MUFFIN IS PUNISHED.
It was seven o’clock when I awoke. I at once rose, bathed, and went
on deck, thinking, as I passed through the cabin and observed the
brilliant effect of the sunshine streaming through porthole and
skylight in rippling silver upon the shining bulkheads, the radiant
lamps, the mirrors, rich carpet and elegant draperies of the cabin,
what a very insignificant figure a night-fear cuts by daylight. The
wind was north-east, a merry shining morning with a wide blue heaven
full of liquid lustre softened by many small white clouds blowing into
the south-west, and rich as prisms with the rainbow lights that kindled
in their skirts as they sailed past the sun. The firm line of the ocean
went round the sky tenantless. The yacht was making good way, running
smoothly over the crisping and crackling waters under an airy spread
of studdingsail which trembled a light into the water far beyond her
side. Finn was on deck standing aft with his back upon the companion. I
walked leisurely over to him with vitality in the very last recesses of
my being stirred by the exquisite sweetness and freshness of the long,
pure sunlit gushing of the wind.
‘Good morning, Captain Finn.’ He turned and touched his cap. ‘How long
is this delicious weather going to last, I wonder? Nothing in sight,
eh? Bless us, captain, when are we going to run the “Shark” into view?’
He looked at me with a curious expression which his smile, that was
always in the middle of his face, rendered exceedingly odd, and said,
‘Did ye hear anything like a mysterious woice, sir, last night after
you’d turned in?’
‘I was for fancying,’ I answered, ‘that the atmosphere crawled with
indistinguishable whispers. But I suppose without imagination there
would be no lunatic asylums.’
He said, still preserving his odd look, ‘The sperrit’s discovered, sir.’
‘Gammon!’ I exclaimed.
‘Ay! we’ve got hold of the woice!’ he cried gleefully. ‘Did ye ever see
a ghost, Mr. Monson, sir? Look! _There’s_ the corpse as belonged to the
wreck, and _there’s_ the happarition as was a cursing of this yacht
last night in the forepeak, and your honour may take it that _there_
is the invisible shape whose hail from off yon quarter has given old
Jacob the blues;’ and all the time that he spoke he was pointing to the
fore-rigging just under the cross-trees.
I had before lightly glanced at a man up there, but had given him no
heed whatever, as I supposed him to be a sailor at work. But now I
looked again, shading my eyes.
‘Muffin!’ I cried with a gasp of astonishment. ‘Do you mean to
say----?’ and I veritably staggered as the full truth and absurdity of
the thing rushed upon me.
He hung in the rigging facing seawards, and there was turn upon turn
of rope round his arms and legs; indeed, he was as snugly secured to
the shrouds as if he had been a sample of chafing gear. The sailors had
compassionately jammed his hat down on his head, and in the shadow of
the brim of it his face looked of the sickly yellow hue of tallow. But
he was too high to enable me to witness the expression he wore. He had
nothing on but his shirt and a pair of grimy duck trousers rolled to
above his knees.
‘What do you think of him as a sperrit, sir?’ cried Finn, with a loud
hoarse laugh which caused the sailors at work forward to look up
grinning at Muffin, who hung as motionless in the shrouds as if he lay
in a faint there.
‘How long has he been seized aloft?’ said I, with something of a pang
coming to me out of the sight of him, for there followed close on my
first emotion of astonishment a sort of admiration for the outlandish
genius of the creature that worked in me like a feeling of pity.
‘Since dawn,’ answered Finn. ‘The men put him where he is. I let ’em
have their way. I was afeered they might have used him in an uglier
fashion, sir. Jack don’t like to be made a fool of, your honour. Old
Jacob, I’m told, felt bloodthirsty. Ye see, ye can’t take a view of
them sailors, specially such a chap as Cutbill, and think of ’em as
lambs.’
‘He must be an amazingly clever ventriloquist, though,’ said I. ‘Of
course! All’s as clear as daylight now. He was leaning over the rail
when Crimp and I were talking on that night we heard the voice. I
caught sight of him in the cabin a minute after the cry had sounded.
The dexterous rogue; he must have sneaked with amazing swiftness below.
A consummate actor, indeed! How was he discovered?’
