CHAPTER XXXIVI ASSENT
I sat as the sailors had left me at that table, lost in thought, bending all the energies of my mind to full realisation of my situation, that my judgment might soundly advise me. I daresay I remained thus for above twenty minutes as motionless as ever was the dead figure that we had met with in the deck-house of the wreck. Then slowly rising, I went to one of the cabin windows and stood mechanically staring at the piebald sky that would come with a sweep, as the vessel rolled to windward, to the throbbing line of the frothing horizon; and thus I continued, still thinking, weighing one consideration and then another, forming resolutions which the next effort of thought rendered helplessly idle, until I had arrived at a determination; when, starting from my deep and painful reverie, I descended into the steerage and knocked onMiss Temple’s cabin door. She immediately opened it.
‘At last!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale, what have you to tell me now?’
‘Let us go to the cabin,’ I answered; ‘we shall be alone there. The gloom of these quarters is horribly depressing.’
My manner caused her to regard me for a moment or two with a feverish eagerness of scrutiny; she then mounted the steps, and I followed her.
‘I wish I had news to give that might comfort you,’ said I, seating myself at her side. ‘The men left me half an hour ago. I have been thinking my hardest since, and will tell you now how matters stand, and how I believe I must act.’
She breathed quickly, but said nothing. Her eyes devoured me, so passionate was her curiosity and fear.
‘The captain’s conversation with me,’ I began, ‘was, as you know, overheard by the rogue Wilkins, who waits upon us. He must have hearkened thirstily; not a syllable did he lose, and every sentence he carried forward to the crew. They are fully convinced of the truth of the crazy story; they are firmly persuadedthat there are some two hundred thousand pounds’ worth of golden coin buried in that South Sea island; they were also made aware by that scoundrel listener that I had insisted upon having an agreement signed and witnessed; which of course confirmed them in their opinion that I myself believe in the captain’s story up to the hilt. Their demand, then, is, that I should navigate the ship to the island, that they may dig up the money hidden in it.’
She listened with silent horror.
‘They laugh at my assurance that the captain was mad,’ I went on, ‘and they see nothing in his suicide to cause them to doubt that his story is absolutely true.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘That I must have time to think, and will give them an answer by noon.’
‘Whatdoyou think?’ she demanded, searching my gaze with her proud eyes.
‘I see nothing for it but to undertake to sail the ship to the South Pacific.’
‘Are you mad?’ she almost shrieked. ‘To the South Pacific! Did you not say to them that you will insist upon their stopping thefirst ship that passes, and putting you and me on board of her?’
‘They are not to be reasoned with,’ I answered gently; ‘the dream of this gold has raised an appetite in them that might easily convert them into wild beasts, if I refuse to help them to satisfy their hunger. They will not suffer communication with any passing vessel; they will not permit me to make for any port. Their proposal is that I shall be captain, and have, with you, the exclusive use of this end of the ship, and they promise me handsome usage. But underlying the terms they desire me to agree to is a menace that I should be blind not to see. I must do what they want, or what that villain Lush has contrived that they shall want, or God alone knows what the issue may be for you as well as for myself.’
She sat viewing me like one paralysed.
‘My intention,’ I went on, ‘is to inform the carpenter at noon that I assent to the wishes of the crew.’
She was about to speak; I held up my hand.
‘I entreat you to let me have my way. Do not reason. You can offer no remedy for this situation saving that of haughty demand,which, unless you can back it, as a theory of escape, by a gang of men capable of pistolling the fellows forward, will be of no more use to you or to me than a feather to a drowning man. My resolution is, to consent to navigate this vessel to that South Sea island. The island may be an imaginary one; the crew’s disappointment may force us into a hunt; they will then certainly believe that the captain’s story was the fancy of a madman, and will ask me to carry them to some near port. This will be the issue of the adventure, supposing it is all smooth sailing till then. But what may happen meanwhile? A storm to cripple us, and force us to seek assistance? The sea abounds in the unexpected. We must wait upon fortune. Nothing shall tempt me to endeavour to force her hand by any sort of demeanour that is not one of tact, good temper, and secret, iron-hard resolution to snatch at the first chance that may come along. Why, is not such a policy as this your due, Miss Temple? Compared to whatmighthappen if I did not deal with these men as a combustible not on any account whatever to be approached with matter that could give fire to them, this existence, this unendurableexistence which we are now passing through might be looked back upon as a veritable paradise. I am one to twelve, and you have no protector but me. Think of it! Bear with my judgment then; help me by striving to witness wisdom in my determination; and above all keep up your heart, which is an Englishwoman’s, whose pulse should grow stronger as the road grows darker.’
