"O my God!" cried Hardy, who saw it, and the crew of theYork, watching that picture of short shrift and flying form, groaned and cursed with British hatred of the sudden execution, made dastardly by numbers.
They could see the man rushed to the nape of his neck to the yard-arm block, then fall, bringing up with a sudden belaying of that gallows-rope, and the hanging man began to swing like a pendulum of death midway betwixt the yard-arm and the feathering surface of the sea.
"Suppose he didn't do it?" said Captain Layard, letting the telescope sink and turning his face slowly to Hardy, who thought, even in that moment of horror and astonishment, that the captain had spoken nothing saner since the voyage began. "Fill on your topsail," continued the captain, in a trembling voice, his face distorted by passions and fancies beyond the penetration of reason. "I wouldn't have Johnny see that sight; they'll keep him swinging till he has ticked out the minutes his soul has taken to arrive in hell. Fill on your topsail, sir. And what'll the beggars do? They'll wait for help to come along."
The mate was walking a little way forward, and the captain, with his back upon the barque, stood muttering to himself. It was a pleasant breeze, and the ship took the weight of the sunlit gush of bluewind with a buoyant heel, and then she broke the waters at the bow. In two hours the barque was glimmering like the crest of a sea in the liquid ether far and far astern. Her topsail was still aback, and doubtless, as Captain Layard had said, she was waiting for the help that must soon come along.
And now for another week of this ship's adventure. There is little to record. As she drove to the south and west the breeze freshened by strokes, and the foam, white as daylight, seethed with a leeward roll to the channels, whose plates flashed jewelled fountains from her side.
It was noble sailing with a buckling stu'nsail boom, and every taut weather-shroud and backstay spirited the sea-whitening keel with sweet, clear songs of rejoicing. All the crew loved little Johnny, and the great Newfoundland, placid, stately, and benign, was ever at his side, courting the boy, with looks of love, to play. Always in this fine weather the sunny-haired lad, in the miniature clothes of the bluejacket, would of a dog-watch take his drum upon the forecastle, and roll out a good rattling accompaniment to the cheerful piping of the whistle. Then the sailors would dance whilst the ship's stem rent the water into sweat, and the bow-sea rolled away in glory, and the western heavens grew majestical with sunset.
And all this time no man spoke a hint as to the captain's state of mind, because, as I have said, the sailor has no eyes for the human nature of the quarter-deck until it should become as visible and demonstrative as a windmill in a wind.
This Captain Layard wasnot; his moods and motions were of too subtle a sort to be interpretable by the forecastle gaze, and all the strange unconscious discoveries of himself he limited to Hardy, scarcely ever speaking to the second mate unless to give him an order. But even when he talked to Hardy, no man could have sworn that he was madder than most dreamers are. It was only, as Hardy thought, that his talk was so cursedly inconsequential. He reminded him of a diver who if you look to port comes up to starboard, whose spot of emergence is always somewhere else.
One day, at the end of the time just spoken of, the ship was stretching her length along a wide blue sea enriched with running knolls, shadowed by themselves into deepest violet, aflash with sudden meltings of foam which whitened the windward picture, and ran with smooth curves from the leeward yeast that rushed into the water from the side.
The captain was below. It was about ten o'clock in the morning. There was now a sting in the light of the sun, as he floated upwards in an almost tropic glory, undimmed by the flight of little clouds which hinted at the Trade. Our friend the chief mate, Hardy, was walking up and down the weather-side of the quarter-deck. A sailor stood at the wheel trim for his trick; he was a British seaman, his easy floating figure and swift look to windward, aloft, and into the compass bowl put thoughts into one's head of the time when men like him wore pigtails down their backs and fired the fury of hell, as the Spaniard said to Nelson, into the gunports and sides of the audacious enemy.
There was music on that quarter-deck, forJohnny, who was admiral of that ship, the captain being very much under him, had sent for the whistle, and the sailor had come at once, bringing his music with him. He was seated upon the skylight, and was piping that cheerful song, "A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea," all over the ship to the delight of the watch on deck, who worked the nimbler for it; and Johnny made martial music of that sea-song with his drum.
The ship rushed along with festive lifts and falls and triumphant choruses in her weather-rigging as the swing of the sea brought her masts to windward, and all was beauty and sunlight, and white phantoms of little sailing clouds, and swelling canvas yearning to the azure recess at which the ship, like some goddess of the sea, was pointing with her spear of jibboom.
Presently the boy grew tired; the piper went forward, and as the captain's servant came along Johnny gave him his drum and sticks to carry below. The great Newfoundland was lying at its length beside the skylight, and Johnny sat upon him, and lifting his ear talked into it, and the dog grunted in affectionate reply. But little boys soon tire of anything save sweets, and Johnny joined Hardy, and they walked together. The lad had a very inquisitive mind, and was constantly wanting to know. He began to question Hardy about the ship. What is the good of that little sail right on top up there? Why didn't they give each mast one great sail? Wouldn't that save trouble? Couldn't they let it down, and tie it up, as they did that middle sail there, when the weather grew nasty? Wouldn't Hardy be glad to get home? How old was he? Was he gladto be so old? Wouldn't he rather be eight? After much interrogative conversation of this sort he felt tired, and strayed from Hardy's side and walked about the quarter-deck, looking around him as though he wished to pick up something which he could throw at the sea.
Going right aft, abaft the man at the wheel, his arch, sweet, wondering eyes were taken by the sight of some Mother Carey's chickens; also the splendid, dazzling stream of wake that was rushing off in snake-like undulations attracted him. A stretch of ash-white grating protected the wheel-chains and the relieving gear. It stood a little way under the taffrail and was not very high above the deck, and the tiller worked under it.
Unnoticed by Hardy, Johnny got upon this grating to watch the sea-birds, also to obtain a view of the place where that giddy, boiling, meteoric river of foam began. A sea-bird is a thing of beauty, which is a joy to a little boy upon whom the shades of the prison-house have not yet begun to close; and the dazzle of spinning foam hurling seawards is also a beauty and a wonder and a miracle, as are many other things in this pleasant world of flowers and valleys and streams; for I have seen a little child pick a daisy and view it with greater transport than could even be felt by a beautiful young woman bending with beaming eyes over the bracelet of diamonds with which her lover has just clasped her wrist.
Johnny fell upon his knees and crawled upon the grating to the taffrail, the flat surface of which he kneeled upon, peering over and down betwixt the gig and the taffrail to see the place where the whitewater began under the counter. The poor little fellow overbalanced himself, and Hardy, whose eye was upon him in that instant, saw him vanish.
"O my God!" he shrieked. "Man overboard!" he shouted. "Hard down! hard down!"
