OFF THE ISLAND.
The brig slipped cleverly through the sea. It was like gently tearing
through silk with a razor to listen to the noise that floated aft from
her cutwater. When I guessed the island to be about three miles distant
I hove the vessel to. Yan Bol’s pipe shrilled with an edge that seemed
to fetch an echo from the furthest reaches of the dark sea. When the
sails were to the mast the brig lay motionless under her topsails and
standing jib.
I was about to go below to make a report to the captain, when the
lumping shadow of Bol’s bulky shape came along the deck.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Fielding,” said he, with a loutish lift of his hand in
the direction of his forehead, “how might der captain be, sir?”
“I am about to inquire.”
“Dere vhas noting wrong, all handts hope?”
“No; a severe bruise. Nothing more serious, I trust.”
“Vhas der brick to be hove-to all night?”
“Yaw.”
“To gomblete der vatering in der morning, I zooppose?”
“Yaw.”
“Vel, Mr. Fielding, der men hov oxed me to say dot if der captain vill
give leave and she vhas not too sick to be troubled by der noise, dey
vould like to celebrate der recovery of der dollars by two or dree
leedle songs before der vatch vhas called.”
This was another way of asking for a glass of grog for all hands. There
could be no objection. The men had been much exposed throughout the heat
of the day, and what could more righteously warrant a harmless festal
outburst than the recovery and transhipment of a hundred and forty cases
of Spanish dollars?
I entered the cabin. The lady Aurora was still at table, but had long
since ceased to eat. She lay back in her chair, her head drooped, her
hands folded in the posture of one waiting. When I entered she lifted
her head and smiled, her eyes brightened, her lips moved in the first
framing of a sentence; no word escaped her; she pointed to a seat, and
half rose from her own chair as though in doubt where I was used to sit.
I shook my head, nodded toward the door of the captain’s berth, then at
the clock under the skylight, holding up my fingers that she might guess
I would join her in ten minutes; and so I passed on, hot in the face,
and wondering whether it would be possible for me to communicate with
her without making a fool of myself--for a fool I felt every time I
gesticulated, which now I think must have been owing to my hatred of the
French.
Greaves lay in his bunk motionless, on his back, but he was free from
pain. Galloon sat on a chest near his head. I reported the affairs of
the brig, the distance and bearings of the island, and the like. He
asked how the weather looked.
“It is a heavenly night,” said I.
“It is hot in this hole,” said he. “Plague seize the awkwardness that
tripped me and has floored me thus! One knows not what to do for a
bruise of this sort. But patience--that’s the physic for every sort of
bruise, whether of the bones or of the soul. Jim tells me the lady has
supped.”
“She has, sir.”
“I am sorry for the poor thing; but where is the woman that does not
always want something more than she has? This time yesterday she would
have given her hair--angels alive! what would she _not_ have given? to
be as she now is, safe aboard such a vessel as this; and now that she is
safe aboard--rescued from raw terrapin and the risks of the society of
two Spanish sailors (and I must like their looks better before I give
them a handsomer name than _that_)--she craves to be with her
mother--very natural, of course--who is, probably, at the bottom of the
ocean, and she wants to be put ashore at Lima.”
I delivered the request of the men, as expressed by Yan Bol.
“Oh, yes. Let grog be served out to all hands; and the men may sing,
certainly. Disturb me? Not down here. And I like my people to be merry.
Fortune has fiddled to-day; let the beggars dance.”
Jimmy was in the cabin. I bade him carry a can of rum to the men, and
went on deck, receiving, without knowing how to answer, a look of
inquiry from the lady Aurora as I passed her.
“The men may make merry,” said I to Bol. “There is grog gone forward.
Tell them that the captain is free from pain; and will you keep a
lookout in the waist--or in the head if you like, ’tis all one--while I
get a bite in the cabin?”
“Yaw, dot vill I. By der vay, Mr. Fielding, vhas dere von hoondred und
dirty, or vhas dere von hoondred und twenty, cases prought on boardt?
Vertz swears to von hoondred und dirty; Friendt, von hoondred und
twenty. I myself gounts von hoondred und dirty-two. Dere vhas a leedle
vager in dis--shoost von day of a man’s grog, dot vhas all.”
“I made one hundred and forty cases,” said I. “But are they all
dollars?”
And bursting into a laugh, I left him to chew upon that thought, and
returned to the cabin.
