"However,mytroubles weren't seemingly over yet, for just then up came the judge's dark kitmagar to the gangway where I was, and, from the sly impudence of the fellow's manner, I at once fancied there was something particular in the wind, as if he'd been seeking me about-decks. 'S'laam, mistree!' said he, with but a slight duck of his flat brown turban, 'Judge sahib i-send Culley Mistree his chupprass'—message, forsooth!—'sah'b inquire the flavour of gentlyman's Ees-Inchee Coompanee, two-three moment!' 'The flavour of my East-India Company, you rascal!' said I, laughing, yet inclined to kick him aft again for his impertinent look; 'speak for yourself, if you please!'
"In fact, the whiff of cocoa-nut oil, and other dark perfumes about him, came out in a hot calm at sea, when everything sickens one, as to need no inquiry about the matter; however, I walked straight aft to the round-house, and in at the opendoor, through which Sir Charles was to be seen pacing from one side of his cabin to the other, like a Bengal tiger in a cage. 'Harkye, young man,' said he sternly, turning as soon as I came in, with my hat in my hand, 'since I had the honour of your company here this morning, I have recollected—indeed, I find that one of my servants had done the same—that you are the person who molested my family by various annoyances beside my garden at Croydon, sir!' 'Indeed, Sir Charles!' said I coolly, for the bitter feeling I had made me cool: 'they must have been unintentional then, sir! But I was certainly at Croydon, seeing my mother's house happens to be there.' 'You must have had some design in entering this vessel, sir!' continued the judge, in a passion: ''gad, sir, the coincidence is too curious! Tell me what it is at once, or by——' 'My design was to go to India, sir,' answered I, as quietly as before. 'In what capacity?—who are you?—what—who—what do you wantthere, eh?' rapped out the judge. 'I'm not aware, sir,' said I, 'what right you've got to question me; but I—in fact, I'll tellsomuch to any man—why, I'm an officer in the Navy.'
"Sir Charles brought short up in his pacing and stamping, and stared at me. 'An officer in the Navy!' repeated he; 'but yes—why, now I think, I do remember something in your dress, sir—though it was thefacethat struck me! In short then, sir, this makes the case worse: you are here on false pretences—affecting the very reverse, sir—setting yourself up for a model of simplicity,—a laughing-stock indeed!' 'I had reasons for not wishing my profession to be known, Sir Charles,' said I; 'most special reasons. They're now over, however, and I don't carewhoknows it!' 'May I ask what these were?' said the judge. 'ThatI'll never tell to any man breathing!' I said determinedly.
"The judge walked two or three times fore and aft; then a thought seemed to strike him—he looked out as if at the decks and through below the awnings, then shut the door and came back to me again. 'By-the-way,' said he seriously, and changing his tone, 'since this extraordinary acknowledgment of yours, sir, something occurs to me which makes me almost think your presence in the vessel in one sense opportune. I have reason to entertain a high opinion of naval officers as technical men, professionally educated in HisMajesty's regular service, and—you look rather ayoungman—but have you had much experience, may I ask?' 'I have been nine or ten years at sea, sir,' replied I, a little taken aback, 'in various parts of the world!' 'I have some suspicion lately,' he went on, 'that this vessel is not navigated in a—in short, that at present, probably, we may be in some danger—doyouthink so, sir?' 'No, Sir Charles,' said I, 'I don't think sheis, as matters stand—only in a troublesome sort of quarter, which the sooner she's out of the better.' 'The commander is, I find, dangerously unwell,' continued he, 'and of the young man who seems to have the chief care of the vessel, I have no very high—well—that, of course I——Now, sir,' said he, looking intently at me, 'areyoucapable of—in short, of managing this Company's vessel, should any emergency arise? I have seen such, myself—and in the circumstances I feel considerable alarm—uneasiness, at least—Eh, sir?' 'Depend upon it, Sir Charles,' I said, stepping toward the door, 'in any matter of the kind I'll do my best for this ship! But none knows so well as a seaman, there are cases enough where your very best can't do much!'
"The judge seemed rather startled by my manner—for Ididfeel a little misgiving, from something in the weather on the whole; at any rate I fancied there was a cold-bloodedness in every sharp corner of his face, bilious though his temper was, that would have let him seemego to the bottom a thousand times over, had I even had a chance with his daughter herself, ere he'd have yielded me the tip of her little finger: accordingly 'twas a satisfaction to me, at the moment, just to make him see he wasn't altogether in his nabob's chair in Bengal yet, on an elephant's back.
"'Ah, though!' said he, raising his voice to call me back, 'to return for an instant—there is one thing I must positively require, sir—which you will see, in the circumstances, to be unavoidable. As a mere simple cadet, observe, sir, there was nothing to be objected to in a slight passing acquaintance—but, especially in the—in short, equivocal—sir, I must request of you that you will on no account attempt to hold any communication with my daughter, Miss Hyde—beyond a mere bow, of course! 'Twill be disagreeable, I assure you. Indeed, I shall——' 'Sir,' said I, all the blood in my body going to my face, 'of all things in the world,thatis the verything where your views and mine happen to square!' and I bowed.
"The man's coolness disgusted me, sticking such a thing in my teeth, after just reckoning on my services with the very same breath—and all when it wasn't required, too! And by Heaven! thought I, hadsheshown me favour, all the old nabobs in Christendom, and the whole world to boot, shouldn't hinder me from speaking to her! What I said apparently puzzled him, but he gave me a grand bow in his turn, and I had my hand on the door, when he said, 'I suppose, sir, as a naval officer, you have no objection to give me your name and rank. I forget what——' Here I remembered my mistake with the mate, and on the whole I saw I must stick by it till I was clear of the whole concern; as forsayingmy name was Westwood, that I couldn't have done at the time for worlds; but I quietly handed him another card, meaning, of course, to give Westwood the cue as shortly as possible, for his own safety. The judge started on seeing the card, gave me one of his sharp glances, and made a sudden step towards me. 'Have you any relation in India, Mr Westwood?' said he, slowly, to which I gave only a nod. 'What is he, if I may inquire?' asked he again. 'A councillor or something, I believe,' said I, carelessly. 'ThomasWestwood?' said Sir Charles. 'Ah,' said I, wearied of the thing, and anxious to go. 'An uncle, probably, from the age?' he still put in. 'Exactly, that's it!' I said. 'Why—what!—why did you not mention this at first?' he broke out suddenly, coming close up; 'why, Councillor Westwood is my very oldest friend in India, my dear sir! This alters the matter. I should have welcomed a nephew of his in my house, to the utmost! Why, how strange, Mr Westwood, that the fact should emerge in this curious manner!' and with that he held out his hand. 'Of course,' said he, 'no such restriction as I mentioned could for a moment apply to a nephew of Councillor Westwood!'
"I stared at him for a moment, and then—'Sir,' said I, coolly, 'it seems the whole matter goes by names; but if my name were the devil or the Apostle Paul, I don't see how it can make a bit of difference inme: what's more, sir,' said I, setting my teeth, 'whatevermy name may be, depend upon it, I shall never claim acquaintance either with you or—or—Miss Hyde!' With that I flung straight out of the cabin,leaving the old gentleman bolt upright on the floor, and as dumb as a stock-fish, whether with rage or amazement I never stopped to think.