And whilst the wheel went grinding up to windward, and whilst the sails aloft were beginning to thunder to the weather sweep of the rushing bows, Hardy, tearing off his coat and waistcoat and shoes, leaped from the quarter into the boiling yeast and struck out.
Scarcely had he shot overboard when the great dog Sailor, springing up with a swift movement of his head around, leapt like a darting flame on to the rail from which Hardy had plunged, and jumped. There was plenty of foam in the sea, and it was almost blinding Hardy, who swam strongly; but it did not blind the dog, who saw the mate but not the child, and made for him. A sea swept Hardy to its summit, and he perceived the child some three or four cables' length distant; a head of foam rolled over that sun-bright speck and it disappeared, and as Hardy sank into the trough the dog, that stemmed the brine like some swiftly-urged boat, caught him by the collar and forced him round in the direction of the ship, whose main-yards were now aback and one of whose lee quarter boats was rapidly descending, with the captain on the grating, waving his arms in frantic and heart-subduing pantomime.
"Sailor!" roared Hardy, struggling with his whole force to round the noble creature's head in the direction where he had seen the bright point vanish. "O God! doggie, dear doggie! Johnny is overboard, and drowning! Go for him, Sailor! go for him, Sailor!"
And buoyed by the magnificent swimmer whose teeth were in his collar, he stiffened his breast and pointed. But the Newfoundland, who had not seen Johnny fall, had leapt to save the life of Hardy, and with bitter, blighting despair in his heart the gallant young fellow felt the beautiful animal at his side urging him irresistibly up one slope and down another in the direction of the ship, with its dreadful figure of human anguish gesticulating and shouting on the grating.
The hearts that bent the blades rowed with love of the boy and a maddening passion to save him. They came to Hardy first and dragged him and the dog over the gunwale, and a man standing up in the stern-sheets steered the boat for the place where the little fellow had last been seen from the deck of the ship. But they rowed in vain. Sodden with brine, and half blinded by the tears of a manly sailor's heart, the mate strained his vision over the running seas, and knew, O God! and knew that Johnny had sunk for ever.
"Oh, what a pity!" said one of the men.
"The dog could have saved him," exclaimed another.
"No, he was gone before the dog could have reached the place," said Hardy, and he sank upon a thwart and covered his face.
The Newfoundland laid his massive jaws upon his knee in caress and in encouragement, knowing he was saved, and loving him as those majestic creatures love the life they have torn from the grasp of death. The men, with the lifted blades of their oars sparkling in the sun, gazed silently around, but Johnny was gone. The tall seas seethed, and theboat fell away with their melting heads and rose buoyant to the height of the next slant, but Johnny was gone, and after they had lingered half an hour the men, to the command of Hardy, turned the boat's head toward the ship, and rowed away from that sun-lighted scene of ocean grave which already the hand of viewless love had strewn with flowers and garlands of foam.
Captain Layard was standing with tightly folded arms beside the skylight when Hardy arrived on board, and approached him, shuddering with grief and with the exhaustion that attends even a brief spell of battling with the rolling seas of the ocean. The unhappy father's face was utterly unintelligible in expression. And still a critical eye, with good capacity for subtle penetration, would in this time of sudden and awful bereavement have witnessed in that poor man's face the dangerous condition of his soul.
The men who were hoisting the boat pulled with askant looks full of respect and rough sympathy, and the boat rose in silence, so touched were the sailors' hearts by this sudden loss of the bright-haired little darling of the ship. The Newfoundland, shaking a shower from his coat, came to the captain, seemed to know that grief was in him, and looked up at him.
"Where is my little Johnny?" said the captain to Hardy, in a firm, sharp tone.
Hardy could not answer him.
"There is no good in telling me that he's not on board this ship," said the captain, letting fall his arms and swaying in a strange way with the leeward and weather rolls of the arrested vessel. "Where is he hidden?"
He stepped to the companion and shouted down, "Johnny, Johnny, my darling! Come up with your drum! The men want music! Come up with your drum, my Johnny!"
The sailors belayed the falls of the boat and secured her, and slowly walked forward, never a one of them speaking. The captain went below, calling "Johnny." Mr. Candy came up to Hardy. Both he and the watch below had rushed on deck to that dreadful cry at sea of "Man overboard!" and to that sudden change you feel in a ship when the yards of the main are swung aback. All the concern that a man with white eyelashes and pale hair and a skin like a cut of roasted veal can look was in Candy's face as he said:
"This blow has turned the captain's head, sir."
"I cannot speak to you," Hardy answered.
"Let me fetch you some brandy, sir," said the second mate. Hardy raised his arm. Candy walked to the quarter and stood staring at the sea where the child had sunk. The Newfoundland dog was growing uneasy. You saw by the creature's motion of head and by other signs that he knew something was wrong. Twice he growled low and walked round the skylight smelling the planks, then coming to the companionway he listened and sprang down the steps.
Hardy stood waiting for the captain. It was not for him to order the topsail-yard to be swung until the captain spoke. All the seamen were forward standing in groups waiting for the command, and the boatswain, in the face of the general grief, could find nothing for them to do until the quarter-deck started them.
It filled Hardy with anguish, though he was only a mate in the British Merchant Service, the one unrecognised condition of our national life, spite of the pleading of its heroic traditions and the claims of its English seamen of to-day, upon the admiration of their country, to think of the poor, desolate, brain-afflicted father below, seeking in his madness his beloved little boy. He knew that this man had tenderly loved the mother of that child and mourned her loss with a sailor's heart, and that the bright and spirited lad, whom God had summoned, had been his constant companion since his wife's death, the light of his life, the flower whose fragrance had sweetened the loneliness of command.
He stood waiting, soaked to the flesh. Suddenly the captain appeared.
"Johnny is not below," he said. "He's somewhere in the ship. When did you see him last, Mr. Hardy?"
And still Hardy could not answer him. The Newfoundland had followed his master, and the whole frame and benign eyes of the noble creature, to whom and to whose like man denies a soul, yielded preternatural token of loss and disquiet that was human in eloquence.
The captain did not seem to heed Hardy's silence and manner. He looked with great eagerness and a certain wildness along the decks, and then putting his hand to the side of his mouth, with his face turned forward, where the men stood watching him, he shouted in an imperious voice as though he would frighten an answer from the concealed child:
"Johnny!—It is strange," said he, in a low voice, turning and looking at Hardy, "Is he aloft?" Andhe turned his eyes up and scrutinised the rigging, the tops, the crosstrees, the yards, stepping to the rail so as to obtain a view past the leaches of the canvas.
"Shall I order those yards to be swung, sir, and way got upon the ship?" said Hardy, speaking with difficulty.
