“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
_Macbeth._
The first watch of the night was marked by no change. Wilder had joined
his passengers, cheerful, and with that air of enjoyment which every
officer of the sea is more or less wont to exhibit, when he has
disengaged his vessel from the dangers of the land, and has fairly
launched her on the trackless and fathomless abyss of the ocean. He no
longer alluded to the hazards of the passage, but strove, by the
thousand nameless assiduities which his station enabled him to man
fest, to expel all recollection of had passed from their minds. Mrs
Wyllys lent herself to his evident efforts to remove their
apprehensions and one, ignorant of what had occurred between them,
would have thought the little party, around the evening’s repast, was a
contented and unsuspecting group of travellers, who had commenced their
enterprise under the happiest auguries.
Still there was that, in the thoughtful eye and clouded brow of the
governess, as at times she turned her bewildered look on our
adventurer, which denoted a mind far from being at ease. She listened
to the gay and peculiar, because professional, sallies of the young
mariner, with smiles that were indulgent while they were melancholy, as
though his youthful spirits, exhibited as they were by touches of a
humour that was thoroughly and quaintly nautical recalled familiar, but
sad, images to her fancy Gertrude had less alloy in her pleasure. Home,
with a beloved and indulgent father, were before her; and she felt,
while the ship yielded to each fresh impulse of the wind, as if another
of those weary miles which had so long separated them, was already
conquered.
During these short but pleasant hours, the adventurer who had been so
oddly called into the command of the Bristol trader, appeared in a new
character. Though his conversation was characterized by the frank
manliness of a seaman, it was, nevertheless tempered by the delicacy of
perfect breeding. The beautiful mouth of Gertrude often struggled to
conceal the smiles which played around her lips and dimpled her cheeks,
like a soft air ruffling the surface of some limpid spring; and once or
twice, when the humour of Wilder came unexpectedly across her youthful
fancy, she was compelled to yield to the impulses of an irresistible
merriment.
One hour of the free intercourse of a ship can do more towards
softening the cold exterior in which the world encrusts the best of
human feelings, than weeks of the unmeaning ceremonies of the land. He
who has not felt this truth, would do well to distrust his own
companionable qualities. It would seem that man, when he finds himself
in the solitude of the ocean, feels the deepest how great is his
dependancy on others for happiness. Then it is that he yields to
sentiments with which he trifled, in the wantonness of abundance, and
is glad to seek relief in the sympathies of his kind. A community of
hazard makes a community of interest, whether person or property
composes the stake. Perhaps a meta-physical and a too literal, reasoner
might add, that, as in such situations each one is conscious the
condition and fortunes of his neighbour are the mere indexes of his
own, they acquire value in his eyes from their affinity to himself. If
this conclusion be true, Providence has happily so constituted the best
of the species, that the sordid feeling is too latent to be discovered;
and least of all was any one of the three, who passed the first hours
of the night around the cabin table of the “Royal Caroline,” to be
included in so selfish a class. The nature of the intercourse, which
had rendered the first hours of their acquaintance so singularly
equivocal, appeared to be forgotten in the freedom of the moment; or,
if it were remembered at all, it merely served to give the young seaman
additional interest in the eyes of the females, as much by the mystery
of the circumstances as by the evident concern he had manifested in
their behalf.
The bell had struck eight; and the hoarse long-drawn call, which
summoned the sleepers to the deck, was heard, before either of the
party seemed aware of the lateness of the hour.
“It is the middle watch,” said Wilder, smiling at he observed that
Gertrude started at the strange sounds, and sat listening, like a timid
doe that catches the note of the hunter’s horn. “We seamen are not
always musical, as you may judge by the strains of the spokesman on
this occasion. There are, however, ears in the ship to whom his notes
are even more discordant than to your own.”
“You mean the sleepers?” said Mrs Wyllys.
“I mean the watch below. There is nothing so sweet to the foremast
mariner as his sleep; for it is the most precarious of all his
enjoyments: on the other hand, perhaps, it is the most treacherous
companion the Commander knows.”
