'You can tell Jacob to lay aft presently,' said the Captain, 'when the steward is at liberty, and he will give him such another dose. That will do.'
Abraham knuckled his forehead, pausing to say to me in a hoarse whisper, which must have been perfectly audible to the Captain. 'A noice gemman, and no mistake.'
'I am going below,' said the Captain when he was gone, 'to see after your accommodation. Will you sit here,' addressing Helga, 'or will you go on deck for a few turns? I fear you will find the air chilly.'
'I will go on deck with you, Hugh,' answered Helga.
The Captain ran his eye over her.
'You are without luggage,' said he, 'and, alas! wanting in almost everything; but if you will allow me——' he broke off and went to his cabin, and before we could have found time to exchange a whisper, returned with a very handsome, almost new, fur coat.
'Now, Miss Nielsen,' said he, 'you will allow me to wrap you in this.'
'Indeed my jacket will keep me warm,' she answered, with that same look of shrinking in her face I have before described.
'Nay, but wear it, Helga,' said I, anxious to meet the man, at all events, halfway in his kindness. 'It is a delightful coat—the very thing for the keen wind that is blowing on deck!'
Had I offered to put it on for her she would at once have consented, but I could observe the recoil in her from the garment stretched in the Captain's hands, with his pale fat face smiling betwixt his long whiskers over the top of it. On a sudden, however, she turned and suffered him to put the coat on her, which he did with great ostentation of anxiety and a vast deal of smiling, and, as I could not help perceiving, with a deal more of lingering over the act than there was the least occasion for.
'Wonderfully becoming, indeed!' he exclaimed; 'and now to see that your cabin is comfortable.'
He passed through the door, and we mounted the companion steps.
The night was so dark that there was very little of the vessel to be seen. Her dim spaces of canvas made a mere pale whistling shadow of her as they floated, waving and bowing, in dim heaps through the obscurity. There was a frequent glancing of white water to windward and a dampness as of spray in the wind, but the little barque tossed with dry decks over the brisk Atlantic heave, crushing the water off either bow into a dull light of seething, against which, when she stooped her head, the round of the forecastle showed like a segment of the shadow in a partial eclipse of the moon. The haze of the cabin-lamp lay about the skylight, and the figure of the mate appeared in and vanished past it with monotonous regularity as he paced the short poop. There was a haze of light, too, about the binnacle-stand, with a sort of elusive stealing into it of the outline of the man at the helm. Forward the vessel lay in blackness. It was blowing what sailors call a top-gallant breeze, with, perhaps, more weight in it even than that; but the squabness of thisLight of the Worldpromised great stiffness, and, though the wind had drawn some point or so forward while we were at table, the barque rose as stiff to it as though she had been under reefed topsails.
'Will you take my arm, Helga?' said I.
'Let me first turn up the sleeves of this coat,' said she.
I helped her to do this; she then put her hand under my arm, and we started to walk the lee-side of the deck as briskly as the swing of the planks would suffer. Scarcely were we in motion when the mate came down to us from the weather-side.
'Beg pardon,' said he. 'Won't you and the lady walk to wind'ard?'
'Oh, we shall be in your way!' I answered. 'It is a cold wind.'
'It is, sir.'
'But it promises a fair night,' said I.
'I hope so,' he exclaimed. 'Dirty weather don't agree with dirty skins.'
He turned on his heel and resumed his post on the weather-side of the deck.
'Dirty skins mean Malays in that chief mate's nautical dictionary,' said I.
'Hugh, how thankful I shall be when we are transferred to another ship!'
'Ay, indeed! but surely this is better than the lugger?'
'No! I would rather be in the lugger.'
'How now?' cried I. 'We are very well treated here. Surely the Captain has been all hospitality. No warm-hearted host ashore could do more. Why, here is he now at this moment superintending the arrangement of our cabins below to ensure our comfort!'
'I do not like him atall!' said she, in a tone which her slightly Danish accent rendered emphatic.
'I do not like his treatment of the men,' said I; 'but he is kind to us.'
'There is an unwholesome mind in his flabby face!' she exclaimed.
I could not forbear a laugh at this strong language in the little creature.
'And then his religion!' she continued. 'Does a truly pious nature talk as he does? I can understand professional religionists intruding their calling upon strangers; but I have always found sincerity in matters of opinion modest and reserved—I mean among what you call laymen. What right has this man to force upon those poor fellows forward the food that they are forbidden by their faith to eat?'
'Yes,' said I; 'that is a vile side of the man's nature, I must own; vile to you and me and to the poor Malays, I mean. But, surely, there must be sincerity too, or why should he bother himself?'
'It may be meanness,' said she: 'he wants to save his beef; meanness and that love of tyrannizing which is oftener to be found among the captains of your nation, Hugh, than mine!'
'Your nation!' said I, laughing. 'I claim you for Great Britain by virtue of your English speech. No pure Dane could talk your mother's tongue as you do. Spite of what you say, though, I believe the man sincere. Would he, situated as he is—two white men to eleven yellow-skins (for we and the boatmen must count ourselves out of it)—would he, I say, dare venture to arouse the passions—the religious passions—of a set of men who hail from the most treacherous community of people in the world, if he were not governed by some dream of converting them?—a fancy that were you to transplant it ashore, would be reckoned noble and of a Scriptural and martyr-like greatness.'
'That may be,' she answered; 'but he is going very wickedly to work, nevertheless, and it will not be his fault if those coloured sailors do not dangerously mutiny long before he shall have persuaded the most timid and doubting of them that pork is good to eat.'
'Yes,' said I gravely; for she spoke with a sort of impassioned seriousness that must have influenced me, even if I had not been of her mind. 'I, for one, should certainly fear the worst if he persists—and I don't doubt hewillpersist, if Abraham and the other boatman agree to remain with him; for then it will be four to eleven—desperate odds, indeed, though as an Englishman he is bound to underrate the formidableness of anything coloured. However,' said I, with a glance into the darkness over the side, 'do not doubt that we shall be transhipped long before any trouble happens. I shall endeavour to have a talk with Abraham before he decides. What he and Jacob then do, they will do with their eyes open.'
As I spoke these words, the Captain came up the ladder and approached us.
'Ha! Miss Nielsen,' he cried, 'were not you wise to put on that warm coat? All is ready below; but still let me hope that you will change your mind and occupy Mr. Jones's berth.'
'Thank you; for the short time we shall remain in this ship the cabin you have been good enough to prepare will be all I require,' she answered.
He peered through the skylight to see the hour.
'Five minutes to eight,' he exclaimed. 'Mr. Jones!' The man crossed the deck. 'I have arranged,' said the Captain, 'with the Deal boatman Abraham Wise to take charge of the barque during the middle watch. It is an experiment, and I shall require to be up and down during those hours to make sure of him. Not that I distrust his capacities. Oh dear no! From the vicious slipping of cables, merely for sordid purposes of hovelling, to the noble art of navigating a ship in a hurricane amid the shoals of the Straits of Dover, your Deal boatman is the most expert of men. But,' continued he, 'since I shall have to be up and down, as I have said, during the middle watch, I will ask you to keep charge of the deck till midnight.'
'Very good, sir,' said the mate, who appeared to me to have been on duty ever since the hour of our coming aboard. 'It will keep the round of the watches steady, sir. The port watch comes on duty at eight bells.'
'Excellent!' exclaimed the Captain. 'Thank you, Mr. Jones.'