"I went right forward on the Indiaman's forecastle, clear of all the awnings, dropped over her head out of sight of the men, and sat with my legs amongst the open woodwork beneath the bowsprit, looking at the calm—nobody in sight but the Hindoo figure, who seemed to be doing the same.Westwood!thought I, bitterly; then in a short time, when the mistake's found out, and he got safe past the Cape, perhaps—it'll be nothing but Westwood! He'll have a clear stage, and all favour; but at any rate, howeverit may be,I'll not be here, by Heaven, to see it. That cursed councillor of his, I suppose, is another nabob—and no doubt he'll marry her, all smooth! Uncles—I little thought, by Jove! when I knocked off that yarn to the mate aboutmyuncle—but, after all, it's strange how often a fellow's paid back in his own coin!
"The heat at the time was unbearable—heat, indeed! 'twasn't only heat—but a heavy, close, stifling sort of feeling, like in a hot-house, as if you'd got a weight on your head and every other bit of you: the water one time so dead-blue and glassy between the windings of it, that the sky seemed to vanish, and the ship looked floating up into whereitwas—then again you scarce knew sea from air, except by the wrinkles and eddies running across each other between, toward a sullen blue ring at the horizon—like seeing through a big twisted sieve, or into a round looking-glass all over cracks. I heard them clue up everything aloft, except the topsails—andtheyfell slapping back and forward to the masts, every now and then with athudlike a thousand spades clapped down at once over a hollow bit of ground—till all seemed as still between as if they'd buried something. I wished to Heaven it were what Ifeltat the time, and the thought of Violet Hyde, that I might be as if I never had seen her—when on glancing up betwixt the figure-head and the ship's stern, it struck me to notice how much the land on her starboard bow and beam seemed to have risen, even during the last hour, and that without wind; partly on account of its clearing in that quarter, perhaps; but the nearest points looked here and there almost as if you couldsee into them, roughening barer out through the hue of the distance, like purple blotches spreading in it. Whereas, far away astern of us, when I crossed over her headworks, there were two or three thin white streaks of haze to be seen just on the horizon, one upon another, above which you made out somewhat like a dim range of peaked land, trending one couldn't say how far back—all showing how fairly the coast was shutting her in upon the south-east, as she set farther in-shore, even while the run of the current bade fair to take her well clear of it ahead; which was, of course, all we need care for at present. Her want of steerage-way, however, let the Indiaman sheer hither and thither, till at times one was apt to get confused, and suppose her more in with the landloom than she really was. Accordingly the mate proved his good judgment by having a couple of boats lowered with a tow-line, to keep her at least stem-on to the current, although the trouble of getting out the launch would have more served his purpose, and the deeper loaded the better, since in fact there weretwofavourable drifts instead of one, between every stroke of the oars. The men pulled away rather sulkily, their straw hats over their noses, the dip of the hawser scarce tautening at each strain, as they squinted up at theSeringapatam'sidle figure-head. For my part I had thought it better to leave him by himself, and go below.
"When I went into the cuddy, more for relief's sake than to dine, the passengers were chattering and talking away round the tables, hot and choking though it was, in high glee because the land was in sight from the starboard port-window, and they fancied the officers had changed their minds as to 'touching' there. Every now and then a cadet or two would start up, with their silver forks in their hands, and put their heads out; some asked whether the anchor had been seen getting ready or not; others disputed about the colour of tropical trees, if they were actually green like English ones, or perhaps all over blossoms and fruit together—the whole of them evidently expecting bands of negroes to line the shore as we came in.
"One young fellow had taken a particular fancy to have an earthworm, with earth enough to feed it all the rest of the voyage, otherwise he couldn't stand it; and little Tommy's mother almost went into hysterics again when she said, if she could just eat a lettuce salad once more, she'd die contented; the missionary looking up through his spectacles, in surprise that she wasn'tmoreinterested about the slave-trade, whereof he'd been talking to her. As for Westwood, he joined quietly in the fun, with a glance now and then across to me; however, I pretended to be too busy with the salt beef, and was merely looking up again for a moment, when my eye chanced to catch on the swinging barometer that hung in the raised skylight, right over the midst of our noise. By George! ma'am, what was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the oldIris. I laid down my knife and fork as carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck.
"Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land—and at once took him aside to tell him the fact. 'Well, sir,' said he coolly, 'and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in the meantime we'resureto have it off the land.' 'That's one of the very reasons,' said I, 'for thinkingthiswill be from seaward—since towards evening the land'll have plenty of air without it! But more than that, sir,' said I, 'I tell you, Mr Finch, I know the west coast of Africa pretty well—and so far south as this, the glass falling so low astwenty-seven, is always the sign of a nor'-westerly blow! If you're a wise man, sir, you'll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but you'll see your anchors clear!' Finch had plainly got furious at my meddling again, and said he, 'Instead of that, sir, I shall hold oneverythingaloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!' 'D' ye really think, then,' said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land, trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was, 'doyou think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong nor'-wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of it again?' 'Perhaps not,' said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it; 'but youhappen always to suppose what there's a thousand to one against, sir. Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once. But, sir, if itdidcome to that, I'd rather—I'd rather see the shiplost—I'd rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her as I know well how, than I'd see the chance given toyou!' The young fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear—he was in a regular furious passion. 'You'dbetterlet me alone, that's all I've got to say to you, sir!' growled he as he turned away; so I thought it no use to say more, and leant over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out.
"The fact was, the farther we got off the landnow, the worse, seeing that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in thirty or forty fathoms of water, where no anchor could hold for ten minutes' time—if it ever caught ground. My way would have been to get every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the colour of some shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly I wasn't sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was slowly rising off our beam betwixt the high land far astern and the broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and there a quick ripple, when I went below, had got on a sudden quite smooth as far as you could see, as if they'd sunk down like so many eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward, on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the colour different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate spreading out near a river-mouth at ebb-tide—then again it was green, rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster's account in theIris, but there was neither anything like it to be seen, nor any sign of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough.
"The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the north-east point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of bluffs—and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam; but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she edged farther from thepoint, by the way its bearings shifted or got blurred together: either she stood still, or she'd caught some eddy or under-rift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter was how to breathe, or bear your clothes—when all of a sudden I heard the second mate sing out from the forecastle 'Stand by the braces, there! Look out for the topes'l hawl-yairds!'
"He came shuffling aft next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks could carry him, and told Mr Finch there was a squall coming off the land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I—catching a glance from him as much as to say—There's your gale from seaward, you pretentious lubber! The lowest streak of coast bore at present before our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east'ard, with some pretty high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging beyond, as 'twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark vapour thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again, like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck for a minute or two—off went all the awnings—and every hand was ready at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud, then at the mates. 'ByGeorge!' said I, noticing a pale wreath of it go curling on the pale clear sky over it, as if to a puff of air, 'itissmoke! Some niggers, as they often do, burning the bush!'
"So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger. 'Mr Collins, sir,' said he in a low voice, looking almost right up, high over toward the ship's larboard bow, which he couldn't have done before, for the awnings so lately above us, 'look, sir—there's anox-eye!' I followed his gaze, but it wasn't for a few seconds that I found what it pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead, compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvas aloft was but dirty grey and yellow.
"'Twas what none but a seaman would have observed, and many a seaman wouldn't have done so—but a man-o'-war's-man is used to look out at all hours, in all latitudes—and to a man that knew its meaning,thiswould have been no joke,even out of sight of land; as it was, the thing gave me a perfect thrill of dread. High aloft in the heavens northward, where they were freest from the sun—now standing over the open horizon amidst a wide bright pool of light—you managed to discern a small silvery speck, growing slowly, as it were, out of the faint blue hollow, like a star in the daytime, till you felt as if itlookedat you, from God knows what distance away. One eye after another amongst the mates and crew joined Jacobs' and mine, with the same sort of dumb fellowship to be seen when a man in London streets watches the top of a steeple; and however hard to make out at first, ere long none of them could miss seeing it, as it got slowly larger, sinking by degrees till the sky close about it seemed to thicken like a dusky ring round the white, and the sunlight upon our seaward quarter blazed out doubly strong—as if it came dazzling off a brass bell, with the bright tongue swinging in it far off to one side, where the hush made you think of a stroke back upon us, with some terrific sound to boot.