"I want Johnny," was the captain's answer, and he walked slowly forward, looking to right and left of him, as though the little lad must be in hiding somewhere, flat beside a forward coaming or behind a hencoop, or under the long-boat, for his figure had been small, and he could have concealed himself within the flakes of the halliards coiled down upon a pin.
The men drew back, scattered in a kind of dissolving way, gazed with sheepish looks of sympathy, one rugged man with damp eyes, for he too had lost a son beloved with the rough love of a heart unhardened by salt and toil.
"Has any man among you," said the captain, bringing his head out of the galley door—for the child had been a frequent guest of the cooks of the ships he had sailed in: they would make him jam tarts and little cakes, and his prattle to the fellows was as cheering to them as the song of a canary—"has any man among you," he said, "seen my little boy?"
"I don't think you'll find him forward, sir," answered the boatswain. "Jim, jump below and see if he's in the fok'sle."
The sailors exchanged looks which seemed to suggest that they thought it kind and wise in the boatswain to humour the captain, whose mind, to them, appeared a little shaken and made uncertain by the shock of his loss.
"No, I'll trust no man's eyes but mine," exclaimed the captain, with a lofty expression of face, and, going to the scuttle, which is the little hatch through which the seamen drop into their parlour, he put his legs over and descended.
One man only was in this forecastle. He was the young seaman who had played the whistle whilst Johnny beat the drum. He started up at the sight of the captain, amazed by a visit that was unparalleled in his experience or recollection of forecastle story. His face showed marks of unaffected distress, and indeed this rude but sympathetic heart had been seated for some minutes prior to the captain's entrance, with bowed head resting in his wart-toughened palms, thinking of the child and his sudden death.
It was a strange, gloomy interior. The swing of the lamp kept the shadows on the wing, and oilskins and coats swayed upon the ship's wall to the solemn plunge of the bows, and you heard the roar of the smitten and recoiling surge in a low thunder, like the sound of a railway train striking through the soil into a vault. Some bunks went curving into the gloom past the light which fell through the hatch, and a few hammocks stretched their pale, bale-like lengths under the upper deck. Here, too, were sea-chests—a few only—and odds and ends of sea-boots, and the raffle of the sailor's ocean home.
"Where's my son? Is he down here?" exclaimed the captain, haggard, and with something dreadful in his looks in that light, uttering the words as peremptorily as ever he delivered an order on the quarter-deck.
The young fellow gazed aghast at him in silence.
The captain, who did not seem to heed whether he was answered or not, went to the bunks and examined them one by one, knelt and looked under them, felt the sagged canvas of the hammocks. Oh, it was pitiful!
"He's not here," he exclaimed, turning to the young sailor. "Have you got your whistle handy? Pull it out and pipe. The music will bring him with his drum."
The young man went to his bunk and took the whistle from the head of it. His face was full of awe and wonder; it was a bit of psychology, a trick or two above allhisart of seamanship.
"What shall I play, sir?" he asked, in a shaking voice, with a glance up through the scuttle at the men gathered near and listening.
"What's his favourite tune?" said the captain.
The young fellow reflected, and answered, "'Sally come up,' sir. It runs well with the drum."
"Play it," said the captain.
The young fellow put the whistle to his lips and blew. The contrast between the merry air, shrilling in the forecastle and out through the hatch into the bright wind, and the captain's half-triumphant face of expectancy would have melted a heart of steel. The poor man stepped under the little hatch and shouted up, "On deck there!"
"Sir," answered the boatswain, showing himself.
"Can this whistle be heard aft?"
"Yes, sir."
"Watch a bit, and report if he's coming."
The young seaman, who was nearly heartbrokenwith his obligation of playing, continued to pipe, and you beheld a vision of dancing sailors, and swelling canvas reverberating the rattle of the drum.
The captain waited under the hatch, his poor face charged with ardent expectation. He might have overheard a gruff voice say, "It oughtn't to be allowed to go on. He'd get all right if he'd go to his cabin, where it 'ud come to him." But he paid no heed.
Suddenly the whistling ceased, and the young fellow, flinging his whistle into his bunk, cried, "It's choking me, sir."
The captain looked at him, and saying, "Where is Johnny?" climbed through the hatch and, without a word to the sailors, walked slowly aft.
The whole ship seemed to tremble throughout her frame with every lift and fall, as though like something alive she was now startled by this strange delay, and the foretopmast studdingsail curved with the weight of the wind from its boom, and no doubt, in the language of sailcloth, cursed the maintopsail for stopping its eager drag.
Hardy stood beside the second mate, to leeward, on the quarter-deck, and watched the captain coming aft. The great dog in a leap gained his master's side and marched with him, looking with beautiful sagacity up into the poor man's face. The captain walked with his eyes fixed upon the sky, just over the sea-line astern, but if speculation were in his gaze it was not interpretable; he saw, or seemed to see, something beyond the blue haze of distance, and thus he watched it, without speaking to the two mates, or turning his eyes upon them, until he cameto the companion-hatch, down whose steps he went, followed by the dog.
Noon was near and an observation must be taken. Hardy, whose clothes were plastered by water upon him, said to Candy:
"We must get an observation and swing the yards. This blow has thrown his mind off its balance, and he might not thank us later if we should go on as though he were responsible."
"I agree with you, sir," said Candy.
Hardy called to the boatswain, who came quickly.
"You know the law of the sea as well as I do," said the mate, "and I don't want you and the men to believe that I have taken charge of the ship even for five minutes because I mean to get way upon her."
"She wants it," said the boatswain, looking forward along the ship as though she were a horse.
"I must get an observation," continued Hardy, "and you and the men will judge that the captain would wish me to do what he himself would do if his terrible loss had left him capable of doing anything."
"It don't need reasoning about, sir," said the boatswain.
"Hands lay aft and swing the maintopsail-yard!" shouted Hardy. "Lee mainbrace! Mr. Candy, will you step below for your sextant? Kindly bring mine."
Candy went below. The men came running aft. But the shadow of death was upon the ship, bright, boundless, and streaming with the life of the wind as were heaven and ocean, and the sailors draggedthe great yards round in silence. The ship heeled over a little more to the full swell of her canvas, and as Hardy took his sextant from Candy she was bursting the blue surge into white glory, and the leeward foam was passing fast and faster.
The seas were breaking fast and fierce from the bows, and the wake flashed into the windy distance in a fan-shaped splendour as of sunshine, and hands were aloft furling the fore and mizzen royals, and some fore-and-aft canvas was rattling hanks and lacing on their stays to the drag of down-hauls; the ship was sonorous with the music of the sea, and by looking over the weather side you could have seen the green sheathing sweating with foam, storming through the dazzling smother like a wounded dolphin whose blood is sweet to dolphins; yet this was but a fragment of the magnificent picture of foaming seas and flying cloud, with the lofty swelling ship shearing through the heart of the day in a thunder-storm of prisms and of spray, lovely as the heights of heaven when some stars are green and some shine like the rose.
