light kindled by mortal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_360" id="page_360">{360}</a></span> -<i>there</i>! The whole mighty spirit of the great ocean solitude was in that -shadow. A few clouds hung high, and the stars were bright, with a merry -fair weather twinkling among them that made me hopeful of clear skies -and brisk winds.</p> - -<p>The night passed quickly. I lay upon the cabin locker, fully dressed, -and was up and down every hour. The air was soft and mild, for Amsterdam -Island lies upon the pleasantest parallel in the world, where the -atmosphere is sweet and dry, where it is never too hot, though at -night-time it may be sometimes cold, and the wonder is that you should -find such hideous barrenness and nakedness as you observe in this island -in the most temperate, cheerful, and fruitful of climates.</p> - -<p>Miss Aurora retired early, at my request. I was afraid of her on the eve -of such a day as to-morrow might prove. She was a little heedless in her -questions, talked somewhat loud, as the foreigner will when he -discourses in our tongue, and to provide against all risks of our -betraying ourselves by sitting in company below, or walking the deck -together, I told her to go to bed.</p> - -<p>At midnight Bol relieved Galen. I walked with Bol awhile, and all our -talk was about the island, the depth at which the money should be -buried, the mark that was to denote the treasure, and so forth. He -wanted to know if money was to be injured by lying in the earth; I -answered that the metal out of which money was made came from the earth. -What would be a good mark to set up? I told him he was a carpenter and -ought to know; but I advised him not to bury the money so carefully that -we should never afterward be able to find out where it lay hid. He said -it would not do to erect a cross, or any sign that indicated human -handiwork, lest men should land after we had left the island, and -guessing at the meaning of the mark, fall a-digging. The place they had -settled on he informed me was at the foot of a peculiar rise of land of -a very strange shape. He described this rise of land and its appearance -seemed to be that of the head of a cat. Once beheld it could never be -forgotten. It was the wish of the men, however, when the money was -buried, and I went on shore to view the spot and take its correct -bearings from different points of the island, that I should make a -sketch in black and white of the peculiarly-shaped rise of land or -little hill; this would be copied, and each man hold a drawing of the -hill for himself with all particulars written underneath.</p> - -<p>“I’ll do whatever is reasonable and right,” said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_361" id="page_361">{361}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Dere vhas two ton belonging to you, Mr. Fielding.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t forget.”</p> - -<p>In this walk we settled the next day’s proceedings. I advised Yan Bol to -take three tons of silver with him ashore when he started early in the -morning with his digging party.</p> - -<p>“Shall ve not dig der pit first?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, but also take a portion of your cargo with you. The boat’s -capacity of five tons was right enough for Captain Greaves’ island; but -here a roller may catch and capsize you, even as you’re going ashore, -unless you show the best height of side you can manage. Three tons a -trip won’t hurt—I’ll not advise more.”</p> - -<p>“Yaw, dot vhas right. I himself vhas for tree. But vhy take der silver -ashore before der pit vhas dig?”</p> - -<p>“To save time. Then, with three tons, you’ll have boxes and chests to -enable you to gauge the depth and space you require. You don’t want to -dig forty feet when ten may do.”</p> - -<p>“No, by Cott, Mr. Fielding, nor would you if you only shoost knew how -hardt vhas dot land. Vell, you vhas right. A leedle at a time, und ve -starts to-morrow mit a leedle; und vhen der pit vhas dig ve comes back -for more.”</p> - -<p>“How long will it take you to dig the pit?”</p> - -<p>“Vell, dot vill be ash she shall turn out. She may mean a morning’s -shob, but all vhas right und safe, I hope, before der sun vhas sunk.”</p> - -<p>I went below and slept for an hour. The men got their breakfast early. -Hals lighted the caboose fire before the sun was up, and the hands -breakfasted when the east was still rosy with the dawn into which the -sun had sprung in glory. I say in glory, for it was a very perfect -morning, the sky of a deep blue, and the sea of a silver azure with the -sunlight upon it. The breeze was light out of the north; but, if it -held, it fanned with weight enough to serve my turn.</p> - -<p>The men got the boats over as on the previous day. Yan Bol rolled up to -me, who had come on deck long before sunrise, and said, “Mr. Fielding, -how many cases vhas dere in tree tons?”</p> - -<p>“About twenty,” said I, “they won’t all run alike in size. If they were -all alike of course there’d be thirty.”</p> - -<p>“Vell, ve takes twenty.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, a little at a time, if you please. Two tons are mine. If you -capsize, who bears the loss?”</p> - -<p>“Dere vhas no capsize,” said he. “Look what a beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_362" id="page_362">{362}</a></span> day she vhas! -Und how many dollars, Mr. Fielding, vhas dere in tree ton?”</p> - -<p>“One hundred and ten thousand dollars.”</p> - -<p>He rounded his little eyes and smacked his huge lips, and could find no -more to say than, “Vell, vell!”</p> - -<p>He and Galen and three or four others shortly afterward went below and -got into the lazarette, whence they handed out twenty cases of the -silver. I feigned a prodigious interest, roaring out to the fellows in -the boat, as I hung over the rail, to trim more by the head, to trim -more by the stern, to keep the stuff amidships for the sake of -stability; and then I bid Teach observe that three tons were to the full -as much as should go per trip. “For,” says I, “look well, and you’ll -find her a ton deeper than, in my opinion, her safety allows. But what -are we sending ashore? Is it Thames ballast? Or is it something more -precious than all your eyeballs put together? I’ll have my two tons go -alone. No other man’s ton shall go along with mine,” and so I went on -shouting.</p> - -<p>All being ready the crew of the boat entered her. They were the same as -on the preceding day. I regretted this, for I had hoped that Teach or -Travers or Meehan—Call I did not fear—would have taken the place of -Friend, who, as you know, was the mildest man of the whole bunch of -rogues; but I kept my mouth shut; I durst make no suggestion that way. -We are all good men, the fellows would have said; what reason has he in -wishing Friend to remain?</p> - -<p>Call was at the wheel. I sung out to Meehan to lay aft and loose the -trysail, adding, that the others might hear me, that the brig wanted -more after-sail to keep her head to. The three men lay aft, and in a few -minutes the sail was set.</p> - -<p>In this time the longboat was slipping through the water toward the -land. When the trysail was set I asked Meehan, who claimed to be a bit -of a cook in his way, to boil me a pot of cocoa; I had been up all -night, I said, and had breakfasted ill (the girl and I had not -breakfasted at all). Travers and Teach went on to the forecastle; I -watched them light their pipes, coming to the galley for a light, and -returning to the forecastle; they leaned upon the rail in the head, and -watched the boat.</p> - -<p>“I shall be wanting a word with Teach below shortly,” said I to Call; -“does he know the Sydney coast? I’d like him to hit upon a spot for -casting this brig away—something to keep in mind. There’s no chart -aboard that’s going to help me in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_363" id="page_363">{363}</a></span> that job. Keep a lookout. Don’t leave -the wheel, and mind you hallo if I’m wanted.”</p> - -<p>I entered the cabin, and found the lady Aurora standing at the table, -and the lad Jimmy near the door of my berth.</p> - -<p>“The hour has come,” said I, feeling myself grown pale on a sudden, “and -the man’s at hand. How is it with you?”</p> - -<p>I gently grasped her wrist and looked at her.</p> - -<p>“Only be quick, Señor Fielding. It is this waiting and waiting that -tries the nerves,” she answered in effect.</p> - -<p>“How is it with you, Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>“I’m ready, master.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s the bag?” said I to the señorita.</p> - -<p>“It’s there,” said she, pointing to a locker.</p> - -<p>“Sit upon it, for I am about to send.”</p> - -<p>I entered my berth and brought out a chart of the continent of New -Holland. I carried it to the table on the same side on which the lady -had seated herself, and spread it, putting, as I well remember, a metal -mug at each corner to keep the curled sheet flat. I then stepped to a -scuttle and peered through it, and descried the sail of the boat close -in with the island. I turned to the table again and called to Jimmy.</p> - -<p>“Go now and send Teach here,” and when he was gone I overhung the chart -in a posture of anxious scrutiny; though in this while I several times -glanced at the lady Aurora, who was sitting just behind me, and observed -that she sat very still, her face as composed as at any time since I had -known her, her eyes bent upon a book which she had taken from the table -before sitting. The motion of the brig was gentle; the cabin became -warm, almost hot; a little while before I descended I had looked through -the skylight at Jimmy, who stood beneath, and he had quietly closed and -secured the frames.</p> - -<p>Teach came down, and behind him was Jimmy. He descended the steps -without the least manner of suspicion. He wore a round hat, and his feet -were naked, the bottoms of his trousers being turned up midway the -height of the calves of his legs. I bade him uncover in the presence of -a lady; he asked pardon, and threw his hat down upon the deck.</p> - -<p>“Here’s a chart of New Holland,” said I, pointing to it. “D’ye know -anything of the coast down Port Jackson way?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Where’s this brig to be wrecked? Come you here.” He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_364" id="page_364">{364}</a></span> came to my side, -and I put my finger upon the line that denoted the coast near Port -Jackson, holding my left hand behind me. “All hereabouts is wild ground, -I reckon—and if the brig’s to be stranded, the spot should be within a -comfortable tramp of the town of Sydney,” and as I pronounced these -words I motioned with my left hand, on which, as swiftly as you fetch a -breath, the lady Aurora whipped a big bag, thickened for the face with -wadding, over the head of Teach, dragging it down to his shoulders and -holding it there, and all as nimbly as the hangman pulls down the cap -over the malefactor’s face. In the same instant of her doing this I -grasped Teach by his right arm and Jimmy seized him by his left, and -pulling out a pair of handcuffs from my pocket I brought the fellow’s -wrists together and manacled him.</p> - -<p>His first struggles were furious; but how should he be able to help -himself in the grasp of two men, each of whom was out and away stronger -than he? He kicked and plunged with frantic violence, but he could utter -no sound. He was fairly suffocated by the thickly-lined bag which Miss -Aurora had whipped down over his head.</p> - -<p>Not an instant was to be lost; moreover, I had no intention to kill the -man, though I reckoned by the gathering faintness in the capers he cut -that his senses were going. Grasping him by the arms Jimmy and I dragged -him aft and thrust him into a spare berth that lay between mine and the -cabin I had occupied in Greaves’s time. Miss Aurora followed and handed -me a gag of her own manufacture. I pulled the cap off the man and found -him nearly gone; we sat him on a locker with his back against the ship’s -side and I gagged him, taking care to see that the nostrils were clear. -So there he was, gagged, handcuffed, and very nearly dead, and there was -nothing to fear from him at present.</p> - -<p>I shut the door of the berth and went again to the chart, while Miss -Aurora sat behind me upon the bag as before. I slipped a second pair of -handcuffs from my left into my right pocket, and then told Jimmy to send -Travers below.</p> - -<p>“If he asks you what I want,” said I, “answer that Mr. Fielding and -Teach are talking about casting away the brig and looking at the chart -of Australia.”</p> - -<p>In a few moments Travers arrived. He was closely followed by Jimmy. He -descended the steps without the least appearance of misgiving. I -perceived, however, that in a moment he began to cast his eyes about for -Teach.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_365" id="page_365">{365}</a></span></p> - -<p>“D’ye know anything of the coast of New Holland, Travers?”</p> - -<p>“Nothen, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Teach and I have been talking about casting this brig away. Teach’ll be -here in a moment,” said I, with a significant sideways motion of my head -toward my berth, which I was willing the fellow should construe as he -pleased. “This is the spot which Teach recommends,” said I, putting my -finger upon the chart. “Draw near, will you. You’ll understand my -meaning when your eyes are on the drawing of the coast.”</p> - -<p>He came at once to my side, cap in hand. I bade him observe the -conformation of the coast, and while I spoke I made a motion with my -left hand, whereupon, with lightning speed, the cap was on him! The man -halloed faintly inside: ’twas like a voice from the height of a tall -chimney; then, Jimmy and I bringing his brawny arms together, I slipped -the handcuffs on.</p> - -<p>He was a more powerfully built man than Teach, but without that devil’s -desperate spirit. He appeared to understand what we meant to do, felt -his helplessness, and after a brief, fierce struggle stood quiet. We ran -him, silent and suffocating in his bag, to the forward cabin on the -larboard side, by which time he was nearly spent for want of air, so -that, when we drew the bag off his head, he was black in the face. I -waited a few minutes till he rallied somewhat, then gagged him with a -second gag of Miss Aurora’s manufacture. We next pulled off his boots, -to provide against his kicking at the door, and threw them into the -cabin, and shutting him up I went to the locker in which I had stored my -borrowings from the magazine, as you have heard, and thrust a couple of -loaded pistols into my pocket.</p> - -<p>My lady Aurora had fallen into a chair: she was deadly white and -trembled violently, and seemed to be fainting. I told Jimmy to give her -a glass of brandy and follow me on deck. I dared not pause now, no, not -even though her life should be risked by my going. I went on deck and -stood a minute at the companion. Call was at the wheel, carelessly -grasping the spokes. I looked toward the island; the boat was clearly -ashore, her sail lowered, and nothing therefore to be seen of her, at -that distance, with the naked eye.