“And why is the rest of the superior so much less grateful than that of
the common man?”
“Because he pillows his head on responsibility.”
“You are young, Mr Wilder, for a trust like this you bear.”
“It is a service which makes us all prematurely old.”
“Then, why not quit it?” said Gertrude, a little hastily.
“Quit it!” he replied, gazing at her intently, for an instant, while he
suspended his reply. “It would be to me like quitting the air we
breathe.”
“Have you so long been devoted to your profession?” resumed Mrs Wyllys,
bending her thoughtful eye, from the ingenuous countenance of her
pupil, once more towards the features of him she addressed.
“I have reason to think I was born on the sea.”
“Think! You surely know your birth-place.”
“We are all of us dependant on the testimony of others,” said Wilder,
smiling, “for the account of that important event. My earliest
recollections are blended with the sight of the ocean, and I can hardly
say that I am a creature of the land at all.”
“You have, at least, been fortunate in those who have had the charge to
watch over your education and your younger days.”
“I have!” he answered, with strong emphasis. Then, after shading his
face an instant with his hands, he arose, and added, with a melancholy
smile: “And now to my last duty for the twenty four hours. Have you a
disposition to look at the night? So skilful and so stout a sailor
should not seek her birth, without passing an opinion on the weather.”
The governess took his offered arm, and, with his aid, ascended the
stairs of the cabin in silence, each seemingly finding sufficient
employment in meditation. She was followed by the more youthful, and
therefore more active Gertrude, who joined them as they stood together,
on the weather side of the quarter-deck.
The night was rather misty than dark. A full and bright moon had
arisen; but it pursued its path, through the heavens, behind a body of
dusky clouds, that was much too dense for any borrowed rays to
penetrate. Here and there, a straggling gleam appeared to find its way
through a covering of vapour less dense than the rest, and fell upon
the water like the dim illumination of a distant taper. As the wind was
fresh and easterly, the sea seemed to throw upward from its agitated
surface, more light, than it received; long lines of white, glittering
foam following each other, and lending, at moments, a distinctness to
the surface of the waters, that the heavens themselves wanted. The ship
was bowed low on its side; and, as it entered each rolling swell of the
ocean, a wide crescent of foam was driven ahead, as if the element
gambolled along its path. But, though the time was propitious, the wind
not absolutely adverse, and the heavens rather gloomy than threatening,
an uncertain (and, to a landsman, it might seem an unnatural) light
gave to the view a character of the wildest loneliness.
Gertrude shuddered, on reaching the deck, while she murmured an
expression of strange delight. Even Mrs Wyllys gazed upon the dark
waves, that were heaving and setting in the horizon, around which was
shed most of that radiance that seemed so supernatural, with a deep
conviction that she was now entirely in the hands of the Being who had
created the waters and the land. But Wilder looked upon the scene as
one fastens his gaze on a placid sky. To him the view possessed neither
novelty, nor dread, nor charm. Not so, however, with his more youthful
and slightly enthusiastic companion. After the first sensations of awe
had a little subsided, she exclaimed, in the fullest ardour of
admiration,—
“One such sight would repay a month of imprisonment in a ship! You must
find deep enjoyment in these scenes, Mr Wilder; you, who have them
always at command.”
“Yes, yes; there is pleasure to be found in them, without doubt, I
would that the wind had veer’d a point or two! I like not that sky, nor
yonder misty horizon, nor this breeze hanging so dead at east.”
“The vessel makes great progress,” returned Mrs Wyllys, calmly,
observing that the young man spoke without consciousness, and fearing
the effect of his words on the mind of her pupil. “If we are going on
our course, there is the appearance of a quick and prosperous passage.”
“True!” exclaimed Wilder, as though he had just become conscious of her
presence. “Quite probable and very true. Mr Earing, the air is getting
too heavy for that duck. Hand all your top-gallant sails, and haul the
ship up closer. Should the wind hang here at east-with-southing, we may
want what offing we can get.”