Hardy came on deck. He stood and looked about him, refreshed by a shift of clothes and by a nip of grog. He had worked out his sights, and before mounting the steps had stood a minute at the captain's door listening; he heard the poor man's voice, and judged by its solemn imploring note that he was praying, but the noise of the sailors above madehim hurry, and though it was his watch below he felt that he was in command, and that the safety of the ship was in his hands.
Any seaman will understand this mate's critical and difficult situation. A captain is not to be lightly deposed; drunken captains and—unless they grow frantic—mad captains must be obeyed or endured or it is mutiny, with heavy penalties awaiting the arrival of the ship; and the mate of a merchantman may, though by conscientious act, lose power of earning bread for himself and his home unless as a foremast hand, for the law is hard, and the shipowner harder still.
"You had better take the mainsail off her, Mr. Candy, and furl the main-royal," said Hardy. "She has more than she wants."
The stu'nsail was in and so was the boom, and Hardy gave other directions, but they need not be repeated because minuteness is tedious, and the language of the sea cryptic to millions. When Sheridan was asked how the poetaster described the phœnix, he answered, "Just as a poulterer would!" The poulterer is not good in art, and the beak, talons, and all are merits when left out.
It was about a quarter to one, and the cabin dinner would be coming aft soon. The cook was busy in his galley, and black smoke was smothering the bulwarks abreast from the chimney. Hardy paced the deck watching the seamen at work, Candy superintended the business. There was plenty for the mate to think of. The grief planted in his kind heart, by recollection of his hopeless effort to rescue the poor drowned child, was overwhelmed by thoughts of the captain, his undoubted madness, thestate of the ship; and then his mind on a sudden went away to Julia Armstrong; he wondered what would be her fortune, if luck would attend her in India, if her love for him—he would not pretend aught else to himself—would hold her unwilling to remain, that she might return in the vessel and meet him once more. "In which case," he declared to himself, "I will marry her and chance it."
The ship was rushing onward like a shooting star, and the wind clothed the sails with the thunder of its power; but she was comfortable and dry. The bright bursts were flung clear of her by the rush of the breeze, and she took the seas with that perfect grace of leap and curtsey which sails alone do give.
As Hardy walked, the cabin servant came up to him and reported dinner on the table.
"Have you told the captain?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is he at table?"
"Yes, sir."
Hardy went below. The captain was in his accustomed place cutting at a big meat pie; his brow was knitted, and with the whole strength of his soul he seemed intent upon this job of cutting the pie. His long hair and the hair upon his cheeks and chin accentuated the expression of his pale face, which was one of wildness and of grief so subtle that it might scarcely be known as grief by the heart that ached with it; but when he raised his eyes, Hardy saw a darkness upon his vision as though the shadow of death was on his eyelids.
"Will you have some of this pie?" said he, quite sanely.
"Thank you, sir," answered Hardy.
"We'll shift for ourselves," said the captain, turning to the attendant. "Bring whatever else there is in a quarter of an hour."
The man left the cabin. The captain, with knife and fork poised, without serving Hardy viewed him intently during a short passage of silence, and then said:
"Johnny has strayed away from this ship and he's left his drum behind him, but," he added, smiling with his heart-moving smile of superiority, "I shall find him."
He loaded a plate and thrust it at the length of his arm toward Hardy, who took it.
"Are not you eating, sir?" said Hardy.
"How's the ship?" was the answer.
Hardy reported the sail she was under. The question, the all-important question, whether sights had been taken, was not asked. The captain took a piece of meat out of the pie and gave it to the Newfoundland, who sat beside him on the deck.
"I don't like rich clergymen," he said, abruptly. "The man who steers his ship to the glowing gates of heaven should be rich in heart and love. The precious freight is that; let him despise the devil's cargo. I once said to a wealthy parson, 'Take up your cross and follow me. D'ye remember it, sir? but you and the like of you give your cross to the coachman and get inside.'"
He spoke this in a voice of thunder, and his face was grotesque. Hardy was eating with difficulty. The chatter of the afflicted brain is a pain to the hearer, for the sane strokes make the inconsequential talk as ghastly as the lifelike motions of the electrified corpse.
From time to time the dog got up and moved about the cabin sniffing. He was missing Johnny. He would come to Hardy's side and turn his gentle, affectionate eyes up at the mate's face in such dumb inquiry as would be holy if it were human; then he would go to the captain and do the like. The poor man played with some meat out of the pie, but did not eat. He had been educated at a great public school and his speech and voice had the culture of breeding, and the lapses and diversions of the talk that he addressed to Hardy made his language more pitiful than shocking. He as often spoke wisely as insanely, but Hardy saw, even whilst he sat, that the loss of his boy had confirmed in him his lamentable prepossession. He was mad, but in such fashion that unless he acted visibly the madman's part the crew would fail to see it.
The attendant came down with more food for the cabin, and this the captain did not touch. Presently he abruptly rose and entered his berth, reappeared with his cap on, and slowly stepped up the companion-ladder.
It was Hardy's hope that the poor fellow might give such orders as would induce the men to suspect him mad, although he felt they would believe he was only temporarily deranged by the bitter loss which had left him heart-broken; and yet some heedless or absurd order, some unintelligible shifting of the course, for example, some needless setting or reduction of canvas, must act like a surgical operation and quicken their scent, which would help him to come to a decision as to the right thing to be done; and whilst he went on munching his dinner he found himself repeatedly glancing at the telltale compassand listening for the captain's voice. But the ship sped steadily straight forward, and the captain remained silent though his tread was audible.
A little while before the mate had finished his dinner Mr. Candy came below. This was unusual: in the ordinary movement of discipline he should have waited to be relieved by Hardy.
"The captain told me to go and get my dinner, sir," said the second mate.
"All right," said Hardy.
Mr. Candy sat down and began to help himself. Hardy had no particular fondness for this man: he was the son of a pilot, and one of those people who add nothing to the dignity of a service which in its day, in point of breeding, in all art of seamanship, in structure of vessel, was as good as the Royal Navy. Witness, for example, the men and ships of John Company; for if no line-of-battle ships flew the flag of that company, and the flags of the owners of fleets of stately craft, ships of commerce had been and were still then afloat as lordly in build, as gracious and commanding in star-searching heights, as the finest of the frigates of Britannia. But Candy was second mate of the ship, and to that degree was important.
"Captain Layard is very down," said Hardy. "It's a cruel bad job. I loved the little boy, and the dog that loved him too wouldn't let me save his life."