</p> - -<p>Taking no notice of Call I walked to the caboose and looked in, -expecting to see Meehan at work there boiling my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_366" id="page_366">{366}</a></span> cocoa. The caboose was -empty, but the fire burned briskly as though freshly trimmed, and a -saucepan was boiling upon it. I stepped swiftly to the fore-scuttle, -that is to say, to the hatch by which the sailors entered or left the -forecastle, and, when I was within a few feet of it, I spied Meehan’s -head in the act of rising to come on deck. I sprang and struck him hard, -crying out, “Keep below till you’re wanted.” He fell backward, and I -instantly drove the cover of the scuttle over the hatch and secured it -by its bar.</p> - -<p>Call remained to be dealt with. As I walked aft Jimmy came up out of the -cabin. Call was very white. He let go the wheel, and cried out, “Mr. -Fielding, where’s my mates?”</p> - -<p>“Where you’ll be in a minute, my man,” said I, pulling out one of the -two pistols I had pocketed; for I had not foreseen in the case of Meehan -so easy a capture.</p> - -<p>“There’s no need to show me that,” said the fellow in his small voice, -nodding his head at the pistol, “I follows your meaning, and I’ll work -as a good man if ye’ll take me on.”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t trust you. Not yet, anyhow; though I should be mighty glad -to believe you trustworthy.”</p> - -<p>“Try me, sir,” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“No, by——! Jimmy, lay hold of that wheel and keep it steady. Call, get -you forward,” and I pointed with my pistol to the forecastle.</p> - -<p>He went like a lamb, and I followed at his heels. Indeed, I needed no -weapon with this man; in strength I was twice his master; in nimbleness -and the art of fisticuffs he was not within a league of my longest -shadow. I could have tossed him by scruff and breech over the rail, and -have drunk a pint with the same breath I did it in.</p> - -<p>When we came to the scuttle, I told him to open it and descend. Meehan -roared out, when he saw daylight; I answered that I would send a bullet -through his brains if he made any noise, that his and Call’s wants -should be seen to presently, and that I was going to sail the brig home -to save the men who had been left with me from the gallows.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Teach and Travers?” bawled Meehan.</p> - -<p>“Dead—dead—dead!” I cried, then closed and secured the scuttle as -before, and ran to the cabin.</p> - -<p>I found my lady very much better. She had drunk a little brandy, and was -eating a biscuit; the trembling had left her, and her face was steady.</p> - -<p>“All the men are secured,” said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_367" id="page_367">{367}</a></span></p> - -<p>She clapped her hands and cried, “You have been very quick,” and then -laughed with hysteric vehemence; and, no doubt, to satisfy me that she -was composed, she at the same moment got up from her chair, and said, -“What is next to be done?”</p> - -<p>“Follow me,” said I.</p> - -<p>I went on deck, and pointing the glass at the landing-place, took a long -look. The fellows had hauled the boat high and dry; I could not see what -sort of a beach it was; the boat lay beyond the thin line of feathering -surf. There were figures about her in motion. I counted all the men who -had gone in her. The telescope was poor—poor even for that age of -marine spy-glasses—and I was unable to distinguish clearly. But the -boat was high and dry, and the men were out of her and busy with their -cargo; <i>that</i> was certain; so I put down the glass, and, going to the -wheel, called to the señorita to come to me.</p> - -<p>“Hold it thus,” said I.</p> - -<p>She at once stationed herself in Jimmy’s place and grasped the spokes. -Then, followed by the lad, I ran to the cabin, and, together, out of the -locker we brought up three rounds for the long brass pivoted twenty-four -pounder. We likewise loaded with all possible speed six muskets, which, -with the remaining pistols that lay in the locker, we conveyed on deck. -When this was done, I charged the long gun, taking care to see that all -was ready for quickly reloading.</p> - -<p>“Now, Jimmy,” said I, “it is time to swing the main topsail yard and be -off.”</p> - -<p>The wind hung in the north; it was a little pleasant breeze, with just -enough of weight to tremble the water into a darker dye of blue with the -summer rippling and wrinkling of it, and to put a dance into the -blinding sparkles under the sun. I went forward with the lad, and first -we hoisted the standing-jib; then went to the main braces and, the wind -being very light, we swung the yards easily. The topgallant sails had -been clewed up on the previous day, and had hung by their gear unstowed -all night. Both yards were heavy, for the <i>Black Watch</i> was very square -in her rig; so to masthead the canvas we led the halliards to the little -capstan on the quarter-deck, and set the sails with fairly taut leeches. -A couple of staysails we also ran aloft, by which time the brig had -wore. We then trimmed for the northerly draught, and in less than twenty -minutes from the start of the operations the brig was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_368" id="page_368">{368}</a></span> standing -eastward, and slowly gathering way, with Jimmy at the wheel, holding the -little ship steady to my directions, myself near him, glass in hand, -watching the men ashore, and the girl at my side.</p> - -<p>I had reckoned on this—that, when the men saw me fill on the brig -they’d suppose something to make me uneasy had hove into sight, or that -I was maneuvering to take up a new position. I guessed they’d never -imagine for a long while that I was running away with the brig. I had -taken particular care for weeks past that they should observe nothing in -me to excite distrust. And then there were Teach and the others; and I -counted upon Bol’s and upon Bol’s mates’ confidence in the loyalty of -those shipmates. So they’d watch us for some time without suspicion; and -every minute was precious, because every minute the distance widened and -the pace briskened.</p> - -<p>Thus had my calculations forerun, and now I stood with the telescope at -my eye, watching and waiting.</p> - -<p>Five minutes passed—no more. I had turned to look at the compass and to -glance aloft; and now I leveled the glass afresh.</p> - -<p>“They’re after us!” I cried.</p> - -<p>In those five minutes they had launched the boat and, as I looked, were -hoisting the sail and throwing their oars over. I was mightily startled -at first. I had never imagined they’d prove so keen in their guessing; -but reflection speedily cooled me, and brought my nerves to their proper -bearing.</p> - -<p>The boat gained on us slowly. The pace of the brig was about four miles -an hour; the boat’s a mile faster than that. Presently I could count the -steady pulse of her five oars. I had no fear, but I was very eager to -come off with the brig without killing any of those men. The lady Aurora -said:</p> - -<p>“They’re catching us up.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said I; “and if they can come within hail they’ll make me a -hundred fine promises and entreat me to take them on board; and, a few -minutes after they are on board, my corpse will be floating -astern—another shocking example of forecastle gratitude. I’m done with -’em,” said I, scarcely supposing while I talked that she wholly -understood me; and, putting my hand upon the long brass gun, I moved it -until the muzzle was over the boat.</p> - -<p>I knew the little fabric was out of range, but I wished the men to see -the feather-leap of white water, the flash of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_369" id="page_369">{369}</a></span> missile, that they -might understand I shot with ball; and, having everything to my hand, I -bid Miss Aurora step a little aside, and fired. The gun roared in -thunder, and belched out a big cloud of smoke. I dodged the smoke to -mark the flight of the ball, which hit the water several cables’ lengths -this side the boat. If the spurt of it was plain to me, it was plain to -them. I put Jimmy to the gun to clean it while I watched the boat. She -continued in pursuit; but now, by aid of the glass, I made out something -white flying at her masthead—a signal of truce, as though the fellows -and I had been at war. Some man must have torn up his shirt to produce -that flag; for there were no white handkerchiefs in the longboat, and -nothing to answer to what was flying save what one or another carried on -his back.</p> - -<p>“I want no truce! I want no peace! I want to have nothing whatever to do -with you!” I cried, while I went about to load the long gun again.</p> - -<p>This time I resolved to load with case as well as round, that the splash -might emphasize my hint. I asked Aurora to hold the wheel, and bid Jimmy -rush into the cabin and bring up some canister out of the locker. I -clapped in some case on top of the ball, took aim, and fired. The brig -thrilled to the explosion. I wondered to myself what the imprisoned -fellows forward and the two men below would be thinking of this -bellowing of artillery.</p> - -<p>The ball and musket-shot struck the sea before I saw the splash; the -smoke of the gunpowder hung a bit, clouding aft before blowing clear, -and I could not spring to the side in time to see. I ordered Jimmy to -make ready the gun for loading afresh, being now hot in heart with the -noise of the firing and angry, too, with the stubborn pursuit of the -devils astern; and I told Miss Aurora that, if they did not shift their -helm, I’d blow them out of water.</p> - -<p>“I want no man’s life,” I exclaimed—“not even Yan Bol’s; but if they -creep much closer, and I can manage to plump a ball among those——”</p> - -<p>But here my speech was arrested; for, having talked with my eye at the -glass, I saw them lower the lugsail on board the longboat; they then -pulled her around and hoisted her sail afresh.</p> - -<p>“There she goes!” cried I.</p> - -<p>“<i>De veras!</i> Oh, glorious! Oh, glorious!” exclaimed the señorita, -dropping the wheel to clap her hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_370" id="page_370">{370}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, there she goes,” said I, “the second hint sufficed. I wish the -shot may not have hurt any man of them. Was she out of reach? Yes, there -she goes. Wise ye are, Yan Bol. I should have sunk you. Never should you -have gained footing aboard this brig. And has not the breeze slightly -freshened too since you started in pursuit? Ay, there is a little foam -in our wake, and the glance under the sun is keen. We should have run -you out of sight, Yan Bol, and you in pursuing would have run the island -out of sight, and then without compass, without provisions, without -water, how would ye have managed, you scoundrel Dutchman?”</p> - -<p>I put down the glass and clapped the boy on the shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy, you have done well. Yours’ll be a good share of dollars for this -job. Now jump, my lively, and get some breakfast for the lady and -me—and some breakfast for yourself.”</p> - -<p>The poor fellow, grinning with delight, fled forward with the speed of a -hare. I took the wheel from the señorita, and she stood beside me.</p> - -<p>“What’ll dose men do?”</p> - -<p>“They will return to the island.”</p> - -<p>“Will not dey starf?”</p> - -<p>“They have plenty of provisions, and they have a good boat.”</p> - -<p>“What will dey do with de money dey have taken?”</p> - -<p>“May it founder them! The dogs! To force us down here when we should be -in the Channel, or at home! Here am I now with this big brig on my -single pair of hands, and you and the boy as helps and four horrible -scoundrels to sentinel and feed.”</p> - -<p>I felt sick with heart-weariness at that moment. An eternity of waters -stretched between me and England in the measureless miles of Southern -Ocean, in the measureless miles of south and north Atlantic. How was I -to manage with one half-crazy boy and a girl to help me, and four -prisoners to guard?</p> - -<p>“De dollars are saved,” said the señorita, bringing her eyes with a -flash in them from the boat to my face.</p> - -<p>“You are the greatest heroine the world has ever produced,” said I.</p> - -<p>“It is a day of glory for you, and your money is safe,” said she.</p> - -<p>I looked at her a little sullenly; I was in no temper for irony.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_371" id="page_371">{371}</a></span></p> - -<p>“If de money is safe, I am safe,” said she, “for one goes before de -other, and to be safe I am content to be second.”</p> - -<p>I heeded her not; her tongue was a rattle, and very heedless at times. -After a little, finding I did not speak, she looked at the boat through -the glass. Long practice had now enabled her to keep open the eye she -applied to the telescope. I, too, gripping the spokes, gazed astern; the -sail of the boat was like the wing of a white butterfly out on the dark -blue, that thrilled with the breeze. The island hung massive and rugged -in the sky, but already was it growing blue in the blue air.</p> - -<p>At this time Jimmy came along with some breakfast. He put the tray upon -the deck. The pot of cocoa Meehan was to have cooked had overboiled and -was burnt. Jimmy brought us some fresh coffee, salt beef, and biscuit. -The girl and I ate and drank, Jimmy meanwhile holding the wheel. My lady -asked me how the prisoners were to breakfast? Could they feed themselves -with handcuffs?</p> - -<p>“No,” said I.</p> - -<p>“They’ll need to be regularly supplied with food,” said she. “Who’ll -feed them?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Parece que quiere hacer buen tiempo</i>,” said I to change the subject.</p> - -<p>When I had breakfasted I held the wheel that Jimmy might eat. I was -forever racking my brains to conceive how I was to manage, alone as I -was with the youth. The girl was of no earthly use. Indeed, for the -matter of that, the boy himself did not know how to steer, and was a -poor sailor aloft, though as “an idler” he was expected, and was used to -help the men in reefing and in putting the brig about. I was grateful -for the beautiful morning with its gentle breeze. “Perhaps,” I said to -myself, “I shall have worked out some theory of navigating the brig with -the aid of Jimmy, before a change of weather happens.”</p> - -<p>The lad took the wheel, and I went below to remove the gags from the -men. I had a brace of loaded pistols in my pocket, and I pulled out one -of them, and looking to its priming, I walked to the berth in which we -had thrown Teach, and opened the door. The man’s posture was that in -which we had left him, saving that his head had fallen forward. I did -not like his looks, and felt afraid; I went up to him and took his arm; -he did not stir. I lifted his head by the chin, and saw death in his -eyes. On this, full of horror and pity, I removed the gag. It was a -piece of drill with a lump of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_372" id="page_372">{372}</a></span> stuffing stitched amidships to fill the -mouth. Aurora had made it, as she had made the bag with which we had -stifled the two men. The stuffed part of the gag that had filled the -man’s mouth was soaked with blood, and when I pulled the gag off, and -the head fell forward, a quantity of dark blood followed.</p> - -<p>No doubt he had ruptured a blood vessel; in any case, his death was not -to be laid to the account of the gag, in other words, to our having -suffocated him. Nevertheless, I was as greatly shocked, and viewed him -with as much horror as though he had died by my hands.