The mate stalked aft.
'Mr. Tregarthen,' he added, 'I observe that you wear a sou'-wester.'
'It is the headgear I wore when I put off in the lifeboat,' said I, 'and I am waiting to get home to exchange it.'
'No need, no need!' cried he; 'I have an excellent wideawake below—not, indeed, perfectly new, but a very serviceable clinging article for ocean use—which is entirely at your service.'
'You are all kindness!'
'Nay,' he exclaimed in a voice of devotion, 'I believe I know my duty. Shall we linger here, Miss Nielsen, or would you prefer the shelter of the cabin? At half-past eight Punmeamootty will place some hot water, biscuit, and a little spirit upon the table. I fear I shall be at a loss to divert you.'
'Indeed not!' exclaimed Helga.
The unconscious irony of this response must have disconcerted a less self-complacent man.
'I have a few volumes of an edifying kind, and a draughtboard. My resources for amusing you, I fear, are limited to those things.'
The sweep of the wind was bleaker than either of us had imagined, and, now that the Captain had joined us, the deck possessed no temptation. We followed him into the cabin, where Helga hastily removed the coat as though fearing the Captain would help her. His first act was to produce the wideawake he had spoken of. This was a very great convenience to me; the sou'-wester lay hot and heavy upon my head, and the sense of its extreme unsightliness added not a little to the discomfort it caused me. He looked at my sea-boots and then at his feet, and, with his head on one side, exclaimed, in his most smiling manner, that he feared his shoes would prove too large for me, but that I was very welcome to the use of a pair of his slippers. These also I gratefully accepted, and withdrew to Mr. Jones's berth to put them on, and the comfort of being thus shod, after days of the weight and unwieldiness of my sea-boots, it would be impossible to express.
'I think we shall be able to make ourselves happy yet,' said the Captain. 'Pray sit, Miss Nielsen. Do you smoke, Mr. Tregarthen?'
'I do, indeed,' I answered, 'whenever I can get the chance.'
He looked at Helga, who said to me: 'Pray smoke here, Hugh, if the Captain does not object. My father seldom had a pipe out of his mouth, and I was constantly in his cabin with him.'
'You are truly obliging,' said the Captain; and going to the locker in which he kept his rum, biscuits, and the like, he took out a cigar-box, and handed me as well-flavoured a Havannah as ever I had smoked in my life. All this kindness and hospitality was, indeed, overwhelming, and I returned some very lively thanks, to which he listened with a smile, afterwards, as his custom was, waving them aside with his hand. He next entered his cabin and returned with some half-dozen books, which he put before Helga. I leaned over her shoulder to look at them, and speedily recognised 'The Whole Duty of Man,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Young's 'Night Thoughts,' a volume by Jeremy Taylor; and the rest were of this sort of literature. Helga opened a volume and seemed to read. When I turned to ask the Captain a question about these books, I found him staring at her profile out of the corner of his eyes, while with his right hand he stroked his whisker meditatively.
'These are all very good books,' said I, 'particularly the "Pilgrim's Progress."'
'Yes,' he answered with a sigh; 'works of that kind during my long periods of loneliness upon the high seas are my only solace, and lonely I am. All ship-captains are more or less alone when engaged in their profession, but I am peculiarly so.'
'I should have thought the Church, Captain, would have suited you better than the sea,' said I.
'Not the Church,' he answered. 'I am a Nonconformist, and Dissent is stamped upon a long pedigree. Pray light up, Mr. Tregarthen.'
He took his seat at the head of the table, put a match to his cigar, the sight of which betwixt his thick lips considerably humanized him in my opinion, and, clasping his pale, gouty-looking hands upon the table, leaned forward, furtively eyeing Helga over the top of his cigar, which forked up out of his mouth like the bowsprit of a ship.
His conversation chiefly concerned himself, his past career, his antecedents, and so forth. He talked as one who wishes to stand well with his hearers. He spoke of a Lady Duckett as a connection of his on his mother's side, and I observed that he paused on pronouncing the name. He told us that his mother had come from a very ancient family that had been for centuries established in Cumberland, but he was reticent on the subject of his father. He talked much of his daughter's loneliness at home, and said he grieved that she was without a companion—someone who would be equally dear to them both; and as he said this he lay back in his chair in a very amplitude of waistcoat, with his eyes fixed on the upper deck and his whole posture suggestive of pensive thought.
Well, thought I, this, to be sure, is a very strange sort of sea-captain. I had met various skippers in my day, but none like this man. Even a trifling expletive would have been refreshing in his mouth. From time to time Helga glanced at him, but with an air of aversion that was not to be concealed from me, however self-complacency might blind him to it. She suddenly exclaimed, with almost startling inconsequentiality:
'You will be greatly obliging us, Captain Bunting, by giving orders to Mr. Jones or to Abraham to keep a look-out for ships sailing north during the night. We can never tell what passing vessel might not be willing to receive Mr. Tregarthen and me.'
'What! In the darkness of night?' he exclaimed. 'How should we signal? How would you have me convey my desire to communicate?'
'By a blue light, or by burning a portfire,' said Helga shortly.
'Ah, I see you are a thorough sailor—you are not to be instructed,' he cried, jocosely wagging his whiskers at her. 'Think of a young lady being acquainted with the secret of night communications at sea! I fear—I fear we shall have to wait for the daylight. But what,' he exclaimed unctuously, 'is the reason of this exceeding desire to return home?'
'Oh, Captain,' said I, 'home is home.'
'And Mr. Tregarthen wishes to return to his mother,' said Helga.
'But, my dear young lady,yourhome is not in England, is it?' he asked.
She coloured, faltered, and then answered: 'My home is in Denmark.'
'You have lost your poor dear father,' said he, 'and I think I understood you to say, Mr. Tregarthen, that Miss Nielsen's poor dear mother fell asleep some years since.'
This was a guess on his part. I had no recollection whatever of having told him anything of the sort.
'I am an orphan,' exclaimed Helga, with a little hint of tears in her eyes, 'and—and, Captain Bunting, Mr. Tregarthen and I want to return home.'
'Captain Bunting will see to that, Helga,' said I, conceiving her somewhat too importunate in this direction.
She answered me with a singularly wistful, anxious look.
The conversation came to a pause through the entrance of Punmeamootty. He arrived with a tray and hot water, which he placed upon the table together with some glasses. The Captain produced wine and a bottle of rum. Helga would take nothing, though no one could have been more hospitably pressing than Captain Bunting. For my part, I was glad to fill my glass, as much for the sake of the tonic of the spirit as for the desire to appear entirely sociable with this strange skipper.
'You can go forward,' he exclaimed to the Malay; and the fellow went gliding on serpentine legs, as it veritably seemed to me, out through the door.
No further reference was made to the subject of our leaving the barque. The Captain was giving us his experiences of the Deal boatmen, and relating an instance of heroic roguery on the part of the crew of a galley-punt, when a noise of thick, throaty, African-like yowling was heard sounding from somewhere forward, accompanied by one or two calls from the mate overhead.
'I expect Mr. Jones is taking in the foretop-gallant sail,' said the Captain. 'Can it be necessary? I will return shortly.' And, giving Helga a convulsive bow, he pulled his wideawake to his ears and went on deck.
'You look at me, Hugh,' said Helga, fixing her artless, sweet, and modest eyes upon me, 'when I speak to Captain Bunting as though I do wrong.'