I bowed to the lady, and took the chair I usually occupied at the table.
She rose, came to my side with a bottle of claret, poured some into a
glass, and made as if she would wait upon me. I was not a little
confounded. Her handsome presence, her fine person embarrassed me. My
career had but poorly qualified me for an easy address in conversing
with ladies. Much of my life had been spent upon the ocean, in the
society of some of the roughest of my own calling. For months at a
stretch I had never set eyes on a woman, and when I was ashore, whether
in foreign parts or in my own country, the girls I fell in with were not
of a sort to teach me to know exactly what to do when I chanced upon the
company of a Señorita Aurora.
I did the best I could with the imperfect and monkey-like speech of the
hands and shoulders to induce her to desist from waiting upon me and
return to her chair; and in this I was helped by the arrival of Jimmy,
to whom I gave several unnecessary orders, merely to emphasize to the
lady the desire. I gesticulated that she should sit, and cease to do me
more honor than I had impudence to support.
Presently she pointed to the bottle of claret--there stood but one
bottle on the table--and looked at me in silence, but with an expression
of such eloquence as Jimmy himself could not have missed the meaning of.
“Wine,” said I.
“Vine,” she repeated; and then to herself, “_Vino_--vine; _vino_--vine.”
She next pointed to the piece of salt beef.
“Meat,” said I.
“Meat--_carne_; meat--_carne_,” she repeated.
She pointed to several objects. I gave her the English names, and she
pronounced them deliberately, in a rich voice, invariably tacking the
Spanish equivalent to the word, as though she wished me to observe it. I
sat for about a quarter of an hour over my supper, and then, looking at
the clock significantly, and then up through the skylight, that she
might gather my intention, I arose, giving her a little bow. She rose
also, and, pointing upward, tapped her bosom, most clearly saying in
that way--“May I accompany you?”
“_Si, señorita_,” said I, expending, as I believe, in those words the
whole of my stock of her tongue.
A fine smile lighted up her face, and she addressed me; and what I
reckon she said was that it would not take me long to learn Spanish. She
picked up her hat, and then, looking at the table, pointed, and showing
her white teeth, said, “Bread--_pan_; meat--_carne_; vine--_vino_;” and
so on through the words I had interpreted, making not one blunder either
of pronunciation or indication of the object, saving that she called
wine _vine_, and ham _yam_.
I conducted her on deck; I believe Yan Bol had been surveying us from
the skylight; I perceived his big figure lurching forward when I
emerged, and his way of going made me suppose that he had been looking
through the skylight with his ear bent. “An old ape hath an old eye,”
thought I, as I watched him disappear in the darkness.
The crew were assembled on the forecastle and singing songs there. They
had rigged up two or three lanterns and sat in the light of them,
drinking rum-and-water out of mugs, and smoking pipes. A strange voice
was singing at that moment; I listened, and guessed it to be one of the
two Spaniards. The girl paused and listened too. She then ejaculated,
“_Ay! Ayme!_” and went to the rail, and gazed out to sea.
There blew a soft wind, cool with dew, out of the southwest. I looked
for the island, but the shadow of it was blent like smoke with the
darkness. The ripples ran in faint, small ivory curls, and the water was
full of roaming glows of phosphorus. The Spanish sailor ceased to sing.
A fiddle struck up, screwing and squeaking into a tune which immediately
set my toes tapping; a hoarse cough succeeded, and then rang out the
roaring voice of Travers:
“Eight bells had struck, and the starboard watch was called,
And the larboard watch they went to their hammocks down below;
Before seven bells the case it was quite altered,
And broad upon our lee-beam we sight a lofty foe.
Up hammocks and down chests,
Oh, the boatswain he piped next,
And the drummer he was called, at quarters for to beat.
We stowed our hammock well
Before we struck the bell,
And we bore down upon her with a full and flowing sheet!
(_Chorus_) And we bore down upon her with a full and flowing she-e-t!”
There were more verses. The chorus was always the same; it burst with
hurricane power from the lips of the English seamen, who sang with
passion, as though in defiance of the Dutch and Spanish listeners; and,
indeed, the matter of the song was headlong and irresistible. The lady
standing at the bulwark turned her head to listen, but when the noise
had ended she sank her face afresh, put her elbow on the rail, leaned
her chin upon her hand, and so gazed straight out into the darkness.