The mate replied in the prompt and obedient manner which seamen use to
their superiors; and; lifter scanning the signs of the weather for a
moment, he promptly proceeded to see the order executed. While the men
were on the yards furling the light canvas, the females walked apart,
leaving the young Commander to the uninterrupted discharge of his duty.
But Wilder, so far from deeming it necessary to lend his attention to
so ordinary a service, the moment after he had spoken, seemed perfectly
unconscious that the mandate had issued from his mouth. He stood on the
precise spot where the view of the ocean and the heavens had first
caught his eye, and his gaze still continued fastened on the aspect of
the two elements. His look was always in the direction of the wind,
which, though far from a gale, often fell upon the sails of the ship in
heavy and sullen puffs. After a long and anxious examination, the young
mariner muttered his thoughts to himself, and commenced pacing the deck
with rapid footsteps. Still he would make sudden and short pauses, and
again rivet his gaze on the point of the compass whence the blasts came
sweeping across the waste of waters; as though he distrusted the
weather, and would fain cause his keen glance to penetrate the gloom of
night, in order to relieve some painful doubts. At length his step
became arrested, in one of those quick turns that he made at each end
of his narrow walk. Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude stood nigh, and were
enabled to read something of the anxious character of his countenance,
as his eye became suddenly fastened on a distant point of the ocean,
though in a quarter exactly opposite to that whither his former looks
had been directed.
“Do you so much distrust the weather?” asked the governess, when she
thought his examination had endured long enough to become ominous of
evil.
“One looks not to leeward for the signs of the weather, in a breeze
like this,” was the answer.
“What see you, then, to fasten your eye on thus intently?”
Wilder slowly raised his arm, and was about to point with his finger,
when the limb suddenly fell again.
“It was delusion!” he muttered, turning quickly on his heel, and pacing
the deck still more rapidly than ever.
His companions watched the extraordinary, and apparently unconscious,
movements of the young Commander, with amazement, and not without a
little secret dismay. Their own looks wandered over the expanse of
troubled water to leeward, but nowhere could they see more than the
tossing element, capped with those ridges of garish foam which served
only to make the chilling waste more dreary and imposing.
“We see nothing,” said Gertrude, when Wilder again stopped in his walk,
and once more gazed, as before, on the seeming void.
“Look!” he answered, directing their eyes with his finger: “Is there
nothing there?”
“Nothing.”
“You look into the sea. Here, just where the heavens and the waters
meet; along that streak of misty light, into which the waves are
tossing themselves, like little hillocks on the land. There; now ’tis
smooth again, and my eyes did not deceive me. By heavens, it is a
ship!”
“Sail, ho!” shouted a voice, from out atop, which sounded in the ears
of our adventurer like the croaking of some sinister spirit, sweeping
across the deep.
“Whereaway?” was the stern demand.
“Here on our lee-quarter, sir,” returned the seaman at the top of his
voice. “I make her out a ship close-hauled; but, for an hour past, she
has looked more like mist than a vessel.”
“Ay, he is right,” muttered Wilder; “and yet ’tis a strange thing that
a ship should be just there.”
“And why stranger than that we are here?”
“Why!” said the young man, regarding Mrs Wyllys, who had put this
question, with a perfectly unconscious eye. “I say, ’tis strange she
should be there. I would she were steering northward.”
“But you give no reason. Are we always to have warnings from you,” she
continued, with a smile, “without reasons? Do you deem us so utterly
unworthy of a reason? or do you think us incapable of thought on a
subject connected with the sea? You have failed to make the essay, and
are too quick to decide. Try us this once. We may possibly deceive your
expectations.”
Wilder laughed faintly, and bowed, as if he recollected himself. Still
he entered into no explanation; but again turned his gaze on the
quarter of the ocean where the strange sail was said to be. The females
followed his example, but ever with the same want of success. As
Gertrude expressed her disappointment aloud, the soft tones of the
complainant found their way to the ears of our adventurer.
“You see the streak of dim light,” he said, again pointing across the
waste. “The clouds have lifted a little there, but the spray of the sea
is floating between us and the opening. Her spars look like the
delicate work of a spider, against the sky, and yet you see there are
all the proportions, with the three masts, of a noble ship.”