I answered gently, 'No. But is it not a little ungracious, Helga, to keep on expressing your anxiety to get away, in the face of all this hospitable treatment and kindly anxiety to make us comfortable and happy while we remain?'
She looked somewhat abashed. 'I wish he was not so kind,' she said.
'What is your misgiving?' said I, inclining towards her to catch a better view of her face.
'I fear he will not make haste to tranship us,' she answered.
'But why should he want to keep us?'
She glanced at me with an instant's surprise emphasized by a brief parting of her lips that was yet not a smile. She made no answer, however.
'He will not want to keep us,' continued I, talking with the confidence of a young man to a girl whom he is protecting, and whose behaviour assures him that she looks up to him and values his judgment. 'We may prove very good company for a day or two, but the master of a vessel of this sort is a man who counts his sixpences, and he has no idea of maintaining us for a longer time than he can possibly help, depend upon it.'
'I hope so,' she answered.
'But you don't think so,' said I, struck by her manner.
She answered by speaking of his treatment of his crew, and we were upon this subject when he descended the cabin ladder.
'A small freshening of the wind,' said he, 'and a trifling squall of rain.' There was no need for him to tell us this, for his long whiskers sparkled with water drops, and carried evidences of a brisk shower. 'The barque is now very snug, and there is nothing in sight,' said he, with a sort of half-humorous, reproachful significance in his way of turning to Helga.
She smiled, as though by smiling she believed I should be pleased. The Captain begged her to drink a little wine and eat a biscuit, and she consented. This seemed to gratify him, and his behaviour visibly warmed while he relighted his cigar, mixed himself another little dose, and resumed his chat about Deal boatmen and his experiences in the Downs.
We sat chatting thus until something after nine. The comfort of this cabin after the lugger, the knowledge that Helga and I would each have a comfortable bed, comparatively speaking, to lie in, the conviction that our stay in the barque must be short, and that a very few hours might see us homeward bound, coupled with a sense of security such as never possessed me in the open lugger, not to mention the influence of my one pretty big tumbler of rum punch, had put me into a good humour.
'Is not this better than the lugger?' I said to Helga, as I motioned with my cigar round the cabin, and pointed to the slippers upon my feet. 'Think of my little windy bed under that boat's deck, Helga, and recollect your black forepeak.'
She seemed to acquiesce. The Captain's countenance was bland with gratification.
'You tell me you have not travelled, Mr. Tregarthen?' said he.
'I have not,' I replied.
'But you would like to see the world? All young men should see the world. Does not the poet tell us that home-keeping youths have ever homely wits?' and here he harangued me for a little with commonplaces on the advantage of travel; then, addressing Helga very smilingly, he said, 'Youhave seen much of the world?'
'Not very much,' she answered.
'South America?'
'I was once at Rio,' she answered. 'I was also at Port Royal, in Jamaica, and have accompanied my father in short voyages to one or two Portuguese and Mediterranean ports.'
'Come, there is extensive observation, even in that,' said he, 'in one so—in one whose years are still few! Did you ever visit Table Bay?'
She answered 'No.'
He smoked meditatively.
'Helga,' said I, 'you look tired. Would you like to go to your cabin?'
'I should, Hugh.'
'Well, I shall be glad to turn in myself, Captain. Will you forgive our early retreat?'
'By all means,' he exclaimed. 'Let me show you the cabins.'
He went to the cuddy door and bawled for Punmeamootty. 'Light a lantern,' I heard him say, 'and bring it aft!'
After a minute or two the steward made his appearance with a lantern swinging in his hand. The Captain took it from him, and we passed out on to the quarter-deck where the hatch lay. After the warmth of the cuddy interior, the wind, chilled as it had been with the damp of the squall, seemed to blow with an edge of frost. The rays of the lantern danced in the blackness of the wet planks. The vessel was rolling slowly and plunging heavily, and there were many heavy, complaining, straining noises aloft amid the invisible spaces of canvas swinging through the starless gloom. The cold, bleak roar of seething waters alongside recalled the raft, and there was a sort of sobbing all along the dusk close under either line of bulwarks.
'Let me help you through this little hatch, Miss Nielsen,' said the Captain, dangling the lantern over it that we might see the aperture.
If she answered him, I did not hear her; she peered a moment, then put her foot over and vanished. The steps were perpendicular—pieces of wood nailed to the bulkhead—yet she had descended this up-and-down ladder in an instant, and almost as she vanished was calling to me from below to say that she was safe.
'What extraordinary nimbleness in a young lady!' cried the Captain, in a voice of unaffected admiration. 'What an exquisite sailor! Now, Mr. Tregarthen!'
I shuffled down, keeping a tight hold on the edge of the hatch, and felt my feet before there was occasion to let go with my hands. There was very little to be seen of this interior by the lantern light. It was the forepart of the steerage, so far as I could gather, with two rows of bulkheads forming a little corridor, at the extremity of which, aft, I could faintly distinguish the glimmering outlines of cases of light cargo. Forward of the hatch, through which we had descended, there stood a solid bulkhead, so there was nothing to be seen that way. The doors of the cabins opened out of the little corridor; they were mere pigeon-holes; but then these 'tweendecks were very low, and while I stood erect I felt the crown of the wideawake I wore brushing the planks.
Never could I have imagined so much noise in a ship as was here—the squeaking, the grinding, the groaning; the jar and shock of the rudder upon its post; the thump of the seas outside, and the responsive throbbing within; the sullen, muffled roar of the Atlantic surge washing past; all these notes were blended into such a confusion of sounds as is not to be expressed. The lantern swayed in the Captain's hand, and the shadows at our feet sprang from side to side. There were shadows, too, all round about, wildly playing upon the walls and bulkheads of the vessel with a mopping and mowing of them that might have filled a lonely and unaccustomed soul down here with horrible imaginations of sea monsters and ocean spectres.
'I heartily wish, Miss Nielsen,' cried the Captain—and, in truth, he had need to exert his voice to be audible amid that bewildering clamour—'that you had suffered me to provide you with better accommodation than this. Jones could have done very well down here. However, for to-night this will be your cabin. To-morrow I hope you will change your mind, and consent to sleep above.'
So saying, he opened the foremost of the little doors on the port side. It was a mere hole indeed, yet it somehow took the civilized look of an ordinary ship's berth from the round scuttle or thickly-glazed porthole which lay in an embrasure deep enough to comfortably warrant the thickness of the vessel's side. Under this porthole was a narrow bunk, and in it a bolster, and, as I might suppose, blankets, over which was spread a very handsome rug. I swiftly took note of one or two conveniences—a looking-glass, a washstand secured to the bulkhead (this piece of furniture, I made no doubt, had come direct from the Captain's cabin); there was also a little table, and upon it a comb and brush, and on the cabin deck was a square of carpet.
'Very poor quarters for you, Miss Nielsen,' said the Captain, looking round, his nose and whiskers appearing twice as long in the fluctuations of the lantern light and his fixed smile odd beyond words, with the tumbling of the shadows over his face.
'The cabin is very comfortable, and you are very kind!' exclaimed Helga.
'You are good to say so. I wish you a good night and pleasant dreams.'
He extended his hand, and held hers, I thought, rather longer than mere courtesy demanded.
'That will be your cabin, Mr. Tregarthen,' said he, going to the door.
I bade Helga good-night. It was hard to interpret her looks by that light, yet I fancied she had something to say, and bent my ear to her mouth; but instead of speaking, she hurriedly passed her right hand down my sleeve, by no means caressingly, but as though she desired to cleanse or dry her fingers. I looked at her, and she turned away.