</p> - -<p>I then bethought me of Travers and rushed, with my heart beating hard, -to his berth, dreading to find him dead likewise. The man was standing -upright, looking at the sea through the scuttle. He turned when I -entered, and presented his gagged face to me. I thanked God to find him -alive. So far we had managed all this business bloodlessly. I am one, -and ever was one, of those who count human life the most sacred thing -under God’s eye.</p> - -<p>I had thrust the pistol into my pocket at the sight of Teach, and now -kept it there in the presence of this man Travers, gagged and handcuffed -as he was. He motioned piteously with his head, lifting his fists a -little way toward his face. I at once took the gag off, and threw it -aside. He tried to speak; he fetched many breaths, during which some -froth gathered upon his lips; he then, in a dim, husky voice that seemed -to rise from the bottom of his chest, exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Water!”</p> - -<p>I ran into the cabin and filled a mug with fresh water; he remained -standing where I had left him. I put the mug to his mouth, and he drank -long and deep. The water refreshed him, and he found his voice.</p> - -<p>“What are ye going to do with me?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Keep you under hatches,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Bol and the others?”</p> - -<p>“Ashore on the island.”</p> - -<p>“Left to their fate, sir?”</p> - -<p>“You know better. Have they not the longboat, plenty of provisions and -water? If Captain Greaves were alive he’d yardarm the four of you—no, -not the four; Teach is dead.”</p> - -<p>“Did you kill him?”</p> - -<p>“He’s dead,” I shouted in a rage; “I have killed no man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_373" id="page_373">{373}</a></span> You would have -killed me—there is no stain on my conscience.”</p> - -<p>“Are ye carrying the brig home?”</p> - -<p>“Where else?”</p> - -<p>“Teach dead!” he muttered. “Mr. Fielding, for God’s sake, take me on. -You’ll find me a true man.”</p> - -<p>“Which d’ye choose—the bilboes or those bracelets?”</p> - -<p>He answered me with a savage stare. I turned to go.</p> - -<p>“Leave me some water,” he called.</p> - -<p>I filled the mug afresh, placed it where he could put his lips to it, -and locked the door upon him.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.<br /><br /> -<small>A QUAKER SKIPPER.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I looked</span> in upon Teach again. The sight was piteous. The handcuffs gave -a wild pathos to that picture of death. The sight was not to be borne. I -removed the handcuffs, and then took a steady view of his face, and felt -the man’s wrist to make sure that he was dead. He was stone dead; and I -went on deck.</p> - -<p>Miss Aurora leaned upon her elbows on the rail, looking at the Island of -Amsterdam, that was fading into a dark blue cloud. I said:</p> - -<p>“Teach is dead.”</p> - -<p>She started, and shrunk back and stared at me, and instantly reflected -the expression she saw in my face. Her features then relaxed, and, -slightly shrugging her shoulders, she exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“He was not a good man. Yet good men are dying every day. Teach’s time -had come. Did we kill him?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think so.”</p> - -<p>“That pleases me. I would have killed him for my honor or for my -liberty. It is God’s doing, and it must be good.”</p> - -<p>I found that Jimmy kept the brig to her course fairly well, and roamed -about the deck for awhile by myself, considering how I should act if we -did not presently, and, indeed, speedily, fall in with a ship to help us -with the loan of two or three men. I then asked Miss Aurora to hold the -wheel, and took Jimmy below with me to help clap the bilboes on to -Travers, that I might relieve the poor devil of his handcuffs. While<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_374" id="page_374">{374}</a></span> I -put the bilboes on, Travers asked me why I refused to give him a chance -to turn to.</p> - -<p>“You’ve had a chance of proving yourself an honest man for weeks past. -I’ll not trust you now.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fielding, we meant to act square by you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, by knocking me over the head when I’d served your turn.”</p> - -<p>I sent Jimmy in a hurry for provisions and water to place in this -prisoner’s berth. The beast couldn’t read, or I should have tossed him a -book or two. I was eager to regain the deck, for her ladyship was on no -account to be left alone at the wheel. Travers asked for his pipe and -tobacco. I told him he should have them; and then, threatening to shoot -him through the head if he made any noise, attempted to break out, or -acted in any way to imperil the safety of the ship, I locked him up.</p> - -<p>I put a loaded pistol into Jimmy’s hand, keeping a brace in my pocket; -and, finding that the brig made a straight wake to the set of the helm, -as surrendered by me to Miss Aurora, with the request that she would -hold the spokes steady, I went forward with the lad, lifted the hatch, -and sung out.</p> - -<p>Both men came under the hatch and looked up. I let them see that the boy -and I were armed, and said:</p> - -<p>“Call, I am here to give you a chance. If you’ll come on deck and help -me to carry on the work of the brig, good and well.”</p> - -<p>“I asked to turn to afore,” said he, putting his hand on the coaming as -though to come up.</p> - -<p>“I’m willing to turn to,” said Meehan.</p> - -<p>“I’ll abide by Call’s behavior,” said I.</p> - -<p>“It’s cussed hot and black down here,” exclaimed Meehan. “Aint ye going -to let us have a light?”</p> - -<p>“You shall have a light,” said I; “but mind your fire. We have the -boats, and I shan’t lift the hatch.”</p> - -<p>“What made ye clip me o’er the head?” he growled. “I’d ha’ stepped back -had ye arsted me.”</p> - -<p>“Come up, Call.”</p> - -<p>The man rose instantly, and stood blinking to the splendor of the -morning.</p> - -<p>“Go aft and take the wheel,” said I. “The course is as you find it.”</p> - -<p>I was about to put on the hatch cover.</p> - -<p>“Aint I to be let up?” said Meehan.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_375" id="page_375">{375}</a></span></p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Aint I to have anything to eat and drink?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Hell seize the blooming lot of ye!” said he, and disappeared in a -single stride.</p> - -<p>I closed the hatch cover, but opened it shortly after to hand down a -breaker of water, a quantity of provisions, and oil for the forecastle -lamp. I say to “hand down”; but the ruffian was so sulky that he refused -to answer to my call, and I had to tell him what I had brought, and to -threaten him with thirst and starvation, before he would come under the -hatch to receive the things. The belch of heat and of foul atmosphere -was so disgusting when I first lifted the cover, that I guessed the -fellow would suffocate if I did not give him some fresh air. The cover -opened on strong hinges. I procured a bit of chain; then inserted a -wedge to keep the cover open to about half the length of your thumb. I -now passed the chain through the staple and the eye of the bar, securing -the links at a place out of reach of our friend’s knife. This done, I -went aft with Jimmy, and could scarcely forbear laughing to observe the -lady Aurora in the posture of haranguing Call. She stood up before him, -and menaced him with her forefinger; and she was saying as I approached:</p> - -<p>“If you do not behave well it is death; I am a Spanish lady and know not -fear. I will kill any man for my liberty or for my honor, and my liberty -I must have, but I have it not while I am in this little ship. I desire -to be at Madrid. Be honest and help Mr. Fielding, and your reward will -be great I tell this, I—I—the Señorita de la Cueva—she tells you this -on her honor as a Spanish lady.” She touched her bosom with her -forefinger, then looked round and saw me close by.</p> - -<p>“I am willing to prove a true man,” said Call, “this here mucking job -was never my relish. <i>I</i> was never for casting this here brig away. But -how’s one voice to sound when a whole blooming squadron of throats is -a-hollering?”</p> - -<p>“Jump aloft and stow that topgallant sail along with Jimmy,” said I.</p> - -<p>With the help of this man Call I snugged the brig down to topsails and -forecourse as a provision against change of weather. I kept him on deck -all day, and he ate on deck under my eye; he behaved well, yet I dared -not trust him; while I slept he might liberate the other two, and then -truly should I be a dead man; for of course Meehan and Travers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_376" id="page_376">{376}</a></span> secretly -raged against me, and would take all the risks of washing about without -a navigator and of being hanged if they were boarded and the truth -discovered; all risks would they accept, I say, to be revenged upon me. -I took Call below into the cabin and made him help me drag Teach’s body -out of the berth it lay in; I then put his legs in irons to keep him -quiet through the night. He protested violently, and his remonstrance -often rose into coarse, injurious language.</p> - -<p>“I’ll trust you presently, but not now,” said I, and so I locked the -door and came away. I heard him swearing, and then he began to sing as I -went on deck.</p> - -<p>It was some time between eight and nine o’clock. All the stars were out, -the sky was cloudless, and the evening as beautiful as the morning had -been splendid. The wind had shifted into the east, and was a small soft -wind; it held our little show of canvas steady, and the brig rippled -quietly onward over the wide dark sea. I stationed my lady Aurora at the -wheel and entered the cabin with Jimmy; there we made fast a cannon ball -to the feet of the dead man Teach, and picking him up we carried him to -the gangway, which we opened that his plunge might be from a little -height only. I was a sailor; for many months Teach had been a shipmate -of mine; I had hated him—but he was dead and his last toss at a -sailor’s hand must be decorous and reverent. So we dropped him gently -feet foremost and he went down instantly, leaving behind him a little -cloud of fire that was sparkling even when it had slided into the -vessel’s wake.</p> - -<p>Four days passed. I will not stop to explain how we managed; shall I -tell you why? Because, when I look into the mirror of my memory for the -vision of what happened in those four days I find the presentment dim, -vague, foggy. These things I recollect; that I did not trust Call, that -I freed him from time to time that he might take a trick at the wheel, -threatening to stop his food and water if he refused, and that every -night at eight bells or thereabouts I put him away with the bilboes on. -That I kept the other two men imprisoned, supplying them every morning -with provisions for twenty-four hours. That I held the brig’s head for -the Cape of Good Hope, praying daily for the sight of a ship and -beholding nothing. That for two days after our losing sight of Amsterdam -Island, the weather continued very glorious, then darkened with a wind -that breezed up out of the southward and blew fresh, but happily never -too hard for our whole topsails.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_377" id="page_377">{377}</a></span></p> - -<p>These things I remember.</p> - -<p>I was awakened on the night of the fourth or, let me say, in the dark -hours of the morning of the fifth day by the boy Jimmy calling my name. -I had wrapped myself up in Greaves’ cloak, sat me down near the wheel, -at which I had been standing for two hours, and had fallen into a deep -sleep without intending to sleep. The lad had taken the helm from me; -when he called I sprang to my feet.</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“See that light, master?”</p> - -<p>I looked and saw what I supposed was a ship on fire. A ruddy glare was -coloring the sky at the extremity of the sea about three points on the -lee bow. I thought to myself, if she is a ship on fire and beyond -control, her people will help me to navigate the brig home. The fancy, -the hope, elated me; I was wide awake on a sudden, though I had sat down -dog tired.</p> - -<p>A long swell was rolling out of the south, and a five-knot breeze was -blowing off our larboard quarter. I put the helm up for the light, and -when I had it fair ahead I gave the spokes to Jimmy, and fetched the -telescope out of the cabin where, on a locker, lay the lady Aurora -sleeping. The telescope resolved the red light into several tongues of -flame which waxed and waned; I had then no doubt whatever that the fire -was a burning ship, and forthwith fell to walking first to one then to -the other side of the brig, for long spells at a time overhanging the -bulwark rail, straining my sight into the darkness, and hearkening with -all my ears.</p> - -<p>By and by, recollecting that an empty tar barrel stood upon the -forecastle, I resolved to make a flare. I rolled the barrel aft, kindled -it, and Jimmy and I flung the barrel overboard.</p> - -<p>It burnt finely, and lighted up a great space of the sea. If the people -of the burning ship were in the neighborhood they’d know by the fire -upon the water that help was at hand, and rest on their oars till -daybreak, which was hard by.</p> - -<p>When the dawn broke the ship was about a mile distant. Smoke was rising -from her decks. I sought in vain in all directions for a boat. I saw no -fire now on board the ship, and when I pointed the telescope I perceived -that she was hove to, and that the smoke was local as though it rose -from chimneys. Between us and the ship was a vast lump of red stuff that -lifted and fell; it was scored and flaked with white, and its redness -was that of blood. The sun came up and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_378" id="page_378">{378}</a></span> touched it, and now I -perceived—by this time we had neared it—that the loathsome bulk was a -part of a great whale, freshly “cut in,” as it is termed. A number of -birds were on it, and they tore the horrid mass with their beaks, and -many birds hovered over it.</p> - -<p>I looked very hard at the ship. I seemed to know her. Her numerous -davits and crowd of boats bespoke her a whaler, and I knew by the sight -of that vast heap of whale which had gone adrift that she was “trying -out”—that is, boiling down the blubber that came from the whale. In -fact, my nose told me of what was going on when I was half a mile away.</p> - -<p>The flash of the sun on the skylight awakened Miss Aurora; she came on -deck, and cried out on beholding the whaler.</p> - -<p>“This is a very wonderful thing,” said I. “Do you know that ship?”</p> - -<p>She stared hard and shook her head.</p> - -<p>“She is the <i>Virginia Creeper</i>, whaler, of Whitby,” said I, “we spoke -her t’other side the Horn.”</p> - -<p>“She is on fire,” cried the girl, “and—<i>Ave Maria</i>! What is that?” she -exclaimed, pointing to the bloody mass of whale that was on our beam.