"Of course, sir," answered I, letting my voice fall; "and the long and the short of it is, Mr Finch, the sooner you get your ship out of this current the better! And what's more, sir, I daresay I could tell youhow!" Whether he was waiting for what I'd to say, or thinking of something just occurred to him, but Finch still gazed steadily at me, without saying a word; so I went on. "You must know I had an old uncle who was long in his Majesty's royal navy, and if there was one point he was crazy upon, 'twas just this very matter of currents—though, for my part, Mr Finch, I really never understood what he meant till I made a voyage. He used to tell my mother, poor woman,—who always fancied they had somewhat to do with puddings,—that he'd seen no less than half-a-dozen ships go on shore, owing to currents. Now, Jane, he'd say, when you're fairly in a current, never you try to cross out of it, as folks often do,againstthe run of it, for in that case, unless the wind's strong enough, why, instead of striking the eddy to take your craft right off-shore, it'll just set you over and over to theinside. You'll cross, in the end, no doubt—but ten to one it's exactly where the water begins to shoal; whereas, the right plan's as simple as daylight, and that's why so few know it! Look ye, he'd say, always you crosswiththe stream—no matter though your head seems to make landward; why, the fact is, it'll just set you outside of itself, clear into its own bight, when you can run off to seaward with the eddy, if ye choose.That'sthe way to cross a current, my uncle used to say, provided you've but a light wind for handling her with! Now, Mr Finch," added I, coolly, and still mouthing my stick as before—for I couldn't help wishing to give the conceited fellow a rub, while I lent him a hint—"for my own part, I can't know much of these things, but itdoesseem to me as if my uncle's notions pretty well suited the case in hand!"Finch was too much of a fair seaman not to catch my drift at once, but in too great a passion to own it at the time. "D'ye think, sir," said he, with a face like fire, "so much sense as there is in this long rigmarole of yours, that I'm such a—that's to say, that I didn't know it before, sir? But what I've got to do withyou, Mr Collinson, or whatever your name may be—you may have been at sea twenty years, for aught I care—but I'd like to knowwhyyou come aboard here, and give yourself out for as raw a greenhorn as ever touched ropes with a kid glove?" "Well, Mr Finch," said I, "and what's that to you, if I choose to be as green as the North Sea whaling-ground?" "Why, sir," said Finch, working himself up, "you're devilish cunning, no doubt, but perhaps you're not aware that a passenger under a false rig, in an Indiaman, may be clapped in limbo, if the captain thinks fit? Who and what are you, I ask?—some runaway master's mate, I suppose, unless you've got something deeper in hand! Perhaps," ended he, with a sneer, "a pickpocket in disguise?" "Sir," said I, getting up off the bulwark I'd been leaning upon, "atpresentI choose to be a cadet, but, at any rate, you shall make an apology for what you said just now, sir!" "Apology!" said the mate, turning on his heel, "I shan't do anything of the sort! You may be thankful, in the mean time, if I don't have you locked up below, that's all! Perhaps, by the bye, sir, all you wanted was to show off your seamanship before the young lady in the round-house there?" Here the glance the fellow gave me was enough to show he knew pretty well, all the while, what we were matched against each other for.
I could stand this no longer, of course; but, seeing that one or two of the passengers were noticing us from the poop, I looked as polite as possible to do when you've lost your temper; and, in fact, the whole disappointment of this hair-brained cruise of mine—not to speak of a few things one had to stand—carried me away at the moment. There was no scheme I wouldn't rather have been suspected of, by this time, than the real one—namely, having gone in chase of Violet Hyde. I took a card out of my pocket, and handed it quietly to Mr Finch. "You don't seem able to name me, sir," said I: "however, I give you my word, you may trust that bit of pasteboard for it; and as I take you to be a gentleman by your place in this ship, why, I shall expect the satisfaction one gentleman should give another, the first time we get ashore, although itshouldbe to-morrow morning!" And by Jove! thought I, I hope I'm done with the cursedest foolish trick ever a fellow played himself! The man that ventures to call megreenagain, or look at me as if he wanted to cool his eyes, hang me if he shan't answer for it! As for a woman, thought I—but oh, those two blue eyes yonder—confound it! as I caught sight of a white muslin skirt in the shade of the poop-awning above. I must say, for Finch, he took my last move coolly enough, turning round to give me another look, after glancing at the card. "Indeed!" said he, as if rather surprised; "well, sir, I'm your man forthat, though it can't be just so soon as to-morrow morning! A Company's officer may meet a lieutenant in the navy any time—ay, and take his ship of the land too, I hope, sir!" and with that he walked of forward. Lieutenant! said I to myself; how did he give me my commission so pat, I wonder? and I pulled out another card, when I found, to my great annoyance, that, in my hurry that morning, I had happened to put on a coat of Westwood's by mistake, and, instead of plain "Mr Collins," they were all "Lieutenant Westwood, R.N." Here's another confounded mess! thought I, and all will be blown in the end! However, on second thoughts, the notion struck me, that, by sticking to the name, as I must donowat any rate, why, I should keep Westwood clear of all scrapes, which, inhiscase, might be disagreeable enough; whereas, at present, he was known only as the Reverend Mr Thomas—and, as forhiseither shamming the griffin, or giving hints how to work the ship, he was one of those men you'd scarce know for a sailor, by aught in his manner, at least; and, indeed, Tom Westwood always seemed to need a whole frigate's ways about him, with perhapssomewhat of a stir, to show what he really was.