"It was plucky of you, sir, to jump overboard," said the second mate. "All the time the captain walks he looks to port and starboard, hunting like with his eyes over the sea for the little drummer. Strange he can't satisfy himself that the younker is drowned, dead and gone."
He was feeding heartily, and spoke in the intervals of chewing.
"This shock," said Hardy, who saw that the man was not to be talked to confidentially, "may have a little weakened the poor father's mind for a time. We'll assume it so for the common preservation; therefore, in your watch on deck should he give orders which might prove him thinking more of Johnny than the ship, call me at once."
"Ay, ay, sir!"
This said, Hardy went to his berth to smoke a pipe and get some rest, for he could not know what lay before him, and sleep is precious at sea.
At four o'clock Candy aroused him. The captain, he learnt, had been below an hour. Nothing worth reporting had happened during Candy's watch. Hardy went on deck, and did not see the captain throughout the first dog-watch. The breeze was slightly scanting; the main-tack was boarded and the main-royal loosed and set. Hardy, like a good many other chief mates, was always for carrying on whenever he was in charge, and the breeze blew and the girls of the port he was bound to always hauled with a will at his tow-rope. Besides, there was the night's detention to be made good, and the clipper was making it good as she sheared through the coils of the sea, boiling in dim rose to the westering light. It was like a field of hurdles to a favourite, and she swept them with a bounding keel, slinging rainbows as she went, and the surge sang in thunder to the melodies of the rigging.
Hardy's whole thoughts concerned the captain. He quite remembered that in the cabin of the stricken father stood a medicine-chest full of deadlypoisons. Would he take his life? Full often the demon of madness goes on beckoning to the ghastly Feature till it springs. But what could the mate do? It was not within his right to remove the chest. If he durst act in any way he would lock up the captain at once, but he had the talk and opinions of a crew of seamen to consider, and if the captain should be revisited by the same degree of sanity that had enabled him to navigate the vessel to this point, how would Hardy stand, supposing—and supposition here involved a very possible contingency—that the captain, to preserve his own position, should charge him with the ugliest breach of discipline a merchant officer could be guilty of?
He did not meet the captain again till the supper hour. The ship was then under all plain sail. The west was glowing like a furnace, and the ocean was calming to the softening of the breeze. The captain came from his berth into the cabin as Hardy stood beside the table. The meal was ready, and they sat down. There was a curious look of satisfaction in the captain's face. The acute eye of Hardy easily saw that some soothing delusion was in possession of the man. He asked two or three questions about the ship, and quite sanely said:
"What did you make the latitude and longitude to be at noon?"
Hardy answered the question.
The captain began to eat hungrily, and all the time his face gave token of an inward content, lifting indeed into the pleasure of assured expectation; but somehow there were visible in this lunatic web of emotion threads of cunning clearly perceptible to Hardy, who, perhaps, as the son of a doctor whoseprofessional experiences he had often listened to, was able to see a little deeper than the vision of a plain seaman could penetrate.
"There is no doubt, Mr. Hardy," suddenly said the captain, "that I shall be able to find Johnny."
"I hope so, sir," answered Hardy, gravely.
"I have no doubt," exclaimed the captain with a sparkle of triumphant cunning lighting up his eyes. "I must be patient and wait, for I've got to hear where he is."
Hardy was silent.
"It may come to me in a dream," continued the poor man, "or it may be revealed to me in a whisper. I believe with Milton that the air is thronged with millions of spiritual beings. I have in my watches, when a mate, heard whispers in the dark! I believe in God the Father Almighty"—and he recited the Apostles' Creed whilst he stroked the head of his dog, who sat at his side. "It is a glorious confession, Mr. Hardy. What should make a man more religious than the sea life? They think us a breed of blasphemers, but to whom is the glory and the majesty and the power of the Supreme unfolded if not to the sailor? We behold the birth of the day, and witness the sublimity of the Spirit in the glittering temples of the east, from which the sun springs, to reveal the marvel of the ocean and the heavens to the sight of man; and we witness the death of the day, gorgeous and kingly in its departure, over which the angels spread a funeral pall sparkling with the diamonds of the night."
He pressed his hands to his brow and sighed with that long tremor in which the broken heart often vents itself.
The night passed quietly. The breeze yet slackened and was blowing a gentle wind at midnight. There was a moon somewhere in the sky, and her light fell upon the dark waters, and the sight of the small seas, curling in frosted silver through the radiance, was as beautiful as the picture of the ship stemming softly, her canvas stirless as carven shields of marble.
The captain came and went throughout the night, and no man aboard saving Hardy would have dreamt of holding him mad and irresponsible. Candy, when his watch was up, had nothing to report but this: that the skipper would walk the deck fast, abruptly halting at the weather-rail to stare at the ocean in pauses running into minutes, then crossing to the lee-rail to stare again in passages of dumb scrutiny. What more conceivable than that the afflicted man should be full of the memory of his lost child, and that he should break off in his walk to meditate upon the mighty grave in whose heart his little one was sleeping?
Candy thought thus, and so did the helmsman, who would find the men he talked to about it of his own mind when he was relieved at the wheel and went forward.
And so the night passed into the sad light of dawn, which brightened into the glory of a morning full of sunshine. The breeze had shifted three points, and the ship was sailing slowly with the yards square and the weather-clew of the mainsail up.
Now was to happen the strangest incident in this ship's adventure. It was Nelson who said that nothing is impossible or improbable in sea-affairs.There is no invention of man that can top the grim, the grotesque, the beautiful, the sublime, or the touching facts which the great mystery of liquid surface yields to human experience.
A seaman, who was sitting astride of the starboard foretopsail yard-arm, busy with marline-spike on some job that the lift needed, hailed the deck.
"Where away?" shouted Hardy from the quarter-deck.
"Right ahead, sir," answered the man, who looked a toy sailor, his white breeches trembling, and the round of his back sharp-lined against the blue.
Hardy fetched the glass, and going to the mizzen-rigging pointed it. He caught it instantly. It was a boat, how far off it was impossible to say, for distance, when a small object grows visible, is very difficult to measure with the eye at sea, but she was plain to the naked sight of the man on the yard-arm; the telescope brought her close, and Hardy counted five figures in her, one of whom was standing on the foremost thwart waving something,—a shirt or a piece of canvas. Her mast was stepped, but the sail was down, and she lay waiting, vanishing and reappearing as the shallow hollows ran sucking under her.
When Hardy dropped the glass he found the captain by his side.
"What is in sight?" he exclaimed, speaking with something of breathlessness, as though his heart was tightened.
"A ship's boat, sir, with five people in her," answered Hardy.