She had put her hands to her face, and so sat listening to me, slightly rocking herself. Presently she looked up.
‘I wish I had the spirit you ask me to show,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You may have resolved rightly—but this long alienation from home—the misery of this existence—the peril we are in, which every day, which every hour, seems to increase—oh, it is hard to bear! I will endeavour to school myself—I will strive to see with your eyes’—she broke off with a sob.
‘All will come right,’ I exclaimed; ‘it is entirely a question of waiting. Have you patience? Yes—and your patience will keep you hopeful. Trust to me and to my judgment.’
I took her hand in both mine and pressedit. She did not offer to withdraw it. Indeed, it seemed as though she found comfort in the clasp; her hard expression of consternation softened, and her fine eyes took the same air of appeal I had noticed in them when she went below to her cabin.
‘There is yet the chance,’ I said, ‘of my being able to persuade the crew to transfer you to a passing ship. I might indeed,’ I went on, warming up to the fancy, ‘insist upon this as a part of my agreement with them.’
She slightly shook her head and her glance fell.
‘How long will it take us to reach this island?’ she asked, keeping her gaze bent down.
‘Ten or twelve weeks, perhaps.’
She bit her lip to enable her to speak steadily, and said: ‘Supposing there is no gold, what will be done?’
‘I cannot tell,’ I answered; ‘we may be quite certain that there is no gold. It yet remains to be seen whether even the poor wretch’s island is real.’
‘If there should be no island, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘Well, as I just now said, the men will at first suppose me wrong in my navigation, and oblige me to keep on hunting about for a bit. But such a quest will not take long to tire them, and they will probably ask me to carry them on to the coast.’
‘To what part?’
‘Valparaiso, probably. That will be a near port in those seas.’
‘At that rate,’ she exclaimed with an expression of impatience and dismay, ‘we shall be sailing about for five or six months without the least opportunity of my getting on shore, of my returning home, of my being able to obtain a change of dress.’
‘Providing nothing happens. And even assuming that you are forced to see this adventure out to the bitter end, the worst that befalls you is a disagreeably long divorce from your home, together with such discomforts as you should laugh at when you think of them side by side with the tragedy that this ramble is easily to be worked into.’
However, spite of her little effort to look the difficulty in the face, she seemed stunned. She would start sometimes whilst I talked to her, and send a wild sweeping look round thecabin, as though she could not realise her situation and sought to persuade herself that she was in a dream. I was grieved for her beyond words, yet I would not exhibit too much sympathy either, lest I should unduly accentuate the significance of our condition, and make her suppose that I believed it darker and more perilous than it really was. She had been buoyed up with a hope of escaping into another ship, or of shortly landing at Rio, and sailing home from there; and the disappointment coming on top of the perception that our adventure, harsh and soul-subduing as it had already been in some particulars, was only in reality just beginning, seemed to break her down. I did my utmost to make light of the business: said that but for my anxiety for her, I should enter upon the affair with positive relish, accepting it as a wild romance of the sea, which could seldom happen to a man in his life, and which he ought to live through and see out, if only for the sake of the memory of a stirring picturesque passage that at the longest would yet be brief.
‘As to wearing-apparel,’ I said, ‘there are needles and thread forward, and I don’tdoubt that when you are put to it you will be able to manage. And then, suppose this story of the captain’s should prove true! suppose we should actually find buried in the spot he indicated a mass of gold which, when equally divided amongst us, would yield every man several thousands of pounds!’
She searched my face with her glowing eyes. ‘You do not believe this?’ she cried.
‘Certainly I do not,’ I answered. ‘I am only supposing.’
‘I wish I could read your heart; I wish I could be sure that your determination to assent to the men’s wishes is not owing to sympathy with their own ideas.’