'Good-night, Helga!' said I.
'Good-night, Hugh!' she answered.
'You will find a bolt to your door, Miss Nielsen,' called the Captain. 'Oh, by the way,' he added, 'I do not mean that you shall undress in the dark. There is an opening over your door; I will hang the lantern amidships here. It will shed light enough to see by, and in half an hour, if that will not be too soon, Punmeamootty will remove it. Good-night, Mr. Tregarthen!'
He left me, after hanging up the lantern by a hook fixed in a beam amidships of the corridor. I waited until his figure had disappeared up the steps of the hatch and then called to Helga. She heard me instantly, and cried, 'What is it, Hugh?'
'Did not you want to say something to me just now?' I exclaimed.
She opened the door and repeated, 'What is it, Hugh? I cannot hear you!'
'I thought you wished to speak to me just now,' said I, 'but were hindered by the Captain's presence.'
'No, I have nothing to say,' she answered, looking very pale in the frolic of shadows made by the swinging lantern.
'Why did you stroke down my arm? Was it a rebuke? Have I offended you?'
'Oh, Hugh!' she cried; then exclaimed: 'Could not you see what I meant? I acted what I could not speak.'
'I do not understand,' said I.
'I wished to wipe off the grasp of that man's hand,' she exclaimed.
'Poor wretch! Is he so soiling as all that, Helga? And yet how considerate he is! I believe he has half denuded his own cabin for you.'
'Well, good-night once more,' said she, and closed the door of her berth upon herself.
I entered my cabin wondering like a fool. I could witness nothing but groundless aversion in her thoughts of this Captain Bunting, and felt vexed by her behaviour; for first I considered that, as in the lugger, so here—some days, ay, and even some weeks, might pass without providing us with the chance of being conveyed on board a homeward-bound ship. I do not say I believed this; but it was a probable thing, and there was that degree of risk, therefore, in it. Then I reflected that it was in the power of Captain Bunting to render our stay in his vessel either as agreeable as he had the power to make it, or entirely uncomfortable and wretched by neglect, insolence, bad-humour, and the like. I therefore regarded Helga's behaviour as impolitic, and, not having the sense to see into it so as to arrive at a reason, I allowed it to tease me as a piece of silly girlish caprice.
This was in my mind as I entered my cabin. There was light enough to enable me to master the interior, and a glance around satisfied me that I was not to be so well used as Helga. There were a pair of blankets in the bunk, and an old pewter basin on the deck that was sliding to and fro with the motions of the vessel. This I ended by throwing the concern into the next cabin, which, so far as I could tell, was half full of bolts of canvas and odds and ends of gear, which emitted a very strong smell of tar. However, I was sleepier than I was sensible of while I used my legs, for I had no sooner stretched my length in the bunk, using the Captain's slippers rolled up in my monkey-jacket as a pillow, than I fell asleep, though five minutes before I should have believed that there was nothing in opium to induce slumber in the face of the complicated noise which filled that interior.
I slept heavily right through the night, and awoke at half-past seven. I saw Punmeamootty standing in the door, and believe I should not have awakened but for his being there and staring at me. I lay a minute before I could bring my mind to its bearings; and I have some recollection of stupidly and drowsily imagining that I had been set ashore on an island by Captain Bunting, that I had taken refuge in a cave, and that the owner of that cave, a yellow wild man, had looked in, and, finding me there, was meditating how best to despatch me.
'Hallo?' said I. 'What is it?'
'You wantchee water, sah?' said the man.
'Yes.' said I, now in possession of all my wits. 'You will find the basin belonging to this berth next door. A little cold water, if you please, and, if you can possibly manage it, Punmeamootty, a small bit of soap and a towel.'
He withdrew, and in a few minutes returned with the articles I required.
'How is the weather?' said I, with a glance at the screwed-up porthole, the glass of which lay as dusky with grime as the scuttle of a whaler that has been three years afishing.
'Very proper wedder, sah,' he answered.
'Captain Bunting up?'
'No, sah.'
'You will be glad to get to Cape Town, I dare say,' said I, scrubbing at my face, and willing to talk since I noticed a disposition in the fellow to linger. 'Do you hail from that settlement, Punmeamootty?'
'No, sah: I 'long to Ceylon,' he answered.
'How many Cingalese are there aboard?'
'Tree,' he answered.
'Do the rest belong to the Cape?'
He shook his head and replied, 'No; one Burmah man, anoder Penang, anoder Singapore—allee like that.'
'But your work in this ship ends at Cape Town?'
'Yes, sah,' he answered, swiftly and fiercely.
'Are you all Mahometans?'
'Yes, allee Mussulmans.'
I understood byalleethat he meant all. He fastened his dusky eyes upon me with an expression of expectation that I would pursue the subject: finding me silent, he looked behind him, and then said, in a species of English that was not 'pigeon' and that I can but feebly reproduce, though, to be sure, what was most remarkable in it came from the colour it took through his intonation, and that glitter in his eyes which had made them visible to me in the dusk of the previous evening, 'You have been wrecked, sah?' I nodded. 'But you sabbee nabigation?'
I could not restrain a laugh. 'I know nothing of navigation,' said I; 'but I was not wrecked for the want of it, Punmeamootty.'
'But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee nabigation?' said he, with an apologetic, conciliatory grin that laid bare a wide range of his gleaming white teeth.
'How do you know that?' said I, struck by the question.
'Me hear you tell de captain, sah.'
'Yes,' said I, 'I believe she can navigate a ship.' He tossed his hands and rolled up his eyes in ludicrous imitation, as I thought, of his Captain's behaviour when he desired to express admiration. 'She beautiful young lady,' he exclaimed, 'and werry good—kind smile, and berry sorry for poor Mussulmans, sah.'
'I know what you mean, Punmeamootty,' said I. 'We are both very sorry, believe me! The Captain means well'—the man's teeth met in a sudden snap as I said this—'the man means well,' I repeated, eyeing him steadily; 'but it is a mistaken kindness. The lady and I will endeavour to influence him; though, at the same time, we trust to be out of the ship very soon, possibly too soon to be of any use. Anything in sight?'
'No, sah!'
He loitered still, as though he had more to say. Finding me silent, he made an odd sort of obeisance and disappeared.
Helga's cabin-door was shut. I listened, but could not collect amid the creaking noises that she was stirring within. It was likely she had passed an uneasy night and was now sleeping, and in that belief I gained the hatchway and mounted on deck.
The first person I saw was Helga. She was talking to the two boatmen at the foot of the little poop ladder, under the lee of the bulwarks, which were very nearly the height of a man. The decks were still dark with the swabbing-up of the brine with which they had been scoured. The galley chimney was hospitably smoking. A group of the coloured seamen lounged to leeward of the galley, with steaming pannikins and biscuits in their hands, and, as they ate and drank, they talked incessantly. The fellow named Nakier stood on the forecastle with his arms folded, persistently staring aft, as it seemed to me, at Helga and the boatmen. The sun was about half an hour above the horizon; the sky was very delicately shaded with a frosty network of cloud, full of choice and tender tints, as though the sun were a prism flooding the heavens with many-coloured radiance. Over the lee-rail the sea was running in a fine rich blue streaked with foam, and the wind was a moderate breeze from which the completely clothed masts of the barque were leaning with the yards braced forward, for, so far as I could tell by the sun, the wind was about south-east.