Aided by these minute directions, Gertrude at length caught a glimpse
of the faint object, and soon succeeded in giving the true direction to
the look of her governess also. Nothing was visible but the dim
outline, not unaptly described by Wilder himself assembling a spider’s
web.
“It must be a ship!” said Mrs Wyllys; “but at a vast distance.”
“Hum! Would it were farther. I could wish that vessel any where but
there.”
“And why not there? Have you reason to dread an enemy has been waiting
for us in this particular spot?”
“No: Still I like not her position. Would to God she were going north!”
“It is some vessel from the port of New York steering to his Majesty’s
islands in the Caribbean sea.”
“Not so,” said Wilder, shaking his head; “no vessel, from under the
heights of Never-sink, could gain that offing with a wind like this!”
“It is then some ship going into the same place, or perhaps bound for
one of the bays of the Middle Colonies!”
“Her road would be too plain to be mistaken. See; the stranger is close
upon a wind.”
“It may be a trader, or a cruiser coming _from_ one of the places I
have named.”
“Neither. The wind has had too much northing, the last two days, for
that.”
“It is a vessel that we have overtaken, and which has come out of the
waters of Long Island Sound.”
“That, indeed, may we yet hope,” muttered Wilder in a smothered voice.
The governess, who had put the foregoing questions in order to extract
from the Commander of the “Caroline” the information he so
pertinaciously withheld, had now exhausted all her own knowledge on the
subject, and was compelled to await his further pleasure in the matter,
or resort to the less equivocal means of direct interrogation. But the
busy state of Wilder’s thoughts left her no immediate opportunity to
pursue the subject. He soon summoned the officer of the watch to his
councils, and they consulted together, apart, for many minutes. The
hardy, but far from quick witted, seaman who tilled the second station
in the ship saw nothing so remarkable in the appearance of a strange
sail, in the precise spot where the dim and nearly aerial image of the
unknown vessel was still visible; nor did he hesitate to pronounce her
some honest trader bent, like themselves, on her purpose of lawful
commerce. It would seem that his Commander thought otherwise, as will
appear by the short dialogue that passed between them.
“Is it not extraordinary that she should be just there?” demanded
Wilder, after they had, each in turn, made a closer examination of the
faint object, by the aid of an excellent night-glass.
“She would be better off, here,” returned the literal seaman, who only
had an eye for the nautical situation of the stranger; “and we should
be none the worse for being a dozen leagues more to the eastward,
ourselves. If the wind holds here at east-by-south-half-south we shall
have need of all that offing. I got jammed once between Hatteras and
the Gulf”—
“But, do you not perceive that she is where no vessel could or ought to
be, unless she has run exactly the same course with ourselves?”
interrupted Wilder. “Nothing, from any harbour south of New York, could
have such northing, as the wind has been; while nothing, from the
Colony of York would stand on this tack, if bound east; or would be
here, if going southward.”
The plain-going ideas of the honest mate were open to a reasoning which
the reader may find a little obscure: for his mind contained a sort of
chart of the ocean, to which he could at any time refer, with a proper
discrimination between the various winds, and all the different points
of the compass. When properly directed, he was not slow to see, as a
mariner, the probable justice of his young Commander’s inferences; and
then wonder, in its turn began to take possession of his more obtuse
faculties.
“It is downright unnatural, truly, that the fellow should be there!” he
replied, shaking his head, but meaning no more than that it was
entirely out of the order of nautical propriety; “I see the philosophy
of what you say, Captain Wilder; and little do I know how to explain
it. It is a ship, to a mortal certainty!”
“Of that there is no doubt. But a ship most strangely placed!”
“I doubled the Good-Hope in the year ’46,” continued the other, “and
saw a vessel lying, as it might be, here, on our weather-bow—which is
just opposite to this fellow, since he is on our lee-quarter—but there
I saw a ship standing for an hour across our fore-foot, and yet, though
we set the azimuth, not a degree did he budge, starboard or larboard,
during all that time, which, as it was heavy weather, was, to say the
least, something out of the common order.”
