CHAPTER XXII
THE MEETING
Now, owing to the way in which Priscilla kept her cabin when not absolutely driven on deck by the foulness of the air below, she was, strange as it must appear, quite ignorant of what was going on above her. Had the steward not been exceedingly busy upon some domestic task, he would, poor little man, have gladly carried her the news. But so it was, the boat’s crew had been rescued, the boat hoisted inboard, and things had all resumed their normal course without her being any the wiser. And yet somehow she felt a lightening of the heart. She felt sure, in spite of the coarse and brutal way in which her husband had received her vision, that he had done, or would do, what she had asked him—she had no anxiety upon that head at all. But then she was never anxious now. She had cultivated unintentionally the serene detachment of mind of those Indian devotees who, by dint of long meditation and abstinence from all but the barest necessities in the way of food and sleep, have attained unto a condition of mind that is favourable to the detachment of body from soul without the catastrophe of death. Of its psychology I know nothing, but I do feel that, given sufficient will power, the human brain may be capable of some wonderful power of sending thought waves out into the unseen. It does not matter, anyhow, since I only wish to record the trance condition in which Priscilla seemed now to spend most of hertime.
But in some mysterious way she was subconsciously easier in her mind, and that although she knew absolutely nothing about what was going on. Also her husband seemed, for some reason or another, to be anxious that she should not know. Perhaps he was ashamed, or whatever kindred feeling to shame he might be capable of, to let her know that he had, after all, obeyed her words and found that she had been absolutely correct. Truth to tell, he was immensely impressed, and something very like fear of his wife was slowly getting the mastery over him. Thus days went by as theGrampusdrew steadily towards the great East Indian Archipelago, and the rescued ones grew steadily well by dint of careful letting alone and the help of their previous clean lives. Then there came a day when Captain Da Silva took it upon him to have the apparent head man of the boat’s crew he had saved brought aft to him, and the following colloquy ensued. (It must be borne in mind that the rescued men’s voices had only just returned to them.)
The Captain: ‘Wall, wut ship d’ ye b’long to?’ The Officer: ‘Xiphias, sir, of New Bedford.’ A grunt from the skipper and a short interval of silence. Then the skipper spoke again, after carefully rolling his cigar between his lips, as if to extract the last grain of nicotine out of it. ‘’N’ wut wuz ye doin’ t’ git lost? Sounds funny, grown men like you air gittin’ lost.’ The scorn and contempt and utter brutality of his manner passed all description. ‘Wall, sir,’ replied the mate faintly, ‘the circumstances wuz peculiar. We left the ship in chase of a whalejust before a hurricane kem on, an’ I hung on t’ the whale mebbe a bit too long, so ’t we got outer sight o’ the ship. ’N’ then we’d all we knew t’ keep in shelter ov th’ carcass till thet awful weather wuz over. ’N’ by thet time th’ whale wuz so blown up we couldn’t stand his stink any longer, an’ we cut away from him an’ put fur th’ Seychelles as near as I could judge. But there wuz only th’ lantern keg of bread an’ th’ ushal water, an’ thet’s all we’ve a-had fur twelve days. If th’ boys hadn’t been th’ very best we sh’d all a-ben mad long ago.’ Another spell of silence, broken at last by the skipper saying: ‘S’pose you don’ reckon on ever seeing yewr ship agen, hey? Le’s see, old man Hampden got her, er had her, I think. Ef so, they ain’t ’nough of her left by this time t’ repair a whaleboat with. He was a soft-hearted old greenie, anyhow, kinder pious, I seem to remember, ’n’ didn’t know his nose fr’m the jibboom end.’ ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the mate suddenly, with some energy, ’thet kain’t be eour Capt’n Hampden. I ben fishin’ fur two-an’-twenty year, and he wuz the smartest skipper at anything a skipper ought to do ’at ever I gammed.’ ‘Oh, shet yer big mouth, yew wouldn’t know a smart man w’en yew see him. It’s the same man right enough. I knew him very well, an’ wouldn’t ha’ carried him fur ballast in my ship. But I ain’t got no time t’ be yarnin’ with yew, ner inclination either if yer come to thet. I’m jest figgerin’ eout wut t’ dew with ye. I want a few han’s, an’ although yew ain’t th’ kind I’d have if I c’d choose, y’r better than none, I s’pose, an’ so I’ll ship th’ five of yew ’n’ give ye th’ 250th lay, same’s th’ rest of th’ men ’r gettin’.’ ‘But, Captain,’ replied the now thoroughly alarmed man,‘I wuz mate of theXiphias—I ben mate fur th’ las’ ten years, ’n’ yew kain’t mean t’ take such a slice of my life as to ship me here fur a three years’ cruise on a seaman’s lay. In th’ name ov common humanity, sir, yew kain’t mean it.’ And the big drops of sweat started out of the poor fellow’s face. ‘Kain’t I!’ sneered the skipper. ‘Jest yew say yew don’ know, and yew’ll be more ’n half right. I k’n an’ dew mean just that thing. Yew’ll take my offer, yew an’ the rest ov th’ great babies ’at come with ye, ’r if ye don’t yew’ll wish yew’d been left to rot in thet boat. ’N’ mine yew, not a word outa yewr heads, ’r ye’ll fine me t’ deal with, ’n I’ll try an’ teach ye wut a smart cap’n is.’
Poor Mr. Pease! No braver man ever stepped, but he was weak and trembling from exhaustion. A strong desire to live had returned to him, and, moreover, he was overborne by the fierceness of the terrible man with whom he was confronted, and he dimly remembered some of the terrible stories current about him—of the dark deeds done by him in the secret places of the sea, and up till now with impunity, because of his phenomenal success as a whale-fisher. When will people in business learn that it is a crime against man and God to condone, yes, connive at abominable wickedness in those they have set over their employees, because, forsooth, they are ‘smart men’? When will people learn to brand a man as a demon, whatever his place in society or the Church or in business, who, in his villainous methods of getting rich, brings woe and death unto thousands of homes? When will ministers of the Gospel dare to say to such men bringing their vilely acquiredwealth and pouring it into the coffers of the Church, ‘Thy money perish with thee!’
So with this terror upon him, Mr. Pease signed the articles, and his crew followed suit, becoming by that act the slaves of the skipper for the next three years unless some heaven-sent happening should release them. And immediately, though they were yet so exhausted, they were set to such work as they could do—making sinnet, scraping, and mat-weaving. Well was it for them that no whales were sighted, or assuredly they would have been called upon to take their places in the various boats, under which severe treatment they would probably have died.
It may perhaps be thought strange that as yet no allusion has been made to the strange fact of Reuben and Priscilla being on board the same ship at last. But really, as far as these two principal actors in our story are concerned, it did not seem possible that anything should come of it, the circumstances being so peculiar. As repeatedly observed, Priscilla came on deck but little, for she could not bear the jealous watchfulness with which her husband followed her every movement. And in the fo’c’sle, or, indeed, out of it, such was the terror under which all hands lived, not merely of the skipper, but of his Portuguese allies, that any conversation concerning the skipper was tacitly banned. No word ever passed between the white men about him or his affairs. The Portuguese may have discussed him freely, but as it was in their own tongue, no one but themselves was any the wiser. Thus it came to pass that Reuben was on board the ship a month before he so much as knew that the Captain had his wife with him, whichis all the more noteworthy from the fact that in small vessels like theGrampusit is the rule that the Captain cannot sneeze in the solitude of his state-room without it being known and commented upon all over the ship in an hour. Poor fellows, they have so little to talk about. But whalers generally needed to be exempt from this law. Their discipline was much too strict for it to run even in the best of them, while in theGrampus, as we have seen, it was in the highest degree dangerous to mention the Captain’s name at all.