</p> - -<p>We floated slowly down to the ship; the wind had blackened at sunrise, -and our canvas was small. The sky was dark in the south whence the swell -was running, and a bright blue all about the north and east. We -approached the ship, and I saw many men on board of her watching us. -Some of the faces showed in the telescope of a copper color, and I -guessed they were natives of the South Sea Islands.</p> - -<p>Miss Aurora teased me with questions, with sounding exclamations in -Spanish and English. I begged her to hold her tongue. I wanted to think. -Should I give the whole plain story of our voyage to the captain of that -ship? Should I tell him that I had twelve tons of silver on board, and -three prisoners of a crew who had possessed themselves of three tons, -but who had meant to plunder the whole and bury it, and then wreck the -brig? I hastily paced the deck, staring at the whaler and thinking with -all my might. But a moment arrived when I could think no longer. I put -the helm over, gave the wheel to Miss Aurora to hold, and with the help -of Jimmy got the main topsail aback.</p> - -<p>The two vessels then lay abreast within a cable’s length. A man stood in -the mizzen rigging of the whaler; he was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_379" id="page_379">{379}</a></span> same person that had -hailed us in the Pacific. I jumped upon a gun and sung out, “Ho, the -<i>Virginia Creeper</i>, ahoy!”</p> - -<p>“Hallo!” answered the man near the mizzen rigging.</p> - -<p>“We are but three, as you see,” I shouted, “Will you send a boat and -come aboard? Our distress is great.”</p> - -<p>The man responded with a quiet motion of his hand, lingered a moment or -two as though to take a further survey of us, then called out an order, -and a few moments later he had entered a boat and was being pulled -across to us.</p> - -<p>I received him in the gangway, and giving him my hand said, “We have met -before.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, friend,” said he, “where might that have been?”</p> - -<p>On my recalling the circumstance, he said in a sober voice, and without -any air of surprise, “I remember.” Then looking leisurely at Miss Aurora -he said, “Is that thy wife, friend?”</p> - -<p>“No,” I answered; “she is a shipwrecked lady.”</p> - -<p>“And what art thou and what’s thy name?”</p> - -<p>I made answer, observing him narrowly. He was a Quaker, as you will -suppose; a fellow of a very serious, composed appearance, close shaved, -with coal black eyes, wary and stealing in their manner of gazing, a -large expressionless mouth, and a pale skin that had suffered nothing -from the weather. He wore a soft cone-shaped hat, the brim very wide, -and was skewered to his throat in a coat with a double row of large -metal buttons. His legs were encased in jack boots. The garb was -somewhat of a change from the glazed hat and pea jacket of his South -Pacific costume.</p> - -<p>“This is the <i>Black Watch</i>,” said he, looking slowly along the decks and -then slowly up aloft.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said I.</p> - -<p>“When we spoke thee thy captain was sick.”</p> - -<p>“He is dead.”</p> - -<p>“Is that thy distress?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. If you will step into the cabin I’ll tell you a very strange -story, but as this brig must be watched—yonder lad at the wheel being -merely our cabin boy—will you hail one of your mates and request him to -take charge while we converse?”</p> - -<p>He walked gravely and quietly to the side, and looking over, bade his -men in the whale boat fetch Mr. Pack. Presently Mr. Pack arrived. He was -the mate of the whaler. The captain told him to watch the brig, and -followed me into the cabin, the lady Aurora going before us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_380" id="page_380">{380}</a></span></p> - -<p>I put a bottle of spirits upon the table. The captain shook his head at -the bottle and looked around him, presently fixing his eyes on Madam -Aurora, at whom he continued to stare after I had begun to talk to him. -He had lifted a hat and disclosed a flat, almost bald head. Without -further delay I entered upon my narrative, and coaxed his gaze from the -lady to me. He heard me through without a syllable of comment, without a -grunt of surprise. His composure was perfectly wooden. I observed no -further sign, indeed, of his heeding me than an occasional grave nod of -the head, such as he might bestow on a minister whose discourse from the -pulpit pleased him.</p> - -<p>I ceased. The dark Spanish eyes of the lady Aurora burned, with -impassioned anxiety, upon the composed countenance of the Quaker -skipper.</p> - -<p>“Wilt thou be pleased to repeat the sum?” said the captain slowly and -deliberately, without the faintest color of wonder in his tone.</p> - -<p>“Five hundred and fifty thousand.”</p> - -<p>“Of which thy men took three tons?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said I.</p> - -<p>His lips slightly stirred to a sudden pressure of rapid calculation. -“And what dost thou think the men will do with those three tons of -dollars?”</p> - -<p>“Bury ’em,” said I. “They will leave the island in the boat—not for -awhile, I dare say—but they will not carry their dollars with them. -They’ll not risk putting to sea with three tons of dead weight in -addition to the provisions they’ll want. Or put it that they would not -take the chance of falling in with a ship, of transferring the money to -her, and of standing to the lies they’d have to tell to account for -their possession of the silver.”</p> - -<p>“Thou art right,” said the captain, with a sober nod.</p> - -<p>“They will bury the money,” said I, “swear one another to secrecy, and -then return for the silver when they can.”</p> - -<p>“Thou art right,” repeated the captain, with another sober nod.</p> - -<p>“Now,” said I—“but let me ask your name?”</p> - -<p>“Jonas Horsley,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“Captain Horsley, this is my proposal: I want help; I want three or four -men to enable me to carry this brig home. I also want to hand my -prisoners over to you—the three of them, able-bodied fellows, as good -as the best of your own hands, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_381" id="page_381">{381}</a></span> daresay. Further, I want as much fresh -water as you can spare. In return I’ll give you the clew to the -burial-place in Amsterdam Island. If you sail promptly you’ll arrive -before the fellows depart. They’re bound to wait awhile for a ship -before taking their chance, six of them, in an open boat, every man -ignorant which way to head for land, even if they had a compass. -Furthermore, that you may make sure of my gratitude, you shall take a -case of the dollars in the lazarette.”</p> - -<p>The señorita’s eyes sparkled. She vehemently nodded approval. Captain -Horsley viewed me steadily, with an expressionless countenance.</p> - -<p>“Friend,” said he, after a short pause, “might the chests in thy -lazarette be all of a size?”</p> - -<p>“They slightly vary.”</p> - -<p>“And the biggest might contain——?”</p> - -<p>“About four thousand dollars,” said I.</p> - -<p>He continued to regard me expressionlessly; his composure raised my -anxiety into torment. My lady’s face worked with half a dozen emotions -at every heart-beat.</p> - -<p>“Hast thou breakfasted?” said Captain Horsley.</p> - -<p>“No,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Thou hast the means, I trust, of providing a meal?”</p> - -<p>“We have plenty of provisions.”</p> - -<p>“Thou may’st consider all things settled,” said he, slowly turning his -head to gaze at the lady Aurora. “I will break my fast with thee and the -lady. It is a pleasure to converse with you both. When we have eaten and -drunken I will ask thee to show me thy lazarette, and I will choose a -chest, and we will then exchange the men.”</p> - -<p>“Give me your hand on it,” I cried, and my heart was swollen with -delight; but the taking and lifting of that man’s hand and arm was like -pumping out a ship.</p> - -<p>We went on deck, and brought up a sailor out of the whale-boat to stand -at the helm while Jimmy prepared breakfast. Before breakfast was served -I took Captain Horsley into the lazarette and showed him the cases of -silver.</p> - -<p>“Do all those chests contain dollars?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“All.”</p> - -<p>He made no further remark until, after considering awhile, during which -time his eyes roamed shrewdly over the chests, he pointed to one of the -biggest, and said:</p> - -<p>“That will do for me.”</p> - -<p>“It is yours,” I answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_382" id="page_382">{382}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Friend,” said he, after a short pause, due to reflection, by no means -to embarrassment, “I should be glad to know that I am receiving dollars. -Suppose we lift the lid.”</p> - -<p>I fetched a hammer and other tools, and nails, and when the chest was -opened he brought the lantern close to the money, and after staring and -running his hand over the milled edges, he said:</p> - -<p>“These be good dollars.”</p> - -<p>I then hammered down the lid and we went up into the cabin, where we -found breakfast ready.</p> - -<p>I much enjoyed this strange man’s conversation. He was cold and grave, -very slow, and a trifle nasal of speech, and his trick of “theeing” and -“thouing,” and the meeting-house turn of his phrases in general seemed -to ill fit the character of a hearty English sailor. Yet he had plenty -to talk about, had followed the sea for many years, had been long in the -whaling business, was a considerable man at Whitby, and even had news to -give me, for I was at sea in the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i> when he sailed on -this cruise. A British sea Quaker was something of a rarity in my time; -I presume he is extinct in these days. Many American whalers were -commanded by Quakers, but the broad-brims of our island loved less the -pursuit of the game than the safer business of tallying the blubber -cargo over the side into their warehouses.</p> - -<p>While we breakfasted I gave him a description of the proposed -burial-place as it had been sketched to me by Yan Bol. He composedly -entered the particulars in a pocket-book. I asked him to write down my -uncle’s address at Sandwich, that he might let me know whether he fell -in with or took off Yan Bol and the others and recovered the silver. He -gravely promised to write to me.</p> - -<p>We then went to business; and Captain Jonas Horsley’s first step was to -accompany some men into the lazarette and superintend the transhipment -of his chest of dollars. This done, he asked me how many men I wanted. I -answered that I had spoken of three, but that I would be glad of as many -as he could spare. He answered that he would let me have five in -exchange for my prisoners. One of them was a Kanaka, or South Sea -Islander, who had long sailed in whalers, and was a very good cook. The -others, he said, would volunteer; but I might make my mind easy. All his -men were livelies of the first water. What pay would I give?</p> - -<p>“I will give,” said I, “whatever will bring them to me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_383" id="page_383">{383}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“They sail by the lay. Thou must take that into consideration,” said -Captain Horsley.</p> - -<p>“Shall we say two hundred and fifty dollars a man for the run home?” -said I.</p> - -<p>“I will let thee know,” said he. He got into his boat, and was rowed -across to his ship, whose tryworks were still smoking and filling the -air with a disgusting scent. There was no increase of darkness in the -south, and north and east the blue sky was splendid with the sparkling -of the morning; but a movement worked in the southerly swell that hinted -at a fresh wind presently. Captain Horsley, however, did not keep me -long waiting. First, he sent me one of his largest boats with a stock of -fresh water and hands to stow the casks. His men took back my empty -casks in return for their full ones; then two boats came off full of -men, in one of which the captain was seated. Parties were distributed to -bring up the prisoners. Meehan scowled when he saw the whaler, hung -back, and fought like a devil, saying that he was a sailor, and no -whaleman, and cursing me and the brig and the whaler—whatever his eye -rested on, in short—until they tumbled him into the boat alongside, -where I heard him roaring out to me to pay him his wages and to hand him -over his share of the dollars. Call and Travers walked quietly to the -gangway. Travers stopped before putting his foot over, and asked me if -he was not to be paid for the work he had done.</p> - -<p>“Mynheer Tulp is your owner,” said I. “Call upon him when you return to -Amsterdam. He’ll pay you, I daresay.”</p> - -<p>He then began to swear, upon which Captain Horsley motioned to his men, -and he and Call were forthwith bundled into the boat.</p> - -<p>“These are thy men, friend,” said the captain, pointing to four seamen -and a Kanaka, who stood apart. “Four are Englishmen, and of my own town, -anxious to return home. They each ask three hundred and fifty dollars.”</p> - -<p>I looked them over, as the phrase goes, put a few questions, and, being -satisfied that their quality was right, I said:</p> - -<p>“You shall have three hundred and fifty dollars a man. Captain Horsley -knows I can pay you, and the agreement shall be signed when we have -filled upon the brig.”</p> - -<p>The clothes and chests belonging to Meehan and the other two were then -got up and put into the boat. Captain Horsley gave me his pump-handle of -an arm to shake—or, rather, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_384" id="page_384">{384}</a></span> work. I thanked him cordially for the -assistance he had rendered me. He listened till I had done, and said:</p> - -<p>“Friend, thou hast made my kindness very much worth my while.”</p> - -<p>He entered his boat, after bowing with the most grotesque contortion I -had ever beheld to the lady Aurora. The brig’s topsail was then swung; -we raised a loud cheer, which was lustily re-echoed aboard the whaler; -and, in a few minutes, the <i>Black Watch</i> was heeling over from the -breeze, with her head for a course that was to carry us home, and one of -my new men trotting aloft to loose the main topgallant sail.</p> - -<p class="cspc">. . . . . .</p> - -<p>On this same day, in the afternoon, I, with two of my new men, very -carefully took stock of the fresh water aboard, and I discovered that we -had enough to carry us to the English Channel. This discovery was a -stroke of happiness. I had allowed for a long passage, knew that we were -already weedy at bottom, that every day would add to the growths, and -that before we were up with the equator we might be sliding very thickly -and sluggishly through the sea. Spite, however, of my computation of -long days, there was fresh water enough to yield us such an allowance as -no man could grumble at.</p> - -<p>The men shipped from the whaler proved very good seamen; all four -Englishmen were Whitby men; they were held together by that quality of -local patriotism which I think is peculiar to our country; they were all -anxious to get home, and owned that they had intended to run from the -<i>Virginia Creeper</i> at the first opportunity. The prospect of taking up -three hundred and fifty dollars a man kept them very willing, alert, and -in good spirits. One of them, a man of about forty, with iron-gray hair, -who boasted that Captain Cook had once asked him the time—when and -where I forget—this man came to me on the Sunday after he and the -others had joined my brig, and asked me to lend him a Bible. I lent him -a Bible that had belonged to Captain Greaves, and Jimmy afterward told -me that of a dog-watch this man would sit and read out of the Bible to -his mates, the Kanaka listening very attentively and occasionally -interrupting by a question.