CHAPTER XXXVII CONVERSE WITH WETHERLY
Not to dwell too long on a detail of insignificance, it will suffice to say that by dint of rummaging the wardrobes of Captain Braine and Mr. Chicken I obtained several useful articles, and Miss Temple went to work to convert them into wearing-apparel for herself, with the help of a pair of scissors which I borrowed from the carpenter, and needles and thread procured from amongst the men by Wetherly. The occupation was useful to her in other ways; it killed the tedious, the insufferably tedious time, and it gave her something to think of, and even something to look forward to, so blank had been the hours.
I remember coming out of my cabin after a spell of sleep to take sights shortly before noon, and finding her seated at the table with some flannel or fine blanket stuff before her, at which she was stitching—ripped up andviolated vestments of either Braine or Chicken, but brand-new, or she would scarcely have meddled with them. She received me with a smile and a few words, and then went on sewing with an air as of gratification in her that I should have found her at work.
I halted, and stood looking on, feigning to watch her busy fingers, whilst in reality I gazed at her face with a lover’s delight. It was hard to believe that what was passing was something more than a dream, astonishingly vivid and logical. Again and again, when in the company of this girl, a sense of the unreality of our association had possessed me to such a degree at times that had the feeling continued, I might honestly have feared for my head. But never before this moment had that sense been so strong upon me. I forgot her beauty in my wonder. It was sheer bewilderment to recall her as she was on board the Indiaman; her haughtiness, her disdain, her contemptuous insensibility to all presences save that of my Lord Sandown’s son, the cold glance of scornful surprise that would instantly cause me to avert mine—to recall this and how much more? and behold her now pensively bending her lovely headand face of high-bred charms over that sordid need of rough sailor’s clothes, occasionally stealing a peep at me of mingled sweetness and a sort of wistful amusement, as though she grieved while she smiled at the necessity that had brought her to such a pass. Yet there was no repining; if she sighed, it was under her breath; forced as her light air of cheerfulness might be, it proved a growing resolution of spirit, a development of heroic forces, latent in her till recently.
Secretly, however, I was worried by keen anxiety. What was to be the issue of this voyage? I merely feigned a manner of confidence when talking with her about the result of this amazing ramble, as I chose to figure it. In reality, I could not think of the time when we should have arrived upon the spot where the dead captain had declared his island to be without dread. Suppose there were no island! What next step would the men take? The disappointment that must follow their long dream of gold might determine them upon plundering the barque—put them upon some wild scheme of converting her and her cargo into money. Or suppose—though I never seriously considered thematter thus—suppose, I would ask myself, that the island proved real, that the treasure proved real, that the men should dig and actually find the gold! What then? Was I to conceive that a body of ignorant, reckless, lawless sailors, led by a man who was at heart the completest imaginable copy of a sea-villain, would peaceably divide the treasure amongst them, pay me over my share—which, God knows, I should have been willing to attach to Mr. Lush’s feet on condition of the others throwing him overboard—and suffer me to quietly navigate the barque to an adjacent port, conscious that I owed them a bitter grudge for the outrage they had committed in forcing me and the lady to accompany them?
At long intervals I would exchange a few sentences with Joe Wetherly. Unfortunately, he was in the carpenter’s watch, and my opportunities, therefore, for speaking with him were few. It was only now and again, when he was required to keep a lookout for Lush or myself, that I contrived to gather what was going forward amongst the men by engaging him in a brief chat before he quitted the poop. I was so sensible of being keenlyobserved by all hands, that I was obliged to exercise the utmost caution in speaking to this man. On the poop there was always the fellow at the helm to observe me; and the quarter-deck was within the easy reach of men stirring about the galley, or leaving or entering the forecastle.
However, it happened one dog-watch that Wetherly came aft instead of the carpenter to relieve me. Mr. Lush, he told me, felt unwell, and had asked him to stand his watch from eight to twelve. It was a clear night, but dark, the south-east trade-wind strong off the port beam, and the weather dry and cold, with a frosty glitter in the trembling of the stars which enriched the heavens with such a multitude of white and green lights that the firmament seemed to hover over our mastheads like some vast sheet of black velvet gloriously spangled with brilliants and emeralds and dust of diamonds and tender miracles of delicate prisms.
Miss Temple had left me some twenty minutes or so, and was now in the cabin, seated at the table under the lamp, with a pencil in her hand, with which she drew outlines upon a sheet of paper with an air ofprofound absent-mindedness. She wore over her dress a knitted waistcoat that had belonged to the captain; it stretched to her figure, and it was already a need even in the day-time with the sun shining brightly, for we were penetrating well to the southwards, and every score of miles which the nimble keel of the barque could measure made a sensible difference in the temperature of even the shelter in the cabin. It was too dark to distinguish Wetherly until he was close. On hearing that he was to keep the deck until twelve, I determined to have a long chat with him, to get with some thoroughness at his views, which, to a certain extent, I had found a bit puzzling, and to gather what information I could from him touching the behaviour I might expect in the crew if there should be no gold, or, which was the same, no island.