Five minutes or so after this, it didn't certainly surprise me much to see the Indiaman laid on the opposite tack, with her head actually north-by-east, or within a few points of where the light haze faded into the sky; the mate seeming by this time to see the matter clearly, and quietly making his own of it. The ship began to stand over towards the outer set of the current, which could now be seen rippling along here and there to the surface, as the breeze fell slowly: you heard nothing save the faint plash of it astern under one counter, the wafting and rustling of her large main-course above the awnings, for she was covered over like a caravan,—the slight flap of her jibs far ahead on the bowsprit startled you now and then as distinctly as if you got a fillip on your own nose; the stunsail, high up beside the weather-leech of her fore-topsail, hung slack over the boom, and one felt each useless jolt of the wheel like a foot-slip in loose sand when you want to run,—all betwixt the lazy, listless voices of the passengers, dropping and dropping as separate as the last sands in an hour-glass. Still every minute of air aloft helped her nearer to where you saw the water winding about the horizon in long swathes, as it were, bluer than the rest, and swelling brim-full, so to speak, out of a line of light; with the long dents and bits of ripple here and there creeping towards it, till the whole round of the surface, as far as you could see, came out into the smooth, like the wrinkles on a nutmeg. Four bells of the afternoon watch had struck—two o'clock that is—when Rickett the third mate, and one or two men, went out to the arm of the spritsail-yard across the bowsprit, where they lowered away a heavy pitch-pot with a long strip of yellow bunting made fast to it, and weighted a little at the loose end, to mark thesetof the current: and as the pot sank away out on her larboard bow, one could see the bright-coloured rag deep down through the clear blue-water, streaming almost fairlynorth. She appeared to be nearing the turn of the eddy, and the chief officer's spirits began to rise: Rickett screwed one eye close, and looked out under his horny palm with the other, doubtful, as he said, that we should "sight the land off-deck before that. As for this trifle of an air aloft, sir," said he, "I'm afraid we won't"—"Hoot, Mr Reckett," put in Macleod, stepping one of his long trowser-legs down from over the quarterdeck awning, like an ostrich that had been aloft, "ye're aye afraid; but it's not easy to see, aloft, Mr Fench, sir." "How does the land lienow, Mr Macleod?" asked the first officer. "Well, I wouldn't wonder but we soon dropped it, sir—that's toeast'ard, I mean," replied he; "though it's what we call a bit mountainous, in Scotland—not that unlike the Grampians, Mr Fench, ye know!" "Hang your Grampians, man!—what'saheadof us, eh?" said the mate hastily. "Why, sir," said the Scotchman, "thereissome more of it on the nor'east, lower a good deal—it's just flush with the water from here, at present, Mr Fench—with a peak or two, trending away too'ard north; but the light yonder on our starboard bow makes them hard for to see, I may say."
In fact, some of the men forward were making it out already on the starboard bow, where you soon could see the faint ragged shape of a headland coming out, as it were, of the dazzle beyond the water, which lay flickering and heaving between, from deep-blue far away into pale; while almost at the same time, on her starboard quarter, where there was less of the light, another outline was to be seen looming like pretty high land, though still fainter than the first. As for the space betwixt them, for aught one could distinguish as yet, there might be nothingthereexcept air and water over against the ship's side. "Well," said the mate briskly, after a little, "we're pretty sure,now, to have the land-breeze to give us sea-room, before two or three hours are over,—by which time, I hope, we'll be in the eddy of this infernal current, at any rate!" However, I was scarce sure he didn't begin to doubt the plan I'd given him; whereas had he known the whole case in time, and done the thingthen, it was certain enough,—and the best thing he could do, even as it was: but what troubledme now, why, suppose anything happened to the ship, mightn't he turn the tables on me after all, and say I had some bad design in it? I loitered about with my arms folded, saying never a word, but watching the whole affair keener than I ever did one of Shakspeare's plays in the theatre after a dull cruise; not a thing in sea, sky, or Indiaman, from the ripples far off on the water to ugly Harry hauling taut the jib-sheet with his chums, but somehow or other they seemed all to sinkintome at the time, as if they'd all got to comeoutagain strong. You hardly knewwhenthe ship lost the last breath of air aloft, till, from stealing through the smooth water, she came apparently to a stand-still, everything spread broad out, not even a flap in the canvass, almost, it had fallen a dead calm so gradually.
Howevermytroubles weren't seemingly over yet, for just then up came the Judge's dark kitmagar to the gangway where I was, and, from the sly impudence of the fellow's manner, I at once fancied there was something particular in the wind, as if he'd been seeking me about-decks. "S'laam, mistree!" said he, with but a slight duck of his flat brown turban, "Judge sahib i-send Culley Mistree his chupprass,"—message, forsooth!—"sah'b inquire the flavour of gentlyman's Ees-Inchee Coompanee, two-three moment!" "The flavour of my East-India company, you rascal!" said I laughing, yet inclined to kick him aft again for his impertinent look; "speak for yourself, if you please!" In fact the whiff of cocoa-nut oil, and other dark perfumes about him, came out in a hot calm at sea, when everything sickens one, so as to need no inquiry about the matter: however, I walked straight aft to the round-house, and in at the open door, through which Sir Charles was to be seen pacing from one side of his cabin to the other, like a Bengal tiger in a cage. "Harkye, young man," said he sternly, turning as soon as I came in, with my hat in my hand, "since I had the honour of your company here this morning, I have recollected—indeed I find that one of my servants had done the same—that you are the person who molested my family by various annoyances beside my garden at Croydon, sir!" "Indeed, Sir Charles!" said I coolly, for the bitter feeling I had made me cool: "they must have been unintentional then, sir! But I was certainly at Croydon, seeing my mother's house happens to be there." "You must have had some design in entering this vessel, sir!" continued the Judge, in a passion; "'gad sir, the coincidence is too curious! Tell me what it is at once, or by —" "My design was to go to India, sir," answered I, as quietly as before. "In what capacity?—who are you?—what—who—what do you wantthere, eh?" rapped out the Judge. "I'm not aware, sir," said I, "what right you've got to, question me; but I—in fact I'll tellsomuch to any man—why, I'm an officer in the navy." Sir Charles brought short up in his pacing and stamping, and stared at me. "An officer in the navy!" repeated he; "but yes—why—now I think, I do, remember something in your dress, sir,—though it was thefacethat struck me! In short then, sir, this makes, the case worse: you are here on false pretences—affecting the very reverse, sir—setting yourself up for a model of simplicity,—a laughing-stock indeed!" "I had reasons for not wishing my profession to be known, Sir Charles," said I; "most special reasons. They're now over, however, and I don't carewhoknows it!" "May I ask what these were?" said the Judge. "ThatI'll never tell to any man breathing!" I said, determinedly. The Judge walked two or three times fore and aft; then a thought seemed to strike him—he looked out as if at the decks and through below the awnings, then shut the door and came back to me again. "By the way," said he seriously, and changing his tone, "since this extraordinary acknowledgment of yours, sir, something occurs to me which makes me almost think your presence in the vessel, in one sense, opportune. I have reason to entertain a high opinion of naval officers as technical men, professionally educated in his Majesty's regular service, and—you look rather ayoungman—but have you had much experience, may I ask?" "I have been nine or ten years at sea, sir," replied I, a little taken aback, "in various parts of the world!" "I have some suspicionlately," he went on, "that this vessel is not navigated in a—in short, that at present, probably, we may be in some danger,—doyouthink so, sir?" "No, Sir Charles," I said, "I don't think sheis, as matters stand,—only in a troublesome sort of quarter, which the sooner she's out of, the better." "The commander is, I find, dangerously unwell," continued he, "and of the young man who seems to have the chief care of the vessel, I have no very high—well—that, of course I— Now sir," said he, looking intently at me, "areyoucapable of—in short of managing this Company's vessel, should any emergency arise? I have seen such, myself,—and in the circumstances I feel considerable alarm—uneasiness, at least!—Eh, sir?" "Depend upon it, Sir Charles," I said, stepping toward the door, "in any matter of the kind I'll do my best for this ship! But none knows so well as a seaman, there are cases enough where your very best can't do much!" The Judge seemed rather startled by my manner—for Ididfeel a little misgiving, from something in the weather on the whole; at any rate I fancied there was a cold-bloodedness in every sharp corner of his face, bilious though his temper was, that would have let him seemego to the bottom a thousand times over, had I even had a chance with his daughter herself, ere he'd have yielded me the tip of her little finger: accordingly 'twas a satisfaction to me, at the moment, just to make him see he wasn't altogether in his nabob's chair in Bengal yet, on an elephant's back!