</p> - -<p>All this was as it should be; I had been living and moving for weeks in -intellectual irons, so to speak; as much in irons as the figure that had -fallen from the gibbet; I had gone in fear of my life—could never -imagine what was in store for me should I be forced to New Holland with -the brig; had for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_385" id="page_385">{385}</a></span> weeks and weeks despaired of my little fortune on -which I had counted in Greaves’ time, upon which I had built such -fancies of happiness as would visit the heart of a young sailor. <i>Now</i> I -breathed freely, slept without anxiety, paced the deck and realized that -every fathom of white wake was diminishing the vast interval between -home and the situation of the little vessel. I had no other fears than -such as properly fell under the heads of sea risks. <i>These</i> I must take -my chance of—fire, the lee-shore, the sudden hurricane, privateersmen, -the Yankee cruiser; but the direst of the items of the catalogue of -oceanic perils were as naught to my apprehension after what I had -suffered at the hands of Yan Bol and his men.</p> - -<p>We rounded the Cape; we crept north; we hoisted the Dutch flag to -passing ships; the stars of the south sank; our shadows every day grew -shorter and yet shorter at noon, and all went well. Having but six men -of a crew I worked, on occasion, as hard as any of them; often sprang -aloft to a weather earring, helped to stow a course and stood a trick if -the fellows had been much fagged by the weather. Nevertheless, though I -was very often full of business and hurry, I found plenty of leisure for -the enjoyment of the society of the lady Aurora. This was peculiarly so -in the fine weather of the southeast trades, in the calms of the -equatorial zone, in the steady blowing of the northeast wind. She -persevered in her English, and many a lesson did I give her; she recited -to me, for I now understood the Spanish tongue fairly well. But though -she recited with great power she could not declaim as she sang. I always -thought her singing beautiful and enchanting. The fiddle to which the -original crew had been used to dance and sing, Jimmy found in a hammock; -he brought it aft, and to the twang of it the señorita would again and -again lift up her voice, her large, rich, thrilling voice, to please me.</p> - -<p>One day we sat together in the cabin. We were a little northward of the -Island of Madeira. The weather was very mild and fine, the time of year -the beginning of August. I had been reading aloud to the girl out of -“The Castle of Otranto,” and she had followed me very closely, -interrupting seldom to inquire the meaning of a word. When I had done -she exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“I will now give you a brave recital. You shall enjoy it. I have seen -you wear a red silk kerchief; lend it to me.”</p> - -<p>I fetched the kerchief and she bound it round her head, then lifting a -locker she drew out a tablecloth, in which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_386" id="page_386">{386}</a></span> wrapped her figure as in -a sheet, holding the folds with her left hand and leaving her right hand -free to gesticulate with. She then declaimed a set of verses, written in -the jargon of the Spanish gypsies by that famous poet of Spain, Quevedo. -It was a very fine performance. I understood but little of the queer -dialect, but I enjoyed the rich music of her voice, the swelling and -melting melodies her mere utterance gave to the verses; I gazed with -delight at her impassioned eyes, and at the wild, romantic figure she -made, draped as she was in a sailor’s kerchief and a cabin tablecloth. -Was it not Nelson’s Emma who, with a scarf only, contrived a dozen -different representations of characters, was fascinating in all, and so -pathetic in some that her audience wept?</p> - -<p>“How do you like me as a Spanish gypsy?” said she, pulling off the -kerchief, dropping the tablecloth, and shaking her head till her long -earrings flashed again.</p> - -<p>“So well that I want more,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“No,” said she; “come on deck.”</p> - -<p>She put on her hat, I carried a chair, and we seated ourselves in the -shade of the little awning under which we had often sat and -gesticulated, and endeavored to look our meanings in Greaves’ time. But -now she spoke English very well indeed, while I had enough Spanish to -enable me to converse with her in that tongue, though I never could -catch the sonorous note of it, nor give the true twist to some of the -words.</p> - -<p>We sat together. The brig was sailing placidly over a wide surface of -blue sea; the horizon was a bright line of opal against the dim violet -of the distant sky, and abreast of us to larboard was a full-rigged -ship, her hull below the sea line, and her canvas showing like little -puffs of steam. The Kanaka was at the wheel; he was cook indeed, but -when he was done with the caboose I put him to the ship’s work. One of -the sailors who had charge walked in the waist; the other three were -variously engaged.</p> - -<p>I found myself gazing very earnestly at the lady Aurora, and thinking of -her and of nothing but her. I was still under the influence of the -witchery of her recitation, and then again I thought I had never seen -her look so handsome. Am I in love with you? I wondered. Thought is as -swift as dreams, and you may dream in your sleep through a thousand -years in the time of the fall of an ash from the grate to the hearth. -“Am I in love with you?” I said to myself, earnestly regard<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_387" id="page_387">{387}</a></span>ing her, her -eyes being then fixed upon the distant sail. “I have a very great mind -to offer you marriage. What will you say if I propose to you? Will your -eyes flash, and will you show your teeth, or will you put on one of your -tender, brooding looks? I have often thought that you would make as -fine, useful, accomplished a wife as any young fellow need wish to live -gayly and comfortably with. You sing deliciously. I don’t doubt you -dance perfectly well. You can be saucy and quarrelsome in such a manner -as to lend a new flavor to sentiment. You have a stately, handsome -person; you are extremely well-bred, I am sure. I must take my chance of -your relatives. Some of them may be grandees—let that be hoped for the -sake of my children, who, if they take after me, will wish to be -respectably connected. I’ll offer you marriage,” I thought to myself.</p> - -<p>“Our troubles are nearly at an end,” said I.</p> - -<p>“It is time,” she answered, keeping her eyes fastened upon the distant -ship.</p> - -<p>“We have been very closely associated, señorita.”</p> - -<p>She now regarded me, and for an instant there was a peculiar softness in -her gaze; she then seemed to find an expression in my face that alarmed -her; I saw the change; she grew nervous, and her effort to control -herself confused her.</p> - -<p>“Yes, we have been much together, Mr. Fielding. I shall always regard -you as the savior of my life, and never shall I forget your gentle and -courteous treatment of me.”</p> - -<p>“I trust you never will. My desire is to live forever in your memory.”</p> - -<p>She looked troubled and frightened, and then sorry, as though she had -pained me.</p> - -<p>“You have said you will give up the sea when you arrive in England?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; I shall have been three years continuously at sea when I reach -home. I’ll take a home and settle down ashore.”</p> - -<p>“Is your fortune in the Spanish dollars all that you possess?”</p> - -<p>“All. It is seven thousand pounds.” I pronounced these figures with -emphasis.</p> - -<p>“It is not much,” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Indeed! I think it a very good fortune.”</p> - -<p>“For a single man—<i>si</i>; but put it out at interest, and what you -receive shall not be handsome. Oh, it is a fortune for a bachelor—yes, -but in no country, not even in Germany<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_388" id="page_388">{388}</a></span> would it be regarded as a -handsome fortune for one who would live in style. <i>Vaya!</i> Have I not -advised you to buy a ship and trade with distant nations, and end your -days as rich as a prince of the blood royal of England?”</p> - -<p>“I do not intend to take your advice,” said I. “I will not risk my money -in adventures. What I have I will keep. It is a considerable sum—it is -enough for two.”</p> - -<p>She slightly shrugged her shoulders again, and turned her eyes away with -an expression of concern. Suddenly she looked fully at me; her face was -dark with a blush that glowed from the roots of her hair to the rim of -the collar of her dress; I could not express the meaning in her face at -that moment; I felt it without understanding it.</p> - -<p>“When I am settled in Madrid, Mr. Fielding, you will come and see me, I -hope? Often, I trust, will you visit me? Who more welcome, of all the -friends of Aurora de la Cueva, than Señor William Fielding?”</p> - -<p>I thanked her, with slight surprise. I had expected, from the looks of -her, something very different from this.</p> - -<p>“Would it not please you to live in England?” said I.</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered vehemently; softening, she added, “my establishment -will be in Madrid.”</p> - -<p>I was conscious that I changed color. I looked at her hand—at that -pretty hand of beringed fingers, on which very often had I admiringly -fastened my gaze. When I lifted my eyes, she faintly smiled.</p> - -<p>“Your establishment?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Yes; my establishment.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean your mother’s establishment?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ave Maria!</i> No. My poor mother! Where is she? <i>Ay, ay me!</i>” she cried, -looking up at the sky with a sorrowful, admirably managed roll of her -dark eyes. “My mother’s establishment was at Lima, as you have often -heard. She broke it up on the death of my father; and, if she be -alive—oh, may the Blessed Virgin grant it—she will live with me at -Madrid. It was her intention to dwell with us. She is growing in years -and has many infirmities, and is unequal to the fatigues and anxieties -of an establishment of her own. But of whom am I speaking? She may be -dead—she may be dead!”</p> - -<p>“Pray,” said I, “have I been all this while enjoying the society of a -charming woman without guessing that she was married?” and here my eyes -sought the rings upon her left hand again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_389" id="page_389">{389}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I am not married,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Maybe, then, you are engaged to be married?” said I.</p> - -<p>She made me a low bow, and held her head down till a second deep blush -should have passed.</p> - -<p>“I make you my compliments, señorita,” said I, turning in my chair to -look at the ship that, by heading on a more westerly course than -ourselves, was sinking her canvas.</p> - -<p>“It will interest you to know,” said she, “that I am engaged to be -married to a countryman of yours. Do you wonder why I did not long ago -tell you this? I did not imagine that it would interest you. When I -embarked at Acapulco I was proceeding to Madrid to get married. I had -known Mr. Gerald Maxwell only three months—think! when we were -affianced. Do you ask if he is a Catolique?”</p> - -<p>“I ask nothing,” I answered.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she cried, giving me a look made up of pity and reproach—a deuced -insufferable look, I thought it—“he is a true Catolique. All his family -for ages have ever been of de ortodox faith. His father established a -rich business at Lima, and his son came from his education in England to -be a partner. He went to Madrid last year to represent his house in -Spain. We should have been married, but my mother’s grief would not -allow us to rejoice; so he sailed for Europe, and it was agreed that, -when my mother had settled her affairs, she should follow with me. -<i>Santa Maria purissima!</i> He will think I have perished.”</p> - -<p>All this is, in effect, what she said; but her speech, of course, did -not flow so easily as you read it.</p> - -<p>“Did your friend, Mr. Gerald Maxwell, during his three months’ -courtship, teach you English?”</p> - -<p>“No; he was too busy.”</p> - -<p>“In those months he was too busy to teach you a word of English?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ave Maria!</i> Do not speak angrily, nor lose your temper. Mr. Maxwell -was often absent for days. He had no opportunity to teach me English.”</p> - -<p>“<i>That</i>, happily,” said I, bursting into a laugh, “was to be reserved -for me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Señor Fielding, you have been so good,” she cried in Spanish; and -then she laughed loudly also.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis what a famous poet of my country,” said I, “has termed a most lame -and impotent conclusion. I am pleased to have taught you English.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_390" id="page_390">{390}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“It has killed the time.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Maxwell will be surprised by your knowledge.”</p> - -<p>“Señor Fielding, he shall thank you.”</p> - -<p>I grinned, walked to the side with the telescope, and feigned to be -interested with the distant sail. Narrow, indeed, had been my escape! I -drew more than one deep breath as I humbugged with the glass. By her -deep blush might I suppose she had foreseen what was coming and arrested -it—just in time! I felt obliged to her. But, oh, the meanness of so -prolonged an act of secrecy! Oh, the treachery of it! I thought, when I -reflected on what had passed between us. What had been her motive for -not long ago telling me that she had a sweetheart, and was going to -Madrid to be married to him? To make me fall in love with her, and to -keep me in love with her, so as to assure herself of my constant -courtesy and attention, fearing that I would be neither courteous nor -attentive if she told me she was engaged to be married?</p> - -<p>However, I found out that night when I paced the deck alone, pipe in -mouth, that I had mistaken—that, in short, I was <i>not</i> in love with -her. This was proved to my satisfaction by my quarter-deck meditations -on the subject. First, she was a Catholic; would she have married me, -who was a Protestant? No. Would I have surrendered my faith for her -hand? Not if that hand had grasped and proffered me the title-deeds of -every gold mine in this world. She sung, it is true, in a very heavenly -style, but was she not a devil at heart? Did not she offer to stick Yan -Bol and the others in the back? Did not she secrete a very ugly, -murderous weapon about her fine person? Not for the first time did it -occur to me <i>now</i> that she was a very likely lady to poniard her -husband. One little fit of jealousy, and the rest would briefly work out -as a funeral, a handsome young mourning widow, very regular indeed at -confession, visited once a week by a man in a cloak, who presently so -raises the price of secrecy that by and by she’ll have to do for <i>him</i>, -too.