The fellow who had come to the wheel at eight bells was Forrest, the supple, piratic-looking young sailor, whose walk, as he rolled along the lee-deck, his figure swinging against the stars over the rail, had told me who he was without need of my going to the binnacle to make sure. Whilst Wetherly talked about the carpenter feeling unwell, I drew him aft,that we might be within earshot of Forrest, and said, as I turned to the companion hatch: ‘I’ll bring my pipe on deck, Wetherly, for a smoke after I’ve had a bite below. I wish to keep an eye upon the weather till two bells. Those green stars to wind’ard may signify more than a mere atmospheric effect.’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered in a voice that made me see that he took my words in their most literal meaning.
I remained below until half-past eight, talking with Miss Temple, eating a little supper, and so on. I then fetched my pipe, and told her that I should be down again at nine, and that I did not ask her to accompany me, as I wished to have a talk with Wetherly. She fixed her dark eyes upon me with an expression of inquiry, but asked no questions. There had been a time when she would have opened the full battery of her alarm and anxiety upon me, but silence was now become a habit with her. It was her confession of faith in my judgment, an admission that she expected no other information than such as I chose to give her. I cannot express how this new behaviour was emphasised by the eloquence of her beauty, in which I could witnessthe curiosity and the apprehension which she had disciplined her tongue to suppress.
I left her, and went on deck. I first walked to the binnacle, into which I peered, and then in the sheen of it gazed very earnestly to windward and around, as though I was a little uneasy. The floating figure of Forrest swayed at the wheel, and I observed that he cast several glances to windward also. Muttering to myself, as though thinking aloud, ‘Those green stars show uncommonly bright!’ I went abruptly to the break of the poop, where the dark form of Wetherly was pacing, as though my mind were full of the weather.
‘What’s wrong with them stars, sir, d’ye think?’ said he.
‘Oh, nothing in the world,’ I answered. ‘They are very honest trade-wind stars. I wanted an excuse for a chat, Wetherly. Forrest has the ears of a prairie hunter. I’m not here to talk to you about the weather. You are the only man on board in whom I can confide. As we approach the Horn, my anxieties gain upon me. How is this voyage to end? By this time you pretty well understand the disposition of the crew. If there should be no island, what then, Wetherly?’
I noticed a cautious pause in him.
‘Mr. Dugdale,’ he answered, ‘I’m heartily consarned for you, and for the lady too, and I may say particularly for the lady, who seems to me to be a born princess, a sight too good for such quarters as them’—he pointed to the skylight with a shadowy hand—‘with naught but a dead man’s clothes to keep her warm. If I could be of sarvice to ye, I would; but I’ve got to be as careful as you. Mr. Lush has such a hold upon the minds of the crew that there’s nothen he couldn’t get ’em to do, I believe; and if he should come to suspect that there’s anything ’twixt you and me, any sort of confidence that aint direct in the interests of the fo’c’sle, it ‘ud go as hard with me as I may tell ‘ee it certainly would with you ifyouwas to play ’em false.’
This speech he delivered in a low key, with frequent glances aft and at the quarter-deck below. I listened with patience, though he told me nothing that I was not fully aware of.
‘But what course, Wetherly, do you think these men will adopt if on our arrival at the latitude and longitude named by that unhappymadman as the spot where his treasure lies, there should be no island?’
‘Well, sir,’ he responded, preserving his cautious tone, ‘I can answer that question, for it’s formed a part of the consultations the crew is agin and agin a-holding. They’ll think ye’ve dished ’em, and that o’ purpose you han’t steered a true course.’
‘Ha!’ I exclaimed; ‘and what then?’
‘You’ll have to find the island, sir.’
‘But, my God, Wetherly, if it be not there! There is no rock marked on the chart in the place that was named by Captain Braine.’
‘They’ll keep ye a-hunting for it,’ said he grimly.
‘And if we don’t find it?’
‘Well, I can’t tell ‘eewhatthey’ll do. All they’ve said is, “If it ain’t there, it’ll be because he don’t mean it shall be.” But I’ve heard no threats—no talk of what ‘ud follow.’
‘If there should be no gold, no island,’ said I, ‘my opinion is that they will seize upon the ship and cargo, and compel me to navigate her to some port where they will find a market for their plunder.’
‘And where will that be?’ he asked.
‘Impossible to say. Lush will probably know. He has the airs and appearance of a man to whom a performance of the kind I suggest would be no novelty. I may tell you now, Wetherly, and, indeed, I might have done so long ago, that it was the carpenter whom Captain Braine charged with murder.’