"I shall find him," exclaimed the captain, and the old look of superiority to all human intelligence,and the pathetic sparkle of cunning with which the diseased brain will often illuminate the eye, were perceptible to Hardy. "Give me the glass, sir."
The captain levelled it and was a long time in looking, and all the time he looked he breathed slow and deep like a man in heavy slumber.
"Stand by to back the foretopsail," he exclaimed. "Let a hand be ready with a line and others to help them aboard, for twice I have fallen in with people so weakened by distress and famine and thirst—O God, that awful part of it—that we have lifted them like babies over the side."
Presently the boat was close under the bow; the foretopsail was aback, and the ship, heaving slowly without way, was alongside the little fabric.
Her people were four men and a woman. The men were seamen, apparelled in such clothes as the merchant sailor went clad in. They staggered a little as they stood up, and one in the bow reeled as he caught the end of the line. The woman was sitting in the stern-sheets. She wore a straw hat, the shadow of whose brim darkened her face as a veil might. She was clothed in a black jacket, and the material of her dress was dark. Her head was a little sunk, as though she was too weary to hold it erect.
The captain, overlaying the rail, stared with bright devouring eyes into the boat. He did not seem to heed the people in her; he was looking for something else.
"Are you able to help the lady aboard?" shouted Hardy.
"No, sir," answered the man who had caught the line; "we've been adrift two days."
His weak voice proclaimed the truth of his words. At the sound of Hardy's cry the woman in the stern-sheets lifted her head, and the shadow of the brim of her hat slipped off her face. Hardy instantly recognised her.
"Great God!" he exclaimed.
He was struck motionless by astonishment, but his faculties rallied in a breath; in a minute he had sprung into the main chains, and a jump carried him into the boat.
"O Mr. Hardy!" shrieked the girl, and she tried to rise to clasp him, but her exhaustion was too great and she could only sob.
"On deck there!" shouted Hardy, who was usurping all the privileges of the captain in that moment of tumultuous sensations. "Send down a chair and bear a hand." And whilst this well-understood order was being executed—it meant simply a tail-block at the main yard-arm and a line rove through the block with a cabin-chair secured to the end of it—and whilst the four nearly spent sailors of the boat were being helped by the men in the ship, Hardy was talking to Julia.
"What a meeting! What has happened to your ship?"
Her lips were pale and a little cracked, her eyes were languid, and dim with tears, a shadow as of hollowness lay upon each cheek. She spoke with difficulty.
"TheGlamis Castlewas burnt two days ago in the night. We have been drifting about since then without food or water. Oh, thank God for this! thank God for this—and to meetyou!"
"Bear a hand, my lads, bear a hand," shoutedHardy, whilst the captain with his head showing above the rail stood staring into the boat. The mate would not tax her with speech; she might be dying! Some alert seamen were in that clipper, and to the instincts and humanity of a British sailor no form of distress appeals more vehemently than the open boat in which they see no breaker, than the open boat in which men and women may be dying of thirst. Swiftly, as though the crew of theYorkwere the disciplined and gallant hearts of the battle-ship, a chair, well secured, sank from the yard-arm and was seized by Hardy. He lifted the girl on to it, took a turn round her with a piece of line which had come down with it, and she soared from his nimble, skilful hands, and vanished from his sight behind the bulwarks. He gained the deck in a few instants, and was at the girl's side before the sailors could liberate her from the chair.
"She is a dear friend of mine," said he, loudly, that the men might understand that more was in this thrilling passage than humanity only. And passing his arm round her waist to support her he helped her to walk aft.
The captain's face looked dark with disappointment, and as Hardy drew close to him he heard him mutter, "They have not brought him, they have not brought him!"
"I will take this lady below, sir," said Hardy, speaking rapidly. "Her ship has been burnt. They have been without food and water for two or three days," and he passed on with the girl to the companion-hatch, whilst the captain stood dumbly following them with his eyes, with the noble Newfoundland standing beside him.
In silence the two descended the cabin ladder, and with the tenderness of a lover, which in such men as Hardy has the sweetness of a woman's love, he placed her upon a locker and poured out a little water. She drank with the passion of thirst, and asked for more with her eyes, but Hardy knew better and gave her a biscuit, which would lightly soothe the craving of the hunger that is often felt after thirst is assuaged. She bit a little piece of biscuit, and said:
"Won't you give me a little more water?"
"Very soon. Eat that biscuit."
He stepped to the pantry where some brandy was kept, and poured a tablespoonful in a wine-glass, and this filled up with water he gave her after she had eaten the biscuit. The stimulant helped her, and even as he stood watching her with his heart beating fast with this wonder, this miracle, of almost unparalleled meeting, he witnessed symptoms of a reviving spirit, of a reanimated body in her face.
At this moment Captain Layard came down the companion-steps and approached them with an eager, strained expression. His eyes, alight with mania—for madness has its expectations and disappointments—rested with a searching gaze upon the girl.
"Have you seen him?" he asked.
"No, sir," answered Hardy, quickly trying to catch Julia's eye, but she was staring with alarm at the captain, as you would, or I, under such conditions of inexplicable confrontment. "She is a dear friend of mine and is ill with the sufferings of an open boat, but her presence in this ship may mean more than we can dream of now."
The captain's face changed, his eyes took a fresh illumination with his smile.
"See to her, Mr. Hardy, see to her, and I'll start the ship afresh."
He left the cabin.
"May I have another biscuit?" said Julia.
Hardy handed one and smiled, for he saw again the sweet unconscious cock of her head, not the less fascinating to him because her eyes were dim, her cheeks a little hollow, her lips pale.
"Was that the captain?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered.
"What was he asking? Is he right in his mind?"
"His only son, a little boy, a beautiful bright-haired little boy, fell overboard and was drowned, and—But we will talk about the captain and your adventures when you are stronger."
He mused a moment or two, and then added, "You will take the rest you need in my cabin, and a berth shall be made ready for you. A good long sleep will restore you. So come."
He put his arm through hers and caused her to rise, and indeed she still needed the support he gave her. He took her to his cabin, and as she walked she looked about her with growing animation, which is a cheering sign, and once she exclaimed, "Thank God, I am safe! Thank God, I have met you! But how wonderful—oh, how wonderful!"
She sat on his sea-chest whilst he smoothed and prepared the bunk. It was a little cabin; the bunk was under a port-hole, and plenty of light came flashing in off the trembling, feathering sea. You might hear the tramp of feet overhead, and the thump of coils of rope flung off their pins. There were none of the garnishings which often make pathetic such interiors as this; when a young officer hangs up the picture of his wife with their first babyon her knee, neither of them to be kissed and clasped for months and months, even if God be merciful to the poor fellow and his ship; no rack full of pipes, no odds and ends of curios—in short, nothing ornamented the wall of Hardy's sea-bedroom but a long chart of the English Channel, which it was his custom to study when he lay in his bunk smoking, to get absolutely by heart the lights which gem the coast of our island, and the verdure-crowned terraces over the way.