</p> - -<p>Another reflection consoled me; in a few years a very great change must -happen in the lady Aurora’s appearance. The Spanish woman is like the -Jewess; she does not improve by keeping. The delicate olive complexion -turns into a disagreeable wrinkled yellow; the pretty shading of down on -the upper lip thickens into a mustache considerable enough to raise the -jealousy of a captain of dragoons; the lofty and elegant carriage decays -into a tipsy waddle; the light of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_391" id="page_391">{391}</a></span> eye is speedily quenched; the -white teeth show like the keys of a pianoforte; the rich singing voice -may linger, but it will irritate the ear of the husband by its -association with noisy quarrels.</p> - -<p>These, I say, were reflections which vastly supported my spirits and -taught me to understand myself; they proved that my love for the lady -went no deeper than an eyelash of hers measured, and before my pipe was -out I was heartily congratulating myself on Mr. Gerald Maxwell having -come first.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.<br /><br /> -<small>MYNHEER TULP.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">I brought</span> the brig to an anchor in the Small Downs off Sandown Castle -toward the close of the month of August, 1815. The weather in the -Channel had been thick; I had shipped a couple of fishermen off Plymouth -to assist in the navigation of the brig, and from abreast of that port I -had groped the whole distance to the Downs with the hand-lead.</p> - -<p>It was thick weather when I arrived off Deal; the breeze was a -“soldier’s wind” for the Channel; I counted five vessels only, and no -man-of-war was in sight when I brought up. The Dutch flag flew at our -trysail gaff-end, and our decks were bare of artillery from stem to -stern; for on entering the Channel I had caused all the guns to be -struck into the hold that the little ship, should we be boarded, might -present the appearance of a peaceful trader.</p> - -<p>On letting go the anchor I sent two letters ashore by a Deal boat; one -was for my uncle Captain Round, who I had learnt from the boatmen was -well and hearty; the other was in the handwriting of the Señorita -Aurora, and addressed to Mr. Gerald Maxwell at Madrid. It was soon after -nine in the morning when we brought up; and while the church clocks of -Deal were striking eleven my uncle came alongside. He was alone; I had -asked him in a mysteriously phrased passage of my letter to come alone; -the fellow that rowed him alongside was the decayed waterman who had -opened the door to me that night when I visited my uncle after leaving -the <i>Royal Brunswicker</i>.</p> - -<p>My uncle held me by both hands for at least five minutes. The whole -expression of his face was a very gape of astonishment. He looked me all -over, he looked the brig all over; he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_392" id="page_392">{392}</a></span> panted for words; when he was -able to articulate he said, “Bill, I thought you was drowned?”</p> - -<p>“You got my letter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and came off at once.”</p> - -<p>“I sent you a letter written at sea weeks and weeks ago.”</p> - -<p>“This is the only letter I have received from you,” said he; and, -trembling with agitation and excitement, he pulled out the letter that I -had sent ashore that morning.</p> - -<p>The sailors were watching us, and my uncle, now that he had his voice, -shouted; so, taking the dear old fellow by the arm, I carried him into -the cabin, where sat the lady Aurora occupied in furbishing up her hat -to fit her for going ashore. My uncle started and stared at her. He -looked plump and and well kept, with his bottle-green coat, broad -brimmed, low crowned hat, and boots like a postillion’s of that time. -His face was jolly and rosy, despite the blueness of his lips; he -seemed, indeed, more weather-stained and sea-going than I, as though it -was the uncle and not the nephew who was just returned from three years -of the ocean. He stared at the lady Aurora, and whipped his hat off and -bent his back in a bow quick with nerve. The lady rose and courtesyed.</p> - -<p>“Your wife, Bill?” said he.</p> - -<p>“No, a shipwrecked lady. We took her off a rock in the South Pacific.”</p> - -<p>“Off a rock! Lord love you all! What’s next to come?”</p> - -<p>“Often have I heard Señor Fielding speak of you, Captain Round,” said -Miss Aurora.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I will believe that of Bill, ma’am.”</p> - -<p>“I am shipwrecked, indeed,” she exclaimed with a fine arch smile and -flashing look that carried me deep into the heart of the Atlantic and -Southern Oceans ere Gerald Maxwell was, or when, if he had been aboard, -he’d have seen us sitting very close side by side over a lesson in -English; “judge by my gown.” She swept it at the knees. “I am not fit to -be seen.”</p> - -<p>“But ye are then, believe me,” said my uncle; and he sidled up to me -and, rubbing my arm with his elbow, muttered, “handsomest woman I ever -saw in my life, Bill; if she aint the Queen of Spain.”</p> - -<p>“Señorita,” said I, addressing her in Spanish, “my uncle and I will talk -at this table; let us not disturb you. You and I have no secrets—now.”</p> - -<p>She smiled and looked grave all in a moment, slightly bowed and resumed -her seat and her work. And, indeed, I minded<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_393" id="page_393">{393}</a></span> not her presence. Much -that I should presently say, much that would presently be spoken by my -uncle, must be as unintelligible to her as Welsh or Erse.</p> - -<p>We seated ourselves, and I took my uncle by the hand and blessed God for -the privilege of beholding him again. I inquired after my aunt; she was -well; after my cousin; hale and hearty; married three months since, -lived in a small house at Folkstone, whence her young husband traded in -a ship of which he was part owner. I asked after Captain Spalding. The -<i>Royal Brunswicker</i> had passed through the Downs in the previous -December; my uncle had heard nothing of her since; he had written to -Spalding that I was drowned after having been pressed, and while being -conveyed aboard a frigate off Deal. He had claimed my wages and clothes -as next of kin, and Spalding had sent him what was due to me and what -remained of my togs. I asked how many men of the frigate’s boat had -perished; he replied only one man was picked up, one of the pressed men, -an Irishman.</p> - -<p>“That was the fellow,” said I, “whose behavior led to the disaster.”</p> - -<p>I had many more questions to ask, the tediousness of which I will not -bestow upon you. I then entered upon the story of my own adventures from -the hour of my leaving his house on that black night of storm and -thunder. He stopped me after I had related my gibbet experience to tell -me that a tall woman, dressed as a widow, was found about forty yards -distant from the gibbet, dead, with her arms round the ironed body of -the felon. Miss Aurora looked up at this; she had heard me tell that -story of the gibbet and the lightning stroke and the mother. She looked -up, I say, muttered, and crossed herself, then went on with her work. I -paused to think a little upon the dead mother, then proceeded steadily -with my story; when I came to Greaves’ narrative of the discovery of the -dollar-ship my uncle’s eyes grew small in his head with the intentness -of his gaze.</p> - -<p>He seldom winked; he breathed small and faint until I described the -discovery of the dollars and their transhipment, on which he fetched a -deep breath and hit the table a sounding blow with his fist. Manifold -were the changes of his countenance as I progressed; he lived in every -scene I drew; cursed Yan Bol and his crew in the language of Beach -Street; started out of his chair to grasp the lady Aurora by the hand on -my relating her share in the recovery of the brig. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_394" id="page_394">{394}</a></span> then he became a -strict man of business, his jolly face hardening to the rise and -pressure of his old smuggling instincts when I spoke of the chests of -dollars in the lazarette and asked him to advise me how, when, and where -to secretly convey them ashore.</p> - -<p>“Let’s have a look at ’em, Bill,” said he. The excitement was gone out -of him; he was as cool as ever he had been in the most artful and -desperate of his midnight jobs. I took him into the lazarette and -between us we handled a chest of about three thousand dollars to test -its weight. He then said—as quietly as though his talk was of empty -casks and “dead marines”—“The money must be got ashore to-night. It -mustn’t remain aboard after to-night.”</p> - -<p>“How shall I go to work?”</p> - -<p>“Leave that to me.”</p> - -<p>“Who’ll receive the cases, uncle?”</p> - -<p>“I will, Bill.”</p> - -<p>“Sketch me your idea that I may see my way.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go ashore now,” said he, “and make all necessary arrangements. -Keep aboard yourself and don’t let any of your people leave the brig. -Tell them we’ll pay ’em off at my house to-morrow. Destroy all your -papers—see to that, Bill. The moon’s old and nigh wore out—it’ll be a -dark night, raining and squally, I hope. You’ll have a lugger alongside -of you when it comes dark. She’ll hail you. Her name’ll be the <i>Seamen’s -Friend</i>, the name of the man that hails you, Jarvie Files. Trust him up -to the hilt, Bill, and leave him to discharge ye. He knows the ropes. -Afore midnight them chests, to the bottom dollar, ’ll be in my cellars.”</p> - -<p>“When do I come ashore?”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow. Quite coolly, Bill. Come along with your men and bring ’em -to my house, where the money in English gold for paying ’em off ’ll be -ready.”</p> - -<p>“And what’s to become of this brig?”</p> - -<p>“How many anchors do ye hold by?”</p> - -<p>“One, uncle.”</p> - -<p>“Moor her, Bill. You’ve got a snug berth. She’ll want a caretaker till -that there Mynheer Tulp arrives and settles up. She’s his property. And -the sooner Tulp arrives the better for all parties.”</p> - -<p>He was about to make his way out of the lazarette.</p> - -<p>“There is the Spanish lady,” said I. “Will you take her ashore and find -her a home in your house until she’s fetched?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_395" id="page_395">{395}</a></span> I’d sooner see her with -you than at an inn. She has a tongue. Gratitude will keep her quiet, I -hope, but she <i>might</i> talk.”</p> - -<p>“If you’re afraid of her, aren’t ye afraid of the men?”</p> - -<p>“No. The men haven’t any settled notions on the subject of the silver -cargo. They want to get home, and up at Whitby they may talk if they -please. The lad Jimmy will hold his jaw. I’ve promised to take him into -my service. He’s a good lad.”</p> - -<p>Without further speech my uncle got out of the lazarette, and after -waiting to see me put the hatch on and secure it, he stepped up to the -lady Aurora, and in his homely manner, that nevertheless borrowed a sort -of grace from the warmth of his heart, he begged her to make use of his -house until she heard from her friends. She thanked him, gazed at me -with a short-lived look of confusion, and said:</p> - -<p>“Until I hear from Mr. Maxwell, until I receive communications from -Madrid, I am very poor. I wish not to part with these rings,” said she, -looking down upon her hands; “I wish not to remove them; and my -earrings,” continued she, with a shake of her head, “would not bring me -nearly money enough to buy me what I want.”</p> - -<p>“Leave that to me, ma’am,” said my uncle; “name your figure when we get -ashore. There’s no luggage, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing that I care to take,” she answered. “Captain Round, I will ask -you to land me in some secret place, as if I was contraband, and show me -how to reach your house by the back ways. I do not love to be stared at, -and many mocking eyes will rest upon me if I appear in this costume in -your public streets.”</p> - -<p>“You shan’t meet a soul,” answered my uncle, “if it isn’t a boatman too -bleared with ale to observe more than that you’re a woman.”</p> - -<p>She put on her hat and jacket, then stood a moment looking a slow -farewell round her; her eyes met mine, and she turned a shade pale, as -though to an emotion to which she could not or would not give -expression.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not say good-by, Señor Fielding,” said she, giving me her hand.</p> - -<p>“No; we shall meet again to-morrow, I hope.”</p> - -<p>The three of us went on deck. My uncle called his boat alongside; Miss -Aurora and he entered her, and they shoved off. I leaned upon the rail, -watching them as they rowed ashore. The boat made for the beach, a -little to the north<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_396" id="page_396">{396}</a></span>ward of Sandown Castle. There was no play or surf to -render the landing inconvenient. My uncle helped the girl out of the -boat, and they walked off across the sand hills—those same sand hills -which had provided me with my horrible experience of the gibbet.</p> - -<p>But the gibbet was gone; the summer sun was shining upon the grassy -billows of sand. Afar, on the confines of that hilly waste, were many -trees, with a single church steeple among them—the shore sign of the -old town of Sandwich. Over the bows ran the white, low terraces of the -Ramsgate cliffs, soaring as they rounded out of the bay, and gathering a -milkier softness as they rose. Abreast was the yellow line of the -Goodwins, and yonder on the quarter stretched Deal Beach, rich with the -various colors of many boats hauled high and dry. A row of -seaward-facing houses flanked that beach; I could see the corner of the -alley where I was gripped by the press-gang, and memories of after-days -swarmed into my head.</p> - -<p>But there was work to be done; I broke away from my idle musings, and -ordered the men to moor ship in obedience to my uncle’s instructions. -Cable was veered out, and a second anchor let go. I had found a bag of -thirty-two guineas and some silver in Greaves’ cabin after my poor -friend’s death. I used this money to settle with the two fishermen, and -sent them ashore. I then hailed a galley, and dispatched her to Deal for -such a supply of fresh meat and vegetables and ale as would give all -hands of us a good dinner and supper, and when the punt was gone I -called the crew aft, told them that I’d take them ashore next day, and -pay them off in English money at my uncle’s house near Sandwich; I also -thanked them for their good behavior during the long passage from the -Southern Ocean, and shook each man by the hand as a friend who had -served me very honestly at a time when my necessities were great.</p> - -<p>The wind shifted during the day, and a number of ships brought up in the -Downs. A few small craft dropped anchor near the brig.