"Ah, though!" said he, raising his voice to call me back, "to return for an instant—there is one thing I must positively require, sir—which you will see, in the circumstances, to be unavoidable. As a mere simple cadet, observe sir, there was nothing to be objected to in a slight passing acquaintance—but, especially in the—in short equivocal—sir, I must request of you that you will on no account attempt to hold any communication with my daughter, Miss Hyde—beyond a mere bow, of course! 'Twill be disagreeable, I assure you. Indeed, I shall—" "Sir," said I, all the blood in my body going to my face, "of all things in the world,thatis the very thing where your views and mine happen to square!" and I bowed. The man's coolness disgusted me, sticking such a thing in my teeth, after just reckoning on my services with the very same breath,—and all when it wasn't required, too! And by heaven! thought I, hadsheshown me favour, all the old nabobs in Christendom, and the whole world to boot, shouldn't hinder me from speaking to her! What I said apparently puzzled him, but he gave me a grand bow in his turn, and I had my hand on the door, when he said, "I suppose, sir, as a naval officer, you have no objection to give me your name and rank? I forget what—" Here I remembered my mistake with the mate, and on the whole I saw I must stick by it till I was clear of the whole concern,—as forsayingmy name was Westwood, that I couldn't have done at the time for worlds, but I quietly handed him another card; meaning, of course, to give Westwood the cue as shortly as possible, for his own safety. The Judge started on seeing the card, gave me one of his sharp glances, and made a sudden step towards me. "Have you any relation in India, Mr Westwood?" said he, slowly; to which I gave only a nod. "What is he, if I may inquire?" asked he again. "A councillor or something, I believe," said I carelessly. "ThomasWestwood?" said Sir Charles. "Ah," said I, wearied of the thing, and anxious to go. "An uncle, probably, from the age?" he still put in. "Exactly, that's it!" I said. "Why—what!—why did you not mention this at first?" he broke out suddenly, coming close up; "why, Councillor Westwood is my very oldest friend in India, my dear sir! This alters the matter. I should have welcomed a nephew of his in my house, to the utmost! Why, how strange, Mr Westwood, that the fact should emerge in this curious manner!"—and with that he held out his hand. "Of course," said he, "no such restriction as I mentioned could for a moment apply to a nephew of Councillor Westwood!" I stared at him for a moment, and then—"Sir," said I, coolly, "it seems the whole matter goes by names; but if my name were the devil, or the apostle Paul, Idon't see how it can make a bit of difference inme: what's more, sir," said I, setting my teeth, "whatevermy name may be, depend upon it, I shall never claim acquaintance either with you or—or—Miss Hyde!" With that I flung straight out of the cabin, leaving the old gentleman bolt upright on the floor, and as dumb as a stock-fish, whether with rage or amazement I never stopped to think.
I went right forward on the Indiaman's forecastle, clear of all the awnings, dropped over her head out of sight of the men, and sat with my legs amongst the open wood-work beneath the bowsprit, looking at the calm,—nobody in sight but the Hindoo figure, who seemed to be doing the same.Westwood!thought I bitterly; then in a short time, when the mistake's found out, and he got safe past the Cape, perhaps,—it'll be nothing but Westwood! He'll have a clear stage, and all favour; but at any rate, howeverit may be,I'll not be here, by heaven! to see it. That cursed councillor of his, I suppose, is another nabob,—and no doubt he'll marry her, all smooth! Uncles be— I little thought, by Jove! when I knocked off that yarn to the mate aboutmyuncle—but, after all, it's strange how often a fellow's paid back in his own coin! The heat at the time was unbearable,—heat, indeed! 'twasn't only heat,—but a heavy, close, stifling sort of a feeling, like in a hot-house, as if you'd got a weight on your head and every other bit of you: the water one time so dead-blue and glassy between the windings of it, that the sky seemed to vanish, and the ship looked floating up into whereitwas,—then again you scarce knew sea from air, except by the wrinkles and eddies running across each other between, toward a sullen blue ring at the horizon,—like seeing through a big, twisted sieve, or into a round looking-glass all over cracks. I heard them clue up every thing aloft, except the topsails,—andtheyfell slapping back and forward to the masts, every now and then, with athudlike a thousand spades clapped down at once over a hollow bit of ground—till all seemed as still between as if they'd buried something. I wished to heaven it were what Ifeltat the time, and the thought of Violet Hyde, that I might be as if I never had seen her,—when on glancing up, betwixt the figure-head and the ship's stern, it struck me to notice how much the land on her starboard bow and beam seemed to have risen, even during the last hour, and that without wind; partly on account of its clearing in that quarter, perhaps; but the nearest points looked here and there almost as if you could see into them, roughening barer out through the hue of the distance, like purple blotches spreading in it. Whereas, far away astern of us, when I crossed over her headworks, there were two or three thin white streaks of haze to be seen just on the horizon, one upon another, above which you made out somewhat like a dim range of peaked land, trending one couldn't say how far back—all showing how fairly the coast was shutting her in upon the south-east, as she set farther in-shore, even while the run of the current bade fair to take her well clear of it ahead; which was of course all we need care for at present. Her want of steerage-way, however, let the Indiaman sheer hither and thither, till at times one was apt to get confused, and suppose her more in with the land-loom than she really was. Accordingly the mate proved his good judgment by having a couple of boats lowered with a tow-line, to keep her at least stern-on to the current,—although the trouble of getting out the launch would have more served his purpose, and the deeper loaded the better, since in fact there weretwofavourable drifts instead of one, between every stroke of the oars. The men pulled away rather sulkily, their straw hats over their noses, the dip of the hawser scarce tautening at each strain, as they squinted up at the Seringapatam's idle figure-head. For my part I had thought it better to leave him by himself, and go below.