Much had she to think of, and her weight of memory would be the heavier,
and the color of it the sadder for her inability to communicate a
syllable of what worked in her brain, when she thought of the wreck in
which her mother may have perished, or of the livid cinder of an island
on which she had been imprisoned for four days, of her present
condition, and of her future. I wondered as I looked at her whether, if
she had my language or I hers, she would be impassioned and dramatic in
the recital of her adventures, or whether she would talk quietly,
describe without vehemence of speech or motion, prove herself, in short,
the dignified, apparently cold woman I found her in her compelled
silence or speech? This I wondered while I watched her with an irritable
yearning after words that I might speak. What had been the two sailors’
behavior to her on the island? Where and how had she slept of nights
there? What had been her sufferings in the open boat? Who was she? Was
she visiting Madrid to presently return to South America? She troubled
my curiosity. She was as a book written in an unintelligible tongue, but
curiously and beautifully embellished with plates which enable you to
guess at the choiceness and profusion of the feast you are unable to sit
at.
Now Yan Bol sang a song. His voice rent the night, and I observed the
lady erect her figure as though she hearkened with astonishment. I
walked aft to take a look at the compass, and to see that the binnacle
lamp was burning well.
“Who is this at the wheel?”
“Jorge, señor.”
“You don’t speak English, do you?”
The man understood me, and shook his head. “Pretty cool fists,” thought
I, “to send this poor devil aft, while _you_ enjoy yourselves with your
songs and pipes and grog! Here is a shipwrecked man; what care you? He
is a poor rag of a man, and very fit to be put upon; so it has been,
’Aft with ye and grip them spokes, while a better man than e’er a
mumping Spaniard in all Americay comes for’ard and enjoys himself.” But
it was not a matter to be mended while the fellows were in the full of
their jollification.
“_Como se llama esto?_” exclaimed a voice at my elbow, and a small hand,
gleaming with rings, was projected into the sheen of the binnacle lamp.
I started, conceiving that the lady was still at the bulwark rail, deep
in thought or listening to the singing.
“I do not understand,” said I.
“Ow you call, señor?” exclaimed Jorge.
She pointed to the compass, wanting its name in English.
I pronounced the word and she echoed it very clearly; then lightly
laying her hand upon my arm she took a few steps forward, and, pointing
to the sea, asked again in Spanish what that was called. In this way I
gave her some dozen words; and when I believed she was about to ask for
more terms she, with her hand laid lightly on my arm, led me back to the
wheel, and, pointing to the compass, pronounced its name in English,
then indicated the sea, uttering the word, and so she went through the
list she had got, blundering but once, at the word “star,” which she
pronounced _zar_.
By this time the singing had come to an end; the starbowlines, as the
starboard watch were then termed, were dropping below; the lady went to
the skylight and looked at the time; then, coming up to me, she put her
hand out and said:
“_Buenas noches, caballero._”
I answered, “Good-night, señorita.”
She shook her head; by the cabin lamplight flowing up through the open
frames I saw her smiling. She repeated, “Good-night, _caballero_” in
Spanish. Seeing her wish, I said good-night in the same language,
imitating her accent.
“_Es admirable!_” she exclaimed, and then went toward the companion way,
meaning to go below.
But I had resolved that this handsome, amiable, lovely Spanish lady
should be made as comfortable on board us as the resources of the brig
permitted, and I detained her by a polite gesture while I called to one
of the men forward to send Antonio aft. The fellow was turned in and he
kept us waiting ten minutes, during which the lady and I stood dumb as a
pair of ghosts, she no doubt wondering why I held her on deck, though
she did not exhibit the least uneasiness in her bearing so far as I was
able to make out in the starlit darkness. When Antonio appeared I
requested him to ask the lady if she wished for anything the brig could
supply her with. Antonio translated sulkily and sleepily.
“No, señor,” said he, “the lady wants for nothing. She is wearied and
entreats permission to retire to rest.”
I was convinced that the villain had manufactured this answer to enable
him to return speedily to his own bed. But I was helpless.
When the lady went below I told Antonio to send one of the men out of my
watch to relieve Jorge at the wheel, and I then descended into the cabin
to make a report to Greaves and to hear how he did. Jimmy was clearing
up for the night. I inquired after the captain, and the youth told me he
was asleep.
“Has he complained of pain?”
“No, master.”
“Where’s Galloon?”
“Along with the captain, master.”
“Has the dog been fed to-day?”