"The glassy water by this time was beginning to rise under the ship with a struggling kind of unequal heave, as if a giant you couldn't see kept shoving it down here and there with both hands, and it came swelling up elsewhere.
"To north-westward or thereabouts, betwixt the sun and this ill-boding token aloft, the far line of open sea still lay shining motionless and smooth; next time you looked, it had got even brighter than before, seeming to leave the horizon visibly; then the streak of air just above it had grown grey, and a long hedge of hazy vapour was creeping as it were over from beyond—the white speck all the while travelling down towards it slantwise from nor'ard, and spreading its dark ring slowly out into a circle of cloud, till the keen eye of it at last sank in, and below, as well as aloft, the whole north-western quarter got blurred together in one gloomy mass. If there was a question at first whether the wind mightn't come from so far nor'ard as to give her a chance of running out to sea before it, there was none now—our sole recourse lay either in getting nearer the land meanwhile, to let go our anchors ere it came on, with her headtoit—or we might make a desperate trial to weather the lee-point now far astern. The fact was, we were going to have a regular tornado, and that of the worstkind, which wouldn't soon blow itself out; though near an hour's notice would probably pass ere it was on.
"The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of the two ways was the safer; though, of course, the nearer we should get to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled, ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead passed along to take soundings every few minutes.
"On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the oars from the heaving water at her bows, and the loud flap of the big topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising away along our larboard beam nor'-west and north, over the grey bank on the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapour in the midst. The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind one edge of it, as if 'twere a mountain you saw over some coast or other; indeed, you'd have thought the ship almost shut in by land on both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most, as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it—whichwas the true land and which the clouds, 'twas hard to say—and the sea gloomed writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains.
"I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again, glancing uneasily about; his daughter was standing with another young lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I'd have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers on a lee-shore in the dark—or at best, suppose the Almighty favoured any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it, I'd have compassed it, mate or nomate; but all was done that could be done, and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it to her and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my eyes hard fixed upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole out in it, and the sea stretched breathless away below, like new melted lead.
"The air was like to choke you—or rather there was none—as if water, sky, and everything else wantedlife, and one would fain have caught the first rush of the tornado into his mouth—the men emptying the dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land, it seemed to draw nearer of itself, till every point and wrinkle in the headland off our bow came out in a red coppery gleam—one saw the white line of surf round it, and some blue country beyond like indigo; then back it darkened again, and all aloft was getting livid-like over the bare royal mast-heads.
"Suddenly, a faint air was felt to flutter from landward; it half lifted the topsails, and a heavy earthy smell came into your nostrils—the first of the land-breeze, at last; but by this time it was no more than a sort of mockery, while a minute after you might catch a low, sullen, moaning sound far off through the emptiness, from the strong surf the Atlantic sends in upon the west coast before a squall. If ever landsmen found out what land on the wrong side is, the passengers of theSeringapatamdid, that moment; the shudder of the topsails aloft seemed to pass into everyone's shoulders, and a few quietly walked below, as if they were safe in their cabins. I saw Violet Hyde look round and round with a startled expression, and from one face to another, till her eye lighted on me, and I fancied for a moment it was like putting some question to me. I couldn't bear it!—'twas the first time I'd felt powerless to offer anything; though the thought ran through me again till I almost felt myself buffeting among the breakers with her in my arms. I looked to the land, where the smoke we had seen three-quarters of an hour ago, rose again with the puff of air, a slight flicker of flame in it, as it wreathed off the low ground toward the higher point—when all at once I gave a start, for something in the shape of the whole struck me as if I'd seen it before.
"Next moment I was thinking of old Bob Martin's particular landmarks at the river-mouth he spoke of, and the notion of its possibly being hereabouts glanced on me like a godsend. In the unsure dusky sight I had of it, certainly, it wore somewhat of that look, and it lay fair to leeward of the weather; while, as for the dead shut-in appearance of it, old Bob had specially said you'd never think it was a river; but then again it was more like a desperate fancy owing to our hard case, and to run the ship straight for it would be the trick of a Bedlamite. At any rate, a quick cry from aft turned me round, and I saw a blue flare of lightning streak out betwixt the bank of grey haze and the cloud that hung over it—then another, and the clouds were beginning to rise slowly in the midst, leaving a white glare between, as if you could see through it towards what was coming. The men could pull no longer, but ahead of the ship there was now only about eight or ten fathoms water, with a soft bottom. The boats were hoisted in, and the men had begun to clue up and hand the topsails, which were lowered on the caps, when, just in the midst of the hubbub and confusion, as I stood listening to every order the mate gave, the steward came up hastily from below to tell him that the captain had woke up, and, being much better, wanted to see him immediately. Mr Finch looked surprised, but he turned at once, and hurried down the hatchway.
"The sight which all of us who weren't busy gazed upon, over the larboard bulwarks, was terrible to see: 'twas half dark, though the sun dropping behind the haze-bank, made it glimmer and redden. The dark heap of clouds had first lengthened out blacker and blacker, and was rising slowly in the sky like a mighty arch, till you saw their white edges below, and a ghastly white space behind, out of which the mist and scud began to fly. Next minute a long sigh came into her jib and foresail, then the black bow of cloud partly sank again, and a blaze of lightning came out all round her, showing you every face on deck, the inside of the round-house aft, with the Indian judge standing in it, his hand to his eyes—and the land far away, to the very swell rolling into it. Then the thunder broke overhead in the gloom, in one fearful sudden crack, that you seemed to hear through every corner of cabins and forecastle below—and the wet back-fins oftwenty sharks or so, that had risen out of the inky surface, vanished as suddenly.
"The Indiaman had sheered almost broadside on to the clouds, her jib was still up, and I knew the next time the cloudsrosewe should fairly have it. Flash after flash came, and clap after clap of thunder,suchas you hear before a tornado—yet the chief officer wasn't to be seen, and the others seemed uncertain what to do first; while everyone began to wonder and pass along questions where he could be. In fact, he had disappeared. For my part, I thought it very strange he stayed so long; but there wasn't a moment to lose. I jumped down off the poop-stairs, walked forward on the quarter-deck, and said coolly to the men nearest me,'Run and haul down that jib yonder—set the spanker here, aft. You'll have her taken slap on her beam: quick, my lads!' The men did so at once. Macleod was calling out anxiously for Mr Finch. 'Stand by the anchors there!' I sang out, 'to let go the starboard one, themomentshe swings head to wind!' The Scotch mate turned his head; but Rickett's face, by the next flash, showed he saw the good of it, and there was no leisure for arguing, especially as I spoke in a way to be heard. I walked to the wheel, and got hold of Jacobs to take the weather helm.
"We were all standing ready, at the pitch of expecting it. Westwood, too, having appeared again by this time beside me, I whispered to him to run forward and look after the anchors—when someone came hastily up the after-hatchway, with a glazed hat and pilot-coat on, stepped straight to the binnacle, looked in behind me, then at the black bank of cloud, then aloft. Of course I supposed it was the mate again, but didn't trouble myself to glance at him further—when 'Hold on with the anchors!' he sang out in a loud voice—'hold on there for your lives!' Heavens! it was the captain himself!