The ship had passed through the Straits of Sunda into the Java Sea, and was one night, under the skilful pilotage of the skipper, working her darkling way westward along the south coast of Borneo. There was but little wind, except occasionally when a passing squall gave a heavier puff than usual, causing the staunch and well-balanced ship to heel like a yacht. Terrific peals of thunder and blazing flashes of lightning followed one another in quick succession, for the heat of the day was being healthfully dispersed over the sea from the land, although in a somewhat terrifying manner. Rube was at the wheel, his great figure erect and head slightly turned aside to listen for the skipper’s slightest word, while keeping one eye fixed upon the faithful little face of the compass suspended inside the skylight. Suddenly there was an awful crash of thunder as if a Himalayan Range were tumbling to pieces, a short breathless hush, and with a hiss as of escaping steam, sky and sea were flooded with violet flame. As Rube raised his arm instinctively to shield his face he saw by that brief blaze a woman facing him within a few feet. For that vividinstant the two faces were revealed, then utter blackness succeeded. Through Priscilla rushed a spasm of fear. Who was this huge bearded stranger, and whence had he come? More, why did the sight of him put her poor deadened mind into such a ferment as the optic nerves experience when after long darkness the eyes are suddenly exposed to the glare of day? As she groped her way below these things flitted across her brain, but never for one moment did she imagine why or how, and soon, very soon, she resumed her listless introspective attitude again. She had only crept up with some message to her husband of trivial import, and soon the whole incident receded to the background of her mind.
As for Reuben, for one moment he thought he had been struck by lightning, and with the stroke had come a vision of an angel, a sorrowful angel outlined in living light. But the shock, great though it was, did not suffice to unlock that closed door of memory, only to let a few broken gleams of illumination through, tantalising, almost maddening in their incompleteness. He soon recovered, and when relieved from the wheel at eight bells, sought one of the American portion of the old crew and whispered, ‘Is they a woman aboard this ship?’ ‘Hush, for Heaven’s sake. If the skipper gits to know you’ve asked such a question, or I’ve answered it, he’ll trice us up an’ flog us, sure’s death. An’ ye kain’t breathe here without somebody listening. Yes.’ ‘Thanks,’ replied Rube; and straightway going to his bunk he lifted up his heart in fervent though silent prayer for the owner of that sweet pale face. In doing this he but obeyed an irresistible impulse, since heknew not at all of Priscilla’s suffering, and, indeed, even before the accident which shut him off from the past, had always thought of her as being full of happiness with her husband. Now, however, knowing no more of who Priscilla was than of a person he had never seen or heard of, he was full of a mysterious compassion for her, and felt that he would gladly have laid down his life to serve her.
The crew of theGrampusnever ate any idle bread, but now they were indeed having a time of travail. For Captain Da Silva was making a passage to the Japan grounds, being mightily wroth because of the ill-success which had attended him lately. The wonderful good fortune enjoyed by him previously had been relegated to the limbo of forgotten things. He felt no joy in it now, looked upon it as only a bare reward for his phenomenal ability and smartness, of which no man was more fully conscious than himself. So he harassed his crew by night and by day, making, trimming, furling, sail; so that no breath of wind should be wasted, and when, as occasionally happened, a dead calm befell, getting all the boats out and setting their crews to tow the vessel along with their oars. It was a fearful ordeal in that climate, and some of the crew were only kept at it by sheer dread of the skipper. They feared him more than sunstroke or death by sheer exhaustion. It was this state of things which brought about a collision between him and Reuben. The latter stalwart recruit being always so willing and apparently eager to work, had hitherto