</p> - -<p>I heeded them not, nor the bigger vessels beyond. I feared only the -arrival of a man-of-war, and the being boarded by her for men. In the -afternoon a fine ship-sloop passed through the Gulls heading west; I -watched her with the steadfast eye of a cat, dreading to behold her tall -breasts of topsails suddenly shiver to the wind, her loftier canvas -vanish, and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_397" id="page_397">{397}</a></span> anchor fall. She foamed onward, heeling a bright line -of copper off the Foreland, and vanished round that giant elbow of chalk -with her yards bracing up, and her bowlines tricing out for a “ratch” -down Channel.</p> - -<p>When the evening came along, the dusk was deep but clear. There was no -wet; the breeze was about south—a steady, warm wind—a six-knot breeze. -The scene of Downs was very dark; you would think it black by contrast -with the picture it makes by night in these times. Ships then showed no -riding lights. Here and there a lantern gleamed from the end of a -spritsail yard, from the extremity of a mizzen-boom. The Goodwin Sands -were lampless, save in the far north, where burnt the spark first -kindled by that worthy Quaker of North Shields, Henry Taylor. The lights -of the little town of Ramsgate glowed soft and faint upon the face of -the dark heap of cliff afar; the lights along Deal Beach twinkled -windily. It was a very proper night for our adventure—dark, and but -little sea, and wind enough.</p> - -<p>Shortly after six bells—eleven by the clock—I spied a shadow to -windward, drawing out of the south. The dusky phantom came along slowly, -as though she took a wary look at the several little craft she passed. -She shaped herself out upon the darkness presently—a large Deal lugger. -When she was under our stern she hailed. I, who had been impatiently -awaiting the arrival of this vessel, sprang on to the taffrail and sang -out:</p> - -<p>“What lugger’s that?”</p> - -<p>“The <i>Seamen’s Friend</i>,” was the reply.</p> - -<p>“Who is the man that answers?” I called.</p> - -<p>“Jarvie Files.”</p> - -<p>“Right y’are!” I cried.</p> - -<p>The lugger’s helm was put down, and she came alongside. One of my Whitby -men was on the forecastle, keeping what we term at sea an “anchor -watch.” I told him to remain forward.</p> - -<p>“There are men enough,” said I, “belonging to the lugger to answer my -turn.”</p> - -<p>The others and the Kanaka were in the forecastle asleep. Jimmy was awake -in the cabin, where the lamp was alight. Several figures came over the -side, and one of them, catching sight of me, said:</p> - -<p>“Are you Mr. Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“I am.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_398" id="page_398">{398}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I’m from Capt’n Round, sir. The coast’ll be clear, I allow; but we’ll -have to look sharp. Where’s the stuff?”</p> - -<p>“Follow me,” said I.</p> - -<p>This Jarvie Files, and, perhaps, five others—men heavily booted, with -great shawls round their necks and fur caps drawn down to their -eyebrows—tramped after me into the cabin. Lanterns were ready. I showed -them the hatch of the lazarette; and, in about half an hour’s time, they -had cleared out the last case, had stowed it in the lugger alongside, -and were hoisting their sail. Their dispatch was wonderful; but they -were of a race of men who had been disciplined into an exquisite agility -in the art of dishing the revenue by the barbarous severity of the laws -against smuggling in that age. I watched the big boat haul her sheet aft -and stand away with her head to the eastward. She blended quickly with -the obscurity and I lost her. I guessed she was feigning a “ratch” -toward the Ostend coast, to dodge any shore-going eye that may have -rested upon her, and that presently she would be shifting her helm for -Pegwell Bay, where carts waited to convey the silver to my uncle’s -house.</p> - -<p>I went into the cabin when I lost sight of her, lay down, and slept very -soundly and dreamt happily. I was too tired to rejoice; otherwise I -should have mixed a tumbler of spirits and lighted a pipe, and enjoyed -the luxury of a long contemplation of the successful issue of Tulp’s -expedition.</p> - -<p>I awoke in the gray of the dawn, and, going on deck, found promise of a -fine day. I searched the shore and beach, down in the bay and about the -river, with the brig’s telescope, but nothing showed that was to be -likened to the lugger of last night. After breakfast, the Whitby men -came aft and said they’d be glad to go ashore soon. They wanted to get -to Ramsgate, where they might find a coalman bound to their port. I -answered that I could not leave the brig until a caretaker arrived, and -that there was no use in their going ashore unless I went with them to -pay them off at my uncle’s. However, half an hour after this a punt, -with a big lug, put off from Deal Beach, and blew alongside with five -men in her, two of whom came on board and said that they had received -instructions from Captain Round to take charge of the vessel while she -lay at anchor.</p> - -<p>“All right,” said I, “you are the men I have been waiting for,” and I -told the Whitby fellows and the Kanaka to collect their traps and get -into the boat. I then took Jimmy into my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_399" id="page_399">{399}</a></span> cabin and gave him several -parcels of Greaves’ effects to convey to the punt. All that belonged to -Greaves I took; I cleared the cabin of nautical instruments, books, -chronometers, and the rest, and left nothing but dirt and dust for old -Tulp. I then got into the boat with Jimmy, and we headed for the beach.</p> - -<p>When Miss Aurora went ashore her gaze had been bent landward; she never -once turned to take a farewell look at the old brig that had saved her -life. I could not blame her. She had had enough of the little ship. For -my part, I could look at nothing else as we rowed to the beach. I had -not been out of the brig since I had landed on the island to get the -dollars out of the cave. For many long months had the <i>Black Watch</i> been -my home, the theater of the most dramatic of all the passages of my -life; she had earned me a fortune; she had rescued me from drowning; I -could not take a farewell look without affection and regret. She sat -very light, and in her faint rolls hove out a little show of grass; but -her copper was cleaner than I had supposed it. Her sides were worn and -rusty, her rigging slack, her masts grimy, her whole appearance that of -a vessel which had encountered and victoriously survived some very -fierce and frightful usage in distant seas. I kept my gaze fastened on -her till the keel of the punt drove on to the beach.</p> - -<p>The sailors and the Kanaka handed their chests over to the landlord of -an ale-house for safe keeping; I then gave each man, and drank myself, a -pint of beer, after which we trudged off toward my uncle’s house. We -talked merrily as we went; our hearts were filled with the delights of -the scenes and sights of the summer land; our salted nostrils swelled -large to the sweetness of the haystacks and the aromas of the little -farmyards and orchards we tramped past; no man would smoke, that he -might breathe purely.</p> - -<p>My uncle awaited us; my aunt gave me such a hug as the Prodigal Son -would have got from his mother had his father been out of sight. I asked -after Madam Aurora; she had driven to Deal that morning to shop, and, as -she had borrowed twenty pounds, her shopping might probably run into -some hours. It was one o’clock; a hearty meal had been prepared in the -kitchen for the men, and while they ate I dined with my uncle and aunt -off a roast leg of pork in the parlor adjacent, where we could hear the -fellows’ gruff voices and Jimmy’s bleating laugh. The chests had been -securely landed, Uncle<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_400" id="page_400">{400}</a></span> Joe told me, and safely housed in his cellar. -The silver made five loads. They asked me to tell the whole story of the -discovery of those dollars over again, and my aunt put many questions -about the Señorita Aurora, who, she declared, was the finest, most -elegant, and genteel lady she had ever seen in her life.</p> - -<p>When we and the men had dined, my uncle called them into the parlor and -took a receipt from each of them for three hundred and fifty dollars, -which he paid down in English gold. They thanked him for his -hospitality, begged their humble respects to the lady Aurora, wished me -many blessings, and with some hair-pulling and scrapes and bows got out -of the room and went their ways. I never saw or heard of those honest -fellows again, though I learnt that on this same day, after leaving us, -they and the Kanaka took a boat and sailed across to Ramsgate, where, no -doubt, they found a north-country collier bound to their parts.</p> - -<p>Jimmy had brought Captain Greaves’ belongings under his arm and on his -back, the others carrying a few of the parcels among them. My uncle and -I overhauled the poor fellow’s effects, and then sat down to talk over -his will, to write a letter to Mynheer Tulp, and to consider how we were -to convert what silver belonged to me and to Greaves into British -currency.</p> - -<p>“First of all, Bill,” said my uncle, “we’ll knock off a letter to Tulp -and send it away. Let him fetch his brig and his money; there’ll be more -daylight to see by when they’re out of the road.”</p> - -<p>So I took a sheet of paper and addressed a letter to Mynheer Bartholomew -Tulp at his house in Amsterdam, his residence being known to me through -perusal of Greaves’ papers. I stated that the brig <i>Black Watch</i> had -arrived in the Downs on the previous day, that her voyage had been -successful, that the cargo was housed ashore, and that Greaves had died -during the passage home; and I begged Mr. Tulp to lose not a moment in -visiting me at my uncle’s house, that he might receive what belonged to -him, for peril lurked in the protracted detention of the brig in the -Downs. When this letter was written I dispatched it to Sandwich by -Jimmy, that it might be transmitted without delay.</p> - -<p>“Tulp will take his dollars at his own risk,” said my uncle, blowing out -a cloud of smoke; “your own dollars and the silver belonging to -Greaves’ll have to be negotiated cautiously;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_401" id="page_401">{401}</a></span> it’s a lot of money to -deal with, and it mustn’t be handled in the lump. We’ll have to work by -degrees through the money changers; find out several of them in London, -and deal with ’em one arter the other at intervals. Then we may make it -worth the while of the smugglers, some of my own particular friends, to -relieve us of a chest or two. My son-in-law’ll take some; he’s often -trading Mediterranean way; but I’m afeared it won’t do, Bill, to trouble -the banks; we don’t want any questions to arise. How it might work out -as a matter of law I don’t know; safest to look upon these here dollars -as run goods and treat ’em accordingly.”</p> - -<p>I fully agreed with him, and it was settled that the money should be -exchanged in the manner he proposed. We then talked of Greaves’ will. -Indeed, we talked of many more things than I can recollect. Nothing, -however, could be done until Mynheer Tulp turned up. Every day I boarded -the brig and saw that all was right with the dear little ship; and I -remember once that while I stood with the lady Aurora and my uncle on -Deal Beach, viewing the vessel and recounting our experiences in her yet -again, it occurred to me to buy her, to re-equip her, put a good sailor -in command of her, and send her away to make a rich voyage for me. I -smiled when I had thus thought; it had been Miss Aurora’s notion, and -had she consented to marry me I daresay I should have bought the brig. -But I said to myself, “No”; the brig is not Tulp’s to sell; I must deal -with her owner, whose curiosity might prove inconveniently penetrating; -I have my money and I’ll keep it; and so I dismissed the <i>Black Watch</i> -as a venture out of my head.</p> - -<p>One day—I think it was about a week after I had written to Amsterdam—I -returned with my lady Aurora to my uncle’s house after a morning’s -stroll about Deal. I heard voices in the parlor; Miss Aurora went -upstairs.</p> - -<p>“Who is here?” said I to the old chap who opened the door.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tulp, from Amsterdam, sir,” he answered.</p> - -<p>On this I knocked upon the door and entered the parlor.</p> - -<p>Had I lived with Mynheer Tulp a month I could not have carried in my -head a more striking image of the man than my fancy had painted out of -Greaves’ brief description of him.</p> - -<p>He was a little, withered old fellow, a mere trifle of months, I -daresay, on this side seventy; nose long and hooked, face hollow and -yellow, eyes small, black, and down-looking, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_402" id="page_402">{402}</a></span> often a leary lift -of the lids sent a piercer at the person he talked to; he wore a wig, -and was dressed in the fashion of the close of last century. He was the -man I had dreamt of—the substance of the phantom I had beheld when I -looked at poor Greaves, and wondered whether his dollar-ship was a dream -or not.</p> - -<p>My uncle was red in the face and was talking loudly when I entered.</p> - -<p>“So! Und dis vhas Mr. Fielding?” said Mynheer Tulp standing up and -extending his hand. “Vell, I vhas glad to see you.”</p> - -<p>He uttered even this commonplace slowly and cautiously as though he -feared his tongue.</p> - -<p>“Now, Bill,” cried my uncle, “I want you to show Greaves’ bond to Mr. -Tulp; for he says you aren’t entitled to more than your wages—not even -to them as a matter of law, seeing you wasn’t shipped by him.”</p> - -<p>“I tink you vill find dot right,” said Mynheer Tulp.</p> - -<p>I carried Greaves’ bond, as well as his will, in my pocket; I placed the -bond or agreement upon the table, and Mynheer Tulp, picking it up, put -on a large pair of spectacles and read it through.</p> - -<p>“Dis vhas of no use,” said he.</p> - -<p>“We’ll see,” said my uncle.</p> - -<p>“Understand me, Mr. Fielding,” continued the little Dutchman. “I don’t -mean to say dot you have not acted very vell, und dot you vhas not -entitled to a handsome reward, vhich certainly you shall have; but vhen -you talk to me of dirty odd tousand dollars—six tousand pounds of -English money——” he grinned hideously and shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“What would you consider a handsome reward?” said I.</p> - -<p>“You vhas second mate. I learn from your uncle dot your life vhas safed -by my brig. Should I sharge you mit safing your life? No. But if I vhas -you I should consider der safing of my life as handsome a reward as I -had der right to expect for any services afterward performed. But mit -you, my good young man, I goes much further. You have navigated the brig -safely home mit my money, und I say help yourself, my boy, to five -hundred pounds of der dollars before I takes them.”</p> - -<p>“Before you takes ’em!” cried my uncle. “You’ll need every -line-of-battle ship that Holland possesses to enable you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_403" id="page_403">{403}</a></span> to catch even -a glimpse of the dollars afore all things are settled to my nephew -Bill’s satisfaction.”