When the bunk was prepared he removed her hat and gave her a hair-brush, and took down a little square of mirror and held it up before her. He greatly admired the beauty and the abundance of her hair, which was parted on one side.
"Nothing so refreshes one as to brush one's hair," said he.
"How ill I look," she exclaimed. "How could you have recognised me so instantly?" and she lifted her eyes, full of caress, to his face.
"Will you be strong enough to get into that bunk unhelped?" he asked.
It was a low-seated bunk, and she looked at it and answered, "Yes."
"Then I will leave you," said he, and he walked out hurriedly, and shut the door behind him.
He went on deck to see how the captain was dealing with his ship and found the vessel sailing along, with her yards properly swung and everything right. The boat from which the people had been received was visible at the tail of the ship's wake. The captain had sent her adrift, which was sane or not in him, just as you think proper. The sailors were coiling down and otherwise busy; the four men had beentaken into the forecastle, where they were eating and drinking and yarning to a few of the watch below about the burning of the IndiamanGlamis Castle. The moment Captain Layard saw Hardy he called him.
"Who is the lady?" he asked.
"Miss Julia Armstrong, the daughter of a retired commander in the Royal Navy," was the reply.
"Where have you lodged her?"
"In my cabin for the present, sir, till I receive your orders to get another one ready for her."
"Oh, yes, have that done—have that done," the captain said in a smooth, perfectly sane voice. "Do you know what she was aboard the ship?"
Now Hardy was like the squire in Dickens's exquisite sketch—"he would not tell a lie for no man!" At the same time he did not wish Captain Layard should know that Miss Armstrong had shipped as a second stewardess, so he replied she was going to Calcutta with a letter of introduction to the bishop of that place. Her father was poor, and the girl wanted to find something to do in India.
But the captain was dreaming. One with eyes for such faces as his could easily see that he was thinking of something else, or did not understand. He continued to look in silence for a little while at Hardy, and then the baleful sparkle suddenly brightened his stare, he folded his arms and said, with an expression of triumphant hope and conviction:
"She is fresh from the sea and knows where Johnny is, and she shall help me to find him!"
It was six o'clock on the same day in which Julia Armstrong had been delivered from that horrible sea tragedy, the open boat, by the miraculous apparition of theYork, of all the ships which the horizons of the deep were then girdling! The chief mate knocked upon the door of his cabin where the girl lay, and believing he heard her say "Come in," entered, and found her asleep.
The reddening sunshine was away to starboard, but the heavens southeast were glowing, and the girl slept, visible to the eye as the circle of blue port-hole up which and down which you saw the clear-cut line of the horizon sliding like a piece of clockwork. He stood looking at her, for there was love for this girl in the man's heart, and this encounter was so wonderful that he witnessed the hand of God in it, and a sentiment of religion sanctified his emotion; otherwise, with the sailor's respect for the repose of those who sleep—for the seamen's best blessing upon you is,Lord grant you a good night's rest, sir!—he would have softly stepped out and left her.
And this he would have soon done, but as he looked she all at once opened her gray eyes full upon him, stared a few moments till intelligence came to her, then started, smiled, and sat up in the bunk.
"I've awaked you, I'm afraid," said Hardy.
"I'm glad you have. I have slept sweetly and I feel well," she answered. "Strange that I have not dreamt at all, for I have passed through a nightmare since the burning of the ship. How marvellous to see you standing there!"
"Could you eat a piece of cold fowl and drink some wine?"
"Yes."
"You shall sup here, for I want to hear your story. If you are in the cabin, and the captain comes—"
He put his head out of the door and hailed the cabin servant, who was polishing glasses in the pantry. He told him what to get and bring, and he then caused the girl to get out of her bunk, and cushioned his sea-chest with his bunk pillow as a seat for her. He smiled as he saw her fall into the incomparable posture (as he thought it): the head a little on one side, the hands on the hips, the feet crossed, the whole figure beautiful now that her jacket was removed, though her dark blue blouse imperfectly suggested the faultless grace of her breast. Sleep had faintly tinged her cheek whereon the shadow of suffering had lain; her eyes had brightened, her lips had reddened, and all the romance of her face, which was not beautiful nor even pretty, but alluring, nevertheless, was expressed once more in the flattering evening light, which suffused with a liquid softness the atmosphere of that little cabin.
Until the man knocked at the door with the tray of food and wine, they talked chiefly of home, of the dry ditch and Bax's farm, of the East IndiaDock road and of Captain Smedley, whose escape and probable safety the girl had mentioned early in this talk. And then whilst she supped—an early supper, but on the ocean it is the last meal—she told him the story of a memorable fire at sea.
There had been many such fires, and they nearly all read like one. It begins by some rascally sailor broaching a rum cask; or it is a naked candle in the hand of a fool looking for a brand in the lazarette; or it is a pipeful of glowing tobacco amongst wool; the capsizal of a lamp; or it is caused by something which the ocean sucks down to her ooze and buries there, one secret more. But however it be, the end is nearly always the same. It was so in this case; the fire took such a hold there was no dealing with it; a score may have perished. The girl saw the bowsprit and jib-booms black with figures of men who had been cut off by the amidship furnace. Numbers—for she was a full ship with many children, and besides passengers she was carrying hard upon a hundred soldiers in her 'tween-decks—numbers, I say, got away in the boats, and amongst them, the last to leave, was the captain; she did not doubt that. She fell overboard in her terror, and in her recoil right aft from the smoke and its burning stars, and afterwards found herself in a boat in the company of five men, one of whom, groaning heavily with internal injury, died in the night and was dropped over the boat's side.
She had more to tell him about this shipwreck, but that fire concerns my story only in so far as it brings this girl again on to the stage by one of those dramatic and startling methods adopted by the ocean, whose moods are many.
"If your captain is a madman," she said, "what is to happen to this ship?"
He put his finger to his lips in a gesture of caution and reticence.
"We may whisper it to each other," said he, in a low voice, "but the crew have no knowledge of it, or they may attribute any strangeness in his manner to the loss of his child, and think it passing. They all loved the poor little fellow, and so did I."
And he told her how the boy used to beat his drum in accompaniment to the sailor's whistle, and related the story of his falling overboard and the efforts to save him, and the captain's frantic dumb-show and sudden exhibition of insanity, so that he believed his child was merely missing, and that something would happen to tell him where he might be found.
"How sad!" said the girl. "It would have broken my heart to see it. And does he still think that he will find his little boy?"
