A SQUALL.
Although Finn’s calculations showed very well upon the chart, it will
not be supposed I could find anything in them upon which to ground that
hope of falling in with the ‘Shark’ which had become a conviction with
Wilfrid. The look-out man at our masthead might perhaps, on a clear
day, compass a range of some twenty miles, even thirty if it came to
a gleam of lofty canvas hovering over a hull a league or two past the
slope of waters; but what was a view of this kind to signify in so vast
an ocean as we had entered? As I have elsewhere said, the difference of
a quarter of a point would in a few hours, supposing a good breeze of
wind to be blowing, carry the ‘Bride’ wide of the wake of the ‘Shark,’
and put the two yachts out of sight fair abreast of one another.
Finn understood this as well as I; but when I fell into a talk with him
on the subject that evening--I mean the evening of the day on which
we had spoken the ‘Wanderer’--he told me very honestly that the odds
indeed were heavy against our heaving the ‘Shark’ into view, though
he was quite sure of outsailing her if the course was to extend to the
Cape of Good Hope; but that as there was a chance of our picking her
up, whether by luck, if I chose to think it so, or by his hitting with
accuracy upon the line of direction that Fidler would take, he had made
up his mind to regard the thing as going to happen, for his own ease of
mind as well as to keep my cousin’s expectations lively and trusting.
‘A man can but do his best, sir,’ he said to me. ‘Sir Wilfrid needs a
deal of humouring; you can see that, sir. I knew all along, when he
first came and told me what had happened and gave me my orders, that
the job of keeping him pacified would have to go hand in hand with the
business of sailing the “Bride” and lighting upon the “Shark,” if so be
she’s discoverable. My notion is that if you’re called upon so to act
as to fit an employer’s taste and keep his views and wishes gratified,
though by no more than maintaining expectation in him, the best thing
is to tarn to and try to think as fur as you can the same way as he do.
I don’t mind saying, Mr. Monson, that I allow the whole of this here
voyage to be as wague as wagueness can well be; therefore why worrit
over parts of it? Suppose we overhaul the “Shark”--then it’ll be all
right; suppose we _don’t_--then it won’t be for the want of trying.’
This was the substance of Finn’s opinion as he imparted it to me that
night. His sincerity touched me; besides, I saw worry enough in the
poor fellow to make me sorry for him. Indeed, I resolved from that
hour to back him up, heartily agreeing with him that the adventure was
quite too vague to justify anxiety in respect of any one detail of the
programme.
The weather was quiet when I went to bed that night. I came below
from my long yarn with Finn, leaving a windy smear of moon over our
mastheads and a dark sky going down from it to the obscured sea-line,
with here and there a pale and vapoury point of star hovering sparely
over a wing of cloud that lay still in the dusk, as though what wind
there was blew low upon the waters. The wide sea came to the yacht in a
dusky throbbing, like folds of gloom rolling with a sort of palpitation
in them to the eye; the foam glanced in places, but there was little
weight in the wind, and the pallid spires of the yacht’s canvas floated
nearly upright through the dark atmosphere, with a sound of the sob
of water coming off her weather bow and the dead plash of the hidden
billow falling without life from her quarter, in a way that made one
think there were fellows emptying buckets over the side abreast of the
wheel.
Wilfrid had been moody and reserved throughout the dinner, and retired
early to bed. I sat an hour with Miss Laura, with the mild diversion of
a draught-board between us; but we soon forgot to play in talking. We
had been but a few days together, yet I had already made the discovery
that I wonderfully enjoyed her company, and that I immensely relished
a quality of arch naïveté in her conversation, which owed something
of its effect to the contrast between a sort of coquettish sagacity
in many things she said and the nun-like artlessness and virginal
sweetness I seemed to find in the gentle girlish regard of her charming
eyes. I also observed in myself that the more I saw of her the more
her beauty gained upon me. I never remember meeting a woman’s face
that I would sooner have taken as a frank expression of mind; there
was a softness and delicacy of feature that one instinctively accepted
as an illustration of habitual refinement and purity of thought. Her
manner, save when aroused, was of engaging gentleness and tenderness,
and her smile the most amiable of any I remember. Her position was of
great delicacy, and could not have failed to painfully distress one
of your self-conscious women. Our adventure, every reference to it,
every mention of the ‘Shark,’ every expression in Wilfrid of grief,
shame, temper, was as it were a rude withdrawal of the veil from before
her sister’s frailty. There was no other lady on board to help her to
bear, so to speak, the burthen of the inevitable topic, and yet she
never made it appear as though there was pain and shame to her in the
subject, outside her grief for Wilfrid, her eagerness that her sister
should be recovered, her resentment against the man who had betrayed
and dishonoured his friend.