“It was remarkable!” returned Wilder, with an air so vacant, as to
prove that he rather communed with himself than attended to his
companion.
“There are mariners who say that the flying Dutchman cruises off that
Cape, and that he often gets on the weather side of a stranger, and
bears down upon him, like a ship about to lay him aboard. Many is the
King’s cruiser, as they say, that has turned her hands up from a sweet
sleep, when the look-outs have seen a double decker coming down in the
night, with ports up, and batteries lighted but then this can’t be any
such craft as the Dutchman, since she is, at the most, no more than a
large sloop of war, if a cruiser at all.”
“No, no,” said Wilder, “this can never be the Dutchman.”
“Yon vessel shows no lights; and, for that matter, she has such a misty
look, that one might well question its being a ship at all. Then,
again, the Dutchman is always seen to windward, and the strange sail we
have here lies broad upon our lee-quarter!”
“It is no Dutchman,” said Wilder, drawing a long breath, like a man
awaking from a trance. “Main topmast-cross-trees, there!”
The man who was stationed aloft answered to this hail in the customary
manner, the short conversation that succeeded being necessarily
maintained in shouts, rather than in speeches.
“How long have you seen the stranger?” was the first demand of Wilder.
“I have just come aloft, sir; but the man I relieved tells me more than
an hour.”
“And has the man you relieved come down? or what is that I see sitting
on the lee side of the mast-head?”
“’Tis Bob Brace, sir; who says he cannot sleep, and so he stays upon
the yard to keep me company.”
“Send the man down. I would speak to him.”
While the wakeful seaman was descending the rigging, the two officers
continued silent, each seeming to find sufficient occupation in musing
on what had already passed.
“And why are you not in your hammock?” said Wilder, a little sternly,
to the man who, in obedience to his order, had descended to the
quarter-deck.
“I am not sleep-bound, your Honour, and therefore I had the mind to
pass another hour aloft.”
“And why are you, who have two night-watches to keep already, so
willing to enlist in a third?”
“To own the truth, sir, my mind has been a little misgiving about this
passage, since the moment we lifted our anchor.”
Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, who were auditors, insensibly drew nigher, to
listen, with a species of interest which betrayed itself by the
thrilling of nerves, and an accelerated movement of the pulse.
“And you have your doubts, sir!” exclaimed the Captain, in a tone of
slight contempt. “Pray, may I ask what you have seen, on board here, to
make you distrust the ship.”
“No harm in asking, your Honour,” returned the seaman, crushing the hat
he held between two hands that had a gripe like a couple of vices, “and
so I hope there is none in answering. I pulled an oar in the boat after
the old man this morning, and I cannot say I like the manner in which
he got from the chase. Then, there is something in the ship to leeward
that comes athwart my fancy like a drag, and I confess, your Honour,
that I should make but little head-way in a nap, though I should try
the swing of a hammock.”
“How long is it since you made the ship to leeward?” gravely demanded
Wilder.
“I will not swear that a real living ship has been made out at all,
sir. Something I did see, just before the bell struck seven, and there
it is, just as clear and just as dim, to be seen now by them that have
good eyes.”
“And how did she bear when you first saw her?”
“Two or three points more toward the beam than it is now.”
“Then we are passing her!” exclaimed Wilder, with a pleasure too
evident to be concealed.
“No, your Honour, no. You forget, sir, the ship has come closer to the
wind since the middle watch was set.”
“True,” returned his young Commander, in a tone of disappointment;
“true, very true. And her bearing has not changed since you first made
her?”
“Not by compass, sir. It is a quick boat that, or would never hold such
way with the ‘Royal Caroline,’ and that too upon a stiffened bow-line,
which every body knows is the real play of this ship.”
“Go, get you to your hammock. In the morning we may have a better look
at the fellow.”
“And—you hear me, sir,” added the attentive mate, “do not keep the
men’s eyes open below, with a tale as long as the short cable, but take
your own natural rest, and leave all others, that have clear
consciences, to do the same.”