I burst into a loud laugh. ‘Of how many sins do you think me capable?’ I exclaimed. ‘How many enormous follies am I equal to? I believe you already secretly regard me as a pirate. Oh, Miss Temple, no man could ever feel ill-tempered in conversing with you, say what you will. But you are a little trying, though, now and again. Why do you wish to read my heart? You might discover sentiments which would render me detestable to you.’
‘I do not understand you,’ she exclaimed, looking somewhat frightened.
‘Admiration for you, in a person whom you dislike, would make you abhor him.’
‘Mr. Dugdale, is this a time for such feeble small-talk as would scarcely be endurable amidst safety and comfort? I should not be so utterly unhappy as I am if I felt that my mother knew where I was, that she was conscious of all that has happened to me, and that we should meet again.’
‘It will all come right,’ said I, looking at my watch. ‘I must make ready now for taking sights, and letting the carpenter know the determination I have arrived at. Back me, Miss Temple, in my efforts by the utmost exertion of your tact. And now, come on deck with me, will you? There is life in the fresh and frothing scene outside, and you will find courage in the mere sight of the wide horizon, with thoughts of what lies behind it, and how time will work all things to your wishes.’
I entered the captain’s cabin to fetch a sextant, and then, with Miss Temple, went on deck. Lush was marching up and down the weather side of the poop. The sailors weresprawling about forward in whatever shadowings of the canvas they could find, most of them smoking, their faces red as powder-flags with the heat. Hot it was, with the sun shining nearly over our mastheads, with a sting like to some fierce bite in every flashing launch of his radiance betwixt the wool-white clouds blowing transversely athwart his path, spite of the strong sweep of the wind as it came splitting in long whistlings upon our rigging from a little forward of the beam, the rush of it feeling almost damp to the flesh to the view of the foaming waters melting into yeast out of the long blue lines of the Atlantic surge. The barque, making a fair breeze of it, was storming through the seas in noble style, shouldering off vast masses of throbbing white from her weather bow with a wake twisting away astern of her of twice her beam in width, a broad path of glittering, leaping, blowing crystals and foam-flakes and creaming eddies rising and falling for a mile astern into the windy blue there, full of fire and snow as it looked with the spume of breaking waves and the splendour of the darting sunlight.
The carpenter came to a stand when Iarrived. I went up to him at once, Miss Temple at my side.
‘I have thought the matter over,’ I said, ‘and accept the men’s terms.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ he answered, with a slow smile breaking sulkily through his surly countenance. ‘If you care about a written hundertaking’——
‘No,’ I interrupted contemptuously; ‘my agreement is based on yours. If you do not hold piously to every article of it, I drop my part.’
He viewed me with his head slightly on one side, but without any appearance of resentment at my peremptory tone. Coarse and unlettered as the fellow was, he had discernment enough to witness what he would regard as sincerity of purpose in my very outspokenness.
‘All you’ve got to do,’ said he, ‘is to carry us to that there island. You do your bit, and you’ll have no occasion to grumble at us for not doing ourn. But—you’lldoit. You onderstand me, Mr. Dugdale? So long as you’re honest, you’ll findushonest.’
The ugly significance he imparted to these words by the look that accompanied them, Icould not hope to express. Miss Temple, whose hand was on my arm, shrank at my side. It pleased me that she should have witnessed that look and heard the words, for they would go further to persuade her that the only road to choose in this matter was the one I had taken, than any amount of reasoning on my part.
‘Your threats are perfectly indifferent to me,’ I exclaimed, eyeing him coolly and fixedly. ‘I believe I know your character, and don’t question your capacity to act up again to the part your captain told me you had already played.’
‘What was that?’ he growled, but with no other change of face than such as temper might produce. I seemed to find even in this little thing that the captain had told me a lie when he charged the fellow with murder, and my mind felt easier on a sudden as to a conviction of the truth of a matter less dark than I had dared believe.