I may fail to convey what I thought of her maidenly acceptance of her
share in this strange adventure, but I am certain that nobody but
a person of exquisite instincts could have acted, as she did, the
delicate and exacting part allotted her by my cousin.
The weather was still very quiet when I bade her good-night. I went to
my cabin, and do not suppose I was ten minutes in my bed before I fell
asleep. I awoke to a sound of a great roaring all about, accompanied by
the cries of men on deck, the sharp flinging down of coils of rope and
the thunder of shaking canvas trembling in every fibre of the hull. My
bunk was an athwart-ship one, and I had turned-in, to employ the proper
sea parlance, with my head to windward; but now the yacht was lying
over on t’other side, and I awoke to find my heels in the air and the
weight of my body upon my neck; but the angle of the craft was so sharp
that it was not without a prodigious amount of heaving and floundering
I managed to get my legs over and to sit upright.
A squall! thought I, feeling for my pillow, which I placed in the port
end of my bedstead and once again lay down. A flash of sun-bright
lightning glanced through the port-hole as though a gun had been fired
into my cabin, and the interior glanced out into a noon-tide effulgence
for one breathless instant, in which, however, I managed to catch
sight of the angle formed by a coat with a stanchion, upon which it
hung by a peg. Upon my word, it was as though the yacht was upon her
beam ends--such a heel as was not to be realised by one lying in a
bunk or even sitting upright in it: then came the darkness like a sea
of ink, rolling to the sight in which the reflection of the flash
still writhed, followed by a mighty shock of thunder that died away in
a hundred rattling peals, as though ’twas high mountainous land all
around the horizon, honeycombed with caverns and every peak as resonant
as a hollow dome.
A sharp squall! thought I, but there was too much noise for sleep. It
was all hands on deck I was pretty sure by the numerous scampering over
my head; the harsh voices of the sailors bawling at the ropes would be
swept into faint cries by the rush of the wind, and now and again a
heavy lumpish sound that put a quiver into every plank, followed by a
snarling noise like the hissing of half a dozen locomotives blowing off
steam, was warrant enough to ears not unused to such sounds that the
‘Bride’ was taking large doses of water in pretty freely over her rail.
I lay quiet, and was presently sensible that the yacht was off the
wind; the righting of her was no small comfort; she was manifestly
going through it like a comet; the sea was now well aft, and the
suggestion of swiftness I found in the mere feel of the hull, somehow
or other, black as my cabin was and the blacker as it remained for the
flash of lightning, was accentuated by the thunderous rush of each
surge outstripping us in the race and hurling its black length along
the vessel’s side, and the fierce spitting and crackling of the smother
of spume that was raised by the vessel’s headlong flight, and that went
raging and racing astern on top of the swelling ebony fold that swept
forwards from the opposite direction.