“Oh, yes. He had a copper-fastened buster at noon--a heart o’ oak
blow-out.”
“What did you give him?” said I, not doubting the lad’s affection for
the dog, but fearing that the poor brute might have been overlooked in
the hurry and excitement of the day.
“As much beefsteak as he could swallow, master.”
“There are no beefsteaks on board this ship,” said I. “If the captain
and Galloon were here we should have a concert. But I believe you when
you tell me you have fed the dog.”
“More’n he wanted, master.”
I bade him put a spare mattress into my bunk--we carried a stock of
spare bedding, a slop lot of Amsterdam stuff--and I then returned on
deck. Two hours of watch lay before me, and my heart went in a gallop
and my brain in a waltz through the earlier part of that time. I found
leisure for thought now; the hush of the ocean night was upon the brig;
no sound reached me from the forecastle. The stars shone brightly in the
dark sky, and many meteors of crystal white fires ran and broke over our
mastheads, bursting like rockets immeasurably distant, and leaving
glowing trails, which palpitated for some minutes.
The hope of the voyage was realized. Underfoot lay half a million of
dollars, and six thousand pounds of it were to be mine! Is it wonderful
that my spirits should have sang, that heart and brain should have
danced? But with this noble fulfillment of the half-hearted hope of many
weeks was mixed the romance of the presence of a handsome Spanish woman
in the ship. One thought of her as coming on board with the dollars--as
the princess of the island pining for civilization and shipping herself
and the treasure of her little dominion for the life and delights of a
great and populous city of the Old World. She it was, I think, that set
my brain a-waltzing, if it were the dollars which made my heart gallop
and my spirit shout within me.
I tell you it was an odd, intoxicating mixture of the picturesque, the
heroic, the romantic for a plain young sailor man like me to put his
lips to and drain down. To be sure the influence of the Spanish lady
upon me was no more than the influence of bright eyes, of white teeth,
of a fine person, of a head of magnificent hair. And what sort of
influence would that be, pray? Why, heart alive! Oh! what but a mingling
of light with thought, an aroma to haunt all fancy of other things,
giving a sparkle to the commonplace, putting foam and sweetness into
cups of flatness. Do you who are reading this know how deep, know by the
experience of months of weevils, corned horse, and the curses of
constipated sailors, how deep is the deep monotony of life on shipboard?
If the depth of this monotony be known to you, then will you understand
why it should be that the presence, yea, the presence _merely_ of a
handsome woman, her glances, the flash of her white teeth, the eloquent
hinting by movement and posture at a hidden shape of beauty, should
mingle a few threads of gold with the coarse gray, brine-drenched
worsted of the sailor’s daily life--of such a daily life as mine; should
touch with luster his mechanic habits and trains of thought as the wake
of his ship in the night of the tropic ocean is beautified with the
fiery seeds and radiant foam-bells of the sea glow.
And now I have intelligently and poetically explained why it was that I
walked out some time of the remainder of my watch on deck, with my blood
in a dance and my spirits singing clearly. But as I paced I grew grave
under the shadow of a fancy--not yet to call it fear. Suppose the crew
should rise and seize the brig? This was a _notion_ that was fixedly
present to Greaves during the outward passage, because he had _known_
when I doubted, that the half million of dollars were in the ship in the
cave, and upon that conviction he could base acute realization of what
_might_ happen when the money was transhipped. I, on the other hand, had
never seriously considered the possibility of piracy. The money must be
in the brig before I could solemnly compass all the responsibility its
possession implied. But the money was now on board, and six thousand
pounds of it were mine, and my spirits fell as I paced the quarter-deck
looking around the wide gloom and saying to myself: “Suppose this
treasure of half a million of dollars should presently start the men
into a determination to seize the brig! There were but two of
us--Greaves and I--at our end of the ship. Could we count upon Jimmy? At
the other end was now an addition of two Spaniards--cut-throats at heart
for all one knew--with knives as thirsty for blood as an English
sailor’s throat for rum.”
Why should I have thought thus? Nothing whatever had happened to put
fancies of this sort into my head. Was it not the being able to
understand that thirty thousand of the thousands in the lazarette were
to be mine that set me reflecting with a sudden dark anxiety, when the
question arose: Suppose the crew should rise and take the brig?
The needy traveler, serene and gay,
Walks the wild heath, and sings his toil away.