‘Well, sir, you’ll excuse me. I’m not for believing that, Mr. Dugdale. That Lush has been a rare old sinner, ye need only watch him by daylight and hear him talk in his sleep at night, to know; but, as I said afore, when ye mentioned it—murder’—I saw him wag his head by the starlight—‘I’d choose to make sure afore believing it on the evidence of a madman.’
‘But don’t you think the carpenter and, let me add, most of the crew equal to the commission of any crime?’
‘Well, I won’t say no to that now with this here glittering temptation of money getting into their souls, to work everything that may be evil in ’em out through their skins. I wouldn’t trust ’em, and so I tell ‘ee, Mr. Dugdale; and if this here barque was any other ship than theLady Blanche, and my mates any other men but what they are, I’d be contentto pawn for sixpence all that I’ve got in my chest.’
I came to a stand with him for a while at the weather rail in feigned contemplation of the weather.
‘Wetherly,’ said I quietly, as we resumed our crosswise walk, ‘my position is a frightful one. Were it not for the cursed lunatic fancy that that shambling villain Wilkins overheard—the completest lie that ever took shape in a madman’s brain—I might hope to be able to tempt the crew with a handsome reward to allow me to sail this ship to a port whence the lady and I could get home. But what could I offer, with honest intention to pay, that should approach the thousands which those fools yonder dream about day and night?’
He made no answer.
‘Supposing, Wetherly,’ I continued, ‘I should determine, in a mood of desperation, to drop my command here, and refuse to navigate the vessel another league unless Miss Temple and I are put ashore?’
‘You know what ‘ud happen,’ he cried; ‘ye’ve said it o’er and o’er agin, hitting upon what’s most likely. For God’s sake, sir, clearyour mind o’ that scheme, if it’s only for the lady’s sake!’
‘But what’s to follow upon our arrival in the Pacific?’ I exclaimed with an emotion of despair.
‘There’s nothen to be done but to wait,’ he answered gloomily.
‘Do you believe that every mother’s son forward believes in the existence of the treasure?’
‘Every mother’s son of ’em, sir. The belief mightn’t have been so general, I daresay, if it hadn’t been for them documents you signed. Ignorant as the men are, they know how to git four out of two and two. First, there’s the drawing on that there bit of parchment; then there was the capt’n’s yarn of how he come by the gold, as ship-shape to the minds of the men as if they’d seen him fetch it out of the Bank of England; then comes the plot of getting rid of ’em at Rio, with a crew of Kanakas to follow; and then a company of beachcombers atop of them, to carry the barque on. Here alone’s a thought-out scheme proper to convince an atheist. But then follows them documents o’ yourn to prove that you, a born gent of eddication and first-class intelligence,don’t doubt the truth o’ what ye hear, and, to make sure, provide for your share when the gold’s come at and for your security, if so be as the law should lay hold on the capt’n for a-deviating.’
‘It’s all very true,’ I exclaimed, staggered myself by the consistency of the wretched business, and forced to mentally admit the reasonableness of the illiterate creatures in the forecastle accepting it all as indisputable. ‘But you know my motive in acting as I did?’
‘Well, Ido, sir. As I told ye, I was a bit nonplushed at first; but it’s a madman’s yarn—ne’er a doubt of it. And I’m as wishful, Mr. Dugdale, as ever ye can be to be quit of the whole blooming job.’
Again I came to a pause at the weather rail, as though I lingered on deck only to observe the weather.
‘Now, Wetherly, listen to me,’ said I. ‘You know you are the only man in the ship that I would dream of opening my lips to. You have my full confidence; I believe you to be sound to the core. If you will give me your word I shall be perfectly satisfied that you will not betray me.’
‘Whatever ye may tell me, Mr. Dugdale,’ he responded in a voice slightly agitated, ‘I swear to keep locked up in my bosom; but afore I can give ye my word, I must know what I’ve got to take my oath on.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ I exclaimed; ‘I desire no oath. Simply assure me that should a time ever come when I may see my way to escape, you will stand my friend; you will actively assist me if you can—you will not be neutral; I mean, merely my well-wisher; simply tell me this, and I shall know that when an opportunity arises, I will have you to count upon.’
‘Have you a scheme, first of all, Mr. Dugdale?’ he inquired. ‘There’s no good in my consenting to anything that’s agoing to end in getting our throats cut.’