"At this, of course, I stood aside at once; and he shouted again,'Hoist the jib and fore-topmast-staysail—stand by to set fore-course!' By Jove! this was the way to pay the shipheadoff, instead of stern off, from the blast when it came—and to let her drive before it at no trifle of a rate, whereverthatmight take her! 'Downwith that spanker, Mr Macleod, d' ye hear?' roared Captain Williamson again; and, certainly, I did wonder what he meant to do with the ship. But hismanner was so decided, and 'twas so natural for the captain to strain a point to come on deck in the circumstances, that I saw he must have some trick of seamanship aboveme, or some special knowledge of the coast—and I waited in a state of the greatest excitement for the first stroke of the tornado. He waved the second and third mates forward to their posts—the Indiaman sheering and backing, like a frightened horse, to the long slight swell and the faint flaw of the land-air. The black arch to windward began to rise again, showing a terrible white stare reaching deep in, and a blue dart of lightning actually ran zigzag down before our glaring fore-to'gallant-mast. Suddenly, the captain had looked at me, and we faced each other by the gleam; and, quiet, easy-going man as he was commonly, it just flashed across me there was something extraordinarily wild andraisedin his pale visage, strange as the air about us made everyone appear. He gave a stride towards me, shouting, 'Who are——' when the thunder-clap took the words out of his tongue, and next moment the tornado burst upon us, fierce as the wind from a cannon's mouth.
"For one minute theSeringapatamheeled over to her starboard streak, almost broadside on, and her spars towards the land—all on her beam was a long ragged white gush of light and mist pouring out under the black brow of the clouds, with a trampling eddying roar up into the sky. The swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and as we scrambled up to the bulwarks, to hold on for bare life, you saw a roller fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam—when crash went mizzen-topmast and main-to'gallant-mast; the ship payed swiftly off by help of her headsails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast.
"The least yaw in her course, and she'd have never risen, unless every stick went out of her. I laid my shoulder to the wheel with Jacobs, and Captain Williamson screamed through his trumpet into the men's ears, and waved his hands to ride down the fore-sheets as far as they'd go; which kept her right before it, though the sail could be but half set, and she rather flew than ran—the sea one breadth of white foam back to the gushes of mist, not having power to rise higher yet. Had the foresail been stretched, 'twould have blown off likea cloud. I looked at the captain: he was standing in the lee of the round-house, straight upright, though now and then peering eagerly forward, his lips firm, one hand on a belaying-pin, the other in his breast—nothing but determination in his manner: yet once or twice he started, and glanced fiercely to the after-hatchway near, as if something from below might chance to thwart him. I can't express my contrary feelings, betwixt a sort of hope and sheer horror. We were driving right towards the land, at thirteen or fourteen knots to the hour—yetcouldthere actually be some harbourage hereaway, or that said river the quartermaster of theIrismentioned, and Captain Williamson know of it?
"Something struck me as wonderfully strange in the whole matter, and puzzling to desperation—still, I trusted to the captain's experience. The coast was scarce to be seen ahead of us, lying black against an uneven streak of glimmer, as she rushed like fury before the deafening howl of wind; and right away before our lee-beam I could see the light blowing, as it were, across beyond the headland I had noticed, where the smoke in the bush seemed to be still curling, half-smothered, along the flat in the lee of the hills, as if in green wood, or sheltered as yet from seaward, though once or twice a quick flicker burst up in it.
"All at once the gust of the tornado was seen to pour on it like a long blast from some huge bellows, and up it flashed—the yellow flame blazed into the smoke, spread away behind the point, and the ruddy brown smoke blew whitening over it:—when, Almighty power! what did I see as it lengthened in, but part after part of old Bob's landmarks creep out ink-black before the flare and the streak of sky together—first the low line of ground, then the notch in the block, the two rocks like steps, and the sugar-loaf shape of the headland, to the very mop-headed knot of trees on its rise! No doubt Captain Williamson was steering for it; but it was far too much on our starboard bow—and in half-an-hour at this rate we should drive right into the surf you saw running along to the coast ahead—so I signed to Jacobs for God's sake to edge her off as nicely as was possible.
"Captain Williamson caught my motion. 'Port! port, sirrah!' he sang out sternly; 'backwith the helm, d' ye hear!' and pulling out a pistol, he levelled it at me with one hand,while he held a second in the other. 'Land!—land!' shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout—'I'll be there though a thousand mutineers——' His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth glanced across me—this was thegreen leaf, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile—when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, thenlaughed, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman, and, during half-a-minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly topman made a sign, as much as to say, Knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew from Jacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in.
"A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to head two or three points more south-east in theend, furiously as the wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw anyone back if he left go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still held: and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to get a pull taken onthe starboard brace, which would not onlyslantthe sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed. Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was keeping my eyes fixed anxiously, as man can fancy, on the last gleams of the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little and little, it went quite out, and all was black—though I had taken its bearings by the compass—and I kept her to that for bare life, trembling at every shiver in the foresail's edge, lest either it or the mast should go.
"Suddenly, we began to get into a fearful swell—the Indiaman plunged and shook in every spar left her. I could see nothing ahead, from the wheel, and in the dark; we were getting close in with the land, and the time was coming; but still I held south-east-by-east to the mark of her head in the compass-box, as nearly as might and main could do it, for the heaves that made me think once or twice she was to strike next moment.
"If she went ashore in my hands! why, it was like to drive one mad with fear; and I waited for Jacobs to come back, with a brain ready to turn, almost as if I'd have left the wheel to the other helmsman, and run forward into the bows to look out. The captain lay raving and shouting behind me, though no one else could either have heard or seen him; and where the chief officer was all this time surprised me, unless the madman had made away with him, or locked him in his own cabin, in return for being shut up himself—which, in fact, proved to be the case, cunning as it was to send for him so quietly. At length Jacobs struggled aft to me again, and charging him, for Heaven's sake, to steer exactly the course I gave, I drove before the full strength of the squall along decks to the bowsprit, where I held on and peered out. Dead ahead of us was the high line of coast in the dark—not a mile of swell between the ship and it. By this time the low boom of the surf came under the wind, and you saw the breakers lifting all along—not a single opening in them! I had lost sight of my landmarks, and my heart gulped into my mouth—what I felt 'twould be vain to say—till I thought Ididmake out one short patch of sheer black in the range of foam, scarce so far on our bow as I'd reckoned the fire tohave been; indeed, instead of that, it was rather on her weather than her lee bow; and the more I watched it, and the nearer we drove in that five minutes, the broader it was. 'By all that's good!' thought I, 'if a river there is, that must be the mouth of it!' But, by Heavens! on our present course the ship would run just right upon the point—and, to strike the clear water, her foreyard would require to be braced up, able or not, though the force of the tornado would come fearfully on her quarter, then. There was the chance of taking all the masts out of her; but let them stand ten minutes, and the thing was done, when we opened into the lee of the points—otherwise all was over.