When I went into the cuddy, more for relief's sake than to dine, the passengers were chattering and talking away round the tables, hot and choking though it was, in high glee because the land was in sight from the starboard port-window, and they fancied the officers had changed their mind as to "touching" there. Every now and then a cadet or two wouldstart up, with their silver forks in their hands, and put their heads out; some asked whether the anchor had been seen getting ready or not; others disputed about the colour of tropical trees, if they were actually green like English ones, or perhaps all over blossoms and fruit together—the whole of them evidently expecting bands of negroes to line the shore as we came in. One young fellow had taken a particular fancy to have an earthworm, with earth enough to feed it all the rest of the voyage, otherwise he couldn't stand it; and little Tommy's mother almost went into hysterics again, when she said, if she could just eat a lettuce salad once more, she'd die contented; the missionary looking up through his spectacles, in surprise that she wasn'tmoreinterested about the slave-trade, whereof he'd been talking to her. As for Westwood, he joined quietly in the fun, with a glance now and then across to me; however, I pretended to be too busy with the salt beef, and was merely looking up again for a moment, when my eye chanced to catch on the swinging barometer that hung in the raised skylight, right over the midst of our noise. By George! ma'am, what was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the old Iris. I laid down my knife and fork as carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck.
Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land—and at once took him aside to tell him the fact. "Well, sir," said he coolly, "and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in the meantime we'resureto have it off the land." "That's one of the very reasons," said I, "for thinkingthiswill be from seaward—since towards evening the land'll have plenty of air without it! But more than that, sir," said I, "I tell you, Mr Finch, I know the west coast of Africa pretty well—and so far south as this, the glass falling so low astwenty-seven, is always the sign of a nor'westerly blow! If you're a wise man, sir, you'll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but you'll see your anchors clear!" Finch had plainly got furious at my meddling again, and said he, "Instead of that, sir, I shall hold oneverythingaloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!" "D'ye really think, then," said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land, trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was; "doyou think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong nor'-wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of it again?" "Perhaps not," said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it, "but you happen always to suppose what there's a thousand to one against, sir! Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once! But, by G——! sir, if itdidcome to that, I'd rather—I'd rather see the shiplost—I'd rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her as I know well how, than I'd see the chance given toyou!" The young fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear—he was in a regular furious passion. "You'dbetterlet me alone, that's all I've got to say to you, sir!" growled he as he turned away; so I thought it no use to say more, and leant over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out.
The fact was, the farther we got off the landnow, the worse—seeing that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in thirty or forty fathoms water, where no anchor could hold for ten minutes' time—if it ever caught ground. My way would have been, to get every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the colour of some shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly I wasn't sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was slowly rising off our beam, betwixt the high land far astern and the broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and there a quick ripple, when Iwent below, had got on a sudden quite smooth as far as you could see, as if they'd sunk down like so many eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward, on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the colour different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate spreading out near a river mouth at ebb-tide,—then again it was green, rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster's account in the Iris, but there was neither anything like it to be seen, nor any sign of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough.
The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the north-east point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of bluffs,—and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam,—but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she edged farther from the point, by the way its bearings shifted or got blurred together: either she stood still, or she'd caught some eddy or under-drift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter was, how to breathe, or bear your clothes—when all of a sudden I heard the second mate sing out from the forecastle—"Stand by the braces, there! Look out for the topes'l hawl-yairds!" He came shuffling aft next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks could carry him, and told Mr Finch there was a squall coming off the land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I—catching a glance from him as much as to say—There's your gale from seaward, you pretentious lubber! The lowest streak of coast bore at present before our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east'ard, with some pretty high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging beyond, as 'twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark vapour thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again, like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck for a minute or two—off went all the awnings—and every hand was ready at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud, then at the mates, then at it again. "ByGeorge!" said I, noticing a pale wreath of it go curling on the pale clear sky over it, as if to a puff of air,—"itissmoke! Some niggers, as they so often do, burning the bush!" So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger—"Mr Collins, sir," said he in a low voice, looking almost right up, high over toward the ship's larboard bow, which he couldn't have done before, for the awnings so lately above us,—"look, sir—there's anox-eye!" I followed his gaze, but it wasn't for a few seconds that I found what it pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead, compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvass aloft was but dirty gray and yellow.
'Twas what none but a seaman would have observed, and many a seaman wouldn't have done, so,—but a man-o'-war's-man is used to look out at all hours, in all latitudes,—and to a man that knew its meaning,thiswould have been no joke, even out of sight of land: as it was, the thing gave me a perfect thrill of dread. High aloft in the heavens northward, where they were freest from the sun—now standing over the open horizon amidst a wide bright pool of light,—you managed to discern a small silvery speck, growing slowly as it were out of the faint blue hollow, like a star in the day-time, till you felt as if itlookedat you, from God-knows what distance away. One eye after another amongst the mates and crew joined Jacobs's and mine, with the same sort of dumb fellowship to be seen when a man in London streets watches the top of a steeple; and however hard to make out at first, ere long none of them could miss seeing it, as it got slowly larger, sinking by degrees till the sky close about it seemed to thicken like a dusky ring round the white, and the sunlight upon our seaward quarter blazed out doubly strong—as if it came dazzling off a brass bell, with the bright tongue swinging in it far off to one side,where the hush made you think of a stroke back upon us, with some terrific sound to boot. The glassy water by this time was beginning to rise under the ship with a struggling kind of unequal heave, as if a giant you couldn't see kept shoving it down here and there with both hands, and it came swelling up elsewhere. To north-westward or thereabouts, betwixt the sun and this ill-boding token aloft, the far line of open sea still lay shining motionless and smooth; next time you looked, it had got even brighter than before, seeming to leave the horizon visibly; then the streak of air just above it had grown gray, and a long edge of hazy vapour was creeping as it were over from beyond,—the white speck all the while travelling down towards it slantwise from nor'ard, and spreading its dark ring slowly out into a circle of cloud, till the keen eye of it at last sank in, and below, as well as aloft, the whole north-western quarter got blurred together in one gloomy mass. If there was a question at first whether the wind mightn't come from so far nor'ard as to give her a chance of running out to sea before it, there was none now,—our sole recourse lay either in getting nearer the land meanwhile, to let go our anchors ere it came on, with her headtoit,—or we might make a desperate trial to weather the lee-point now far astern. The fact was, we were going to have a regular tornado, and that of the worst kind, which wouldn't soon blow itself out; though near an hour's notice would probably pass ere it was on.