‘Why,’ answered Finn, with a slow shake of laughter, ‘there’s a chap
named Harry Blake, as occupies the bunk just over him. Blake, like
O’Connor, is an Irishman, with a skin as curdles to the thought of a
ghost. He was more frightened than any other man forrards, and lay
awake listening. Time passed: all the watch was snoring saving this
here Blake. On a sudden he hears the woice. He sits up, all of a muck
o’ sweat. Why, thinks he, it’s the mute as lies under me a-talking in
his sleep! He drops on to the deck and looks at Muffin, who presently
fell a-talking again in his sleep, using the hidentical words that Sir
Wilfrid had heard, and the tone o’ woice was the same, sort o’ muffled
and dim-like; but it wasn’t pitched fit to make a scare, seeing, of
course, that the hartist was unconscious. On this Blake sings out,
kicks up a reg’lar hullabaloo, tells the men that the woice was a trick
of Muffin’s. Muffin being half-dazed and terrified by the sailors
crowding round his berth, threatening of him, confesses and says that
he did it with the notion of terrifying Sir Wilfrid into returning
home, as his life had growed a burden. The men then called a council to
settle what should be done with him, and it ended when daybreak come in
their seizing him up aloft as ye see there, where they mean to keep him
until I’ve consulted with Sir Wilfrid as to the sort of punishment the
chap merits.’
‘What shall you propose, Captain Finn?’ said I, with a glance at the
bound figure, whose motionlessness made him seem lifeless, and whose
posture, therefore, was not a little appealing.
‘Sir,’ answered Finn, ‘I shall recommend his honour to leave it to the
men.’
‘But they may hang him?’
‘No; I’ll see they stop short of that. But, Mr. Monson, sir, begging
your pardon, I’m sure you’ll allow with me that Muffin’ll desarve all
he’s likely to get. Speaking as master of this wessel, I say that if he
hadn’t been found out in good time it might have gone blazing hard with
all of us. The men were saucy enough last night, growling indeed as if
it was next door to a mutiny being under way; and yet it was the first
time of the woice speaking in the hold. Imagine it going on for several
nights! It was bound to end in all hands giving up unless we shifted
our helm for home, which Sir Wilfrid would never have consented to; so
there ye’d have had a quandary as bad as if the sailors had been laid
low with p’ison, or as if the “Bride” had tarned to and leaked at every
butt end. Then think of his anointing his honour’s cabin with flaming
letters; all to sarve his own measly wish to git out of an ondertaking
that he don’t relish.... Mr. Monson, sir, he wants a lesson, something
arter the whipping and pickling business o’ my father’s day, and sooner
than that he should miss of his desarts by striving to get to windward
of the soft side of his honour’s nature, I’m damned,’ said he, striking
his open hand with his clenched fist, ‘if I wouldn’t up and tell Sir
Wilfrid myself that it was that there Muffin as wrote the shining words
about his honour’s baby.’
‘Best not do that,’ said I. ‘We want no tragedies aboard us, Finn.
However, you may count upon my not interfering; but for God’s sake let
there be no brutality.’
‘That’ll be all right, sir,’ answered the skipper, with such a look,
however, at the helpless and stirless figure in the rigging as
satisfied me that his inclination, at present at all events, was not
towards mercy.
It was not a sort of sight to make the deck a pleasant lounge till
breakfast time. I was moved by some compassion for the unfortunate
creature, mainly due, I believe, to a secret admiration for his
remarkable skill and dramatic cunning; and understanding that the
sooner Wilfrid was apprised of this business the sooner would Muffin be
brought down out of the shrouds, I stepped below. The head steward came
out of my cousin’s cabin as I approached the door.
‘Is Sir Wilfrid getting up?’ said I.
‘I’ve just taken him his hot water, sir. He isn’t out of bed yet. He’s
very heavy; had a bad night, I’ve been told, sir----’
I passed on and knocked.
‘What is it?’ cried Wilfrid, in a drowsy, irritable voice.
I entered, and said, ‘Sorry to disturb you, Wilf, but there’s news that
will interest you.’
He started up. ‘The “Shark”?’ he cried.
‘No,’ I answered, ‘they’ve found out who talked like a ghost last
night; who it was that whispered off the ocean to Crimp and me that
this yacht was cursed; and who it was that made the corpse on the wreck
hail us.’
He sat bolt upright with eyes and nostrils large with excitement. ‘Who?’
‘Muffin,’ said I.
‘Muffin!’ he shouted; ‘what d’ye mean, Charles?’
‘Why, the fellow’s a ventriloquist, an incomparable artist, I should
say, to deceive us all so atrociously well.’
He stared at me with a face of dumb astonishment. ‘What was his motive,
think you?’ he asked presently.
‘He’s pining to get home,’ I replied; ‘he’s capable of any tricks to
achieve that end. The men mean to punish him, and Finn is waiting to
confer with you on the subject. They’ve had him lashed to the rigging
aloft since daybreak.’