Does envy seize thee? Crush the unbraiding joy,
Increase his riches, and his peace destroy:
New fears in dire vicissitude invade,
The rustling brake alarms, and quivering shade;
Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief,
One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief.
There was comfort, however, if not safety in this consideration: not a
man forward, from Bol down to Jimmy, had any knowledge of navigation.
What, then, would they be able to do with the brig if they seized her?
They might spread a chart of the world and say: “Here we are _now_, and
there is America, and there are the East Indies, and down there is New
Holland, and up there is China, and if we steadily head in one
direction, no matter at what point of the compass the bowsprit looks, we
are bound to run something down, whether it be a continent or one of the
poles.”
Well, that is how sailors might talk in a book designed for the young.
Before the seamen forward rose and seized this brig, that was now a very
valuable bottom, as cargoes then went, they would ask of one another:
“What are we going to do with the ship when we have her? Where are we
going to carry her, and, having hit on a spot, how are we going to
navigate her there?” This I chose to think, and, indeed, I had no doubt
of it, and I drew comfort from the conclusion; but all the same, my
spirits, having sunk, remained low throughout the rest of my watch.
I was uneasy. I caught myself arresting my steps when my walk carried me
toward the gangway, whenever I heard the sound of a man’s voice. O God,
to think of what a hell of passions this tiny speck of brig was capable
of holding! To think of the large and bloody tragedy this minim of the
building yards could find a theater for! Never had I so utterly felt
human insignificance at sea as I did this night, when I looked over the
rail and searched the smoky void of the horizon for the smudge of the
island, till, for the relief of my sight, I watched a star.
“I’ll tell you what it is, William Fielding,” said I to myself, “your
blood is over-heated, your spirits are over-excited. By this picking up
to-day of a fortune--a noble fortune to you, my boy--of six thousand
pounds, and by the sudden and novel companionship of a dark and splendid
lady, the pulses of your body have been set a-hammering too fast. They
must sleep, or excitement will make you sick.”
Eight bells were struck. Bol came along, and I went below to see if the
captain was awake. He addressed me on my entering his cabin. I reported
the little there was to tell. He said that the pain in his side was
easier; that he could move without the anguish of the afternoon.
“I shall lie by all night,” said he, “and hope to be up and about again
in the morning.”
He then inquired about the situation of the island, the appearance of
the weather, the sail under which the brig lay, whether any vessel had
hove in sight, and added:
“If you should awaken in your watch, go on deck and take a look round;
though I trust Bol.”
I went on deck to give the Dutchman the bearings of the island and our
distance from it. He was sullen with sleep. Likely as not, the can which
Jimmy had filled contained more liquor than should have gone forward at
once.
“Keep a bright lookout,” said I. “There may come a shift of wind that
will put the island under our lee, with nobody to guess that it’s at
hand until we’re upon it.”
“Ow, I’ll keep a bright lookout,” he answered; “but vould to Cott dere
vhas no more lookouts for me! I vhas dam’d sick of looking out. I hov
been looking out, by tunder, for ofer twenty year, and hov seen noting
till dis day; and den she vhas to be carried round der Hoorn to
Amsterdam before she vhas all right.”
I went to my berth. Excitement had subsided since my few words with
Greaves. I pitched into my bunk, and was sound asleep in a minute. I was
awakened by the weight of a heavy hand and by the sound of a deep voice.
“Mr. Fielding, I do not like der look of der veather. I believe dere
vhas a gale of vind on her vhay here.”
“What is the hour, Bol?”
“She vhas a quarter-past dree.”
I went on deck, and observed that the sky in the north was as black as
pitch. Overhead the stars were dim and few, but they burnt freely and
brightly in the south. I caught a moaning tone in the wind, that had
considerably freshened since I left the deck; and the brig, hove-to
under whole topsails, was lying over somewhat steeply, with the seas to
windward slapping at her rounded side, hissing off in pale yeasty
sheets, and flickering snappishly into the gloom to leeward.
“Call all hands and close-reef both topsails,” said I.
I ran below to report to Greaves. A bracket-lamp burnt feebly in his
cabin. He was wide awake, and his dark eyes, with the glance of the
small yellow flame upon them, looked twice their usual size.
“It is coming on to blow, sir.”
“Well, snug down and put yourself to leeward of the island, anyhow.”
“Shall I heave her to, then, for watering?”
“Judge for yourself. The brig is in your hands. If it comes hard let her
go. Keep a sharp lookout for the island. Have you its bearings?”