The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of the two ways was the safest; though of course the nearer we should get to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled, ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead passed along to take soundings every few minutes.
On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the oars from the heaving water at her bows, and the loud flap of the big topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising away along our larboard beam nor'west and north, over the gray bank on the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapour in the midst. The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind one edge of it, as if 'twere a mountain you saw over some coast or other: indeed, you'd have thought the ship almost shut in by land on both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most, as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it,—whichwas the true land and which the clouds, 'twas hard to say,—and the sea gloomed writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains. I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again, glancing uneasily about: his daughter was standing with another young lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I'd have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers on a lee-shore in the dark—or at best, suppose the Almighty favoured any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it, I'd have compassed it, mate or no mate; but all was done that could be done and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it to her and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my eyes hard fixed upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole out in it, and the sea stretched breathless away below, like new-melted lead. The air was like to choke you—or rather there was none—as if water, sky, and everything else wantedlife, and one wouldfain have caught the first rush of the tornado into his mouth—the men emptying the dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land, it seemed to draw nearer of itself, till every point and wrinkle in the headland off our bow came out in a red coppery gleam—one saw the white line of surf round it, and some blue country beyond like indigo; then back it darkened again, and all aloft was getting livid-like over the bare royal mast-heads.
Suddenly a faint air was felt to flutter from landward; it half lifted the top-sails, and a heavy earthy swell came into your nostrils—the first of the land-breeze, at last; but by this time it was no more than a sort of mockery, while a minute after you might catch a low, sullen, moaning sound far of through the emptiness, from the strong surf the Atlantic sends in upon the West Coast before a squall. If ever landsmen found out what land on the wrong side is, the passengers of the Seringapatam did, that moment; the shudder of the top-sails aloft seemed to pass into every one's shoulders, and a few quietly walked below, as if they were safe in their cabins. I saw Violet Hyde look round and round with a startled expression, and from one face to another, till her eye lighted on me, and I fancied for a moment it was like putting some question to me. I couldn't bear it!—'twas the first time I'd felt powerless to offer anything; though the thought ran through me again till I almost felt myself buffeting among the breakers with her in my arms. I looked to the land, where the smoke we had seen three-quarters of an hour ago rose again with the puff of air, a slight flicker of flame in it, as it wreathed off the low ground toward the higher point,—when all at once I gave a start, for something in the shape of the whole struck me as if I'd seen it before. Next moment I was thinking of old Bob Martin's particular landmarks at the river mouth he spoke of, and the notion of its possibly being hereabouts glanced on me like a god-send. In the unsure dusky sight I had of it, certainly, it wore somewhat of that look, and it lay fair to leeward of the weather; while, as for the dead shut-in appearance of it, old Bob had specially said you'd never think it was a river; but then again it was more like a desperate fancy owing to our hard case, and to run the ship straight for it would be the trick of a bedlamite. At any rate a quick cry from aft turned me round, and I saw a blue flare of lightning streak out betwixt the bank of gray haze and the cloud that hung over it—then another, and the clouds were beginning to rise slowly in the midst, leaving a white glare between, as if you could see through it towards what was coming. The men could pull no longer, but ahead of the ship there was now only about eight or ten fathoms water, with a soft bottom. The boats were hoisted in, and the men had begun to clue up and hand the topsails, which were lowered on the caps, when, just in the midst of the hubbub and confusion, as I stood listening to every order the mate gave, the steward came up hastily from below to tell him that the captain had woke up, and, being, much better, wanted to see him immediately. Mr Finch looked surprised, but he turned at once, and hurried down the hatchway.
The sight which all of us who weren't busy gazed upon, over the larboard bulwarks, was terrible to see: 'twas half dark, though the sun, dropping behind the haze-bank, made it glimmer and redden. The dark heap of clouds had first lengthened out blacker and blacker, and was rising slowly in the sky like a mighty arch, till you saw their white edges below, and a ghastly white space behind, out of which the mist and scud began to fly. Next minute a long sigh came into her jib and foresail, then the black bow of cloud partly sank again, and a blaze of lightning came out all round her, showing you every face on deck, the inside of the round-house aft, with the Indian Judge standing in it, his hand to his eyes,—and the land far away, to the very swell rolling in to it. Then the thunder broke overhead in the gloom, in one fearful sudden crack, that you seemed to hear through every corner of cabins and forecastle below,—and the wet back-fins of twenty sharks or so, that had risen out of the inky surface, vanished as suddenly. The Indiaman had sheered almost broadside on tothe clouds, her jib was still up, and I knew the next time the cloudsrosewe should fairly have it. Flash after flash came, and clap after clap of thunder,suchas you hear before a tornado—yet the chief officer wasn't to be seen, and the others seemed uncertain what to do first; while every one began to wonder and pass along questions where he could be. In fact, he had disappeared. For my part, I thought it very strange he staid so long; but there wasn't a moment to lose. I jumped down off the poop-stairs, walked forward on the quarterdeck, and said coolly to the men nearest me, "Run and haul down that jib yonder—set the spanker here, aft. You'll have her taken slap on her beam: quick, my lads!" The men did so at once. Macleod was calling out anxiously for Mr Finch. "Stand by the anchors there!" I sang out, "to let go the starboard one, themomentshe swings head to wind!" The Scotch mate turned his head; but Rickett's face, by the next flash, showed he saw the good of it, and there was no leisure for arguing, especially as I spoke in a way to be heard. I walked to the wheel, and got hold of Jacobs to take the weather-helm. We were all standing ready, at the pitch of expecting it. Westwood, too, having appeared again by this time beside me, I whispered to him to run forward and look after the anchors—when some one came hastily up the after-hatchway, with a glazed hat and pilot-coat on, stepped straight to the binnacle, looked in behind me, then at the black bank of cloud, then aloft. Of course I supposed it was the mate again, but didn't trouble myself to glance at him farther—when "Hold on with the anchors!" he sang out in a loud voice—"hold on there for your lives!" Heavens! it was the captain himself!