‘The scoundrel!’ he cried, springing on to the deck with a dark look of
rage, yet with an indescribable note of relief as of a mind suddenly
eased, softening the first harshness and temper of his voice. ‘I have
to thank him for a frightful night. What a fool I am,’ he cried,
vehemently striking his forehead, ‘to suffer myself to be terrified by
things which I ought to know--which I _ought_ to know,’ he repeated
with passionate emphasis, ‘cannot be as they seem.’
‘Well, Wilf,’ said I, ‘you will find Finn on deck. He will tell you all
about it, and you will leave the fellow’s punishment to the men, or
settle with Finn the sort of discipline the man deserves, as you shall
think proper. I wash my hands of the affair, satisfied with Finn’s
promise that there shall be no brutality.’ With which I left him and
returned to my cabin, where I lay reading till the breakfast bell rang.
Miss Jennings was alone in the cabin. She stood with head inclined
over some flowers which still bloomed in the mould in which they had
been brought from England. The sunshine of her hair blended with the
pinks and whites of the petals, and the gems on her hands trembled like
dewdrops on the leaves of the plants as she lightly touched them with
fingers half caressing, half adjusting. Her look of astonishment when I
told her that the voice we had heard was a trick of Muffin’s was like
a view of her beauty in a new light; amazement with a sparkle as of
laughter behind it to throw out the expression, rounded her eyes and
deepened their hue. Then the little creature clasped her hands with
gratitude that the thing should have been discovered.
‘Muffin is quite a rascal,’ she said, ‘and so clever as to be a real
danger.’ She could scarcely credit that he had skill enough to deceive
the ear as he had.
Wilfrid was slow in coming; I could see him through the skylight
walking with Finn, gesticulating much, with a frequent look in the
direction where, as I might gather, Master Muffin still hung. He kept
Miss Laura and me waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour, during
which I explained how Muffin had been discovered, how Wilfrid had gone
on deck to arrange a punishment for him, and the like. Presently my
cousin arrived, and on catching sight of Miss Jennings, cried out in
his most boyish manner, ‘Only think, my dear, that our superstitious
alarms last night should be owing to a trick, but a deuced clever
trick, of that illiterate, yellow-faced, tearful, half-cracked son of a
greengrocer--Muffin. I never could have believed he had it in him. Eh,
Charles? Mad, of course; I don’t say dangerously so, but warped, you
know, or is it likely that he would practise so cruel and dangerous a
deceit merely because he wants to get home? Why, d’ye know, Charles,
Finn gravely swears that, had the rascal persisted successfully for
two or three nights, the yacht would have been in an uproar of mutiny,
perhaps seized, ay, actually seized, through the terror of the crew,
and sailed home--ending all my hopes.’
‘How is he to be served?’
‘Finn proposes,’ he answered, ‘that the men should form a court--a
judge and jury. Their decision will be brought aft for our approval.
If the sentence be a reasonable one, the fellows will be allowed to
execute it.’
Miss Jennings looked scared.
‘They won’t hurt him much,’ said I. ‘Finn has pledged his word to me.
’Tis the fright that will do him good. Is he out of the rigging, Wilf?’
‘Probably by this time,’ he answered. ‘I told Finn to get him sent
down and fed. The sun is hot up there, and the poor devil faced it.’
Whilst we breakfasted I had much to say about the fellow’s singular
accomplishment as a ventriloquist; suggested that by-and-by he should
be brought aft to entertain us, and expressed wonder that a man so
gifted, qualified by nature, moreover, to dress up his singular and
special faculty with the airs of as theatrical a countenance as ever I
had heard of, should be satisfied with the mean offices of a valet. But
my flow of speech was presently checked by a change of mood in Wilfrid.
His face darkened; he pushed his plate from him, and let fly at Muffin
in language which would not have been wanting in profanity probably had
Miss Jennings been absent.
‘Do you remember those strange warnings that I received about my little
one?’ he cried, turning a wild eye upon me. ‘After the gross deception
of last night, who’s to tell me that I might not have been made a fool
of in that too?’
I shot a hurried glance of meaning and warning at Miss Jennings, and
said carelessly, ‘Depend upon it, we can never be the victims of more
than our senses in this life.’
‘Why should the creature have left me to go forward?’ he shouted.