“Mr Earing,” said Wilder, as the seaman reluctantly proceeded towards
his place of rest, “we will bring the ship upon the other tack, and get
more easting, while the land is so far from us. This course will be
setting us upon Hatteras. Besides”——
“Yes, sir,” the mate replied, observing his superior to hesitate, “as
you were saying,—besides, no one can foretel the length of a gale, nor
the real quarter it may come from.”
“Precisely. No one can answer for the weather. The men are scarcely in
their hammocks; turn them up at once, sir, before their eyes are heavy,
and we will bring the ship’s head the other way.”
The mate instantly sounded the well-known cry, which summoned the watch
below to the assistance of their shipmates on the deck. Little delay
occurred, and not a word was uttered, but the short, authoritative
mandates which Wilder saw fit to deliver from his own lips. No longer
pressed up against the wind, the ship, obedient to her helm, gracefully
began to incline her head from the waves, and to bring the wind abeam.
Then, instead of breasting and mounting the endless hillocks, like a
being that toiled heavily along its path, she fell into the trough of
the sea, from which she issued like a courser, who, have conquered an
ascent, shoots along the track with redoubled velocity. For an instant
the wind appeared to have lulled, though the wide ridge of foam which
rolled along on each side the vessel’s bows, sufficiently proclaimed
that she was skimming lightly before it. In another moment, the tall
spars began to incline again to the west, and the vessel came swooping
up to the wind, until her plunges and shocks against the seas were
renewed as violently as before. When every yard and sheet were properly
trimmed to meet the new position of the vessel, Wilder turned anxiously
to get a glimpse of the stranger. A minute was lost in ascertaining the
precise spot where he ought to appear; for, in such a chaos of water,
and with no guide but the judgment, the eye was apt to deceive itself,
by referring to the nearer and more familiar objects by which the
spectator was surrounded.
“The stranger has vanished!” said Earing, with a voice in whose tones
mental relief and distrust were both, at the same moment, oddly
manifesting themselves.
“He should be on this quarter; but I confess I see him not!”
“Ay, ay, sir; this is the way that the midnight cruiser off the Hope is
said to come and go. There are men who have seen that vessel shut in by
a fog, in as fine a star-light night as was ever met in a southern
latitude. But then this cannot be the Dutchman, since it is so many
long leagues from the pitch of the Cape to the coast of North-America.
“Here he lies; and, by heaven! he has already gone about!” cried
Wilder.
The truth of what our young adventurer had just affirmed was indeed now
sufficiently evident to the eye of any seaman. The same diminutive and
misty tracery, as before, was to be seen on the light background of the
threatening horizon, looking not unlike the faintest shadows cast upon
some brighter surface by the deception of the phantasmagoria. But to
the mariners, who so well knew how to distinguish between the different
lines of her masts, it was very evident that her course had been
suddenly and dexterously changed, and that she was now steering no
longer to the south and west, but, like themselves, holding her way
towards the north-east. The fact appeared to make a sensible impression
on them all; though probably, had their reasons been sifted, they would
have been found to be entirely different.
“That ship has truly tacked!” Earing exclaimed, after a long,
meditative pause, and with a voice in which distrust, or rather awe,
was beginning to get the ascendancy. “Long as I have followed the sea,
have I never before seen a vessel tack against such a head-beating sea.
He must have been all shaking in the wind, when we gave him the last
look, or we should not have lost sight of him.”
“A lively and quick-working vessel might do it,” said Wilder;
“especially if strong handed.”
“Ay, the hand of Beelzebub is always strong; and a light job would he
make of it, in forcing even a dull craft to sail.”
“Mr Earing,” interrupted Wilder, “we will pack upon the ‘Caroline,’ and
try our sailing with this taunting stranger. Get the main tack aboard,
and set the top-gallant-sail.”
The slow-minded mate would have remonstrated against the order, had he
dared; but there was that, in the calm, subdued, but deep tones of his
young Commander, which admonished him of the hazard. He was not wrong,
however, in considering the duty he was now to perform as one not
without some risk. The ship was already moving under quite as much
canvas as he deemed it prudent to show at such an hour, and with so
many threatening symptoms of heavier weather hanging about the horizon.