Humph! thought I, if this is a case of ‘up keeleg’ with friend Finn
he’ll have to enter into something shrewder and surer than dead
reckoning to find his way back again into the ‘Shark’s’ wake. I had
a mind to see what was happening, and after a spell of troublesome
groping and clawing, during which I had like to have broke my nose
by striking it against the edge of a chest of drawers built into a
corner, I succeeded in lighting my lamp, and was presently snug in a
pea coat and a sou’-wester which I had been wise enough to include in
the slender sea outfit I had purchased for this voyage. The cabin light
was always kept burning throughout the night, dimmed by one of the
stewards, after we had retired to our berths, but with plenty of flame
left to see by, and on emerging the first object I caught sight of was
the figure of a man on his knees on the cabin floor in a posture of
prayer and apparently in an agony of fright. Nothing was to be heard of
him until I had approached close, for the roaring of the wind and the
washing and foaming of seas drowned all other noises; but on stooping
to make sure of the fellow, whose hands were clasped over his eyes
whilst he held his face upturned as he swayed upon his knees, I could
hear him praying with all his might, with an energy indeed that might
of itself have accounted for the drops of perspiration that glistened
upon his brow, if it wasn’t that his attitude of terror explained
the secret of that moisture. It was Muffin. There was something so
shameful in the fellow’s cowardice that all in an instant I lost my
temper and gave him a kick which flung him at his length, face down,
upon the deck. He set up a horrible howl.
‘Oh Lord! oh mercy! we’re gone! we’re gone! Oh, if I was only on dry
ground----’
Here I seized him by the collar. ‘Get up, you fool,’ I cried. ‘Do you
know where you are, you idiot? Cease! If you alarm Miss Jennings----’
and I hauled him on to his legs, shaking him heartily as I did so.
‘Oh, Mr. Monson,’ he whined, ‘is it you, sir? Tell me we ain’t all dead
and gone, sir! Oh, this is ’orrible, though! ’orrible! Never no more;
never no more for me!’
‘Be off to your berth at once,’ cried I angrily, though my temper died
out of me at the absurd sight of his yellow, working, terrified face,
rendered ugly enough to challenge the skill of a Cruikshank by the
manner in which, during his devotions, he had streaked his forehead and
nose and his cheeks past his eyes with his plaister-like lengths of
coal-black hair. He was for speaking, but I grasped him by the shoulder
and ran him towards his berth that lay some little distance forward of
mine on the starboard side, and when he had shut himself in I made my
way on deck, with a peep aft, as I went up the steps, where all seemed
quiet.
The night was still very dark, but of a clearer dusk. The moon made
a red streak low in the west amongst some ragged clouds that seemed
to fall like a short flight of steps, every one edged with blood, to
the sea-line, where the muddy crimson drained out, just showing the
lurid staining of it now and again when some surge beneath reared an
unbroken head to the lustre. The night was made to look amazingly
wilder than it was in reality by that western setting jumble of ugly
lustre and torn vapour, like a flock of giant bats heading from the
moon for ocean solitude of deeper blackness. To windward there was a
great lake of indigo-blue in the sky, in which a number of trembling
stars were floating and vast white puffs of cloud crossing it with
the swiftness of scud in the gale; but to leeward it was just a mass
of heaped-up gloom, one dye of dusk on top of another in blocks of
blackness such as a poet might dream of in picturing the hellish walls
and battlements of a beleaguered city of demons; and upon this mass
of darkness that looked as substantial as stone to the eye there was
a plentiful play and crackle of violet lightning; but no thunder, at
least none that I could hear. It was blowing fresh, but the wind had
taken off considerably within the last ten minutes; the ‘Bride’ was
close hauled; there was a strong sea on the bow and she was plunging;
smartly, with at frequent intervals a brisk squall of spray over her
head that rattled upon the deck like a fall of hail in a thunderstorm;
a dark gleam would break first here and then there from her deck to
her rolling, but the water was draining off fast, flashing in a loud
hissing through the scupper holes at every lee send, but with weight
enough yet remaining in each rush of it to enable me to gather that it
must have been pretty nearly waist-high between the bulwarks with the
first shipping of the seas and the first downrush of the fierce squall.
They had snugged the ‘Bride’ to very small canvas; the play of the
white waters round her threw out her shape clear as black paint on
canvas; at moments she dived till you would think the tall black coil
arching at her past the creaming glare crushed out of the sea by the
smiting of her forefoot must leap right aboard her; but her staunch and
buoyant bow, the truest piece of ocean moulding I ever saw in a ship,
would regularly swing with a leap to the peak of the billow, shattering
it with a saucy disdain that seemed to be followed by an echo of
derisive laughter in the yelling ring of the wind splitting upon the
rigging or sweeping into the iron hard cavities of the diminished
spaces of wan and spectral canvas.