"I'm afraid it's his conviction, the subtle delusion of the diseased brain," Hardy answered; "but in other matters with him it's like writing on sand; next tide all's gone. Do not tell him you were a stewardess. Converse with him as though he were perfectly sane. He is a gentleman and an educated man. Humour his sorrowful fancy, for it can hurt no one, and it keeps the poor fellow's heart up."
"I suppose you are really in charge of the ship?" she said.
"I am watching her navigation," he answered, "but I tell you I am at a dead loss because he is the supreme law-giver of the vessel, and what he orders must be done or it is mutiny. His ordersmay be dangerous to my judgment, but not to the men's, who take the course as it's given; and I dare not go amongst them and speak the truth. He might get better and hear of it, and it would be in his power to ruin me."
She sank her head thoughtfully, understanding him. The door was rapped.
"Hullo," cried Hardy.
It was the cabin servant who had come to tell Hardy that the captain wished to see the lady.
"Where is he?" inquired the mate.
"On deck, sir. He'll come below when I report her ready to receive him."
"Report her ready," said Hardy, and he and the girl went into the cabin.
She seated herself on a cushioned locker, and he stood beside her.
"That's your berth," said he, pointing to a door.
Gratitude and love were in the smile she gave him. The red western blaze was on the skylight, and reposed on her hair like gold-dust. It was Hardy's watch below—he was therefore at liberty to be in the cabin. He caught sight of Candy staring through the skylight, but the pale-eyed man walked off in a minute, and then the captain came down.
He bowed with the courtesy of breeding to the girl. Tradition has scored so heavily against the merchant shipmaster by virtue of romantic invention, which largely consists of lies, that I dare say it is impossible for a landsman to believe that the commander of a merchant-ship could be anything but a rough, grog-seamed, hoarse-voiced salt, without grammar for his log-book. The lie stands as everlasting as the pyramids, and for my part it maygo on standing, but it is a lie all the same, and it is my pleasure to paint the truth.
As the girl returned the bow she saw the great Newfoundland in the captain's wake, and cried out with a sudden passion of admiration, "Oh, what a magnificent creature!" The dog made friends with her in an instant, and by twenty canine tokens expressed delight in the caress of her hand. No doubt the beautiful and faithful creature appreciated the sweetening and civilising influence of the lady in that cabin.
The captain began by putting several sane questions, and she remembered that she was not to tell him that she had shipped as an under-stewardess in theGlamis Castle. He knew the vessel, and listened with a degree of attention, that excited Hardy's surprise, to her narrative of the fire. He seemed to take a fancy to her, to be pleased by her presence, and said he hoped she would be comfortable on board his ship. In the midst of his rational talk he slapped his forehead and kept his hand pressed to it, and his face changed; a look of grief that made him almost haggard was visible when he dropped his hand and gazed at the girl.
"I miss my son—my little son," he exclaimed, "and I am waiting for something"—he added, in a broken voice—"to tell me where I can find him. His drum is by his bed—come and look at it."
Awed by the sudden confrontment of hopeless human grief, the girl rose and followed him, with a glance at Hardy as for courage. The heave of the deck was gentle; she was stronger, and stepped without difficulty. The captain entered his cabinand closed the door upon them both, which frightened her, for she easily now saw how it was with his poor brain, and no one in the company of a madman can ever dare swear that in the next minute he will continue harmless.
"That is his drum," said the captain. "That is the little bed he slept in."
Hardy outside stood close at the door, listening and prepared.
"He is my only child," continued the captain, compelling by his own gaze the girl's attention to a little coat and a little cap, and other garments of the boy which were hanging upon the bulkhead. "His mother is dead, and she was my first and my only love. I miss him of a night, and want him. He has been my constant companion in several voyages, and the life of the captain of a ship at sea is lonely, and I miss him. It was my delight to dress him and to listen to his talk. Oh, he is a clever boy! He can ask questions which the greatest mind could not answer."
He sat down on a chair by the table on which were instruments of navigation, a few books, pen and ink, and the like, and folding his arms and bowing his head he sobbed dryly without concealment of features, and the piteous face, bearded, the half-closed eyes, the long hair under the cap which he had not removed, made the girl feel sick and faint, as though to some oppressive stroke of personal grief.
She rallied, for she was a young woman of great spirit, as I have a right to hold, and remembering what Hardy had said, she exclaimed, softly:
"You will find him, Captain Layard."
At this he looked up at her, started to his feet, and his face was eager and impassioned with emotion not communicable, for who can expound the workings of the diseased mind?
"Tell me," he cried, and she saw what Hardy had also seen—the baleful sparkle of mania in his eyes, "you're fresh from the sea, and God may have sent you to me. Tell me!"
She could not speak. Her consolatory phrase had exhausted imagination, and her heart refused its sanction to the mate's humane idea, that it was good to keep up the poor fellow's spirits.
"Tell me!" he repeated, and he advanced a step and his eyes devoured her face.
"God will comfort you and help you," she replied, not knowing what to say.
He sighed, and turning his head fastened his eyes upon the little bed, then looked at her again, this time with his painful expression of superiority, the air of a man whose soul is exalted by contemplation of something of heavenly importance divulged to him and to him only, and wearing this face, he opened the door and she passed out, which was lucky for Hardy, because had the captain gone first he would have found the mate standing close and listening.
The captain remained in his cabin. The others stood by the table, and the western light, rich and red as a deep-bosomed rose, flowed down upon them through the open skylight.
"Poor man! Poor man!" the girl exclaimed. "I fear that what I've said will create a delusion; he will think I know where his child is."
"His moods are like the dog-vane," said Hardy. "I could not hear what passed."
She told him. He frowned with the puzzle of his mind.
"You can judge now for yourself," said he. "Is it right that a man like this should command a ship whose safety became doubly precious to me this morning?"
She smiled gently, but gravity quickly returned; she could not but reflect his face of worry and uncertainty. The great dog was lying at his master's door, and all was silent in the captain's cabin. This, in the pause, made her say:
"He may commit suicide."
"Not whilst he believes his son is alive and to be found," answered Hardy.
He walked to the door of her berth, opened it, and she saw that it was as comfortably equipped as the ship would allow.
"You shall have a hair-brush and whatever else I possess to give you," said he. "But how about clothes? I can't dress you."
"I am saved," she answered, "and that is enough to think of at present."
This was a spirited answer for a girl who was talking to the man she loved, for would not any girl, addressing the man of her heart, grow pensive to the thought that she had but one gown to wear in the whole world?
He felt a certain sense of independency owing to the captain's state, and considered that he was entitled to act beyond his rights as a mate. By which I mean that it could not much concern him if the captain came out and found him talking to the girl, and generally acting as though he were a passenger instead of an officer of the ship.