I sprang to the fore-braces and besought the men near me, for God's sake, to drag upon the lee one—and that as if their life hung upon it—when Westwood caught me by the arm. I merely shouted through my hands into his ear to go aft to Jacobs and tell him to keep her head asingle pointup, whatever might happen, to the last—then I pulled with the men at the brace till it was fast, and scrambled up again to the bowsprit heel. Jove! how she surged to it: the little canvas we had strained like to burst; the masts trembled, and the spars aloft bent like whip-shafts, everything below groaning again; while the swell and the blast together made you dizzy, as you watched the white eddies rising and boiling out of the dark—her cutwater shearing through it and the foam, as if you were going under it. The sound of the hurricane and the surf seemed to be growing together into one awful roar—my very brain began to turn with the pitch I was wrought up to—and it appeared next moment we should heave far up into the savage hubbub of breakers. I was wearying for the crash and the wild confusion that would follow—when all of a sudden, still catching the fierce rush of the gale athwart her quarter into the fore-course, which steadied her though she shuddered to it—all of a sudden, the dark mass of the land seemed as it were parting ahead of her, and a gleam of pale sky opened below the dusk into my very face. I no more knew what I was doing, by this time, nor where we were, than the spar before me—till again, the light broadened, glimmering low betwixt the high land and a lump of rising level on the other bow.
"I hurried aft past the confused knots of men holding onto the lee of the bulwarks, and seized a spoke of the wheel. 'Tom,' shouted I to Westwood, 'run and let free the spanker on the poop! Down with the helm—down with it, Jacobs, my lad!' I sang out; 'never mind spars or canvas!' Down went the helm—the spanker helped to luff her to the strength of the gust—and away she went up to port, the heavy swells rolling her in, while the rush into her staysail and fore-course came in one terrible flash of roaring wind—tearing first one and then the other clear out of the bolt-ropes, though the loose spanker abaft was in less danger, and the way she had from both was enough to take her careening round the point into its lee. By Heavens! there were the streaks of soft haze low over the rising moon, under the broken clouds, beyond a far line of dim fringy woods, she herself just tipping the hollow behind, big and red—when right down from over the cloud above us came a spout of rain, then a sheet of it lifting to the blast as it howled across the point. 'Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!' I sang out through the trumpet; and Jacobs put the helm fully down at the moment, till she was coming head to wind, when I made forward to the mates and men. 'Let—go!' I shouted; not a look turned against me, and away thundered the cable through the hawse-hole; she shook to it, sheered astern, and brought up with her anchor fast. By that time the rain was plashing down in a perfect deluge—you couldn't see a yard from you—all was one white pour of it; although it soon began to drive again over the headland, as the tornado gathered new food out of it. Another anchor was let go, cable paid out, and the ship soon began to swing the other way to the tide, pitching all the while on the short swell.
"The gale still whistled her spars for two or three hours, during which it began by degrees to lull. About eleven o'clock it was clear moonlight to leeward, the air fresh and cool: a delicious watch it was, too. I was walking the poop by myself, two or three men lounging sleepily about the forecastle, and Rickett below on the quarter-deck, when I saw the chief officer himself rush up from below, staring wildly round him, as if he thought we were in some dream or other. I fancied at first the mate would have struck Rickett, from the way he went on, but I kept aft where I was. The eddies ran past the Indiaman's side, and you heardthe fast ebb of the tide rushing and rippling sweetly on her taut cables ahead, plashing about the bows and bends. We were in old Bob Martin's river, whatever that might be.
"Well," continued the commander, his voice making use of the breeze as he stood aft of the group, "I could not have slept more than three or four hours on a stretch, when I was woke by a fellow shoving his lantern in my face, and saying it wasn't me he wanted; for which I gave him a hearty objurgation, and turned over a swing of the cot to go asleep again. The sailor grumbled something about the parson being wanted for the captain; and all at once it flashed on my mind where we were, with the whole of last night's ticklish work—seeing that, hard rub as it was, it had clean left me for a time. 'Try the aftermost berth, then,' said I, slipping out in the dark to put on my trousers.
"The fact was, on going below to our state-room, I had found my own cot taken up by someone in the confusion; and as every door stood open at night in that latitude, I e'en made free with the nearest, which I knew was the missionary's. In a minute or two I heard Westwood meet the mate, who said he thought the captain would like to see him, and hoped they hadn't 'disturbed the other gentleman.' 'Oh no, I daresay not,' said Westwood, rather nervously, guessing, I daresay, what he was wanted for; while Finch slipped quietly past to listen at the state-room door, where both he and I might hear the 'other gentleman,' whoever he was, snoring pretty plain.
"When the first officer shut the door to, however, turned the key, and put it in his pocket, I nearly gave vent to a whistle. 'I see!' thought I; 'but, my fine fellow, it seemed you never were meant for a good jailer, anyhow!' He was no sooner gone than I walked forward toward the captain's cabin, near the after-hatchway, anxious enough to see how the poor man was, since I had had such a share in bringing him to a point, one way or another. Westwood was standing against the light out of the open door, and I looked in along with him, at the cot slung high to the beams like a lump of shadow, thelamp striking across below it on all the captain's little affairs—his glazed hat and his wet coat, the names of two or three old books even hanging in shelves against the bulkhead—and into the little state-room off the cabin, where the surgeon was stooping to mix a draught.
"The hard-featured Scotch mate stood holding the captain's wrist with one clumsy flipper, as if trying to feel his pulse, fumbling about his own face with the other, and looking more concerned than I'd thought possible for him. 'Well, I've slept—a good deal,' said the captain, in a weak voice, putting up his hand slowly to rub his eyes, but seemingly quite composed, and knowing nothing of what had happened—which rid me of the horrid notion I could scarce help before, that he had known what he was about. His head was close shaved, and the look of a sailor clean gone off his face with the bluff, honest oak-colour it commonly had, till you'd have wished him decently in his bed thousands of miles off, with women slipping out and in; only the blood from his arm hanging down on the sheet, with the sharp point of his nose and the shape of his knees coming up off the shadow, kept it all in one with the wild affair on deck a few hours gone.
"'She's on her course, you say?' added he, listlessly. 'Must be averylight breeze though, Mr Macleod.' 'So it is, sir; so it is, no doubt!' replied the second mate, soothing him; 'did ye say we'llpentthe ship, sir?' 'Ay, before we go into port, Mr Macleod, to be sure,' said Captain Williamson, trying to put a cheerful tone into his voice; 'she's had a good deal of buffeting, but we mustn't let 'em see it, you know! Didn't you lose a mizzen-topmast somehow, though, Mr Macleod?' ''Deed ay, sir,' said Macleod, hastily, afraid he was getting upon the scent of what had happened; 'the first officer's watch it was, sir—willItell Mr Finch ye're wanting to speak to him about it, Captain Williamson?' and he began to shuffle towards the door.
"'Finch? Finch?' said the sick man, passing his finger over his eyes again; 'what voyageisthis, Mr Macleod?' 'Why—why,' said the Scotchman, starting, and rather puzzled himself. 'Oo, it's justthisvoyage, ye know, sir! Mr Finch, ye mind, sir?' 'No, no; don't let him leave the deck for a moment, Macleod!' said the captain, anxiously: 'harkye, James, I'm afraid I've trusted overmuch to the young man allalong! I'll tell ye, Mr Macleod, I don't know whether I was asleep or not, but Iheardhim somewhere wishing he had the command of this ship! I shouldn't like him to take her off my hands! Have you seen the Scilly lights yet, Mr Macleod?'
The mate shook his head; he had contrived to persuade the poor man we were far homeward bound. 'If you'd only get the pilot aboard, Mr Macleod,' the captain went on, 'I'd die contented; but mind the charts—mind the charts—I've got the charts to mind for another sort of voyage myself, James!' 'Hoot, hoot, captain!' said the Scotchman, 'what sets ye for to talk after that fashion—you'll be up an' about decks directly, sir! What were ye saying about top-m'sts now, sir?' Captain Williamson gave the second mate a glance that looked into him, and he held down his head, for the man evidently believed fully, as none of us could help doing, that there was death on the captain's face.