I touched my forehead with a smile. ‘When you engaged this fellow,’
said I, ‘you supposed his brain healthy anyway. Now, my dear Wilf, the
motive of this voyage supplies plenty of occupation to the mind, and
there is excitement enough to be got out of it without the obligation
of a lunatic to wait upon you.’
He burst into a laugh, without however a hint of merriment in it, and
then fell silent and most uncomfortably moody. Shortly afterwards he
went on deck.
‘What’ll they do to Muffin, Mr. Monson, do you think?’ Miss Laura asked.
‘I cannot imagine,’ said I; ‘they may duck him from the yardarm, they
may spreadeagle and refresh him with a few dozens; punish him they
will. Finn is hot against him. He is quite right in suggesting that a
few such experiences as that of last night might--indeed must--have
ended in a perilous mutiny. Are you coming on deck?’
‘No.’
‘But it is a beautiful morning. The breeze is as sweet as milk, and the
clouds as radiant as though the angels were blowing soap-bubbles.’
‘I do not care; I shall remain in the cabin. Do you think I could
witness a man being ducked or whipped? I should faint.’
‘Well, I’ll go and view the spectacle, so as to be able to give you the
story of it.’
She pouted, and cried, ‘Wretched Muffin! Why did Wilfrid bring him?
Lend me one of Scott’s novels, Mr. Monson. I cannot get on with that
story about the nobility.’
I was not a little surprised, on passing through the companion hatch,
to find that the first act of the drama was about to begin. The whole
of the ship’s company, with the exception of the man who was at the
wheel, were assembled on the forecastle. Crimp and Finn stood together
near the forerigging, looking on. One of the sailors, who I afterwards
learned was Cutbill, had pinned a blanket over his shoulders to serve
him as a robe, whilst on his head he wore a contrivance that might have
been a pudding-bag, though what it really was I could not distinguish.
He had covered his chin and cheeks with a quantity of oakum, and
presented a very extraordinary appearance as he sat with a great air of
dignity on the top of a small bread cask. Six sailors stood wing-like
on either hand him, constituting the jury, as I supposed. Confronting
Cutbill was Muffin between two brawny salts, each of whom held him
by the arm. The valet made a most melancholy figure, and even at the
distance of the quarterdeck I could see his naked yellow shanks, his
breeches being turned above the knees, quivering and yielding, till I
began to think that the two sailors held him, not as a prisoner, but to
prevent him from tumbling down.
Wilfrid was swinging to and fro the quarter-deck with long flighty
strides, taking an eager, probing, short-sighted stare at the crowd
forward when he faced them, and then rounding to step aft with a grin
on his face and his underlip working as though he talked.
‘I’m glad to see Cutbill making a fool of himself,’ said I. ‘Jack’s
jinks are seldom dangerous when he introduces skylarking after the
pattern of that fellow’s make-up. Shall we step forward and hear the
trial, Wilf?’
‘No,’ said he, ‘it would be undignified. Every man to the end he
belongs to aboard a ship. Finn is there to see all fair. Besides,
Muffin might appeal to me or to you--and I mean that the sailors shall
have their way with him, providing, of course, that they don’t carry
things too far.’
‘Let’s sit, then,’ said I; ‘your seven-league boots are too much for me
this hot morning.’
He called to the steward to bring him his pipe, and we posted ourselves
on the grating abaft the wheel. It was a very gem of a picture just
then. The canvas rose spreading on high in clouds of soft whiteness
so silver-like to the burning of the sun that viewed from a little
distance I don’t doubt they would have shone upon the eye with the
sparkle of crystal or the richer gleam of a pearl-encrusted surface.
The decks went forward pure as ivory, every shadow so sharp that
it looked as though an artist had been at work upon the planks
counterfeiting the rigging and every curve of stirless cloth and all
delicate interlacery of ratline and gear running crosswise. The sea
sloped in dark blue summer undulations, light as the rise and fall of
the breast of a sleeping girl, into the liquid azure upon the starboard
bow, where the steam-white clouds were gathered in a huddle like a
great flock of sheep waiting for the rest that were on their way there
to join them. The crowd on the forecastle filled that part of the
vessel with colour. It was the fuller of life for the coming and going
of the shadows of the far-reaching studdingsails and the marble-like
arch of the flowing squaresail on the many dyes of the tough, knotted,
bearded groups of faces with heads of hair and wiry whiskers ranging
from the blackness of the rook’s plumes to a pale straw colour, most
of the beards wagging to the excited gnawing upon junks of tobacco
standing high in the cheek-bones, with here a wrinkled grin, there a
sour cast, all combining to a picture that I have but to close my eyes
to witness bright and vivid again as though it were of yesterday.