At this, of course, I stood aside at once; and he shouted again, "Hoist the jib and fore-topmast-staysail—stand by to set fore-course!" By Jove! this was the way to pay the shipheadoff, instead of stern off, from the blast when it came—and to let her drive before it at no trifle of a rate, whereverthatmight take her! "Downwith that spanker, Mr Macleod, d'ye hear!" roared Captain Williamson again; and certainly I did wonder what he meant to do with the ship. But his manner was so decided, and 'twas so natural for the captain to strain a point to come on deck in the circumstances, that I saw he must have some trick of seamanship aboveme, or some special knowledge of the coast,—and I waited in a state of the greatest excitement for the first stroke of the tornado. He waved the second and third mates forward to their posts—the Indiaman sheering and backing, like a frightened horse, to the long slight swell and the faint flaw of the land air. The black arch to windward began to rise again, showing a terrible white stare reaching deep in, and a blue dart of lightning actually ran zig-zag down before our glaring fore-to'gallant-mast. Suddenly the captain had looked at me, and we faced each other by the gleam; and quiet, easy-going man as he was commonly, it just flashed across me there was something extraordinarily wild andraisedin his pale visage, strange as the air about us made every one appear. He gave a stride towards me, shouting "Who are—" when the thunder-clap took the words out of his tongue, and next moment the tornado burst upon us, fierce as the wind from a cannon's month. For one minute the Seringapatam heeled over to her starboard streak, almost broadside on, and her spars toward the land,—all on her beam was a long ragged white gush of light and mist pouring out under the black brow of the clouds, with a trampling eddying roar up into the sky. The swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and as we scrambled up to the bulwarks, to hold on for bare life, you saw a roller, fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam—when crash went mizen-topmast and main-to'gallant-mast: the ship payed swiftly off by help of her head-sails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast.
The least yaw in her course, and she'd have never risen, unless every stick went out of her. I laid my shoulder to the wheel with Jacobs, and Captain Williamson screamed through his trumpet into the men's ears, and waved his hands to ridedown the fore-sheets as far as they'd go; which kept her right before it, though the sail could be but half-set, and she rather flew than ran—the sea one breadth of white foam back to the gushes of mist, not having power to rise higher yet. Had the foresail been stretched, 'twould have blown off like a cloud. I looked at the captain: he was standing in the lee of the round-house, straight upright, though now and then peering eagerly forward, his lips firm, one hand on a belaying-pin, the other in his breast—nothing but determination in his manner; yet once or twice he started, and glanced fiercely to the after-hatchway near, as if something from below might chance to thwart him. I can't express my contrary feelings, betwixt a sort of hope and sheer horror. We were driving right towards the land, at thirteen or fourteen knots to the hour,—yetcouldthere actually be some harbourage hereaway, or that said river the quarter-master of the Iris mentioned, and Captain Williamson know of it? Something struck me as wonderfully strange in the whole matter, and puzzling to desperation,—still I trusted to the captain's experience. The coast was scarce to be seen ahead of us, lying black against an uneven streak of glimmer, as she rushed like fury before the deafening howl of wind; and right away before our lee-beam I could see the light blowing, as it were, across beyond the headland I had noticed, where the smoke in the bush seemed to be still curling, half-smothered, along the flat in the lee of the hills, as if in green wood, or sheltered as yet from seaward, though once or twice a quick flicker burst up in it. All at once the gust of the tornado was seen to pour on it, like a long blast from some huge bellows, and up it flashed—the yellow flame blazed into the smoke, spread away behind the point, and the ruddy brown smoke blew whitening off over it:—when, Almighty power! what did I see as it lengthened in, but part after part of old Bob's landmarks creep out ink-black before the flare and the streak of sky together—first the low line of ground, then the notch in the block, the two rocks like steps, and the sugar-loaf shape of the headland, to the very mop-headed knot of trees on its rise! No doubt Captain Williamson was steering for it; but it was far too much on our starboard bow—and in half an hour at this rate we should drive right into the surf you saw running along to the coast ahead—so I signed to Jacobs for god-sake to edge her off as nicely as was possible. Captain Williamson caught my motion. "Port! port, sirrah!" he sang out sternly; "backwith the helm, d'ye hear!" and, pulling out a pistol, he levelled it at me with one hand, while he held a second in the other. "Land!—land, by G—d!" shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout—"I'll be there though a thousand mutineers—" His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth glanced across me—this was thegreen leaf, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile—when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, thenlaughed, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman, and, during half a minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly top-man made a sign, as much as to say, knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew fromJacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in. A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to head two or three points more south-east in theend, furiously as the wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw any one back if he left go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still held; and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to get a pull taken on the starboard brace, which would not onlyslantthe sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed. Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was keeping my eyes fixed anxiously as man can fancy, on the last gleams of the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little and little, it went quite out, and all was black—though I had taken its bearings by the compass—and I kept her to that for bare life, trembling at every shiver in the foresail's edge, lest either it or the mast should go.
Suddenly we began to get into a fearful swell—the Indiaman plunged and shook in every spar left her. I could see nothing ahead, from the wheel, and in the dark: we were getting close in with the land, and the time was coming; but still I held south-east-by-east to the mark of her head in the compass box, as nearly as might and main could do if, for the heaves that made me think once or twice she was to strike next moment. If she went ashore in my hands! why, it was like to drive one mad with fear; and I waited for Jacobs to come back, with a brain ready to turn, almost as if I'd have left the wheel to the other helmsman, and run forward into the bows to look out. The captain lay raving, and shouting behind me, though no one else could either have heard or seen him; and where the chief officer was all this time, surprised me, unless the madman had made away with him, or locked him in his own cabin, in return for being shut up himself,—which in fact proved to be the case, cunning as it was to send for him so quietly. At length Jacobs struggled aft to me again, and charging him, for heaven's sake, to steer exactly the course I gave, I drove before the full strength of the squall along-decks to the bowsprit, where I held on and peered out. Dead ahead of us was the high line of coast in the dark—not a mile of swell between the ship and it. By this time the low boom of the surf came under the wind, and you saw the breakers lifting all along,—not a single opening in them! I had lost sight of my landmarks, and my heart gulped into my mouth—what I felt 'twould be vain to say,—till I thought Ididmake out one short patch of sheer black in the range of foam, scarce so far on our bow as I'd reckoned the fire to have been: indeed, instead of that, it was rather on her weather than her lee bow; and the more I watched it, and the nearer we drove in that five minutes, the broader it was. "By all that's good!" I thought, "if a river there is, that must be the mouth of it!" But, by heavens! on our present course, the ship would run just right upon the point,—and, to strike the clear water, her fore-yard would require to be braced up, able or not, though the force of the tornado would come fearfully on her quarter, then. There was the chance of taking all the masts out of her; but let them stand ten minutes, and the thing was done, when we opened into the lee of the points—otherwise all was over!