All these details my eye took in as I stepped out of the hatch. Helga advanced to meet me, and I held her hand.
'You are looking very bonny this morning,' said I. 'Your sleep has done you good. Good-morning, Abraham; and how are you, Jacob? You two are the men I just now want to see.'
'Marning, Mr. Tregarthen,' exclaimed Abraham. 'How areyou, sir? Don't Miss Nielsen look first-rate? Why, she ain't the same lady she was when we first fell in with ye.'
'It is true, Helga,' said I. 'Did Captain Bunting smuggle some cosmetics into your cabin, along with his washstand?'
'Oh, do not joke, Hugh,' said she. 'Look around the ocean: it is still bare.'
'I've bin a-telling Miss Nielsen,' exclaimed Abraham, 'that them coloured chaps forrads are a-talking about her as if she were a diwinity.'
'A angel,' said Jacob.
'A diwinity,' said Abraham, looking at his mate. 'The cove they calls boss—that there Nakier yonder, him as is a-looking at us as if his heart was agoing to bust—what d'ye think he says—ay, and in fust-class English, too? "That there gal," says he, "ain't no Englishwoman. I'm glad to know it. She's got too sweet a hoye for an Englishwoman." "What d'ye know about hoyes?" says I. "English bad, bad," says he; "some good," here he holds up his thumb as if a-counting wan; "but many veree bad, veree bad," he says, says he, and here he holds up his fower fingers, like a little sprouting of o'er-ripe plantains, meaning fower to one, I allow.'
'It's pork as is at the bottom o' them feelin's,' said Jacob.
'Abraham,' said I, in a low voice, for I had no desire to be overheard by the mate, who came and went at the rim of the poop overhead in his walk from the taffrail to the break of the deck, 'before you accept Captain Bunting's offer——'
'Ihaveaccepted it, Mr. Tregarthen,' he interrupted.
'When?'
'Last noight, or call it this marning. He was up and down while I kep' a look-out, and wanst he says to me, "Are you agreeable, Vise?" says he; and I says, "Yes, sir," having talked the matter o'er with Jacob.'
'I hope the pair of you have thought the offer well out,' said I, with a glance at the Captain's cabin, from which, however, we stood too far to be audible to him in it. 'I saw Nakier haranguing you yesterday afternoon, and, though you told me you didn't quite understand him, yet surely by this time you will have seen enough to make you guess that if the Captain insists on forcing pork down those men's throats his ship is not going to continue a floating Garden of Eden!'
'Whoy, that may be roight enough,' answered Abraham; 'but them coloured chaps' grievances han't got nothen to do with Jacob an' me. What I considered is this: here am I offered fower pound a month, and there's Jacob, who's to go upon the articles for three pound; that'll be seven pound 'twixt us tew men. Ain't that money good enough for the likes of us, Mr. Tregarthen? Where's theAirly Marn? Where's my fifteen pound vorth o' property? Where's Jacob's height pound vorth—ay, every farden of height pound?' he exclaimed, looking at Jacob, who confirmed his assurance with a prodigious nod. 'As to them leather-coloured covies——' he continued, with a contemptuous look forwards; then pausing, he cried out, ''Soides, whoyshouldn'tthey eat pork? If it's good enough for me and Jacob, ain't it good enough for the likes o' such a poor little parcel o' sickly flesh as that there Nakier and his mates?'
'It is a question of religion with them,' said I.
'Religion!' grumbled Jacob. 'Religion, Mr. Tregarthen, don't lie here, sir,' putting his hand upon his waistcoat, 'but here,' pointing with a tarry-looking finger to where he imagined his heart was. 'There hain't no religion in dishes. I've heerd of chaps a-preaching in tubs, but I never heerd of religion lying pickled in a cask. Don't you let them chaps gammon you, sir. 'Tain't pork: it's a detarmination to find fault.'
'But have they not said enough in your hearing to persuade you they are in earnest?' said Helga.
'Why, ye see, lady,' answered Abraham, 'that their language is a sort o' conversation which there's ne'er a man along Deal beach as has ever been eddicated in, howe'er it may be along o' your part o' the coast, Mr. Tregarthen. What they says among themselves I don't onderstand.'
'But have they not complained to you,' persisted Helga gently, 'of being obliged by the Captain either to go without food every other day or to eat meat that is forbidden to them by their religion?'
'That there Nakier,' replied Abraham, 'spun a long yarn yesterday to Jacob and me whilst we lay agin the galley feeling werry ordinary—werry ordinary indeed—arter that there bad job of theAirly Marn; but he talked so fast, and so soft tew, that all that I could tell ye of his yarn, miss, is that he and his mates don't fancy themselves as comfortable as they might be.'
I said quietly, for Mr. Jones had come to a halt at the rail above us: 'Well, Abraham, my advice to you both is, look about you a little while longer before you allow your names to be put upon the articles of this ship.'
At that moment the Captain came out of the door of the cuddy, and the two boatmen, with a flourish of their hands to Helga, went rolling forward. He came up to us, all smiles and politeness. It was easy to see that he had taken some trouble in dressing himself; his whiskers were carefully brushed; he wore a new purple-satin scarf; his ample black waistcoat hinted that it belonged to his Sunday suit, or 'best things,' as servants call it; his boots were well polished; he showed an abundance of white cuff; and his wideawake sat somewhat jauntily upon his head. His two or three chins went rolling and disappearing like a ground swell betwixt the opening of a pair of tall starched collars—an unusual embellishment, I should have imagined at sea, where starch is as scarce as newspapers. He hoped Helga had slept well; he trusted that the noises of straining and creaking below had not disturbed her. She must really change her mind, and occupy Mr. Jones's cabin. After shaking me by the hand, he seemed to forget that I stood by, so busy was he in his attention to Helga. He asked her to step on to the poop or upper deck.
'These planks are not yet dry,' said he; 'and besides,' he went on smiling always, 'your proper place, my dear young lady, is aft, where there is, at all events, seclusion, though, alas! I am unable to offer you the elegances and luxuries of an ocean mail steamer.'
We mounted the ladder, and he came to a stand to survey the sea.
'What a mighty waste, is it not, Miss Nielsen? Nothing in sight. All hopelessly sterile. But it is not for me to complain,' he added significantly.
He then called to Mr. Jones, and all very blandly, with the gentlemanly airs and graces which one associates with the counter, he asked him how the weather had been since eight bells, if any vessels had been sighted, and so forth, talking with a marked reference to Helga being near and listening to him.
Mr. Jones, with his purple pimple of a nose of the shape of a woman's thimble standing out from the middle of his pale face, with a small but extraordinary light-blue eye twinkling on either side of it under straw-coloured lashes and eyebrows resembling oakum, listened to and addressed the Captain with the utmost degree of respect. There was an air of shabbiness and of hard usage about his apparel that bespoke him a man whose locker was not likely to be overburthened with shot. His walk was something of a shamble, that was heightened by the loose pair of old carpet slippers he wore, and by the frayed heels of his breeches. His age was probably thirty. He impressed me as a man whose appearance would tell against him among owners and shipmasters, who would therefore obtain a berth with difficulty, but who when once in possession would hold on tight by all possible strenuous effort of fawning, of agreeing, of submissively undertaking more work than a captain had a right to put him to.