“Bol should have them,” said I. “I have been turned in since midnight.”
I regained the deck. The crew were yawling at the reef-tackles and
singing out at the main braces to trim the yards for reefing. There was
much noise. The wind was steadily freshening, and through the groans and
pipings of it aloft ran the sharp, salt hiss of small seas, bursting
suddenly and with temper under the level lash of the wind. I shouted to
Bol, who came out of the blackness in the waist.
“Where do you make the island?”
“She’ll bear sou’east,” he answered.
I stepped to the compass.
“There’s been a shift of wind since midnight. It was nor’-nor’west, and
now it’s come north. Since when?”
“Ow, she freshened out of der north in a leedle squall. Dot vhas vhen I
called you.”
I swept the wide, dark reach of the southern line of sea with the glass;
but had the island been as big as England it would have been sunk in the
peculiar smoky thickness of the dusk that yet, strangely enough, formed
a clear atmosphere for the stars to shine through. I say I swept the
ocean with the glass, but to no purpose. An old sailor once laughed at
me for using an ordinary day telescope at night. I told him that what
would magnify a colored object would magnify a shadow; and he afterward
owned that he talked out of prejudice; had looked through a telescope
since in the darkness and discovered that I was right.
The men reefed the topsails smartly, and not being able to see the
island, and not choosing to trust Bol’s conjectures as to its situation,
I headed the brig due east, setting the reefed foresail and trysail
along with some fore-and-aft canvas to give her heels. It blackened
rapidly overhead; every star perished. In a few minutes there was not a
light visible up in God’s heights; all the fire was below, and the sea
was beginning to run in flames like oil burning. This shining in the sea
was a blindness to the sight, for it brought the sky down black as a
midnight fog to the very sip and spit of the surge. We held on, crushing
through it, for the wind having swiftly swept up into a fresh breeze,
had on a sudden roared into half a gale, and the brig was smoking
forward as she plunged, with a heel to leeward when the sea took her,
that brought the white and fiery smother within hand-reach of the
gangway rails.
I stood at the binnacle; Bol was at my side; two hands were stationed on
the lookout; the crew remained on deck. They had got to hear that Bol
had lost the bearings of the island, and though the watch might be
called, no man was going below on such a night of sudden tempest as
this, with a hurricane away behind the windward blackness, for all we
knew, and this side the horizon as deadly a heap of fangs as ever bit a
ship in twain.
“I vhas glad if he lightened,” said Bol. “It vhas strange if der island
did not show on der starboard quarter there.”
“It was strange,” said I, mimicking him in my temper, “that you should
fall asleep in your watch on deck with land close aboard ye.”
“By Cott, den----”
Rain at that instant struck the brig in a whole sheet of water. It came
along with a roar and shriek of wind and wet. The cataractal drench was
swept in steam off our decks by the black squall it blew along in; the
fierce slap of it fired the sea, and we washed through an ocean of
light, pale and green.
“By Cott, den----” bawled Bol.
“Breakers ahead!” roared a voice from the forecastle.
“Breakers on the lee-bow!” cried another voice.
It was like being blinded and shocked by lightning to hear _those_
cries. They were paralyzing. For an instant I looked and listened idly.
Then--“Hard a-starboard every spoke! Hard a-starboard every spoke!” I
shouted, and flung myself upon the wheel to help the men there, roaring
meanwhile to Bol to call hands to the main braces and to get the fore
tack and sheet raised. He rushed forward, thundering. Never had Dutchman
the like of such a voice as Bol.
The brig was in the wind; she was pitching furiously head to sea, the
canvas thrashing in the blackness, the gale splitting in lunatic shrieks
upon every rope and spar, the strange, hoarse shouts of the seamen
rising and falling in shuddering notes upon the clamor that surged above
as the water rolled below.
I had fled from the wheel to the side to look for the land, and was
straining my vision against the wet obscurity in vain search of the
white water of breakers, or of the overhanging midnight shadow that
should denote the island close aboard, when--the brig struck! a violent
shock ran through the length of her; every timber thrilled as though a
mine had been sprung under her keel. “O God, that it should have _come_
to it!” I thought.
“Round with that fore yard, men,” I roared; “don’t let her hang! _don’t_
let her hang!” Again the brig struck. A sort of raging chorus full of
curses and the passion of terror broke from the seamen as they dragged.