I took all this in as I stood a minute in the companion hatch; then
perceiving the figure of a man to windward almost abreast of me, I
crossed to him. It was Finn.
‘Very ugly squall that, Mr. Monson,’ said he after peering at me to
make sure of my identity; ‘it found us with tops’l and t’gallants’l
set and took us slap aback. It was the most onexpected thing that
ever happened to me; as onnatural as that there moon. Talk of keeping
a look-out! I was staring hard that way with the wind a pleasant air
blowing off t’other side and saw nothing and heard nothing until I felt
it.’
‘You had to run?’
‘Ay, but not for long, sir.’
‘How’s her head now, Captain Finn?’
‘Her proper course, Mr. Monson.’
‘Well, the weather is brightening. You’ll be making sail again on your
ship, I suppose, presently?’
‘Ay, but let that muck blow away first,’ he answered, pointing with a
shadowy arm into the mass of obscurity where the lightning still winked
fitfully. ‘After such a blow-me-aback job as this I ain’t going to
trust the weather till I can see more of it.’
I lingered a little, watching the slow opening of the sky to windward,
and the gradual unfolding of the stars down the velvet declivity, that
looked as though purified by the cleansing of the black wet squall, and
then bidding good-night to Finn, who seemed a bit subdued by the wildly
disconcerting attack of the weather, that to a sober, vigilant seaman
was about as uncomfortable a snub in its way as could be administered,
I went below, intending to walk straight to my berth and go to bed
again. On entering the cabin, however, I found the lamp turned up, and
Wilfrid pacing the carpet with long strides and with an agitation of
manner that was grotesquely deepened by the occasional stagger of his
gait by the plunging of the yacht and the hurried lift of his arm to
clutch the nearest thing at hand for support. I concluded that he had
been aroused by the commotion of the squall, but thought it strange
he had not stepped on deck to see how things were. On seeing me he put
his hand on the back of a fixed revolving chair, and swung, or rather
reeled, himself into it, then leaned his cheek upon his hand in a
posture of extreme moodiness, whilst he kept his eyes bent downwards.
I took a seat opposite him, after a glance round in search of Miss
Jennings, who, I thought, might also be up.
‘The noise above disturbed you, I suppose, Wilfrid?’ said I.
‘I have not slept,’ he answered.
‘Not since half-past nine! You went to bed then, you know, and it’s now
two o’clock,’ I exclaimed, looking at the dial under the skylight.
‘I have not slept,’ he repeated.
‘I wonder that the squall did not bring you on deck.’
‘For what purpose?’ he exclaimed gloomily. ‘I could hear Finn’s voice;
I could follow what the men were doing. If every squall we are likely
to meet is to bring me from my bed, I may as well order a hammock to be
slung for me on deck.’
‘What is the matter, Wilfrid?’ said I, earnestly and soothingly.
‘Something, I fear, has happened to vex and bother you.’
He passed his hand over his eyes, and looking down said, ‘I have had a
warning.’
‘A what?’ I exclaimed.
‘A warning,’ he answered, fetching a deep sigh and making as if to
rise, retaining, however, his posture of profound melancholy, whilst he
sent a slow, wandering look around, finally fastening his eyes upon me.
‘From whom came this warning, Wilfrid?’ said I cheerfully. ‘Muffin?
Egad, you’ll be getting a warning from him soon, I reckon. I found
the chap on his knees just now, sweating with fear and praying like
clockwork. I gave him a kick, and I wonder the howl that he raised
did not bring you running out of your cabin.’ I jabbered this off in
a reckless, laughing way, though I watched him narrowly, too, all the
time I was speaking.
‘Nothing shall hinder me, Charles,’ he exclaimed, closing his right
fist and letting it lie in a menacing way upon the table. ‘I have made
up my mind to tear the creature who still remains my wife from the side
of the man she has left me for; and before God’--he rolled his eyes up
and raised his clenched hand--‘my vow is this: that I will hunt them
from port to port, through ocean after ocean, until I meet with them!