‘That is my business,’ I responded, preserving my cool almost contemptuous manner. ‘You need be at no pains to threaten me. You’ll achieve nothing by your forecastle menaces. I have been a sailor in my timeand quite know what you and such as you are. If you or any of your mates disappoint me in a single particular of the understanding between us, I will throw this sextant,’ said I, flourishing it under his nose, ‘overboard, and you may grope your way round the Horn as best you can. That agreement is this:’ I elevated my forefinger. ‘First we are to have the exclusive use of this end of the ship; you alone coming aft to stand your watch.’ He nodded. I erected another finger. ‘Next: the captain’s cabin and the one adjoining are to be occupied by this lady and myself.’ He nodded again. I raised a third finger, thrusting it close to his face. ‘Next: Wilkins continues to wait upon us as heretofore; we are to be fed with care and punctuality; it is distinctly to be understood—and thisyouwill see to—that no liquor aboard is broached outside a tot or two per man per day; for,’ said I, speaking with the most emphatic deliberateness I could contrive, ‘if there should be a single exhibition of drunkenness amongst the crew, I shall pitch this sextant overboard.’
‘I’ve got nothen to say agin that,’ he exclaimed, speaking with something of sullenrespect, as though impressed by my energy and language.
‘Next,’ I proceeded, ‘I am to be captain, and what I say must be law, and what I do must be done.’
‘Saving this,’ said he, elevating two square fingers in imitation of my gesture: ‘Fust, you ain’t going to order us to speak a ship, and next you ain’t going to get us to obey ye if you should take it into your head to steer for a port.’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘that is a part of my agreement. Yet there is this to be said: it is mere idle cruelty to carry this young lady away round Cape Horn into the Pacific. She is without any other wearing apparel than what you see; she is destitute of almost every convenience; her mother is in bad health, and she wishes to return as speedily as possible, that no news about us may reach England that is not perfectly true. The crew, therefore, will not object to speak a ship that we may transfer this lady to her.’
‘No!’ he roared.
‘Her going will render me easy in my mind as to her safety,’ I continued, ‘and Ishall be able to serve you the better by knowing that she is on her way home.’
‘No!’ he roared again; ‘she’s quite safe aboard us. There must be no speaking with ships. ‘Sides,’ he added, falling back a step with a round flourish of his arm, ‘the lady knows all about the gold and where it is and how it’s to be come at.’
‘I can keep a secret, Mr. Lush,’ she exclaimed.
‘No,’ he repeated with a stamp of his foot; ‘sorry for it, lady, but here ye are, and here ye must stop. I know what the crew ‘ud say. I’m but expressing of their minds. Here ye stop, lady. Mr. Dugdale, that was a part of the bargain, as we onderstood it this marning. Besides, lady,’ he added with an indescribable leer, ‘ye wouldn’t care to be separated from himnow, would ‘ee?’
She moved so as to bring him between me and her.
‘That will do, Mr. Lush,’ said I. ‘I am acquainted with your wishes, and you know now my resolution;’ and so saying, I walked to a part of the deck where I could command the sun, and went to work with my sextant,talking to Miss Temple in a low voice as I ogled the luminary.
‘You see now how it is? If I refused my assent to the crew’s wishes, they might have sent me adrift in a boat—alone.’ I added significantly.
‘He is a most dreadful creature. You spoke to him bravely. But is that manner what you call tact?’
‘Yes. The man must not imagine that I am afraid of him. I would that I could choke him with his own threats.’
‘I believe he would not shrink from murdering both of us.’
‘They have made up their minds to sail to the island, and they mean that I shall carry them there. That resolve was strong in them when they entered the cabin. If I had refused—— But no matter! It may yet come to my being able to induce them to speak a ship.’
She made no response. There was a short silence between us.
‘Make eight bells!’ I shouted, and the chimes floated sharp upon the rushing wind as I walked aft to the companion, Miss Temple always at my side.
I went straight to the captain’s cabin, and there worked out my observation, and fixed the correct position of the barque on the chart. The course she was steering happened to be the true direction she needed to take, and there was nothing to mend in that way. Miss Temple came to the table and watched me as I made my calculations. When I had come to an end, I asked her to remain where she was, and returned with the chart on deck. I beckoned to the carpenter, who was standing at the break of the poop, as though waiting for me to arrive that he might go forward to his dinner.
‘Here’s our situation to-day,’ I exclaimed pointing to the chart—it was a tract-chart of the world—‘and here’s Cape Horn. Our course then is as we’re steering.’
He stared at the chart with the blind and stupid look of a man who cannot read, and after a bit said: ‘Let’s see: here’s south, and here’s west, ain’t it? And here’s Cape Horn, as you say. Ay, our course is about right for it, I allow.’