While we thus stood I sent a look around the littleLight of the Worldto see what sort of a ship we were aboard of, for down to this time I had scarcely had an opportunity of inspecting her. She was an old vessel, probably forty years old. This I might, have guessed from the existence of the cabins in the steerage; but her beam and the roundness of her bows and a universal worn air, that answered to the wrinkles upon the human countenance, likewise spoke her age very plainly. Her fittings were of the homeliest: there was no brasswork here to glitter upon the eye; her deck furniture was, indeed, as coarse and plain as a smack's, with scars about the skylight, about the companion hatch-cover, about the drumhead of the little quarter-deck capstan, and about the line of the poop and bulwark rail, as though they had been used over and over again by generations of seamen for cutting up plug tobacco upon. She had a very short forecastle-deck forward, under which you saw the heel of the bowsprit and the heaped mass of windlass; but the men's sleeping quarters were in the deck beneath, to which access was to be had only by what is commonly called a fore-scuttle—that is to say, a little hatch with a cover to it, which could be bolted and padlocked at will. Abaft the galley lay the long-boat, a squab tub of a fabric like the mother whose daughter she was. It rested in chocks, on its keel, and was lashed to bolts in the deck. There were some spare booms secured on top of it, but the boat's one use now was as a receptacle for poultry for the Captain's table. On either side of the poop hung a quarter-boat in davits—plain structures, sharp-ended like whaling-boats. Add a few details, such as a scuttle-butt for holding fresh water for the crew to drink from; a harness-cask against the cuddy-front, for storing the salted meats for current use; the square of the main-hatch tarpaulined and battened down; and then the yards mounting the masts and rising from courses to royals, spars and gear looking as old as the rest of the ship, though the sails seemed new, and shone very white as the wind swelled their breasts to the sun, and you have as good a picture as I can put before you of thisLight of the Worldthat was bearing Helga and me hour by hour farther and deeper into the heart of the great Atlantic, and that was also to be the theatre of one of the strangest and wildest of the events which furnished forth this trying and desperate passage of my life.
Captain Bunting moved away with an invitation in his manner to Helga to walk. I lingered to exchange a word with the mate from the mere desire to be civil. Helga called me with her eyes to accompany her, then, hearing me speak to Mr. Jones, she joined the Captain and paced by his side. I spied him making an angle of his arm for her to take, but she looked away, and he let fall his hand.
'If Abraham Wise,' said I, 'agrees to sail with you, Mr. Jones, you will have a very likely lively fellow to relieve you in keeping watch.'
'Yes; he seems a good man. It is a treat to see a white face knocking about this vessel's deck,' he answered in a spiritless way, as though he found little to interest him when his Captain's back was turned.
'You certainly have a very odd-looking crew,' said I. 'I believe I should not have the courage to send myself adrift along with one white man only aboard a craft full of Malays.'
'There were three of us,' he answered, 'but Winstanley disappeared shortly after we had sailed.'
As he spoke, Nakier, on the forecastle, struck a little silver-toned bell eight times, signifying eight o'clock.
'Who is that copper-coloured, scowling-looking fellow at the wheel?' I asked, indicating the man who had been at the helm when Helga and I came aboard on the preceding day.
'His name is Ong Kew Ho,' he answered. 'A rare beauty, ain't he?' he added, with a little life coming into his eyes. 'His face looks rotten with ripeness. Sorry to say he's in my watch, and he's the one of them all that I never feel very easy with of a dark night when he's where he is now and I'm alone here.'
'But the looks of those Asiatic folk don't always express their minds,' said I. 'I remember boarding a ship off the town I belong to and noticing among the crew the most hideous, savage-looking creature it would be possible to imagine: eyes asquint, a flat nose with nostrils going to either cheek, black hair wriggling past his ears like snakes, and a mouth like a terrible wound; indeed, he is not to be described; yet the captain assured me that he was the gentlest, best-behaved man he had ever had under him, and the one favourite of the crew.'
'He wasn't a Malay,' said Mr. Jones drily.
'The captain didn't know his country,' said I.
Here Abraham arrived to take charge of the deck. He had polished himself up to the best of his ability, and mounted the ladder with an air of importance. He took a slow, merchant-sailor-like, deep-sea survey of the horizon, following on with an equally deliberate gaze aloft at the canvas, then knuckled his brow to Mr. Jones, who gave him the course and exchanged a few words with him, and immediately after left the deck, howling out an irrepressible yawn as he descended the ladder.
It was not for me to engage Abraham in conversation. He was now on duty, and I understood the sea-discipline well enough to know that he must be left alone. I thereupon joined Helga and Captain Bunting, not a little amused secretly by the quarter-deck strut the worthy boatman put on, by the knowing, consequential expression in his eyes as they met in a squint in the compass-bowl, by his slow look at the sea over the taffrail and the twist in his pursed-up lips as he went rolling forwards to the break of the poop, viewing the sails as though anxious to find something wrong, that he might give an order and prove his zeal.
At half-past eight Punmeamootty rang a little bell in the cabin, and we went down to breakfast. The repast, it was to be easily seen, was the best the ship's larder could furnish, and in excess of what was commonly placed upon the table. There was a good ham, there was a piece of ship's corned beef, and I recollect a jar of marmalade, some white biscuit, and a pot of hot coffee. The coloured steward waited nimbly, with a singular swiftness and eagerness of manner when attending to Helga, at whom I would catch him furtively gazing askant, with an expression in his fiery, dusky eyes that was more of wonder and respect, I thought, than of admiration. At times he would send a sideways look at the Captain that put the fancy of a flourished knife into one's head, so keen and sudden and gleaming was it. Mr. Jones had apparently breakfasted and withdrawn to his cabin, thankful, no doubt, for a chance to stretch his legs upon a mattress.
In the course of the meal Helga inquired the situation of the ship.
'We are, as nearly as possible,' answered the Captain, 'on the latitude of the island of Madeira, and, roundly speaking, some hundred and twenty miles to the eastward of it. But you know how to take an observation of the sun, Mr. Tregarthen informed me. I have a spare sextant, and at noon you and I will together find out the latitude. I should very well like to have my reckoning confirmed by you;' and he leaned towards her, and smiled and looked at her.
She coloured, and said that, though her father had taught her navigation, her calculations could not be depended upon. But for her wish to please me, I believe she would not have troubled herself to give him that answer, but coldly proceeded with the question she now put:
'Since we are so close to Madeira, Captain Bunting, would it be inconveniencing you to sail your barque to that island, where we are sure to find a steamer to carry us home?'
He softly shook his head with an expression of bland concern, while he sentimentally lifted his eyes to the tell-tale compass above his head.
'You ask too much, Helga,' said I. 'You must know that the deviation of a ship from her course may vitiate her policy of insurance, should disaster follow.'
'Just so!' exclaimed the Captain, with a thankful and smiling inclination of his head at me.
'Besides, Helga,' said I gently, 'supposing, on our arrival at Madeira, we should find no steamer going to England for some days, what should we do? There are no houses of charity in that island of Portuguese beggars, I fear; and Captain Bunting may readily guess how it happens that I left my purse at home.'
'Just so!' he repeated, giving me such another nod as he had before bestowed.
The subject dropped. The Captain made some remark about the part of the ocean we were in being abundantly navigated by homeward-bound craft, then talked of other matters; but whatever he said, though directly addressed to me, seemed to my ear to be spoken for the girl, as though, indeed, were she absent, he would talk little or in another strain.