I sprang to the fore-braces and besought the men near me, for God's sake, to drag upon the lee one—and that as if their life hung upon it—when Westwood caught me by the arm. I merely shouted through my hands into his ear to go aft to Jacobs and tell him to keep her head asingle pointup, whatever might happen, to the last,—then I pulled with the men at the brace till it was fast, and scrambled up again to the bowsprit heel. Jove! how she surged to it: the little canvass we had strained like to burst; the masts trembled, and the spars aloft bent likewhip-shafts, everything below groaning again; while the swell and the blast together made you dizzy, as you watched the white eddies rising and boiling out of the dark—her cutwater shearing through it and the foam, as if you were going under it. The sound of the hurricane and the surf seemed to be growing together into one awful roar,—my very brain began to turn with the pitch I was wrought up to—and it appeared next moment we should heave far up into the savage hubbub of breakers. I was wearying for the crash and the wild confusion that would follow—when all of a sudden, still catching the fierce rush of the gale athwart her quarter into the fore-course, which steadied her though she shuddered to it—all on a sudden the dark mass of the land seemed as it were parting ahead of her, and a gleam of pale sky opened below the dusk into my very face. I no more knew what I was doing, by this time, nor where we were, than the spar before me,—till again, the light broadened, glimmering low betwixt the high land and a lump of rising level on the other bow. I hurried aft past the confused knots of men holding on to the lee of the bulwarks, and seized a spoke of the wheel. "Tom," shouted I to Westwood, "run and let free the spanker on the poop! Down with the helm—down with it, Jacobs, my lad!" I sang out; "never mind spars or canvass!" Down went the helm—the spanker helped to luff her to the strength of the gust—and away she went up to port, the heavy swells rolling her in, while the rush into her staysail and forecourse came in one terrible flash of roaring wind,—tearing first one and then the other clear out of the belt-ropes, though the loose spanker abaft was in less danger, and the way she had from both was enough to take her careening round the point into its lee. By heavens! there were the streaks of soft haze low over the rising moon, under the broken clouds, beyond a far line of dim fringy woods, she herself just tipping the hollow behind, big and red—when right down from over the cloud above us came a spout of rain, then a sheet of it lifting to the blast as it howled across the point. "Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!" I sang out through the trumpet; and Jacobs put the helm fully down at the moment, till she was coming head to wind, when I made forward to the mates and men. "Let—go!" I shouted: not a look turned against me, and away thundered the cable through the hawse-hole; she shook to it, sheered astern, and brought up with her anchor fast. By that time the rain was plashing down in a perfect deluge—you couldn't see a yard from you—all was one white pour of it; although it soon began to drive again over the headland, as the tornado gathered new food out of it. Another anchor was let go, cable payed out, and the ship soon began to swing the other way to the tide, pitching all the while on the short swell.
The gale still whistled through her spars for two or three hours, during which it began by degrees to lull. About eleven o'clock it was clear moonlight to leeward, the air fresh and cool: a delicious watch it was, too. I was walking the poop by myself, two or three men lounging sleepily about the forecastle, and Rickett below on the quarterdeck, when I saw the chief officer himself rush up from below, staring wildly round him, as if he thought we were in some dream or other. I fancied at first the mate would have struck Rickett, from the way he went on, but I kept aft where I was. The eddies ran past the Indiaman's side, and you heard the fast ebb of the tide rushing and rippling sweetly on her taut cables ahead, plashing about the bows and bends. We were in old Bob Martin'sriver, whatever that might be.
[The reader is to understand this present paper, in its two sections ofThe Vision, &c., andThe Dream-Fugue, as connected with a previous paper onThe English Mail-Coach, published in the Magazine for October. The ultimate object was the Dream-Fugue, as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost efforts of music in dealing with a colossal form of impassioned horror. The Vision of Sudden Death contains the mail-coach incident, which did really occur, and did really suggest the variations of the Dream, here taken up by the Fugue, as well as other variations not now recorded. Confluent with these impressions, from the terrific experience on the Manchester and Glasgow mail, were other and more general impressions, derived from long familiarity with the English mail, as developed in the former paper; impressions, for instance, of animal beauty and power, of rapid motion, at that time unprecedented, of connexion with the government and public business of a great nation, but, above all, of connexion with the national victories at an unexampled crisis,—the mail being the privileged organ for publishing and dispersing all news of that kind. From this function of the mail, arises naturally the introduction of Waterloo into the fourth variation of the Fugue; for the mail itself having been carried into the dreams by the incident in the Vision, naturally all the accessory circumstances of pomp and grandeur investing this national carriage followed in the train of the principal image.]
What is to be thought of sudden death? It is remarkable that, in different conditions of society, it has been variously regarded, as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and, on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. Cæsar the Dictator, at his last dinner party, (cæna,) and the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, inhisopinion, might seem the most eligible, replied—"That which should be most sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character for the whole human race prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van of horrors. "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death,—Good Lord, deliver us." Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of Romans, it was treated as the first of blessings. In that difference, most readers will see little more than the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But there I hesitate. The Christian church may be right in its estimate of sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life—as that whichseemsmost reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, occur to me any direct scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of the English Litany. It seems rather a petition indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human piety. And, howeverthatmay be, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which elsemaywander, andhaswandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death, (I mean theobjectivehorror to him who contemplates such a death, not thesubjectivehorror to him who suffers it) from the false disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by an accident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. Butthatis unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not,habituallya drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if itwere no accident, but one of hishabitualtransgressions, will it be the more habitual or the more a transgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be also a final one? Could the man have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in his act of intemperance—a feature of presumption and irreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near to the presence of God. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only new element in the man's act is not any element of extra immorality, but simply of extra misfortune.