_When_ that shall be I know not; but this I _do_ know--that my time
will come and I can wait. But I must be on the move. Nothing could
render life tolerable to me now but the sense of action, the animation
and hope of pursuit.’
‘But the warning----?’ said I.
‘Oh, to be vexed by ghostly exhortations--it is enough to craze one!’
he exclaimed. ‘Heaven knows, resolution grows weak enough in me as it
is to any thought of my little one that visits me. Oh no,’ he cried,
with a sarcastic shake of the head and a singular smile, ‘do not
believe that thoughts of my baby girl would cause me to falter even for
one breathless instant on this course that I have made up my mind to
pursue. But to think of the helpless lamb as alone----’
‘My dear fellow,’ I interrupted, ‘the child could not possibly be in
tenderer hands.’
‘I know, I know,’ he cried, with a sob in his voice, ‘but she is
motherless, Charles; and then how precarious is life at that age! I may
never see her again!’
He broke down at this and hid his face.
‘Come, come,’ said I, ‘your nerves have been strained by the incident
of this afternoon, or, I should say of yesterday afternoon--unduly,
though intelligibly, excited by Puncheon’s report of having passed the
“Shark.” Endeavour to get some rest, old fellow. These warnings, these
visions, mysterious voices sounding out of heaven knows where, midnight
shapes as thin as moonshine--Wilfrid, depend upon it, they all emanate
from a disordered condition of that part of the body which the Chinese
have most wisely selected as the true seat of the soul; I mean here,’
said I, patting my waistcoat.
He regarded me somewhat vacantly and sat awhile in silence, sighed
tremulously, and stepped to the foot of the companion ladder, where he
stood staring up into the arch of black night that filled the companion
entrance. Presently Finn rumbled out an order on deck. There was the
flash of bright stars upon the gleaming ebony of the cabin windows with
every heave of the yacht; the sea was moderating, and the loud humming
of the wind aloft gradually fining into a dull complaining noise. Ropes
were thrown down overhead; voices began to sing out. I uttered a loud
yawn. Wilfrid turned and exclaimed, ‘Don’t let me keep you up, Charles.’
‘It’s all right,’ said I, ‘but why not go to bed, too? Or first
describe this warning that you have had; express the nature of it.
Perhaps, like the proverbial onlooker who sees most of the game, I
might be able to help you with some reassuring suggestion.’
But he merely shook his head; and now, feeling quite intolerably
sleepy, and in no mood, therefore, as you will suppose, to reason with
a mind so oppressed as his with superstitious melancholy, I called a
cheery good-night to him, went to my cabin, and was soon fast asleep.
I was awakened by the brilliant daylight that filled my berth, and
at once rose and sung out to the steward to prepare me a bath. All
the time I bathed and dressed I was thinking of Wilfrid and of what
he called his ‘warning.’ I supposed it was some voice that he had
heard, and he had made it plain that it had referred, amongst other
things maybe, to his little infant. Now, though of course I had known
for years that he was ‘touched,’ as the expression goes, I had never
understood that his craziness had risen to the height of hearing voices
and beholding visions in his waking hours; and I was, therefore,
forced to believe that his mind was far more unhinged at present
than his manners and speech, peculiar as they unquestionably were at
times, had indicated. Well, thought I, assuredly if he gets worse, if
the symptoms should grow more defined, this chase will have to come
to an end. I, for one, should most certainly call a halt. Why, what
could be fuller of madness than his vow last night before me--to go
on sailing from port to port, and traversing ocean after ocean, until
he has captured her ladyship; as if a pursuit on such lines as these
were going to end in anything better than driving all hands daft and
converting the ‘Bride’ into a floating lunatic asylum? So far, it is
true, I have found method enough to keep my mind tolerably easy; but if
poor Wilfrid is going to become very much worse, hang me, thought I,
plying a pair of hair-brushes with very agitated hands, if Captain Finn
don’t haul his wind for the handiest port and set me ashore for one.