When breakfast was ended, Helga left the table, to go to her cabin. Punmeamootty began to clear away the things.
'You can go forward,' said the Captain. 'I will call you when I want you.' I was about to rise. 'A minute, Mr. Tregarthen,' he exclaimed. He lay back in his chair, stroking first one whisker and then the other, with his eyes thoughtfully surveying the upper deck, at which he smiled as though elated by some fine happy fancies. He hung in the wind in this posture for a little while, then inclined himself with a confidential air towards me, clasping his fat fingers upon the table.
'Miss Nielsen,' said he softly, 'is an exceedingly attractive young lady.'
'She is a good brave girl,' said I, 'and pretty, too.'
'She calls you Hugh, and you call her Helga—Helga! a very noble, stirring name—quite like the blast of a trumpet, with something Biblical about it, too, though I do not know that it occurs in Holy Writ. Pray forgive me. This familiar interchange of names suggests that there may be more between you than exactly meets the eye, as the poet observes.'
'No!' I answered with a laugh that was made short by surprise. 'If you mean to ask whether we are sweethearts, my answer is—No. We met for the first time on the twenty-first of this month, and since then our experiences have been of a sort to forbid any kind of emotion short of a profound desire to get home.'
'Home!' said he. 'But her home is in Denmark?'
'Her father, as he lay dying, asked me to take charge of her, and see her safe to Kolding, where I believe she has friends,' I answered, not choosing to hint at the little half-matured programme for her that was in my mind.
'She is an orphan,' said he; 'but she has friends, you say?'
'I believe so,' I answered, scarcely yet able to guess at the man's meaning.
'You have known her since the twenty-first,' he exclaimed: 'to-day is the thirty-first—just ten days. Well, in that time a shrewd young gentleman like you will have observed much of her character. I may take it,' said he, peering as closely into my face as our respective positions at the table would suffer, 'that you consider her a thoroughly religious young woman?'
'Why, yes, I should think so,' I answered, not suffering my astonishment to hinder me from being as civil and conciliatory as possible to this man, who, in a sense, was our deliverer, and who, as our host, was treating us with great kindness and courtesy.
'I will not,' said he, 'inquire her disposition. She impresses me as a very sweet young person. Her manners are genteel. She talks with an educated accent, and I should say her lamented father did not stint his purse in training her.'
I looked at him, merely wondering what he would say next.
'It is, at all events, satisfactory to know,' said he, lying back in his chair again, 'that there is nothing between you—outside, I mean, the friendship which the very peculiar circumstances under which you met would naturally excite.' He lay silent awhile, smiling. 'May I take it,' said he, 'that she has been left penniless?'
'I fear it is so,' I replied.
He meditated afresh.
'Do you think,' said he, 'you could induce her to accompany you in my ship to the Cape?'
'No!' cried I, starting, 'I could not induce her, indeed, and for a very good reason: I could not induce myself.'
'But why?' he exclaimed in his oiliest tone. 'Why decline to see the great world, the wonders of this noble fabric of universe, when the opportunity comes to you? You shall be my guests; in short, Mr. Tregarthen, the round voyage shan't cost you a penny!'
'You are very good!' I exclaimed, 'but I have left my mother alone at home. I am her only child, and she is a widow, and my desire is to return quickly, that she may be spared unnecessary anxiety and grief.'
'A very proper and natural sentiment, pleasingly expressed,' said he; 'yet I do not quite gather how your desire to return to your mother concerns Helga—I should say, Miss Nielsen!'
I believe he would have paused at 'Helga,' and not have added 'Miss Nielsen,' but for the look he saw in my face. Yet, stirred as my temper was by this half-hearted stroke of impertinent familiarity in the man, I took care that there should be no further betrayal of my feelings than what might be visible in my looks.
'Miss Nielsen wishes to return with me to my mother's house,' said I quietly; 'you were good enough to assure us that there should be no delay.'
'You only arrived yesterday!' he exclaimed, 'and down to this moment we have sighted nothing. But why do you suppose,' added he, 'that Miss Nielsen is not to be tempted into making the round voyage with me in this barque?'
'She must speak for herself,' said I, still perfectly cool, and no longer in doubt as to how the land lay with this gentleman.
'You have no claim upon her, Mr. Tregarthen?' said he, with one of his blandest smiles.
'No claim whatever,' said I, 'outside the obligation imposed upon me by her dying father. I am her protector by his request, until I land her safely among her friends in Denmark.'
'Just so,' said he; 'but it might happen—it might just possibly happen,' he continued, letting his head fall on one side and stroking his whiskers, 'that circumstances may arise to render her return to Denmark under your protection unnecessary.'
I looked at him, feigning not to understand.
'Now, Mr. Tregarthen, see here,' said he, and his blandness yielded for an instant to the habitual professional peremptoriness of the shipmaster; 'I am extremely desirous of making Miss Nielsen's better acquaintance, and I am also much in earnest in wishing that she should get to know my character very well. This cannot be done in a few hours, nor, indeed, in a few days. You will immensely oblige me by coaxing the young lady to remain in this vessel. There is nothing between you.... Just so. She is an orphan, and there is reason to fear, from what you tell me, comparatively speaking, friendless. We must all of us desire the prosperity of so sweet and amiable a female. It may happen,' he exclaimed, with a singularly deep smile, 'that before many days have passed, she will consent to bid you farewell and to continue the voyage alone with me.'
I opened my eyes at him, but said nothing.
'A few days more or less of absence from your home,' he continued, 'cannot greatly signify to you. We have a right to hope, seeing how virtuously, honourably, and heroically you have behaved, that Providence is taking that care of your dear mother which, let us not doubt, you punctually, morning and night, offer up your prayers for. But a few days may make a vast difference in Miss Nielsen's future; and, having regard to the solemn obligation her dying father imposed upon you, it should be a point of duty with you, Mr. Tregarthen, to advance her interests, however inconvenienced you may be by doing so.'
Happily, his long-windedness gave me leisure to think. I could have answered him hotly; I could have given him the truth very nakedly; I could have told him that his words were making me understand there was more in my heart for Helga than I had been at all conscious of twenty minutes before. But every instinct in me cried, Beware! to the troop of emotions hurrying through my mind, and I continued to eye him coolly and to speak with a well-simulated carelessness.
'I presume, Captain Bunting,' said I, 'that if Miss Nielsen persists in her wish to leave your ship you will not hinder her?'
'That will be the wish I desire to extinguish,' said he; 'I believe it may be done.'
'You will please remember,' said I, 'that Miss Nielsen is totally unequipped even for a week or two of travel by sea, let alone a round voyage that must run into months.'
'I understand you,' he answered, motioning with his hand; 'but the difficulty is easily met. The Canary Islands are not far off. Santa Cruz will supply all her requirements. My purse is wholly at her service. And with regard to yourself, Mr. Tregarthen, I should be happy to advance you any sum in moderation, to enable you to satisfy your few wants.'
'You are very good,' said I; 'but I am afraid we shall have to get you to tranship us at the first opportunity.'
A shadow of temper, that was not a frown, and therefore I do not know well how to convey it, penetrated his smile.
'You will think over it,' said he. 'Time does not press. Yet we shall not find another port so convenient as Santa Cruz.'
As he pronounced these words Helga entered the cuddy. He instantly rose, bowing to her and smiling, but said no more than that he hoped shortly to join us on deck. He then entered his berth.
Helga approached me close, and studied my face for a moment or two in silence with her soft eyes.