escaped even the usual opprobrious epithets with which most of the crew, except the Portuguese, were favoured. Butbecause no occasion of fault could be found in him he was jealously watched by the skipper’s cronies, and, as it was bound to do sooner or later, the longed-for opportunity came. The boats had just returned to the ship, after a four hours’ tow in the afternoon sun, because a little breeze had sprung up and relieved them. The boat in which Reuben pulled midship oar had just come alongside, and Mr. Pease, who had been pulling tub-oar (next to Rube) had fainted, overcome by heat and exhaustion. Unfortunately, just then the skipper looked over the side, and taking in the position of things with one glance of his flashing eyes, shouted with an awful Portuguese oath, ‘Start that lazy Yankee brute there, Pedro! Hit him, hit him with anything!’ Pedro, not at all unwillingly, seized a bight of the towline, and was just about to deal the unconscious man a tremendous blow, when Rube, calmly turning round, seized the descending arm, and with his other hand quietly wrenched the rope from the harpooner’s fingers. The maddened Portuguese snatched his knife from his belt at the moment of his release, and with his skipper’s yell of ‘Kill him, kill him!’ piercing his ears, made one frantic stab at Rube. But as calmly as he had caught the rope-wielding wrist, so now he caught the murderous one, and with a quick twist made Pedro drop his knife into the sea. A yell of pain escaped the Portuguese as his wrist cracked, and Rube, releasing him, said quietly, ‘Sorry t’ hurt ye, shipmate, but ye mustn’t kill, y’ know.’ By this time the skipper had recovered from the speechlessness of rage into which he had been thrown by Rube’s action, and shouted, ‘On deck with ye, ondeck!’ All obeyed but the man who had fainted: he was beyond obedience. As Rube stepped over the rail the skipper met him with a blow of a heavy bludgeon of oak that might have felled an ox. Right across the head and face it came, and the splendid fellow dropped senseless and bleeding at his master’s feet. Stooping, the latter dragged the unconscious body to the middle of the deck, and sang out, ‘Up waist boat.’ But the white men stood irresolute for one moment as if inclined to resent the vileness of this last assault. That moment was fatal. For without a sign made every Portuguese in the ship had ranged himself by the skipper, and in their hands gleamed revolver barrels. Howling out the order again, the unled whites seized the falls and ran the boat up on to her cranes. One of the Portuguese asked if the man was to be lifted out of the boat, but the skipper turned upon him with an oath so fierce that he shrank back, regretting that he had spoken.
No one dared suggest aid to Rube, and so, with the knowledge that again he had fully asserted his superiority over the white man, Captain Da Silva went quite happy to his supper. And sitting there with his wife, he could not forbear saying exultantly: ‘Nice crowd o’ hogs these countrymen o’ yours are. I d’ ’no’ wut I wuz fool ’nough t’ take any of ’em aboard here for at all. Some of ’em kem aboard through yew, anyhow—one ’specially I remember just now. I’m goin’ t’ give myself th’ pleasure of floggin’ him to-morrow, if he ain’t dead, and yew shall be a witness to see it’s all done legally, y’ know.’ And he winked hideously at her. She, poor thing, sat as usual silent and white, hardly realising the horror of the whole thing.And her misery of mind and body was only slightly increased when, as a sort of praise-meeting to whatever devil they felt protected by, the skipper invited the Portuguese harpooners below to a drinking bout, first locking Priscilla into her room. The baffled Pedro was there with his arm in a sling, looking a veritable fiend. ‘Never mind,’ said the skipper in Portuguese, ‘yew shall have the flogging of that big Yankee beast if he lives. What do you think of that?’ Pedro muttered some inarticulate profanity and took another drink. He did not mind much what was done as long as he ‘got even,’ as he termed it. And now it is time to draw a veil over that bestial scene, worthy of the worst days of the pirates, and especially those Portuguese pirates who sailed the China Seas commanding gangs composed of all the scum of the Far East and outdoing them all in cruelty.