"'James, James!' said the captain, slowly, 'you've no notion how some things weigh on the mind at a pass of this kind! Other things one don't remember—but there's one in particular, almost as it were yesterday—why, surely you were with me that voyage, Mr Macleod! when I let some o' the passengers take a boat in a calm, and all——' Here he stopped, seemingly overcome. 'There was one young creature amongst 'em,' he went on, 'the age of my own girl, Macleod—my own little Nan, you know—and now—now I missher—and, and——' The poor man gave a great gulp, clutching the mate's arm, and gazing him in the face. 'Wasn't it a long time ago?' said he, very anxiously; 'if it wasn't, I would go mad! They were all drowned—drowned—Iseethat black squall coming down on the swellnow, man, and the brig, and all of us looking out to the wind'ard!' 'I mind something about it,' replied Macleod, stoutly, though he looked away: ''twas none o' your fault, though, Captain Williamson—they were justfey, sir; and more than that, if ye mind, sir, they took the boat again' all orders—on the sly, I may say.'
"Westwood was on the point of starting forward to make known how the case stood, on the strength of our finding the paper in the bottle, when I pressed his arm, and whispered that it could only make things worse, and cheat the sick man of a notion more likely to do him good than otherwise. 'It'sa heavy charge, Mr Macleod, a heavy charge!' said he, falling back again; 'and one Mr Brown needn't envy.' 'MrFinch, sir, ye mind,' put in the second mate, setting him right; 'but keep up your heart, sir, for any sake!' 'I feel I'll last over the time o' next full tide,' said the captain, solemnly. 'I don't want to know how far we're off, only if there's any chance at all, Macleod, you won't spare canvas to carry her in.'
"The Scotchman rubbed one of his hard cheek-bones after the other, and grumbled something or other in his throat by way of agreement. The whole thing was melancholy to see, after last night's stir, with the dim lamp or two twinkling along the gloom of the steerage, the dead quietness of the ship, and the smothered sort of glare under the captain's cot bringing out the mere litter on the floor, to the very cockroaches putting their ugly feelers out of one of his shoes in a corner; he shut his eyes, and lay for a minute or two seemingly asleep, only murmuring something about a breeze, and then asking them to shove out the port, 'twas so close. The second mate looked to the surgeon, who signed to him to do it, as if it didn't much matter by this time; while he gave him the draught of physic he was mixing, however.
"The Indiaman was beginning to swing slowly before the first of the flood, stern off at her anchors; and whenever the port was opened, 'twas so still otherwise that you heard the tide clearly in the cabin, rippling along the timbers to the copper upon her bows—plash, plash, and lap, lip, lap, like no other earthly sound that a man can hear—and you even began to note it on something else a good bit off, though it seemed to be all quite dark out-board. The captain's eyes opened by degrees, till we saw them looking at us out of the shadow of the cot, and the second mate started as if to mend his mistake; only 'twas plain enough, by that time, the captainknewthe sound, half raising himself up and listening. A few early mosquitoes came in, and, after dancing about to refresh themselves in the light and warmth under the cot, began to bite savagely; everyone of us had a distant horn sounding in his ear, and each was rubbing it or his nose, except the sick man; but not one of them settled on him. As the starboard port slued gradually opposite to the nearest shore, a low, deep hum was carried in over the water, ebbing and flowing, andfull of dim, creeping noises, like things stirring in their sleep, as if the little cabin had been an ear to the ship. At times the tree-frogs broke out in a loud clicking chirrup; then, between the fits of it, when all seemed still again for a moment or two, you heard a low, half-smothered, small sound, deeper down, as it were, fill up the break with its throbbing and trill-trilling, as if justoneland-cricket or a grasshopper did it, till it came out as clear as though it were a child's rattle close by, and all of a sudden stopped; when back floated the huge whispering hum again, with a damp smell of leaves on a cold breath of the land-air, that died away as quickly as it reached us. The bewilderment on Captain Williamson's white face for that minute's time was cruel to witness, and Macleod would certainly have closed the port, but for the captain's seizing his arm again, with a wild, questioning sort of a look into the second mate's eyes. 'Oh, good God!' faltered out the captain, 'it's—it'sland!——where—where——?' 'For goodsake, sir,' said Macleod, 'don't ask me the now—take a bit of sleep, sir.'
"We could hear one another breathing, when ting-tang went four bells on deck. You heard it going across to the shore, as it were; and a few moments after, out of the humming far and wide along the land, back came the sound of another bell, toll upon toll, like some clock striking the hour a long way off. Then a third one followed on it, from a different direction, ringing clearer in the air; while the murmur and the rush seemed to swell up the more all round, and the plashing of the tide made the ship heave at her anchors. The mate shivered, Westwood and I started, but some extraordinary notion or other gleamed over the captain's face as he sat up. He was quite in his senses, too, apparently, though it seemed to be neither more nor less than sheer joy that overcame him, for he let out a long breath, and his eyes were glistening as if the tears stood in them. 'James—James Macleod!' said he quickly, with a husky voice,' you oughn't to've deceived one you've sailed so long with; but you meant me a good surprise, and 'twas kindly done of you!Iknow the very run o' the clocks off Greenwich Reach, man; d'ye think one could mistake the sound of Lon'on town, fidgeting when it wakes, either?—we 're—we'rehomealready!'
"And he fell back in the cot, with the drops running downhis cheek, smiling happily all the time at Macleod in a way that went to one's heart; while the Scotchman stared helplessly to the surgeon, who slipped to the port and closed it. 'I know by your way, James,' continued the poor man, 'you wanted to send up to Virginia Row for 'emall; but don't send for an hour yet; better go up yourself and break it to 'em—breakit to 'em, be sure of that, James; I shouldn't wonder but I pulled up, after all. Ah—that first one we heard was Greenwich Hospital—t'other is Dicksons' brewery or Redriff——' Here his eyelids began to drop, owing to the sleeping-draught he had got, when suddenly they opened wide again.
"'Ha!' said he, listening, and putting up a finger, 'but I haven't heard St Paul's strike six yet; it's seldom so long after; ought to be heard from here of a morning; let's——' By little and little, however, the sick man's eyes closed, and you heard him murmuring, as his finger sank down, 'Macleod, say—to her—say—luff, luff, my lad, keep her her course—' till his shrunk face was as quiet on the pillow as if he'd been really at home the first night after a voyage.
"'Oh man, doctor!' said the second mate, heaving a breath, 'isn't it terrible! Good forgive me for a lee to a dying man! Take an old seaman's word for it, Dr Small, yon clock ashore was no mortal soond, sir; ye may keep your drogues for them they'll do good to. 'Twas neither more or less than the captain'sdregy!' 'Phoo!' answered the Scotch surgeon, who was one of your sceptical chaps, as I heard say, 'some other vessels here, of course, that's all.' The sailor gave him only a smile of pity for not being able to distinguish the sound of a ship's bell. 'There can't be a town hereabouts, Collins?' whispered Westwood. 'A town—no!' said I; 'it's the best wilderness sign you can have—the African bell-bird!'22'Ah, ah!' said the surgeon, laughing, 'there now, Macleod—of course it can be explained naturally, like other things.' The second mate gave me a doubtful scowl; but seeing Westwood, whom he had always seemed to think rather in the way before, his eye softened.