The trial was very decorously conducted; there were no jeers, no cries,
no noise of any kind. I could hear the rumble of Cutbill’s deep-sea
notes, and once or twice Muffin’s response, faint as the squeak of a
rat deep down. Crimp was called as a witness, and declaimed a bit, but
nothing reached me save the sulky rasp of his voice. The fooling did
not last long. Cutbill got on top of his cask to address the jury,
and I saw the fellow at the wheel near us shaking his sides at the
preposterous figure of the man as he hugged his blanket to his heart,
gravely nodding with his pudding-bag first to the six men on his left,
then to the six men on his right, whilst he delivered his charge. When
this was ended Captain Finn, with a look aft, sang out at the top of
his voice, evidently that we should hear him:
‘Now, my lads, you who constitute the jury, what’s your vardict? Is the
prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?’
‘Guilty!’ all twelve men roared out at once, on which Cutbill, still
erect on his cask, passed judgment.
I strained my ear, but to no purpose. It was a monotonous rigmarole of
a speech, and so long that I turned with a face of dismay to Wilfrid.
‘I say, what are they going to do with him? Why, Cutbill has said
enough to include whipping, ducking, roasting, hanging, and quartering.’
‘They only mean to frighten him,’ he answered, looking anxious
nevertheless.
The two men who grasped Muffin walked him into the head, faced him
round, and stood on either hand him, still preserving their hold.
Finn came aft, the men meanwhile hanging about in a body forward in a
posture of waiting.
‘Well, what is decided on?’ cried Wilfrid, eagerly and nervously.
Finn touched his cap. He tried to look grave, but secret enjoyment was
very visible in the twinkle of his eye, spite of the portentous curve
of his mouth and the long drop of his chops to his chin end.
‘Your honour, the men’s vardict is that the prisoner’s to be cobbed and
ducked.’
‘Cobbed!’ cried Wilfrid, whilst I exclaimed ‘Ducked!’ with a look at
the fore yardarm that stood high above the sea.
‘Every man’ll give him a blow with a rope’s end as he walks forrard,’
explained Finn, ‘and arterwards cool him with a bucket o’ water apiece.’
Wilfrid’s eyes came to mine.
‘It will depend upon how hard every man hits,’ said I; ‘the ducking
is innocent enough. Yet I see nothing of cruelty in the sentence; and
really the fellow not only requires to be punished, but to be terrified
as well.’
‘The hands are waiting for me to tell ’em to begin, your honour,’ said
Finn with a glance forward. ‘It’ll make the punishment too severe to
keep the poor devil a-waiting for it.’
‘One moment,’ exclaimed Wilfrid, ‘did he offer any excuses?’
‘Why, sir, he said he was egged on with the desire to return to his
mother and get off the sea which disagrees with his insides and affects
his hintellectuals. He says he meant no more harm than that. Don’t
believe he did, but it might have ended in some smothering trouble all
the same. “I came as a walet,” says he, “and here now am I,” says he,
“broke--just a ship’s dog, a filthy scullion,” says he, “when my true
calling,” says he, “is that of gentleman’s gentleman.”’
‘But, confound him!’ cried Wilfrid, ‘it was he who left me; I did not
dismiss him. He went forward of his own will.’
‘My dear Wilfrid, he is cracked,’ said I.
‘Get on, get on, and make an end of this, now, Finn,’ exclaimed
Wilfrid, with a little colour of temper in each cheek. ‘I’m weary of
the business, and want these decks cleared and quiet to the eye.’
The skipper promptly trudged forward, and sung out as he advanced. In a
few moments most of the sailors had ranged themselves along the deck in
a double line. Every man held a piece of rope in his hand--reef points
they looked to me, though whether they had been cut for this special
business or had been hunted for amidst raffle of the kind forward I
cannot say. Meanwhile a couple of seamen handed buckets full of water
along from a little pump in the head until every man had one at his
feet. When these preparations were completed the brace of salts who
had charge of Muffin suddenly whipped off his shirt, and laid bare
his back, so that he stood in nothing but a pair of breeches, a very
radish of a figure--his yellow anatomy glancing dully in the sunshine,
whilst the ghastly pallor of his face was heightened yet by his plaster
of coal-black hair, just as his inward terror was accentuated by the
corkscrew-like writhing of his lean legs, the convulsive twitching of
his arms, and the dismal rolling of his dead black, lustreless eyes.