Whilst I rolled the chart up, I exclaimed: ‘It is inconvenient to be without a stand-by for a third relief. You and I both want todine at once, and there is nobody to keep a lookout in the place of one of us. The man who had charge this morning whilst we were below appeared to be a very respectable steady sailor. Suppose now, calling me captain, and you chief officer, we appoint him, with the sanction of the crew of course, second mate.’
‘I dunno as I should do that,’ he answered; ‘best not have too many masters aboard.I’mno chief officer, and there’ll be no convartin’ of Joe Wetherly into a second mate. We’re all jestmen. But I tell ‘ee what; if the crew’s willing, Joe might be selected to relieve you or me whensoever it comes about as the pair of us wants to be below at the same time, as now.’
‘Very well,’ I exclaimed, in the sort of peremptory yet half-careless way which I had made up my mind to employ when speaking to this man; ‘work it out in your own fashion. You can send him aft to relieve me when he’s done dinner. I shall feel obliged by your seeing that Wilkins turns to and prepares the table for us at once.’
I was about to leave him, when he exclaimed: ‘One question, Mr. Dugdale. Nothenwas said between us men and you as to the share ye expect.’
‘Never mind about that now,’ I answered.
‘The agreement betwixt you and the captain was for a third, I think,’ said he; ‘you won’t expect that, now there’s a dozen of us in the consarn?’
‘Oh no, oh no! Send Joe Wetherly aft as soon as he’s done.’
‘It’s onderstood,’ said he, ‘that the lady won’t take no share?’
‘Yes, you may understand that,’ I exclaimed. ‘As for my portion,’ I continued, anxious to get rid of him, ‘give me what you think I shall have fairly earned, and you’ll satisfy me.’
‘Right!’ he exclaimed with alacrity, seeking clumsily to conceal an emotion of sulky exultation. ‘Just another word, Mr. Dugdale. What sort of character might that ha’ been which the captain gave me?’
‘Oh, damn it! go and send Joe Wetherly aft,’ I cried, feigning a fit of temper; and I marched away to the binnacle, leaving him to trudge forward.
A few minutes later, on looking through the skylight, I perceived Wilkins preparingthe table. Presently, Wetherly arrived on the poop. I went forward to meet him, that I might be out of ear-shot of the fellow at the wheel, and at once said: ‘Wetherly, how is it with you in this truly infernal business?’
‘Truly infarnal it is, sir,’ he instantly replied; ‘but you’ve got the most raw-headed lot of men to deal with that ever slung hammocks in a ship’s forecastle. After they went forward last night, they fell a-debating, all hands of them, and settled for this ship to fetch away that there gold, you commanding. I was agin it till I see how hot they talked, and then I thinks says I to myself, what do it sinnify? Whether I’m bound away to the Isle o’ France or to a loonatic’s island in the South Pacific, is all the same. If there’s money there, so much the better. If there ain’t, it can’t be helped. One agin ten’s not going to do much aboard a ship; so, when I was asked for an opinion, I just says, I’m neutral, lads. Do as ye like. I’ll be with ye; but never none of ye go and ask if I’mofye.’
‘You don’t surely believe in Captain Braine’s crazy fancy?’
‘Well, I own, Mr. Dugdale, that thatthere agreement ’twixt you and him a bit nonplushed me this mornin’ after I had read it out. It did look oncommonly like as though you yourself genu-inely believed in the yarn.’
He viewed me critically, though respectfully, as he spoke, with his mere pins’-heads of eyes.
‘Oh, man, I agreed—I pretended to fully credit—wholly with the idea of coaxing the madman to Rio, where the lady and myself would have left the barque. Can’t you seethat, Wetherly?’
‘Why, yes,’ he answered quickly, though speaking, nevertheless, as though his mind was not quite made up. ‘It’s a bad job for you and the lady, sir. The men are terribly in airnest. They’ll allow no speaking with ships, for fear of your blowing the gaff, as the saying goes. I may tell you you’ve acted wisely in falling in with their wishes. I may be more open by and by. I’m with you and the lady, sir; but I’ve got to be very careful.’
‘I thank you sincerely.’
I saw him restlessly glance aft at the helmsman,and took the hint. His goodwill was of the utmost importance to me, and it would not do to imperil my relations with him by any sort of behaviour that might excite the suspicions of the crew as to our intimacy.