"'You'll be wanting to see the captain as soon as he wakes up, sir,' said he. 'I'm terrified to face him—but if ye'd justslip in when he comes to himself, sir, I'm thinking, reverend sir, ye might wile him off yon terrible notion o' his.' Westwood shook his head, seriously, not knowing what to say. 'Ay, ay, sir,' continued Macleod, as he half closed the door, 'no doubt a man ought to be upon better things; but it's hard for him, when he's got a wife and weans six thousand miles away, and wants them alongside in a couple of hours—uncommon hard, sir! She's a douce, careful body, too, Mistress Williamson, like the captain's self; and I heard her fleech sore with the captain before we sailed, for to bide quietly ashore this time, for good. Poor woman! if she didn't e'en go the length o' pairtin' in anger the last morning, wae's me! till the very moment when (he telt me himself, sir), she out with her arms round his neck, crying like to choke! An' all to—but if the captain had a fault, 'twas the love o'—good forgive me, though, when it was but studying his faim'ly, Mr Thomas! If it was only an auld tarry deevil like me, now, with neither kith or kin!' 'Except cousins, Mr Macleod,' said the surgeon, as he wiped his lancet on his coat-tail—'plenty of them in the High——' But he caught Westwood's eye, and was ashamed to finish his heartless joke, though the rough second mate was too full of his feeling to hear it; when Westwood said something about our all thinking too little of these things beforehand, but how the captain was plainly a man that had done his duty carefully, which no doubt would ease his mind. The mate looked up, and eyed him sideways for a moment: 'Eh? what?' said he bluntly; 'it's not so little I mind o' what I used to hear at the kirk langsyne, as not to know that's not the right doctrine. D'ye think, sir,that'swhat'll put him over, when he finds out this is not Greenwich Reach? There's the Methody minister with the glasses, though!' he broke out, when again a look of despair came over his broad hard-favoured countenance. 'They're always upon works, too, I've heard!' said he, turning and murmuring to himself; 'oh, if I could but hoist out a bit screed o' the truth myself to comfort the poor fellow with! Lord, how didn't I think of the Shorter Carritch—let's see how't went—"What is the chief end of"—no, it's "What is faith in—faith in the only rule to direct us"—no, no—"Baptism is a sacrament—where—whereby"'—and he was still overhauling some old catechism in this fashion, twisting himself all the time as ifhe were twisting a stiff rope the wrong way, with a look of misery none of us could have had the heart to laugh at, when a middy's voice came squeaking down the dark after-hatchway: 'Mr Macleod, sir, the chief officer wants you on deck.'
"Westwood slipped quietly off, and the young surgeon was beginning to talk easily, to rid his mind of something, perhaps, till I asked if there wasn't any chance. 'Oh, the captain, you mean?' said he; 'don't think there is—he's a bad subject! If we were out at sea now, Mr Collins, thecalenturewould make him think the waves all grass, or something as green as—as the cawdets used to call——' I looked at the fellow sternly, and he changed his key, though with a surprised air.
"'You're blessed early up, though, you two!' said he. 'I suppose that cursed squall kept you idlers awake; but how they managed without the first mate I can't think. Clever fellow, Finch! but wasn't it a curious trick of the poor skipper to box him up below here? I fancy he'd a guess we would all soon be under the mate's command! It's a queer thing the brain, isn't it, Mr Collins? For exaumple, now, there's the captain, it makes him think something or other a clock near London, with everything accordingly! Macleod fancies it a soopernatural knell, and twaddles about some Calvinist stuff he learned at school. Then you and me, you know, imaugines it's a bird—now, which is it after all?Nothing—maybe, eh?' The fellow capped all with a sneer, as much as to say I was a fool, which I had stood from him several times before; though now I could have kicked him, more for his heartless way than aught else. 'I tell you, Mr Small,' said I, 'what I thinkyou—you're neither more nor less than a——' but I turned on my heel. 'I'm off, however,' said he, 'to turn in again.'
"Through the half-closed door one could see the sick man's face sleeping so quiet in the shadow from the lamp, you heard not a breath. I looked up the after-hatchway. It seemed still quite dark; and a patch of the deep dark-blue sky showed high over the square opening, with two or three keen sparks of stars, green ones and blue ones—you'd have thought the ladder, short as it was, went up to somewhere clean above the world. But the moment I got on deck, I saw it was really lighter—the heavy fog creeping slowly astern of the ship on both hands; the white mist rolling faster over it before the sea-breeze against her bows, which had swung seaward by thistime from the tide, that rushed like a mill-stream upon both her tight cables; while the muddy river-water, bubbling, eddying, and fronting away past, spread far up in the middle, into the dusk astern.Sucha jabbering, croaking, hissing, shrieking, and yelling, too, as burst into one's ears out of the dark, as if whole legions of monkeys, bull-frogs, parrots, paroquets, and what not, were coming together full upon us from both sides, one band nearer than the other; till the heavy boom of the surf round the point, and the roar of the tide coming in over the shallows about the river-mouth, pretty well drowned it.
"The sudden change was a good relief, Babel though it seemed after the closeness below, with what had been going on; and I looked ahead towards the sea, which lay away out off our larboard bow, round the headland, and over the opposite point; a cold watery streak of light showing it from where the breakers rose plunging and scattering along the sandy bar, to the steady grey line of horizon, clipped by one of the two brown chops we had got into. It looked dreary enough as yet, the mouth of it being wider than I'd fancied it from seaward at night; though even with full water over the long spit of sand in the middle, there was no draught at all for the Indiaman except by the channel betwixt it and the bold point to our right; and pretty narrow it appeared from our present berth, heaving, as it did, with the green swell that set in, while meantime the mist scudding across the face of the headland let us see but the hard lump of bare black rock underneath.
"In less time than I've taken to speak, however, the full space of sky aloft was turning clear, the sea far away suddenly shone out blue, with the surges tipped white; you saw a sparkling star high over it sink slowly in, and the fog spread off the water near us, till here and there you caught the muffled-up shape of a big tree or two looming through, not half-a-mile off our starboard quarter; the mist creeping over the headland till the sharp peak of it stood out against its shadow on the shoulder of a hill beyond, and old Bob Martin's single clump of cocoas on the rise waving in landward from the brisk sea-breeze.
"One passenger after another came peeping sleepily out of the companion-hatch at the men clearing away the wreck of the spars, and swabbing the quarter-deck down; but scarcehad Smith, one of the young writers, reached the poop, when he gave a shout that covered both poop-ladders in no time, with people scrambling over each other to get up. Next minute you'd have fancied them a knot of flamingoes with their wings out, as the bright red daybreak brought out the edge of the woods far astern, through a hazy lane in the purple mist, topped so with stray cocoa-nut trees and cabbage-palms, dabbled like brushes in the colour, that they scarce knew them to be woods at all, and not a whole lot of wild savages fresh from other business of the kind, coming down with all sorts of queer tools upon us; more especially when one heard such a chorus of unaccountable cries, whistling and screaming, as seemed to struggle with the sound of the sea ahead of us, and the plash alongside.
"The huge round sun struck hot crimson along the far turn of the reach, with all manner of twisted blots uponhim, as it were, and the very grass and long reeds seemingly rustling into his face, so one didn't for the moment know him either; while the muddy chocolate-coloured eddies, sweeping and closing beyond the ship's rudder, glittered and frothed up like blood; and every here and there, along the streak of light, the head of a log or a long branch came dipping up terribly plain—no wonder the oldSeringapatamhad apparently turned tail to it all, ready to bolt if she could.