The other remark has reference to the meaning of the wordsudden. And it is a strong illustration of the duty which for ever calls us to the stern valuation of words—that very possibly Cæsar and the Christian church do not differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different cases. Both contemplate a violent death; a Βιαθανατος—death that is Βιαιος: but the difference is—that the Roman by the word "sudden" means anunlingeringdeath: whereas the Christian litany by "sudden" means a deathwithout warning, consequently without any available summons to religious preparation. The poor mutineer, who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades, dies by a most sudden death in Cæsar's sense: one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possiblynotone) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense of the Litany, his death is far from sudden; his offence originally, his imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate—having all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation.
Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death as a mere variety in the modes of dying, where death in some shape is inevitable—a question which, equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered according to each man's variety of temperament—certainly, upon one aspect of sudden death there can be no opening for doubt, that of all agonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of all martyrdoms it is the most freezing to human sensibilities—namely, where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it. Any effort, by which such an evasion can be accomplished, must be as sudden as the danger which it affronts. Eventhat, even the sickening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain, self-baffled, and where the dreadful knell oftoo lateis already sounding in the ears by anticipation—even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case, namely, where the agonising appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience, on behalf of another life besides your own, accidentally cast uponyourprotection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown into your hands the final interests of another—of a fellow-creature shuddering between the gates of life and death; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. The man is called upon, too probably, to die; but to die at the very moment when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced as a murderer. He had but the twinkling of an eye for his effort, and that effort might, at the best, have been unavailing; but from this shadow of a chance, small or great, how if he has recoiled by a treasonablelâcheté? The effortmighthave been without hope; but to have risen to the level of that effort—would have rescued him, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to his duties.
The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. But potentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men's natures—mutteringunder ground in one world, to be realised perhaps in some other. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected at intervals, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a lion, and, from languishing prostration in hope and vital energy, that constant sequel of lying down before him, publishes the secret frailty of human nature—reveals its deep-seated Pariah falsehood to itself—records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes that dream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his own individual will; once again a snare is made ready for leading him into captivity to a luxury of ruin; again, as in aboriginal Paradise, the man falls from innocence; once again, by infinite iteration, the ancient Earth groans to God, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her child; "Nature from her seat, sighing through all her works," again "gives signs of woe that all is lost;" and again the counter sigh is repeated to the sorrowing heavens of the endless rebellion against God. Many people think that one man, the patriarch of our race, could not in his single person execute this rebellion for all his race. Perhaps they are wrong. But, even if not, perhaps in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the original act. Our English rite of "Confirmation," by which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contracted for us in our slumbering infancy,—how sublime a rite is that! The little postern gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placed for a time within the glory of God's countenance, suddenly rises to the clouds as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed and martial pomps, we make our second entry as crusading soldiers militant for God, by personal choice and by sacramental oath. Each man says in effect—"Lo! I rebaptise myself; and that which once was sworn on my behalf, now I swear for myself." Even so in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for himself the aboriginal fall.
As I drew near to the Manchester post-office, I found that it was considerably past midnight; but to my great relief, as it was important for me to be in Westmorland by the morning, I saw by the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses, that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was; but by some luck, very unusual in my experience, the mail was not even yet ready to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human race, and signalising to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has planted his throne for ever upon that virgin soil; henceforward claiming thejus dominiito the top of the atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving shafts to the centre of the earth below it; so that all people found after this warning, either aloft in the atmosphere, or in the shafts, or squatting on the soil, will be treated as trespassers—that is, decapitated by their very faithful and obedient servant, the owner of the said bunting. Possibly my cloak might not have been respected, and thejus gentiummight have been cruelly violated in my person—for, in the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality—but it so happened that, on this night, there was no other outside passenger; and the crime, which else was but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. By the way, I may as well mention at this point, since a circumstantial accuracy is essential to the effect of my narrative, that there was no other person of any description whatever about the mail—the guard, the coachman, and myself being allowed for—except only one—a horrid creature of the class known to the world as insiders, but whom youngOxford called sometimes "Trojans," in opposition to our Grecian selves, and sometimes "vermin." A Turkish Effendi, who piques himself on good-breeding, will never mention by name a pig. Yet it is but too often that he has reason to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets of Stamboul, he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature running between his legs. But under any excess of hurry he is always careful, out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress the odious name, and to call the wretch "that other creature," as though all animal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, as Chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed another and alien group on the outside of creation. Now I, who am an English Effendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any son of Othman, beg my reader's pardon for having mentioned an insider by his gross natural name. I shall do so no more: and, if I should have occasion to glance at so painful a subject, I shall always call him "that other creature." Let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion will arise. But, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the reader will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, "Was this other creature present?" He wasnot; or more correctly, perhaps,itwas not. We dropped the creature—or the creature, by natural imbecility, dropped itself—within the first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter case, I wish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. When I die, or when the reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will never be known whether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor. But this other creature, in the ease of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner's inquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For I insist upon it, that the verdict of a coroner's jury makes the best of epitaphs. It is brief, so that the public all find time to read it; it is pithy, so that the surviving friends (if anycansurvive such a loss) remember it without fatigue; it is upon oath, so that rascals and Dr Johnsons cannot pick holes in it. "Died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by impinging on a moonlight night against the off hind wheel of the Glasgow mail! Deodand upon the said wheel—two-pence." What a simple lapidary inscription! Nobody much in the wrong but an off-wheel; and with few acquaintances; and if it were but rendered into choice Latin, though there would be a little bother in finding a Ciceronian word for "off-wheel," Marcellus himself, that great master of sepulchral eloquence, could not show a better. Why I call this little remarkmoral, is, from the compensation it points out. Here, by the supposition, is that other creature on the one side, the beast of the world; and he (or it) gets an epitaph. You and I, on the contrary, the pride of our friends, get none.
But why linger on the subject of vermin? Having mounted the box, I took a small quantity of laudanum, having already travelled two hundred and fifty miles—viz., from a point seventy miles beyond London, upon a simple breakfast. In the taking of laudanum there was nothing extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on the box, the coachman. And inthatthere was nothing extraordinary. But by accident, and with great delight, it drew my attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of size, and that he had but one eye. In fact he had been foretold by Virgil as—