On deck a stealthy figure had crept forward to where Rube lay, with a mat to put under his head and a little water to moisten his parched lips. It was the poor darky steward, who had been shut out of the cabin while the drinking was going on, and who thus, for pity’s sake, risked undergoing the same treatment. Not that it would have been much novelty, for there was scarcely an inch of the poor wretch’s body which had not its scar. And at last men get used to such treatment (some men, that is) and take it as a matter of course. It is pleasant to record that this poor samaritan was enabled to carry out his beneficent little ministration unseen, save by Mr. Court, who still kept his watch, although in a dogged sullen way that was intensely painful to see, but which, strange to say, did not seem to detract from his efficiency. But,as he said to himself very often in the solitudes wherein his soul roamed during the night watches, was there ever an officer so treated? He did not know, from his favourable position heretofore in American ships, that many hundred British mercantile officers have had to endure treatment even worse than his, because they have been, as well as kept at arm’s length by the skipper and made to feel that they were of less account than anybody on board, openly and constantly reviled before all the crew, and then expected to maintain discipline. Happily, with the morning came, instead of the shameful exhibition purposed by the skipper, a diversion welcomed by all hands, except Rube, who, but for his stertorous breathing, appeared to be dead. It was the raising of a ‘pod’ of cow whales at daylight, with a brisk breeze and everything in favour of a splendid day’s hunting. Rube was dragged aft out of the way. Pedro, whose wrist was so badly strained that he could not lift a harpoon with it, grumblingly took up his station aloft for signalling purposes, and in ten minutes from the time of sighting the whales five boats were away, the skipper leading as usual. This, however, was to be an exception to the usual celerity of capture shown by theGrampus’screw. In the first place, the whales were going so fast that it seemed for a long while as if the chase must be fruitless; and then, when at last the boats did rush in among them, their movements were so marvellously agile that the danger was very great. Theskipper as usual seemed ubiquitous, compelling the admiration of all by the way he manipulated his boat. He had alreadykilled his whale when he saw that Mr. Court wasexceedingly hampered by the movements of a loose cow, which behaved as if she understood exactly how best to frustrate all the deadly intentions of the enemy of her companion. Without a moment’s hesitation the skipper cut loose from his whale, shouted to his men, and tore off to help the mate, leaping like a flying fish from one boat to the other as they flew swiftly in opposite directions. Snatching the lance from the hand of the amazed officer, he had just dealt a tremendous blow at the fast whale with it, when, as the boat lay off, the loose whale rose spectrally between, on her back, with her jaws agape. Swiftly turning, those great jaws closed, catching the skipper’s arm, with which he was poising his newly straightened lance again, and dragging him headlong out of the boat. Paralysed with horror, the mate stood for a moment, then stooped and caught the skipper as he came bounding to the surface almost at the spot where he went overboard. But in doing so Mr. Court overbalanced himself, and he and the skipper, interlocked in each other’s arms, went down again. The harpooner, a wonderfully smart black Portuguese, immediately cut the line, allowing the whale to run, and after a minute or two’s manœuvring, succeeded in bringing the mate and skipper to the surface and into the boat, the latter almost dead.
THE LOOSE WHALE ROSE SPECTRALLY BETWEEN, ON HER BACK, WITH HER JAWS AGAPE.P. 295.
THE LOOSE WHALE ROSE SPECTRALLY BETWEEN, ON HER BACK, WITH HER JAWS AGAPE.P. 295.
THE LOOSE WHALE ROSE SPECTRALLY BETWEEN, ON HER BACK, WITH HER JAWS AGAPE.
P. 295.
The best haste possible was made to the ship, and the skipper was carefully lifted on board, laid on the deck aft, and his clothes cut off as the only way of uncovering his wounded arm and side. All the time the examination took place he was unconscious, so the mate was able to dress the extensive lacerations, set two broken ribs and the mangled arm, and make him fairly comfortable before he came to.Then with very great care he was lowered through the cabin skylight and laid upon the settee in his berth. Here he was left to the care of his wife, while the mate returned to his arduous duties on deck. It is pleasant to record that his first care was to see some adequate attention given to the case of Rube, who was moaning and tossing ceaselessly in the throes of brain fever.