It was impossible not to feel sorry for the wretched creature. One
felt that he was entitled, by virtue of the remarkable gift he had
displayed, to a discipline of a more dignified sort than he was now
to be subjected to. I laughed out, however, when Cutbill formed a
procession. Absurdity could not have gone beyond the figure the great
whiskered tarpaulin cut in his blanket and the canvas bag that served
him as headgear as, making a sign, he tragically entered the double
line of men, beating with his hands that Muffin and his two supporters
should keep time with his strides. When Muffin was brought to the
aftermost end of the rank of seamen Cutbill seized him by the neck and
forced him to give us a bow. The two sailors who had conducted him to
this point then posted themselves with the others, each of them picking
up a rope’s end, whereupon Cutbill, twisting Muffin so as to force him
to face the vessel’s forecastle, took a couple of strides backwards,
extending his arms under his blanket to hinder Muffin from running
forwards.
‘Lay on now!’ he hoarsely bawled, and then whack! whack! whack!
whack! sounded upon the unhappy Muffin’s spine as rhythmically as the
tapping of a land-crab’s claws upon a polished floor. Every fellow
administered his single blow with a will, one or two spitting on their
hands before their turn came. The sufferer writhed pitifully to the
very first stroke, and to the fourth howled out like a dog. The sight
half-sickened me, and yet I found myself laughing--though, I dare
say, there was something of hysteric nervousness in my merriment--at
the preposterous spectacle of the staggering, twitching, dodging,
almost nude figure of Muffin, throwing out into strong relief the huge
blanketed form of Cutbill, who, with arms extended, his head with its
adornment of oakum nodding gravely from side to side, as if bestowing
approbation on each man for the blow he dealt, strode backwards on
majestic legs, carefully turning out his toes as though he were giving
Muffin a lesson in dancing, and sliding along the lines of knotted,
hairy faces, with the air of some court functionary marshalling the
progress of royalty.
As the echo of the last whack rose hollowly off Muffin’s back, the
skin of which was unbroken, though it was barred with white lines
that resembled flakes of peeled onion, Cutbill whirled him round
again, choking the yell he was in the act of delivering into a moan,
and ran him back to where he had first started. The ropes’ ends
were now dropped; every man seized his bucket, and as Muffin moved,
slowly confronted as before by Cutbill, who barricaded the way with
outstretched arms, striding backwards once again with Cape-Horn graces,
he received a deluge full in his face one after another till I thought
the very breath would have been washed out of his body.
‘Now cut down below and dry and clothe yourself,’ roared Finn, as the
last bucket was emptied over the shivering creature, ‘and the next
time, my lad, ye try any of your pranks upon e’er a man aboard this
wessel, whether he lives forward or whether he lives aft, we’ll send ye
aloft to that yardarm there with a rope round your neck.’
Cutbill whipped off his blanket and tore the oakum and cap off his
head. In a few brief moments the decks resounded with the slapping of
sailors swabbing up the wet; buckets were stowed away in their places,
the rope’s-ends collected, and in an incredibly short space of time
all was as though no such incident as I have related had happened, the
planks drying fast, some seamen aft spreading the awning, other fellows
at their several jobs in the rigging or on deck, just a grin now and
again passing amongst them, but no laughter and no talk, and the yacht
softly pushing forwards under the increasing glory of the sun fast
approaching his meridian.
‘We shall hear no more of Muffin, I think,’ said Wilfrid, showing
nothing of the excitement I had expected to find in him.
‘No,’ said I, with a yawn, and sickened somewhat by the business that
had just ended, ‘but all this sort of business doesn’t look like the
errand that has brought us out on to the face of these broad waters.’
‘Ay,’ said he, ‘but that errand was in jeopardy until this morning.’
He went to the rail and took a long thirsty look ahead. I waited
thinking he meant to return. Instead he folded his arms and continued
gazing, motionless, with eyes so intently fixed that I took a look too,
conceiving that he beheld something to fix his attention. A strange
expression of surprise entered his face, his brow lightened, an air
of eagerness sharpened his visage. ’Twas as likely as not that he saw
with his mind’s eye what he craved to behold in reality, and that the
vision a sudden craze had raised up before him was as actual to his
tainted imagination as if it lay bright to all hands upon the sea-line.
But I felt wearied to the heart, sick as from a sort of ground-swell
of emotion, worried with sharper longings to make an end of this idle
quest than had ever before visited me. The mere sight of Wilfrid’s
posture and face was enough to increase the fit of the blues upon me
just then, and I quietly slipped below for such sunny influence as was
to be got out of the presence of the sweet little woman in the cabin.