The rain cleared as suddenly as it had begun, the brig’s head was paying
off, and my heart swelled in thanks as she listed over to larboard,
trembling to a blow of sea that rose in a mountain of milk upon her
bow.
“Where are you, Fielding?” shouted the voice of Greaves.
“Here, sir.”
He was standing in the hatch, gripping the companion for support, but
his voice had the old ring. “What have you done with the brig?”
“White water was just now reported. I don’t see it. I don’t see the
land--yet we struck.”
“No,” he answered coolly, “it was we who were struck. There is no land.
Look there--and there--and there! Those are your shoals!”
At the moment of his speaking one of the sublimest, most beautiful
sights which the ocean, prodigal as she is in marvels of terror and
splendor, can offer to the sight of man was visible round about us. In
at least a dozen different parts of the blackness that stooped to the
luminous peaks of the seas I beheld flaming fountains, glittering lines
rising and feathering to the gale, coming and going, blowing pale and
yet splendid--every jet so luminous that the scoring of the darkness by
it was as defined as the track of a rocket. They soared and fell in a
breathing way, some near, some afar, ever varying their distances, and
one snored like an escape of steam within a biscuit-toss of our weather
beam, and the fiery shower flashed on the wind betwixt our masts with a
hiss like a volley of shot tearing the surface of water.
“A school of whales,” shouted Greaves. “One of them plumped into us.
Now, get your topsail aback, Fielding, get your topsail aback, and stop
her till the beasts go clear, or they’ll be butting us into staves. Jump
for the well and get a cast.”
The men, hearing their captain’s voice, were quieted. They came to the
braces, and, without disorder or any note of cursing terror in their
voices, brought the brig to a halt. I dropped the rod and found the
vessel stanch; sounded the well four or five times, and always found her
stanch. The wondrous luminous appearances vanished, and the blacker
hours of the night before the dawn closed upon us in an impenetrable
dye, but with less weight in the wind and with less fire in the sea.
“Furl the foresail and let the brig lie as she is till dawn,” said
Greaves, and walked slowly from one side of the deck to the other,
looking forth, pausing long to look; then, with slow motions, he went
below, and stretched himself at full length upon a locker, with a hand
upon his side.
My watch came round at four; but, in any case, I should have watched the
brig through the darkness. Some while before dawn the wind was spent,
the stars glowing, the sea fast slackening its heave, with the muck that
had troubled and drenched us settling away in a shadow south and west.
At last broke the day. Melancholy is daybreak at sea. There is nothing
sadder in nature; nothing that so sinks the spirits of the watcher who
suffers himself to be visited by the full spirit of the sight. On shore
there is the chirrup and harmonies of birds, the rosy streaking of the
sky over the hilltops; the vane of the church spire burns, the cock
crows heartily, the farmyard is in motion, the smell of the country
rises in an incense as the sun springs into the sky. But at sea the cold
iron-gray of the breaking morn is reflected in the boundless waste.
There is nothing to catch the light of the springing sun save the
clouds. The vast solitude brims into the unbroken distance, and cold is
the ashen sky and cold the picture of the ship, as it steals out of the
darkness of the night. The melancholy, however, is but in the dawn’s
beginning. When the sun rises, there is a splendor of colors at sea
which you will not find ashore. The ocean is a mirror that reverberates
the light of day. Times are when the deep flings its own prismatic
glories upon the sky. This have I marked at sunrise, when the flash of
the luminary has sunk into the heart of the sea, when all is blueness
and dazzle below, and, above, a sky of high-compacted cloud, delicate as
flowers and figures of frost and snow upon a windowpane, charged with
the colors of the great eye of ocean looking up at it.
“There’s the island,” said I to myself.
I snatched up the glass, and resolved the tiny piece of shading upon the
horizon into the proportions of the ugly rock of cinders. It was twelve
or fourteen miles distant down on the lee quarter.
“The deuce!” thought I. “What has been our drift? Where has the brig
been running to? And yet Greaves told me he could trust Bol!”
I looked through the skylight, and immediately the captain, who lay upon
the locker, opened his eyes and fastened them upon me.
“The island is in sight, sir.”
“How far distant?”
I made answer. He asked a few questions, then bade me shift the brig’s
helm for the rock to complete our watering. Twenty minutes later we were
standing once more for the island, with all plain sail heaped upon the
brig, and a quiet air of wind blowing dead on end over the taffrail.