'What is the matter, Hugh?' she asked.
I looked at her anxiously and earnestly, not knowing as yet how to answer her, whether to conceal or to tell her what had passed. I was more astonished than irritated, and more worried and perplexed than either. Here was an entanglement that might vastly amuse an audience in a comedy, but that, in its reality, was about as grave and perilous a complication as could befall us. With the velocity of thought, even while the girl's eyes were resting on mine and she was awaiting my reply, I reflected—first, that we were in the power of this Captain, in respect, I mean, of his detention of us, while his vessel remained at sea; next, that he had fallen in love with Helga; that he meant to win her if he could; that his self-complacency would render him profoundly hopeful, and that he would go on keeping us on board his craft, under one pretext or another, in the conviction that his chance lay in time, with the further help that would come to him out of her condition as an orphan and penniless.
'What is it, Hugh?'
The sudden, brave, determined look that entered the girl's face, as though she had scented a danger, and had girded her spirit for it, determined me to give her the truth.
'Come on deck!' said I.
I took her hand, and we went up the little companion-steps.
Abraham was standing near the wheel, exchanging a word or two with the yellowskin who had replaced the fierce-faced creature of the earlier morning. There was warmth in the sun, and the sky was a fine clear blue dome, here and there freckled by remains of the interlacery of cloud which had settled away into the west and north. The breeze was a soft, caressing air, with a hint of tropic breath and of the equatorial sea-perfume in it, and the round-bowed barque was sliding along at some four or five miles an hour, with a simmering noise of broken waters at her side. There was nothing in sight. Two or three copper-coloured men squatted, with palms and needles in their hands, upon a sail stretched along the waist; Nakier, on the forecastle-head, was standing with a yellow paw at the side of his mouth, calling instructions, in some Asiatic tongue, to one of the crew in the foretopmast cross-trees. I caught sight of Jacob, who was off duty, leaning near the galley door, apparently conversing with some man within. He nodded often, with an occasional sort of pooh-poohing flourish of his hand, puffing leisurely, and enjoying the sunshine. On catching sight of us he saluted with a flourish of his fist. This was the little picture of the barque as I remember it on stepping on deck with Helga that morning.
I took her to leeward, near the quarter-boat, out of hearing of Abraham and the helmsman.
'Now, what is it, Hugh?' said she.
'Why should you suppose there is anything wrong, Helga?'
'I see worry in your face.'
'Well,' said I, 'here is exactly how matters stand;' and with that I gave her, as best my memory could, every sentence of the Captain's conversation. She blushed, and turned pale, and blushed again; the shadows of a dozen emotions passed over her face in swift succession, and strongest among them was consternation.
'You were vexed with me for not being civil enough to him,' said she, 'and you would not understand that the civiller I was the worse it might be with us. Such a conceited, silly creature would easily mistake.'
'Could I imagine that he was in love with you?'
'Do not say that again!' she cried, with disgust in her manner, while she made as though to stop her ears.
'How could I guess?' I went on. 'His behaviour seemed to me full of benevolence, hospitality, gratification at having us to talk to, with courtesy marked to you as a girl delivered from shipwreck and the hardships of the ocean.
'Will no ship come?' she cried, looking round the sea. 'The thought of remaining in this vessel, of having to disguise my feelings from that man for policy's sake, of being forced to sit in his company and listen to him, and watch his smile and receive his attentions and compliments, grows now intolerable to me!' and she brought her foot with a little stamp to the deck.
'Did you know you were so fascinating?' said I, looking at her. 'In less than a day you have brought this pale, stout Captain to your feet. In less than a day! Why, your charms have the potency of Prospero's magic. In "The Tempest," Ferdinand and Miranda fall deeply in love, plight their troth, bill and coo and gamble at chess, all within three hours. This little ship promises to be the theatre of another "Tempest," I fear.'
'Why did not you make him understand, resolutelycompelhim to understand, that it is our intention to return to England in the first ship?' she exclaimed, with a glow in her blue eyes and a trace of colour in her cheeks and a tremor in her nostrils.
'Bluntness will not do. We must not convert this man into an enemy.'
'But he should be made to know that we mean to go home, and that his ideas——' she broke off, turning scarlet on a sudden, and looked down over the rail at the sea with a gleam of her white teeth showing upon the under-lip she bit.
'Helga,' said I, gently touching her hand, 'you are a better sailor than I. What is to be done?'
She confronted me afresh, her blue eyes darkened by the suppressed tears which lay close to them.
'Let us,' I continued, 'look this matter boldly in the face. He is in love with you.' For a second time she stamped her foot and bit her lip. 'Imustsay it, for there lies the difficulty. He hopes, by keeping you on board, to get you to like, and then, perhaps, listen to him. He will keep me, too, for the present—not because he is at all desirous of my company, but because he supposes that in your present mood, or rather attitude, of mind you would not stay without me, or at least alone with him.'
Her whole glowing countenance breathed a vehement 'No!'
'He need not speak passing ships unless he chooses to do so,' I went on; 'and I don't doubt he has no intention of speaking passing ships. What then? How are we to get home?'
The expression on her face softened to a passage of earnest thought.
'We must induce him to steer his ship to Santa Cruz,' she exclaimed.
'You will have to act a part, then,' said I, after pausing to consider. 'He is no fool. Can you persuade him that you are in earnest in wishing to go the Cape in this ship? If not, his long nose will sniff the stratagem, and Santa Cruz in a few days be remoter than it now is.'
She reflected, and exclaimed: 'I must act a part if we are to get away from this vessel. What better chance have we than Santa Cruz? We must go ashore to make our purchases, and when ashore we must stop there. Yet what a degrading, what a ridiculous, what a wretched position to be in!' she cried. 'I would make myself hideous with my nails to end this!' and with a dramatic gesture I should have deemed the little gentle creature incapable of, she put her fingers to her cheeks.
Abraham was now patrolling the deck to windward, casting his eyes with a look of importance up at the sails, and then directing them at the sea-line. He would, to be sure, find nothing to excite his curiosity in this subdued chat betwixt Helga and me to leeward. I had a mind to call him and explain our new and astonishing situation; then thought, 'No; let us mature some scheme first; he will help us better then, if he is able to help at all.' I leaned against the rail with folded arms, deeply considering. Helga kept her eyes upon me.
'We should not scheme as though Captain Bunting were a villain!' said I.
'He is a villain to his men!' she answered.
'He is no villain to us! What we do not like in him is his admiration of you. But this does not make a rascal of him!'
'He promised to transfer us to the first ship that passed!' said she.
'Shall you be well advised in acting a part?' I exclaimed. 'You are too frank, of too sweetly genuine a nature; you could not act; you could not deceive him!' said I, shaking my head.
The gratification my words gave her rose to her face in a little smile, that stayed for a moment like a light there.
'How frank and sweet I am I do not know,' said she artlessly; 'but I love your praise!'
'Madeira is yonder,' said I, nodding into the westward, 'some hundred odd miles distant, according to our friend's reckoning. If that be so, the Canaries must be within easy reach of two or three days, even at this dull pace. In fact, by to-morrow afternoon we could be having the Peak of Teneriffe blue in the heavens over the bow. We could not make the Captain believe, in that time, that we, who have been consumed with anxiety to return to England, have suddenly changed our mind and are willing to sail in his ship to wherever he may be bound. He would say to himself, "They want me to steer for Santa Cruz, where they will go ashore and leave me."'