</p> - -<p>“Vhat vhas your name again, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Captain Joseph Round.”</p> - -<p>“You hov der looks of an honest man, Captain Round. You vould not rob -me?”</p> - -<p>“Not a ha-penny leaves this house,” said my uncle, “until Bill here has -taken his share according to your skipper’s bond, and until he’s -deducted the money that the captain has left by will, lawfully signed -and witnessed.”</p> - -<p>“I likes to see dot vill,” said Mynheer Tulp, speaking always very -composedly, and occasionally snapping a look under his eyelids at one or -the other of us.</p> - -<p>I put the will on the table. He picked it up and read it. When he had -read it he again grinned hideously, and said:</p> - -<p>“Your name vhas Villiam Fielding?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Und you benefit under dis vill to der amount of von tousand pounds?”</p> - -<p>“Yaw,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Und you vitness der vill dot vhas to benefit you? Shentlemen, it vhas -not vorth the paper it vhas wrote on;” and he threw the will upon the -table.</p> - -<p>“It matters not one jot,” said I, who, as I had never attached the least -significance to the legality of this sailor-made will, was in no wise -astonished, because I reckoned old Tulp perfectly right. “About -forty-two thousand pounds’ worth of the thirteen tons of dollars I have -brought home for you at the risk of my life I keep, Mynheer. D’ye -understand me? I <i>keep</i>, I say,” and I repeated the sentence thrice, -while I approached him by a couple of strides. “Seven thousand are mine; -the rest will go to the erection of a church.”</p> - -<p>“Der money,” said Mynheer Tulp without irritation, though his yellow -complexion was a shade paler than it had been a little while before, -“vhas left to der Church of Englandt?”</p> - -<p>“You have read it,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Now, shentlemen,” continued the little Dutchman, “dere vhas a Church of -Englandt, certainly; but dere vhas no Church of Englandt dot a man can -leaf money to.”</p> - -<p>“You know a sight too much,” shouted my uncle. “The money’s in my -cellar, and there it stops till you settle.”</p> - -<p>“Der Church of Englandt,” said Mynheer Tulp, “vhas a single body dot has -no property. You cannot leaf money to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_404" id="page_404">{404}</a></span> der Church of Englandt. Dot alone -makes my poor stepson’s vill nooll und void.”</p> - -<p>“The money remains where it is——” began my uncle.</p> - -<p>“Do you allow,” I interrupted, “that Captain Greaves has a right to his -share?”</p> - -<p>“Do I allow it? Do I allow it?”</p> - -<p>“You allow it. He could, therefore, do what he likes with his share?”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas right.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know that he wished a church to be built as a memorial to his -mother, who was your wife, I believe?”</p> - -<p>“Dot vhas very beautiful. But he vhas dead, und dot vill vhas not vorth -the ink it took to write out. I vhas next of kin, und I takes my poor -stepson’s share.”</p> - -<p>When he had said this, my uncle and I spoke together; and from this -moment began an altercation which I should need a volume to embody. Tulp -lost his temper; my uncle roared at him; I, too, being furious with the -meanness of the wretched little beast, often found myself bawling as -though I were in a gale of wind. Tulp’s threats flew fast and furious. -Uncle Joe snapped his fingers under his long nose, and defied him in a -voice hoarse and failing with exertion. I began to see the idleness and -the absurdity of all this, and, throwing open the parlor door, I -exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tulp, get you back to Amsterdam, and there sit and reflect. When -you come into our way of thinking, write; and then fetch your money. Go -to law, if you please. The Spanish consignees of the dollars will thank -you.”</p> - -<p>The perspiration poured from the little man’s face, and he trembled -violently. His yellow complexion under the pressure of his temper, which -often forced his voice into a shriek, had changed into several dyes of -green and sulphur, like that of one in a fit. He stared wildly about him -in search of his strange little hat, which, however, he forgot he had -already snatched up and was holding.</p> - -<p>“You’ll have to bear a hand with your decision,” cried my uncle, whose -face looked almost as queer as Tulp’s, with its purple skin and blue -lips; “they’re beginning to ask questions about the brig, and if you -don’t send for her soon she’ll be <i>going a-missing</i>. You know what I -mean. The Goodn’s are handy, and my nephew aint going to forfeit his -rightful share of the dollars because of <i>her</i>. The recovery of this -silver is to be more than a salvage job to Bill. There’s nigh upon -forty<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_405" id="page_405">{405}</a></span> thousand pounds belonging to you a-lying in my cellars, but if ye -aren’t quick in fetching it something may happen to oblige me to send -all them chests out of my house, and then it’ll be no business of mine -to larn what’s become of ’em.”</p> - -<p>The little Dutchman, now perceiving that he held his hat, clapped it on -his head and ran out of the room.</p> - -<p>We heard no more of him that day; though next morning the old -longshoreman who waited upon my uncle said that he had seen the little -man pass the house, pause, walk up and down irresolutely, then hurry -away in the direction of Sandwich. As I could not get to hear of him at -Deal I guessed he lurked in Sandwich, and caused Jimmy to make -inquiries, which resulted in the discovery that Mynheer Tulp was -stopping at the Fleur de Lys Hotel. Three days after he had visited my -uncle he wrote to offer me half a ton of the silver, worth something -over three thousand pounds, on condition that my uncle peaceably -surrendered the rest of the money to him, and assisted him to convey it -to Amsterdam. I answered this by repeating my uncle’s threat, that if -very shortly he did not agree to my terms the silver would be removed, -my uncle would have no knowledge of its whereabouts, and I myself would -go abroad.</p> - -<p>On the morning following the dispatch of this missive, Miss Aurora -received a letter; she read it and uttered a loud shriek, fell off her -chair at the breakfast table round which we were seated, and lay upon -the floor in a dead swoon. We thought she had died, and our fright was -extreme. We picked her up and placed her upon a sofa, and went to work -to recover her. Presently her sighs and moans satisfied us that she was -not dead. I glanced at the letter she had received; it was in Spanish. I -took the liberty of looking a little closely; it was signed by the -Señora de la Cueva.</p> - -<p>“She has heard from her mother!” I cried.</p> - -<p>She rallied presently, and then followed a scene scarcely less exciting -in its way than the shindy that had attended the visit of Mynheer Tulp. -Miss Aurora read the letter aloud; and as she read she wept, then burst -into fits of laughter, sprang about the room, sat again, continued to -read, interrupting herself often by clasping her hands, lifting them to -the ceiling, raising her streaming eyes, and thanking the Holy Mother of -God for this act of mercy in utterance so impassioned that the like of -it was never heard on the stage.</p> - -<p>My homely uncle, my yet homelier aunt looked on, scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_406" id="page_406">{406}</a></span> knowing -whether to shed tears or to laugh. I was very used to her ladyship’s -performances, but there was something in this exhibition of ecstasy that -went far beyond anything I had ever beheld in her.</p> - -<p>“I rejoice indeed to learn that the señora is safe,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is a miracle! a miracle!” she cried; and then she wept and -laughed and carried on as before, reading aloud in Spanish, and lifting -up her eyes in gratitude to the Blessed Virgin.</p> - -<p>At last she calmed down, and we conversed without the interruption of -emotional outbreaks. Her mother gave no particulars of her deliverance. -Mr. Maxwell had received Aurora’s letter; he was ill in his bed, -therefore she, the señora, had made her way to London—choosing that -port instead of Falmouth, because of the situation of Deal—intending to -proceed to Sandwich. But her infirmities had overwhelmed her; the -fatigue of the journey had been so great that she was unable to leave -her room in London. Her daughter must come to her, and without an -instant’s delay.</p> - -<p>Within three hours of the receipt of this letter my uncle drove the lady -Aurora and me over to Deal, where we saw her safely into the London -coach. She had said many kind things to me as we drove to Deal, had -taken my hand and pressed it while she thanked me for—but what does it -matter how and for what this young lady thanked me? She tried to exact -many promises; I made none. Before she stepped into the coach she seized -my hand, looked at me hard, and her fine eyes swam. Nothing was said; -she took her seat; I and my uncle stood apart waiting while the coachman -gathered his reins and prepared for the start. The horses’ heads were -then let go, I raised my hat, the coach drove off, and I saw no more of -the Señorita Aurora de la Cueva. I say I saw no more of her; in truth, -though I once again heard of her, I never received a single line from -her. And possibly I should never have heard of her again but for her -sending from Madrid a draft for the money she had borrowed from Uncle -Joe. She warmly and gracefully thanked Captain and Mrs. Round for their -hospitality, begged them to remember her most gratefully to her valued -and valiant friend, their nephew, and then, so far as I was concerned, -the curtain fell upon her forever.</p> - -<p>Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp lurked through a long week at Sandwich. In that -week he sent me four letters and each<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_407" id="page_407">{407}</a></span> letter contained a fresh -proposal. I sent a single reply: that every proposal must be hugely -preposterous unless it went on all-fours with Greaves’ will and the -agreement with me. He was seen on several occasions in the neighborhood -of the house; once Jimmy perceived him looking in at the gate, and -supposed that he meant to call; but the little man made off on finding -himself observed.</p> - -<p>At last, at the expiration of nine or ten days—and this brought us to a -Monday—I received a letter from Mynheer Tulp. We were at dinner at the -time; my uncle cried out:</p> - -<p>“What does he say, Bill? Willing, perhaps, to spring another hundred -pound?”</p> - -<p>I read the letter aloud; it was well expressed, in good English. Mynheer -said he had thought the matter over, and was prepared to settle with me -on my own terms. He admitted that I had a right to the share which Van -Laar would have received; that Greaves’ signature to the will indicated -his wishes as to the disposal of his money, which, of course, he would -have received as his share of the venture, had he lived. Would I permit -him to call upon me?</p> - -<p>I immediately dispatched Jimmy with an answer, and in half an hour’s -time the little Dutchman was seated in my uncle’s parlor. He was -submissive and, in his way, very apologetic. Yet, though he had come to -confirm the terms of his own letter to me, midnight was striking before -every point was settled. His rapacity was shark-like. It cost my uncle -and me above an hour to make the little man agree to call the value of -the dollar four shillings. He disputed long and shrilly over a small -share that I claimed for the honest lad Jimmy. He opposed the repayment -of the wages of the Whitby men and the Kanaka out of the common stock, -as though he believed that my uncle would bear that charge! He was -nearly leaving the house on the question of the sum due to Jarvie Files -and his men for “running” the dollars. He insisted that my money and -Greaves’ should bear a proportion of the loss of the three tons of -silver stolen by Yan Bol and his crew. He grew furious when my uncle -insisted upon charging him for storage and risk, and thrice in <i>that</i> -discussion arose to go.</p> - -<p>But by midnight, as I have said, all was settled. He now asked leave to -live in the house until he could remove his money to the brig, in which -he proposed to sail to Amsterdam, taking with him for a crew the men of -the <i>Seamen’s Friend</i>. My uncle told him he would be welcome, giving me -at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_408" id="page_408">{408}</a></span> same time a wink of deep disgust at the motive of the old chap’s -request. It took us several days to count the dollars, and all the while -little Bartholomew Tulp sat looking on. What was left as his share, -after deductions, I never heard; it came, I believe, near to fifty -thousand pounds. When the division was made he went on board the brig; -Jarvie Files and his men carried his chests to the <i>Black Watch</i> in the -dead of night, and when, next morning, I went down to the beach to look -for the now familiar figure of the brig riding to her two anchors, her -place was empty.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>This, then, is the story of Greaves’ discovery, and of the part I played -in it. Of Yan Bol and his men I heard nothing for eighteen months; I -then got a letter from Captain Horsley, dated at Whitby. He had touched -at Amsterdam Island, found no signs of Yan Bol and his party, then dug -in the place I had indicated without finding the silver. There was no -look of the earth having been turned up in that place. A gale of wind -blew him off the island; then, a fortnight later, he spoke a ship bound -to Sydney, New South Wales, and learnt from her that she had picked up a -party of seamen sixty leagues eastward of Amsterdam Island; they were -six men, three of them in a dying condition for want of water. He had no -doubt, and neither had nor have I, that they were Yan Bol and his mates; -but what had the wretches done with the three tons of dollars?</p> - -<p>Did I, when we had exchanged the large sum of dollars into English -money, did I procure the erection and endowment of a church in -accordance with the wishes of Michael Greaves? I answer yes; most -piously and anxiously did I fulfill my friend’s dying wish. Will I tell -you the name of the church, and where it is situated? No; I have -worshiped in it, but I will not tell you its name and where it is -situated, because this book is a confession, and I am informed that if -the descendants or inheritors of the Spanish consignees, or the owners -of the dollars, learnt that a church had been built out of the money, -they could and might advance a claim that would give all concerned in -that church on this side great trouble.</p> - -<p>One little memorial I erected at my own expense; it long stood in the -garden of the house in which I dwelt for many years; need I tell you -that it was a memorial to my well-beloved, faithful, deeply-mourned -Galloon?</p> - -<hr class="full" /> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIST, YE LANDSMEN! ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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