‘No; I have no scheme. What plan could I form? I must grasp the first, the best chance that offers, and then it may be that I will want you. There are others besides myself whom you would find grateful. Miss Temple’s mother is a lady of title, and a rich woman’——
‘Excuse me, Mr. Dugdale,’ he interrupted; ‘I don’t want no bribe to bring me into a proper way of acting, if so be as that properway ain’t a-going to cost too much. I’ll say downright, now, that if I can help you and the lady to get out of this job and put ye both in the road of getting home, ye may depend upon my doing my best. More’n that there’d be no use in saying, seeing that it ain’t possible to consart a scheme, and that we must wait until something tarns up. If there be an island, and we bring up off it, the sort of opportunity you want may come, and you’ll find all of me there. If the island be a delusion, then something else’ll have to be waited for. But I tell you as man to man that I’m with you and the lady, that I don’t like Mr. Lush nor the business he’s brought the vessel’s crew into but that I’ve got to be as cautious as you; which now means, sir—and I beg that you’ll onderstand me as speaking respectfully—that that there Forrest has seen us together long enough.’
‘Right,’ I exclaimed, grasping his hand; ‘I thank you from my heart for your assurance; and Miss Temple shall thank you herself.’
With which I went aft, gazing steadfastly to windward as I walked, and after a finalpeep into the binnacle and a slow look round, I stepped below.
There was little to comfort me in this chat with Wetherly; it was worth knowing, however, that he regarded the captain’s yarn as a mere emission of craziness; for heretofore, in the few conversations I had had with him, his hesitation, his cautious inquiries, his manner, that in a superior person would to a certain extent have suggested irony, had caused me to see that his mind was by no means made up on the subject. This, then, was to the good, and it was satisfactory to be informed by him that he would befriend us if an opportunity occurred, providing his assistance should not jeopardise his life. I was grateful for this promise, but scarcely comforted by it. I carried a clouded face into the cabin; Miss Temple, who awaited my return to the cabin, fixed an anxious gaze upon me, but asked no questions.
‘How good you are to suppress your curiosity!’ I exclaimed, standing by her side, and looking into her upturned face; ‘you incalculably lighten my burthen by your forbearance.’
‘You have taught me my lesson,’ sheanswered quietly; ‘and as a pupil I should be proud of the commendations of my master.’ She pronounced the word ‘master’ with a glance of her proud eyes through the droop of the lashes, and a smile at once sweet and haughty played upon her lips.
‘It will comfort you to know that Wetherly is our friend,’ said I.
‘I have always regarded him as so,’ she responded.
‘Yes; but he has now consented to aid me in any effort I may by-and-by make to escape with you from this barque.’
She was silent, but her face was eloquent with nervous eager questioning.
‘Moreover,’ I proceeded, ‘Wetherly is now convinced that Captain Braine’s gold was a dream of that man’s madness. A dream of course it is. But do you know I am extremely anxious that we should find an island in that latitude and longitude of waters to which I shall be presently heading this ship.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because I think—mind, I do but think—that I may see a way to escape with you and Wetherly alone in this barque.’ She breathed quickly, and watched me with impassionedattention. ‘In fact,’ I continued, ‘even as I stand here, looking at you, Miss Temple, a resolution grows in me to create an island for Captain Braine’s gold, should the bearings he gave me prove barren of land.’
‘Create?’ she exclaimed musingly.
‘Yes. The South Sea is full of rocks. I’ll find the men a reef, and that reef must provide me with my chance. But,’ I exclaimed, breaking off and looking at my watch, ‘it is time for me to seek some rest. I shall have to be on deck again at twelve.’
‘I shall go to bed also,’ she exclaimed; ‘it is dull—and there are many weeks before us yet.’ She smiled with a quivering lip, as though she would have me know that she rebuked herself for complaining. ‘I believe you would tell me more if you had the least faith in my judgment.’
‘At present, I have nothing to tell; but an hour may come when I shall have to depend very largely upon your judgment and your spirit also.’
She met my eyes with a firm, full, glowing gaze. ‘No matter what task you assign to me,’ she cried with vehemence, ‘you will find me equal to it. This life is insupportable; andI would choose at this instant the chance of death side by side with the chance of escape, sooner than continue as I am in this horrible condition of uncertainty, banishment, and misery.’
‘That may be the spirit I shall want to evoke,’ I said, smiling, whilst I held open her cabin door. ‘Good-night, Miss Temple.’
She held my hand a moment or two before relinquishing it. ‘I hope I have said nothing to vex you, Mr. Dugdale?’ she exclaimed, slightly inclining her fine head into a posture that might make one think of a princess expressing an apology.
‘What haveIsaid that you should think so?’ I answered.
‘Your manner is a little hard,’ she exclaimed in a low voice.
‘God forgive me if it be so,’ said I. ‘Not to you, Miss Temple, would I be hard.’
My voice trembled as I pronounced these words, and abruptly I caught up her hand and pressed her fingers to my lips, and bowing, closed the door upon her and entered my own berth.