The necessary orders were, however, repeated as promptly as they had
been given. The seamen had already begun to consider the stranger, and
to converse among themselves concerning his appearance and situation;
and they obeyed with an alacrity that might perhaps have been traced to
a secret but common wish to escape from his vicinity. The sails were
successively and speedily set; and then each man folded his arms, and
stood gazing steadily and intently at the shadowy object to leeward, in
order to witness the effect of the change.
The “Royal Caroline” seemed, like her crew, sensible of the necessity
of increasing her speed. As she felt the pressure of the broad sheets
of canvas that had just been distended, the ship bowed lower, and
appeared to recline on the bed of water which rose under her lee nearly
to the scuppers. On the other side, the dark planks, and polished
copper, lay bare for many feet, though often washed by the waves that
came sweeping along her length, green and angrily, still capped, as
usual, with crests of lucid foam. The shocks, as the vessel tilted
against the billows, were becoming every moment more severe; and, from
each encounter, a bright cloud of spray arose, which either fell
glittering on the deck, or drove, in brilliant mist, across the rolling
water, far to leeward.
Wilder long watched the ship, with an excited mien, but with all the
intelligence of a seaman. Once or twice, when she trembled, and
appeared to stop, in her violent encounter with a wave, as suddenly as
though she had struck a rock, his lips severed, and he was about to
give the order to reduce the sail; but a glance at the misty looking
image on the western horizon seemed ever to cause his mind to change
its purpose. Like a desperate adventurer, who had cast his fortunes on
some hazardous experiment, he appeared to await the issue with a
resolution that was as haughty as it was unconquerable.
“That topmast is bending like a whip,” muttered the careful Earing, at
his elbow.
“Let it go; we have spare spars to put in its place,” was the answer.
“I have always found the ‘Caroline’ leaky after she has been strained
by driving her against the sea.”
“We have our pumps.”
“True, sir; but, in my poor judgment, it is idle to think of outsailing
a craft that the devil commands if he does not altogether handle it.”
“One will never know that, Mr Earing, till he tries.”
“We gave the Dutchman a chance of that sort; and, I must say, we not
only had the most canvas spread, but much the best of the wind: And
what good did it all do? there he lay, under his three topsails driver,
and jib; and we, with studding sails alow and aloft, couldn’t alter his
bearing a foot.”
“The Dutchman is never seen in a northern latitude.”
“Well, I cannot say he is,” returned Earing, in a sort of compelled
resignation; “but he who has put that flyer off the Cape may have found
the cruise so profitable, as to wish to send another ship into these
seas.”
Wilder made no reply. He had either humoured the superstitious
apprehension of his mate enough, or his mind was too intent on its
principal object, to dwell longer on a foreign subject.
Notwithstanding the seas that met her advance, in such quick succession
as greatly to retard her progress the Bristol trader had soon toiled
her way through a league of the troubled element. At every plunge she
took, the bow divided a mass of water, that appeared, at each instant,
to become more vast and more violent in its rushing; and more than once
the struggling hull was nearly buried forward, in some wave which it
had equal difficulty in mounting or penetrating.
The mariners narrowly watched the smallest movements of their vessel.
Not a man left her deck, for hours. The superstitious awe, which had
taken such deep hold of the untutored faculties of the chief mate, had
not been slow to extend its influence to the meanest of her crew. Even
the accident which had befallen their former Commander, and the sudden
and mysterious manner in which the young officer, who now trod the
quarter-deck, so singularly firm and calm, under circumstances deemed
so imposing, had their influence in heightening the wild impression The
impunity with which the “Caroline” bore such a press of canvas, under
the circumstances in which she was placed, added to their kindling
admiration; and, ere Wilder had determined, in his own mind, on the
powers of his ship, in comparison with those of the vessel that so
strangely hung in the horizon, he was himself becoming the subject of
unnatural and revolting suspicions to his own crew.