"Almost as soon as you took your hands off your eyes, though, and could see without a red ball or two before them—therewas the nearest shore growing out toward our starboard bulwark all along, crowded with wet green woods, up into steaming high ground—all to eastward a dazzle of light, with two or three faint mountain-peaks shooting up far off in it, and a woody blue hill or so between; while here and there a broad bright hazy spoke of the sun's great wheel came cutting down into the forest, that brought out a patch full of long big leaves, ten times greener than the rest, and let you look off the deck into the heart of it amongst the stems over the bank. The jabber in the woods had passed off all at once with the dusk, the water deepening over the bar, and the tide running slower, so that everyone's confused face turned breathless with delight as it grew stiller and stiller.
"The whole breadth of the river shone out by this time, full and smooth, to the opposite shore three times as far away,where the wood and bulrushes seemed to grow out of the water; a long thick range of low muddy-looking mangroves, with a cover of dark green, rounding from the farthest point one saw, down to some sandy hummocks near the mouth, and a ridge of the same drifted up by the wind off the beach. Beyond that side there was nothing, apparently, but a rolling sweep of long coarse grass, with a few straggling cocoa-nut trees and baobabs, like big swollen logs on end, and taken to sprouting at top: a dun-coloured heave of land in the distance, too, that came out, as it got hotter, in a long desert-like, redbrick-dust sort of a glare. The sole living things to be seen as yet were some small birds rising up out of the long grass, and the turkey-buzzards sailing high over all across, as if on the look-out.
"The air was so cool and clear, however, from the tornado overnight—not a cloud in the sky, and the strange scent of the land reaching us as the dew rose off it—you could see far and wide, with a delicious feeling of it all, that kept everyone standing fixed on the spot where he first gained the deck, even the men looking over their shoulders with the ropes in their fists, and the fresh morning breeze lifting one's hair. Surprised as the passengers were, nobody spoke a word, except the three or four children shouting, dancing, and pointing together, without being noticed, till, all at once, the whole poopful burst into one confusion of questions and exclamations, running hither and thither, shaking hands and jostling each other like distracted people.
"I had a spy-glass at my eye, making out the other shore, when, turning round in the middle of it, the first thing I saw was Violet Hyde's face, as she stood with one little foot on the stair-head behind me, holding the rail with one hand, her eyes sparkling, and her parted lips murmuring like one in a dream: 'Oh, Mr Collins!' exclaimed she, breathless; 'what is this? Where are we—is it Fairyland? Ariver!' 'Yes, in Africa,' I said; 'but whether it's the Bembarooghe or the——' 'That fearful, fearful evening!' continued she, shuddering: 'I saw the frightful sky, and heard the storm—and now!—Werewe not in some very great danger, sir?' 'Yes, ma'am, we were,' replied I, as stiffly as I could; 'but, happily, it's over now!' And I gave my cap a lift to move off, uneasy as I was, every moment, lest Sir Charles should catch me speakingagain to his daughter. However, Miss Hyde was gazing eagerly at the land, and I had to wait. 'What lovely, lovely green!' she half whispered: 'oh, if one could only tread upon it!—so un-English those strange tall trees look! are they not cocoa-nut trees and—and——' Suddenly, her voice faltered, and she turned round with her bright blue eyes swimming in tears—'How—how thankful we should be that we are not—like our poor, poor friends, who were lost!' exclaimed she. I thought of the poor captain below in his cot, but next moment I was explaining, to her sheer amazement, how the real truth of the matter stood, though, if possible, it seemed to horrify her still more. 'I can't think what they may be,' I rapped out; 'but if I had the command of this ship, I'd up anchor this very hour, and go out—at least as soon as the tide ebbed; but, at any rate, at the Cape I mean to get hold of some schooner or other, and if it were to China, why, I'll cruise after 'em till I——' 'Then you think,' began she, and an arch inquisitive sort of look danced in both her eyes as she turned away to watch the shore again, saying slowly, 'Youarea—a naval gentleman then, Mr West—Mr Collins?' I tried to stammer out something by way of an explanation, but it wouldn't do, and I said, 'At any rate, I'm no better, by this time, than an idler aboardhere, ma'am!'
"All at once, I caught a side-look from her eyes, that wasn't meant for me, as she glanced over the poop-netting. Half provoking and half sweet it was, though, and it made my brain somehow or other seem to spin round, till a little after, before I well knew what I was about, I was holding the long spy-glass for her to see the bank of the river—her warm breath coming on my ear as I stooped before her, near enough to have kissed the muslin on her shoulder, while her rosy mouth changed with every new spot that the glass brought near; and she had to hold one taper forefinger on the other eyelid to keep it shut, so that I could dwell on her face as if she'd been asleep. 'There, there!' exclaimed she, 'are actually flowers—with such immense leaves! And now—an enormous tree, with roots hanging from the branches, and other stems growing up into them. Why, yes!—is not that a banyan-tree, Mr——?' and she looked away atme, when of course the tree was vanished, and instead of that, the rather undeniable expression of a fellow in love, two or three inches off, bentfair upon her. Violet Hyde coloured a little, and looked in again. 'And, I think,' continued she, 'I see—oh, two such beautiful creatures—deer, I think, coming out to drink from the river!' All this time, the ecstasies of the rest kept up the noise and confusion; the young lady's-maid was gaping open-mouthed at the shore, not even noticing her young mistress's straw bonnet fall off, and I had just picked it up with one hand, to put it quietly over that matchless nut-brown hair of hers, shining suddenly in the sun, like silk, when the judge's voice rang out sharp from the other stair, 'Violet, child, you'll have a sunstroke. Kitmagar, you scoundrel,beebee sahib punkah lao, sirrah!' I held on to the telescope like grim death, while that eternal punkah was hoisted over us both, the judge eyeing me somewhat coolly for the first moment. 'Well, well, Mr Westwood,' said he, however, 'you've got rid of that proud freak of yours; such behaviour as yours yesterday, I assure you, I shouldn't have endured from anyone else, young man! But, my dear boy,' added he, suddenly, 'from what I can gather, indeed, saw myself last night, I am convinced we owe you a very great deal—even, I suspect, the safety of the entire vessel!' Miss Hyde had left off using the glass, and, as I stood up, she gave me a quick glance of amazement. 'Mere chance, sir,' I stammered. 'Why,' said Sir Charles, 'I saw you at the steerage in the middle of the hurricane, when I believe the actual officers of the ship had left it in dismay. I tell you what, Mr Westwood, you're a bold fellow; and your uncle and I must see in India if we can't reward you in some way, my dear boy!' All this fondling style of thing, and for little more than a piece of luck, would have disgusted me if I hadn't been more taken up with watching the side of Violet Hyde's face, as she listened for sounds in the woods ashore. 'Strange, wasn't it, Violet, my dear,' continued he to his daughter, 'that my friend the Councillor's nephew should have gone out in the same Indiaman, so fortunately—though, of course, after all, itwasthe first this season.' 'Ah!' said she, starting, 'I beg pardon, papa—what did you—weren't you talking of the river?' 'Don't you hear, child,' said the judge, 'I said it was a curious coincidence, Mr Westwood's going in this vessel.' 'Oh yes, indeed!' answered she, and couldn't help looking down a little confounded. But the lady's-maid wasputting on her tiny slipper, which had come off, while her father mentioned that of course I'd had practical reasons for not owning my profession hitherto; meaning, I suppose, that I didn't speak for fear of having to work, like the monkeys—though the sharp old lawyer must have had a better guess by this time, and queer enough it must have been to see her face, listening to him as he explained it all. I stood biting my lips, meanwhile—two or three times on the point of telling him it was all nonsense about my being a nephew of any hanged old nabob whatever; when Sir Charles said carelessly he should leave theSeringapatam, if possible, at the Cape of Good Hope, as he couldn't trust safely to the present officers.